Public Transportation

I noticed something. On Thursdays I use 6 modes of transportation. I utilize: train, bus, metro, walking, moving sidewalk, and escalators. That's a lot of transporting.

We are gearing up for Semana Santa here and for a week of vacation! My traveling begins Sunday so I'm spending today and tomorrow packing and getting things in order because I'll be gone for about 10 days. I will come back to Madrid for one night, but we turn around and leave the next morning so there won't be any time to do anything. I am so ready to go! If you want a postcard, send me your address by tomorrow!

I hope you guys are all having a great week. Enjoy the weekend.

Love you. Talk to you soon.

I've recently become addicted to The Office...

Hi!

So last Saturday night we had our first intercambio cafe! We invited all the people from our English groups and our other Spanish friends to come hang out, practice English, and eat American cookies. The team made a ton of cookies (I lucked out on that job because I don't have an oven!) and I think everyone had a pretty good time. I was worried that not very many people would show up but we had a pretty good turnout.

We set it up kind of like 'speed dating' where we had 8 different tables each with a different topic. Every 20 minutes or so we would signal for everyone to move tables and topics. It was pretty fun. I was leading a table and my discussion topic was superheroes. If you were a superhero, what power would you have? Would you be a good guy or a bad guy? Stuff like that. It made for some fun conversation. And P.S. most people opted to fly.

So I've passed the halfway point on my time in Spain. I can't remember if I mentioned that in my last post or not, but there you go. This week is a normal week and then next week is Semana Santa, and I'll be traveling the whole week. The first few days in Sevilla and then Lindsey and I are going to Berlin. I am so excited! But I know that when we get back from all that, the time remaining will go by so quickly. And yay! My mom is coming to visit at the end of April! Then I'll be home before you (and I) know it.

Well, I guess that's about all. Everything has been going really well; I have two new intercambios and they are both really cool. And this week is the last week of dance class. We are only doing it for the month of March because April will be just too crazy. So that's that.

Talk to you later!


RECIPE
FOR SOME SUPER GOOD COOKIES:
Cake Cookies

1 box Devil's Food Cake mix
1/3 cup oil
2 eggs
White chocolate chunks/chips

Mix. Roll into balls. Bake at 350.

=Delicious.

Señores pasaxeiros....

Yay for Galicia!

Shannon and I went to Galicia this past weekend and we had a great time! We stayed in Santiago de Compostela and then on Saturday we took a day trip out to the coast.

So we got in to Santiago Friday morning and found our way to our little hotel. The nicest old man ran the place and after we checked in, he made us sit down and have some breakfast before we went exploring. We walked the city all morning with our trusty map that we got from the tourism office and we saw some beautiful buildings and plazas (or prazas as they are called in Gallego) in the city. I think Santiago is about 100,000 people and it's a neat little city. We just marveled at how old everything was; there are some things still standing from the Romans!

I was actually talking to some Spanish friends the other day about how Americans are always impressed by how old things are. We will be in awe of something just for the pure fact that it was built in the 5th century while Spaniards and other Europeans will walk by and think nothing of it. Well of course, they are surrounded by many old, old buildings while in America, if something is more than one hundred years old we will stuck a historical marker next to it. Not saying that it's wrong either way, it's just funny how differently we view history coming from different countries. In the States we don't have any buildings from the Romans so I think we'll continue to be amazed by old stuff and take more pictures all the way.

So back to Santiago...we toured the Cathedral in the afternoon (above picture). The cathedral in Santiago is third on the list of must-see religious places, right after Rome and Jerusalem. You may have heard about the Camino de Santiago, which is a pilgrimage that starts in France and ends up in Santiago at the Cathedral. The bones of St. James are supposedly buried in the crypt of the Cathedral and pilgrims from all over the world make the journey on foot or on bike sometimes taking as long as a few months depending on where you start. We saw some pilgrims who had just completed the walk and there is a spot on the base of a statue of St. James where they all placed their hand. So we saw the Cathedral and I must say, for me, all cathedrals are starting to look the same. Although this one was definitely a fancy one.

