My oh my! Where has the time gone? I can't possibly have just finished my 3rd to last weekend here, right??? But, but, but, but I just got here!!! It can't be almost time to leave already!! :'( My calendar must be lying to me. That has to be it. ... Right?
I wish I could say I did exciting stuff this weekend, but I didn't. And I don't want to lie. In fact, I've been told I'm too truthful sometimes. Anyway... getting sidetracked. This weekend. I quite literally slept the majority of the weekend. 10 to 11 hours of sleep a night and then naps during the day. It also helped (my sleeping desires) that I was sick. Again. With another sinus infection. Gahhh what is going on with my body?? I know I'm prone to sinus infections, but two in one month? That's a lot, even for me! And it was even worse this time. Last time I was just stuffy with a headache. This time, my body decided to add in plugged ears. And only one side of my nose was stuffy at a time. That's even worse than being entirely stuffy, sometimes (until you can't breathe at all and wish your nose would give you at least one way to breathe... but the grass is always greener on the other side, right?).
I saw the doctor (after going to his office to find him since I missed him at the Fundación) on Wednesday and he confirmed what I already knew; I had a sinus infection. He gave me three more meds (two the same as last time, one different, though I couldn't tell you what they do, except for the antibiotic). One is a small box, one a medium box and one a large box. My "mom" took them out of the pharmacy bag when I got home (I really am turning into a walking pharmacy... Ugh.) and lined them up on my desk. She stepped back, looked and them and started laughing. I looked at her like, "What are you laughing at...?" And she answered, pointing at each of them respectively, "Primer plato, segundo plato y postre!" ("1st course, 2nd course and dessert!") I gave her a look (and a sigh) that said, "Gee thanks..." and laughed, too. Sometimes it's harder to get out of her, but she is also pretty goofy.
That night, I started taking my meds. All three of them. I felt better at first, but Friday night I decided it would be a good idea to go out with some friends. Yeah, clearly my head wasn't working as well as it should have been. I woke up Saturday morning feeling as bad, if not worse, as I had on Tuesday (prior to being officially diagnosed). My head hurt (maybe from the (legitimately) little bit of alcohol I'd had Friday night... I was scolded when I got home. "You shouldn't be drinking alcohol while taking antibiotics!" Right. Forgot about that...) and I was stuffy again. And my left ear was plugged. Just my left one. That, no matter how you look at it, sucks (the having just one ear plugged part). With both ears plugged, at least you can't tell as much. But when you can hear perfectly out of one ear, the fact the other one is plugged is emphasized. That's how I was all day. Even after taking the antibiotic and decongestants. Since it was the weekend, we were at my "grandparents'" house, so naturally, I fell asleep. (In case I haven't said this before, they have the comfiest couch I have ever had the pleasure of sitting (or laying...) on. It's no wonder I keep falling asleep when I'm there!) Each time I was caught with my eyes open, someone would ask me how I was feeling. It's so nice to know that I'm cared about.
Sunday I felt better, but I was still a little under the weather. I took it easy and somehow managed not to fall asleep for too long. Sunday really was rather uneventful (which was exactly what I needed!). Monday classes started again, which was rough because I hadn't had class since last Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving)... Random no class day for my Art History class. So I dragged myself out of bed at 8:30am, got dressed, fell back asleep until 9:20am, had 5 minutes to throw together my backpack, put on my shoes, scarf and coat (because I'm scolded if I don't bundle up properly... I'm still scolded for not having gloves with me) and ran out the door to catch the bus. Lit was fine, we just rehearsed our performances for Wednesday (we are putting on a performance with our "abuelos" as a end-of-semester-party type thing). I don't see the point, but if it affects our grade, I'm in. After class I went home and worked all afternoon on an essay that's due Wednesday. For essay-writing-breaks I worked on study guides for my Philosophy and Art History tests. I was actually productive! Go me! Monday night meant Águila Roja, so I watched that with my family, and then I fell asleep on the couch. At 12:15 my "mom" woke me up and told me to go to bed since I was falling asleep. So off I went.
Tuesday (today) was an interesting day. It was my last day at the elementary school out in Polígono. The students I don't think have quite realized it, yet... I have realized once again why I love the 3rd grade aged kids: They are still eager to please. But my favorite moment from today was actually during the 5th grade class. The teacher asked me to work with one of the "trouble" kids on his homework and an additional activity (to keep him busy and not disturbing the rest of the class). I actually don't mind doing things like that... Even with some of the harder kids. So I went over to his desk and got down on my knees to help him. The first thing he did (and this was sooo adorable) was go over and grab me a chair. I couldn't help but think, "Awwww that was so nice of you!" My opinion of him immediately started to change and only continued to improve as I worked with him. He might struggle a little bit, but with a bit of prodding he knows more than he thinks he does. We finished his homework and moved on to the second assignment. They are learning the names of family members, so he was to draw his family and label each person. While he was drawing, he told me about his family. By the sheer number of family members he has, he has to be a gypsy. He told me has 63 cousins and 137 family members in total. Anyway, he told me about his family asked about mine. I told him it's just me, my mom and dad and my younger brother. He listened and kept drawing. When he finished, we still had time before the end of class, so we played a mini board game he had with him. We talked (quietly) and laughed (quietly) and I swear he let me win. He is really a sweet kid. I'm realizing that I think I'm finding my niche when it comes to classrooms... I don't know if I'm meant to be the sole teacher in the classroom. I seem to work very well with the "trouble" kids one-on-one. In Sra. Colyer's class it was Aidan (among some others). In the 3rd grade class here, it's a boy name José. And now this boy (I can't remember his name at the moment...) in the 5th grade class. I like working with them.
Rather than going straight home for lunch like I normally would on a Tuesday, I had to go to the Fundación for a mandatory meeting. The meeting was just to fill out evaluations for the overall program, our host families (if applicable... needless to say mine was a glowing review and then some!) and various classes (the ones that applied to you). Then we got to go. I got home a little after 3:00pm, ate lunch, and worked on my final notes for my presentation in my Service Learning class this evening. I totally wasn't paying attention to the time and I would have missed the bus if my "mom" hadn't looked at the clock and informed me I should go get ready. She totally saved my butt today. The other presentations were a lot of fun to watch and listen to. But they were all over the maximum amount of time we were given, so class lasted 30 minutes longer than it should have. As much fun as it was to listen to everyone's presentations, I was so happy to get out of there. All I wanted to do was get home, finish my essay and relax. And that's exactly what I did. :)
And now, it's time for bed! Longggg day tomorrow!
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Friday, November 25, 2011
Thanksgiving in Spain
So yesterday was Thanksgiving and the first year that I've been with my family. I didn't think it would matter so much to me that I wasn't there, but it did. I miss all the craziness of Thanksgiving with my grandparents, uncle, aunt, cousins, parents and my brother. Celebrating here is usually nonexistent, but the Fundación did their best to help us celebrate.
I wasn't planning on going originally, but my friend Grace convinced me I should go. So at 8:00pm (still on Spanish time, remember) I headed over to meet up with my friends. At 8:30pm dinner started. We all walked into the cafeteria and saw a turkey, mashed potatoes (or the Spanish version...), green beans, gravy, stuffing (yes, they had stuffing!)... but no pumpkin pie. The food was not nearly as good as what I'd eat normally, but considering that they cooks were making food for a holiday they don't celebrate, it was pretty good. I sat with my friends Kami and Moriko. We had a good time sitting and eating and laughing.
We finished eating and realized that they'd already given us everything and that there was not going to be any pumpkin pie. So we decided to head over the bar next to the Fundación with our friend Rebecca and get sangria. We sat at the bar for a long while just enjoying the sangria and talking about the cute guys near us.. using the fruit system that Kami and Moriko came up with while we were in London. I still don't understand the hierarchy of their fruits. I know the cutest fruit and the ugliest, but everything in between still doesn't make sense to me. So Rebecca and I just sat there listening to Kami and Moriko use their fruit comparisons, shaking our heads at the ridiculousness of it all. At 10:45pm we all headed to our bus stops to catch the bus home before they stopped running at 11:30pm.
I got home and realized that I'd missed the first 20 minutes of El Barco! Fortunately my "dad" informed me that nothing had happened yet and I hadn't missed anything. So I quickly changed into my pj's and joined them in the living room to watch. It was really funny... both my "mom" and "dad" were really tired, so they kept falling asleep during the show. My "dad" would wake up and look over at my "mom", and then poke her to wake her up and give her a hard time for falling asleep. It was really funny (to me, at least) because it was like a game to him. She'd wake up for a second and then within 30 seconds she was asleep again. And he just kept poking her and poking her... I had to laugh!
After El Barco ended, we all (as you probably could have guessed) went to bed. This was by far the strangest way to celebrate Thanksgiving, but it was still fun. I did, however, still very much miss my family.
I wasn't planning on going originally, but my friend Grace convinced me I should go. So at 8:00pm (still on Spanish time, remember) I headed over to meet up with my friends. At 8:30pm dinner started. We all walked into the cafeteria and saw a turkey, mashed potatoes (or the Spanish version...), green beans, gravy, stuffing (yes, they had stuffing!)... but no pumpkin pie. The food was not nearly as good as what I'd eat normally, but considering that they cooks were making food for a holiday they don't celebrate, it was pretty good. I sat with my friends Kami and Moriko. We had a good time sitting and eating and laughing.
We finished eating and realized that they'd already given us everything and that there was not going to be any pumpkin pie. So we decided to head over the bar next to the Fundación with our friend Rebecca and get sangria. We sat at the bar for a long while just enjoying the sangria and talking about the cute guys near us.. using the fruit system that Kami and Moriko came up with while we were in London. I still don't understand the hierarchy of their fruits. I know the cutest fruit and the ugliest, but everything in between still doesn't make sense to me. So Rebecca and I just sat there listening to Kami and Moriko use their fruit comparisons, shaking our heads at the ridiculousness of it all. At 10:45pm we all headed to our bus stops to catch the bus home before they stopped running at 11:30pm.
I got home and realized that I'd missed the first 20 minutes of El Barco! Fortunately my "dad" informed me that nothing had happened yet and I hadn't missed anything. So I quickly changed into my pj's and joined them in the living room to watch. It was really funny... both my "mom" and "dad" were really tired, so they kept falling asleep during the show. My "dad" would wake up and look over at my "mom", and then poke her to wake her up and give her a hard time for falling asleep. It was really funny (to me, at least) because it was like a game to him. She'd wake up for a second and then within 30 seconds she was asleep again. And he just kept poking her and poking her... I had to laugh!
After El Barco ended, we all (as you probably could have guessed) went to bed. This was by far the strangest way to celebrate Thanksgiving, but it was still fun. I did, however, still very much miss my family.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Post 3 Week Traveling Spree
I feel like the first thing needed for this blog is a deep breath. This has been my first full week in school (and Toledo) since the end of October. That is a long time to be away (and not to have class). When I got home on Sunday, I was so excited to know that I won't be going anywhere (overnight) until the beginning of December when I go to Rome. Time to relax, enjoy time with my host family and see my other friends.
