Trip to Barcelona!

Hello, Hello!

Much has happened in this past week or so and as such I apologize for not writing about my where about more often. Well, to catch up to present day my room mate and I decided to make the jump to a new family. I think this may have been the best decision I have ever made in my entire life! We (secretly) call her our "Jackpot Mama!" Mainly, because we hit the jackpot of mama's in Spain. We now live closer to the center of Valladolid, walking distance to school and to the bars : ). We also get fed more than I ever thought I could eat, all fresh, and we both have our own rooms. We have an older brother, Edwardo. Edu as he is commonly called around here is 30, single and by American (and probably Spanish terms) is socially awkward, but he shows his affection for Julie and I by doing things for us. We came home the other day to discover that he and his friend Cesar installed wifi for us. What a sweet older brother, right? He and his friend spend quite a bit of time on-line and chain smoke in the evenings, luckily our mama makes him smoke in his room and gets pissed when he brings his cigarettes around the house. They have a lot of arguments about this, ha ha ha.

Classes, Spanish and Cal Poly, are going well. Apparently, we are taking a ridiculous amount of classes, the Spaniards have no reservations in making fun of us, in fact I had one call me a "square." Always nice to hear. This past weekend was our first three day weekend here, they celebrate Columbus Day here too, except its their National Day. Sadly, there are no fireworks or big celebrations, they just go and hang out on the street all day. Usually, ending up drunk in cafe's, but when you're with friends, what else is there to do? To celebrate their national day, us Americans went out and travelled the country, more specifically I went to Barcelona. May I just say now, if I never return to the United States you will find me on a beach soaking up the Mediterranean sun, drinking sangria and reading about Gaudi in Barcelona. I love the city and couldn't have asked for a more perfect weekend. The trip started with 2 girls and ended up with 10 girls and 2 guys joining the festivities, 12 of us roaming the streets wasn't truly conducive to seeing everything and getting around, but we made it work. Note to parental unit: When you come and visit, I would love to go back to Barcelona - it is quite the mix of Mediterranean style and So Cal climate, you'd love it.

To start our vaca we hopped onto a bus and 10 hours later we were there. Yes, 10 hours on a bus - not the brightest idea, but it was cheap! We started our day by an attempted stealing of one of the girls' purses, luckily a nice stranger almost strangled the guy and she got her purse back. Not the best first impression of Barcelona, but it was a good reminder that we need to be careful with our belongings. We proceeded to head off to our hostel, which was more like a hotel than a hostel. We had our own room (6 of us) and our own bathroom. We had access to the pool, sauna and spa at the gym next door and they provided free shuttling to different locations around Barcelona. Our room overlooked the Agbar Dome, talk about location?! We unpacked, showered and by 11 am we headed to the Sagrada Familia and unintentionally made it a Gaudi day. P.S. Gaudi is the very famous architect in Barcelona that has works all over the city. We ended up seeing his Cathedral, his house and park. We headed back early for dinner and a nap, getting ready to hit the town big later that night. To our dismay, we picked the only part of Barcelona that doesn't have a night life and ended up heading home early, early being a relative term here. We made it home by 3 lol. Good thing we had a couple of hours of sleep, because the following day was spectacular. The weather warmed up significantly and 8 of us decided to walk all over downtown. We made our way over to the Arc de Triomf, the park perpendicular to the Arc and straight to the Chocolate Museum. If I may add, the Chocolate Museum is more of expressing how amazing chocolate is, not much of a museum, but they had the best chocolate croissant I have ever had! They even had classes for kids, and I was a bit bummed that we couldn't join in the fun. From there we made our way through side streets in the Gothic district and magically discovered the other Cathedral in Barcelona. On this particular day there was a Catalan celebration and we were invited to join by dancing in the plaza to traditional Catalan music. It's a lot of hopping and holding hands, the older crowd made us young things look ridiculous, they had all the moves. Once that was all over we continued wandering the streets and smacked into the Mediterranean Sea. We must have looked silly running towards the water, but the beach was calling us. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out in the sunshine, eating bruschetta and drinking wine. We attempted to go take a tour of the futbol stadium later that day, but it was closed so we only got to experience it from a far. That night we joined a bunch of people in our hostel to a snazzy club across town, not only did they play live music, but a couple of us didn't head home until they kicked us out at 6:30 the next morning! Did I mention we had a bus to catch at 9:00? Ya another 10 hour bus ride post sweaty bar night, fun fun. All in all, Barcelona was really freaking cool we really had no plans in seeing any of the big stuff, but the best part is that all of a sudden you come across them... Go Barcelona! This week is a going to be less eventful, but we are visiting Segovia on Saturday and our mama has promised to take us to the Cathedral in town for mass on Sunday! I think I would be more inclined to go to church every Sunday if we had Cathedrals in the U.S.. Any-who, it is late here and I have class bright and early tomorrow morning! Hasta Luego!

