My Little Family

Our family just got a little bigger, with the addition of Miguel – an 18 year old freshmen at the University, who is from a city called Galicia about 4 hours north of here. He’s an absolute sweetheart, and will be sleeping in the living room for the next week until Marissa moves out and back to Switzerland on Friday. :(

Although he doesn’t seem to mind, I feel bad for poor “baby brother” Miguel, (as I’ve nicknamed him) as he just moved away from home for the first time, and now is living in a house full of four loud, sarcastic and inquisitive women. Dinnertime conversation tonight revolved around how good looking the Spanish futbol players are (I argued that most of them are pretty hot, but Judith pointed out a few that contradicted my case) and I noticed about halfway through that he was just smirking, and probably thinking to himself “how did I end up here again?”

But in the little more than a week that he’s become part of our family, I’ve already grown to love having a “baby brother” in the house. His English is relatively good compared to most people I’ve met, and for practice he speaks to me in English and I respond in Spanish so that we both can get better at our respective second languages.

Thursday night before I left for Portugal, the four of us (Marissa, Judith, Miguel and I) went out for a few hours to celebrate the end of the week, and Marissa heading back to Switzerland. I figured it was a good opportunity to take a few family pictures, so here they are:

The girls and Mari Carmen (when taking this I said "look, it's the queen and her princesses!" and she corrected me, saying "it's the mother and her daughters!" :) Very sweet.

The four of us: Marissa, Miguel, me and Judith

“I Apologize in Advance – But These Kids Are Animals”

When I got invited last week to volunteer at the local “colegio” (which in Spain means k-12 school, not college) I had no idea what to expect. I showed up 15 minutes early, (which I’ve now learned is unnecessary in Spain since everyone is consistently 15-30 minutes late) then I felt like a lost little kid in elementary school, because I had no idea which room I was volunteering in. Lucky for me, a nice PE teacher directed me to a fourth-grade classroom, and I walked in and was welcomed by a smiley teacher and a classroom full of 8 year olds who all excitedly switched from “hola” to “heeeeellloooooo” when they found out I’m visiting from America.

What I realized very quickly upon moving here to Spain, is that almost no one is fluent in English. Even the teachers who instruct their classrooms full of kids on how to pronounce basic English sentences are still learning English themselves, so having a “native speaker” in the classroom really means a lot to them. Thank God that my Spanish has improved in the last month, because the minute I stepped foot in the classroom I was immediately interrogated by twenty little children wondering what my favorite color is, if I can do long division, and if I personally know Miley Cirus. (Since of course everyone in California does, right?) I answered back one by one, until the teacher stopped me and told the kids that they need to practice their English – so they raised their hands one-by-one and tried again in slow, carefully constructed English sentences.

At the end of class, (fifteen minutes later, when it was time for me to go to the correct classroom :) ) all twenty kids rushed toward me with pens and notebooks in hand, asking “firma, por favor?” for me to give them my autograph. Apparently, just being from California automatically makes me a Celebrity among Spanish schoolchildren – good to know for next time, so I can wear oversized sunglasses and bring my own pen.

After such a positive and friendly experience, I expected my real class to be even better. I walked up a wooden staircase and down a long hallway, then immediately noticed a very frazzled, but adorably stylish teacher prying her way out of my designated classroom. “Hola!” she yelled from across the hall, closing the door to a room filled with screaming, wrestling, and cussing teenagers. “Me llamo Carmen!” She kissed me on the cheeks like all Spanish people do, then proceeded to explain (in Spanish of course) that I was lucky enough to be stuck with “los malos” – or “the bad ones” – the kids who skip class, annoy their teachers, and have 45 minutes each morning of English class “detention” to help straighten them out. Gee, how lucky for me.
We approached the door, and before I walked in she basically told me (translated from Spanish) “I apologize in advance – but these kids are animals” then grimaced, and walked in with me at her side. The pierced, super-styled and boot-clad teenagers all looked up with interest at me, and after yelling “OYE!” (LISTEN!) she finally shut them up, and introduced me to the class. She told them to ask me questions in English, but they didn’t seem very interested – a good looking girl hit the guy next to her with a shoe, then he pushed her, and they all began throwing paper wads at each others’ heads and yelling insults in Spanish I could barely understand.

After about five minutes of this, Carmen finally wrangled order back to the classroom, and the kids got out their textbooks so we could read a very classroom-y paragraph about a girl who entered her self-portrait into a school art show. I would read a sentence, and then they would repeat it back to me in broken English, pausing every few sentences so I could make sure that they actually understood what the paragraph was trying to say.

The kids looked really bored, and Carmen said I could do anything that taught them English, so I stopped and decided to try a little heart-to-heart to see if that would help. In my best attempt at coherent Spanish, I asked the kids if they like The Simpsons, or Family Guy, or if they’ve ever watched an American movie. They all said “si!!!” and the class clown began making Spanish Bart Simpson references to further my point. “Okay, well in these movies and TV shows you watch, is there language you don’t understand? How about music? Do you understand what The Black Eyed Peas and Snoop Dog (who they love by the way) are saying in their songs?” Most of the kids just looked at each other and shrugged, but a couple of them were actually paying attention. “No, no lo comprendo” [No, I don’t understand it] admitted a cute little girl in the front. And with that, they seemed to understand what I was getting at. English isn’t just some language in their boring textbooks – it’s everywhere in their culture. And how crazy is it to be surrounded in brands, products, and major media that are all in a language you don’t understand? Maybe there is some value to paying attention in English class after all.

