Saturday, November 27th

Katy and I in the bus on the way
to Palma

Today we got up at 9:30 to eat our free breakfast buffet. It was so good! We had eggs, bacon, fruit, cereal, orange juice, and tea. I was very happy with the food!

Palma cathedral

After breakfast we all decided to go back to bed for a while. I took Niquil Friday night because I wasn’t feeling well and it hadn’t worn off all the way so I passed back out until after 1.

Finally Katy drug our butts out of bed to go into Palma center. The bus ride was only about 15 minutes from our hotel, but when we got there practically everything was closed. We went to a little café for lunch. I had a grilled ham and cheese. I know that is so un-adventurous, but I wanted some “comfort” food. J

gooooofy :)

After lunch we walked back to the palace of Palma. It had already closed, but it was still super pretty from the outside! Iman and I found a playground and went swinging for a while. We tried to go to the cathedral too, but it was already closed for the day as well. November is off-season for Mallorca, so most everything closed super early or wasn’t open at all.

Christmas Market!!

We did end up getting to visit the Roman baths. It was pretty cool to see such an old structure, but I don’t think I need to see another one. It was just two little rooms and a short video about the baths and the island. We were literally the only 4 people in the entire museum!!

After touring the baths, we went to Plaza Mayor. There was a Christmas market set up so we walked around looking at different tourist items. We all ended up buying junk food at one stand. I literally ended up with the BIGGEST cotton candy I’d ever seen in my entire life! It was MASSIVE!! I couldn’t even finish it, I know, cardinal sin. J

love me some cotton candy! :)

Next we headed to Plaza España, which also had a sweet Christmas Market. There were also a lot of kiddy rides and a portable ice skating rink. We wanted to go ice skating but the line was crazy long, so we gave up!

We found a café restaurant to split tapas. It was alright, but nothing like the tapas in Seville. We split two salads and some meatballs. By this time it was about 8 and we realized that the last bus came at 8:30, so we decided to head back to the hotel. 

Katy and Iman went out to find some more bread so we could dig into the food bag that my senora had packed for us! Mikaela and I stayed in the room and relaxed. The girls couldn’t find a supermarket that was open so they came back with a veggie pizza! They had found this cute café with cocktails and live music, so they convinced the two of us to go back out with them.

cocktail bar! :)

The bar was so much fun. It was a very chill, sit down place, but the atmosphere was awesome. I ordered a Sex on the Beach and Katy had a Pina Coloda. Iman and I split hot wings too! J The musician was an older man playing the guitar and singing. He was hilarious and kept singing American songs like Sweet Home Alabama and Proud Mary. We kept singing along and cheering for him. It was seriously a blast!

poor sick Katie :(

After we got done at the bar (around 10 pm), we decided to call it a night. I worked on my blog and some homework and fell asleep around midnight! J

Friday, November 28th

view from our hotel terrace

Friday I woke up feeling sick again. My immune system is really starting to tick me off! My first grammar class was meeting at a chocolate and churros place instead of the school, so I was really upset I had to miss it, there was just no way I could stomach it. Instead I went back to bed for a couple of hours before meeting Katy at the airport.

sunset on the beach

Since it was Thanksgiving weekend and we knew we would be homesick and missing all of our friends and families, we booked a weekend in the island of Mallorca. Seemed like the best idea in the world at the time, but it’s awfully cold here for an island! It’s seriously only in the 50s! :-\

Katy, me, Mikaela, and Iman
in Mallorca!! :)

Katy and I’s flight was at 1:30 for just under an hour. Mikaela and Iman had flown to the island the day before. When we got to our hotel, we settled in and then headed to the beach to watch the sunset. Katy and I were determined to get a tan, but the sun set too fast and it was too chilly, therefore our northfaces never came off to show off our bikinis! L

Katy and I

After watching the sun set, we came back to the hotel and cleaned up to go to dinner. Our hotel had a 12 euro all you can eat buffet and it was EXCELLENT!! I had a great salad, cheese, ham and bread, pasta, ice cream, fish sticks, and some fruit. SO GOOD! We found out at dinner that we can’t drink the tap water here. It’s not super unsafe, it just has lots of minerals in it or something that might give you a stomach ache. I’m already sick enough so I’m not chancing it with the water too!

Thursday, November 25th

Me, Teresa, and Jaime

Thanksgiving Day!! … not quite so exciting in a foreign country. One of my professors bought chocolates during our lunch break to celebrate with us.