Decisions, Decisions

Well today was our second day of classes. My brain hurts from so much Spanish that speaking in English seems like a welcome relief to my constant thinking. I am taking 18 units and have class everyday from 9:30 to 1:30 then 4:00 to 8:00 (depending on the day, I don't have afternoon classes - thank-goodness). My room mate and I (Julie) are in the midst of a dilemma and could use anybody's advice. Our mama lives way outside of town and it is a 45 min bus ride to school every morning. Quite the drag : (. We have been given an opportunity to move closer to school and town, but there are no promises being made about a better living situation. Our mama is nice, but very quiet and we are kind of fending for ourselves for our meals and what not - not very Spanish. Tough choices, because she is nice enough and we all get along, which is a huge bonus and not the case with everyone in our program. So, feel free to comment... We need some advice. Beyond my current dilemma, Valladolid is wonderful. Its a city that is mainly senior citizens and college students, very similar to SLO lol. It is relatively small and the community is very welcoming. I haven't hit the bar scene here yet, so I can't comment on how that will go, but my classes will be very interesting we get to do a lot of traveling and exploring! Today, we got to witness the Freshman hazing. They crack eggs on their head, tie them together in a HUGE line and drag them around the city while painting and drawing all over them. If you thought Fraternities are bad, you should witness this. The students claim its tradition and everyone goes along with it. Pretty humorous for us outsiders. Oh! Before I forget, the pics are a little difficult to load on this site, my facebook has a bunch if you want to see more. I will be adding more regularly though. Unfortunately, I have no wifi and this cafe is closing... Until next time, Adios!

Days 1-3

Day One
So… needless to say I feel like a fish out of water. No, more like a fish suffocating on a beach inches from water, torturous. Day one was not how I had imagined it would be. In my head I was this jet-setting American, who would casually come through the airport doors, have my ride ready and waiting and I would be off! Nope. I struggled with my luggage and I have a fat bruise on my leg to prove it. I had Spanish men staring at me up and down through customs and to top it all off my ride was M.I.A. Not only did I ask for help, more than once, all four (yes four) sources of information sent me in absolutely different directions. Finally, I headed to a taxi and was yelled at by numerous cab drivers.
Now the hotel I am staying in, in Madrid, through my school program is located a little off the Plaza Mayor on Atocha street, if any of you know where that is from your travels. In the midst of unpacking my belongings I have discovered that I forgot toothpaste, apparently I did need that whole bag of mint chocolates D. Jokes on me.

