i haven't written in a long time ... probably because i haven't been exploring europe for a while.
but i think i have to relate my last travel adventure, as we couldn't have had a trip without adventure ...
i was scheduled to come home on december 23 at around 8:30 pm. we were in paris that morning, so were going from paris to madrid, madrid to philadelphia, and philadelphia home.
the day started at 2:30 am when laura and i woke up, left our apartment at 3:00, and got the bus to the airport. this worked out pretty well, we made it to the airport just fine, found the correct terminal (the one that actually had our flight listed), checked in, got on the plane, and flew to madrid.
we got to madrid, went to the left luggage place, got our luggage, and headed over to check in for our flight to philadelphia. this is when the adventure started.
after some interrogation about my trip to morocco i went up to the counter to get my boarding pass ...
us airways person: so your final destination is philadelpia.
me: ummm.... no, i'm going to denver.
us airways person: hmmm.... (typing, typing, typing) ... oh, i see ... tomorrow morning.
me: ummm... no, i'm going tonight. (showing her my itinerary)
us airways person: hmmm... (calling someone on the phone) ... i'm sorry, but that's not possible. you are going to get into philadelpia at 6:00 pm and your flight is scheduled to depart at 6:10 (me thinking ... how does that work? the flight from madrid is supposed to leave at 12:30 and get in at 3:30. the flight is now leaving at 1:30 and is supposed to get in at 6:00? last time i checked if it leaves an hour late it should get in an hour late, not 2 1/2 hours late)
me: i don't understand how it gets in 2 1/2 hours late if it only leaves an hour late. (looking at laura with her boarding pass) and i don't understand how my friend is going to get her flight that leaves 15 minutes before mine if i can't get mine.
us airways person: she shouldn't have her boarding pass either. i'm sorry, but there's no way you can get it.
me: so you can't even give me a boarding pass? what am i supposed to do?
us airways person: no, i'm sorry i can't. you'll have to talk to the agents in philadelpia. they can help you. there's a flight at 10:10 (me thinking this is 10:10 at night)
so then we go on our way, find danielle, kim, and kelly, spend our last few euros, and wait for our flight. we get on eventually, then proceed to sit for a while as we fill out some paperwork.
9 hours later ... we get to philadelpia at 5:00 (a little different than 6:00, especially with another 1/2 hour delay!).
then ...
immigration
get our luggage
customs
by this time it is getting very close to the time of the other girls' flights, but we hear that their flights are delayed due to bad weather in seattle/portland. this is good.
on to the counter to get a boarding pass.
i was standing in front of four other people who were going to denver and had been on my flight from madrid (however, they all had boarding passes, imagine that!). they went up to the counter at the same time i did and then soon were off to catch the flight.
i however went up to the counter and gave the person my itinerary ...
me: i just need a boarding pass to denver, the flight should be leaving soon. they told me i wouldn't make it while i was in madrid, but i should be able to now.
other us airways person: (typing, typing, typing - i should learn this is not a good sign) ... okay, i have you on a flight tomorrow morning at 10:10
me: tomorrow morning? i'm supposed to be on the flight that leaves at 6:10 tonight.
second us airways person: i'm sorry, that's not possible (another phrase that i learned to dislike).
me: why not? those people are getting on the flight.
second us airways person: i'm sorry, i'm not sure why it's not, but the computer just shows me the next available flight.
so after discussing whether i had any other options, meeting megan and erin (who were also bumped off their flights), and a phone call to my family i was on my way to the sheraton four points in philadelpia for the night.
it was a very nice hotel, i had a very nice grilled cheese and fries, talked to stephanie and courtney and my family, took a shower, and slept in a very nice bed. not what i had imagined at all (not home), but as far as the alternatives go, not a bad one.
and that gave stephanie and courtney more time to plan something ... so at the airport i was greeted by a 7-foot sign held by my two silly friends wrapped up in christmas wrapping paper with giant bows on their heads. i have to say that it was a great thing to come home too! and that that's probably the best way i have seen anyone ever greeted at the airport (and i think a lot of other people would agree with that based on the looks they got). :)
i thought that tomorrow would bring less adventures, as i'm only taking one flight back to portland, but i should have known that laura and i could not have a trip of any length without adventures. she and sarah are stuck in washington until the flooding gets better and I-5 reopens. the travel adventures continue!
