Bria's Blogie

Adios, Spain!

Well, friends tonight is my last night in Salamanca. I plan on eating my last dinner at the dorm and then going to the Plaza for some nata (whipped cream) ice cream because my professor has been telling me all trip to try it and I still haven´t. It will be my luck that nata is to die for and I won´t get a chance to have it again. I may have to get some ice cream in the morning. At this poin I´d like to end on tiramasu flavored ice cream because that really was to die for!

This week has been a little rough. First of all, not long after I wrote that blog on Monday I learned that while I was in San Sebastian a guy from the group that went to Pamplona with my group died sometime during the weekend at his señora´s house due to an asthma attack. That was terrible. Be praying for his family, his host family and all his friends. Last I heard they were still working on getting his body back to the U.S. Then of course we had finals this week. I did fine; I got an A in one and a B+ on the other. Thankfully, only the best grade transfers back to my university at home. :-D Not bad if I do say so myself for trying to learn in a second language! I´ve finished up my souvenir purchases here. I have one more to purchase in Madrid and one in London. My backpack is coming back stuffed with souvenirs I don´t trust with the baggage handlers.

I am so thankful that I was able to come on this trip. Everyone that has spent any length of time abroad always says it is a life changing experience and this truly has been! Thank you to everyone that helped me get here-- parents, grandparents, sister, Paulie, Ivan, Mark, Darren, Megan, Stacy, Pastor Dave, the Varners, Caroline, Jill, Jeff and my entire church family! I love all of you guys and I owe you big time! This trip has made me thankful for the little things. First of all, the fact that I am learning a second language but also that English is my first! I also like toilet seats, washing machines, good shoes, proper clothing, good home cooking, nail polish, my bed, the lack of noise at 3 am at my house, my watch, camera and of course friends and family that live close to me! I have learned a lot about Spanish and even more about myself. I´ve learned I´m not nearly as annoying and pessimistic as I thought; I´m rather easy going and a giver. I can adapt to most situations without too much of a fuss. Maybe I won´t die out on my own after all! Hooray! If I can survive in a foreign country, I think I´ll be fine on the other side of my home town.

Enough of the mush. We´re leaving for Madrid by public bus tomorrow between noon and 12:30. We will be in Madrid until Sunday when we will hop aboard a plane for London. I will be there Sunday evening through Wednesday morning, then I´ll had back to the states! All I´ve got to say is that when I get back, I need some Mexican food! And after some Mexican, some good ol´ home cooking. I also need to pack up my belongings so I can move to my new apartment. After visiting all these palaces I have an urge to watch Beauty and the Beast. I also need to watch the latest Harry Potter movie. Bridget, will you go with me? Maybe I could borrow the latest book after you´re done with it?

Ah well, adios from the eastern side of the Atlantic! Initiating blog silence until I return to the States now.

San Sebastian

Oh San Sebastian, how I love thee!

It truly was that marvelous. We left right after I finished writing that last blog for a 6 hour, midnight train ride. We looked like such tourists on the way to the train station because there were a few of us that were bouncing off the walls we were so excited. We drew way too much attention and I was about to strangle a few people that would not keep their voices down. When we got on the train, we go excited again because the cars were sleeper cars and looked like the train in the Harry Potter movies. Sorry, no pic because there were already people in my cubicle asleep. I´m not sure why they call them sleeper cars because the seats were horribly hard and rigid. Eventually, I got comfortable enough to sleep some by squinching down in the seat and putting my feet on the seat across from me between Keelan and some Spanish woman I didn´t know.

We arrived at San Sebastian about 6:30 in the morning to a drizzle. Hooray. :-p Nothing was open yet, so we hung out and napped in the train station until about 8, when we went to this little cafe for breakfast. It was amazing because we all had an omlet type thing and that´s the first real breakfast I´ve eaten in Spain. I smiled from ear to ear eating that. After that we hit the tourist info place and picked up maps and some fliers for stuff we thought might be interesting. Then we checked into our Hostels. That was interesting because we had mistakenly booked a "double" thinking 2 twin beds, but it was actually a double bed. After sorting that out in our broken Spanish, we walked the wet beach for a little bit and then went to the aquarium. The aquarium was pretty cool, especially since I hadn´t had much sleep. haha. I got to pet an octopus! Saw lots of jellyfish in every stage of their life. Saw some sharks developing in transparent eggs--probably the most interesting thing I saw-- and walked through a tunnel of fish. Not a huge aquarium, but hey it cost me about $12. Then we went back to our Hostels to eat the bocadillos (sandwiches) I mentioned early and to take a long siesta. 