To start the week off, I turned in an essay on Monday (having written it the night before since I was in Paris... amazingly it didn't take me too long!). Class on Monday was alright. We talked about the first and second acts of the play we are reading. It's complicated, but became a bit clearer after talking about it in class. After class on Monday I headed to talk to my "abuela". I don't know what it was this week, but it was a really long hour... Anyway, I headed home for lunch and then didn't have anything until 9:00pm. At 9:00pm I had to be at the Fundación for a dinner with Arcadia people and the program director from Granada who was supposed to come with us to Morocco, but ended up not being able to make it. I think almost all of us (the Arcadia people) went. The dinner was alright... They had made it sound like the point of the dinner was so the director lady could get to know us. But that ended up not exactly happening. A bunch of the Fundación people came with us, too, and they wouldn't let us mingle with them. All of us sat on one end of the table and the adults at the other. So much for mingling... In my opinion, the whole dinner was rather pointless, AND I get better food at home.
Tuesday was a fun day. In the morning I went out to Polígono to the elementary school, like every week. The kids knew that I had been in Paris the previous weekend and wouldn't stop asking me questions about it. They are hilarious. Anyhow, the 3rd graders were angels as usual (mostly). They were learning the words for clothes this week (trainers, shoes, jeans, trousers, t-shirt, hat, etc.). I really love the way that their teacher teaches them new words. I'll have to remember that and use it in the future. The 5th grade teacher, on the other hand, is awful. Though, somehow, they managed to get slightly more done than last week. Everything I've said about those classes before was only reinforced again this week. 2:00pm can't come fast enough once I'm into the older classes, but it does eventually. I went home for lunch and was happy because I wasn't going to my class that night. Instead, I was going to see a play in Madrid with my Literature class (so I was still going to A class, just not my Service Learning class). The play we saw is the same one we are reading in class. It was sooooooo funny!! We hadn't read the whole play yet, so we didn't know how it was going to end (we'd barely finished the beginning). The actors did a very good job at keeping the audience entertained. The best characters were definitely the squires of the nobles because they were the craziest... they would randomly start dancing and/or singing and make everyone laugh (especially us!). The whole experience was a blast! We got back after dinner time (but the Fundación had given us bag dinners) and I talked with my host parents for a bit, watched whatever TV show was on and then went to bed at 12:00am.
Wednesday morning was abnormal because I had to go to the library for both my Literature class and Philosophy classes (at the same time). It sounded interesting at first because we were going to see the 1st editions of the books we had been talking about in (for me) both classes. But in the end, it turned out to be completely pointless. The activity we were expected to do involved writing down the title, author, what year it was published/written and what language it was in. For those of us in Philosophy, we were expected to write down all the information for all 19 (yes, 19) books. Most of them were in Latin, so we couldn't understand them anyway. When they are in Latin, it's really hard to tell what is the title and who is the author. Not to mention the dates are in Roman numerals, which I can't read above 99 anyway. Later in class, we didn't even do anything with them. My professor read over the answers and told us that they are there if we ever decide we want to use them. Ok, thanks. That's not going to happen for me. In Lit, we talked about the 2nd act and also our impressions of the play. That was a fun class because we all wanted to talk about the squires. After class I went home for lunch and rested until I had to leave again at 5:30pm. Philosophy class was business as usual and then I came home again. Nights around here are pretty relaxed (if you haven't noticed) and nothing particularly exciting happens, but I enjoy them :) It's my chance to talk to my "family", and my "mom" in particular. I think nighttime is definitely my favorite part of the day.
Thursday was fun, too. I had class at 11:30am and it didn't take very long, which was nice. While waiting for lunch, Moriko and I went wandering around the shops in Zocodover. I ended up getting two scarves for 5€, which isn't so bad! I didn't bring any scarves with me from home, so my neck was getting a bit cold... Lunch rolled around and we met up with everyone to eat. After lunch, we still had an hour and a half before class, so we continued wandering around. 3:30pm rolled around and we went to class. It looked like we were going to get out early, but of course that wasn't the case. On the bus home, Moriko and I decided we wanted to go the mall. So we stopped by my house to drop off my backpack and then hers so she could do the same thing and then off we went to the mall! It was really fun just wandering around and looking at all the clothes. I wound up buying 2 long sleeve shirts because I only brought two with me from home (what was I thinking?!), one of which is my "lounge around the house" shirt, so I really only had one to wear out of the house. It was time for new ones. They weren't terribly expensive, so I bought two. I also needed a new pair of pajama pants... again. The last pair I bought here turned out to be too small around my legs (even though the waist fit fine) and I wound up with a huge hole in one leg. So the ones I bought at the mall this time are HUGE, which is alright because they are just pajama pants after all, AND they are flannel!!! :D And they are Disney! I love Disney! We got back from the mall around 8:30pm and I ate dinner and then watched El Barco with my family (the first time in 3 weeks!) and then went to bed because I knew I was going to be up early the next morning.
Friday was Segovia excursion day with the Fundación. How I ended up going is actually a funny story... I was talking to my "mom" at some point during the week and she asked me what I was up to this weekend. I told her nothing that I knew of, but probably nothing on Friday since my friends were going to be in Segovia. She all but shooed me out the door, telling me to put my name on the list. So I did. And I'm really glad I did! Segovia was one of the cities I wanted to go to, but was afraid I wouldn't have the time and/or money to get there. It's biggest attraction is the Roman aqueduct. I had learned about it in various Spanish classes and was eager to see it in real life. It was amazing!!! It is held together with pure gravity and no cement or anything and it's been like that for around 2000 years. Besides the aqueduct, we also saw that Alcazar (got a tour of the inside, too) and climbed it's tower. 150 stairs. Really really steep stairs. We were all huffing and puffing by the time we got to the top. José Luis told us that they once brought a group here and they were stuck behind a group of old people trying to climb the stairs. He said it took 20 minutes to get to the top. We just laughed at that and were very glad that it wasn't us! From the Alcazar we made our way towards the aqueduct. We passed many plazas and a number of churches. For a better idea of what the walk was like, check out my album on Facebook. When we got the aqueduct, we all stopped and went, "Woah." We got a brief explanation about it (how it's only held together by gravity and no cement or anything between the rocks and how it's been there for at least 2000 years or so) and then we were allowed to go off and take pictures and whatnot. Then at 2:00pm we were escorted to a restaurant (with "eh" food) for lunch. After lunch, we had 30 minutes to wander before making our way back towards the bus to come back to Toledo. We got back to Toledo much earlier than we thought, so Kami, Moriko and I decided we wanted to go see Breaking Dawn ("Amanecer" it's called here) in Spanish. So we went with another friend, Bárbara, and headed to the mall (again). I think we decided that it was wayyyy better in Spanish. Bella actually had emotion in her voice! It ended and all of us were like, "What are we going to do until July when the next part comes out?!" We enjoyed our Spanish movie experience. My favorite part was how they assign seats in the theater, so you don't have to get there ridiculously early to get good seats. That was quite nice. I wish we did it that way in the States. I got back around 12:00am and only my "brother" was home. I tried to stay up and wait for my "parents", but I was so tired that I crashed around 1:00am before they got home.
Saturday was just a normal weekend day, we went to Paraíso to my "grandparents'" house where we ate lunch and they did some house work stuff. I fell asleep and ended up sleeping most of the afternoon. Which turned out to be almost a good thing because I was going to go out with Kami and Moriko. But they accidentally missed the last normal bus and wound up waiting at least an hour for a late night bus to come by, but I'm not sure whether it did or not. After waiting for an hour, I got cold and headed home again. My "parents" were really confused when I was back so early... Haha... Anyway, when I got back I couldn't feel my toes, so they told me to go climb in bed. I did and was asleep almost immediately.
To start the week off, I turned in an essay on Monday (having written it the night before since I was in Paris... amazingly it didn't take me too long!). Class on Monday was alright. We talked about the first and second acts of the play we are reading. It's complicated, but became a bit clearer after talking about it in class. After class on Monday I headed to talk to my "abuela". I don't know what it was this week, but it was a really long hour... Anyway, I headed home for lunch and then didn't have anything until 9:00pm. At 9:00pm I had to be at the Fundación for a dinner with Arcadia people and the program director from Granada who was supposed to come with us to Morocco, but ended up not being able to make it. I think almost all of us (the Arcadia people) went. The dinner was alright... They had made it sound like the point of the dinner was so the director lady could get to know us. But that ended up not exactly happening. A bunch of the Fundación people came with us, too, and they wouldn't let us mingle with them. All of us sat on one end of the table and the adults at the other. So much for mingling... In my opinion, the whole dinner was rather pointless, AND I get better food at home.
Tuesday was a fun day. In the morning I went out to Polígono to the elementary school, like every week. The kids knew that I had been in Paris the previous weekend and wouldn't stop asking me questions about it. They are hilarious. Anyhow, the 3rd graders were angels as usual (mostly). They were learning the words for clothes this week (trainers, shoes, jeans, trousers, t-shirt, hat, etc.). I really love the way that their teacher teaches them new words. I'll have to remember that and use it in the future. The 5th grade teacher, on the other hand, is awful. Though, somehow, they managed to get slightly more done than last week. Everything I've said about those classes before was only reinforced again this week. 2:00pm can't come fast enough once I'm into the older classes, but it does eventually. I went home for lunch and was happy because I wasn't going to my class that night. Instead, I was going to see a play in Madrid with my Literature class (so I was still going to A class, just not my Service Learning class). The play we saw is the same one we are reading in class. It was sooooooo funny!! We hadn't read the whole play yet, so we didn't know how it was going to end (we'd barely finished the beginning). The actors did a very good job at keeping the audience entertained. The best characters were definitely the squires of the nobles because they were the craziest... they would randomly start dancing and/or singing and make everyone laugh (especially us!). The whole experience was a blast! We got back after dinner time (but the Fundación had given us bag dinners) and I talked with my host parents for a bit, watched whatever TV show was on and then went to bed at 12:00am.
Wednesday morning was abnormal because I had to go to the library for both my Literature class and Philosophy classes (at the same time). It sounded interesting at first because we were going to see the 1st editions of the books we had been talking about in (for me) both classes. But in the end, it turned out to be completely pointless. The activity we were expected to do involved writing down the title, author, what year it was published/written and what language it was in. For those of us in Philosophy, we were expected to write down all the information for all 19 (yes, 19) books. Most of them were in Latin, so we couldn't understand them anyway. When they are in Latin, it's really hard to tell what is the title and who is the author. Not to mention the dates are in Roman numerals, which I can't read above 99 anyway. Later in class, we didn't even do anything with them. My professor read over the answers and told us that they are there if we ever decide we want to use them. Ok, thanks. That's not going to happen for me. In Lit, we talked about the 2nd act and also our impressions of the play. That was a fun class because we all wanted to talk about the squires. After class I went home for lunch and rested until I had to leave again at 5:30pm. Philosophy class was business as usual and then I came home again. Nights around here are pretty relaxed (if you haven't noticed) and nothing particularly exciting happens, but I enjoy them :) It's my chance to talk to my "family", and my "mom" in particular. I think nighttime is definitely my favorite part of the day.
