I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN

Tonight was one of those nights I'll remember for the rest of my life. This trip in general I will too, but there are certain moments I know I'll keep with me for a lifetime. For instance, watching the USA World Cup first matchup of 2014 against Ghana while in a bar in Santander, Spain with 20 other UT students cheering our team onto victory at 2 in the morning. It was so much fun and surreal. I know there is a long road ahead for the US with Portugal (who, after today's 4-0 loss to Germany, aren't looking in the best shape) and Germany still left to play, but hopefully this will quiet some of the haters and help the fan base increase even more back at home.

AHHHHH USA USA USA USA USA I'M SO PUMPED FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD CUP!!!! This is such a crazy and fun experience to have while abroad!! I wish I could be in the crowd for every match with the American Outlaws (AKA our country's best fan base that's going to help establish traditions and build up support over the years), but screaming from Spain has its perks as well!

Time for bed now, seeing as it is 3am my time and class unfortunately still exists. I'll just leave this post with the only thing necessary to think about for the next month:

"like a big pizza pie"

I now understand the phrase "when in Rome." Maybe I don't know exactly where it came from, but I justified the amount of pizza and gelato consumed this weekend with that phrase. With only a day and a half to spend in the beautiful city of Rome, I think I checked just about everything off of its to-do list, mostly due to how well everything seemed to fall into place for myself and my friends!

First off, our hostel (maybe not the best place ever, don't worry Mom, I survived so that's all that matters) was right around the corner from the train/bus station which definitely cut down on travel time and money. Then, seeing as it was already 5pm on Friday, we realized we had to hit the ground running. After some researching, we stumbled upon the information that the Vatican is open during the summer at night so we bought our tickets and began our journey over to the Vatican (about a 4 mile trek). Stop one was the Trevi Fountain. Unfortunately it was under construction and there was no water and gates were all around it, but I still made an imaginary wish and basked in its Hollywood glory. Stop two was pizza. It was so. Good. Stop three was the Vatican. It was amazing seeing everything inside the museum, we even stumbled upon a live concert in the garderns, and then the Sistine Chapel. It's hard to describe that work of art because you just sit in the chapel for minutes upon minutes wondering how it's possible for one person to paint the entire room including the famous ceiling. Stop three was gelato, maybe equally amazing as the Vatican. Not really, but it's a close call. Stop four was taking a taxi back because our feet couldn't handle any more.

 

Trevi fountain minus water, but then our restaurant had a painting of it so it's practically like we saw it
Just look at that pizza

 The Vatican (that's St. Peter's Basilica)

yummmmmmm 

Day two, we got up and crushed the town. First stop was the Colosseum. Heather is basically a genius because we bought tickets ahead of time and got to skip out on the entire line for the most part and then do our own thing once we got inside.

Much like the rest of
the city with ruins
tucked away all over
the place, it's amazing
that something so old
and so grand can be a
part of normal landscape. It's also just mind-blowing that something like this is still standing and can handle having thousands of visitors
every day. Even by 1130 it was already a rather hot day so we ventured around to find a place for lunch and again, we had pizza. After giving our bodies a rest, we went back to the Roman Forum which is essentially ruins of the basic city buildings the Romans used, yet we can see similarities in our modern day cities. I'm only sharing one picture on here so just know that it does not nearly capture the immense spread of ruins laid out. Following that, we had to tap out. We walked back to our hostel, stopping for gelato, and then took a siesta (our bodies are so used to Spain things) and then changed to go back out to the Vatican.

 

           

I guess I'll start to sound repetitive, but going inside St. Peter's Basilica, which I think is the largest Basilica in Europe, was just amazing and so immense. It was also really cool because they were holding Mass while we walked through and we got to hear some of it. Then we found our way to restaurant suggested to me in one of the prettiest little neighborhoods I've ever seen. The neighborhood: Trastavere. The restaurant: Dar Poeta. The verdict: life-changing. The three of us all got our own pizza and then shared pieces, but essentially we all ate an entire pizza then proceeded onto dessert aka Dar Poeta's famous Nutella Calzone. It was huge, yet we, mainly me, finished the entire thing much to the amusement of the other patrons. Hands down one of the best meals of my entire life. After that, we just took it easy and casually strolled the streets of Rome back to our hostel, stopping to see the Pantheon, listen to street performers, buy souvenirs, and just take in it's natural beauty. It had also rained a lot earlier in the evening which was a blessing in disguise because it turned into a fantastic, cool evening.

