I'm Sick, and Homesick

I'm sick, have been sick since Saturday... and this is my 4th time being sick since I've been here

1) was sick right before I left and couldn't stop coughing for weeks after I got here cause of all the smoke so it took a while for me to get better

2)food poisoning from expired yogurt (never eating foreign yogurt again)

3)was sick 2 weeks ago, aches, fever, bla

4)started out on Saturday with what I thought was food poisoning again this time from Chinese food, but a friend got the exact same thing and he didn't get sick, and the sickness didn't go away so I figured it was the stomach flu, which  I still think it is, but I also think I caught something else too cause I don't think the stomach flu is supposed to last this long

Now I just need to be all better cause Spring Break technically starts for me at 5:45pm today because that is when my last class for the week ends!

But on top of that all, being sick makes me want comfort foods and comforting people and such and so it is making me homesick!!

Speaking of homesick, it has led me to create this..

Countdown

I am abroad for 147 days...

March 9 is the date that I'll have been here 2/5 of the time...(also my first full day in Vienna with Mandi!)

March 24 is the 1/2 date (Steven arrives!) (also 6 days before Amit's and my 2 year anniversary!)

April 7 is the 3/5 date (3 days before Mom and Aunt Med arrive!)

April 17 is the 2/3 date (Mom and Aunt Med leave)

April 29 is the 3/4 date (1 day before Grandparents arrive!)

May 6 is the 4/5 date (1 day before my final exam, yes singular)

May 11 is the 5/6 date (Dad visits, hopefully)

 

But I am thinking that this homesickness will be easier because... in 1 day I move in with Leti for the weekend...

Then I go to Vienna and Prague with Mandi...

8 days later Steven comes in town...

2 weeks after he leaves, Mom and Aunt Med come to Madrid...

6 days after they leave, I go to Lisbon...

3 days after I get back, Grandma and Grandpa come to visit...

5 days after they leave, Dad might come and visit...

1 day after he leaves, I start my Eurotrip and Annie is coming to join in on it 3 days in!! (And maybe Amit too, but only maybe maybe maybe, probably not, hopefully, maybe maybe)

3 weeks later, I'm home!

Drama a la casa

At the beginning of this week there was a lot of drama here at the Anton household... as you know there are 7 girls living here, but there is one, Boyana, who most of us have not learned to like.  She is one of the girls that goes to the other school, is a freshman, but a very immature freshman, very selfish and rude, etc.  

So what happened was, as it turns out, Boyana ate some tuna in her room a few days before the drama happened (keep in mind we are not allowed to eat in our rooms in the first place) and the oil from the can spilled on the floor  and since she didn't know how to clean it up off the floors (old old floors) she just left it there.  The room started to smell like fish so her roommate told Ana about it and then they discovered the spill that was a few days old.  Ana had to wash everything in that room because everything smelled like warm, rotting fish.  So this discovery happened when Boyana was not home, so when Mary and I came home from the gym Ana was yelling and banging things around in Boyana's room and complaining to anyone who would listen.  Then once the mess was cleaned up, Ana came into the room where all the rest of us girls were together talking about how angry Ana was and how inconsiderate Boyana had been. So Ana was talking to us about the situation and how Boyana was either stupid or insensitive.  Then she found out a lot of other stuff that Boyana has done over these past 6 weeks... she steal our food all the time and does not pay us back (ate my entire jar of peanut butter in one weekend while I was in Valencia) and steals our food off our plates at dinner, is really snotty, says mean stuff behind Ana and Juan's back to us in English so Juan cannot understand, is really loud in the middle of the night and keeps me awake because I sleep on the other side of her wall, etc etc, the list goes on.  This only made Ana more mad to find out all of this stuff and wants to kick her out... then Boyana comes home... after Ana was done with her we had dinner and it was a really awkward meal. 

Now if Boyana has one more slip up, Ana is going to talk to the housing director at Boyana's school and ask to have her relocated.

Drama, drama, drama

So I'm not a teenager anymore.. and some other stuff

I've been 20 for 2 weeks now and I'm still really excited about it.  I feel like I've accomplished something bug, like I've worked my butt off to get to his point and know that I deserve to be here. :-)

My birthday was a lot of fun, almost everyone remember it (haha) and one friend here gave me a Justice League puzzle and about 15 feet of bubble wrap!  I also got some Reeses Cups from my roommate (my favorites!). Unfortunately the BEAUTIFUL flowers my  parents, Steven and Windsor sent me have died but I dried the roses which now hang in my room over the window.

