Andy en España!

 Last week went by so fast! On Tuesday I came home from class with a big package sitting on my bed!! My family sent me a valentine’s day package filled with some wonderful goodies! There were heart shaped doves, a few thin mint girl scout cookies J, some nail files and makeup, candy hearts of course, a beautiful watch, a handmade card and…a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch!! (which is already gone :/).  

Dani!

            Thursday was a very exciting day… Andy came to visit! I had class from 9-2 and he arrived at the bus station in Segovia right at 2:15. It was one of the first rainy days here in Segovia, so that was unfortunate. I think Andy brought the Ireland weather with him for the weekend.  On Thursday Dani invited us for lunch and we sat and talked with her for a while. She absolutely adored him because he reminded her of one of her sons.  She kept stroking his face and calling him guapo (gorgeous or handsome).

Girls from my group at the award and talent show

 After that we did some shopping and walked around, but it was still raining so we did not last too long.  That night there was a talent and award show put on by my university at a club. I had bought Andy a ticket the week before because I had heard there was going to be sushi there and I knew he wouldn’t pass that up! Most of the girls and a few guys from my group went and it was pretty interesting.  It was really fun to see how all the students interacted outside of school and since it’s a really small school they all know each other.  There are people from all over the world and the language they talked in during the show was English because that is what most people have in common.  IE (my school) is a private university, which is really prestigious and uncommon thing in Spain because they are much more expensive than the public universities.  So many people come from all over to study and they are all so smart.  I have met a few people who know over 6 languages! After the show we went to our favorite spot for Thursdays, Zircus. Where we just danced and hung out for a while.

In the caves

            Friday was a much nicer day! I showed Andy around Segovia.  Went on my favorite walk, which is a path that goes down to my school and then through a park and by the castle! When we reached the school I brought him in and showed him around a little bit. Then while on our walk we stopped and explored some caves that were off of the path! It was so much fun to get to show him my favorite things here! Later that day Andy came on the Friday excursion with my group. We went to a church called San Justo y Pastor and learned about the romantic architecture. Andy met my little brothers and got a warm welcome from Cocque…. he punched him right in the private! It was quite funny because he had the biggest smile on his face!  Before dinner that night we got tapas and played cards with some other people.  Andy could not believe how cheap it was to get a beer and have food come with it too! My family invited us over for dinner and this was the first time he met Marta and Jorge because they work so much.  We had the traditional Spanish tortilla, jamón and some salad. That night was pretty low key, we ended up being really tired and going to bed pretty early.

Churros!

            On Saturday we did some shopping and Andy bought a shirt from one of my favorite stores, Sfera. After that we were invited to eat lunch at Carmiña’s…with the extended family! I was really excited that he got to experience her food! We had her famous chicken noodle soup and some different kinds of meat and fish. Andy was able to practice some of his Spanish with Jorge’s sister and brother in law (Carmen and Pepe).  It was also fun because Anna was there with us!  We walked back and tried to plan our travels for the month of april but it didn’t go so well….its hard to plan flights and figure out where to go! Hopefully we can do that soon. Then we did some more shopping and stopped for a few tapas, as well as churros!! (they sell them in the street every Thursday!). After getting ready for the night, Andy brought his new big camera and we went and saw La Catedral and Alcazar at night. Andy took some great pictures that I will hopefully be able to post!  We went out for dinner that night at a little place called Bon Apetit.  The food was sooo amazing; I want to go back! Andy had a really yummy pasta with carbonara sauce and I had a salad. Then we both got dessert crepes!  After that we met the group at the aqueduct and stayed out very late dancing the night away at a few different discotecas!

On Sunday we woke up and went to Madrid for the day. We went and got sushi at this amazing place. (My 4^th time in one week) and after that we walked around that beautiful park, Retira, for a while. It was really hard to say goodbye to him, but we had such a fun weekend and I am so glad he got to see my life here in Spain!! J

Barcelona

I spent last Friday through Monday in Barcelona, Spain as an excursion with my whole group! The bus ride started at 6:30 am and we arrived in Barca at around 4:00 pm.  We found our hotel right away and it was wonderful! It was in a very good location right on Las Ramblas, which is one of the most famous streets. It included great shopping, McDonalds, Starbucks, a lot of restaurants, an outdoor food market and tons of street performers. It was cool because we could watch some of the street performers from our balcony in our hotel room. I saw a magician, some really good break dancers and about 300 drummers (was not able to take a nap during that one!) Our hotel was awesome because it had a 24 hour buffet, which included pastas, cereal, fruit, ice cream, coffee, beer, wine and tons of other goodies. Us poor college students definitely took full advantage of that perk. The rooms at the hotel were all PINK! It was perfect for Valentine’s weekend! There were pink walls, beds, curtains …everything! I was in a 4 person room with Dana, Libby and Anna.