After siesta-ing, walked to the other side of the bay to ride a cable car to the top of a mountain on the bay point to take pictures. Both going up and down we shared our car with a group of deaf people from the U.S. so we made some neat new friends. Then we went out to eat and what else do you eat on the coast besides fish!!!! I had the best fish I have ever eaten that night; mind you,I´m used to Red Lobster. It was called hake fish and it was to die for! Paid a pretty penny for it, but hey, when am I going to eat that again? Went to bed on the early side that night. 

The next day started off drizzly again, but I spent the whole day at the beach anyway. (Yes, Mother; I wore my sunscreen.) By mid-afternoon the weather was gorgeous. At about 3 I went kayaking out in the bay. Oh my gosh, kayaking is so much fun! So glad I did that, even though I´m still sore today! Haha. Swam a little. We swam out to this pontoon they had set up a little ways from shore that had a diving board and a slide set up on it. I went off the slide. That pontoon was a lot further from shore than we thought; we were so tired by the time we got out there we had to rest for a while before going back. Really just did homework, talked, listened to the ocean and people watched all day. Oh and the women tend to go topless at the beach and the kids with nothing at all. The comfort with their bodies also manifestied in that we saw all shapes and sizes of people on the beach, not just the perfectly sculpted ones, like in America. That was comforting. I did get a little sun burn because I didn´t reapply the last time I was supposed to. Not enough to be uncomfortable though, just a little pink. Had a hamburger dinner on the beach that night at a little cafe for a surprisingly reasonable price, then went back for some beddie bye.

Did some shopping the next day and found 1 surprise, but most everything cost too much. San Sebastian is one of the biggest tourist drawing cities in Spain, so they were out to take the tourist for all they had, and I don´t have much. Road the train back at 1:30, got home at 7:30 and came back to the dorm immediatly to make plans for the coming week so I don´t forget to do something here in Salamanca that I´ve been wanting to do, like see a couple parks and eat some nata (whipped cream) ice cream.

I went out for churros this morning with a couple others. We ordered them with chocolate, and so go a cup of what looked like hot chocolate, but I couldn´t drink the left overs of mine like I had planned to do because it was too thick. Drizzled on the way to class today. First time I wish I had brought my umbrella. Oh well; one day out of 30 isn´t bad. 

Well, I have my first final tomorrow. Wish me luck and I had better go study!

Oh, for those this pertains to, my plane will land in the U.S. at 2:30 pm on Wednesday, the 1st of August! See you all terribly soon!

Spanish Culture

I´ve always enjoyed learning about different cultures, but never guessed that I´d be thrown into one someday like I have been here. I had always told myself I´d like to study abroad, but I never really thought I´d do it. Even with this trip, it didn´t seem real until I actually arrived in Spain and there was NO English being spoken around me.

That´s probably the hardest part of the whole culture shock-- the language barrier. I went to go pick up my sack lunch just a few minutes ago for our trip and the guy asked me when the rest of the group will come to get theirs. It took me a while to get out that they´d be there in a little bit. After being here for this long, I feel like I can listen and understand pretty well now, but my speaking still needs a ton of work. I´m going to try to speak as little English as possible next week. It gives me warm fuzzies when I speak and natives get my point. Every time I don´t get that blank stare, I feel like I´ve really accomplished something. It really is frustrating not knowing what´s going on around you. 

The people are very friendly and help as much as possible. I´ve only had one person just become so impatient with my lack of language skills to just huff off, but that´s their problem.

They are pretty sensual in their dress or the younger people are and very free with their sexuality I suppose you could call it. Kind of bothersome to me, but as long as you ignore the cat calls not much trouble can follow. At least I have dark hair and tanned skin; I blend a lot better than some other students. The people seem to live in bars; they start their day there with some light breakfast--Spaniards eat next to nothing for breakfast, which makes me SO sad-- then they go to work and catch a snack on the way back home for siesta time; they catch dinner at the bar and then come back later for some drinks. Just about everyone drinks here. Not always in excess, but I´ve seen a lot of sipping wine after work type thing.

