Thursday, October 28th

picnic lunch :)

So today Luke and I woke up and decided to go to Florence for the day. Pisa is a beautiful little town, but only has so much to offer, train tickets were only 5,80, the ride was only 70 minutes, and we really wanted to see another Italian city -- so off to Florence we went!!

in front of the churches

We got to Florence around lunch time. I grabbed a sandwich from a local market and we ate a picnic lunch in the grass in front of a gorgeous church. It turned out to be a really nice day -- FINALLY!!

For the majority of the day we just wandered around the city, stopping anywhere that was free!! A lot of the churches had this white and green theme on the exterior. They reminded me a little of Chautauqua colors! They were super pretty! 

resting in the Plaza, having a
little karaoke sesh

Luke and I ended up stopping to rest in a town square across the river. It was really peaceful, even though there were tons of tourists. There was even a local musician playing the guitar/harmonica and singing in English. Naturally Luke and I sang along. HILARIOUS! :) People must have known I was Lee Wagers's daughter because I must have been asked to take pictures of couples at least half a dozen times!!

river in Florence

I think my favorite church so far in Europe was the last one we went to in Florence, Santa Maria del Santo Spirito. It didn't look like much from the outside and we almost skipped it. The church was practically empty, but had a ton of really beautiful paintings. My favorite was a one of Jesus talking to an adulteress. I loved how  the painter, Alessandro Allori, captured the compassion and forgiveness of Jesus. 

The church also had a crucifix sculpted by Michelangelo at the age of 18. It was incredible! All of the details that he put into the muscles and tendons, which ones would have been flexed and defined from the position Jesus was in. AMAZING! 

sweet fountain

By this point it was getting to be about 4, so we started heading back in the direction of the train station. We stopped outside a castle and a bunch of really sweet statues! There was also an awesome fountain. Idk who it really was of, but I'd like to pretend it was Zeus. It's weird to see all these statues of naked men! haha!

We finally got back to the train station just in time to catch the 5:57 train! Great timing, I'd say! We got back to Pisa just after 7 and headed straight to a restaurant our receptionist suggested in Pisa. Oh my goodness it was SO good! We both ordered tortellinis in alfredo sauce with ham and regular cokes. Luke totally copied me.  He wants to be me I'm pretty sure.

delicious dinner!!

Back at the hostel we took books to the common room and sat around reading and Facebooking. Obviously I'm working on my blog too!! We were planning on going on a pub crawl with our hostel, but it doesn't start until 11 pm. We've got an early wake up call, so we've opted just to head to bed pretty soon so we can live it up again tomorrow! :)

Wednesday, October 27th

train rides = exciting with us!

Today we were once again woken up before planned. I was seriously concerned that the trailer was going to tip over it was rocking so much. Luke told me to stop complaining.

We quickly showered, packed up our bags, and checked out just before 10 am. Next we headed to the train station, to catch the 12:15 to Pisa. They had a self serve ticket machine, so we were pretty proud of ourselves for figuring it out!

Since we had a little bit of time before our train left, I set off to find a slice of pizza. I had the best cheese pizza and coke. I also had a slice of fruit pizza, but it wasn’t that great. Definitely wasn’t Illini Manor style. L Still edible and decent.

Pisa is so pretty!! :)

Our train was super cheap, which means not all that clean and no movie. L The seats were pretty big though and fairly comfy. Good thing, since we were traveling 4 hours! It was a regional train so people kept getting on and off. For the most part we had good cabin mates except for the guys that got on in the end. I’m 99% sure they’ve never seen deodorant before and seriously I thought I was going to vom. Ugh. Please, please, PLEASE wear deodorant! I do not want to be subjected to your stinky armpits!! I sniffed my hair the whole rest of the trip. Luke told me to stop complaining again. 

When we got to the hostel we settled into our 6 person room (only one other guy was there) and explored the building. We have a super sweet common room with a pool table and 3 free computers. There's also a kitchen, an indoor and an outdoor dinning area, and a cinema room. 

Luke and I decided to walk around Pisa. I didn't realize how small of a town it is. We walked to the Leaning Tower. The sun had mostly set, so it was all lit up. It had already closed so we didn't get to walk up in it, but it was still gorgeous! 