For next week, I’m going to bring printed out lyrics to “I’ve got a feeling” and make them translate them from English into Spanish. (Which helps me practice my second language too!) Hopefully they’ll warm up to me… but after getting that first day behind my belt and surviving to tell the tale, I’ve got a pretty good feeling that it can only get better from here :)

Playa & Fiesta en Valencia

Despite our bus breaking down and arriving an hour and a half late, we did eventually make it safely to Valencia - just in time to get a great tour of the city before dark, then to prepare for a little dinner party at Laurence’s adorable apartment in the city central.

With curvy cobblestone streets full of shops, people, fountains and beautiful little parks, Valencia has a very romantic and costal feeling that reminded me in many ways of being back home in San Diego. That being said, the roman influenced architecture and street names written in Catalan immediately set it apart from any place I’ve ever visited, making it all the more exciting and interesting to walk around and explore this beautiful southern Spanish beach town.

As we headed back from Corte Ingles (the WalMart meets Costco meets Westfield Shopping Center that is taking over Spain) with all the food for our dinner party, the first thing I noticed was a gorgeous bride taking pictures under one of the many exotic cathedrals bordering the Plaza de Virgin. (See picture to the left.) Laurence didn’t seem to be phased – then I realized why. As we kept walking, there was bride after bride, all wearing similarly styled wedding dresses, hopping out of the same shiny black cars, posing just far enough apart from each other so that you couldn’t see the other brides in their pictures. I asked Laurence what the heck was going on, and apparently this is a completely normal weekend occurrence. Dozens of brides at a time, year round, all flock to the same central area near Laurence’s apartment to get married in the Roman cathedrals, and then get their pictures taken on the beach close by.

After dodging cameramen and wedding videographers, we finally made it back to Laurence’s place and started getting everything ready for the dinner party. Around 11pm several of his friends from Germany and Quebec joined us for a delicious (and healthy!! Finally!!) dinner, and we all had a great and relaxing evening, just sitting around laughing at our language barriers (English was everyone else’s second language to French and German, but since we’re all studying Spanish we alternated between the two) and all the cultural differences between the places where we grew up.

Saturday afternoon, we spent a good portion of our day at the beach just laying around in the sun and enjoying the warm Mediterranean ocean. I made a videoblog in the water (yay for underwater digital cameras! :D) but the sound turned out a little bit muffled. In any case, here it is:




Another major highlight from our beach trip was the hardly-competitive beach volleyball match we were challenged to by six middle aged, sunburned, and slightly drunk Sweedish men. Even though there were nine of us and six of them, they still insisted on playing - then proceeded to sing a strange and off-key fight song every time they made a point.
Later that night we all returned back to the apartment and Cecily and I got ready for our first true Spanish evening that would last from about 10pm until sunrise the next day.

How to Party Like the Spanish:

1) Start with tapas (various plates of appetizers) around 11pm. Order everything on the menu, but try not to gag if what shows up has eyes and/or a head. (See video below, and the picture for a better view of what I was eating.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YsJ_W7yxF8

2) Around 1am, start the house party. In our case, we had about 25 people from 8-10 different countries, so that made for quite the cultural learning experience. See video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpI9jQgAQCU

3) Around 3:30am when the Discotecas open, head out with a big group and get in line. Once in, head straight to the electric music lounge with the fog, live DJ, and strobe lights. Learn from my mistake and don’t ever go to a Discoteca in sandals. (Midway through the night I stepped on a piece of glass from a broken cup on the floor. Luckily it wasn’t a very deep cut, but I realized afterword that feet need better protection under those circumstances.)

4) Dance the night away until 7am when the Disco closes. Then, as the sun starts to rise, grab breakfast at a pizzeria and walk home to recover and get a good day’s sleep.

Our bus ride home was slow and uncomfortable as usual, and although the bus didn’t break down this time, our driver decided to stop without warning in some city in the middle of nowhere to take siesta and a smoke break around 12:30am. When we got back home around 2am, I was eternally grateful to lie down in a real bed, (instead of a couch or bus seat) and had no problem falling right back asleep after our crazy, fun and adventure filled weekend.

Off to Valencia: The Broken Bus Adventure

“Yeah mom... Cecily and I are going on a seven hour bus ride this weekend to Valencia to hang out with these cool French Canadian guys that we met on a bike tour in London a week ago. They’re sweethearts, and not sketchy at all – it’s completely legitimate, I promise.”

After meeting Fred and Laurence on the bike tour then hanging out with them for a few days in London, Cecily and I were immediately convinced that all of us should hang out again. After looking at our very booked travel schedule we realized that this October weekend was the only realistic time that we could accept Laurence’s invitation to visit. So, two days in advance, we changed plans from embarking on a school day trip to the mountains (which we later heard was cold and boring anyway) and bought tickets instead to spend a few days at the beach, traveling by bus on the typically strange and uncomfortable early morning/late night route from Salamanca to Madrid, then Madrid to Valencia and back.