The 25^th is also Saint Katherine’s Day, so I celebrated a little with my family. My Spanish mommy bought me this super cute black tank top and my sister got me a stuffed puppy (I think that’s a hint that she wants Pablito – her stuffed doggy – back). My Spanish uncle and cousin got me a little action figure of a Spanish soccer guy. I’m not really sure who it is, but Jaime told me he’s super hot and all the girls love him. Fine by me!!

For class Thursday I had to do my education class all alone. Even though I like the teacher, 3 hours, one-on-one is pure torture! She even made me do a project on my own – I had to come up with my own company in class and present it to her. It was working out fine, until the permanent marker bled all over the table!! Instead of saved by the bell, I was saved by the marker! She found some rubbing alcohol and we scrubbed the table the last 20 minutes, trying to hide it whenever her boss came by. Hilarious!! J

Juanjo and me! :)

Thursday nights are my language exchange nights with my Spanish uncle. We did our normal walk around the block, end up at VIPS. He’s reading a book in both English and Spanish, so he had a ton of vocabulary words to ask me about. A ton is seriously an overstatement. In the two hours we spent together, we only got to page number 3 in his book! One of hi vocabulary questions was about what “Peter” means and a “childish stub” and “sprouting”. When I read the paragraph where all these words were coming from I realized that it was about a boy “coming of age”. Talk about AWKWARD! I also had some papers that I wanted him to look at, so my awesome sister printed them out after she got done with classes and brought them down to VIPS. Jaime also joined us for the last 30 minutes. I’m pretty sure Juanjo will not be inviting them back because they were way too much of a distraction.

The best part of Thursday was getting to talk to all of my family. Even though it made me super homesick to see everyone enjoying Thanksgiving at my house, it was great to see everyone. Teresa skyped with me too to meet all my family. She couldn’t understand any of the kids which made me laugh. My littlest cousin kept showing me his monster cookie saying that he had a cookie monster. He tried to feed it to me through the computer too.. Adorable!! J

Tuesday, November 23rd

8!!!!!!

Day number, 8. We lived.

Monday, November 22nd

Monday I woke up feeling sick. I swear it wasn’t the single glass of tinto de verano I drank the night before, I legit was sick. Since I’d been up most the night, I knew I would be worthless in class, if I even made it that far, so I emailed the coordinator and went back to bed.

My abuela was so sweet with me. She heard me up in the night, so she got up and made me tea, brought it to me in bed and sat with me while I drank it. Throughout the day she would stop in and make sure I was still alive and tuck me back in. It felt great to be pampered! J

Later that afternoon Teresa and Ana came home. By then I was feeling a lot better so I ate lunch with the two of them and we ended up talking and hanging out later that afternoon.

That night, Teresa and I were being goofy and kind of freaking out because it’d been a week since we’d watched The Ring (in the movie, 7 days after you watch the movie you die). We kept texting each other and saying that we heard Samara (the killer girl). 

Sunday, November 21st

Dani and I -- Mahomet Girls! :)

Sunday I woke up not feeling 100%, but pushed through and got lots of homework done. One of my senora’s good friends came over for lunch. Again, we had a huge feast. These Spanish people sure know how to cook for guests!!

After lunch, I hit the books again. I also ended up skyping with one of Teresa’s friends on my computer because her webcame wasn’t working.

Teresa and I in the metro

I wanted to meet up with Dani again before she headed back to Murica, so Teresa and I met her at 100 Montanditos (she’d never been, so of COURSE I had to change that) for a late snack that turned into dinner. It was great to catch up with her because it made me think of home. J

Saturday, November 20th

the hair stylist herself

Saturday we couldn’t sleep in too long because we had plans to go to a relative’s house for lunch. Conchita must have come in Teresa and my rooms six times trying to get us to get out of bed! Teresa and I kept arguing over who would take first shower. I finally decided I better get up so I didn’t get left!

After my shower, I got desperate for a haircut, so I asked Teresa to give me a trim after my shower. She was so nervous that she was going to mess it up, but I just wanted her to get rid of my split ends, so it wasn’t a huge deal. You can’t even tell that my hair is a different length, it just looks healthier.

 

Lunch was excellent. First we had some snacks in the living room. We ate ham, which was WAY saltier than anything I’ve ever had in the states, and some sort of cracker spread. Teresa wouldn’t tell me what the spread was until after I’d tried it. It was duck liver.. nmb.. Absolutely disgusting!! Since Teresa and I are basically the same person, she doesn’t like it either, but the rest of the family loves the spread!