 

(left) Just a glimpse of the interior of St. Peter's
(above) The Pantheon

 

I don't even know how to describe to you how delicious and perfect this meal was. 

We all three crashed, I fell asleep watching the Italy game live streaming on my phone because we didn't have the energy to go find a place at midnight to watch it. We did however hear the cheers from the streets when they scored both goals. 

Now the reality of life will set back in because I have class tomorrow. It's hard to believe I only have two full weeks of class remaining! It's flying by and with World Cup mania picking up, there's no slowing down! 

Ciao! 

Appreciating the small things (and the really big ones too)

(unfortunately I can't get my iphoto to update right now so no pictures on this one which is a huge bummer because there was so much to see this past weekend! However, they are all on Facebook to look over if you are just that curious! I'll get it working for the next one, I promise!)

Sorry I've been away so long, but life just got really busy over here for a while and as I sit here typing this out, it's the night before my two midterms which means I'm already halfway done with this incredible journey. I've already learned so much about Spain and it's language and culture, but I'm also learning a lot about myself on this trip as well as fully being able to appreciate the life I have in America. I know you just want to see the pictures and amazing stories from my adventures and don't worry, a few lines down I'll begin a recap of the past weekend/week, but I've had several great conversations or encounters with my host family that made me realize a few things. First, I'm thankful for the job market we do have in America, it's rather dismal here in Spain and other parts of Europe. One of my teachers here told me that for the students going to college, they know that when they graduate getting a job is like winning the lottery. Secondly, I'm thankful for the diversity and freedom in America. Sure we still aren't completely free from prejudice, but it's great to know that we have a myriad of options out there for us as far as jobs or religions or whatever it may be to make you different which is surprisingly not the case here. Thirdly, I'm thankful that some things really are universal. My host mom is a saint. She may not speak English at all and I'm not perfect at Spanish, but somehow when she knew I needed comfort, she gave me it and words of wisdom I never thought I would get as part of my study abroad experience.

Okay, I'm off my soapbox now and back to show and tell about the trip!

This weekend my whole group took a trip to Burgos, Toledo, and Segovia all of which are beautiful cities! I don't even know how to condense my trip because we saw so much, but I'll do my best.
In Burgos, we saw a cathedral, built in the Gothic style, and also burial place to El Cid (the famous spanish fighter in literature and also based on real life that fought to bring Spain together--that was a very loose summary of El Cid so you might want to look it up more to get the full story) then we had lunch and then went to San Pedro monastery which is also super old and the Cid was originally buried there. Real life monks still inhabit it as well. They wake up every morning at 430 to pray and do chores throughout the entire day. We then hopped on the bus again for another few hours to get to Segovia to the hotel for the night and had dinner there. My roommates and I tried to get out and be social only to realize it was too cold so we went to bed.

Next day we were up bright and early for breakfast and to leave for Toledo, which was another 2-3 hour bus ride. All the hours on a bus this weekend were worth it just for the beautiful view and sights in Toledo! We had a guided tour that first started at a blacksmith place where we saw how they made swords back in the Middle Ages, then learned all about the history of the city as we walked through the streets and into one of the cathedrals and the synagogue. The synagogue in Toledo is actually really fascinating. It opened as a synagogue, but was then taken over by the Muslims in Spain before the reconquest of the Christians who then ordained it as a church. It was then used as a hospital, then by Napoleon's troops and now serves as a museum. Do to all of this wear, the three major world religions all took up residence in this one building. Rumor has it, the phrase, "Holy Toledo" comes from this. I don't actually know that, but I'm choosing to believe so. We then took a quick tour through El Greco's house and museum and then were rewarded with lunch. After, we had some free time to wander the city and site see more so I went back to the main cathedral and it was one of the most gorgeous buildings I've ever been in. It was so colorful and ornate and huge. We also saw a wedding take place in one of the little chapels so that was cool. Another bus ride ensued back to Segovia for dinner and sleep.