Although bus rides are definitely the cheapest way to travel, we've started to realize that they also attract some very strange people, and always result in very interesting and unpredictable situations.

Four hours into our bus ride to Valencia, we were traveling through a hilly region of the country, when our beast of a vehicle started making loud chugging noises and slowing down to about 35 miles per hour. Suddenly, we heard a loud "POP" noise, and with that the buss rolled pathetically off the highway to a nearby reststop, and we had to all gather our stuff, get out, and move to a new (but significantly older and less comfortable) bus.

On our way between Madrid and this point of rest, we met a bunch of Stanford kids who were also studying abroad and on their way to Valencia for the weekend. Our new friend Cameron ended up being the unluckiest of the bunch, as he was the last person to get on the bus, and got stuck in the very back seat next to a drunken and snoring middle aged man who was half passed out on Cameron's chair.

In the first 15 minutes the man woke up and proceeded to tell Cameron his life story, then without warning just fell back asleep and returned to snoring loudly in Cameron's ear. Cecily and I just about died laughing watching this whole scene, so we decided to record it - unsuccessfully, until after about three failed attempts, when we were finally able to quit laughing and pull it together. (There are two videos, this is the first, then another 45 minutes into the trip. I´ll upload the second when I get higher speed internet :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyV2FsSlEpQ

The Lying Scale, And Other Justifications for Deliciously Fatty Food

Marissa (“Swissa”) and I sat on her bed with our laptops other night, waiting patiently for Mari Carmen to announce down the hallway that dinner was on the table. Midway through my rant about how our house’s WiFi is anti-American, (everyone else’s computer gets it but mine) we heard this loud boiling and pouring sound – then Marissa and I looked at each other, and she mimed a dramatic wicked witch of the west-esque melting scene, screeching “the faaaaat, the faaaaaaaaat, it’s booooilingggg.” She was half joking, but after a month of Mari Carmen’s always delicious but very fatty cooking, we’ve learned just to just close our eyes, eat what’s on our plate, and try not to think about a future of weight watchers and airplane seatbelt extenders.

As we sat down at the table eating our amazing and freshly fried calamari, empanadas, and ham and cheese bites, Marissa, Judith and I all looked at each other and started laughing because we were all thinking the same thing. “Que?” asked Mari Carmen with an interested smile, and hesitantly, Marissa explained “es muy rico! …Pero tenemos miedo que vamos a gordar.” (It’s very tasty! But we’re afraid that we’re going to get fat.) Mari Carmen started to laugh, and replied with “no, no es la verdad! Caminais todos los dias, y sois joven” (no, that’s not true! You guys walk every day, and you’re young!) Then she proceeded to get up from the table, and head down the hallway with an apparent mission in mind to prove us all wrong. She came back into the kitchen with an old bathroom scale, and the minute we recognized it, the three of us all yelled “ahhh!! Nooo!” all with equally matched horror, until she made each one of us get up, and stand on the scale to prove that we in fact had not gained as much weight as we thought.

Lucky for me, the scale was in kilograms, so I could easily ignore whatever incomprehensible number appeared on the digital screen. Unfortunately though, I quickly learned that a kilogram is exactly half of a pound, so even being metric-system deprived and in denial, I didn’t have a good enough excuse to stop me from figuring out a simple math equation.

Marissa was first up, and although she was convinced that she had gained at least 6 kilograms, she was about the same, if not a kilogram or two less than her normal weight. (Which is absolutely tiny, by the way.) Judith was second, and although she wasn’t positive of her original weight, she was pretty sure that the scale had sliced off 3 or 4 kilograms from her ballpark number.

I waited until the dire end, and then very reluctantly stepped onto the scale to face the ugly truth of all my pastry and fatty food indulgences. To my shocking surprise, unless I divided by two the wrong way, (which is absolutely possible) the scale told me that I weigh about 8 pounds (16 kilograms) less than I did when I hopped on the plane a month ago. There is no way that can be right.

This being said, we’re all convinced that it’s a conspiracy. Mari Carmen must keep a broken scale in the bathroom near the kitchen, exactly for times like these, when people question the health content of her deliciously fatty cooking.

…Either that, or we’ve all actually lost weight. What would the nutrition specialists have say about that?

The Real Magic of Disneyland Paris

Growing up in southern California, I figured that no theme park in the world could ever match up to the original Disneyland. After spending five hours at Disneyland Paris however, I have to admit… I was wrong.

The whole idea of going to Paris in the first place came about on our second day in Spain, when Ryan offhandedly mentioned the “free tickets to any Disney theme park” perk he earned by working at Disney World for the summer. Whether this was really an invitation for us to join him or not, Cecily and I jumped at the opportunity – then next thing we knew, the three of us were standing under Sleeping Beauty’s castle watching Buzz Lightyear sing to “you’ve got a friend in me” in French. (See part of this on the video :) )

From the minute that we stepped foot in the park, the three of us felt like five year olds again, running around and exploring all the new and unfamiliar (Disney) lands and rides the park had to offer. Of the many notable ones, the most surprising were my old favorites Space Mountain and Indiana Jones which Disney Paris transformed into bonafied grown-up rollercoasters with loops, corkscrews and actual drops that rival the rides at Six Flags. Indiana Jones was our biggest surprise, as it’s built outside in a “Big Thunder Mountain” esque style, but with steeper drops, and great lighting effects like the ones on the original ride at Disneyland California.
Hands down though, the very best Disney experience of the evening was my ride on Crush’s Coaster – a Finding Nemo themed rollercoaster that simulates a ride on the back of Crush the turtle through the East Australian Current. (Duuuuuuuude, sweeeeet!!) We expected more of a Peter Pan type ride, but the minute we got on we realized that it was an actual rollercoaster – similar to space mountain, (it’s completely dark, and all you see are fish and bubbles in the tunnel around you) but even bigger drops, tilts, and turns. Think teacups + space mountain – the nausea.