Lunch was ridiculous the amount of food they served us. First we ate this steamed vegetable dish that was delicious! Next there was this seafood dish with clams, shrimp, fish, asparagus, and eggs. It was so good! Next we had a huge cup of fruits. We ate pomegranate, peaches, mangos, and apple chunks. After that they brought out platters of little cake like desserts. Again, delicious. Next we had coffee and then the uncle/cousin gave me a shot of some after dinner liquor. I felt awkward because he asked me first and I said sure I’d try it, but then everyone else declined the offer. I didn’t want to seem like the alcoholic, but I also didn’t want to be rude at that point, so I tried it, hated it, and gave it back to him. My alcohol taste testing was amusing to him, so he proceeded to make me try cognac, which I’m pretty sure severed my nose hairs (although it tasted much smoother than it smelt).

 

After dinner we all sat around talking and hanging out. We finally went home around 6 or 7 pm. Teresa went over to Monica’s house to study and I was planning on going out with Dani and a bunch of her friends from Murcia. As the night went on I started feeling punier and punier and in the end I ended up not going out. 

Friday, November 19th

yum lemons :)

Birthday Crew :)

Friday was one of Teresa’s friend’s birthdays. So after they got done with classes, I met all of Teresa’s friends from her university across town to go out to dinner for Marta’s bday!

Before dinner Teresa and I walked by our Abu’s house because it was close by. She didn’t have the key though so I just got to see the outside of the apartment complex. Fail Teresa, Fail. Haha!

<3

:)

We went to eat at this cheeseburger restaurant. I was so happy to eat some American food!! It stuck though because they messed up our cheeseburgers and put onions on mine and Teresa’s. L They were little onions too so there was no just scrapping them off, oh well there’s worse things in life. I also split a fried calamari dish with Teresa and Ana.

After dinner we went to this cocktail bar nearby. The inside of the bar looked like a cave! It was super cool and they played great music! Ana, Teresa, and I split a couple of HUGE cocktails. They were yummy, but super strong!

DANI!!!!!

"new coats"

The cocktail bar got really crowded around 1 am, so we decided to switch locations. One of my good friends from home, Danielle Osmond, is studying in Murcia Spain, but was in Madrid for the weekend, so we met her at a metro stop and she came out with us!

Finally, around 4 am, we decided to call it a night and head for the night buses. Naturally it was raining. If you’ve been following my blog, you know I have a little bit of trouble with my umbrella.. The darn thing opened up inside out. I’m not kidding like full on the opposite direction… Not too helpful for keeping Dani and I dry. I got in trouble the next morning for not telling my senora sooner and getting a new umbrella! Haha!

Thursday, November 18th

Teresa and I

Today my amazingly, awesome, Spanish uncle came over and helped me for THREE hours with homework!!! He corrected 3, 5 page papers for me!!! What a relief to have those suckers turned it and out of my hands!!!! :-D I was so happy and grateful!! Seriously!! I never expected him to stay so long! 5:30 to almost 8:30! My goodness! He told me that he'd love to help me again too! Have I said enough that I LOVE my Spanish family?!?!

Now for an explanation for the photos... A few weeks ago when I went out to dinner with Teresa and her friends at this Chinese restaurant, Teresa picked up the buisness card so I could go back. I didn't really want the card so I stuck it in her pocket. While I was brushing my teeth she put it back on my desk in my bedroom.. From that moment on we hid the chino card in each other's belongings.

poor chino card :(

Well on Wednesday I found the BEST hiding spot EVER... in her umbrella!!!! Seriously, I'm a genius, I know! The problem was that when she opened up the umbrella, the card fell underneath Marta's car in a huge, nasty puddle. Teresa left the poor card there to drown.. :( So we wore gray/black on Thursday to morn the loss of the chino card!! :)

Wednesday, November 17th

Katies

Today for my Education class, we went to the Institute Cervantes to get familiar with the library and do some research for our final papers. I’m writing about the importance of games in foreign language classes. I’m having a little trouble finding a lot of theory on the topic, but I have some time! I really like the library though. I think I’m going to start using it to study once in a while. The problem is that the building closes at 6 pm, so I can’t stay very late.

Me, Teresa, and Ana

Fail.

Wednesday night we went out for dinner at 100 Montanditos, one of my favorite restaurants in Madrid! Wednesday night if you buy a drink and a sandwich they’re both 1 euro. I went with 3 girls from school and invited Teresa and one of her friends, Ana, to come too! It was so much fun just to sit around and talk in Spanish. Definitely needed that after how much homework I have to do!! 