Leaning Tower of Pisa

By this point we were ready for a good Italian dinner, so we found this little hole in the wall restaurant. The only problem was, they spoke NO English and we don't know Italian. With my vague Spanish abilities we were able to piece together some words, but in the end just ended up picking some dishes off the menu. Mine was really good, totally not what I expected, but still delicious. It was a little noodle pocket filled with cheese and shrimp mix. Luke had spaghetti carbonara, not quite as adventurous as me. Haha! Our little cans of Coke we're *3* euros.. NOT OKAY! 

After dinner we took another route back to the hostel to explore more of Pisa. Naturally we got ever so lost, but made it back eventually! :) 

Back at the hostel we asked about the 10 pm movie night. The receptionist told us that the girl who normally puts the movies on wasn't there, but he would call the manager and see if he could get something set up for us. He and Luke went up to the cinema room and tried to figure out the projector while I covered reception. Yes, I worked the front desk! LOL! He was like, umm someone needs to stay here. I was like what do I do?! He was like just speak in English. Open the door if people show you their receipt! lol..

just call me ms. receptionist

So everything was fine and dandy until some Italian girl came up and tried to book a room and I wouldn't let her in because she didn't have a receipt. Fail. Luckily Mr. Man in Charge came back and fixed that!

Luke decided to check his Facebook and I sat in the cinema room. This girl came in that worked there and said something in broken English and then just started Mama Mia to show me that the movies didn't work, but it did work. I was so confused! So I started watching Mama Mia. Luke was not thrilled. :)

After the movie we both went back to the room and crashed. Thankfully by morning Luke was over it! haha! 

Tuesday, October 26th

Rain Rain GO AWAY!

 Tuesday we got up at a much more reasonable time, partially because I thought there was an earthquake! I’m not sure what kind of neighbors we had, but our whole room was shaking. I was kind of irate. I had yelled at Luke all night to lay still and quit shaking my bed, but turns out it wasn’t all his fault. I guess in the end it was good because we got up and moving.

Vatican Gardens

We decided to try our luck at the Vatican again. We were intending on standing in line and going through the museum on our own, but it was raining harder than the day before and the line was just as long. A man from a tour group offered us a tour for 45 euros. We asked if there was a student price and he lowered the price to 40 euros. We decided that that was just too much money for us to spend and told him no thanks, we were broke college students. He then told us that we could go on the tour for 35 euros if we didn’t tell anyone, but that was the last offer. We decided that this was a once in a life time opportunity to see the Vatican, so we went for it.

Pope's pimped out rides

The tour was really cool. Our tour guide was really intelligent and told us a lot of extra information about statues and paintings. I’m glad we didn’t just do the tour on our own.

The part I loved the most was the Sistine Chapel. I’ve seen pictures and heard about how beautiful it was, but it was way more amazing than I could have imagined! I couldn’t believe how much of the walls and ceilings were covered with paintings. There was just so much going on!

After the tour, Luke and I decided to keep walking through the museum. We saw Rafael’s rooms (two of which were under construction L) and lots more paintings and tapestries. I really liked the stable room with all the buggies and some of the cars older popes rode in.   

La Pieta

For lunch I had a hotdog pizza in the museum’s café. It was really unique, but cold which super stunk. Luke just had an apple and some cookies that I’d brought from the food bag my senora packed me up. He’s so cheap :-P lol

After touring the Vatican we went into Saint Peter’s Basilica. With our tour, we got to go through a back door and skip the line going into the basilica. Once again, totally worth it. I really liked seeing La Pieta, Michelangelo’s statue of Mary holding Jesus once he was taken off the cross. I couldn’t believe he sculpted it at 23! Incredible! The basilica is HUGE! A large portion of it was roped off, so we couldn’t even get in the whole thing, but Luke and I still managed to get separated and I totally lost him for like 20 minutes. Thank goodness he was wearing my hot pink book bag, which made him a lot easier to pick out in a crowd! Haha!

best ice cream EVER!