I was Mary's (my closest friend here/roommate) birthday on the 2nd as well and we got all dressed up and grabbed our friends and headed out to our favorite bar, Moores (which is basically our McLaren's for all of you know know HIMYM), and celebrated for a few hours.

I want to thank everyone for their birthday wishes and thoughtful gifts and cards!  I love and miss you all!!

 

I also have a few more updates but I don't want to have to make a whole separate blog post for them...

1) My drawing teacher is still driving me crazy

2) Despite said teacher... I am really proud of my work thus far

3) Just got back from the Bask country (northern Spain), the food was delish but the trip was kinda awkward because it ended up being a Society of Jesus retreat, but I had a lot of fun and learned a lot!

4) Dinner at my host parents is more amazing everyday, I am starting to write down recipes.

5) When we (Lisa, Mary and I) got back from our trip we saw that Ana had rearranged our rooms to an extent... which is weird because she took a HUGE shelving unit out of Lisa's and Mary's room and put it in mine... now there is not enough room for me to get into my room without getting behind the desk to close the door first... and I dont need this unit at all cause I have a good sized closet... and Lisa and Mary were using it... so we don't know how to nicely let her know that we don't like this new arrangement and that it would be better if the unit went back into their room.

6) I have a Spanish midterm tomorrow that I need to be studying for... so off I go!

Valencia

This past weekend I had the most fun I've had since I've been here. A group of 7 of us (Mary, Lisa and Maria (my 3 favorite roommates), Justin (Mary's boyfriend), Dan and Andy (2 of Justin's roommates)) went to Valencia, Spain.  On Friday morning we had to get up at 4am to get the airport for the 7am flight and we all stayed up pretty late the night before packing and being excited... so needless to say Friday was a long day.

We sat on the runway waiting to take off for about a half hour after we were supposed to have left and we could hear someone sawing something on the plane, very unnerving, and then we finally took off.  Once we got in, got our bags, got to the hostel and got checked in it was not even 11am yet and we were not allowed into our rooms until 1pm so we locked up our bags and went out to explore the town.

The architecture in Valencia is out of this world, almost literally, its futuristic looking and everything is so beautiful.  we were about to walk over this bridge to head towards the beach but decided to go  below the bridge instead cause its over this huge long long park.  Our first stop was at this big rope climbing thing that was so much fun, it looked like a pointy spiders web, I have a lot of pictures on facebook for everyone to see.  After that we saw a lot of fountains that the boys decided to jump over, orange trees that had sour, lemon tasting oranges (apparently it is not recommended to eat those, woops!).  After that we found a  huge climbing thing with ropes and slides and stairs and it was actually a plastic man so it was like we were little mice running all over him, it was a lot of fun. After that we walked around the pathways of the beautiful park and then went to lunch at a small little place in a corner with great great food.

After that we made our way to the beach and then headed back to the hostel for a long nap before dinner at a Chinese restaurant (i know i know, we go all the way to Valencia to have Chinese, but it was really good and really cheap, haha). After that we were all so tired still that we went back to bed so we could get up early the next morning.

On Saturday we got breakfast (where I made a promise to myself to face my fear of sharks... it'll make since in a minute) and then headed out to the museum area that we had passed the day before down by the beach, it was a rainy day so it was perfect to indoor activities.  We first went to what was basically a big science center.  It was pretty interesting, learned some new cool stuff, saw a baby chick hatch, learned that I cannot jump very high, saw a three legged rooster, built an arch, and passed out in Captain America's arms.  Then we went to Europe's largest aquarium which was awesome, saw just about every water animal I could think of including beluga whales, walruses, flamingos, penguins, sea horses, eels, sharks, etc etc.  Speaking of sharks.. I am violently afraid of them, to the point where when I saw them on Saturday in the tank that was surrounding us I ran out crying (pathetic, I know, but the story has a happy ending), but then a friend came out to see if I was okay and helped me work up the courage to go back in to face my fear  which I did and I ended up taking a bunch of pictures of them and followed one around! So proud of myself! Whoo hoo!!!

That night we found a lovely little restaurant that served great wine and the best paella I have ever had, it was amazing, and worth the number at the bottom of the bill (so glad we had saved our money the night before at the Chinese restaurant). That night was a lot of fun, we stayed up at the hostel telling jokes and laughing all night.

