Bringing Some America to Spain

Hello everyone!

Before I head off for this weekend, I thought I'd give a little update of what I was up to last weekend!

On Friday night we went to Gijon, which is this small university town right next to the beach, for the international party. We ended up make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and they were a hit! I also got to try spicy mashed potatoes from Peru, some dumpling-like dish from Germany that was amazing, cinnamon applesauce, meatballs from the Middle East, homemade Italian pizza, and pasta. Needless to say, I was full at the end of the night. We also walked down to the beach and I ran next to the water, getting my shoes a little wet, but no big deal! It was beautiful, but I'd really like to go back sometime during the day to see it.

We listened to a lot of American music on the internet which was fun. We also got on Google Earth so my friend could show me where he lived in Spain. When I showed him my neighborhood and he saw all the houses crowded next to each other, he was like "Oh my gosh! Where is that?!" I was also talking to my host sister the other day about how much bigger our houses are and how much space we had. She couldn't really believe that everyone lives like that.

On Sunday, my friend and I decided we wanted to look for some trails to walk. My madre showed me this huge park on the map that led to some trails, so we took the dogs and went for a 3 and a half hour walk! It was a lot of fun and a nice chance to explore different parts of the city. Everything is so green here, and it rains kind of a lot, so it reminds me of Washington. The mountains are beautiful here too!

In a few minutes I'll be walking to the bus station to catch a bus with three other friends to Granada. It's going to be about a 12 hour bus ride. Woo hoo! Good thing we did that road trip to Colorado so I could prepare myself. My madre has supplied me with a tupperware filled with some kind of pasta and chicken (I think...), a huge baguette with a couple fish fillets, some manadarin oranges, an apple, and a coke. I should be good to go for awhile! Oh guess what? I tried one of my favorite dishes here so far the other day! It was calamares con tinta (octopus with its ink as the sauce) con arroz blanco (with white rice). It was soooo good! My madre also gave me some other type of mollusk/clam thing, not exactly sure what it was, but it was good too.

I'll post more pictures later!! Hasta luego!

PS- grandma and grandpa, thank you so much for the postcard! I was so excited to see it on my desk! Glad to know you had a good time in Arizona! Good luck going back to the Iowa cold...

Love you!

Half Marathon Training!!!!

Yes, I've decided to run another half marathon. And keeping with my past theme of traveling to run, I will be heading to Segovia, Spain for the race on March 21st! Segovia is about an hour north of Madrid, so I'm hoping to spend some time there during that weekend too. I just started my first day of training and it went pretty well. There are a ton of hills here, so that keeps things interesting! I know, I never thought I'd be excited about hills either.

In other news, I also bought a bus ticket to Granada with my friends! Four of us girls will be heading down Wednesday night and will get there some time early morning. We don't have class on Thursday, so we're just skipping one day to squeeze in a weekend of distant travel. I'm very excited to see the Alhambra! I've heard it's absolutely amazing. I guess soon I will be able to tell you myself! After Granada, we're going to head to Sevilla for a couple days. Then we'll take a bus home Sunday night and roll into town in time for class on Monday morning! Let's just say I'll be taking some major siestas next week! But hey, when you're in Europe, who has time to sleep?

Tonight we're having another meeting followed by salsa lessons I think. Then tomorrow I'm going to an international party and we're supposed to bring a dish from our country. My friend Kayla and I were trying to think of some "American" dishes (that we have access to the ingredients of) to make. We kind of wanted to make puppy chow or scotcheroos, but I'm kind of hoarding my beloved peanut butter...Just kidding! We might try that if we can find plain Rice Krispies, I think they only have chocolate ones here. Weird, I know. But we decided Macaroni and Cheese would be a pretty tasty American dish. Hopefully the Italians won't be outraged by our imitation of pasta...

It's funny being on the "international" side of things. At UNI I always like to have a foreign conversation partner and try their food, go to their events, and learn about their cultures. This experience is definitely opening my eyes to how it feels being an outsider studying in a country really different from your own. And even though I speak Spanish, it's still not at the best level for fluent communication.

