the rains in spain fall mainly on the american tourists

it's been a long time since i've posted on here, but there's a good reason: we've been on a trip without internet from wednesday to saturday. i didn't neglect you all, i promise! we drove a good 6 hour bus ride down to the south of spain (where it is supposed to be hot hot hot all the time but is NOT, let me tell you) and visited córdoba, sevilla, and granada, 3 towns scattered around the area. i think maybe i'll make another blog post after this with pictures because there are too many to include with the descriptions.

córdoba: we were only there for a few hours on wednesday, because the main attraction there is this GINORMOUS mosque (mezquita) that was built in the 8th century by Arabs who migrated to southern Spain. it's over 23,000 square meters in size... by that, i guessed that at least 483 of our houses could fit inside of it (that's just a guesstimate). it's absolutely beautiful inside, but the most outrageous thing about it is that when the christians re-took córdoba, they took over the mosque and built a chapel/cathedral smack dab in the middle of it. how awful is that--they totally destroyed this amazing work of art building? i was outraged, let me tell you. but most of the building is still intact, and beautiful. afterwards, we went just outside of the city to visit these amazingly cool ruins of a huge ancient arabic city. profe. just let us loose and told us to run around for an hour and explore... which i LOVED, naturally, and it was really cool.

wednesday night we made it to sevilla, where we stayed for 2 nights. the best thing that happened in sevilla was the amazing parade that we stumbled across on thursday morning. literally, we were in this little tiny maritime museum next to the river, and i walked out the front doors, and here comes this ginormous crowd of people... dressed in flamenco clothes, riding horses, playing in a flamenco band, pulling small colored covered wagons... it was absolutely incredible. so what do we do? join in. we walked with the parade for a good 45 minutes to an hour, and i have never had more fun in my life! when on earth does that happen, where you get to just join in a parade and walk along with them? in the united states, they always barricade parade routes off so nobody can just run in and destroy the order... here it was the complete opposite. it was incredible.

after the parade, we went as a group and toured the huge palace (also named the alcazar, like the other one) and cathedral in sevilla. according to the guidebook, the people who built the catedral said, "let us create such a building that future generations will take us for lunatics." and it certainly was one of the most ornate and gargantuan buildings i have seen en mi vida. the original dome collapsed after it was built because it was just too big. that's how crazy it was. oh yes, and guess whose remains are there? none other than christopher columbus! we got to visit his tomb! after that visit, we were again set free to wander the city, so we walked around for 182901 hours (it was definitely more than 10 miles of walking that day) and visited the plaza de españa which is an absolutely beautiful building/plaza area, during the day and especially at night, when they illuminate it up. we also got to enjoy some flamenco music at a flamenco bar (don't worry, i only got fanta!).

friday, we went to granada. it rained the entire time we were there. oh, and also it was freezing. and i didn't have a jacket or umbrella, and i only brought one pair of shoes and only shorts. haha can i complain any more? but it was still fun--we got to visit ferdinand and isabella's tombs (the most important joint rulers in spain, pretty much ever) and the alhambra, which is known for its beauty and amazing islamic architecture. the gardens there were amazing. of course, we were really grumpy and not interested because of the temperature and how we were all soaked (we were outside in the rain) so profe just told us to leave and explore the gardens by ourselves until the busses came to get us because we were bugging him haha. some of us got together afterwards and had a picnic in the hotel room because it was so cold and just ate some fruit and bread and cheese we got at the grocery store.. it was incredibly satisfying.

anyways, it was a great time. we bonded as a group, and i think we're all becoming good friends. i am trying to think of good things to buy as gifts for you all... if there's anything specific that you want, let me know. i'm going to work on getting some good stuff for you all! i love you people... and happy mother's day!

helado de nata con fresas

my roommate said it best when she said, "i don't remember what the last food was that changed my life, but i'm pretty sure this is the next." 'nata' ice cream with the most incredible strawberries lightly dusted in sugar... probably the best thing i have ever had. i wonder if you can order helado de nata en los estados unidos. it's basically the flavor of whipped cream but incredibly rich and delicious and frozen as ice cream, and it's not even that incredible tasting on its own but with the strawberries? i can't imagine something that i would want more. it was THAT GOOD--better than prophet's dessert and mcdonald's soft serve ice cream combined (i know, kind of extreme, but really). i had 4 servings of it (2 after lunch and 2 after dinner)... i wish i had gotten a picture of it, but we're planning on mentioning how amazingly amazing we thought it was and maybe they'll give it to us again later. don't be too jealous.

so but my roommate took some pictures of our casa and i stole them off facebook and i took one or two myself so i could show you exactly where it is where i am living right now. we're living on "la calle perdida (the lost street), numero 56. there are a few pictures of me struggling to open our front gate, because it's entirely IMPOSSIBLE to do--they don't have door handles that turn (if you look, the doorknob is just in the middle of the door and it's just there so you can pull the door shut, it doesn't turn or anything) and you have to turn the key around three times. ugh.

uneventful events

ayer fue el primer dia de las clases!
yesterday was the first day of class!