After settling in, we wandered around Las Ramblas for a while. We went into H and M, which is so much better than the ones in Minnesota. There were 4 floors of women’s clothes. After that, we just strolled and looked at all of the outside stands that lined the streets. They had food, clothes, sweets, flowers, touristy things and tons of other fun stuff. There were also people painting, people painted as statues trying to scare others walking by, some tap dancers and some fun outdoor tapas places. It was great to just walk around and enjoy the atmostphere with all the liveliness! When we got back to the hotel we got ready to go out. That night we went to a bar and then to a discoteca that was right on the beach. At the discoteca I literally ran into someone that turned out to be Sarah Friedmans roommate from last year. Even weirder…she was hanging out with a guy from my group because they went to high school together! Such a small world! The night was soo much fun! I got very little sleep that night… we left the hotel at 9:30 the next morning to do some tours!

We went to La Catedral de Barcelona (A beautiful church), the Gothic Quarter, where there were artifacts from the middle ages and even some ruins from the third century. We also went to la Iglesia de Santa María del Mar, which was another gorgeous church. The tours were done pretty early, so some of us girls wanted to get to the beach! We were thinking it was going to be warm enough to take a little nap under the rays…however it was very windy and I was shivering in my coat and jeans. A little disappointed, but it was still a beautiful day. On the way to the beach we stopped at a gelato place and I got some very nummy chocolate, brownie, fudge, caramel creation!

(Gothic Church)

(Gelato)

Later that night, a group of girls took the metro to a fountain show. We got there right when it was ending, but it was still really cool! It reminded me of the one in Las Vegas, with all the different lights. After that we were planning on getting Sushi. We had mapped out a place that looked like it was close to the fountain, but the map was very deceiving. After walking for a half hour and not even being halfway there we decided to take the metro back to our hotel and find something near there.  We asked the concierge for recommendations of a sushi place close by and after more twists and turns and getting a little lost we finnaly made it!! …only to find out we needed a reservation. So we ended up just making a reservation for Sunday night. We were starving and found this place called Pita Inn, that had warm pitas and you get to fill it with whatever you wanted. It was cheap and good! J

After showering and playing some cards, we went to the chupito (shots) bar. It was so incredibly croweded that we had to wait in a line to get inside. They have over 100 different flavors and it was fun to watch all the different kinds people were ordering. There was everything from shots on fire, to candied shots with gummies, to people roasting marshmallows on top. Don’t worry mom I only had one. It was called straws and it came with a bunch of little colorful straws that you sipped from. After, we went to another discoteca on the beach and I ran into Molly Lavin from Edina, it was really weird!!

The next day we went to La Sagrada Familia, which is a very famous unfinished church desgined by Gaudi. It was so detailed and incredibly beautiful…I cant even explain it! We had an audio tour that taught us all about the construction of the building and the significance of all the details.  People have been working on it forever!

After that we went to Parc Guell, which is a big park with more Gaudi arquitecture. We climbed to the top of a hill that overlooked Barcelona and had a cross on it. We stayed there for about two hours and just hung out. In the middle of the park there was a big open area where tons of people were selling little trinkets and things. we were sitting and people watching when all of a sudden all of the sellers packed up there stuff and started sprintinging towards the hills. It all happened in less than a minute and it was hilarious! I am pretty sure what they were doing was illegal and someone spotted the police and the word spread very quickly. When we got back we rested up a bit and hung out in the hotel. Later that night we finally made it to sushi and then after Dana and I split this waffle that is sold all over the streets that we had been eyeing since we arrived. It was covered in caramel and chocolate and then we were creative enough to bring it back to the hotel and add our own ice cream on top!! We spent the rest of the night playing cards and hanging out in the lobby area of the hotel. It was very chill and we were able to go to bed pretty early. One negative thing about the weekend was that I lost my phone. ..so when I got back to Segovia I had to buy a new one and buy more minutes…Very frustrating but its solved now. On Monday we didn’t leave Barcelona until around 11, so I woke up early with a few girls to run to the outdoor market. I bought a very colorful fruit smoothie and we walked around again and looked at all the food.  I spent Valentine’s day on a 9 hour bus ride back to Segovia! It wasn’t too bad though and I slept a little.

