This is why I study abroad...

Primer dia de clases!

This morning my roommate, Melanie, got up to go running. Before she returned, I got up, and discovered the electricity was out and it was very, very dark. Then, a minute later, someone knocks on the door. I go and look out, and it's Melanie! Her key won't work. So I scramble to find mine in the dark, come to try to unlock the door (you have to have a key from both sides) only to discover Pilar's keys are still hanging in the keyhole, and that's why she couldn't use her key. So then she stumbles in in the darkness, and we try the lights again. So we go to wake Pilar, who shows us the fuse box. Turns out that for some reason the braker tripped while Melanie was out. Weird. Very weird. Definitely a great start to the day, though!

I have two classes MW, one class TTh.

One of the classes is basically whatever we want it to be. Attendance doesn't count if we're sick or whatever, we can read something different if what we're reading is boring, the final will be "as easy as possible..." love it. This will make the trip much more enjoyable. And with tiny classes (6, 7 people) it will be a lot more interesting.

After classes, today I got a little more "culture." I went with my host mom, Pilar, to the bank, because I needed to use the ATM, but didn't know how. We were waiting in line, and then it appeared to be our turn, so I start walking up, then the man starts talking to me in rapid Spanish, and Pilar is responding, and I'm just standing there, then she turns to me and explains it's not my turn, he was waiting for something. I felt quite silly... especially after he's looking at me like I'm crazy, and she says, oh, it's okay, she's only been here two days.... haha! At least after that he was much more friendly and sympathetic, once he knew why I was blatantly ignoring his instructions to "wait a minute"!

After the bank, we went shopping for almuerzo. Almuerzo is lunch, but it's the equivalent of dinner in the US. It's the BIG meal. Three or four plates. Everything in Spain closes up between 2 and 4 or 5, and everyone goes home to eat and take a nap during the hot part of the day. Literally. Nothing is open. At all. Anyway, Pilar and I went to the "fruteria" which is the fruit market. It was a little shop full of produce - vegetables and fruits. Just like the produce section of the grocery store.

After that, we stopped in the "papeleria" which literally is the paper shop. They have magazines, books, notebooks, pens, postcards, erasers, pencils, paper, everything paper related. Melanie and I are going to go back there sometime soon... they have some little notebooks with 101 Dalmations covers that will be perfect for recording random vocabulary in.

Today after classes, we also stopped at the "pasteleria" which is the dessert shop... :) We're celebrating a couple of birthdays tonight at FHE, so we bought a cake that has shaved chocolate on the top. I think it might've been a tad overpriced.. but it looks reaaaaaallllly good.... so that's okay... :)

As you can see, in Spain there's a lot of little specialized stores, especially in smaller towns like this. They do have supermarkets, of course, Correfours is similar to WalMart, only a bit smaller. But most of the town is apartment buildings, where the street level is little shops, then all the apartments are on the upper floors. I really like the setup. It's a lot more personal than going to WalMart all the time. You see your neighbors more, get to know the shopkeepers, etc.

Viva Espana!

The Church is still true, even in Spain

Today, Sunday, we went to church. First church outside of the USA! Very cool.

We took bus number 8, and arrived 25 minutes early. Maybe there will be another bus next week that arrives a bit later.

The building was beautiful! Very nice.

Melanie and me

Me!

When everyone else arrived, we had to meet some people. Meeting people in Spain is difficult. You kiss them on their cheeks. Once on each side. It's just the custom. However, I was first in line to meet this cute little older woman, and I for some reason panicked and only kissed one side, and there was a pause while I was flustered before the second one. She said something, I don't know what, and everyone around us just burst out laughing. I have no idea what they said, buuuuut... I was quite embarrassed. I know better... it was okay though, she didn't seem offended.

Church itself was very great, we had RS/Priesthood first, it was combined, I spent fifteen minutes trying to figure out what was going on, I thought it was Sacrament meeting, but there was no sacrament, and no primary kids! Finally I figured it out. As you can tell, I'm still having trouble understanding what's going on occasionally, but I'll get better with the Spanish as I go along.

One of my goals for this program is to gain a greater testimony of the Gospel in a world setting. It was cool to me that in this place that's so different, church was still the same. The Spirit was the same, the Gospel was the same, the people, though speaking a different language, were still bearing the same kinds of testimonies. It was very comforting, and I think it will help me feel less out of place if I remember that no matter where I am, the Spirit is always there with me.