Next we set off to find the Pantheon. Along the way we found an ice cream shop. I had the best chocolate and coffee ice cream ever! I apologize now for breaking the All Carb Diet, but I had too!! ;)

The Pantheon was really beautiful. It was awesome because it was raining Tuesday so we were able to watch the rain come through the hole in the ceiling and drain in the floor. The entire structure was just incredible. I loved it!

Pantheon

After The Pantheon, we headed to the Trevi Fountain. Since it was dusk, the fountain was all lit up. Naturally we took lots of pictures in front of the fountain and I tossed a coin into it! J

Next on the agenda was head to this little church that my art teacher told me to see. When we got there mass had just started so we weren’t allowed in. We were bummed, but there were some pretty fountains around so that was nice!

Trevi Fountain

After the church let down, I declared it dinner time. Luke decided to just buy bread and cheese at the super market and eat back at the hostel, but I wanted to take advantage of the authentic Italian cuisine. We ate in the Republic Plaza. I can’t remember the English name for the kind of pasta I had, but it was DELICIOUS (pasta enchiladas?)! J During dinner, a street vendor came up with roses and Luke wouldn’t buy me any! L Guess that’s what you get for traveling with a cousin and not a boyfriend! haha

After making the long journey back to the hostel, the wireless network was still down. Thankfully the hostel had opened up the computer lab to all the guests, free of charge. So Luke and I did some serious Facebook creeping, talked to his brother in Germany, and figured out how were getting to Pisa the following day.

locked out of church :(

Even though it was only 9 pm at this point, we were sleepy and decided to head back to our room and go to sleep!

Monday, October 25th

in front of St Peter's Basilica

Luke and I got a little bit of a slow start this morning. By the time we got out of our room, it was already almost 11. We went across the street to the super market and picked up some pizza to go from the deli.

We rode the bus to the Vatican and stopped under an awning to eat our pizza since it was pouring down rain. I’m pretty sure Luke is awful luck when it comes to rain! It poured on us in Barcelona too and has only rained 2 or 3 days total in Madrid since I’ve been there!! Not only was the rain ticking me off, but I couldn’t get my stupid Coke open because the lady sold me a glass bottle and I didn’t have an opener!! GRR!

drinking from a fountain

After finishing our feast, we hiked up a TON of stairs to the Vatican. We were expecting some sort of a crowd, but being the middle of week, in the end of October, on a rainy day, we figured it wouldn’t be too busy. We couldn’t be more wrong. Apparently 60,000 people visited the Vatican museum Monday. We were not two of them. We walked around the outside of the wall and looked at the columns outside of Saint Peter’s Basilica.

in front of a castle

Since we clearly weren’t up for standing in a 7 hour line in the rain, we decided to just explore around the city, our goal being to end up across town at the coliseum.

 One thing I really liked about Rome was all of the outdoor water fountains that you could drink from or fill up your water bottle from. I’m not talking about some metal, shiny machine; these were legit stone fountains! I’ve seen a couple traveling through Spain, but there were LOTS in Rome. Free, yummy water = definite plus in my book.

yeah archways!

The next monument we came across was Saint Angelo’s Castle. It looked a lot different from other castles I’ve been to. It was round and didn’t have the classic, big towers. It was still really pretty from the outside. We opted not to go in, so we could spend more time elsewhere.

So we kept hiking around the city, getting a little lost, and ended up at the coliseum. We were planning on just standing in line and going in on our own, but the line was super long and a tour group approached us. Admission was 12 euros, and for 20 euros they were going to get us into the museum immediately, give us a tour of the coliseum as well as a tour and admission into the palatine, which is the roman ruins next to the coliseum, including the roman forum. We decided that was a pretty good deal so we did it.

Coliseum :) 

The tour was awesome. Our tour guide was hilarious and super informative. It was hard to imagine just how many people were killed in the coliseum. He told us that when the coliseum was first built, there were events every day for100 days. Most every one of the gladiators were killed. Gladiators consisted mostly of prisoners of war and criminals with the death sentence. Occasionally gladiators would chose this profession, but rarely since most of them died.

Researchers are still debating how it was decided whether a gladiator would be killed or allowed to let go. During the fight when they felt they couldn’t go any further, they would hold up their index finger, asking for mercy. Some historians believe that the crowd would all vote by putting their thumbs up and down. This theory has been mostly disproved because the coliseum is so big, it doesn’t make sense that people would be able to see the thumbs. Regardless, the editor, in the Romans case – the king, would have the final say. Some historians say that thumbs up means kill him while thumbs down means save him. Some say the opposite.