i'll write more about the rest of the semester and paris soon.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Monday, December 8, 2008
a different country, a different continent, a different world
last weekend i went to africa, hence the title of a different country, continent, and world. i don't know where to begin describing it ...
so i'll start at the beginning. we left granada on friday afternoon, met Abdel, the coordinator of the program (yes, i was very safe and went with a big tour group that had everything planned out for us), drove to malaga, picked up some other people, drove to algeciras, got on the ferry, got to ceuta (one of the two spanish cities in morocco), met "michael douglas" whose real name is something along the lines of abdel, but who we called michael douglas the whole time, crossed the border into morocco, and drove to our hotel outside of tetuan.
michael douglas speaks arabic (or the moroccon dialect, because that's really what they speak, and there are like 15 different dialects, but they can all communicate), french (because a lot of people who live in morocco speak french and all of the road signs are in arabic and french), spanish, english, and probably some other languages too. "guys please, if you don't mind", "i love you. i love you more" were some of his preferred phrases. he was a great guide!
first stop saturday morning (after breakfast in the hotel) was the medina of tetuan. the medina is the old part of the town (like i learned in my islamic culture class too!). we had a guide of that, which was really cool. then we had some free time in the market. "the market" could mean many different things, as there were tons of markets all over the place. they told us that we shouldn't eat any of the fruit/food/anything. however, as i was showing pictures to the moroccan girls from the foundation they told me that all the things that i have pictures of are delicious. we had lunch in what i'm sure is a very touristy restaurant. this included soup, cous cous, mandarins, mint tea, and a cookie. and a woman doing henna (which the girls were really excited about, though told me was overpriced - when else 2 euros is going to be overpriced, i'm not sure!) and a guy dancing/doing acrobatic things with a plate of candles.
these are the things that one of the girls said our delicious and was sad that i didn't try.
our henna.
then we drove to tanger. on the way to tanger we stopped to see/ride camels! this was kind of just an abandoned parking lot along the road and extremely touristy (though again, the girls liked it and had done this before), and i can say that i rode a camel in africa! it's rather difficult to get down from a camel though, you have to lean back and the camels lean all the way down and bend their knees so they're literally sitting on the ground.
lauren and i on our camel!
then we got to tanger. we just had some free time in tanger, so i didn't really see much of the historic part. but, i can tell you that tanger used to be ruled by 8 different foreign governments that all had their own part of the city. and you can still see some of that, we drove past the american part ("California" is what the people call it) and the spanish part. after that it was back to the hotel.
sunday was a day for chefchaouen. i would have to say this is my favorite town that we went to. the whole town was blue. blue, white, and green are colors of islam. white is peace and blue is the muslim people throughout the world (i think). and our guide told us that every mezquita (mosque) has a white and blue flag. they use one of them on special days. and i'm trying to find this online now so i can make sure i'm right, but i can't find anything about it. but that's what we heard. in our travels around chefchaouen for free time we came across an art gallery sort of place, so stopped there and talked to the artist for a while.
one of the many blue streets of the city, with the mountains behind it.
these are women that come down from the mountains every day to sell various things. when we were there they were all selling food for the sheep.
and these are some of the mountains that they come from. it's beautiful.the week after i was there happens to be a big festival in morocco. it's called something along the lines of festival of the sheep. it is in memory of abraham sacrificing a sheep instead of isaac, and during this festival todo el mundo goes and gets a sheep (or a goat, on down the line as long as they have something, even a hen would work if you don't have money to buy a sheep) to sacrifice. this means that there is a huge sheep market (i dont' know how to describe how huge this is, it looks like a huge fair from far away) that one goes to to buy said sheep. the whole weekend we saw people with their sheep walking through town, well, dragging their sheep through town is more like it, as sheep don't go where you want them to very well. as michael douglas told us, the festival is about a lot more than killing the sheep, as it is about friendships and everyone comes together for it, etc. the girls at the foundation also celebrated this festival on monday.