Thursday was fun, too. I had class at 11:30am and it didn't take very long, which was nice. While waiting for lunch, Moriko and I went wandering around the shops in Zocodover. I ended up getting two scarves for 5€, which isn't so bad! I didn't bring any scarves with me from home, so my neck was getting a bit cold... Lunch rolled around and we met up with everyone to eat. After lunch, we still had an hour and a half before class, so we continued wandering around. 3:30pm rolled around and we went to class. It looked like we were going to get out early, but of course that wasn't the case. On the bus home, Moriko and I decided we wanted to go the mall. So we stopped by my house to drop off my backpack and then hers so she could do the same thing and then off we went to the mall! It was really fun just wandering around and looking at all the clothes. I wound up buying 2 long sleeve shirts because I only brought two with me from home (what was I thinking?!), one of which is my "lounge around the house" shirt, so I really only had one to wear out of the house. It was time for new ones. They weren't terribly expensive, so I bought two. I also needed a new pair of pajama pants... again. The last pair I bought here turned out to be too small around my legs (even though the waist fit fine) and I wound up with a huge hole in one leg. So the ones I bought at the mall this time are HUGE, which is alright because they are just pajama pants after all, AND they are flannel!!! :D And they are Disney! I love Disney! We got back from the mall around 8:30pm and I ate dinner and then watched El Barco with my family (the first time in 3 weeks!) and then went to bed because I knew I was going to be up early the next morning.
Friday was Segovia excursion day with the Fundación. How I ended up going is actually a funny story... I was talking to my "mom" at some point during the week and she asked me what I was up to this weekend. I told her nothing that I knew of, but probably nothing on Friday since my friends were going to be in Segovia. She all but shooed me out the door, telling me to put my name on the list. So I did. And I'm really glad I did! Segovia was one of the cities I wanted to go to, but was afraid I wouldn't have the time and/or money to get there. It's biggest attraction is the Roman aqueduct. I had learned about it in various Spanish classes and was eager to see it in real life. It was amazing!!! It is held together with pure gravity and no cement or anything and it's been like that for around 2000 years. Besides the aqueduct, we also saw that Alcazar (got a tour of the inside, too) and climbed it's tower. 150 stairs. Really really steep stairs. We were all huffing and puffing by the time we got to the top. José Luis told us that they once brought a group here and they were stuck behind a group of old people trying to climb the stairs. He said it took 20 minutes to get to the top. We just laughed at that and were very glad that it wasn't us! From the Alcazar we made our way towards the aqueduct. We passed many plazas and a number of churches. For a better idea of what the walk was like, check out my album on Facebook. When we got the aqueduct, we all stopped and went, "Woah." We got a brief explanation about it (how it's only held together by gravity and no cement or anything between the rocks and how it's been there for at least 2000 years or so) and then we were allowed to go off and take pictures and whatnot. Then at 2:00pm we were escorted to a restaurant (with "eh" food) for lunch. After lunch, we had 30 minutes to wander before making our way back towards the bus to come back to Toledo. We got back to Toledo much earlier than we thought, so Kami, Moriko and I decided we wanted to go see Breaking Dawn ("Amanecer" it's called here) in Spanish. So we went with another friend, Bárbara, and headed to the mall (again). I think we decided that it was wayyyy better in Spanish. Bella actually had emotion in her voice! It ended and all of us were like, "What are we going to do until July when the next part comes out?!" We enjoyed our Spanish movie experience. My favorite part was how they assign seats in the theater, so you don't have to get there ridiculously early to get good seats. That was quite nice. I wish we did it that way in the States. I got back around 12:00am and only my "brother" was home. I tried to stay up and wait for my "parents", but I was so tired that I crashed around 1:00am before they got home.
Saturday was just a normal weekend day, we went to Paraíso to my "grandparents'" house where we ate lunch and they did some house work stuff. I fell asleep and ended up sleeping most of the afternoon. Which turned out to be almost a good thing because I was going to go out with Kami and Moriko. But they accidentally missed the last normal bus and wound up waiting at least an hour for a late night bus to come by, but I'm not sure whether it did or not. After waiting for an hour, I got cold and headed home again. My "parents" were really confused when I was back so early... Haha... Anyway, when I got back I couldn't feel my toes, so they told me to go climb in bed. I did and was asleep almost immediately.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Trip 3 of 3 in November... Paris!
For those of you who enjoy my longer blog posts, I hate to disappoint you this time. I can tell already that this is going to be a significantly shorter blog than usual, even for someone like me who loves to talk (... or write in this case).
Paris Paris Paris... I had such high expectations for you and you didn't seem to quite meet them. Sleeping at the airport again probably wasn't the best of starts, but even that wasn't too bad... Once I fell asleep. We landed in Paris around 9:30am, but we didn't actually get to our hotel until around 12:30pm or later. Upon getting off the plane, we got directions pretty easily, but we didn't realize that those directions would leave us so far from our hotel. Instead, they left us about 1 1/2 walk (what with not knowing where we were going) from our hotel. That was fun. So we wandered around a rather sketchy neighborhood looking for it for a long time. We even stopped to ask some police officers we found, but even they couldn't really help us. We walked a lot. Finally, we stumbled upon and and immediately checked in and then fell asleep. Yeah... the first thing we did in Paris was take a nap. That about set the tone for the rest of the trip.
Eventually we woke up and went to go explore a little bit. We learned that in order to get into the heart of Paris, we had to take a 20 minute bus ride (on the 159) to the bus/metro station and then another 20-30 minute Metro ride to any of the stops in that area. Friday night we wandered over to the Louvre. It was pretty cool, but I don't think Kami and I had that same "Oh my gosh, we are in Paris" feeling like we got while in London. But it's the Louvre we and we got in for free since we are students in the EU right now, so it was still worth it. We were in the Louvre for awhile and got to see Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa. That was pretty cool. Otherwise (to me) it was just another museum.
After the Louvre we grabbed coffee and some food (we ended up eating at McDonald's... How very American of us). After that, Elle connected (on my phone) with some of her sorority sisters who were in Paris also and went to go hang out with them. The three of us headed to the Metro, but went separate ways, Elle to hang out with her friends and Kami and I back to the hotel. When Kami and I got back, we each took showers (which felt SOOOO good by the way) and then accidentally fell asleep watching TV while relaxing. Around 10:30pm we woke up and realized that we hadn't actually eaten dinner. We went down to the restaurant in the lobby of our hotel, but apparently they close early... So we were told to go check the restaurant at the hotel next to us just in case the closed at 11:00pm. We ran over there, but lo and behold, they were closed too. The receptionist at that hotel was nice enough to tell us that there was a McDonald's about 15 minutes from there. He gave us general directions and off we went. Little did we know that he must have been mistaken because we definitely never found it. We walked at least 15 minutes (if not longer) in both directions and never found one. We did, however, manage to find a little convenience store where we bought some junk food and called it dinner. At least we weren't hungry? The cool part of that, though, was that we were speaking Spanish the majority of the walk so we wouldn't come off as the two American girls, and in the store, the cashier's friend asked us if we spoke English and the cashier said, "No... Spanish!" We passed as Spaniards to French people! :) I call that an accomplishment!
On the way back to our hotel, we were wondering if Elle had made it back yet. As of when we left she hadn't and it had been over 30 minutes (which is about as long as it should have taken). We were preparing to be worried if she wasn't there, but thank goodness she was. I expected her to be angry that we weren't there when she got back, but she was just curious as to where we had gone. She laughed when we explained our situation... We talked for a few minutes and then we all crashed.
Saturday was an interesting day. Kami and I forgot to set an alarm, so we were woken up at 11:30am by the cleaning lady. Elle had left a little bit before 10:00am to go meet with her friends again. She told me as she left to text her friend when we wanted to meet up. Kami and I took our time getting ready... which was much needed after our hectic Friday. We finally got out of the room around 12:30pm-1:00pm. We texted Elle and told her that we were grabbing lunch near Notre Dame and then going to go poke around there and she said she was already there. So we just figured we'd meet up later. Kami and I took the bus to the Metro station and then were trying to figure out how to get to Notre Dame. There was a Notre Dame stop, but in Paris in order to transfer to another line, you must buy another ticket. We didn't want to do that, so we got off at the stop where we would have transferred and made our way to the street.
We got to street level looked around and had that, "Where the hell are we?" moment. It was actually kind of funny. We ended up finding this hole-in-the-wall bagel place that was amazing (or maybe we were just starving?) and from there we guessed our way to Notre Dame. Notre Dame (from the outside) was amazing! Very big. Hahaha... We also found a little crepe place as we were heading to the back of Notre Dame and stopped to eat crepes. Nutella + banana = heaven (and a tummy ache... but totally worth it!). We were wandering around Notre Dame when we saw the top of the Eiffel Tower. We both looked at each other and immediately started heading that way.
We didn't realize it was going to take so long to walk there... By the time we got to the base of it, it was dark! Which I didn't mind because it was all lit up and pretty! :) We did find a little cart selling croissants, so of course had to stop and buy one. Mmmm... I love croissants. We also found a square full of grass, so we stopped and enjoyed seeing grass again. Neither of us realized that we miss grass. It was probably pretty funny to watch us running our hands over it.... Anyway, we ate our snack and kept moving towards the tower.
Being under the Eiffel Tower was my first "OMG I'm in Paris moment". Unfortunately, it came at the end of the trip... We took lots of pictures and considered going up, but neither of us wanted to pay. So we took our pictures and headed back to the hotel. Our journey back to the hotel was rather... long. We got on the right train going the wrong way... So it took us 2 hours to get back. I'm not complaining though because it definitely served as bonding time. We talked pretty much the whole way.
When we finally made it back to our Metro stop, I was in dire need of a bathroom stop. We made our way to street level and miraculously came across a McDonald's. Free bathroom and cheap food? Yes please! We stopped and ate dinner there, something that turned out not to be such a good idea for my poor tummy that night. :(
We got back to the hotel around 10:00pm and relaxed. As we were getting ready for bed, Elle came back. She wanted to talk and stuff because we never actually managed to meet up with her during the day, but we were so exhausted from all of our walking that we just kind of fell asleep. We also knew that in order to get to the airport on time Sunday morning, we needed to be picked up by a taxi/shuttle thing at 4:45am. We needed our sleep.
I was so happy to finally make it back to Spain. I was happy after my other trips, but this was different. Almost like coming home after Barcelona. I got about just as much sleep... My "grandparents" picked me up from the bus station and we headed back to their house where everyone was. I fell asleep until lunch and then fell asleep again after lunch. I can see why my sleeping is becoming an inside joke! We left earlier than usual from their house and made our way back "home" where I proceeded to fall asleep... Again. At 12:00am, my "mom" woke me up and we all went to sleep.
Paris Paris Paris... I had such high expectations for you and you didn't seem to quite meet them. Sleeping at the airport again probably wasn't the best of starts, but even that wasn't too bad... Once I fell asleep. We landed in Paris around 9:30am, but we didn't actually get to our hotel until around 12:30pm or later. Upon getting off the plane, we got directions pretty easily, but we didn't realize that those directions would leave us so far from our hotel. Instead, they left us about 1 1/2 walk (what with not knowing where we were going) from our hotel. That was fun. So we wandered around a rather sketchy neighborhood looking for it for a long time. We even stopped to ask some police officers we found, but even they couldn't really help us. We walked a lot. Finally, we stumbled upon and and immediately checked in and then fell asleep. Yeah... the first thing we did in Paris was take a nap. That about set the tone for the rest of the trip.