Palatine Hill

I didn’t realize how many animal fights took place there too. He described it as a like a concert where before the main act performs, local bands warm up the crowd. Some of the acts with animals would be humans hunting animals, while others would be animals hunting each other. He said they used all sorts of animals such as elephants, gorillas, giraffes.. anything the Romans could get their hands on. To make the animals fight each other they would tie them together with chains, so they would get irritated and angry. After the animals were killed, they would be butchered on site and the meat would be handed out to the crowd.

We had lots of time to walk around with our tour group and then afterwards, we had an hour and a half until our second tour group started, so we had time to read the different displays and just check out how massive the building was. It’s sad how much of it has deteriorated or been “recycled” into other buildings. Regardless, the coliseum is amazing. I can’t believe how quick it was built so long ago!

yummmmmy dinner!!!!

After our tour of the coliseum we went to the Palatine Hill. That tour was a lot shorter, but I still thought it was really cool to see all of the ruins. I especially liked looking at the roman forum and where the palace used to be. It’s hard to imagine how amazing it looked back in the day since there isn’t much more than stones there now.

On our way to find dinner, we stopped at the Saint Peter in Chains Church. The church has this really cool statue of Moses with horns on his head that Michelangelo sculpted. The church was gorgeous. It was a lot smaller than some of the other ones we visited, but I liked it a lot.

new hoodie :)

For dinner, Luke and I stopped at this local Italian restaurant. We split the best pasta and the best pizza that I’ve ever had in my life. The pizza was so thin and flaky and even had raviolis on it! The pasta was so delicious too! We were SO happy with our dinner.

We headed the 1346 miles back to our hostel (it’s clear out in the boondocks of Rome – seriously, we have to take the metro for like 25 minutes and then the bus for another 15 minutes to get there!). When we got back to the hostel, we got my computer to look up info on the Vatican and some other monuments so we could better plan our Tuesday. Naturally the wireless system was down. BOO!

beer + futbol = :)

Since we couldn’t do much on the internet, Luke ordered a whiskey coke and I had a beer and we watched some of the “futbol” (soccer) game. It was really exciting and there were tons of fans in the hostel’s bar watching the game. We were cheering right along with them, pretending to be hard core fans!

After finishing our cocktails, we called it a night and headed back to our room. 

Sunday, October 24th

outside of our bungalow 

ROME!!! Wow this city is beautiful! I had a 4 am wakeup call and a taxi to catch at 4:45. Not exactly my prime hours of the day, but it’ll do. My senora got up to make sure I was all ready and help me carry my luggage to the elevator. She is so sweet.

My flight was only 2 hours long. I slept the majority of it although the stupid flight attendants were on the speaker the entire time trying to sell different gadgets. I thought about killing them, but I figured that wouldn’t be the way to start my vaca.

Once in Rome, I had basically no idea how to get to my hostel. I ended up taking a shuttle bus to the city center (20 minutes, 4 euros), a metro ride (20 minutes, 1 euro), and a bus ride (15 minutes, free).  All in all, it took 2 hours from when my plane landed until I got to the hostel. Kinda stinky.

one of the beds

Once at the hostel I tried to check in, but the lady told me I had to wait until noon – just over an hour. So I found a park bench and went through my camera and deleted lots of photos so that I could take more on this trip. I’m trying not to clear my memory card before I go home, so that in case my computer crashes, I still have the pictures somewhere, but I’m getting a little concerned. So far I’ve taken 1,547 pictures and I can take 1,655 more. I’m half way through my trip so this may work, but I’ll be cutting it close!!

So when I finally could check into the room, I did. It’s very small, but cute and clean. We have a private double for the two of us with our own bathroom. The “bungalows” look more like little trailers to me, but it was super cheap, so we can’t complain. All in all I think it’ll be 40 some euros a piece for 3 nights – That’s AMAZING considering we have a private room. What stinks though is that it’s pretty far away from the city center, so we’ll just have to plan our outings well because it’ll be difficult to come back to the room.

waiting on my room

After getting my things settled in, I tried to get a hold of Luke again. Thank goodness he was online this time! We got things all settled and I gave him directions to the hostel. His flight doesn’t get in until 9:45, so I don’t expect him until about midnight.