I met my conversation partner today! Her name is Alba. She's really nice and lives in a nearby town of Gijon. She's studying English and hopes to teach Spanish abroad someday. It was kind of scary to speak Spanish so quickly and for so long, but she was really helpful and said I spoke well. It's nice because we talk in English half the time and I get to help her too.

I'll keep you all posted on what I'm up to! Thanks for your comments! It's good to know I'm not writing to a completely unknown internet audience. Miss you all!

Un beso!!

Clases y Amigos Nuevos!

Hola a todos!

I just finished eating my lunch, and it was a little different, but good! I had rice, 3 little hot dogs, an egg, and yogurt. I'm kind of tired though because we were out pretty late last night. It was the first of our weekly Thursday meetings and we met at this bar to talk about our classes, familias, and impressions of Spain, things that we did and didn't expect. For me, some unexpected things were how they eat a lot of fried food and how they watch a lot of tv. I like to join my family when they watch the news, but some of the shows seem kind of ridiculous and Jerry Springer-like.

I've had a lot of fun exploring the city though! The other day, my friend Abbi and went for a little run through the city and saw a lot of new places. The buildings here are really cool as you can see in the pictures! Above is La Catedral, me drinking cafe con leche (coffee with milk) in this cute little bar between classes, and mis amigas Ashley, Abbi and me by "La Gorda" (the Fat Lady). I've also used the ping pong paddle Josiah gave me and played in the park with some friends, winning of course since my paddle is so awesome! Abbi and I also went to this cafe to get churros con chocolate, which is basically fried dough with a cup of thick hot chocolate. Delicious!!!

I really like my classes too! Phonetics is probably my favorite because la profesora is really nice and funny and encourages us to speak a lot since we're learning about pronunciation. I also find the language part of it really interesting of course! Yesterday in class, we all had to take turns reading this long sentence, because apparently Spanish writers don't believe in commas, and we had to figure out when it was ok to pause and take a breath. Then we started going through the alphabet and she went down the rows asking people to say a word that starts with each letter. I was a little nervous at first, especially because I was the last one she asked and everyone had already said the easy ones! It became a fun game though and I'm learning a lot of new words.

It's nice getting to meet people from other countries and schools too. I have friends from Russia, New Zealand, Virginia, and Missouri and there are other people here too, including some Japanese students! Last night after our meeting, we went to this place that was giving free salsa dancing lessons and we met many more people there too! The instructor was this younger girl who was from Cuba and didn't speak any English, so that made things even more interesting for the people in our group who had never tried to salsa. We met Spanish speakers who also spoke English, and it was fun to talk in both languages throughout the night!

I think I'm getting better!!!

Mi Familia Espanola y La Comida Mas Rica!

It's 3:15 and I just finished eating a delicious lunch prepared by my madre! First I had a salad with tomatoes, olive oil, and vinegar, then some little empanadas with tuna and some tasty red sauce, then this delicious stew-like soup with a thick brown broth, beans, potatoes, and I'm not sure what else. And of course fresh bread! We have it with every meal, and it's delicious and fresh.

I ate with my host brother and he's really nice and helpful. My madre lives by herself and works in a hospital. She has three children, a son who is 31, another son about 26, and a daughter in her 20's too. I think the sons work in construction, but because of the "la crisis" that has hit Spain so hard, they have not had much work. It's pretty sad, and I know they are thinking about looking for work in Ireland or England. My madre is really nice and relatively easy to talk to. She told me I speak Spanish very well and fluidly without an American accent. Yay!

Yesterday she made me paella which might be my new favorite food. I was also really hungry, because I didn't eat anything until that lunch at 4:00pm! We were up early to be picked up by our parents and to take our placement test. I'm in Intermedio III which is pretty much right in the middle. I'm excited to learn a lot!

I came back to my house after the test and we ate, talked, watched some weird Spanish TV (The Simpsons, the news, and a travel show), and took the dogs for a walk. Oh yes! She has two dogs, a golden retriever and a boxer! They are big and bark, but they are really sweet and it's nice to have pets around.

Today I only had one class, but I did some shopping and talking with my friends and people who have been here before. It's been fun and relaxed so far, but we're in kind of a weird stage of not completely knowing what's going on...We'll figure it out soon! Everyone has been very helpful and I think our Spanish is already improving!