Eventually we woke up and went to go explore a little bit. We learned that in order to get into the heart of Paris, we had to take a 20 minute bus ride (on the 159) to the bus/metro station and then another 20-30 minute Metro ride to any of the stops in that area. Friday night we wandered over to the Louvre. It was pretty cool, but I don't think Kami and I had that same "Oh my gosh, we are in Paris" feeling like we got while in London. But it's the Louvre we and we got in for free since we are students in the EU right now, so it was still worth it. We were in the Louvre for awhile and got to see Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa. That was pretty cool. Otherwise (to me) it was just another museum.
After the Louvre we grabbed coffee and some food (we ended up eating at McDonald's... How very American of us). After that, Elle connected (on my phone) with some of her sorority sisters who were in Paris also and went to go hang out with them. The three of us headed to the Metro, but went separate ways, Elle to hang out with her friends and Kami and I back to the hotel. When Kami and I got back, we each took showers (which felt SOOOO good by the way) and then accidentally fell asleep watching TV while relaxing. Around 10:30pm we woke up and realized that we hadn't actually eaten dinner. We went down to the restaurant in the lobby of our hotel, but apparently they close early... So we were told to go check the restaurant at the hotel next to us just in case the closed at 11:00pm. We ran over there, but lo and behold, they were closed too. The receptionist at that hotel was nice enough to tell us that there was a McDonald's about 15 minutes from there. He gave us general directions and off we went. Little did we know that he must have been mistaken because we definitely never found it. We walked at least 15 minutes (if not longer) in both directions and never found one. We did, however, manage to find a little convenience store where we bought some junk food and called it dinner. At least we weren't hungry? The cool part of that, though, was that we were speaking Spanish the majority of the walk so we wouldn't come off as the two American girls, and in the store, the cashier's friend asked us if we spoke English and the cashier said, "No... Spanish!" We passed as Spaniards to French people! :) I call that an accomplishment!
On the way back to our hotel, we were wondering if Elle had made it back yet. As of when we left she hadn't and it had been over 30 minutes (which is about as long as it should have taken). We were preparing to be worried if she wasn't there, but thank goodness she was. I expected her to be angry that we weren't there when she got back, but she was just curious as to where we had gone. She laughed when we explained our situation... We talked for a few minutes and then we all crashed.
Saturday was an interesting day. Kami and I forgot to set an alarm, so we were woken up at 11:30am by the cleaning lady. Elle had left a little bit before 10:00am to go meet with her friends again. She told me as she left to text her friend when we wanted to meet up. Kami and I took our time getting ready... which was much needed after our hectic Friday. We finally got out of the room around 12:30pm-1:00pm. We texted Elle and told her that we were grabbing lunch near Notre Dame and then going to go poke around there and she said she was already there. So we just figured we'd meet up later. Kami and I took the bus to the Metro station and then were trying to figure out how to get to Notre Dame. There was a Notre Dame stop, but in Paris in order to transfer to another line, you must buy another ticket. We didn't want to do that, so we got off at the stop where we would have transferred and made our way to the street.
We got to street level looked around and had that, "Where the hell are we?" moment. It was actually kind of funny. We ended up finding this hole-in-the-wall bagel place that was amazing (or maybe we were just starving?) and from there we guessed our way to Notre Dame. Notre Dame (from the outside) was amazing! Very big. Hahaha... We also found a little crepe place as we were heading to the back of Notre Dame and stopped to eat crepes. Nutella + banana = heaven (and a tummy ache... but totally worth it!). We were wandering around Notre Dame when we saw the top of the Eiffel Tower. We both looked at each other and immediately started heading that way.
We didn't realize it was going to take so long to walk there... By the time we got to the base of it, it was dark! Which I didn't mind because it was all lit up and pretty! :) We did find a little cart selling croissants, so of course had to stop and buy one. Mmmm... I love croissants. We also found a square full of grass, so we stopped and enjoyed seeing grass again. Neither of us realized that we miss grass. It was probably pretty funny to watch us running our hands over it.... Anyway, we ate our snack and kept moving towards the tower.
Being under the Eiffel Tower was my first "OMG I'm in Paris moment". Unfortunately, it came at the end of the trip... We took lots of pictures and considered going up, but neither of us wanted to pay. So we took our pictures and headed back to the hotel. Our journey back to the hotel was rather... long. We got on the right train going the wrong way... So it took us 2 hours to get back. I'm not complaining though because it definitely served as bonding time. We talked pretty much the whole way.
When we finally made it back to our Metro stop, I was in dire need of a bathroom stop. We made our way to street level and miraculously came across a McDonald's. Free bathroom and cheap food? Yes please! We stopped and ate dinner there, something that turned out not to be such a good idea for my poor tummy that night. :(
We got back to the hotel around 10:00pm and relaxed. As we were getting ready for bed, Elle came back. She wanted to talk and stuff because we never actually managed to meet up with her during the day, but we were so exhausted from all of our walking that we just kind of fell asleep. We also knew that in order to get to the airport on time Sunday morning, we needed to be picked up by a taxi/shuttle thing at 4:45am. We needed our sleep.
I was so happy to finally make it back to Spain. I was happy after my other trips, but this was different. Almost like coming home after Barcelona. I got about just as much sleep... My "grandparents" picked me up from the bus station and we headed back to their house where everyone was. I fell asleep until lunch and then fell asleep again after lunch. I can see why my sleeping is becoming an inside joke! We left earlier than usual from their house and made our way back "home" where I proceeded to fall asleep... Again. At 12:00am, my "mom" woke me up and we all went to sleep.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
3 Trips in 3 Weekends? Lets do this!
Morocco, London last weekend (with two full days between Morocco and London...) and Paris this weekend. Paris still hasn't happened yet, so no stories there for now, but London was AMAZING!!
Our adventures started Thursday afternoon when we all met at the bus station to get to the airport to make our 5:10pm flight. We had no problems getting to Madrid (except for Kami briefly getting lost on her way to the bus station), but once we got to the airport, things got crazy. We didn't realize that the next direct bus was at 2:00pm instead of 1:30pm, so we were already cutting time a bit close. We arrived at the airport around 4:00pm (it takes 2 hours with the bus and Metro to actually get there...) and still needed to get our passports/visas checked and go through security. Fortunately the passport line didn't take too long, but then as we were starting to head to security, we couldn't remember if we had to check in or not. So we stood in line for awhile for no reason, because they just told us to go through security. So we hurried our way through security (which was delayed slightly by my stupid belt... It seems to only set off some metal detectors... And it chose this one. When we were in a hurry. Of course...) and then had to RUN to get to the gate. We got there and the sign on the board said "Gate Change". We panicked that we were at the wrong gate, but decided to stay and wait anyway since there we some people doing the same thing. We were glad we stayed because it turned out to be the right one! :)
The flight was fine and we landed in London. It was a bit of an adventure trying to figure out how to get to the hostel because we had to take a train and then metro and possibly a bus, but we got there eventually. (The first words out of Kami's mouth upon getting out of the airplane were, "I'm Harry Potter!" Oh Kami...) So we got off the train to transfer to the Metro and we pretended that the platform was 9 3/4 (a must when in London!). From there we caught the Metro and realized that our hostel was literally across the street from the Metro stop. That was a very pleasant surprise!
A few minutes later we are checked in and unpacked. We are starving and decide to run downstairs to the restaurant/bar that is the first floor of the building. We sit down, open up a menu and right was we are about to ask a passing waitress for our food, she tells us that the kitchen is closed. What?! Now we are frustrated, but decide to go across the street and wander to see if we can find somewhere that's open. To our surprise, London doesn't work like Spain does; after about 8:30-9:00pm everything closes. Except for a little mini mart type thing. Given that we were starving and would have eaten just about anything at that point, we stopped and bought a bunch of junk food: cheddar chips, Reese's, soda, sliced deli chicken, juice, crackers... You name it. It was definitely a very... interesting (and unhealthy) dinner. We took the bags up to the lounge on our floor and ate there.
While we were eating dinner, one of my 3 friends from Rome called me so we could make plans for "tea time" (they were in London at the same time we were) the next day. I was so excited to see them! I hadn't seen them (other than on Skype once) since the beginning of June. She told me that they had plans to go have tea at the Mint Hotel near the Tower Hill "tube" stop. We agreed to meet there at 2:30pm.
Friday morning rolls around and we got up for our free breakfast downstairs (we had to eat between 8:00am and 10:00am). Afterwards we all took showers and then started wandering in a random direction. We came across Hyde Park, which turned out to be the most beautiful park. The leaves were changing color, so the park was filled with loads of green, red, yellow and orange leaves. It was a relatively clear morning, so the sky was still blue (though the clouds were starting to roll in, so we got really lucky!). We wandered through the park, stopping occasionally to take pictures. In the middle of the park was a lake... or a pond... I'm not sure which. Anyway, in the body of water were birds. Lots of birds. Pidgeons, geese, swans, crows... All different types of birds. At one point, we were wandering by a flock of those birds and we all realized that swans are HUGE. They are like half the size of a little person! I had no idea that they were that big! Here I was thinking that geese are big, but these swans were bigger than them! Hence why I have lots of pictures of them. I was just amazed!
From there we made our way to the nearest tube stop so we could get over to the Mint Hotel. We got there a bit late because we decided last minute that we were going to go (it took a bit of convincing to get Kami and Moriko to agree to running all the way across town). I ran inside to try and find where they were while the other two followed more slowly. I probably looked ridiculous, running everywhere trying to figure out if 3 girls had come in asking about tea time. Eventually I found them... on the 12th floor! It felt soooooo good to see them again :) I hadn't seen them since the beginning of June when we all left school for the summer. We sat and drank tea for a few hours, but then we had to leave because they needed our table for a reservation. But it was a lot of fun to just sit and talk with everyone. Also weird to have two different parts of my life in one room. It was totally worth it, though!
As we left the hotel, it was getting dark. We all hopped on the "tube" (hahaha... I just can't get over that!), but got off at different stops. I said my goodbyes (but only until December when I go to Rome!) and Kami, Moriko and I headed to Oxford Street, where the H&M is located (among other stores). We wandered around for awhile because Kami wanted a jacket and Moriko needed an umbrella. Moriko got her umbrella and I got a jacket, but Kami ended up not seeing anything she wanted. I think I have a problem when I travel... I want to buy too much! I am determined to only buy what is necessary while I'm Paris (and Rome... maybe). But it was just too soft and warm and snuggly to NOT buy! (I know I know... that's not a legitimate reason for most people...) Anyway, we finished shopping and made our way back to the hostel for dinner.