Typical Spanish day is as follows: wake up and eat the carb only breakfast that´s hardly enough to sustain a church mouse, go to work etc. about 9 and open store at 10. Work until about 2 then shut down the store and go home for a huge lunch and siesta. Go back to work about 5 and work until somewhere between 8 and 9:30 and then either go home, go out to a club or hang out in the Plaza. Go to sleep somewhere between midnight and 2 am. Even the old people take this schedule. It´s so odd seeing people my grandparents´age at the Plaze at midnight. haha. 

The 80s fashions are really big here. I saw a girl wearing stirrup pants on Tuesday. An odd combo of a mohawk and a mullet is the latest fashion for men´s hair. They shave it on the sides, have a shorter strip down the middle and then have in long in the back and according to my native source, the longer your mullet is, the "cooler" it is. The women wear a lot of skirts and dresses. I was forewarned about this and brought some skirts of my own. I´ve really enjoyed wearing skirts most the time and may continue that trend when I go home. Of course these aren´t mini skirts; they cover your knees well and are genearlly of an A-line shape and made of light materials like cotton. Many people carry fans to ward of the heat of the mid afternoon. Few Spaniards go out in the afternoon; most are siesta-ing. That´s why there were so few people out in Ávila on Tuesday. 

The Spaniards are very family oriented as I mentioned before and I have seen tons of kids out playing ball in the plazas just before dinner time. I wish American kids were more active and the kids´families more involved in their care and rearing like they are here. 

A few oddities and then I´m done. Going barefoot is a no-no as is leaving stuff for the maid to do that you can do yourself. Drugs are legal here as long as you don´t keep more on your person than you can comsume by yourself. The big supermarket chains will deliever your groceries. A married person wears their wedding band on the right hand ring finger. Throwing away food gets you an evil glare. And if a lady wants to exercise in shorts, she best be done by 9 am. 

That´s all I´ve got for now. I´ll report back when I return from San Sebastian.

Sevilla, Granada y Ávila

Now to update everyone on my adventures.

Last Friday we went a-visiting to the Andalucía region in southern Spain. It took us 7 hours to get there by bus so I enjoyed every minute I could squeeze out of those trips, gosh darn it! When we arrived in Sevilla, we went and visited the city Cathedral and it's infamous Giralda minaret. Southern Spain was ruled by the Moors for many centuries so when the Christians took over, they "converted" the mosques into cathedrals, leaving the minaret in place. The Cathedral was absolutely beautiful and you will see it some day when I upload pictures. I think I will try to upload some more tomorrow before I leave for San Sebastian The Giralda was neat. Climbed 34 "flights" of ramps to get to the top and take some pictures of the city.

That evening, myself and a few friends went out shopping and I bought some souveneirs although I won´t say what because surprises are so much more fun. We also ate so real Spanish food-- our first truly purchased meals-- and then walked through the Parque de Maria Lousia on the way to the Plaza de España. The park was like a tropical paradise. We did run into a man in the bushes with his pants down that blew us a kiss, but we won´t talk about that. We´ll just say that we VERY hastily sped on our way. The Plaza was gorgeous with beautiful tile work and a huge fountain. The weird thing was that there was no one else there but we tourists. We took some awesome pictures and walked back to the hotel. That´s day 1.

Day 2. We started by packing up and loading the tour bus again. That bus was terrible; the seats had neck "rests" that made your head stick out to where you looked like a chicken. Those things were SO uncomfortable! Anyway, we got in the bus and took a short ride to the Alcázar, a former royal residence of the Moors. Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. I didn´t take too many pictures here, because I couldn´t capture the beauty of the place on film; I just don´t have the skills. However, I do suggest you google the place and take a looksie for yourself. After wandering around the house and through the magnificent gardens--which had peacocks running around in them-- we departed for a short 2 hour ride to Granda. Upon arriving there, we found some tickets to a Flamenco show that evening. The Flamenco was amazing. The dancers were so passionate about their dances I was in absolute awe. After the show, we walked through the narrow streets of the old Moorish village to a plaza on top of hill facing the hill that the Alhambra was on. The Alhambra at night is a sight to be seen; probably one of the most picuresque vistas I have come across in my life and yes, I did get a picture of that one. 