I think I might take a siesta in a bit (it's wonderful! I slept 2 hours yesterday!) and then some people in our class are going to meet up by La Gorda to walk around and get phones. Hope everything is well at home! The crazy amount of snow has been all over the news here, they don't know what to do! I hope things are warming up a bit at home...Unlikely I'm sure!

PS- the airport called to say my suitcase would be here today, but it's not here yet...I'm getting a little tired of my two shirts! Why we packed 10 pairs of underwear in my carry on and only one shirt, I don't know. Anyway, I'm still hopeful!

Adios!

Flying Fun....

Good news! My suitcase weighed 49.5 lbs!!! So I have .5 lb of space to bring you all back some souvenirs. I'm thinking a grain of sand for each of you...Just kidding!

I never seem to have the best of luck with my travel plans, so I was a little nervous at the airport on Saturday morning. Then my flight to Chicago was canceled and my stomach tightened and I started having flashbacks to tears and begging airport desk assistants to get me on a flight to Japan. However, things worked out just fine, if not better than I hoped!

I ended up going through Denver before Toronto (I waved to the Seamans' and looked for the Diablo Bucking Bronco, but it wasn't night, so no luck). I ended up getting a free sandwich and snack and sitting next to an old man from Chile who spoke no English. The second he realized I spoke Spanish, we started talking. Talk about throwing myself into it right away! He was impressed with my skills though and told me about his family in Chile, Spain, living in Oregon, and his "mala, mala, mala nieta." We also played a little game where he pointed to things in a magazine and I named them in Spanish. It was nice because I was able to help him get through customs and stuff in Toronto, where the only languages they have are French and English.

Everything else went pretty smoothly, except...my luggage is lost. I kind of expected it with all these crazy connections and changes, but I hope it gets in soon and I can pick it up. Right now I'm a little chilly, but it's a lot warmer than the Midwest! Josiah said he never saw snow when he was here, but there is kind of a lot of it and I think the Spaniards are really excited. Lots of kids squealing in the park and throwing snowballs.

Tomorrow I'm going to take a placement test and meet my family! I'm not too worried about the placement test, after talking to old men, tourist information booth people, airport luggage handlers, and random people on the street.

In case anyone wants to send my love packages or just Google Earth where I am, my address is:

Plaza de la Liberación 2, 3º

33013 – Oviedo, Espana

I'm glad to be here in our hotel hanging out with some girls from my class.

Hasta luego! Besos y abrazos!

Hola a todos!

-make up, Spanish dictionary, batteries

-pictures, ping pong paddle

-deodorant, travel size shampoo

-converters, laptop

-Euros

.....

So many random things to remember! I keep being afraid I'll forget something, so I have about three different lists circulating between my purse, pockets, and jackets (and now one on here). So in theory I'll have everything I need when I get on the plane on Saturday, but there's always the extra risk of losing/forgetting a list...

I'm getting really excited to go! Waiting can be the worst part though, because I'm trying to enjoy the time I have with my family, but I just want to get there. And as much as I've heard about this program from Jillian (my roommate) and Josiah, I feel like I'm not sure what to expect. It's hard to imagine being around Spanish all the time, but I'm going to try my best and hope I get better! It makes me kind of nervous to think about how long it's going to be before I'll be eating a meal around the kitchen table with my family, speaking English, laughing, and yelling at the dog, without having to worry about conjugating a verb. But I'm also really looking forward to the classes I'll be taking, the new people I'll be meeting, the new culture I'll learn about, the crazy food I will try, and becoming almost fluent (hopefully)! I feel extremely blessed to have this opportunity and I can't wait!!!!

On Saturday at 8:00am I'll be flying to Chicago and then I'll get to hang out with my dad until my flight at 2:00pm to Toronto. I'll arrive there at 4:30pm and then leave for Paris at 8:15pm. I'll finally be in Europe at 9:40 am with my last flight to Asturias at 12:55pm. I'll arrive in Asturias at 2:45pm and then take a bus to Oviedo!

Hope my luggage doesn't get lost. :)

I love and miss you all! Pray for me!