For dinner, we ate at a Lion King themed restaurant, and paid 12 euro (about 16 dollars – ouch!) for questionable chicken wings, a salad, a water bottle and French (hehe) fries, but thankfully our meal also came with a Mickey Binget that made the entire purchase worthwhile. (Think Mickey shaped donut, but filled with warm, runny Nutella. Yuuumm.)

Disneyland Paris was a whirlwind, as sadly we were only left with a half day to explore the park by the time we finished our bike tour through the city on Sunday afternoon. That being said, even just a few hours there re-introduced me to the captivating Disney magic that I remember being overwhelmed by as a kid - back in the days before I had the entire park map memorized, and when I still thought that Princess Arial was a real mermaid.

At the end of the night, the three of us walked toward the exit arm-in-arm, and watched silently as the lights in Tomorrowland flickered off, and droplets of rain slid down the striped canopies along Main Street USA. Undoubtedly, there was something very magical about being grown-up and thousands of miles away from home, but still having our Disneyland. A place that will always be childhood, fantasy, and security in knowing that we can fly far away from home and still find our way back, and that even as jaded grown-ups, it's possible to find true love and make our greatest dreams come true.

I'm going to make it back to Disneyland Paris and see the rest of it someday. ...Wanna join me? :)

Paris: City of the Beautiful and Sketchy

From the minute we arrived at the Paris train station, I had a very scary realization: I can´t speak a word of french. Although most people (supposedly) speak english, from the very beginning our lack of vocabulary left Cecily, Ryan and me with invisible "TOURIST" badges plastered across our foreheads, attracting all kinds of unsettling situations. As you will see, in so many ways Paris was the beautiful, artistic city I imagined... I just learned very quickly to keep my eyes open, and not let the city´s romantic facade distract from the very real dangers of being female and American in a foreign country.

The taxi ride from the airport to our hostel was Cecily and my first lesson in being aware, as our taxi cab driver pretended he didn't know english (he did, we realized later) then overcharged us 4 euro because he "couldn't find" our hostel, and drove an extra four blocks past where we were supposed to be dropped off. Luckily, our hostel itself ended up being a good choice; it looked more like a hotel than a hostel, and was centrally located and full of international travelers. Despite being put in a ¨mixed¨ 10 person dorm where Cecily and I were the only females, our room was big, and nice, and the hostel had all kinds of fancy amenities like an internet cafe, a restaurant and bar, and brightly colored lounges buzzing with people.

The Beautiful Eiffel Tower and The Scary Paris Metro Situation

Our first night in Paris, Ryan, Cecily and I decided to start from the top of our list of things to do, so we grabbed french pasteries and fresh crepes, (see picture) and headed out to see the Eiffel Tower. After getting off the Metro I figured it would be a bit of a walk - but surprisingly, as soon as we turned the corner, there it was in all of it's glory: THE Effel Tower, all lit up and sparkeling in red and white colors like a giant french flag.

Standing benath the lit up tower at exactly 1am, the three of us ooooooh-ed and aaaaaah-ed with a crowd of tourists and cuddling couples as we watched the last glittering lightshow of the night.

After the lights went out we started walking back up a hill toward the Metro station, and suddenly became engulfed in a crowd of chanting Turkish teenagers who were celebrating the country´s futbol victory earlier in the night. As we walked into the echoing metro hallway, their chants got louder and louder, and a crowd of about ten African men who had been selling scarves and token eiffel towers started following our group closely behind. As the Turkish teenagers turned one corner we turned another, and the crowd of men followed - speaking in a language I didn´t recognize, and laughing in our general direction. Cecily, Ryan and I walked faster, trying to move away from them, but they kept following us. Suddenly, I felt a hand go to grab my butt from behind, then proceed to move further into my pants. Even before fear, my immediate reaction was that of furious anger, and aggression - I swung my arm behind me and hit his, then turned around to see one of the men standing there a couple feet from me with a scared, bewildered expression on his face. I was livid. How the hell could a strange man think it´s okay to touch a woman like that? To make an object of me in a crowd of men, and to treat me like some piece of ass that would just submit and not fight back? I realized subconciously that it was a very dangerous situation I was in, but in that moment, all I wanted to do was kill the guy. And I´m pretty sure he knew it, because as I turned around and looked him straight in the eyes, we stared at each other for a brief second, and he slowly began backing away with his hands up in the air, saying "ohhh, it´s all good, no problems here, no problems here" with his friends following suit at his side.