one family with a bunch of their sheep.
the sheep market, because literally todo el mundo goes there, also tends to cause some traffic jams. i can definitely say that practically the only traffic jam i've been in all semester has been in africa. people were going home from the sheep market as it was dark, and we sat in traffic for 3 hours. once we massed the market it cleared right up. however, this meant we had to get a ferry 3 hours later, and thus got home at around 2:30 monday morning. perfectly okay with me though!
after chefchaouen we crossed back into ceuta (the differences between getting into morocco and getting into spain are interesting), then got our ferry, and drove back home.
and one last thing, just because it's cool. i took a picture of this sign in tanger:
and then when i showed the girls my pictures yeterday, one of them translate it for me. between the french and the pictures i kind of knew what they were, but she was reading the arabic. so we have ... hospital, the law school, the university, i don't remember what the fourth one was, and a high school or elementary school.so yeah, that was my trip to morocco in a nutshell (or maybe a big nutshell). i've been lots of other places too, and maybe i'll write about them eventually. i'll be home in 11 days, and i'm leaving granada in 6. it's crazy!
Monday, November 24, 2008
Wow ... I haven't written on my blog in a ridiculously long time...
I'm sitting in the living room right now watching a telenovela with Ana. Someone is in England talking to their mom in Spain and said "hello". So, Ana asked me if hello means adios, and it took me a little bit to realize what she was asking me, but then I told her no, it means "hola". And she told me that the person just said hello to say goodbye, so we laughed. Then she asked me how you "dar gracias" - thank you. I don't know why, but that made me smile a lot. :)
And this was right after we constructed the suitcase that she bought today for 12 Euros. I'm not sure I'd ever seen a suitcase that doesn't come put together, but now I have. We had to put the walls up on the inside and something on the outside that had to do with the wheels. But now it's all put together.
So, going backwards in time some more ...
"The table has clothes." Yep, that's what we heard one day, well, in Spanish, but same thing. And the table literally has a blanket under the tablecloth specifically designed to put over your legs to keep you warm. And not only that, but there is also something (I don't have a clue what it would be called in English) underneath the table that plugs in and heats the table. So not only can you sit at the table eating lunch with the blanket over your legs, but there is a heater as well. It's pretty fun and we need such things in the US.
Oh, and there was a strike at a bank in Granada. Laura wrote a little about it, but it was over the next day (after they spent the night in the bank of course!). We walked to school the next morning and there were even more people all over the place, with more flags and more cars, and more police. And I wanted to stay and watch it, but we had to go to class. So I was excited to see what had happened when I was walking home, but it was completely different. As in completely normal. The strike had ended within that amount of time, everyone had left, and absolutely everything was back to normal inside and outside the bank. And from what I can tell they only got an interview. I don't know what happened later.
Also today at lunch, Ana showed us how to make a pacifier out of an orange. So, beware, Laura and I are sure to be showing it to you as well! (Of course giving the credit to Ana, like she told us this morning).
Let's see, what else?
Since the last time I wrote anything I've been to Cadiz and Sevilla. Laura, Sarah, Nils, Matt, and I went to Cadiz not last weekend, but the weekend before. We rented a car, rented an apartment, and hung out for the weekend. I have to say it was an amazing weekend. There's something about having a car, not having a schedule, and being to do whatever whenever. We cooked our own food, walked around the town (which has to include a little bit of getting lost), walked around the beach, did homework, and talked. And saw the planets from the beach, I'm not completely sure which planets, but there were definitely planets, and I was really excited!
And this weekend was a trip to Sevilla with the program. I definitely liked Sevilla too. We saw some cool things, had lots of free time, talked a lot, cooked again. During some free time a few friends and I rented a bike car thing (I can speak very good English now, clearly) - there's room for 6 people, 4 people pedal the bike, you get the idea. And we rode it through the park, it was great fun! We also went in the 3rd largest cathedral in the world (I think) and up the bell tower (which is all ramps, with a few stairs at the end) where there are great views of the city.