First days and first impressions

Day two: Adventures with statues and plazas and streets and universities. But mainly statues.

Me and Melanie - my roommate, with a statue of Don Quixote!

Me in front of Alcala de Henares - the university

Our bedroom at Pilar's piso!

This morning we slept right through our alarm, but still woke up in time to get ready and go to the University for a tour. The tour guide talked really really fast, and I really didn't understand a lot of it, but the university is really cool. All together, it's actually a lot of buildings all over the place, but we toured the historical part. It was built in 1499, the fourth oldest university in Spain. In the 1800s it was converted into a textile factory, but was restored and repaired in the 1970s and is now a fully functional campus. Also, at some point in history, someone wanted to take it apart stone by stone to send to America for souvenirs/historical pieces, but the town got together and purchased the university to save it. We saw two courtyards and an inside room where they used to hold exams, but now hold the awards ceremony for some prestigious Spanish awards. It was very beautiful, with an especially pretty ceiling (see picture). The front of the university has statues of saints, and at the top is a statue representing God. (I'm sorry I don't have more specific info, but... they guy talked reaaaaaalllly fast...)

Sunday:

Last night we all - well, eight of us, two girls didn't go - went to the fair here in Alcala! It was pretty fun, just like the carnival in Utah, but Spanish. Some of the group went on a ride, I took pictures and held purses, but we all tried churros chocolates, which are basically flour/water fried in oil and covered in sort of bitterish chocolate. It was SO good, though! And really messy. There was music everywhere, and tons of people. They had the little arcade booths the same as in the US, throwing darts, shooting cans, shooting hoops, etc. Some of the people in our group did that, Lindsey shot an automatic BB gun at a target which was pretty fun to watch! They also had lots of booths with scarves and purses and various things for sale. Very cool.

Anyway, that's what I've been doing, now here are some of my impressions of Alcala and the Madrid area in general:

- The landscape, especially outside of Alcala, looks a LOT like Utah.
- It's reeeeeeeally hot. Like, really hot. And air conditioning no existe in our piso. That's okay.
- Spanish people apparently don't need to sleep as much as the rest of the world. They seem to all stay up until two in the morning.
- Everybody smokes. Apparently lung cancer hasn't been discovered over here... jk
- Grass hasn't been discovered either, apparently... that's okay though.
- All the cars are tiny! And there's nowhere to park them anyway!
- Everyone likes to interrupt each other. It makes it hard for me when I have a hard time putting together my sentences already. But it's a cultural thing I guess.
- TV seems to be a big deal, at least with Pilar. She has three, in her small piso, and it is ALWAYS on. that could just be because she lives alone, though, I'm not sure.
- They're big on saving the environment. You have to pay for a grocery bag, to encourage people to bring their own. Toilets don't use as much water. People take public transportation instead of cars a lot of times.
- There's no water fountains anywhere. I bought a water bottle to carry around with me.
- Jaywalking is apparently not a big deal in Alcala. When there's a big enough space between cars, walk wherever you want!
- Modesty has definitely not been discovered... but I was expecting that, of course! It's Europe, and it's hot, what can you expect?

Viva Espana!!

En Espana!

Adventure number one: airplanes. I made it through all my connections, made it through the long transatlantic flight, made it through customs with the other two girls on my flight, and we sat down to wait three hours for everyone else to get there - we arrived in Madrid Barajas about 7:15 am here. So we sat and talked in Spanish and played cards. Someone from the university was supposed to come with a bus and pick our whole group up. We went out to wait for them, and the bus came, and our profesora and two other students were still nowhere to be seen. By now, they're half an hour late, which turned into an hour, hour and a half, two hours, we're just sitting in the parking lot on this bus, waiting.

Finally they get hold of Profesora, and it turns out their flight came in way late, and so instead of looking to see if we were waiting, they assumed that we would've already left and just hopped a taxi and went to the rendezvous point in Alcala. We were pretty ticked about that - especially since no one had ever told any of us where we were going on said bus, and so we couldn't leave without her anyway, because we didn't know where we were going! It was very weird.

The bus took us to Alcala - a suburb of Madrid with cute narrow streets and apartment buildings. It's very European looking. They dropped us off at a public bus station where our families were waiting for us, and we were hustled away onto a public bus almost immediately with our host mom, Pilar, kissing our cheeks and grabbing our luggage and talking a mile a minute in Spanish. All of a sudden we're at the apartment and she's still talking and I was kind of like, what just happened! But it worked - Melanie and I unpacked while she made lunch.