Dinner was actually pretty good, now that we made it back before the kitchen closed. I had pasta with veggies and the other two got fish and chips. Theirs was HUGE. I don't think they were expecting it to be that big... But everything was delicious, even if it was too big! We sat there and ate and talked for a bit, and then we decided to head back upstairs. I wanted to shower so I wouldn't have to compete with all the morning showerers (like I had to that morning), and not to mention we were all exhausted from running around all day (because it was literally ALL day). I got out of the shower and we all just sat around in our room. At one point one of us looked at the time and realized we'd just wasted at least a couple of hours. By then, most things had closed, so we decided to just stay in our room. Running out of ideas, Kami suggested we revert to our childhood and play MASH. For those of you who don't remember or don't know what MASH is, it's a game where you pick 4 husbands, careers, number of children, salaries, etc. etc. (really whatever categories you want) and 1 number. Using the number (let's say 3), one person goes and crosses off every 3rd one. For example, it would look something like this...:
M(ansion) A(partment)S(hack) H(ouse)
Husband: # of Children:
Justin Timberlake 4
Orlando Bloom 10
Johnny Depp 0
Jude Law57
... Anyway, you do this until there is only 1 left in each category and at the end, that is your life. We had SO much fun doing this. I'm not sure if it's because it really was funny or if we were just really tired while doing this. Either way, we were laughing so hard we couldn't breathe. Some of the best jokes from this trip come from playing MASH. It was a really good idea :)
Saturday Saturday Saturday.... What did we do on Saturday? I don't remember.... Wait! Yes I do. We went and saw the touristy things: Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye... It doesn't sound like that much, but when you have to take the "tube" (hahaha...) everywhere, it takes a bit. We also got a later start after breakfast, so things took longer. We first went to go see Buckingham Palace. We walked the whole way there, back through Hyde Park. Before going up to the palace, we stopped for lunch (yes, lunch already...). We got hotdogs and tea. How British, right? :P The hotdogs were actually really good! The most American-y food I've had since September! We sat and watched people in the park while we ate. I'm sooo happy to find other people who think people watching is as fun as I do! We finished eating and then made our way to the Palace.
Unfortunately we missed the changing of the guard. By like 2 hours. :( But we did get to see the guards outside the palace. I think we were all a bit disappointed they weren't in red, but they still were wearing the funny hats! (P.S. Mommy - it made me miss our DSW outings trying on silly hats!) From there we managed to see every other touristy thing. Seeing Big Ben was really cool since (for me) it's the first thing I think of when I imagine London. Near Big Ben was Westminster Abbey (which cost too much to go in, so we just looked from the outside) and the London Eye (the big Ferris wheel). We wanted to go up the London Eye, but it was 18 pounds for the ticket. That's a lot. So we just took pictures instead. Right near the Ferris wheel there was a really scary looking haunted house. Kami tried so hard to get us to go, but we wouldn't. I considered it, but she wouldn't go without Moriko, who wouldn't budge. We skipped it instead and headed towards Madame Tussauds (the wax museum). We figured it would be less expensive, but it turned out to be even more expensive than the Eye. We should have just gone for the 18 pound tickets for the Ferris wheel. Oh well. At least I have pictures!
After we saw all the touristy attractions, we headed back to the hostel for dinner. Kami wasn't feeling great, so we had already decided we were going to stay in. We knew we didn't want to be stuck in our room, so we decided instead to hang out in the bar downstairs. We ate dinner and then just hung out there. While eating dinner, I received an email from one of the DU (Denver) Spanish professors saying that I would be able to get into the Spanish class I need (the last one to complete my major). Even though I knew it wasn't personal, it felt that way at first. So I was upset and decided that it would be a good night to push my alcohol limits (something I had never done until then). I didn't want to push them too far, just enough to feel like I had. Lets just say that I was successful (but not TOO successful, don't worry) because I definitely woke up Sunday morning with a headache. :(
So, yes, Sunday morning I woke up with my first alcohol related headache. There are definitely some people out there (you know who you are) who would be proud of me. We went down and ate breakfast, and while we were eating, we realized that we didn't have anything else to do... Even though we still had a full day left. So we ended up walking from Paddignton (where we were staying) all the way to Notting Hill. It was a really pretty walk. We found a street where artists hang their work on a fence and let people see it that way. Some of them were pretty amazing. We got there and found a coffee shop and then made our way to Soho to find the first international Chipotle (yeah yeah yeah). I wasn't hungry by then, but they were so we stopped in to get food. After Chipotle, we wandered some more and then wanted to find the Sherlock Holmes bar. Lucky to us (or so it seemed), we passed by a huge group of men dressed as Holmes and Watson. We not-so-sneakily followed them, hoping they would lead us there. I'm pretty sure they noticed us, but I'm not sure if they didn't say anything because they weren't positive (though that would be hard to not realize because I was in a bright pink sweater) or if it was for our sake... Either way it was hysterical. The funniest part was that they definitely weren't going where we hoped they were. Definitely wound up at a random bar. We didn't go in because then they would REALLY know we were following them...
After ungracefully escaping our awkward situation, we made our way back towards the hostel. We ate dinner there and then made our way to the airport. We weren't leaving until Monday morning, but we had two problems: our flight was early in the morning and no buses ran that early and 2) we didn't know how long it was going to take to get there. We were there 11 hours early. That's a really long time. We did our best to sleep, but it didn't work very well. We hung out until 4:00am when we could get through security and then waited until 7:50am to board. None of us remember taking off because we all sat down and immediately fell asleep.
The worst part about coming back to Toledo is the Metro ride from the airport to the bus station and the bus ride from Madrid back to Toledo. One or the other would be tolerable, but together it takes about 2 hours (assuming we can catch a direct bus not long after we get to the bus station in Madrid). But at least, we made it back to Toledo. Walking in the door felt almost as good as it did after Barcelona. I walked in, ate, took a shower and then a nap.
I am excited to see what adventures Paris has in store for me this weekend! :) Though I'll admit, I'm definitely ready for a travel break! I've got two weeks or something between Paris and Rome, so I'll get a chance to rest then.
Until next week! :)
... Wow. That is a very Spanish phrase; the English equivalent of "¡Hasta la semana que viene!" Oops.
Our adventures started Thursday afternoon when we all met at the bus station to get to the airport to make our 5:10pm flight. We had no problems getting to Madrid (except for Kami briefly getting lost on her way to the bus station), but once we got to the airport, things got crazy. We didn't realize that the next direct bus was at 2:00pm instead of 1:30pm, so we were already cutting time a bit close. We arrived at the airport around 4:00pm (it takes 2 hours with the bus and Metro to actually get there...) and still needed to get our passports/visas checked and go through security. Fortunately the passport line didn't take too long, but then as we were starting to head to security, we couldn't remember if we had to check in or not. So we stood in line for awhile for no reason, because they just told us to go through security. So we hurried our way through security (which was delayed slightly by my stupid belt... It seems to only set off some metal detectors... And it chose this one. When we were in a hurry. Of course...) and then had to RUN to get to the gate. We got there and the sign on the board said "Gate Change". We panicked that we were at the wrong gate, but decided to stay and wait anyway since there we some people doing the same thing. We were glad we stayed because it turned out to be the right one! :)
The flight was fine and we landed in London. It was a bit of an adventure trying to figure out how to get to the hostel because we had to take a train and then metro and possibly a bus, but we got there eventually. (The first words out of Kami's mouth upon getting out of the airplane were, "I'm Harry Potter!" Oh Kami...) So we got off the train to transfer to the Metro and we pretended that the platform was 9 3/4 (a must when in London!). From there we caught the Metro and realized that our hostel was literally across the street from the Metro stop. That was a very pleasant surprise!
A few minutes later we are checked in and unpacked. We are starving and decide to run downstairs to the restaurant/bar that is the first floor of the building. We sit down, open up a menu and right was we are about to ask a passing waitress for our food, she tells us that the kitchen is closed. What?! Now we are frustrated, but decide to go across the street and wander to see if we can find somewhere that's open. To our surprise, London doesn't work like Spain does; after about 8:30-9:00pm everything closes. Except for a little mini mart type thing. Given that we were starving and would have eaten just about anything at that point, we stopped and bought a bunch of junk food: cheddar chips, Reese's, soda, sliced deli chicken, juice, crackers... You name it. It was definitely a very... interesting (and unhealthy) dinner. We took the bags up to the lounge on our floor and ate there.
While we were eating dinner, one of my 3 friends from Rome called me so we could make plans for "tea time" (they were in London at the same time we were) the next day. I was so excited to see them! I hadn't seen them (other than on Skype once) since the beginning of June. She told me that they had plans to go have tea at the Mint Hotel near the Tower Hill "tube" stop. We agreed to meet there at 2:30pm.
Friday morning rolls around and we got up for our free breakfast downstairs (we had to eat between 8:00am and 10:00am). Afterwards we all took showers and then started wandering in a random direction. We came across Hyde Park, which turned out to be the most beautiful park. The leaves were changing color, so the park was filled with loads of green, red, yellow and orange leaves. It was a relatively clear morning, so the sky was still blue (though the clouds were starting to roll in, so we got really lucky!). We wandered through the park, stopping occasionally to take pictures. In the middle of the park was a lake... or a pond... I'm not sure which. Anyway, in the body of water were birds. Lots of birds. Pidgeons, geese, swans, crows... All different types of birds. At one point, we were wandering by a flock of those birds and we all realized that swans are HUGE. They are like half the size of a little person! I had no idea that they were that big! Here I was thinking that geese are big, but these swans were bigger than them! Hence why I have lots of pictures of them. I was just amazed!
From there we made our way to the nearest tube stop so we could get over to the Mint Hotel. We got there a bit late because we decided last minute that we were going to go (it took a bit of convincing to get Kami and Moriko to agree to running all the way across town). I ran inside to try and find where they were while the other two followed more slowly. I probably looked ridiculous, running everywhere trying to figure out if 3 girls had come in asking about tea time. Eventually I found them... on the 12th floor! It felt soooooo good to see them again :) I hadn't seen them since the beginning of June when we all left school for the summer. We sat and drank tea for a few hours, but then we had to leave because they needed our table for a reservation. But it was a lot of fun to just sit and talk with everyone. Also weird to have two different parts of my life in one room. It was totally worth it, though!
As we left the hotel, it was getting dark. We all hopped on the "tube" (hahaha... I just can't get over that!), but got off at different stops. I said my goodbyes (but only until December when I go to Rome!) and Kami, Moriko and I headed to Oxford Street, where the H&M is located (among other stores). We wandered around for awhile because Kami wanted a jacket and Moriko needed an umbrella. Moriko got her umbrella and I got a jacket, but Kami ended up not seeing anything she wanted. I think I have a problem when I travel... I want to buy too much! I am determined to only buy what is necessary while I'm Paris (and Rome... maybe). But it was just too soft and warm and snuggly to NOT buy! (I know I know... that's not a legitimate reason for most people...) Anyway, we finished shopping and made our way back to the hostel for dinner.