The next morning we actually went to the Alhambra and spend the whole morning wandering around the royal Moorish residence, the ancient Moorish fortress, the palace of Carlos V and the gardens which make up the Alhambra complex. Absolutely breathtaking. Took lots of pictures here too, although again, I couldn´t capture the beauty on film. The details of it reminded me a lot the Sultan´s palace in the Aladin movies. Haha. After the tour, I nearly missed the bus home because I was buying a really cool souvenir, but as you can see, I made it back. That was my last weekend.

Yesterday I took an afternoon trip to the most important Medieval site remaining in Europe called Ávila. Luckily, it was only an hour train ride away. I really like riding the train; I wish we had some in the US. There wasn´t really much there except the big city wall that´s only been standing there for millinea. We walked around that and of course took pictures. After that we went searching for St. Teresa´s dismembered finger and finally found it after scurrying about her convent in hushed whispers. No picture there. Sorry. After that we just milled around shopping and I made a few more purchases until the train arrived for our trip "home".

And those are my adventures of the past few days. I will try to blog tomorrow before I leave with more details on culture type stuff here in Spain. Hope everyone is well at home! I only have 7 days left in Salamanca!! I´m not ready to go home!

Homesick

Sorry I didn't write last week. I was really homesick and so had trouble concentrating on my work making it take twice as long to do. Also didn't do much of anything because of the homesickness, so you really didn´t miss much except the monotany of going to class, eating, siesta-ing homework-ing and sleeping of the everyday.

I did however go to Spanish guitar concert. I enjoyed it throughly. The Spainiards are very liberal with their applause and clap about twice as long as we do in America. My hands hurt after the hour was over. 

I visited Seville and Granda in southern Spain this past weekend. They were much more relaxing and enjoyable than Pamplona. I´m visiting Avila tomorrow afternoon-- not really sure what's there except for a big wall that surrounds the whole city, but I will find out-- and San Sebastian this weekend. That's the world renown beach I was telling you about the first week. Looking forward to that. 

Well, I must get to my studies. I will post about my last weekend adventures in Seville and Granda perhaps tomorrow, but at least on Wednesday. 

Pamplona and San Fermin

First, a little lesson on my past weekend's adventures. I went to Pamplona in the mountains the northern Basque country of Spain. It was beautiful country; I wish I had gotten more pictures, but I slept through most of the bus ride. I went for the festival of San Fermin which always occurs on the 7th through the 14th of July. I just got lucky to get to go on "opening weekend". The festival is infamous for it's running of the bulls or encierra. The festival is truly much more than that, although that's all the Americans ever hear of it because usually some stupid American runs with the bulls and gets hurt or worse during the week. The festival is celebrating Saint Fermin, the patron saint of Pamplona. The festival goers all wear white with red sashes and scarves or panuellos.

Ok, now for my observations on the festival. We arrived late on Friday night at our lodgings-- a former convent. It was interesting living in an ex-convent for the weekend; the rooms were all single dwellings with their own showers and sink but no personal toliet. Everyone-- both males and females-- had to share the community toliets at the end of the halls, which didn't have toliet seats. Not having a toliet seat for a weekend really makes you appreciate the little things, let me assure you. The rooms still had crusifixes on one wall and a little painting of Mary and Jesus on the other above a desk. Every room had a bookshelf too, so they rooms were definitly designed for study.

Friday night we went out to see the fireworks that began the festival and then went on a walking tour of the streets that would be safe for we Americans if we wanted to go out and join the party later that evening. The younger people at the festival were mainly there for one reason-- to spend a whole week as drunk as possible. Many of them just didn't sleep and when they did took up residence in a park or on a comfy bench. Everywhere I went all I smelled was spilt wine and urine. In short, it smelled something aweful. I didn't see hardly anything but wine begin drunk. Occasionally a portable keg of beer or some water but usually just red wine. I went back to the convent and went to sleep after our walking tour.