As soon as they started backing away, my fight intinct wore off, and all I wanted to do was run. Cecily and Ryan weren´t completely clear on what had happened, but they knew it wasn´t good. So the three of us ran - just looking back to make sure we weren´t being followed - and caught the next metro back to our hostel. I shook it off, and thank God for Ryan being there or it might have been much worse... but it made me pause. What if it had just been me and Cecily, ten guys, and 1am in an empty metro hallway. What could we have done? I don´t even know how to say HELP in French. Would there have been anyone there to protect us? For the first time ever, I felt completely vulnerable, realizing that my fighting instincts can only go so far, and even though my aggression scared the guy off, I was really lucky.

The Beautiful Bike Tour and Sketchy Arc du Triumph Riot

Sticking with the theme of Paris being both incredably gorgeous but also at times dangerously unpredictable, our Friday in the city was quite an adventure. We started out the day with a baguette covered in nutella, (my new favorite condiment) then headed to the Eiffel Tower to meet up with our bicycle tour.

Seeing Paris by bike was a great idea - it's a very bike-friendly city, (they have "rentable" bikes all over the place that you can use for free as long as they're returned within 1/2 an horu) and despite it being cold and drizzly, we were able to see a good portion of the city's major landmarks in the five hours of our tour. Like our experience in London, instead of describing each place we visited, I'll refer you to my facebook album for pictures and descriptions of the highlights.

That being said, here are a few fun little stories:

-When we stopped for lunch, we asked the waitors to take our picture at the table. They were goofy and hilarious, and ended up just taking a bunch of pictures of themselves, then handing us the camera back. See below.

- Paris was constructed in a way that is very aesthetically appealing - all the streets are designed parallel to one another, and they all lead to major landmarks and central parts of the city. Our tour guide told us a little anecdote about how this was annoying for the man who funded the building of the Eiffel tour, because at the time it was built, the French people (he included) hated it and thought it was ugly. Even still, every day for months on end this man would go to the Eiffel Tower, and would spend hours sitting on the first floor and eating lunch there. As the story goes, one day a waitress asked him why he bothered to visit so often if he hated the structure so much. His response was "well this is the only place in the city I can enjoy a good meal without having to look at this eyesore." (Because you can see it from everywhere in the city.)

- More than anything, what makes Paris such a striking city is the overwhelming presence of aesthetic beauty. Everywhere you walk (or bike in our case) there are delicately carved statues, huge gardens filled with bright colored flowers, bridges and museums covered in limestone and gold. Every picture we took could have been a painting at another angle - the dramatic clouds, vivid colors, and intricate architecture of the city is every bit as romantic as I imagined.

Our final night in Paris, on our way back from Disneyland (which I'm dedicating a whole post to :) we thought it would be a good farewell to Paris to see the Arc du Triumph all lit up around midnight. You would think that our first post-midnight experience with the Paris metro would have taught us that this wasn't the best idea, but we figured it was harmless.

...That is, until we walked out of the station, and straight into an Algerian riot. Apparently, Algeria qualified for the semi-finals in futbol, and several thousand people came to (happily?) riot under the Arc, which turned into one big, chaotic mess. We walked a couple hundred feet out of the station, and nearly got run over by a car full of people - a guy driving and three ladies in burkahs - who were standing up through the sunroof and waving Algerian flags out both sets of car windows. Naturally, the French police were annoyed, so a couple hundred feet away they started throwing tear gas, and a crowd of people began rushing toward us from across the street. At that point, all three of us looked at each other, and promptly began running back toward the enterance to the Metro station.

Quaint and Friendly London (Thu-Sat)

With all of the rave reviews I had going into London, I had high expectations. I'm a huge fan of European history and Monty Python (funny how the two go together) and I also have a handful of friends who have studied abroad and visited London, all of whom returned back to the US completely infatuated.

That being said, after only two and a half days in the city, you can count me in as another convert. Cecily and I arrived with an open mind, and left with about 300 pictures and countless stories of new friends and a series of very unconventional adventures.

The Hostel Experience

For starters, we stayed in a hostel entitled "Journey's London Eye" which in reality was about a 15-20 minute walk from the actual landmark. It was funky and cute, with free breakfast, (FINALLY some cereal instead of the usual 2 pieces of white bread!!) all for only 10 pounds a night. The drawbacks of course, were the fact that we were in a room with 15 other people (co-ed, we realized when an Austrian supermodel made his entrance at 10pm wearing only tighty whiteys) and of course the showers didn't have hot water past 6am, so Cecily and I had to take ice water showers in a tiny shower stall with push button water. (Alot like the ones at the beach, except colder and half the water pressure.)

Here's a little tour of our hostel room when we first arrived: [notice, wearing the same clothes for two days in a row]

Beautiful Thursday

Our first day in London, we majorly lucked out. It was sunny, and absolutely gorgeous - not a bit dreary as we expected. We spent most of the day just exploring the city, and all of my pictures turned out great, with the dramatic clouds and beautiful lighting - especially from atop the London Eye. (See the facebook link for the best of pictures.)