When I arrived back at home Marta and Jorge had this huge box of sushi to eat and I was sooo excited! I was actually able to eat it until I got full, which usually doesn’t happen when I eat sushi! On the way home I had stopped and got a few little dessert cakes for the family, so we had those for Valentine’s day dessert!

It was a great weekend in Barcelona, but I definitely want to go back when it is beach weatherJ

Besos,

Morgan 
ps- more pictures to come..they were taking to long to load.

LOCA!!

It has been a while! I unfortunately had a computer issue and had been without a computer for about two weeks! But everything is good now and my computer was fixed and basically looks like new…best part is that it was all free! J

            It is 7:30 am and I have been on a bus for about an hour with 7 more hours ahead of me. We are on our way to Barcelona, but I am not able to sleep because there is so much to look at, including the sun rising behind the mountains. It is absolutely gorgeous but my photos do not do justice from the bus window. I am going to try to catch you all up on the time I’ve missed these past few weeks, so this may be a very long post….rewinding to the week of January 24^th.

            During this week Jorge found out (through facebook of course) how much I had been going to Burbuja (the candy store) and my weakness/love for all things sweet, including ice cream! J My facebook status had said something like : burbuja is going to kill me, I cannot eat anymore candy. He came home from work that night with a huge bag of gummies and a large carton of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream for me. I thought that was so funny.

 My computer screen all of the sudden turned black and I was unable to see anything, but I could still hear sounds. It was a rough week with trying to figure out how to get it fixed, especially with no apple stores around. I made a call to the apple store in Madrid (phone call lasted about a half hour, since I was trying to communicate in Spanish) and I got an appointment only to find out Madrid is a very large city and it was actually an hour away from the central point of the city where the bus goes. However, Jorge found a carrier of apple that was in the middle of Madrid and I was able to take my computer there and it was very easy..thank goodness! Anna, Luke, Mike and I made a trip down to Madrid on Thursday after class.

(Madrid)

Luke and Mike were going to the police station in Madrid to report the stolen items from Luke’s backpack and Anna joined me to help me with the computer situation. Anna and I used the metro all by ourselves and mapped our way to this computer store and we were very proud of our success! After we all got our stuff squared away we found our hostel. This was my first hostel experience and it was actually pretty good: it set the bar pretty high for future hostels.

We stayed over night and woke up in the morning to meet the rest of our group for our bus to Valencia for the weekend. We had a free weekend without any planned excursion, so half of our group planned this trip to Valencia and the rest of our group went to San Sebastian in the north of Spain. It was a 4 hour bus ride and I was able to sleep the whole way! Valencia is on the eastern coast of Spain right on the Mediterranean

The hostel in Valencia was quite different: bare white walls, bunk beds, lockers to put our stuff in and a tiny bathroom. Nothing wrong with it, I think we just got spoiled the first time. The girls shopped the whole first day in Valencia…and got ice cream at this really cute place.

(ice cream place.. I got pistachio!)

I only got one shirt (kind of disappointing,…I’m hoping to find some more stuff in Barcelona because it is the last week of rebajas!) On the way home from shopping we stopped in this Chinese restaurant because we were all really craving something different. It ended up being an amazing meal that really hit the spot! That night we all walked around and went to a couple of bars. Then we went to this discoteca called Pacha.

There was a line to get in coming from two ways and a cover charge of 10 dollars. It was very worth it because inside was amazing! It was super fun and there were a ton of people there, along with a a lot of American music (which is always comforting).  We slept in the Saturday and just relaxed in bed. It was really nice to not have any museums to go to and to just be able to do whatever we wanted for a day. Later we took a bus to the ciudad de artes y ciencias  we didn’t end up buying tickets to go inside because the outside had enough cool stuff to look at. It was beautiful and a beautiful day as well. After that we went to the coast of the Meditteranean and got to walk on the beach and touch the water.

(Ciudad de artes y ciencias)

Later that night we all went to get dinner together. There is a very famous and traditional Valencian dish called Paella, so we had to get that. It is a mixture of rice, meat, seafood and veggies (kind of like a stir fry).  It was really good, but not one of my favorite meals that I have had so far here. That night we did the same thing as the night before. Sunday we woke up and had to be out of the hostel at 11, however our bus was not coming until 3.  We sat in the Plaza while we waited and caught some rays, meanwhile ladies in fur coats and hats looked at us like we were crazy in our t shirts. It was about 60 degrees though!!

Monday, January 31^st

            Jorge and Marta surprised me with the most amazing dinner! I think they felt bad about the whole computer situation (because it was really hard to do any of my homework, write papers, research and stay in touch with people) and also I was very sick, I had absolutely no voice. They bought a few different types of Sushi, had guacamole and chips and then heated up a brownie and put whip cream all over it (they call it a volcano). Jorge also gave me a shirt that his company made for the opening of the movie Tangled in Spain. It is called Endredados and is blue and very cute! I am hoping we will get to go see the movie soon.