They eat a lot here. Like, a LOT. The biggest meal of the day is "lunch" between 2 and 4. That's like a three course meal. I wasn't able to finish mine - I felt SO bad and explained over and over. I think we communicated the fact that we eat smallerish portions. We'll see how it goes. Then around 5 or 6 is Tapas, or appetizers, or tea/cookies/hot chocolate/fruit, depending what you want. Then about 9pm they have "dinner" which is a lot less than lunch, but still a full plate of food! Then for breakfast they'll have toast, fruit, whatever, something light. I've eaten SO much food today!

It's been an awesome day - I'm in Spain! Finally the day has come! I'm super tired, though, because of the jet lag/not having slept for about 48 hours, so my future blogs will make more sense. In the meantime, hasta la proxima vez! Chao!

Eight hours...

It is currently 11:57pm Utah time, which is 7:57 am Spain time. I am sitting in my room staring at my suitcase which is open, but nearly all packed, a prayer in my heart that it's still under 50 lbs despite the recent additions of three spiral notebooks and a can of hairspray, and a jacket in a vacuum pack bag. Tonight my mom and I went bowling. She beat me the first time, but I caught up the second time! Bahaha. Tomorrow is the flight, on which I will hopefully sleep so as to evade jet lag (hence my forcing myself to stay awake and sleep as little as possible tonight... we'll see how this goes... haha.

I have also just installed Skype. And am now too tired to think. Jet lag be darned. I'll sleep when I want to, thanks!

I can't think straight...

Or eat. Or sleep. My attention span is about fifteen seconds. I've been having weird dreams. I had to watch all three Bourne movies yesterday and paint the kitchen to distract myself.

Sounds like I just had a breakup or something, right? Wrong! I'm leaving in 48 hours for my study abroad in Spain, and that is ALL I can think about! I feel bad for my mom who has to listen to me ramble constantly about it.

Last night I mostly packed my suitcase, and was pleasantly surprised at the room and weight I have left. Maybe I can take a couple more outfits after all.

Like I said, I also finished painting in my mom's kitchen yesterday. Part of the wall has been unpainted for about 20 years. It took me about three hours to finish it. It looks great now - just white, nothing fancy. I just have to clean up and put the kitchen back together.

I found a new quote by President Uchtdorf that I really like. It's about patience - it's posted on my favorite quotes page on this blog. I feel like it pretty much describes my attitude towards waiting for things of various natures.

Anyway, see? I can't focus on anything. So I'm going to stop blogging now. Two days!!!

Money, money, money...

Ain't it funny?
It's a rich man's world.

This song from Mamma Mia is stuck in my head this morning as I have been looking at my bank account, my BYU financial center, checking on my student loan, counting up how much I've spent on this study abroad adventure, how much I'm going to spend... It's a lot, and I have to be super careful about that. In the last year or so I've definitely developed an attitude of "only spend if it's necessary." And I splurge every so often, but not on much, and I usually consider my spending choices pretty carefully. I've been shopping at thrift stores, during school I cut my food budget in half and survived, I take lunches from home, plan inexpensive activities with friends, etc.

I decided that I would work and save as hard as I could so that when I go to Spain next week, I can focus on having a great time with my group, enjoy my experience, and not worry about how much money I'm spending (within reason, of course). However, already it's become evident that some of the others don't care one bit how much money they spend over there... and I really hope I'm not the only one who isn't made of Euros. I believe I can have an amazing and enriching experience - without spending a ridiculous amount of money while I'm there. So we'll see how it goes!

Ode to a thunderstorm

Tree branches bend to escape the wrathful fury of the howling wind. The sky darkens with ominous gloom. Thunderheads building above, swirling like one eternal whirlwind reaching above, the bottom clat and dark and opppressing. Gusts whip leaves to and fro, cracking limbs like a shot fired through the confusion. A cat streaks across the street in hunt of shelter. The ever-darkening sky seems to sink lower and lower, covering the sheer, cold mountains and reaching nearly to the rooftops, the air thickening with heavy anxiety and a sense of impending doom. Then comes the rain, a single drop, falling through the whirlwind to land in the confusion below, another whipped toward an oncoming car, a third splattering on a broad leaf as it sails through the air, and the storm is all around, the storm is everywhere, the rain has begun and it falls, pelting those below with no discrimination and perfect, pure equality.

Ten Days?!!!