Dinner was actually pretty good, now that we made it back before the kitchen closed. I had pasta with veggies and the other two got fish and chips. Theirs was HUGE. I don't think they were expecting it to be that big... But everything was delicious, even if it was too big! We sat there and ate and talked for a bit, and then we decided to head back upstairs. I wanted to shower so I wouldn't have to compete with all the morning showerers (like I had to that morning), and not to mention we were all exhausted from running around all day (because it was literally ALL day). I got out of the shower and we all just sat around in our room. At one point one of us looked at the time and realized we'd just wasted at least a couple of hours. By then, most things had closed, so we decided to just stay in our room. Running out of ideas, Kami suggested we revert to our childhood and play MASH. For those of you who don't remember or don't know what MASH is, it's a game where you pick 4 husbands, careers, number of children, salaries, etc. etc. (really whatever categories you want) and 1 number. Using the number (let's say 3), one person goes and crosses off every 3rd one. For example, it would look something like this...:
M(ansion) A(partment)
Husband: # of Children:
Justin Timberlake
Johnny Depp 0
Jude Law
... Anyway, you do this until there is only 1 left in each category and at the end, that is your life. We had SO much fun doing this. I'm not sure if it's because it really was funny or if we were just really tired while doing this. Either way, we were laughing so hard we couldn't breathe. Some of the best jokes from this trip come from playing MASH. It was a really good idea :)
Saturday Saturday Saturday.... What did we do on Saturday? I don't remember.... Wait! Yes I do. We went and saw the touristy things: Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye... It doesn't sound like that much, but when you have to take the "tube" (hahaha...) everywhere, it takes a bit. We also got a later start after breakfast, so things took longer. We first went to go see Buckingham Palace. We walked the whole way there, back through Hyde Park. Before going up to the palace, we stopped for lunch (yes, lunch already...). We got hotdogs and tea. How British, right? :P The hotdogs were actually really good! The most American-y food I've had since September! We sat and watched people in the park while we ate. I'm sooo happy to find other people who think people watching is as fun as I do! We finished eating and then made our way to the Palace.
Unfortunately we missed the changing of the guard. By like 2 hours. :( But we did get to see the guards outside the palace. I think we were all a bit disappointed they weren't in red, but they still were wearing the funny hats! (P.S. Mommy - it made me miss our DSW outings trying on silly hats!) From there we managed to see every other touristy thing. Seeing Big Ben was really cool since (for me) it's the first thing I think of when I imagine London. Near Big Ben was Westminster Abbey (which cost too much to go in, so we just looked from the outside) and the London Eye (the big Ferris wheel). We wanted to go up the London Eye, but it was 18 pounds for the ticket. That's a lot. So we just took pictures instead. Right near the Ferris wheel there was a really scary looking haunted house. Kami tried so hard to get us to go, but we wouldn't. I considered it, but she wouldn't go without Moriko, who wouldn't budge. We skipped it instead and headed towards Madame Tussauds (the wax museum). We figured it would be less expensive, but it turned out to be even more expensive than the Eye. We should have just gone for the 18 pound tickets for the Ferris wheel. Oh well. At least I have pictures!
After we saw all the touristy attractions, we headed back to the hostel for dinner. Kami wasn't feeling great, so we had already decided we were going to stay in. We knew we didn't want to be stuck in our room, so we decided instead to hang out in the bar downstairs. We ate dinner and then just hung out there. While eating dinner, I received an email from one of the DU (Denver) Spanish professors saying that I would be able to get into the Spanish class I need (the last one to complete my major). Even though I knew it wasn't personal, it felt that way at first. So I was upset and decided that it would be a good night to push my alcohol limits (something I had never done until then). I didn't want to push them too far, just enough to feel like I had. Lets just say that I was successful (but not TOO successful, don't worry) because I definitely woke up Sunday morning with a headache. :(
So, yes, Sunday morning I woke up with my first alcohol related headache. There are definitely some people out there (you know who you are) who would be proud of me. We went down and ate breakfast, and while we were eating, we realized that we didn't have anything else to do... Even though we still had a full day left. So we ended up walking from Paddignton (where we were staying) all the way to Notting Hill. It was a really pretty walk. We found a street where artists hang their work on a fence and let people see it that way. Some of them were pretty amazing. We got there and found a coffee shop and then made our way to Soho to find the first international Chipotle (yeah yeah yeah). I wasn't hungry by then, but they were so we stopped in to get food. After Chipotle, we wandered some more and then wanted to find the Sherlock Holmes bar. Lucky to us (or so it seemed), we passed by a huge group of men dressed as Holmes and Watson. We not-so-sneakily followed them, hoping they would lead us there. I'm pretty sure they noticed us, but I'm not sure if they didn't say anything because they weren't positive (though that would be hard to not realize because I was in a bright pink sweater) or if it was for our sake... Either way it was hysterical. The funniest part was that they definitely weren't going where we hoped they were. Definitely wound up at a random bar. We didn't go in because then they would REALLY know we were following them...
After ungracefully escaping our awkward situation, we made our way back towards the hostel. We ate dinner there and then made our way to the airport. We weren't leaving until Monday morning, but we had two problems: our flight was early in the morning and no buses ran that early and 2) we didn't know how long it was going to take to get there. We were there 11 hours early. That's a really long time. We did our best to sleep, but it didn't work very well. We hung out until 4:00am when we could get through security and then waited until 7:50am to board. None of us remember taking off because we all sat down and immediately fell asleep.
The worst part about coming back to Toledo is the Metro ride from the airport to the bus station and the bus ride from Madrid back to Toledo. One or the other would be tolerable, but together it takes about 2 hours (assuming we can catch a direct bus not long after we get to the bus station in Madrid). But at least, we made it back to Toledo. Walking in the door felt almost as good as it did after Barcelona. I walked in, ate, took a shower and then a nap.
I am excited to see what adventures Paris has in store for me this weekend! :) Though I'll admit, I'm definitely ready for a travel break! I've got two weeks or something between Paris and Rome, so I'll get a chance to rest then.
Until next week! :)
... Wow. That is a very Spanish phrase; the English equivalent of "¡Hasta la semana que viene!" Oops.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Camels, Hammam, Shopping.... Morocco Adventure!
Dear Readers,
I know I was absolutely awful about updating my blog last week, but realistically, there really wasn't that much to write about. Here's the summary: I was sick with a sinus infection (and a sore throat briefly) and I had midterms. So I basically only slept and studied and ate. Beyond that, I didn't do anything interesting. Soooo... that was last week.
This weekend however, was quite interesting. I spent the weekend in Morocco with 14 other girls who came here with Arcadia. I was really nervous about going on this trip because I'd heard that a lot of people got sick. And it was a country I knew absolutely nothing about. I'm sure there were other things, but those are the two big ones. As it turned out, as long as I was smart and didn't drink the tap water, I had nothing to worry about.
Friday morning we had to be at the Madrid airport (Barajas) at 11:15am. So I met Kami in Zocodover at 8:15am to catch a 9:00am bus. As it turns out, the rest of our group was also catching that bus, so we all got there together. I really like Madrid because of the Metro system. From the bus station we pulled into, we took the Metro all the way to the airport. Granted it takes 45 minutes to get there, but it's cheaper than taking a taxi. So we got to the airport and we finally found our guide (Alan). He was a bit odd, but very nice. He was dressed exactly like my dad dressed when we travel (which made me laugh!): quick dry, cargo-type pants and a button up quick dry collared shirt. Maybe it's just a guy thing? I don't know... Anyway, we made our way through security and then grabbed a bite to eat since we were all hungry (I didn't have time to eat breakfast). From there we went to the gate and got on the plane.
The plane ride was only 1 hour and 5 minutes. We flew from Madrid straight into Tangier. When we got off the plane, we made our way through customs and whatnot and then waited outside for our bus. From the airport we headed to a women's center where we had lunch and talked with three women who study in or near Tangier. We ate couscous with chicken and vegetables on top and listened to the women answer Alan's questions about what life is like for them in Morocco. We learned about the head scarf and how it's generally a personal choice whether to wear it or not, we learned about dating (or lack of dating) customs, among many other things. After lunch we got a tour of the building and took some amazing pictures from the roof of the square below. We finished up talking to the women and moved on to our next place.
On our way to the next place, Alan surprised us with camel rides on the beach at sunset. More than a few girls had been talking about how they were going to be really disappointed if they returned to Spain without having ridden a camel in Africa. So sure enough, they got their opportunity! People's reactions to the camels were hilarious! They couldn't believe they were actually going to ride camels. And ride camels we did. Briefly. It wasn't a very long ride, but it was certainly more than enough. Having done it before, I considered skipping it, but then I thought to myself, "Who in their right mind would skip riding a camel??" So I rode a camel.
We stopped a few more times for bathroom breaks, but eventually we made it (about 3 hours later) to Rabat (the capital). The first thing we did was walk around the city for 3 hours with local kids about our age. I was with 4 other girls from our group and 3 Moroccans. They were very nice! They were very interested in what life is like for us in the United States, probably more interested than we were in what their life is like in Morocco. My favorite part was when the guy I was talking to asked us for "stupid American jokes". Apparently he really likes stupid jokes. And he asked specifically for stupid jokes. He also told me about a book he was reading by an author that uses metaphors to explain humans. It was cheesy, but it was a metaphor I hadn't heard before. He used a pencil as his metaphor. There were 5 ways it related to humans: the eraser, the led inside, a sharpener, how a pencil is guided by a hand and how a pencil always leaves a mark. Like I said, they were definitely cheesy. I don't think I have to explain how each relates to humans, right? The three people we were talking to were all very nice. We all went and got coffee/tea/juice after our walk and then headed back to meet up with the rest of us. The second thing we did was meet our host families. I was grouped with Kami and Anny and we got VERY lucky with our family. The wife of the house picked us up from our "meeting spot" and showed us how to get to the house. We walked in the door and were immediately speechless. The house was beautiful. It was completely made of this really pretty tile with an enclosed patio in the middle and room around the outside. Our room was the TV room and consisted of a TV (obviously), and three couches on three of the four walls. We each slept on one of the couches with a big heavy blanket as our covers. The first night we were there, their maid understood that I was sick and (using olive oil) massaged my chest so that I would be able to breathe. She then proceeded to massaged Kami and Anny's backs (voluntarily... we never once asked her to do all of this). We got there and ate dinner and then tried to talk, but it was hard because they didn't speak English. Each house was expected to have at least one English speaker, but the husband wasn't there the first night. When we had trouble communicating, we went to sleep since we knew we had to be up early anyway.
The next morning we met at 9:00am and went over to a park with Roman ruins. The park was beautiful: very green... and with lots of cats. We stopped to snack a few minutes after getting there and one of the cats kept sticking its nose in the bag hoping to find something. We had to keep scaring it in order to save the food. They were cute, but I can't say I wanted to touch one. We finished snacking and moved on to the ruins. The ruins were pretty cool, though in all honesty they sort of look like any old ruins... We wandered through the ruins for a bit and then moved on to the ruins of an old mosque.
The mosque was actually pretty cool. The grave of the current king's dad and grandfather were there. The grandfather was a very important king in Morocco history, especially for Jews. When the Jews were kicked out of Spain (you are all going to laugh at me for this... I had to look up how to say that in English. I couldn't remember how to say "expulsar" in English!), they fled to Morocco. When the Nazis came looking for them saying that they needed to be returned to their country in order to be "collected", the Moroccan king told them that all the Jews were officially Moroccans and that they are under his protection. That king had guts to stand up to the Nazis just to protect the Jews. I think he's officially my new favorite king.
From the mosque we went back to our home stays to have lunch. After lunch we had a few hours to relax. I napped for a little bit while Anny went to get her hair cut. When Anny got back, she Kami and I headed to our meeting spot again for yet another activity. I actually don't remember what that activity was right now... I might have my events mixed up. We might have walked around with the 3 Moroccans now instead of the day before and just gone straight to the home stays... Oh well. Anyway, later that night we met at 6:30pm at our meeting spot to talk with a Peace Corps person and another person (he was part of a scholar program, but I can't remember what it was called). Their stories were actually really interesting. Peace Corps had crossed my mind at some point and so it was particularly interesting to hear his stories. From the meeting we all ran home quickly to grab what we needed for the Hammam (I'll explain what that is in a minute) and then met back at our spot at 8:15pm to head over there.