Tuesday, November 16th

Teresa and Abu

Today I had my language exchange with Juanjo in the evening. As always we walked around the block and ended up getting Cokes and our normal restaurant, VIPS. I just love talking with him because he’s so eager to learn English and always comes with all sorts of questions for me. He watches some English learning TV show, does this program on the computer, and is reading a book in Spanish and comparing it with the English copy. It’s just so adorable how excited he is to learn English!! AND I can seriously tell he’s improving. Obviously I can’t take all the credit, if even any at all, but it still makes me feel good! J

Towards the end of our chat he asked if there was any way he could help me with all of the homework I have. I told him I just didn’t know how he could, unless he wanted to become an expert on Picasso or write a paper on Lope de Vega. He offered to come by the house sometime and edit some of my work though. Although Teresa and my mom offer to help me, I feel bad making them look over EVERYTHING. I mean seriously. Who wants to read 6 pages comparing the Carlos IV family to the royal family today? I just don’t want to be a burden for anyone.  Anyways, we set up a date that he’d come on Thursday and we’d only speak in Spanish! J What a nice guy!!!

Monday, November 15th

our special buddies and THE RING
(on the flash drive!)

Monday night my sister and I watched The Ring in Spanish. I'm just going to throw this out there, I have a memory problem. I totally forgot more than half of the movie!! Teresa kept asking me if a scary part was coming up and I'd be like oh nooo, nothing - and then a dead guy would pop up on the screen. SORRY TERESA!! She thought I was lying to her the whole time.. Whoops! Plus the movie was in Spanish and that was just a challenge to watch a scary movie in Spanish.. NUTS! :)


In the end I should have slept in Teresa's room. I was fine until 6 am when I thought I heard her my room (I thought she came in to scare me or because she was scared). When I couldn't find the source of the noise, I was certain that Samara had come for me!!! Oh well.. I survived! :)

Sunday, November 14th

me and Teresa's stuffed puppy :)

Today we got up much later than Saturday. It was nice to get a couple extra hours of sleep and leisurely enjoy the hotel’s breakfast buffet.

First thing on our agenda was to see the public baths that were near our hotel. They were closed, but it was still cool to see the outside of them.

Granada = <3 

Next we walked up to another plaza to see another view of the Alhambra and the river. It was really pretty. Of course I got lots of pictures! J

We were going to try to go to the house of Garcia Lorca or this other building that was similar to a mosque, but the both ended up being too far away for the short time that we had before we had to catch our bus. In the end, we decided to go to the chapel where Fernado and Isabel, Juana la Loca and Juan el Hermoso are buried. The little church was really pretty and had lots of pretty artwork in it for such is size.

By this time we were all three pretty hungry so we went to another tapas bar near our hotel. The king and queen of Spain ate there a few years back, so we figured it had to be good. It was! We ordered chorizo, croquets, soup, and drinks.

After lunch it was time to get out of Granada. We picked up our luggage from the hotel and hailed a taxi to the bus station. Our bus ride was another 5 hours, but again I tried to utilize my time. I read 3 articles for my research paper for my education class (I’m writing about the importance of games in class), read some of our book for literature, and caught up on my blog! The bus was approximately 9 million degrees, so I sweated my butt off!!

for my Abu (Pilar)

When I got back home, my Spanish fam was all waiting to hear about my adventures! My mom had fixed a wonderful dinner, but the problem was I wasn’t feeling so great. My professor had been sick the week before and we had been sharing tapas all weekend, including bowls of soup. I know, I know, not the brightest move on my part!!

Beer and Wine :)

Anyways, I got the “sheer pleasure” of trying the Spanish version of Emergen-C. Teresa enjoyed watching me suffer through the glass WAY too much!! It wasn’t *too* bad, but the aftertaste was all powdery and nasty! So too “chase” the flavor, Teresa kindly handed me a piece of bread.. Thanks a lot brat!! :-P My mom got out the Christmas candies and made me eat a bunch of chocolate instead! J

Our "new bff".. Dona
has been replaced!