By this time I was basically starving, so I set off to find the Italian carbs I’ve heard so much about! Since it’s considered the winter season at the hostel (which is why the rooms are so cheap), most of the facilities are running on limited hours. So there isn’t anything open for lunch on site. I crossed the footbridge over to the super market to see what I could find. There was a little shop attached to the supermarket that had a sign for pizza. I was sold. The guy ended up only charging me 2,50 for a slice of pizza and a glass of coke. I definitely want to go back because the pizza was fabulous! J Definitely a good start to the trip.

While over there, I decided to look for some hand soap since there wasn’t any in our room.

beginning of the all
carb diet ;)

After my little lunch escapade, I went back to the room and crashed for a solid 3 hours. I didn’t really want to do much without Luke since I’m sure he’ll want to do the same things tomorrow when he gets here.

When I woke up from my slumber, I grabbed my lap top and headed to the pool area. I put my suit on just in case the hot tub was working. It wasn’t. L And I didn’t realize you have to use the pass code each time to sign on the internet so I couldn’t get online either. Fail.

So I gave up on the internet, and went back to my room and worked on my blog and some homework. Pretty lame vacation, I know – but like I said, I don’t really want to do things without Luke. Besides, after my 3 hour night of sleep, I need the afternoon to catch up.

For dinner I went to the restaurant in the hostel. I felt like a totally loser saying I needed a table for one. At least 3 people came up and asked me if I was all alone. Seriously?? Oh well. Two guys I’d met earlier walking around the hostel came in and asked if they could sit with me. It was nice not to have to eat all alone. They were really sweet. They were 20/21, business majors from the states. They decided to take the semester off from school to travel around!! How cool is that? Anyways, we talked about different places we’ve traveled and compared traveling tips/where to stay/where to go/etc. I ate lasagna and we split a pitcher of water. It was fabulous!

After dinner, I straightened up the room since I’d totally trashed the place! Then I went and sat on a patio outside the restaurant so I could update my blog. Now I suppose I’ll head back to the room and shower up and do some reading for class. I don’t really want to check out the club all on my lonesome! Can’t wait for Lukey to get here!! J

Saturday, October 23rd

Naturally Saturday I slept all day. 7 am is kind of a late bedtime for me, you know. Teresa made fun of me at lunch because I’m not Spanish and she is so therefore she is better than me and can handle staying out all night. I have decided to accept this fact. I most certainly am not a “stay-out-all-night-and-function-the-next-day” kind of person.

trying on Teresa's shoes..
she let me borrow them
since it's so cold in Germany :)

When I did finally get up, just in time for lunch, I couldn’t stomach much. I mean seriously, fried rice with seafood, steak and potatoes just aren’t quite the breakfast foods to me. I hung out with the family though and discussed my plans for my break this week. They were so sweet asking me about everything and making sure I didn’t need anything else.

Naturally my senora packed me a friggin HUGE snack bag for my trip. She also went through Teresa’s winter clothes and let me borrow some things for Germany since it’s already like 30 degrees there, instead of the 60s I’m used to in Madrid!

I spent the rest of the evening packing and trying to get a hold of my silly cousin Luke who fell off the face of the Earth.. I finally got to bed a little after 1 – which gave me about 3 hours of sleep before hitting the road again!

Friday, October 22nd

Friday did not feel like a Friday. Because of that stupid strike a month ago, we still have classes we need to make up, but since I’m literally in school 27 hours a week (30 this week), it’s hard to find a place to squeeze them in! Anyways, today we made up the 3 hour education class. It’s funny to me because I don’t know the word for some of the methods in English that I’m learning for this class. For example I was explaining to my mom what we were doing in class, but then I only knew the word in Spanish! Starting to become a common trend in my life! Haha!

