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  ;-)

Segovia, el Rastro y Leticia

Segovia...

I went to Segovia this past weekend for a day with about 50 other students from SLU Madrid and I put up pictures from it on facebook so go check them out.  Since Segovia is more south than Madrid it was really cold, I couldn't feel my fingers for most of the afternoon, but it was worth it because Segovia is absolutely beautiful.  We visited the castle that inspired Walt Disney when he created the Disney logo and it looks a lot like the castle at the Disney parks.  my other favorite site in Segovia is the aquaducts, the Romans were in Segovia when they were basically taking over the world and built this aquaduct that brings fresh, drinkable water through all of Segovia.  For lunch we found this little restaurant that had the most amazing food.

El Rastro...

Also this weekend I went with my roommates to el Rastro which is Europes largest flea market.  It is crazt there, we were there for a few hours and still did not manage to see everything.  You can get just about anything at this flea market.  We each got a new hat and I got a new pair of boots, total = <20>

Leticia...

The pest part of my weekend was seeing the girl who stayed at my house for a few weeks as a foreign exchange student 4 summers ago.  She is from Madrid and her name is Leticia, or Leti.  I brought two of my roommates and she brought her best friend and the five of us went out on Saturday night and it was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed catching up with her.  I think I'm going to be hanging out with her a lot while I am studying here.  This coming weekend I'm going to her house so her parents can meet me, they really want to make me a 'thank-you-for-having-our-daughter-at-your-house-four-years-ago dinner'.

Gotta go now, I have a lot of spanish homework due tomorrow and I'm not used to having a class every day so I have to do it the night of, basically right after class.

Love to everyone!

p.s. I got to talk to most of my family (2 grandparents, 2 parengs, 2 uncles, 2 cousins, 1 aunt, 1 brother and 1 kitty) last night on Skype and I really really enjoyed it! I miss you all tons!  Everyone needs to get Skype so I can talk to you all more often! Facebook or e-mail me your Skype names, please! ]

Mis Clases

So now that I have had all of my classes I can tell you all about them...

1st off my class schedule this semester is pretty easy, all the teachers, students, administrators, everyone says to take study abroad semesters easy...

I have Spanish Monday through Thursday every morning at 10am and I really like it, there are only about 15 people in the class so we are going to be a close, tight-knit group, the teacher is a lot of fun and there is not a lot of homework because it is an oral class but that means that there is a lot more responsibility on ourselves to learn and practice everything, but that's okay since we are actually in Spain and are practicing all the time anyway.  I have also made a few friends in the class already so I'm really excited and like it a lot

I also have a drawing class which I think will be interesting... however my first class was actually freezing because they had yet to install the heaters... the teacher does not know any English so if I get lost I am worried I will just stay lost, but the class should be fun if I can get my head into a more creative state.

My last class is dancing, which I absolutely love, this class is also entirely in Spanish but am not worried about it because I already have a background in the Salsa and Merengue and can move my hips! haha

No I am not only in 3 classes, I am in two others but they are online, one public speaking class which is not difficult but very interesting, and the other has yet to start for me because my professor messed up and did not register me for the class (for SLU online classes the teacher registers the students) so he is trying to fix that now, hopefully I will be able to do some work tomorrow.

Okay, so since I don't have class tomorrow I am up late, but should be getting to bed.  Goodnight!!