Day Two
Not only have I been all over Madrid I have purchased some toothpaste, found a wonderful market that serves wine and visited a palace. I wandered along the Calle de Atocha and headed to the Plaza Mayor. It was quaint with its overwhelming construction. I kept me stay short and decided to head to the Plaza del Sol. Again, quaint with its construction. As a ditch effort to find a place to eat and somewhere to hang for a bit I headed to the Palacia Real. This is the Palace of Spain’s current Royal fam. They use it for tours and for press releases. Not much else, apparently. They live in a mansion nearby, though ☺. Did I mention that the Palace was also under construction? My best find yet was the Mercado de San Miguel. Where I snagged a baguette, some local queso and a glass of vino tinto! Luckily I missed the rush of locals and foreigners alike, and my saving grace is that people are assuming I’m Spanish! Yay! If I can’t speak it well enough, fortunately I look it. I was eating at a little bar side table and the (very cute) waiter started talking to me. Of course he was talking way too fast for me to understand, finally he switches over to English and tells me that I shouldn’t be eating on a dirty table. Either that was his way of flirting with me or I have just made a total fool of myself. To give myself the benefit of the doubt I went with flirting, but then he proceeded to clean off the table for me, so maybe I am an idiot. I continued wandering around the palace and the gardens that surround the whole shin dig. I happened to witness a Spanish treat, Spanish guards were coming out of the royal palace dressed to the nines and on horseback. I have no idea what they were doing, but trumpets were blaring and they seemed to have a purpose. I then headed into the Cathedral attached to the Palace. How would you like that, a Cathedral attached to your casa? I would consider this a nouveau Cathedral, of sorts. A “suggested” one euro was requested at the front door. There was somebody sitting there giving you surly looks if you didn’t “help the Cathedral in serving the lord,” seriously that’s what it said. I paid the one-euro and got the brightest fake smile I have ever seen. You can also light an electronic prayer candle for an additional euro. Sorry guys, I will just pray for you instead of lighting a fake candle in your name. It was pretty cool, I was hoping their confessionals were open, but they weren’t. It appeared that you had to schedule an appointment to come take confession. I wonder if they’re backlogged on confessional appointments?
Later I headed off to a cell phone store to attempt to get an international sim card. Not only did it take way longer than expected, it took multiple tries. First I discover that I need me passport, so I have to wander back to the hotel to grab that along with the code that is supposed to unlock my phone. I head back to Orange (the store and yes its called Orange) to find six people in line. In the ten minutes I was gone, the line filled the entire store and made it claustrophobic for even a person, like myself, that doesn’t really mind close spaces. Forty-five minutes later, it’s my turn! The kid behind the counter has no idea what a sim is, so I pull mine out from my cell and then in unison we say “Sim!” So, he did know, jerk. He whips out a new sim, asks for my passport and in my head I’m thinking, “yes, I still have time to head across town!” Shenanigans. It takes him another twenty minutes to download all my information, make sure I’m not an illegal alien that crossed the Spanish border through Morocco on boat and then finally after all that he says that there is a problem. Crap. Well I discover that the problem is his bad data computation. Thanks dude. Now I get to wait, again, while he goes through the whole process. The line has now exceeded the six that had originally been in the store to nine plus. It’s hot, I’m getting frustrated and I can feel the angry glares on the back of my neck. FINALLY! He gets me to sign a few things and he tries to explain to me, in Spanish, how a sim works. I try to tell him, “no it’s ok, I know how they work,” but his fervor was not diminished. He was thorough sucker. He told me my new Spanish number, I think, three times and told me how to dial the number another three times. At that point the grumblings behind me had turned to dull roars and rude remarks so I grabbed the sim box, my phone and said goodbye as I spun around to leave. At that precise moment I almost slammed my entire body into a very larger, very in charge black man who could not have been very pleased with me. I peeped out a “lo siento” and peaced. I think there was a sigh of relief that followed me out the door.

Day Three
Today has been by far my best day yet! Not that two days really makes a big difference, but I felt more relaxed and resilient today. Although, I got woken up for the second time, for room cleaning. In attempt to not have my passport or belongings stolen (not that they would, I just don’t want to risk it) I have kept the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the outside of my door. I think the cleaning lady knows I’m lying. She says that she is cleaning NOW, no exceptions. Have any of you ever encountered a feisty cleaning lady? It’s weird. I’m standing there in a shirt and a pair of underoos and she barges in with all her cleaning supplies ignoring the fact that I am not even awake yet. She made my bed, vacuumed and cleaned every surface in the room. She says a very snooty “Gracias” and leaves in a matter of minutes; I don’t think that I’ve moved. I try to crawl back into bed and the sheets are pushed so far under the mattress I have to yank them out. I think she was trying to drop the hint that I should get my tush out of bed and do something with my life. After breakfast I disappear off to the Botanical Gardens immediately. Now, to backtrack one minute, I am under the impression that this Botanical Garden in going to be like the other Botanical Gardens I have visited. Think of the one in LA and you know what I mean. It’s not like that at all. On the pamphlet it is quoted as the “Live Museum of Plants.” That is exactly what it’s like. The feral cats around the place were the most entertaining things to watch, or see, for that matter. The fun thing about the Botanicl Garden is that it back up to the Prado Museum, a massive local park (that is significantly prettier) and Yuppie central. Since I’m doing the whole museum thing in a day or two with school I wander around the grounds and find a very friendly looking tapas bar. I also discover that I am not the only one that finds the bar charming and a German couple asks if they can share the table with me, since there are no more tables open. I must look like a low risk endeavor, because this is already not the first time Germans have sat at my table. Good thing they did though, we chatted a bit and we shared some tapas and wine. They were kind enough to even cover my tab! After that I explored the gigantic park and found a nice shady spot to catch up on some reading. All in all it was a very relaxing day in Madrid!

Getting Started!!!

I am days away from my departure into Spain and I still don't have all of my to do list done. I have not made reservations for my hotel, I haven't printed out my boarding pass and my half packed bag at my feet is reminding me that I still have packing to do. My girlfriend Alana was kind enough to help me figure out everything that I am going to need to take, but I have made a mess of her once folded piles of my clothes. Crap. I am nervous and excited and pretty sure I need to brush up on my spanish pronto, but I have the essential phrases down. "Yo necessito mas vino" and "Donde esta el bano?" Everything else is just secondary. :)