The Sevilla trip was after one of the craziest weeks here - an Islamic Culture midterm Wednesday night (8:00-10:00 at night, crazy!) and the DELE test Thursday and Friday. The DELE is a test from the Spanish government for non-native Spanish speakers that consists of an oral part (Thursday), a written part, an auditive part, a reading part, and a grammar part. It's over now, so that's good - we don't get the results until February.
I now officially have less than a month left in Europe, which is crazy to think about, especially because I only have a little over 3 weeks left in Granada. I'm sure it's going to fly by, but I'll be happy to get back home too!
More later, hopefully sooner than last time, although Laura does have a point about enjoying now and hearing about it later.
Oh, and Nathan, yes, those websites are exactly how you do math here, and yes, they do do a lot of math in their heads! And I'm glad you know what a cifra is now. :)
Oh, and just in case you were wondering (which I'm sure you were not), Abd al-Rahman III (who declared himself Califa in 929 as part of the Omeya dinasty) was a redhead. And he wore makeup and died his hair so he would appear more like an Arab.
Okay, that's it for now! Just kidding, my webcam isn't working anymore (I can't be heard unless I hold the microphone right up to my mouth and even then it isn't very good). I have a couple things to try, but any suggestions from any of you people who understand computers?
Now I'm done, I promise. Except to say that I will be posting pictures soon so you can see what I'm trying to describe.
I'm sitting in the living room right now watching a telenovela with Ana. Someone is in England talking to their mom in Spain and said "hello". So, Ana asked me if hello means adios, and it took me a little bit to realize what she was asking me, but then I told her no, it means "hola". And she told me that the person just said hello to say goodbye, so we laughed. Then she asked me how you "dar gracias" - thank you. I don't know why, but that made me smile a lot. :)
And this was right after we constructed the suitcase that she bought today for 12 Euros. I'm not sure I'd ever seen a suitcase that doesn't come put together, but now I have. We had to put the walls up on the inside and something on the outside that had to do with the wheels. But now it's all put together.
So, going backwards in time some more ...
"The table has clothes." Yep, that's what we heard one day, well, in Spanish, but same thing. And the table literally has a blanket under the tablecloth specifically designed to put over your legs to keep you warm. And not only that, but there is also something (I don't have a clue what it would be called in English) underneath the table that plugs in and heats the table. So not only can you sit at the table eating lunch with the blanket over your legs, but there is a heater as well. It's pretty fun and we need such things in the US.
Oh, and there was a strike at a bank in Granada. Laura wrote a little about it, but it was over the next day (after they spent the night in the bank of course!). We walked to school the next morning and there were even more people all over the place, with more flags and more cars, and more police. And I wanted to stay and watch it, but we had to go to class. So I was excited to see what had happened when I was walking home, but it was completely different. As in completely normal. The strike had ended within that amount of time, everyone had left, and absolutely everything was back to normal inside and outside the bank. And from what I can tell they only got an interview. I don't know what happened later.
Also today at lunch, Ana showed us how to make a pacifier out of an orange. So, beware, Laura and I are sure to be showing it to you as well! (Of course giving the credit to Ana, like she told us this morning).
Let's see, what else?
Since the last time I wrote anything I've been to Cadiz and Sevilla. Laura, Sarah, Nils, Matt, and I went to Cadiz not last weekend, but the weekend before. We rented a car, rented an apartment, and hung out for the weekend. I have to say it was an amazing weekend. There's something about having a car, not having a schedule, and being to do whatever whenever. We cooked our own food, walked around the town (which has to include a little bit of getting lost), walked around the beach, did homework, and talked. And saw the planets from the beach, I'm not completely sure which planets, but there were definitely planets, and I was really excited!
And this weekend was a trip to Sevilla with the program. I definitely liked Sevilla too. We saw some cool things, had lots of free time, talked a lot, cooked again. During some free time a few friends and I rented a bike car thing (I can speak very good English now, clearly) - there's room for 6 people, 4 people pedal the bike, you get the idea. And we rode it through the park, it was great fun! We also went in the 3rd largest cathedral in the world (I think) and up the bell tower (which is all ramps, with a few stairs at the end) where there are great views of the city.