We slept in that morning before having to check out at noon, but our flight wasn't until 9:40 so we again locked up our bags and went out to explore.  We were all really tired but walked around all day, trying to stay dry, had some oranges (regular this time around) which is what Valencia is known for (oh my goodness they were delish!).  That day was pretty relaxing, went to a different Chinese place for lunch and then headed to the airport early which ended up being a really good idea because our flight was canceled but they put us on an earlier flight which ended up being perfect.

Valencia is hands down my favorite part of Spain I have been to so far, if anybody ever visits Spain, you have to go to Valencia. Amazing!!!

Oh I almost forgot to say that this trip was in celebration of mine and Mary's birthday, (Mary's birthday is actually also February 2nd... what are the odds??).

Things I Miss... in no imparticular order

1) Steven

2) Mom n Dad

3) Amit

4) Annie

5) All the rest of my friends and family

6) Windsor Baby!

7) My big bed at my apartment

8) Pasta

9) Hot sauce

10) Mini Reeses Peanut Butter Cups

11) Smarties

12) Snow days

13) Mini Reeses Peanut Butter Cups

14) Chili

15) Mexican food  (its really interesting how in America you can get just about any type of food you want no matter where you are, but here, finding Mexican or Italian or American food is nearly impossible.  It's Spanish food all the time, which, don't get me wrong, is yummy, but I'm used to changing it up)

16) Movie theatres

17) Crazy Bowls and Wraps

18) Lucky Charms

19) St. Louis in general

But no worries, I'm NOT coming home! I love love love love it here!

Toledo

So today we went on a trip to Toledo, with some kids from school, and we started out driving around in a bus with the tour guide explaining the history of Spain (with the Muslims, Christians and Jews) which I had already studied do I was really interested in seeing where it all took place.  There are so many beautiful bridges, churches, cathedrals and castles everywhere. After Madrid became the official capital of Spain everybody from Toledo started moving there and somehow (it was hard to hear everything the tour guide said) that lead to just about every building being given to the church and turned into another cathedral or church or something which made for some pretty interesting times back in the day.

Toledo is hands down the most beautiful part of Spain i have seen so far, I will snatch some pictures from my roommate Mary and put them up when I can (I'd have my own but my camera battery died, need to charge that tonight).  After the bus part we got out and walked around to see all the churches and such for a few hours and it was raining the entire time.  I was really glad that my mom bought me a dorky pancho and that I brought it as well as my umbrella, cause I stayed so dry and I helped keep my new friend Andy dry too who's shoes and socks and jacket were basically soaked for a while there.

So aside from the cold everything was amazing, we ate some marzipan (yuck in my opinion, but everyone else loved it) which is something Toledo is known for and then saw some MORE churches and then an old synagogue... at the entrance to this synagogue there is an x-ray machine for your bags, and it was already a convoluted experience trying to close my umbrella, take off the poncho, and then take off my bag but to top off my goofy-looking-ness... My scarf (unknown to me) was wrapped around the handle of my bag and pulled me into the x-ray machine for a second, yes, I'm a doofus.

From that point on we were all pretty much just set free to do whatever, we saw El Greco, found some lunch, a big, scary, evil, barking dog scared the living daylight out of me and caused me to jump over about ten people, ate some more marzipan, and then finally got back to Madrid in time for dinner.

So I have a Spanish quiz in the morning so I'm going to go study for that now...

Love you all!

p.s. make comments so I know people are actually reading these!

Art class vent...

So I'm going to take this opportunity to vent about my art class... more specifically, my art teacher...

So this guy is really skilled and nice and what not, speaks no English but I like that because it forces the class to use Spanish the entire time...

BUT...

he is starting to drive me crazy.  He is really specific about how he wants us to do some things which are really individual and not fair to make us do (metaphor: making someone tie their shoes the bunny ears way when they are used to the standard shoe lace knot which works just as well and makes no difference what. so. ever) and then he DRAWS ON MY PIECES!! I cannot stand it, its not right, its not okay, he needs to stop.  He likes to take pieces during class from us and show the rest of the class how we're doing, what advice to give, what the next step is if we are ahead.. and normally I am ahead cause I always get right to work to try and get it over with.. and he'll start drawing all over my work, and I need to figure out a way to handle this guy before I flip out. haha. so any suggestions would be grand  ;-)