After class I took a realllly long, much needed nap. Literally 2 hours of my life. Fabulous!! J

After my mini-coma, I showered up and got ready to go out with my sister. She invited me to go to a birthday party with her. It’s so weird to me that everything starts SO late here. Seriously! Like people don’t do anything until after 10, while in the states I’d meet up with my friends around 6 or 7, 9 on a LATE night! Haha!

sister and I :)

So after dinner we got the rest of the way ready and headed over to her friend’s house. The funny thing was as we were walking, everything looked super familiar. And when we got to the building I was just like, I’ve been here before.. And when we got up to the apartment I was like “Teresa, this doesn’t happen do to be the house of Juanjo’s bff does it??” – sure enough! The first day I met Juan and we had our first language exchange, we went to meet up with his best friend because he had to borrow his camera flash for a trip. Long story short, this is his friend’s house and I’d met his friend’s daughters – aka the birthday girl! It was nice to have some familiar faces and those girls remembered me.

 

Everyone was super nice at the party. I couldn’t believe how well I understood everyone, even when they were talking to each other and not to me (most of them talked WAY slower to me – which was nice). They were super sweet about explaining words I didn’t know and keeping me up to date on all the inside jokes and so forth. They also all liked to show off their English and tell me where they’ve studied to learn English! Teresa thought it was hilarious that when people asked me where I was from, I would say I was from the United States – I didn’t realize that she had made it clear to everyone that I was her American.. BOOO!

 

We all just sat around drinking and laughing and telling stories and dancing. It was such a blast! Most of the music was in English too so I was singing right along while everyone else was making up words! J

Around 3 am I realized everyone was grabbing their coats and leaving. Naturally I figured Natalia, the bday girl, was kicking everyone out to go to bed. HECK NO! We were all going to the club. Duh! So I hoped in a cab with Teresa and two other friends and went to this club called Boom in downtown Madrid.

The club was pretty nice. It was 8 euros to get in, but with it you got a free drink so that was okay I suppose. We ended up dancing ALL night long. Seriously. We shut the place down! At 6 am when the lights came on we tromped to the metro stop and drug ourselves home. All in all, I had an absolute BLAST hanging out with the girls! I guess I passed the test because Teresa invited me to another birthday party next weekend. Too bad I’ll be visiting my cousins in Germany then.

Thursday, October 21st

 Today I had my weekly language exchange. Not much to report on that. We did our normal walk around the block for a while and then went to VIPS and got Cokes. We sat in the same booth and the waiter totally recognized us (3 weeks in a row now). He goes “Coke Zero y Coke Normal”. Hahaha! I hope he doesn’t think we’re dating! Anyways it was great to talk to Juanjo. He’s so funny and like genuinely concerned about my life! Lol! He treats me like a daughter, once again why I LOVE my Spanish host family.

After our VIPS date, we went back to the house. Jaime stayed over again because he was studying with friends really early. He passed his driver’s test Wednesday. You cannot start the process to get your license until you are 18 and it’s way harder to obtain it. They have no permit system, so you can only practice with a licensed teacher in a special car (similar to our behind the wheel cars). It’s also very expensive to take all the classes. After 5 or so classes and a written theory test, you can take the driver’s test. Apparently it’s totally normal for people to fail the first time. If you fail the first test, you must take 10 more classes. If you fail again, you must take 15 additional driver’s lessons. Each lesson is about $25-$30!! 

Wednesday, October 20th

Tapas dinner with school

Today I had a little bit of a mix up with my alarm clock. For the first time since I've been in Spain, I set my alarm before midnight, therefore I didn't realize that the little bugger was set for pm instead of am.. Luckily my senora has my back and dragged my but out of bed. My sister and I considered skipping because we were both tired. We decided we would homeschool ourselves for the day. She would teach me Spanish and in exchange I would teacher her English - aka story of our lives. We figured Mom wouldn't like that.. so we fought over the hair straightener and went to class.

one tapas platter

School was long again today. I didn't get my Morning Coffee at home because I woke up late, nor did I get my Between-Grammar-Classes Coffee because the line was too long. Have no fear, I did get a coffee for my art class, so I lived. ;)

Our Ed professor LOVED our lesson plan. She was super impressed that we combined everything together. Probably because my first lesson plan stunk so bad - but regardless, I accepted the compliments! :)

some of my classmates

After class I took a shower and did a little bit of homework before I had to head back to school.