On Saturday morning, we got up early to see the running. It was amazing; we got some tickets to sit in the city bull ring and watch them run through there. I have some great footage of that, but you'll probably have to wait to see that because the connection here is so freakin slow. That's why there are so few pictures up, but there are a few on that link on the right, by the way. After the bulls ran through, a few cows were let in so the runners could pester them. I learned that this torment of the cows is actually done in the country where they raise the fighting bulls. The people who raise the bulls have to make sure their mamas are just as brave as their daddies. That part was kinda sad really. The runners waved paper in the cow's faces and pulled their tails to make them mad so they'd charge.

After el encierro, we took a tour of the city and saw where exactly the bulls ran that morning. (A running occurs every morning for the whole week, by the way.) There was also a parade to honor Saint Fermin as his replica entered the cathedral. We got front row "seats" for that and again I've got some great footage! I got to see the giantes; they look like great big dolls and people walk inside them in the parade. Then we went shopping in the little tent shops set up near the park. I got a sweet purse for only 12 euros! That's about $18. The reason it's so sweet is because I saw one online like it that I fell in love with and it was either $60 or $80... something like that, so I jumped at the chance to buy this one. I also had some churros-- a typical Spanish desert, alot like a donut, except not round just a stick.

The streets were so jammed packed with people it was ridiculous. I mean, we weren't just sardines, we were squished sardines. The city has about 100,000 residents but during San Fermin there are about a million people in the city and most in the same area. The craziest part was that people were taking their babies in strollers through this crowd; it would be equivilant to taking a stroller to Time Square at midnight on New Years. I got so mad at the people with baby strollers; it's not like the babies were enjoying this anyway. I got stuck in a crowd behind one and when I tried to go around them, the man pushing the stroller and the rest of the crowd near him yelled at me. I'm not sure what they said, but I think they were afraid I'd wake the baby. How that baby slept in all that hullabaloo, I have no idea. Thinking back though, Spaniards are very family oriented. I have not seen one day care here. I'd say leave baby at home with grandma, but grandma was at San Fermin too! It was crazy noisey! I had to sleep with ear plugs in both nights. The street vendors were selling these megaphones that had several songs pre-recorded on them, including "Ole, ole, ole!" which I never want to hear again and people were forever turning those blasted things on and shouting in them. Drunks are pretty loud anyway, so giving them megaphones was not the best idea in the world, in my opinion.

In short, I went to a drunken party celebrating San Fermin, got squished to pieces, saw the running of the bulls and really and truly did enjoy myself and learned alot. I probably will never go back, but I am glad I went this one time.

News and Travel Plans

Hello again friends!

Well, not too much has happened since I last blogged.

I decided to stay in the classes in which I was placed. On the first day we started with the present tense which I've learned only a bazillion times so that's why I wanted to move up; however, yesterday we did the present perfect tense and I only learned that last semester, so I think I will be perfectly fine in that class.

I did have some cookie flavored ice cream. That was amazing. Two of my favorite sweets in one. :-D Only thing missing were some brownie crumbles on top. haha.

Oh, I can't seem to get the pics to upload from the school computers; I will try Dominque's computer again later. I tried her's last night and it was SO slow! It was going at about one picture in five minutes-- only slightly exagerating, seriously-- when the battery went down. So, yeah... but I'll try to get what I have off tonight because I'll be leavinig for Pampalona tomorrow afternoon!!!! That's where the running of the bulls takes place and yours truly gets to witness this... iconic cultural festival!

And myself and a few others are still trying to get our free weekend plans together. I was thinking I'd just stay in Salamanca, but when am I going to be in Spain again? We were thinking Barcelona, but the plans just aren't working for that, so now we're thinking either San Something or Lisbon, Portugal. The San Whatever is supposedly the most beautiful city beach in Europe, but it's on the northern Atlantic coast. I really wanted to stick my toe in the Mediterranian while I was over here, but that doesn't look like it will happen. Oh well; I haven't been to any beach in years, so that will be wonderful anyway. Besides that, the beach is free. :-D Then Lisbon... we're not sure what's there except that it's the capital of Portugal and cheap. We were looking at Hostels and we found one in the Plaza Mayor that looked pretty fancy for 18€!! That's about $25! I can do that!