Once again we were up early for our guided tour of Segovia which is of course gorgeous! We went to the Alhambra, which is a castle specifically used for the housing of the royal family. It is built out on the edge of the city up on a hill surrounded by two river valleys that cross at its point. It also served as an inspiration for Walt Disney's princess castles. Then we went and saw the best and largest preserved Roman aqueduct in the world. It runs right through the center of the city and actually was fully functioning until about 1921. It is a fascinating and amazing work of architecture, so ancient yet sits perfectly in the modern world. For our free time that day we simply sat at a cafe having coffee and then out on the grass under the aqueduct enjoying the sun, then had lunch and were headed off in the bus for a 5 hour trip back to Santander.

I don't even know how we all managed to survive that weekend of non stop walking and then decided it was a good idea to go to mountain and hike all around it the very next day. Monday was a holiday in Santander so no class which meant that we were up for an adventure. We went to Picos de Europa which is a fantastic mountain range not too far from Santander. We made a pit stop at another monastery and saw a piece of the cross that Jesus himself hung on. Then made it to the mountain, road a cable car to the top and hiked all around for a few hours, ate lunch in a cave, and basically just basked in the splendor of nature (at least that's what I did). Then rode the cable car down to the bottom, stopped in the cute mountain town of Potes, and then took our last bus ride of the 4 day weekend back home once again.

That was a lot of words and that doesn't even cover half of it, but I did the best I could. I can always talk your ear off about any of these things when I get back home so if you want to know more, hit me up!

Anyways, to sum things up, I learned so much about Spanish history on this trip and saw nature at it's finest and had fantastic interactions with humans and lots of good laughs with my new friends on the trip. So all in all, it was a pretty great weekend. Now to finish out this school week and look towards my next adventure this weekend: ROME and also THE WORLD CUP

Hasta luego amigos!!

Dreams really do come true

I don't have much to say today other than: I played soccer on the beach in Spain wearing my Spanish national team jersey. So basically a dream come true. It was just people from my UT group playing, but it was so much fun and a great workout and I scored a goal and was killin' it back in defense and I still just can't believe that it was real life! Next on my list is to just walk up and play with some locals.

Also, each day I love my host family more and more! It's so much easier now to simply sit together watching tv or reading or talking at meal times. They are super nice and are opening up, just like me, as each day passes! Their small family arguments every once in a while remind me of home so that's fun.

Last but not least, World Cup 2014 starts in 9 days.

 

Seville

Wow! What an incredible weekend! My friend Heather and I took a little getaway together to Seville, in the southern Andalusian region of Spain where it's always sunny and warm. It was so wonderful escaping the rain and cold for a few days to enjoy the sun and 85 degree temperatures! We kind of went about the weekend without a single plan other than going to the city, we even weren't sure if we would get a room in our hostel because they overbooked us, but thankfully we were upgraded to a private room with, get this, A REAL SHOWER! Those were the two best showers of my life maybe. The majority of the weekend was spent wandering the streets, discovering beautiful parks, admiring the architecture, and simply sitting at the sidewalk cafes enjoying the weather and good food.

We really lucked out because our hostel was right in the center of the old Jewish quarter of Seville amidst the most beautiful houses like this:

and the is home to the largest cathedral in Spain and it's bell tower, La Giralda (which we climbed up!)

this doesn't really capture it's full size or detailing, it was incredible 

just one of the many gorgeous views from the top of La Giralda 

small glimpse of the inside, it would take about 4,567 pictures to fully capture it all

Another important monument in Spain, I think the most visited, is the Plaza de España. I'm not even quite sure what it is, and I wasn't expecting to see what I did when we walked up to. 