At 9 pm a huge group from school met to go have Tapas. Tapas are little finger foods. Usually Spaniards go to a Tapas bar after work with friends and share a few tapas and wine as a snack since they eat so late. Since we were sampling so many, this was my dinner.

doing the "Kurt face"

We tried all sorts of different snacks. I wish that the guide would have explained what we were eating more. My favorite was the first dish they brought out. It was kind of like a tuna quiche thing. It was really good. So was the final dish. We're not sure what it was, best guess would be fried egg plant with honey?? I did NOT like this one tapa that had goat cheese and this other one that our guide told us was like a hamburger -- lies!! Regardless, the sangria was delicious and plentiful. All in all I had a great time.

Tuesday, October 19th

Left: Spanish -- Right: American

Monday I started observing a grammar class as part of my education credits. Although I think it's a great idea to observe, I get super bored with they're working on projects in class and there isn't much to watch. The class is one level below mine, so the topics they're covering I'm familiar with. It's kind of scary though to think in two years I'll be certified to teach this!

WATCH OUT FOR THE
DINOSAUR 

After class the stress began. I tried to get far to much accomplished in one evening. Mikaela and I wrote a lesson plan about future tense and gypse weddings (which turned out pretty amazing if I do say so myself), I finished my novel for my Literature class (killer), researched a Picasso painting, organized all my binders, and did some research for a paper in my lit class. May not sound like a lot, but I was kind of a grump at dinner. Thankfully my family is awesome and by the end I was laughing and having a blast. I went to bed WAY too late though.. Hoping to get some more sleep tonight! :)


Oh and I found out that Spanish Silly Bands are not the same as American.. Idk if they're all different, but I was creeping through my sister's stuff and realized we both had a duck silly band. As we looked closer we realized they were slightly different colors and slightly different shapes! How odd! Well now you know. 

Monday, October 18th

Education class

Today I had my education class. I really love my professor and we always do the coolest activities! Today we were talking about using real materials in the classroom instead of just handouts and books. She had an activity where we had to taste/smell/feel different food ingredients to try to figure out what the were. She told us they were all edible.. but forgot to mention not to necessarily eat all of them.. The bay leaf was not yummy.. hahaha

Jaime and I

After class, I went home to work on homework. My Spanish cousin Jaime was staying over again because he had an 8 am class. He had to get some special poster paper for his math project, so we found the local Papeleria. Some of the Spanish birthday cards are HILARIOUS!!! 100% inappropriate, but so darn funny! :) 

Apparently I missed the smile memo

After dinner, we all Skyped my family again. Well mostly my sister. Jaime and her are in love remember? So Teresa and I had a pillow fight while Jaime and Betsy whispered sweet nothings to each other. Just kidding. But Teresa and I are rooting for them.. We want to be related. haha!

Sunday, October 17th

Sisters :)

On Sunday I finally got to sleep in! It was fabulous just to sleep as long as my body wanted! When I finally got up I cleaned my room and got ready for our company.

Around 3 pm my “extended Spanish family” came for lunch. It was so nice to meet the rest of my family! All together we had my Mom, Sister, Abuelita, Conchita’s brother (Juan Jose – my language exchange partner), his wife (Elena), and their oldest son (Pablo). Jaime was still at a friends house studying so he couldn’t make it.

Teresa and I got bored waiting for our family to arrive. Somehow we ended up putting on all of our scarves. While I don’t exactly understand how it happened, this is totally normal for the two of us. What I’m surprised is that it didn’t end in a pillow fight! haha

cousins :)

I had such a great time eating with everyone and laughing over jokes. It reminded me of Wagers Holidays when we're ALL together crammed in one little house laughing and enjoying each other's company! I am seriously SO grateful for the amazing family I have here. They treat me just like I'm another daughter! 

my Spanish family

After they left, I had lots and lots of homework to catch up. The rest of the evening Teresa and I spent having a "Homework Party" -- aka distracting each other from doing our work! :)

During/After dinner we watched Flightplan in Spanish - Plan de vuelo: Desaparecido. I'd seen the movie before in English, but it'd been a few years, so it was nice to watch it again! :)