Tuesday

            I was still very sick (without a voice, sore throat and major cough). My family kept calling me un hombre ( a man) because I sounded so terrible when I could talk haha. They are all about keeping the throat warm when it is sore. I always had to be wearing a scarf around my neck and they would warm up milk and put honey in it. (really nummy!) Marta also bought me some medicine.

Wednesday

            I had my first hard time sleeping due to a coughing attack. Since I couldn’t sleep I decided to grab one of Marta’s books to read, since I unfortunately didn’t bring any of my own (too much weight in the suitcase). So now I am officially reading Twilight in spanish! On Wednesday I set out to find a curling iron. I told the lady I wanted a big curling iron, but she would not sell it to me because she told me it would look really bad in my hair. No matter how hard I tried to tell her that’s what I wanted, she would not give it to me. So finally I had to settle on a medium sized one haha. I also was trying to find a nail file, but everywhere I looked they were over 8 dollars!! I swear what is really cheap in America is expensive in Spain. I also could not find shaving cream anywhere, I guess all they use is wax here… I don’t think I am ready to try waxing my legs (ouch!)

Friday

            Our class excursion in Segovia was to the Judería, which is the area that the Jews lived in Segovia. They were kicked out though during the Spanish Inquisition and were only recently let back in in the 80s …how crazy. But no one lives there now and there is a museum.

Later that night I went to a fútbol sala game with Anna and Katee.

Candido hotel was housing all of the players from all over Spain, so Marta had really good VIP tickets to the whole tournament. Jorge’s company was also doing the merchandising for the tournament. Fútbol sala is like soccer on hard floor with a smaller court.  The environment was so fun because the fans are crazy and everyone is into the game. There was a shoot out and the players honestly stood 8 feet from the goalies while shooting. The goalies have no pads and just throw their body in front of the ball..it looked so painful.  Later that night I got to use my family’s computer and I stayed in and watched Connor’s hockey game online against EP. It was so fun to be able to see Connor play and read all the articles about his great game!

Weekend

            The weekend was absolutely gorgeous! It was around high 50s and super sunny! On Saturday I went for a walk and sat in a park and got some sun with Katee.

On Sunday there was a festival in a pueblo outside of Segovia called Zamaramala. The festival is called Santa Agueda. It is a celebration of the woman of the town. The woman get to rule the town for the day and there is also a burning of a “pelele”, which is a doll of a man. The legend says that when the muslims took El Alcazar from the Spanish the women in this pueblo danced for the muslim men, while their husbands went and recaptured the castle. So, they pay tribute to the women on this day. It was very fun to go to and witness the strong traditions. There were food stands everywhere, special ceremonies and traditional clothing. Later that day I went to Anna’s house to have lunch with her and Carmiña. I was so excited because we had pasta and I was really craving some good pasta! It had a really tasty sauce and tuna. Then our second dish was some meat and vegetables. After, she brought us out coffee and ice cream! Anna and I spent the rest of the afternoon on her porch upstairs sitting in the sun and doing homework.

That night was the superbowl and we have some major packer fans in our group.

We went to Oso Blanco for the game because he said he would keep it open for the entire night for us. It started at 12:30 here and ended around 4:30. It was so different because the commentating was done by two Spaniards, but they basically used Spanglish the whole time. There were also no commercials and the camera angles during the game were really bad. But it was still really fun to watch and the hardcore fans in my group were VERY excited!

On Monday of this week I taught English again to a class of second graders. I learned another new ENGLISH word. An animal called a Tapir…. I was asking Marta why they have such obscure English topics and she explained that their English classes here only cover the topic of science. I was never much of a science girl, so that explains why I am also learning new things from this second grade English course…that I am teaching….

This week was pretty busy. I had my first presentation on a Spanish queen named Juana La Loca. Very interesting stuff! I also had a few papers due, lots of reading and a debate I had to take part in. On Wednesday our Latin dance lessons started!! It wasn’t what I expected because there were no boys to dance with, but it was still really fun. I ended up being a boy half the time and Katee the other half. We learned meringue and cha cha cha.

It has been beautiful weather all week, so I am so excited to get to Barcelona where it will increase about 10 degrees more!

Woo I am finally caught up! Now I am going to catch up on some shows and emails and all of the other things I missed from my computer!! J

Os echo de menos mucho! (I miss you all so much!)

Morgan