Again, it was beautiful and intricately designed with lots of colors, murals along the bottom wall representing each city in Spain, and built along the curve of the little river in front of it. 

example of the colors and designs here

I tried paella for the first time on this trip and it was really good, just a weird experience. I'm forever grateful of the work my mom does to peel our shrimp for us (I don't know how you do it). Other than looking at shrimp and crawfish heads, the dish itself was delicious! We ate Italian food one night and it was probably my favorite meal of the trip! We got really cultural and even tried a Mexican food restaurant that turned out to not be too bad, they had delicious guacamole. You know what they say, when in Spain eat Italian and Mexican food. LOL. 

yummm Paella Mariscos 

The Spanish national team actually played a pre world cup friendly game in Seville on Friday night, but I had no idea (I feel ashamed of myself for not knowing) but we ran into a little fiesta in one of the parks with a free concert and giveaways and photo-op posters and even a museum on the history of the team (unfortunately you had to pay and the line for that was very long). On Saturday, we were headed to the Metropol Parasol aka The Mushroom, and another free concert was going on so we stopped for a few minutes, but were weirded out by this belly dancer-esque routine and left. I don't even know what was happening on stage. Anyways, we saw the mushroom, I don't know it's purpose but it looks cool and underneath we saw some Roman ruins (again we didn't want to pay to see the full thing, but we did see a pretty good glimpse at some of it!) and to round out the full Seville experience, we saw a flamenco show!! It was so cool! 

"The Mushroom" 

flamenco 

Also, we explored Seville nightlife a little with people from our hostel and it was really cool to meet people from all around the world! We talked to a group from Seville for a long time. Over the course of the whole trip we talked to people from all over the US (lots of study abroad people), Belgium, Mexico, Canada, France, England, Brazil, and Australia. It was super cool to get that kind of cultural experience all in one city! 

Spanish word of the day: Siesta-nap; necessary for Monday afternoons 

Spanish word of the day: Membrillo

It's been a busy few days over here with class and homework and every day things! I'm learning a lot already and trying lots of new foods so that's exciting. That also means I haven't blogged in while because I get too sleepy at night and just push it off until the next day. I'll try to do short recaps because I need a nap today before heading out to do more things. 

Tuesday: After class, I came home for lunch and had a delicious lintel bean soup, I think, with chorizo and then some fresh fish! With my group we went out to the Palacio de Magdalena. It used to be a summer home for King Alfonso XIII and his family for many years and then housed an international university and now is simply a historical monument. Below the palace is a mini zoo with penguins and sea lions and at one time, polar bears. Then you hike up to the top of the hill where the palace is located and simply walk around and look at the beautiful view of the city from all sides. It is not opened to the public to tour unfortunately. On the way back, I rode the bus for the first time and at one point was the only person on the bus when the driver decided to take a 15 minute break so that was an adventure. We had hamburgers that night for dinner except it was just the meat and cheese and then french fries, no bun. Also an adventure. 

sea lion friends 

Palacio de Magdalena 

Bikini Beach- when Spain was under dictatorship, the women covered up at the beach, but the private beach of the palace housed international students and female students wore bikinis. Hence the name.

Wednesday: we learned a ton in school yesterday. It was crazy. I won't bore you with it now though. It also rained a lot. Our whole walk to school it rained. For lunch, Ana fed me way too much food, but I ate it all (we had a very yummy carrot and pumpkin soup!) and then had a cup of coffee and then watched the news with her. I then met up with people to do a bit of shopping and by that I mean we went to Zara. If you haven't heard of that store, maybe you've been living under a rock or maybe you just don't like shopping, but take a minute and look it up, quite interesting. I spent too much and I don't have room for it, but I'll feel very Euro when I wear the clothes so that's what matters right? It rained on us again when we left so that was fun... For dinner we had sandwiches with tuna, ham, lettuce, cheese, and tomato on them. It was actually really good, and I ate two. Then came time for me to try dessert. Ana had to explain it to me in detail because it was very strange. It was a gelatinous looking substance, but it was in solid blocks around the plate with cheese in the middle. Fruit they make the dessert with is called el Membrillo, which in English is called Quince (ironic). I have never heard of the fruit quince but apparently it's a thing. Here they take the meat of the fruit and make it into almost like a stick of applesauce. That's the best way to describe it and is called Dulce del Membrillo. 

this is the dessert form of membrillo, que interesante no?