The Sevilla trip was after one of the craziest weeks here - an Islamic Culture midterm Wednesday night (8:00-10:00 at night, crazy!) and the DELE test Thursday and Friday. The DELE is a test from the Spanish government for non-native Spanish speakers that consists of an oral part (Thursday), a written part, an auditive part, a reading part, and a grammar part. It's over now, so that's good - we don't get the results until February.
I now officially have less than a month left in Europe, which is crazy to think about, especially because I only have a little over 3 weeks left in Granada. I'm sure it's going to fly by, but I'll be happy to get back home too!
More later, hopefully sooner than last time, although Laura does have a point about enjoying now and hearing about it later.
Oh, and Nathan, yes, those websites are exactly how you do math here, and yes, they do do a lot of math in their heads! And I'm glad you know what a cifra is now. :)
Oh, and just in case you were wondering (which I'm sure you were not), Abd al-Rahman III (who declared himself Califa in 929 as part of the Omeya dinasty) was a redhead. And he wore makeup and died his hair so he would appear more like an Arab.
Okay, that's it for now! Just kidding, my webcam isn't working anymore (I can't be heard unless I hold the microphone right up to my mouth and even then it isn't very good). I have a couple things to try, but any suggestions from any of you people who understand computers?
Now I'm done, I promise. Except to say that I will be posting pictures soon so you can see what I'm trying to describe.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Madrid, math, mandarinas, and more
First, thank you Nathan, I definitely did type Laura's blog wrong - http://www.theadventuresoflauralou.blogspot.com/ should work a little better! And thank you Gina (who should stop being an anonymous commenter!), my trip is going well. And yes, you're right Pat, that doesn't mean that I get to neglect my blog.
So here I am again. With lots to talk about.
Madrid. I'd been to Madrid before and it wasn't my favorite city. But I liked it a lot more this time. We went to all the normal places to go in Madrid - the Prado, the Reina Sofia, a few more museums in our free time. We also went for a historic walk. Which happened to be in the rain. And when I say rain I don't mean rain of the Portland kind. I mean rain of the downpour kind. We were all completely soaked, I remember describing my shoes as having rivers in them. It was lots of fun. But interesting, and the rain did calm down a little bit. And we stayed in a hotel and had lots of food to eat. That's something new for my way of traveling through Europe!
We also went to Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen) and El Escorial. I just finished a paper about Valley of the Fallen, so that was interesting. There is a lot of controversy surrounding it, becuase it's a monument built by Franco after the Civil War. I could tell you all about it, but I won't right now. Very interesting place though.
We went to Segovia too. And it was raining again. But I liked it a lot. And think that I would have liked it even more had it not been raining! The aquaduct is amazing and there's a castle that was the inspiration for Snow White. And we went to Toledo. I'd been there before too and had really liked it. And this time was the same. Really cool old city that I could wander around for a pretty long time.
Back in Granada. I think I said a little about the "fundacion" before. We've now been there 5 times. And each time there has been something new. Our group now consists of: the 4 girls we started with (doing their homework with them, helping one girl specifically with math), 2 17-year old boys (Laura is teaching them Spanish, yep, we thought we were learning Spanish, now she's teaching it), possibly one older man (called Grandpa by the boys, though not related at all) who wants to learn English, one older girl who wants to learn English, and whoever else shows up (which could be 2 or 3 more people that have said they want to). Always an adventure!
I was thinking the other day about teaching the guy and one of the girls English and how interesting that would be. 3 different first languages (English, Spanish, and Arabic) with one common language teaching a different language. And most of the people from Morrocco know French too. Which makes for teaching them interesting as there can be 3 or 4 different languages being spoken in the room at any given time.
That's another thing that's really interesting. I want to know more about the education system here, because most of the people from Morrocco had to learn Spanish just from hearing it, which means they don't know the grammar or how to write it. Very interesting, but very sad at the same time, because they don't know how to write the language they're living in.