i'm not sure how i feel about them yet. we have the same teacher for both, and he told us to call him by his first name jesus. he seems really really nice and i like him, but the literature class and the amount of work he has assigned seems unreal. a lot a lot a lot of reading, as in wow i could totally handle this if it was in english but i still have problems comprehending and not a very large vocabulary so reading 400 pages of spanish poetry seems a little extensive! and all that everyone kept promising me was that the class work here would be easy shmeasy and there was no reason to worry about it... i really hope that i'm somehow just missing some instructions that he gave (which is entirely likely). we'll have to see how it goes.

after class, i came home, ate a gigantic lunch, and then we went and played soccer in the main parque de alcala de henares. it was awesomeee, playing futbol en espana, with some random spanish 12-year-olds who came and joined us. i felt so hardcore and awesome. then we had FHE with about 10 of the group, and we went to get churros con chocolate (churros dipped in this really really really thick hot chocolate stuff... delicious) and then had a lesson in a park. no big deal.

one thing i like here: there are hundreds and hundreds of random little museums, everywhere! in all of the old little churches and random buildings that are not being used any more really for any reason, they just make an exhibit of some guy's art or statues or old advertisements and they are free and i love it. today, my friend dane and i walked around alcala after class for an hour or two and just found 3 of those museums and walked around in them. you wonder if things like that would be successful in the united states... i would like to think so.

i'm going to go do the same thing today: go running and then bring don quixote to the park and read it. they have a statue of don quixote and his squire on the main street (calle mayor) sitting on a bench, and i'm already planning on taking a picture of me reading don quijote to them. get ready, i'll put it up once i get it done.

el dia de la madre

today was mother's day in spain, and i was surprised that they do the exact same things here that are traditions in the united states: the primary kids singing "mother i love you" (madre te amo) and the giving out of gifts to all of the mothers (everyone got a potted plant). going to church in spanish was basically what i expected--a lot of really really fast-speaking sunday school teachers and people bearing their testimonies and not a lot of comprehension going on for my part. but that's okay, i'm working on it. i did realize that our senor is probably the fastest speaking man in the ward, so luckily we got put with him so we can go on not understanding him! perfecttt.



my roommate let me borrow her skype today and call home, and i tried to download it and use it but apparently my computer doesn't come with a microphone. so i'm going to go to the centro comercial tomorrow and find that electronics store and buy a headset and then i can call people! if you download skype on your computer too, we can talk for free! everyone do it okay? i'll let you know when i get a headset, it would make it so much easier to communicate with you all, we probably couldn't talk every day but more than now!


we're having a competition between the kids in our group of who can get the best picture of the worst european haircut (aka the EUROCUT competition). you may ask, what is a eurocut? anything mullet-y, mohawk-y, dreadlock-y, nasty and gross... classifies as a eurocut. for example, look at this picture. the winner of the competition wins some sort of prize.. nobody's sure what yet but it will be awesome. we've seen so so many of these hairstyles, i'm thinking about adopting it myself.

word of the day: hormiga = ant (irvine esta construido encima de muchas hormigas)

chelsea: i'm listening to newsies right. now. (rise up and seize the day!)

segovia and la granja

a few pictures to start out with and describe this amazing day: we went on one of our day trips to segovia and la granja, about an 1 1/2 bus ride north of alcala de henares. it was AMAZING... some of the most beautiful old historical things i have ever seen. the main sights in segovia are El Alcázar, this ginormous castle (which i am at the top of in the second picture), the ginormous catedral, and the ginormous ancient roman aquaduct that is still standing thousands of years after the fact (picture one, in case you couldn't already tell). there was some INCREDIBLE sightseeing going on-- i have about 189210 billion pictures similar to these 3. (i just included the last one because it's a cool shot of the supersupersupersweet alleyways that make up the most of the streets in segovia... you might be able to see a few cars up at the top, they literally just barrel down these miniature streets honking at the pedestrians to get out of their way, it's incredible that things like that are acceptable here.) after walking our legs off at segovia, we went to la granja, which means "the farm" in spanish, but we actually ended up visiting the palacio real of la granja and seeing these huge water shows from the fountains of the palace gardens, which were incredibly beautiful.

points of interest of the day:

-one of the guys in our group, rhett (not butler, sadly) and i went up to a group of nuns in la granja and started talking to them and got a picture with them.. it was awesome. i love practicing my spanish.

-we figured out a way to get up on top of the aquaduct in segovia, so next time i'm here, i'm just going to come up and hang out illegally on the aquaduct.

-we saw several of the "twilight" books that camille likes at this little book stall in the main plaza of alcala de henares in spanish.. i took a picture and sent it to her.

-i gchatted with rique and we figured out that SHE IS GOING TO BE IN MADRID FOR 5 DAYS AND I WILL GET TO SEE HER!!!!!! i haven't been more excited about news like this in a while.. i miss my lovely roommates (<3).