Now... What exactly is a Hammam? Well, to put it simply, it's a public shower (one for men and one for women). Keep in mind it's their definition of a shower, meaning they give you a bucket of water and a cup and you dump water on yourself. So it's really more like a bath. But the catch here is that it's one big room and you go basically naked. Women go with just their underwear on. Fortunately for my group, it was just the 9 of us in a room (and yes, we all went with just bottoms on). It wasn't as scary as we thought it would be. We were all awkward at first because it's not normal for us to expose that much of ourselves to people we really don't know all that well. Let's just say we all know each other quite a bit better after this trip. Experiencing the Hammam was definitely an experience. I wasn't sure I wanted to do it, but in the end I decided that "when in Morocco, do as the Moroccans do". Our host family provided us with buckets, cups and shoes to wear and as Kami, Anny and I walked down the street to meet up with everyone else, we got shouted at by guys saying, "Going to the Hammam??" and "Ooooooh Hammam!" Everyone knew where we were going. I didn't like that part very much, but it was worth it in the end. After the Hammam we all headed home, ate dinner and then went straight to bed.
The next morning we met at 8:00am and headed back up north to a city called Chefchaouen. On our way there, we stopped in a little, remote town and ate lunch with a family there. It was our chance to see the lifestyles of people who live in rural areas. We had couscous with chicken and vegetables (again) and made our own sandwiches. It was all very good. We finished eating and sat around talking for awhile. The women didn't speak English, so we had a guy with us who was our translator. We talked about any number of things. One of the most interesting topics, in my opinion, was marriage. She asked us if any of us where married. When we said no, she asked us if we wanted to get married. All but three of us raised our hands. She asked those three why. The answers were more or less what you'd expect: independence, travel, etc... I thought it was very interesting to see the other side of things.
When we all ran out of questions, we got a tour of the house, which took about 20-30 minutes as people took pictures and stuff. Then we continued on our way to a city called Chefchaouen. It was by far my favorite city. It used to be a Spanish colony, so they spoke Spanish. We realized at some point that that was the longest we'd all spoke English since September. We all go maybe a few hours, but an entire weekend? I don't know about them, but I was sooooooo happy to speak Spanish again. I didn't realize how much I missed it. Anyhow, we got to the city, walked to the hostel we were staying at and then had a few hours to wander around the city on our own until we met for dinner. We all, of course, went shopping. I bought: a bracelet for my "sister" since next weekend is her birthday and I won't be here, a keychain for my "parents", a scarf for me and a henna tattoo. I started with 20 euros and when I exchanged my money back into euros at the end, I got back 9. I only spent a total of 11 euros. Morocco is very cheap!
At 9:15pm we met for dinner. It was amazing! I got a Moroccan salad (which is basically just cucumbers and tomatoes all blended into a sauce type thing) for an appetizer and chicken kabobs as my entree. I'm not going to lie... my decision for the kabobs was greatly influenced by the fact that they came with french fries. I am totally my mother's daughter... Dinner was actually a lot of fun. I was at a table with 8 other people, including our guide. The conversations were so entertaining! Ana was trying to explain to us something her mom taught her how to do, but she was either having trouble explaining it right or we just weren't getting it. Either way, it was soooo funny.
After dinner we headed back to the hostel and had a brief meeting with everyone. Our guide wanted to know how impressions of the trip and what personal effects we think it will have on us. He was going to hold the meeting on the terrace, but as it turns out, our hostel was filled with people smoking TONS of weed and they were hanging out up there. So we had our meeting in his room instead. He lit a candle and turned off the lights... Apparently he wanted it to be a very... intimate meeting. After the meeting we all headed to bed because we were exhausted.
Monday morning we had the option of getting up early to go on a walk to the highest point in Chefchaouen. They were planning on leaving the hostel at 7:00am and I wasn't sure I really wanted to get up that early. But of course as other people started moving, I woke up and decided I would go with them. I'm really glad I did! It was a LONG walk up, but totally worth it for the views. It was amazing. I'll get caption on my pictures on Facebook soon you all will know which ones I'm talking about. We stayed up there and had a brief snack and then made our way back down to meet up with everyone else for breakfast.
We ate breakfast at this little place in the Plaza Mayor in the middle of the city. The food was good, but I couldn't eat very much just because I don't normally when I travel. I was sitting next to Kati and across from Grace and Ana and we had an adventure with bees. They kept flying all around us because they liked the sweet tea and food we had in front of us. Well, at one point, a bee landed on Kati's tea glass and proceeded to fall in! It died instantly since it couldn't swim and Kati had to get a new tea. From then on, it was a game to try and trap the bees in our tea glasses. It kept us entertained for the duration of breakfast... :)
Breakfast finished around 9:00am and we were given 2 hours to wander around as we wished. I headed back to the hostel to finish packing and then hung out with Grace, Kati and Ana until it was time to go. At 11:00am we left to head back to Tangier to catch our plane to Madrid. It took 2 1/2 hours to get back to Tangier. And I had to pee the whole time. It sucked. Finally I asked if we could make a rest stop because I was on the verge of exploding. Fortunately we were able to stop before making it to the airport.
The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, which was good. We landed back in Madrid around 6:30pm and then took another 2 hours to get back to Toledo (counting the Metro and the bus ride and everything). I walked in the door around 8:45pm-9:00pm ish and no one was home. I was a bit offended at first, thinking, "You haven't seen me in almost 5 days and no one is home to say hi when I get here?? AND it's a Monday night! Where in the world could you be?!" So I decided I would take a shower and wait for someone to get home. Well, I walked into my room only to find that the whole room had been cleaned. But not just cleaned... rearranged. The bed and desk and everything were still in the same spots, but all my clothes and books and stuff had been moved. I ended up going on a scavenger hunt to find everything! All I wanted to do was take a shower! I also wanted to empty my backpack and put all the dirty clothes in my hamper... but I couldn't find it! I looked everywhere for it... In both of my closets, in the kitchen by the washer... in my sister's room. It was nowhere to be found. I finally gave up and just decided to take a shower. I was in the bathroom about to get in, when I finally found my hamper. It was in the shower. In the shower?! Who keeps their hamper in the shower?? I just laughed, moved it back to my room and took my shower.
I got out and still no one was home. I was beginning to get very sad now because I was so excited to see everyone after almost 5 days. So I grabbed my computer and figured I would catch up with people on Facebook until someone showed up. Around 9:30pm my "dad" called and asked where I was. I said, "... At home?" He said, "Oh! We were hanging out in Paraíso waiting for you to call us so we could get you from the bus station!" I felt so bad! They were waiting just to pick me up! I told him that I wasn't sure whether I should call or not because I don't want to be a burden. I will happily take the bus if it's easier on them. I didn't realize they were expecting me to call! He said that they were leaving right then and that they'd see me soon. I suddenly wasn't so sad that no one was home when I got there...
They got back, we talked briefly and I headed to bed pretty soon after that because I was exhausted. Thank goodness for Spanish holidays because there was no class on Tuesday, so I could sleep in as long as I wanted! :D
*****Stories I forgot to add*****
1) Turkish toilets. I can't believe I forgot to add this part in! It was soooooo funny. First it's important to describe what a Turkish toilet is. It's very simple: there are places for your feet and a hole in the middle. You put your feet in the designated spots, squat over the hole and do your business. It took some definite getting used to!
2) About the toilets... There was no toilet paper. Moroccans apparently don't believe in using toilet paper. How do they clean themselves you ask? You have no idea what you are asking... but since you did... They use their left hand. Yes, their HAND. It's disgusting. And I didn't see much soap in the bathrooms, so I'm not sure how they wash their hands... Like I said, you were going to be sorry you ask. A funny story about this is that we were told NOT to use our left hand when eating out of a shared bowl of food at a meal. We now understand why. I'm sure we would get some very disgusted looks if we took food from a shared bowl with our left hand. Ewwwwwwww!!! I was telling my host family about this part of the trip and that was all they could talk about. Forget the other cultural differences... they only wanted to talk about the toilets and lack of toilet paper! Hahahahaha....
I know I was absolutely awful about updating my blog last week, but realistically, there really wasn't that much to write about. Here's the summary: I was sick with a sinus infection (and a sore throat briefly) and I had midterms. So I basically only slept and studied and ate. Beyond that, I didn't do anything interesting. Soooo... that was last week.
This weekend however, was quite interesting. I spent the weekend in Morocco with 14 other girls who came here with Arcadia. I was really nervous about going on this trip because I'd heard that a lot of people got sick. And it was a country I knew absolutely nothing about. I'm sure there were other things, but those are the two big ones. As it turned out, as long as I was smart and didn't drink the tap water, I had nothing to worry about.
Friday morning we had to be at the Madrid airport (Barajas) at 11:15am. So I met Kami in Zocodover at 8:15am to catch a 9:00am bus. As it turns out, the rest of our group was also catching that bus, so we all got there together. I really like Madrid because of the Metro system. From the bus station we pulled into, we took the Metro all the way to the airport. Granted it takes 45 minutes to get there, but it's cheaper than taking a taxi. So we got to the airport and we finally found our guide (Alan). He was a bit odd, but very nice. He was dressed exactly like my dad dressed when we travel (which made me laugh!): quick dry, cargo-type pants and a button up quick dry collared shirt. Maybe it's just a guy thing? I don't know... Anyway, we made our way through security and then grabbed a bite to eat since we were all hungry (I didn't have time to eat breakfast). From there we went to the gate and got on the plane.
The plane ride was only 1 hour and 5 minutes. We flew from Madrid straight into Tangier. When we got off the plane, we made our way through customs and whatnot and then waited outside for our bus. From the airport we headed to a women's center where we had lunch and talked with three women who study in or near Tangier. We ate couscous with chicken and vegetables on top and listened to the women answer Alan's questions about what life is like for them in Morocco. We learned about the head scarf and how it's generally a personal choice whether to wear it or not, we learned about dating (or lack of dating) customs, among many other things. After lunch we got a tour of the building and took some amazing pictures from the roof of the square below. We finished up talking to the women and moved on to our next place.
On our way to the next place, Alan surprised us with camel rides on the beach at sunset. More than a few girls had been talking about how they were going to be really disappointed if they returned to Spain without having ridden a camel in Africa. So sure enough, they got their opportunity! People's reactions to the camels were hilarious! They couldn't believe they were actually going to ride camels. And ride camels we did. Briefly. It wasn't a very long ride, but it was certainly more than enough. Having done it before, I considered skipping it, but then I thought to myself, "Who in their right mind would skip riding a camel??" So I rode a camel.