I can count the days on my fingers now :)

I can almost count the months, too, but I'm trying hard not to think about that. I went to dinner at the home of some very good friends tonight, and I had a really great time. I love their family, love their home, just love being around them. They're some amazing people and I feel really blessed to be able to have them be a part of my life. They will never mean as much to me as my own family, of course, but I wouldn't mind being a part of their family someday, too. But, as I've said before, "we'll see." I'm really getting sick of that phrase. Couldn't we just see NOW and stop WONDERING about it?? Sigh. The Lord's timing is frustrating sometimes. But it's worth it, always worth it, and I am grateful for the time I am given, and I'm working hard to make sure that I never waste time waiting for things, but instead use every day to become a better person.

But now that I have said that, let me remind you all, TEN DAYS PEOPLE!!! TEN DAYS UNTIL I GO TO MADRID FOR THE MOST AMAZING AND AWESOME THREE MONTHS OF MY LIFE!!!!!! I AM SO SO SO SO SO SO SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Waiting

In some ways, I think this has been the longest summer of my life.

Not that that's a bad thing, of course! It's been full of fun and amazing and wonderful experiences. It's just been long. That's what happens when you're waiting for things.

I've known for eight months I was going to Spain. Now that it's only two weeks away, I feel like it's been an ETERNITY since I submitted the application. I've hashed it out in my mind so many times I feel like I've already gone.

Then there's the "other" waiting... the unofficial counting of time, the circumlocution of the word "waiting" but in essence that's what it is, because there's really nothing else to do, and during this summer, time has draaaaaaaaagged.

Along with that, there's waiting for the mail, for to get letters week by week, and it seems each week has gotten longer and longer. During the school year there's so much more to occupy my time and mind, but during the summer, the empty mailbox taunts me for days on end. The long weekend weeks when the mail was delayed were the worst.

Then there's work... absolutely dreading the last week (working alone and training new students for 5 days) and waiting and waiting and waiting for it to finally be over.

And now it's all coming to a close, and while I feel I've hardly accomplished a thing all summer and have really enjoyed it and had a lot of amazing experiences with my family and friends, I'm more than ready to move on with my life.

Photography fun

So while on vacation I had some fun playing with my camera. Here's some of my shots.

This one is actually through about a foot of water. You can't even tell, except for the fish in the middle of the picture.

I feel like this one should have a bride and groom just outside the door, just visible above the flowers.

Interviews

So applying for jobs is pretty much my definition of the misery, because I hate all situations where I have to try to make myself look good. But if the whole application process is misery, job interviews are the absolute pits.
It all starts when you spend two hours staring at your closet trying to decide what the best outfit would be that would make you look like you'd fit at their company or office. Then you spend more hours memorizing every detail of the job description, practicing in front of the mirror, writing power statements, reading your resume...
Then you go to the interview and sit there and sweat while they ask you ridiculous questions, and then you leave and you don't get the job anyway because they decide you didn't answer their questions as directly and fluidly and confidently as the next guy, never mind the fact that you're more qualified for the actual job.
I get really stressed in interviews, even though most of the time I have a pretty cool head, so it's unfortunate that people typically base their decision to hire on the interviews. Usually after an interview I a) burst into tears, b) call my mom and burst into tears, c) sit on a bench until I don't feel lightheaded and sick to my stomach anymore, or d) all of the above.
Let's just say I wish that we would chuck interviews out the window and find a less intense way to determine who would be the best candidate for the job. I feel sick just thinking about it.

In the news

Taylor Swift is going to release a new album. The new single is available on itunes I think now.

I'm EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!

What I'm grateful for tonight

1. Wind. I love the sound of wind in the trees.
2. Inspiration. I just got my Relief Society lesson done, and I really feel like I had a lot of help pulling it all together.
3. Cheese. Ate a piece on my lunch break today.
4. SCHOOL. I cannot WAIT to get back in classes, I am SO excited about my major, I just want to get going and learning and studying again!
5. Escrituras. Scriptures, only in Spanish. It's an amazing experience reading in two languages.
6. Family. I love my mom :)
7. Pillows. My back would be very angry right now without the pillow I'm leaning on.
8. Ice cream. There's three kinds in my freezer right now...
9. Miracles. Like being able to go to Spain, and getting a scholarship, and being healthy, and having a job, and all of it!
10. My life. Every bit of it. The crazy, the boring, the happy, the sad, the lonely, and the stressed out busy times. It's mine, and I love it! Viva la vida :)