-i bought a present for bethany's birthday, i'll have to decide whether i'm going to send it to her or just bring it home with me to avoid possibility of losing it.

living with faustino

so today, we found out that apparently the senor of the familia we are living with is not only the head of all CES here in madrid/spain, he's a recent area authority. that's cool, we're living in the house with a general authority. don'tttt worrry. how funny is that? i had no idea until right now about that when we looked it up because we were slightly suspicious that he was something of a big deal. yep. living with faustino lopez in madrid. his wife's name is consuelo, and they have five children, four boys and one girl. i'm not positive, but one's married, one is serving a mission in the CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE MISSION (say hi to tanner for me!), and i'm pretty sure that the other 3 live here at home, although i've only seen one thus far in the 3 days we've lived here. his name is julio and he's 21, the "baby" of the family (as they call him), and is in a wheelchair. they're a really upstanding stalwart family (clearly).

the house is really really compact. there are 4 stories, and i have yet to venture into the basement, but there's an attic and then 2 floors with living space. the bathroom that we use is the SMALLEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN. the shower is too small for me to even move, i keep hitting the hot/cold knob and freezing/burning myself to death. but it's fun, and consuelo is a good cook, and i am enjoying the house. there are 3 girls stuffed in a room the size of the small room at 887, with a bunk bed and a single bed, but we're working it.

today was a pretty similar day to yesterday: a story of trying to get accustomed to public transportation and our town. we had a "walking tour" of alcala de henares with our professor, and then we went into madrid with our entire group and walked around. this is a picture of a few of us visiting "el parque del retiro" in the middle of town: it's this ginormous park even bigger than central park, where the royals used to relax and roll around in their chariots and such. we only visited the very tip of it, i'm excited to go there and read don quijote! (i bought it and will be reading it while here in spain. sadly, my copy is in english.. but i figured that 1000 pages of reading in spanish would be a little extreme. better for me to fully understand it, right?)

word of the day: frambuesa = raspberry.

favorite thing of the day: gelato and french bread baguettes that are everywhere.

this looks famous...

let's first have a memoriam for my alarm clock. i got it for some birthday or christmas, a very very long time ago, while i was in middle school. i thought it was the coolest thing in the world.. a radio attached to a clock! awesome! it's lasted me for years and years, through 2 years of college. but during the trip over to spain, it has broken somehow.. and will never work again. i am very sad about this loss.. donations to my "Stop Airline Workers from Throwing Checked Baggage Around in a Violent Manner" fund will be accepted via email.

okay, on to describing the day:

after sleeping a solid 12 hours (9pm-9am... i was supposed to wake everyone else up but alas, the clock was broken), i woke up, got ready, and my roommates (sarah jane and kristine) and i decided to go into madrid to explore. we were actually supposed to meet some other people in our group, but since my alarm clock wasn't working, we missed the meeting time and so they probably left without us, i guess. (life without cell phones... we can't exist without them!) our father (faustino, who is apparently the head of CES in all of spain... wow) very kindly volunteered to drive us to the train station instead of having us take the bus, like we had planned. on the way, he started explaining all the places we needed to change from train to train and train to metro and stuff, and we gulped and realized what how much we DIDN'T have planned when we left. literally: we had no idea what we were doing or where we wanted to go. who does that? goes into THE major city in a foreign country without knowing where you're going? apparently, i do.

so we get onto the train and then later the metro. the whole time i'm clutching at my purse for dear life because i am terrified of having things stolen (read previous post) and don't worry, i was completely unattacked and we had nothing stolen (thank goodness). staring at the map, we really had no idea what to do, so i said, "let's get off at plaza de espana, that sounds important." yes, literally, that's how we chose where we wanted to go in the entire city of madrid. we get off at the wrong one, of course, and come out at some point that is just this residential area and start walking, feeling confused and really dumb. somehow, we stumbled across this park with this huge statue and decided to sit down for a while. after this while, i looked up and said, "what is this statue thing anyways? there are way too many people taking pictures in front of it.. it looks famous." and yes. turns out we ended up in the plaza de espana after all, and we had been sitting there for a good 20 minutes not knowing it. and turns out that just down the road was just the palacio real de espana (the royal palace for all you non-spanish speakers) and this giant cathedral and these beautiful gardens.

so we ended up being total tourists after all. i bought an ice cream cone with gelato (which absolutely beat the heck out of the gelato place in utah, of course) and we walked around and took pictures and ooohed and ahhed and the line "i don't know what it is, but it looks famous" was the most commonly used phrase of the day. (yes, it was in english, because kristine doesn't know very much spanish apparently, but we did use spanish a lot, dad, i promise: "parece muy famoso" was also said.) my legs hurt now but it was worth it. and we got completely lost on the way home from the train station (unfortunately, spaniards don't like marking their streets very clearly so it's impossible to know where you are) but it was totally fine because once again, we stumbled across our neighborhood (seriously. totally on accident.) and made it home. as chelsea w. would say (and in fact, did say) it was a miracle.

PS. there is a stop on the metro in Madrid that is... i kid you not... Hospital 12 de Octubre. the Twelfth of October Hospital! SERIOUSLY. 1012 hospital. i didn't take a picture, but i will, dont' worry. i was all excited when i saw that and my roommates looked at me funny... sound familiar, sarah?

and here are some pictures:

the large statue that turned out to be famous. i don't know what it was of. but it was famous. (there's a gigantic huge cement sculpture thing right to the right that you can't see.)

annndddd me in front of el palacio real!