Oh, and they divide differently here (like long division). I don't know how to explain it. But it's different. It's like the complete opposite of the way we divide in the US, and makes complete sense, but it's completely different. We figured this out today, when we were talking to Maria (Mark, the program director's wife, who we love). She had bought math workbooks for us to use and we were just flipping through them when we got to the division page. Which looks really different (they put the answer on the bottom, not the top, and the number that is being divided goes on the outside, and the "box" for lack of better words is the opposite way). Okay, that didn't make sense. I'll take a picture maybe. Just take my word, it's different. But we told Maria this and she looked at us like we were crazy (like we looked at their division). And we showed each other how our countries divide. She thinks we're really strange and we think Spain's strange. Good story.
Let's see. What else. Oh, some good home stories that I keep forgetting to post.
Laura said something about the oranges (and if you can peel one in one piece it means you're going to get married). What she didn't mention is that I couldn't manage to peel a mandarina in one piece. We all got to laugh at me for that! However, as we were eating mandarinas today at lunch (when I had finally learned how to do it) Ana mentioned that it only counts if you peel it with a knife (which I think most of us know that I wouldn't be able to do). And then we proceeded to say that all of those things aren't real anyway.
All of these stories seem to center around meal times (which might tell you something about the importance of food in Spain), and most of them consist of laughing at me (which you probably already know is not often very hard to do). I'm always the last one done eating, so when I'm not (which doesn't happen hardly at all) it's like a celebration that Kelsey won. Kind of reminds me of Gina ... :) I've also been named the baby of the house, because I'm the smallest, the youngest, the slowest eater, and there was another thing, but I don't remember what now.
There are so many more stories about our house, but of course when I'm trying to think of them I can't. More to come though!
So, the elections are now over and todo el mundo here is happy that Obama won. But now they like to ask if that's what we wanted (they didn't seem to care before). And then they say that it's good, but that we'll see what happens. I now have my 20 Minutos (the free newspaper we get on our way to school) with the headline "Apoyo masivo a Obama para cambiar el mundo" (Massive support for Obama to change the world) and a picture with a caption saying "la victoria de Obama ... fue recibida con alborozo en paises de todo el mundo" (basically todo el mundo was celebrating Obama's victory) with a picture of kids in New Dehli kissing a picture of Obama.
I think that's about all the updates from here for now. It's become winter quite fast here (no snow yet, though there is in the mountains, and probably not much to come, but we'll see). That's a good topic of conversation too - the bus driver today told us that he's allergic to the cold (that's what the doctors told him) and my POE (conversation and writing class) professor told us that he hates the cold and the snow ("viva la playa y viva el sol!") yesterday. As for me I'm okay with the cold for now, just not a fan of the rain in Madrid.
We have a three-day weekend this weekend, which I'm looking forward to. I don't have many plans, but it should be good. Maybe I'll remember more of my stories to post here.
So here I am again. With lots to talk about.
Madrid. I'd been to Madrid before and it wasn't my favorite city. But I liked it a lot more this time. We went to all the normal places to go in Madrid - the Prado, the Reina Sofia, a few more museums in our free time. We also went for a historic walk. Which happened to be in the rain. And when I say rain I don't mean rain of the Portland kind. I mean rain of the downpour kind. We were all completely soaked, I remember describing my shoes as having rivers in them. It was lots of fun. But interesting, and the rain did calm down a little bit. And we stayed in a hotel and had lots of food to eat. That's something new for my way of traveling through Europe!
We also went to Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen) and El Escorial. I just finished a paper about Valley of the Fallen, so that was interesting. There is a lot of controversy surrounding it, becuase it's a monument built by Franco after the Civil War. I could tell you all about it, but I won't right now. Very interesting place though.
We went to Segovia too. And it was raining again. But I liked it a lot. And think that I would have liked it even more had it not been raining! The aquaduct is amazing and there's a castle that was the inspiration for Snow White. And we went to Toledo. I'd been there before too and had really liked it. And this time was the same. Really cool old city that I could wander around for a pretty long time.
Back in Granada. I think I said a little about the "fundacion" before. We've now been there 5 times. And each time there has been something new. Our group now consists of: the 4 girls we started with (doing their homework with them, helping one girl specifically with math), 2 17-year old boys (Laura is teaching them Spanish, yep, we thought we were learning Spanish, now she's teaching it), possibly one older man (called Grandpa by the boys, though not related at all) who wants to learn English, one older girl who wants to learn English, and whoever else shows up (which could be 2 or 3 more people that have said they want to). Always an adventure!