We stopped a few more times for bathroom breaks, but eventually we made it (about 3 hours later) to Rabat (the capital). The first thing we did was walk around the city for 3 hours with local kids about our age. I was with 4 other girls from our group and 3 Moroccans. They were very nice! They were very interested in what life is like for us in the United States, probably more interested than we were in what their life is like in Morocco. My favorite part was when the guy I was talking to asked us for "stupid American jokes". Apparently he really likes stupid jokes. And he asked specifically for stupid jokes. He also told me about a book he was reading by an author that uses metaphors to explain humans. It was cheesy, but it was a metaphor I hadn't heard before. He used a pencil as his metaphor. There were 5 ways it related to humans: the eraser, the led inside, a sharpener, how a pencil is guided by a hand and how a pencil always leaves a mark. Like I said, they were definitely cheesy. I don't think I have to explain how each relates to humans, right? The three people we were talking to were all very nice. We all went and got coffee/tea/juice after our walk and then headed back to meet up with the rest of us. The second thing we did was meet our host families. I was grouped with Kami and Anny and we got VERY lucky with our family. The wife of the house picked us up from our "meeting spot" and showed us how to get to the house. We walked in the door and were immediately speechless. The house was beautiful. It was completely made of this really pretty tile with an enclosed patio in the middle and room around the outside. Our room was the TV room and consisted of a TV (obviously), and three couches on three of the four walls. We each slept on one of the couches with a big heavy blanket as our covers. The first night we were there, their maid understood that I was sick and (using olive oil) massaged my chest so that I would be able to breathe. She then proceeded to massaged Kami and Anny's backs (voluntarily... we never once asked her to do all of this). We got there and ate dinner and then tried to talk, but it was hard because they didn't speak English. Each house was expected to have at least one English speaker, but the husband wasn't there the first night. When we had trouble communicating, we went to sleep since we knew we had to be up early anyway.
The next morning we met at 9:00am and went over to a park with Roman ruins. The park was beautiful: very green... and with lots of cats. We stopped to snack a few minutes after getting there and one of the cats kept sticking its nose in the bag hoping to find something. We had to keep scaring it in order to save the food. They were cute, but I can't say I wanted to touch one. We finished snacking and moved on to the ruins. The ruins were pretty cool, though in all honesty they sort of look like any old ruins... We wandered through the ruins for a bit and then moved on to the ruins of an old mosque.
The mosque was actually pretty cool. The grave of the current king's dad and grandfather were there. The grandfather was a very important king in Morocco history, especially for Jews. When the Jews were kicked out of Spain (you are all going to laugh at me for this... I had to look up how to say that in English. I couldn't remember how to say "expulsar" in English!), they fled to Morocco. When the Nazis came looking for them saying that they needed to be returned to their country in order to be "collected", the Moroccan king told them that all the Jews were officially Moroccans and that they are under his protection. That king had guts to stand up to the Nazis just to protect the Jews. I think he's officially my new favorite king.
From the mosque we went back to our home stays to have lunch. After lunch we had a few hours to relax. I napped for a little bit while Anny went to get her hair cut. When Anny got back, she Kami and I headed to our meeting spot again for yet another activity. I actually don't remember what that activity was right now... I might have my events mixed up. We might have walked around with the 3 Moroccans now instead of the day before and just gone straight to the home stays... Oh well. Anyway, later that night we met at 6:30pm at our meeting spot to talk with a Peace Corps person and another person (he was part of a scholar program, but I can't remember what it was called). Their stories were actually really interesting. Peace Corps had crossed my mind at some point and so it was particularly interesting to hear his stories. From the meeting we all ran home quickly to grab what we needed for the Hammam (I'll explain what that is in a minute) and then met back at our spot at 8:15pm to head over there.
Now... What exactly is a Hammam? Well, to put it simply, it's a public shower (one for men and one for women). Keep in mind it's their definition of a shower, meaning they give you a bucket of water and a cup and you dump water on yourself. So it's really more like a bath. But the catch here is that it's one big room and you go basically naked. Women go with just their underwear on. Fortunately for my group, it was just the 9 of us in a room (and yes, we all went with just bottoms on). It wasn't as scary as we thought it would be. We were all awkward at first because it's not normal for us to expose that much of ourselves to people we really don't know all that well. Let's just say we all know each other quite a bit better after this trip. Experiencing the Hammam was definitely an experience. I wasn't sure I wanted to do it, but in the end I decided that "when in Morocco, do as the Moroccans do". Our host family provided us with buckets, cups and shoes to wear and as Kami, Anny and I walked down the street to meet up with everyone else, we got shouted at by guys saying, "Going to the Hammam??" and "Ooooooh Hammam!" Everyone knew where we were going. I didn't like that part very much, but it was worth it in the end. After the Hammam we all headed home, ate dinner and then went straight to bed.
The next morning we met at 8:00am and headed back up north to a city called Chefchaouen. On our way there, we stopped in a little, remote town and ate lunch with a family there. It was our chance to see the lifestyles of people who live in rural areas. We had couscous with chicken and vegetables (again) and made our own sandwiches. It was all very good. We finished eating and sat around talking for awhile. The women didn't speak English, so we had a guy with us who was our translator. We talked about any number of things. One of the most interesting topics, in my opinion, was marriage. She asked us if any of us where married. When we said no, she asked us if we wanted to get married. All but three of us raised our hands. She asked those three why. The answers were more or less what you'd expect: independence, travel, etc... I thought it was very interesting to see the other side of things.
When we all ran out of questions, we got a tour of the house, which took about 20-30 minutes as people took pictures and stuff. Then we continued on our way to a city called Chefchaouen. It was by far my favorite city. It used to be a Spanish colony, so they spoke Spanish. We realized at some point that that was the longest we'd all spoke English since September. We all go maybe a few hours, but an entire weekend? I don't know about them, but I was sooooooo happy to speak Spanish again. I didn't realize how much I missed it. Anyhow, we got to the city, walked to the hostel we were staying at and then had a few hours to wander around the city on our own until we met for dinner. We all, of course, went shopping. I bought: a bracelet for my "sister" since next weekend is her birthday and I won't be here, a keychain for my "parents", a scarf for me and a henna tattoo. I started with 20 euros and when I exchanged my money back into euros at the end, I got back 9. I only spent a total of 11 euros. Morocco is very cheap!
At 9:15pm we met for dinner. It was amazing! I got a Moroccan salad (which is basically just cucumbers and tomatoes all blended into a sauce type thing) for an appetizer and chicken kabobs as my entree. I'm not going to lie... my decision for the kabobs was greatly influenced by the fact that they came with french fries. I am totally my mother's daughter... Dinner was actually a lot of fun. I was at a table with 8 other people, including our guide. The conversations were so entertaining! Ana was trying to explain to us something her mom taught her how to do, but she was either having trouble explaining it right or we just weren't getting it. Either way, it was soooo funny.
After dinner we headed back to the hostel and had a brief meeting with everyone. Our guide wanted to know how impressions of the trip and what personal effects we think it will have on us. He was going to hold the meeting on the terrace, but as it turns out, our hostel was filled with people smoking TONS of weed and they were hanging out up there. So we had our meeting in his room instead. He lit a candle and turned off the lights... Apparently he wanted it to be a very... intimate meeting. After the meeting we all headed to bed because we were exhausted.
Monday morning we had the option of getting up early to go on a walk to the highest point in Chefchaouen. They were planning on leaving the hostel at 7:00am and I wasn't sure I really wanted to get up that early. But of course as other people started moving, I woke up and decided I would go with them. I'm really glad I did! It was a LONG walk up, but totally worth it for the views. It was amazing. I'll get caption on my pictures on Facebook soon you all will know which ones I'm talking about. We stayed up there and had a brief snack and then made our way back down to meet up with everyone else for breakfast.
We ate breakfast at this little place in the Plaza Mayor in the middle of the city. The food was good, but I couldn't eat very much just because I don't normally when I travel. I was sitting next to Kati and across from Grace and Ana and we had an adventure with bees. They kept flying all around us because they liked the sweet tea and food we had in front of us. Well, at one point, a bee landed on Kati's tea glass and proceeded to fall in! It died instantly since it couldn't swim and Kati had to get a new tea. From then on, it was a game to try and trap the bees in our tea glasses. It kept us entertained for the duration of breakfast... :)
Breakfast finished around 9:00am and we were given 2 hours to wander around as we wished. I headed back to the hostel to finish packing and then hung out with Grace, Kati and Ana until it was time to go. At 11:00am we left to head back to Tangier to catch our plane to Madrid. It took 2 1/2 hours to get back to Tangier. And I had to pee the whole time. It sucked. Finally I asked if we could make a rest stop because I was on the verge of exploding. Fortunately we were able to stop before making it to the airport.
The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, which was good. We landed back in Madrid around 6:30pm and then took another 2 hours to get back to Toledo (counting the Metro and the bus ride and everything). I walked in the door around 8:45pm-9:00pm ish and no one was home. I was a bit offended at first, thinking, "You haven't seen me in almost 5 days and no one is home to say hi when I get here?? AND it's a Monday night! Where in the world could you be?!" So I decided I would take a shower and wait for someone to get home. Well, I walked into my room only to find that the whole room had been cleaned. But not just cleaned... rearranged. The bed and desk and everything were still in the same spots, but all my clothes and books and stuff had been moved. I ended up going on a scavenger hunt to find everything! All I wanted to do was take a shower! I also wanted to empty my backpack and put all the dirty clothes in my hamper... but I couldn't find it! I looked everywhere for it... In both of my closets, in the kitchen by the washer... in my sister's room. It was nowhere to be found. I finally gave up and just decided to take a shower. I was in the bathroom about to get in, when I finally found my hamper. It was in the shower. In the shower?! Who keeps their hamper in the shower?? I just laughed, moved it back to my room and took my shower.
I got out and still no one was home. I was beginning to get very sad now because I was so excited to see everyone after almost 5 days. So I grabbed my computer and figured I would catch up with people on Facebook until someone showed up. Around 9:30pm my "dad" called and asked where I was. I said, "... At home?" He said, "Oh! We were hanging out in Paraíso waiting for you to call us so we could get you from the bus station!" I felt so bad! They were waiting just to pick me up! I told him that I wasn't sure whether I should call or not because I don't want to be a burden. I will happily take the bus if it's easier on them. I didn't realize they were expecting me to call! He said that they were leaving right then and that they'd see me soon. I suddenly wasn't so sad that no one was home when I got there...
They got back, we talked briefly and I headed to bed pretty soon after that because I was exhausted. Thank goodness for Spanish holidays because there was no class on Tuesday, so I could sleep in as long as I wanted! :D
*****Stories I forgot to add*****
1) Turkish toilets. I can't believe I forgot to add this part in! It was soooooo funny. First it's important to describe what a Turkish toilet is. It's very simple: there are places for your feet and a hole in the middle. You put your feet in the designated spots, squat over the hole and do your business. It took some definite getting used to!
2) About the toilets... There was no toilet paper. Moroccans apparently don't believe in using toilet paper. How do they clean themselves you ask? You have no idea what you are asking... but since you did... They use their left hand. Yes, their HAND. It's disgusting. And I didn't see much soap in the bathrooms, so I'm not sure how they wash their hands... Like I said, you were going to be sorry you ask. A funny story about this is that we were told NOT to use our left hand when eating out of a shared bowl of food at a meal. We now understand why. I'm sure we would get some very disgusted looks if we took food from a shared bowl with our left hand. Ewwwwwwww!!! I was telling my host family about this part of the trip and that was all they could talk about. Forget the other cultural differences... they only wanted to talk about the toilets and lack of toilet paper! Hahahahaha....
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