Cecily had been to London before, so she showed me alot of the major sites: the London Eye, Westminister Abbey, Big Ben, Picadilly Circus, and of course Oxford Street where I've never seen so many incredable shopping opportunities in my life. (We caved in and bought 2 pound scarfs, and a matching pair of jeans for 25 pounds that look way better than anything I've ever worn in the US.) For dinner, we stopped by an indian food place that I found on eurocheapo.com, and I was VERY impressed. A huge plate of incredable, delicious indian food (with vegetables!!! I can't tell you how happy I was to finally see veggies again!!) and fresh squeezed orange juice for only 6 pounds each :) ...And of course, we also had english tea, and the famous "Ben's Cookies" for dessert, so by the end of the night the combination of tiredness and food coma was enough to make even hostel beds seem appealing.

Here´s a video I took of Big Ben chiming at sunset: (I didn´t realize that there was such a big pause between the intro chime and the ¨BONG, BONG, BONG¨s)

Bicycling, New Friends & Billy Jean

Arguably the best day of our weekend, on Saturday we took a five hour bicycle tour all through the city, and covered way more ground than we ever could have just on foot. For pictures of all the highlights, check out my facebook album:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2464733&id=3227554&l=4338f7a861

While on the tour, we met Laurence and Fred - an engineering student studying abroad in Valencia, and his good friend who just graduated and is a French tutor in a London prep school. The two grew up together in Quebec (which makes them ¨French Canadians¨) and we all hit it off, and ended up hanging out in a chocolate themed pub for a few hours after we finnished bicycling. :) After admitting how embarrassingly little Cecily and I knew about Canada, we had a fun discussion about comparative cost of living, life after college, and the overall differences in university life between our countries. (In Quebec they do 2 years of ¨college¨ for general ed, then four years of ¨university¨ to specialize, so a degree takes 6 years instead of 4. Also, there isn´t much school spirit like we have in the US, but people do ralley around hockey, which is by far the most important sport in Canada.)

After our fun afternoon and evening bicycling and drinking chocolate, we headed to the tube to meet up with a group of new Dutch friends we met in our hostel, who invited us to join them at an international Christian conference happening right outside the city. Cecily and I had absolutley no idea what to expect - all we knew was that ten adorable Dutch people invited us to some conference, and why not? It would be adventure at the very least. So after a 45 minute tube ride, we arrived at a huge convention center with thousands of beaming people wearing I heart church shirts, and welcoming us back to the ¨Hillsong International Conference - London 2009.¨ Reservations put aside, we ran into the giant auditorium to get seats, and were immediately surrounded with singing, smiling and clapping people, happy to welcome us to the event. The lights dimmed, and a bonafied rock concert began, with singalong words scrolling across the top screen. Having gone to a Christian middle school and a fair share of church services back in the US, the general format of the conference wasn´t completely foreign to me. ...But 3,000 plus people, from 47 different countries, all rocking out to guitar solos and reggae compilations of worship songs? That was definitally a new experience.

After the conference ended, we headed back toward our hostel with all of our new friends, and just watched, laughing in disbelief as they sang, danced, and goofed around in the metro station like happy little kids. We passed by an english pub, and they invited us in for a drink - clarifying that just because you love the lord, doesn´t mean you can´t also love a good pint of english beer.

We all squeezed into a row of booths in the pub, and the more we got to know these crazy dutch people, the more interesting they became. Of the 4 girls and 6 guys, most were in their early to mid 20s, and all had real, interesting jobs like a chemical engineers, a pilots, and an account manager for a major international company. We all talked about our homes - contrasting windmills and little stone houses with the warm beaches of San Diego, and Colorado´s Rocky Mountains. Since none of them had ever visited California or Colorado before, we ended up drawing rough maps of the US and our respective states on a napkin, and giving them general landmarks such as Disneyland, Yosemite, and San Fransisco for California, and both Denver and Colorado Springs in Colorado.

After about an hour of explaining American culture and the beautiful places we live, (they all want to visit now) one of the guys started beat boxing, which turned into an all-out karaoke session and dance-off between the American and dutch members of our table. Cecily and I taught them the electric slide, and then in three part harmony, we all belted ¨Billy Jean,¨ (this was only after one glass of wine, mind you) and we talked one of the guys into showing us his freestyle dance skills, which I think Michael Jackson would have been very impressed by. Sadly, my camera died so I didn´t record any of this (they promised me they´d email me their videos, so I´ll put them up as soon as I get them!) but it was by far, the most spontaneous, rediculous, and fun night we could have possibly spent in London.

Wednesday Night: Bummin' it in the Madrid Airport

Backpack, bag dinner, and airport clothes in tow, I left 20 minutes early from my 7:30-9:30pm Business Spanish class to catch a bus to the Madrid airport with Cecily. Our adventure started out a bit rough, as a mean Spanish lady stole our cab (we were about to get in and she cut us off, pushed herself in, and explained that "she wanted to get home for dinner") then our bus showed up at the wrong terminal, which we realized when an angry man came over and yelled at us, telling us we were holding everyone else up.

Here's a video that we made at the bus station about 5 minutes before getting yelled at, ironically.


So after finally making it onto the bus, the excitement continued when about an hour into our trip a Chineese man sitting in front of us turned around, and offered to "present himself to us" in very broken english. The conversation went something like this:

Sketchy Chineese Man (SCM): "Excuse me. I hear English voices and turn around to see two beautiful American girls. It not easy to talk to beautiful American girls. So let me present myself to you. I am from China. My name is [roughly] gih gah tic. But it not true, because I am small, ha ha. What do you study?