I was thinking the other day about teaching the guy and one of the girls English and how interesting that would be. 3 different first languages (English, Spanish, and Arabic) with one common language teaching a different language. And most of the people from Morrocco know French too. Which makes for teaching them interesting as there can be 3 or 4 different languages being spoken in the room at any given time.
That's another thing that's really interesting. I want to know more about the education system here, because most of the people from Morrocco had to learn Spanish just from hearing it, which means they don't know the grammar or how to write it. Very interesting, but very sad at the same time, because they don't know how to write the language they're living in.
Oh, and they divide differently here (like long division). I don't know how to explain it. But it's different. It's like the complete opposite of the way we divide in the US, and makes complete sense, but it's completely different. We figured this out today, when we were talking to Maria (Mark, the program director's wife, who we love). She had bought math workbooks for us to use and we were just flipping through them when we got to the division page. Which looks really different (they put the answer on the bottom, not the top, and the number that is being divided goes on the outside, and the "box" for lack of better words is the opposite way). Okay, that didn't make sense. I'll take a picture maybe. Just take my word, it's different. But we told Maria this and she looked at us like we were crazy (like we looked at their division). And we showed each other how our countries divide. She thinks we're really strange and we think Spain's strange. Good story.
Let's see. What else. Oh, some good home stories that I keep forgetting to post.
Laura said something about the oranges (and if you can peel one in one piece it means you're going to get married). What she didn't mention is that I couldn't manage to peel a mandarina in one piece. We all got to laugh at me for that! However, as we were eating mandarinas today at lunch (when I had finally learned how to do it) Ana mentioned that it only counts if you peel it with a knife (which I think most of us know that I wouldn't be able to do). And then we proceeded to say that all of those things aren't real anyway.
All of these stories seem to center around meal times (which might tell you something about the importance of food in Spain), and most of them consist of laughing at me (which you probably already know is not often very hard to do). I'm always the last one done eating, so when I'm not (which doesn't happen hardly at all) it's like a celebration that Kelsey won. Kind of reminds me of Gina ... :) I've also been named the baby of the house, because I'm the smallest, the youngest, the slowest eater, and there was another thing, but I don't remember what now.
There are so many more stories about our house, but of course when I'm trying to think of them I can't. More to come though!
So, the elections are now over and todo el mundo here is happy that Obama won. But now they like to ask if that's what we wanted (they didn't seem to care before). And then they say that it's good, but that we'll see what happens. I now have my 20 Minutos (the free newspaper we get on our way to school) with the headline "Apoyo masivo a Obama para cambiar el mundo" (Massive support for Obama to change the world) and a picture with a caption saying "la victoria de Obama ... fue recibida con alborozo en paises de todo el mundo" (basically todo el mundo was celebrating Obama's victory) with a picture of kids in New Dehli kissing a picture of Obama.
I think that's about all the updates from here for now. It's become winter quite fast here (no snow yet, though there is in the mountains, and probably not much to come, but we'll see). That's a good topic of conversation too - the bus driver today told us that he's allergic to the cold (that's what the doctors told him) and my POE (conversation and writing class) professor told us that he hates the cold and the snow ("viva la playa y viva el sol!") yesterday. As for me I'm okay with the cold for now, just not a fan of the rain in Madrid.
We have a three-day weekend this weekend, which I'm looking forward to. I don't have many plans, but it should be good. Maybe I'll remember more of my stories to post here.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
P.S. Laura's blog has some good stories, you should look at it! www.theadventuresoflauralou.blogsopt.com
I could write a lot of comments about the stories that you might find there, but you should go look at them. That's it. :)
I could write a lot of comments about the stories that you might find there, but you should go look at them. That's it. :)
Monday, October 20, 2008
an empty Cliff bar wrapper ... and something about everyday life here
So... this is what I was going to post, oh, a couple weeks ago. So you get that and a little bit more ...