Anyway, I've got a bit of homework tonight to do and I've got to get those pictures done. Keep me in your prayers! Thanks!

Salamanca so far.

Ok, I promise this entry will get you caught up to the present.

After finding Lacey and Rachael, we hopped on the metro and rode to the train station. We had some difficulty finding our train, and once we did we had trouble boarding because a fellow in front of us in line was in a wheelchair that didn't fit through the aisles of the train. That was fun. The train ride was a couple hours and I wanted to sleep so bad, but I didn't because Mommy and Daddy told me when they gave me my camera for Christmas that they had better see lots of pictures so I took a ton of the country side. Actually, it looks alot like Texas in the summer-- brown and dry-- except with Spaniards. Haha.

When we finally arrived in Salamanca we grabbed a snack and then got in taxis to take us to our dorm. Now, only two or three could fit in a taxi and unforntunantly I got in a taxi with two people whose Spanish is not as adept as mine and mine is next to nothing. Let's just say it was fun when the cabby got lost and tried to drop us off in some random place. I had to explain that we didn't know where this place was either and that no, we didn't have cell phones to call someone and that this place was a university dorm. Our cabby was just as confused and irritated as we were so us getting to the dorm was an absolute miracle. Once we arrived we had to wait for dinner to be ready and I was absolutely starving so I unpacked to keep my mind off my stomach and then I blogged too. Dinner was fine-- as most every meal has been here-- and then Ashleigh, some one else and I went on a walk about the neighborhood just to see what was around our home. That was my trip here, Salamanca.

Yesterday, we took our class placement test in the morning-- to see how good our Spanish was and what corresponding class we needed be enrolled in. Then we basically wandered around practicing our Spanish with one another and slept the rest of the day. I did go to a Spanish Wine that afternoon. There was some nasty wine; I'm not a wine person in the first place and this wine was a little warm so it definitely cleansed the palate. *choke choke cough cough* They also served us fancy finger food type stuff. Like I had some caviar on a little piece of bread and some cheese on bread and also some kind of little slices of meat that looked like bacon. It was good and later I saw something similiar on a restuarant menu and a plate of that stuff costs 17 euros!! This was some high quality chow here! That was the highlight of yesterday.

Today I went to class for the first time. It was a little overwhelming because well, it's taught by a Spaniard in Spanish, imagine that. I was starting to get the jist of what the teacher was saying by the end of the class and we started with basic stuff, which makes me wonder if I need a higher class. But at the same time, the other people in my class seem to be in the same boat. I know the textbook Spanish pretty well, I'd like to think, but I need some major work on just listening and understanding what others are saying and speaking myself. I'm not sure if I want to change classes yet; I will decide after class tomorrow.

My roomate, Keelan, arrived today. She was late because she was in a beauty paegent last weekend. Yeah lucky me with the beauty queen roomate. :-p Haha. She really is sweet.

Probably the most interesting thing that happened today was on our way back from the plaza mayor this evening. Myself, Dominque, Sarah, Katie and Rachael were looking at what some street peddlers had to offer when one accused us of stealing some of his merchandise. I know I didn't, but it kind of rattled one of the group, when the vendor got mad and told us to go away if we were going to steal his merchandise. We made ourselves feel better though by being adventurous on the way "home" by taking a different way back than we had before.

Well, that's about all that has happened so far. Exciting, no? I may try to post some pics on that link on the right panel in a minute so try that out in a little while.

Gettting to Salamanca Part 2

Sorry it took me so long to get back to my story; the dorm director turned off our internet and I'm not willing to pay 50€--that´s euros :-) -- for the internet so I have to use the computer lab above my clases. And for this reason I have only ten minutes to write.