Cecily: we're studying business and spanish at Salamanca too.

SCM: Oh really? Well good. I have business proposition for you. For only 2 euro, you come visit China and have tour in any city you choose. AND home cooked Chineese meal.

Michelle: It's going to cost alot more than 2 euro for us to fly to China...

SCM: No, you see tour is only 2 euro. And you pick city. I fly anywhere in China you go. It is serious. You come to China. I give you 2 euro tour. Good deal.

...By that time, both Cecily and I were trying not to die laughing at him, and he looked sad that we were rejecting his offer. We told him thanks but no thanks, and he left us alone for the rest of the trip. (Thank God.] Good news is, now if we ever decide to take a weekend trip to China, we'll know who to call!

After the bus incident our trip mellowed out alot, with about 8 hours of sleeping in the airport before we had to check-in for our flight. (Check in was 9:30am, we got into the airport at 1:30am.) Instead of describing the wonderfully vagabond experience that was, here is a video that will give you a better idea:

The Crazy Weekend Adventure (Intro)

Sitting here in the University computer lab, I´m drinking out of my leftover water bottle from France, eating a bocadillo (baguette with some kind of hot red, salty sausage. mmmm.) and sorting through a pile of metro maps, plane ticket stubs, pennies, pence, and pounds in my change purse to try and find just 50 euro cents to buy a freakin juice box.

Welcome to my life.

While on the train between London and Paris, I started making lists of all the stories I want to update you with that I haven´t had time or reliable internet to put up yet. On the queue, we have stories about my awesome but challenging classes, more about the nightlife and overall atmosphere of beautiful Salamanca, funny observations such as people wearing t-shirts with english words that they obviously have no idea the meaning of (ex: Spanish guy wearing a Dodgers shirt - I asked him, and he didn´t actually know who the Dodgers were. Friend´s host brother wearing UCLA shirt, didn´t know what or where UCLA actually was. Italian guy wearing a shirt that said ´red hot chilly pepper ice cream.´) and then of course more about my little host family, the increasingly strange food I´m being fed (last night my senora made us each 2 purple colored hamburgers the size of my hands) and all the awesome Spanish frases I´ve been learning, like ´que mono!!´ (´how cute!´ or if you tried to translate it literally into english, ´what monkey!´) and ´mi media naranja´ which means ´my other half - assuming we´re all oranges, just waiting to find our other halves somewhere out there :) Que mono, si?

...that being said, with all of the updating and picture uploading I want to do first from this crazy five day weekend, I have a feeling that my ambitious list of stories are going to take a back seat for now.

So, if you can ´perdon´ the delay, then let´s begin with my crazy, exhausting, slighly dangerous, but incredably fun five day weekend adventure. [I'm going to do it in blog segments, so it's easier to read.]

Fashion Commentary in the Plaza

March of the Bearded Ladies

Hellen Keller, Little Black Men and Other Dinnertime Conversation

Dinnertime here is always an eventful cultural learning experience. Me, and my two housemates Marissa (“Swissa”) and Judith (who I thought was “Utis” because of her strong Dutch accent) sit at the table with Mari Carmen, eying whatever she has piled on our plate for the night (we’ve learned just not to ask) and trying our best to carry on dinnertime conversation. Marissa and I can both speak enough Spanish to get our basic point across, but there is usually a lot of gesturing and attempts at re-conjugating words before Mari Carmen fully understands us. Judith on the other hand, poor thing, doesn’t speak any Spanish at all. So with me as the English to Spanish translator, and mixed bag of Dutch, Swiss, American and Spanish culture, our meals usually end in bouts of hysterical laughter with a healthy dose of resigned confusion.

At tonight’s dinner, I spent a good portion of the meal explaining 3OH3’s “don’t trust me” song to the table, as both the girls recognized the tune, but didn’t understand the words. (Mari Carmen was amused, but had no idea what we were talking about.) Apparently, they don’t learn about Helen Keller in Switzerland or Holland, so I had to break it down and learn the Spanish words for “deaf” and “blind” (Mari Carmen must be REALLY good at charades) then translate “shush girl, shut your lips, do the Hellen Keller and talk with your hips” into Spanish. (Roughly: Callete chica, cerra tus labios, haz la “Hellen Keller” y hable con tus… I don’t remember the word for hips.) I then explained that it was a joke, because since Hellen Keller couldn’t see or talk, all she could do was “talk with her hips.” They finally got it, and everyone laughed – including Mari Carmen.

We also had a very interesting conversation last night about Christmas traditions here in Europe. Judith brought these great cinnamon cookies from Holland, and she was explaining to me in English (which I had to translate into Spanish for Mari Carmen) how the cookies are part of the whole Christmas tradition where she’s from. Apparently, in Holland Santa Clause is from Turkey, but lives in Spain, and around Christmas time he travels up to northern Europe with his possy of “little black men” (since they hang out in chimneys) and his white horse (yeah, no reindeer) to collect the shoes of little children and bring them gifts. The way she described these little black men is very much like how we see leprechauns on St. Patty’s day – they’re “naughty little people” who help Santa out, but like to play practical jokes. For this reason, when the Christmas celebration begins on December 5th (because it’s Santa Clause’s birthday) little children wake up to a trashed house, with toys, cookies and small gifts scattered all over the place, compliments of the mischvious little black men.