Well, I got my bag back! But sadly, there wasn't that much in it. My wallet (with my debit card, now useless to anyone, some id, like my driver's license, my ISIC card, my UP id card, my insurance card), my keys (which I had already made copies of), a paper that tells you all about the castle in Alicante (which is pretty, I used to have pictures of it), some twigs (that could tell some story of where my purse has been), and an empty cliff bar wrapper (I had two full Cliff bars in my purse at the beginning of this adventure). But it's all okay. I have more back than I thought I would, so I'm happy.
And now, my bag and I are off to Madrid for the weekend (and we're both planning on returning to Granada in the same way, at the same time). It's a trip with our program, we're going to Madrid, Segovia, and Toledo. I'm pretty excited.
Let's see. What else do I have to say?
We (Laura and I) starting doing some volunteer work last week or the week before. And so far she has learned a lot of new words about the earth (like the atmosphere, and different things like that). And I've learned a lot about math. I was reading the math book in a cafe, with no dictionary, and I was confused through the whole chapter about what a cifra is. Turns out it is a digit. That would have been helpful to know. It's good though, we're helping 4 girls with their homework (which consists right now mostly of math, english, a class that we don't have in the US about the earth, and we'll see what else). I never knew how hard it could be to teach math in spanish though!
Nothing else is very new I don't think. Just normal Spanish life, two of the most important parts of which in our house are the daily telenovelas and food. (I would say again here that fruit here is amazing and fruit in the US is really not that exciting).
Oh, and anytime anyone finds out that we're from the US the first question that comes out of their mouth is something about Obama. Well, either that or not McCain. So, just if anyone was curious, todo el mundo in Spain loves Obama and is more than happy to tell you that. I've also decided that the whole world knows a lot about the US and from my experience the US knows hardly anything about the rest of the world.
Sorry that's not a very excting post, but there you go. More about Madrid later!
Well, I got my bag back! But sadly, there wasn't that much in it. My wallet (with my debit card, now useless to anyone, some id, like my driver's license, my ISIC card, my UP id card, my insurance card), my keys (which I had already made copies of), a paper that tells you all about the castle in Alicante (which is pretty, I used to have pictures of it), some twigs (that could tell some story of where my purse has been), and an empty cliff bar wrapper (I had two full Cliff bars in my purse at the beginning of this adventure). But it's all okay. I have more back than I thought I would, so I'm happy.
And now, my bag and I are off to Madrid for the weekend (and we're both planning on returning to Granada in the same way, at the same time). It's a trip with our program, we're going to Madrid, Segovia, and Toledo. I'm pretty excited.
Let's see. What else do I have to say?
We (Laura and I) starting doing some volunteer work last week or the week before. And so far she has learned a lot of new words about the earth (like the atmosphere, and different things like that). And I've learned a lot about math. I was reading the math book in a cafe, with no dictionary, and I was confused through the whole chapter about what a cifra is. Turns out it is a digit. That would have been helpful to know. It's good though, we're helping 4 girls with their homework (which consists right now mostly of math, english, a class that we don't have in the US about the earth, and we'll see what else). I never knew how hard it could be to teach math in spanish though!
Nothing else is very new I don't think. Just normal Spanish life, two of the most important parts of which in our house are the daily telenovelas and food. (I would say again here that fruit here is amazing and fruit in the US is really not that exciting).
Oh, and anytime anyone finds out that we're from the US the first question that comes out of their mouth is something about Obama. Well, either that or not McCain. So, just if anyone was curious, todo el mundo in Spain loves Obama and is more than happy to tell you that. I've also decided that the whole world knows a lot about the US and from my experience the US knows hardly anything about the rest of the world.
Sorry that's not a very excting post, but there you go. More about Madrid later!
Thursday, October 16, 2008
buenas noticias!
so ... i was in class today. and then maria (one of the program directors) came in and told us some things and then she looked at me and told me that she had good news for me.
and that was ... the police in alicante called! they have my purse! and sarah's! i don't know what all is in it, which could be basically nothing, but at least it's something. i don't know what exactly happened, but someone must have brought the bags to the police station. and the phone number of the program was in one of the bags. so they called. and they're going to send it to maria and i should have my bag back soon.
yay!
i hope that my camera, ipod, keys, wallet, id, or some other valuable things of some sort are in it, but we'll see. i'm excited! :)
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