So I'm asleep on the plane. I wake up about 3 or 4 hours after I go to sleep. Not bad for such a turbulant ride and anxiously await our arrival in London for the next 2-3 hours. Haha. I ate some breakfast which consisted of yogurt and water during that time too. When we arrived, the airport was under some construction so it took us forever to get out of the gate area and to the check-in desk, because if you recall, we had our tickets manually writen at Dallas and so had to pick up computer tickets for our flight to Madrid... and so did everyone else and their puppy dog too. Once we finally got our tickets and through security we literally ran about a mile to our next gate to catch our flight to Madrid. This flight seemed so short after the one over the Atlantic; it was about 2 hours and the served us a brunch sort of thing. It was a sandwich with bacon, cheese and tomato sauce. The sandwich grew on me as I ate it and I came away liking it.

When we arrived in Madrid and made it through customs, we had to find the other two girls--Lacey and Rachael-- who had arrived before us. They weren't where our professor expected them to be, so she freaked out and went looking for them while the rest of us piled up our luggage and and took a quick nap, read or people watched.

Well, the lab is closing. I will try to use someone's computer at the dorm later. Adios!

Getting to Salamanca Part 1

First of all, sorry for my sourness yesterday in my post. I started to go back and erase all the negative part, but I decided that 1) that's how I felt and so needed to be expressed to the world and 2) I had been putting on a happy face for my companions all day long and one can only mask stress so long. Ok, from the top shall we?

Saturday: I awoke 10 'til 6 a.m. to pack up my last bag-- the funny smelling one. (See previous post about bag crisis.) I didn't really get around to actually packing it until about 6:30. I have no idea what I was doing in those 30 minutes but nothing really productive. So I found myself running late because one of my travel buddies was driving into to Dallas to catch the flight with me and was due to arrive any minute. She arrived at my house and everything was scatter-brained for a moment and then Greg arrived as well. My travel companion, Dominque, and I hoped into the truck with Greg and my mom and dad jumped in their car and off we went after a breakfast and gas pit stop. And so we drove to Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport with lots of talk and some sleeping too.

Once we arrived at the airport, Dominque and I found Katie and Sarah already waiting, so we all got in line to discover that the airline's computer was down so it took forever to manually check us in to the flight. I was so scared that either I or my luggage wouldn't make it to Madrid because the guy's handwriting that checked me in was terrible. Others of the group began to arrive and went through the line too. As we waited for everyone to get through the line, we said our good-byes and said a prayer for our safety--yes, I did tear up and yes, mostly for leaving Gregie-poo behind, but also for you, mommy and daddy dearest. We went through security with no hitches and proceded to wait for our flight... for several hours. I tried to read some more of my Spain history book, but wasn't entirely successful.

We finally boarded our first flight to London with handwriten ticket in hand and yes, I got that blasted seat right smack dab in the middle of the plane. Now, on this particular airline, there were nine seats in a row but they were seperated in groups of three, instead of the 2-5-2 formation I had been dreading, so I was comfortable enough with two of my companions--April and Ashleigh on either side of me. We took off and were served a drink and then dinner; I chose a beef stew type thing which wasn't bad. After dinner I watched a movie on MY screen-- I was so excited that the cheapy seats had the personal tv's and still had the choice of movies like the others. I watched The Astronaunt Farmer, about what else besides a farmer that blasts himself into space. Very inspirational and not half bad. After that I went to sleep and that is where I will leave you for now because we are headed to la tienda dolar. (That's the dollar store. ) :-)

Safetly Arrived

There you have it folks; I have safetly arrived at the University in Salamanca and settled into my dorm room which happens to have my very own computer in it!

First of all, let me remind you that I am currently jet lagged and so this entry will be short. I woke up on Saturday in the States at 6 am and it is now currently around 11:15 a.m. in the States on Sunday and I have slept about 3 hours between there on a plane with an encredible amount of turbulance, so I won´t really call it sleep. Second, this Spanish keyboard is a little funky, so making capital letters has proved to be a hassle. Appreciate the capital letters in this entry because the keyboard is driving me up the wall. On top of this, I am starving because it is currently a little after 8 p.m. here and I haven´t had anything substantial to eat-- meaning more than water and half a packet of YoGo´s since about 10:30 a.m. ´my´time. In essence, I am writing only to tell you that I´m not dead and am very grumpy, so will defer blogging about my arrival experience until I have a smile on my face.... or at least until there´s food in my tummy. Haha. And I just realized I've been using the accent mark for an apostrophe in this entire blog, except for the one in this sentence. And so the learning experience commences....