Today: had my first quiz in school and we finally started learning about civilization things in my spanish civ class instead of modern day Spain so we are going places now. For lunch, we had some salad and then some kind of chicken-like meat with vegetables and mashed potatoes and then an unbelievably delicious and sweet white chocolate ice cream with milk chocolate pieces on top. I then showed them what mango is hahaha Ana bought two at the store the other day, but they were a little too hard to eat until today. So Ana, Ana, and Javier sat at the table and watched as I peeled it, and struggled to cut off pieces, and then ate around the pit so they could see it. Mom Ana didn't really like it at all, and daughter Ana thought it was pretty good, but sweet. I then proceeded to eat the rest of it! Then Javier, daughter Ana and I watched a lot of stuff about fútbol so that was fun sibling time. 

Now on to the rest of the day. I chose to update y'all on my life and not take a nap and am going to meet a friend to run at a park. We shall see how this goes. Gotta burn off all the food I've been given! Tomorrow I leave for Seville and Granada and maybe Córdoba so you'll have to check back Monday for an update on that trip. I have never been more excited to go to a place that's 90 degrees and sunny. I miss the sun and sweating. 

So, hasta luego! 

me on top of the world 

CHURROS

Well, I had my first day of school day. Got up with enough time, had my two pieces of toast with butter and jam (I think this may be a regular) my two cups of coffee (also a regular) **disclaimer- the coffee here I think is straight up espresso so by the time I get home, the coffee in the States will have no more effect on me. Ay.** Anyways, my fellow walking buddies were running a little late, but we thought we would be fine due to the fact our host moms all told us "Oh you only need about 15-20 minutes to walk to school." Not true. It was also way warmer than predicted so when we realized the time, we booked it to our rooms (one of my walking buddies and myself went to the wrong room first) so by the time we made it to class it was almost 10 minutes after start time. To recap: I was late to my first class of the summer and I forgot to put on deodorant this morning so you know just another day in the life of me.

To get it out of the way, I'll answer the question of how my classes are. No matter where in the world you are, summer school is summer school. I have never done summer school before so this is a small struggle already because it's summer in Spain and I would much rather be outside somewhere. Needless to say, I am excited for the material covered in the classes because I'm a nerd like that.

By the time we made the trek back home, I was hungry beyond belief. Breakfast at 830 and lunch at 230 is rough. Today I had a huge plate of spaghetti with meat and then some pineapple for lunch and it was delicious. I meant to take a nap, but I read instead then worked on homework, and started buying plane tickets for my weekend excursions! Before I knew it, I was off to probably my favorite thing so far: churros.

I mean just look at it

We met as a group in the city center with Paula and Gabriel and went to a Chocolatería and had churros and chocolate. You may be used to churros at Six Flags, but these were fresh and you poured the sugar on them yourself. And also, they dip them in freshly melted chocolate here so take your pick.

pure joy 

I really should have taken a nap today because while stuffing my face with doughy, sugary, chocolately goodness, my friends at the table made me laugh until I was crying and couldn't stop. So yeah. Churro adventure was a success.

When I got home, my host mom didn't understand when I said that the churros "fueron muy deliciosos." She thought I said graciosos (which means funny) and we were both really confused for a minute until Ana came to our rescue. Another good laugh occurred. We ate dinner and I'm still not sure what it was. Appearance of a tiny hot pocket, taste of a creamy fish stick. Then I watched TV with the Ana's and oh wow. Funniest talk show of my life. All three of us were laughing at the things the hosts were making the two Spanish actors do, and then the show that the two star in came on after so naturally we stayed up until 12:30 am to watch the season finale. ¡Que interesante! 

Spanish word of the day: CHURRO=doughy, sugary, chocolately goodness 

Hasta luego!