Oh, but it doesn’t end there. Beginning in February, the little black men hide under tables and throughout the house to watch little children and make sure they’re being good. They report back directly to Santa, and if the children indeed deserve presents, then Santa Clause will come and reward them on Christmas morning. (Finally, something that sounds familiar.) To avoid Santa’s blacklist, kids put one of their shoes in front of the fireplace (no socks like us!) and fill it with carrots for Santa’s horse, and notes thanking him for bringing them presents. On Christmas Eve, Dutch children sit around the fireplace and sing songs into the Chimney so Santa will hear, and if all goes well, when they fall asleep he will come and deliver presents.

As I sat there translating this crazy story, and all Mari Carmen did was just nod her head and agree – the only difference, is here in Spain Santa comes on Christmas, but all the good presents are saved until January 7th, when the wise men brought gifts to baby Jesus. (Spanish tradition is very strongly Roman Catholic.) The idea of a white horse and a possy of little black men wasn’t anything unusual… and in fact, out of the four of us, I was the only person at the table who was left completely flabbergasted by our conversation.

Now, I’m especially looking forward to tomorrow’s dinner conversation. Maybe I’ll bring up Thanksgiving, and see how that goes over? “You see, when the Puritans first came over to the New World, and made friends with the Indians…”

A Tour of the New Cathedral...

(Make sure you turn up your volume, because I had to whisper :) )

My favorite study spot

The Workout Park

While on a run the other day, I discovered a park right by my house with some very strange exercize equipment - but even more strange were the people using it. Mostly elderly men and women would go around and do the machines wearing both normal and dressy street clothes, and their equally elderly friends would just sit around and watch. I had so much fun playing in the park by myself that I brought Cecily and Ryan back with me later in the night to make a little video blog demonstration. Hope you enjoy :)

Bienvenidos a Salamanca!

Even just by first impression, I can already tell that I am going to love it here in Salamanca. After a four hour bus ride from Toledo on Sunday afternoon, we arrived in Salamanca and headed into town to meet our families. Driving through the city, I watched out the window as row after row of winding cobblestone streets passed by, overflowing with the most stylish collection of European people I’ve ever seen. (Most young guys wear designer jeans and expensive sunglasses, and practically all the women wear heels – even the old ladies with their canes and walkers!) As we got further into town, we passed by little fruterias, carnecerias and panaderias, (Spanish people buy their fruit, meat and bread all at different specialty stores here to make sure it’s fresh), and past little neighborhood parks where dozens of people just sit on benches at all hours of the day, watching passerby, talking about life, and reading the day’s paper.

When we finally arrived at the bus stop, I felt like little orphan Annie waiting to be adopted. Twenty elderly and middle-aged women stood at the edge of the sidewalk pointing at the bus, talking loudly, and waving at us through the windows. As I grabbed my giant suitcases, I waited for my name to be called, and turned around just in time to see a smiling middle aged lady walking toward me with her arms wide open, ready to shower me with hugs and kisses. Mari Carmen was everything I had hoped and expected from a Spanish mother: warm, forgiving of my faltering Spanish, and beaming with joy at the prospect of having a new “hija” in her house for the semester.

The minute we arrived at her home, I knew that I had majorly lucked out. Six stories up and centrally located near the north end of the city, Mari Carmen’s “house” (more like an apartment/flat) has eight rooms including the bathrooms, parlor and kitchen, and is indeed very “large and nicely decorated” as it said on my housing assignment sheet.

...But of course, the best part of it all is my room. Right next to the front door at the lower end of the house, I have a gigantic bedroom with two large dressers, a desk, chairs, a queen sized bed, and a big window that looks out over the entire city. My housemate Marissa (I call her Marissa Swissa because she’s from Switzerland :) ) lives in the bedroom across the hall, and we both share a large bathroom that has a washer, a dryer, and a small stand-up shower which fills up most of the extra walking space.

Every day, Mari Carmen takes out my trash, cleans my floors, and makes my bed, (I’ve tried to make my own bed to be nice, but it doesn’t matter – she re-makes it in her special way) and she absolutely loves being the mother of our little house of women. She cooks for hours every day, and feeds us extravagantly (“estoy llena” or “I am full” is pretty much my motto at every meal, because she usually gives me 2-3 normal portions of everything, then tries to offer me 2-3 more) and already I’ve gotten into the habit of sitting and talking with her during meals, or sharing her love of ridiculous Spanish television. (At lunch and dinner we watch hilarious cooking shows, badly dubbed American movies, and Spanish Jerry Springer or wheel of Fortune.)

Oh yeah, and she doesn’t understand a word of English.

So needless to say, this is going to be quite an adventure of a quarter… but it has started out well. Already, even in such a drastically different place I feel oddly at home, cuddled here in my warm bed, watching the sun set over the crimson rooftops outside my window.

NOTE: To see my pictures thus far, click this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2459840&id=3227554&l=12550e7a5a