… Just for the record I woke up Monday morning feeling LOTS better! J

Saturday, November 13th

The Alhambra 

Saturday we got up at a decent time to tour the city. Our first stop was the Alhambra, an old palace/castle place. We had a guide for this part of the trip and she was awesome. The problem was that she spoke really fast and had a thick Andalucían accent. Katy and I couldn’t really understand the majority of what she said, but she was super sweet and tried to explain things to us. It was nice because it was just the three of us with her so she was able to take a lot of time and show us everything! She said she has a new house with a pool that she rents out to students if we ever want to study in Granada, so if you know anyone who is looking for a place in Granada, I can hook them up! J

The Alhambra was absolutely spectacular. All of the Muslim artwork was incredible. The architecture was amazing too. It was really cool to see the things that we’re learning about in class in real life. I was super bummed though because the Lion Patio is under construction. We still got to see the lions from the fountain, but it just wasn’t the same. The Lion Fountain is incredible because the way the water pressure works, on the hour, every hour, a lion shoots water out of its mouth. How awesome is that!? I was amazed that so long ago they had the methods to make that happen!

Katy and I at a pretty fountain

After visiting the Alhambra we ate lunch in a nearby Carmen restaurant. We had a menu del dia, but it kind of stunk. I really liked the soup, but my second course wasn’t that great. I ordered the chicken dish like Ana, but it was really pepper. The dessert was on the other end of the spectrum with no flavor. Overall I wasn’t impressed, but oh well, that’s life.

tree hugging

After lunch we were all pooped so we went back to the hotel to observe the Spanish Siesta. After resting for a solid hour and a half, we ventured back out into the city.

Katy, Ana, and I

We took the city bus up to this famous look-out point. It was so beautiful because you can see the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which were snow capped, and the Alhambra and the sun was setting.

Next we went down to the cathedral. We didn’t have a ton of time to see the cathedral because it closed about the time we got there, but it was still impressive. I really liked the organ and the altar.

Granada

Since the majority of the monuments had closed down for the day, we hit up the shopping district. I was determined to find boots, at that I did! Ana and Katy were super patient as I went from store to store trying on different pairs of shoes. In the end I found a fabulous pair that were fairly cheap. I also ended up buying a super cute headband. My professor kept saying how it was “me”. Haha!

pillow fight in the lobby :)

After our mini shopping spree, we went to another famous section of town to get tapas. We ended up at one of the most famous tapas bars in Granada. The food was delicious! We had a platter of different hams and chorizos, soup, bread, cheese, and more tinto de verano.

me and my boots <3 

We contemplated staying out after dinner, but we were all three so sleepy we decided just to call it a night so we could get up the next morning and do some more sightseeing. 

Friday, November 12th

Katy and I in the bus

Friday was a rough day of classes. We had 4 and a half hours of grammar to make up for the holiday we took Tuesday. During the middle class we were working on desires for the future, the past, and impossible. For some reason I just can’t differentiate between past desires and impossible desires. To me everything that you wished for in the past and didn’t receive is now impossible. All I know is during the break our professor told us we all needed to take a trip down the bar and drink a beer before the next class. We didn’t, but it sure was tempting! ;)

Our sweet hotel room

The second class though went a lot better. We did another activity with a theme we’ve been working on all week, indirect style (re-telling what someone else told you), and we all did really well on it. Maybe I won’t give up on Spanish after all!

After class I ran home to eat lunch and grab my luggage before heading to Granada for the weekend. I had some extra time so I was able to Skype with my parents too. It’d been like 2 weeks since I’d had a free moment to talk to them so it was really nice to get to chat. I was late to the bus stop though. Like it almost left without me... TOLD YOU HAD TO GET OFFLINE DAD!! My professor was like freaking out.. Whoops….

the street our hotel was on

Anyways Katy and I went to Granada this weekend with one of professors, Ana. She teaches us literature and right now grammar too (our grammar teachers change every couple weeks so that we get to learn different accents and different teaching styles). We’d already paid for this trip through our tuition, so it was nice not to really have to worry about money all weekend.

The bus ride to Granada was 5 hours! I took advantage of the time in the bus to work on some serious homework. I got a really good chunk of two of my four projects for my art teacher done. Makes me feel a little better about life, but I’m trying not think about how much more I have to do!

When we got to Granada we took a taxi to our hotel. Our hotel was AMAZING! It was in this old neighborhood in a remodeled Carmen style house. It was so beautiful – nothing like the nasty hostels we’ve become used to staying in!

Katy and I with our professor

After cleaning up a little, we went out for tapas at a local bar, next to our hotel. The food was so good. We ate some soup, chorizo, cheese, ham, and drank a couple glasses of wine. It was so much fun relaxing with our teacher. We were taking turns picking out boys in the bar and rating them on appearance 0-10! Haha!

   

When we got back to the hotel, it was 1 am so Katy jumped through a quick shower and we both passed out. Even though the pillow was a piece of pooh, I slept really well because my sister, Teresa, let me borrow one of her puppy stuffed animals named Pablo. Haha! J