In the cathedral, Shannon and I saw these stairs with a priest standing at the top and we didn't know where the stairs led. The priest motioned for us to come on up so we get to the top and we are standing behind this huge statue of St. James. Well, at least we think it's St. James; we can't really tell. The priest tells us something about hugging the statue and how you're supposed to do this after completing the pilgrimage. But we were kind of confused and didn't really know what was going on so we just just politely shook our heads and walked out of there. So we missed our chance to hug this fancy statue of someone.

The next day we got up super early to catch a bus out to the coast. We took a two and a half hour bus ride out to Finisterre. It's the end of the world! It's the western most tip of Spain and was thought by the Romans to be the end of the world. We took a very winding road through the countryside of Galicia and it was very green and pretty. It definitely reminded me of Ireland and Galicia is known for being very Celtic-influenced. So we got to Finisterre and hiked out to the cape and lighthouse at the very tip. We thought it would be about a mile hike but it turned out to be at least two or three along a two lane winding highway with barely any shoulder to walk on. But we made it! And it was beautiful! We sat and watched the waves for awhile before hiking back to the little town. We spent a few more hours in Finisterre and then took the bus back to Santiago.

















We had a good time in Galicia this weekend and it was so good to get out of the big city of Madrid for awhile. We were both kind of sad to be leaving just because it was so nice and so much less stressful than the city! But now I'm back in Madrid and it's back to work.

This weekend is our Intercambio Cafe. We are inviting all of our English groups and our intercambios to come hang out with us and practice English together. We rented a room at a cafe nearby and we're even making dozens of American cookies to share with our Spanish friends. We are having different discussion topics and it will be set up kind of like speed dating (but without the dating) where you rotate from topic to topic. We haven't done anything like this so I hope it goes well. I hope people come!

Three Years

Today marks the three year anniversary of the bombings in Madrid. The wounds are still fresh and the city is once again demonstrating its losses with candles and memorials. It's interesting, because I was in Spain three years ago today and I remember hearing about the bombing. We were in our History of Spain class with Dr. Inglis and I don't remember what we were supposed to talk about because all we talked about was the bombings. Dr. Inglis came in and told us what had happened and at that time, they thought the Basque nationalist group, ETA, was responsible for the attacks and most of us had never heard of ETA. We probably learned more about Spanish history that day than any other.

The next week our school trip was scheduled to go to Madrid. I remember Mom telling me not to go but Dr. Inglis assured us that we would be fine. We went anyway and everywhere we went in the city there were groups of candles, banners and letters remembering loved ones or asking the government to do something. I never once felt unsafe in all my time in Spain and maybe that's just ignorance or stupidity but oh well.

So now three years later, I'm back in Spain and I feel like I'm sort of reliving it all over again. Yesterday Shannon and I had plans to go eat a brownie sundae at the Hard Rock Cafe (we decided we would reward ourselves and they have the best ones!) but we picked a bad day to go. The plaza where Hard Rock is located was the site of a mass demonstration yesterday with thousands of people. Many carried Spanish flags even though they say Spain isn't very nationalistic in that regard, people brought out the flags and buttons with the reds and yellows blazing. I wish I had my camera with me just to take in the sheer amount of people, but alas, never when I need it. We fought our way to the crowds and we did get our brownie, but I think that was the hardest I ever worked for a brownie.

Un penguino en mi ascensor...

Hi!! How are you?

Well, we had our first dance class last Friday and it was a lot of fun. There are about 15 people in the class and the majority are middle-aged women and two guys. The instructor is also a guy. We did a couple of different dances including the tango, swing, cha-cha and the paso doble. Lindsey and I were partners with each other and we took turns being the guy. The people in the class were all really nice too. Our next class is tonight and it's with a different instructor so we'll see how that goes.

Well, what else has been happening? The other night we had a movie night and we watched The Sandlot which made us wish we were all in America and it was the fourth of July. But it was good. And I made some cookies! This is a miracle because I hardly ever cook here. But when I do cook, it's mostly sweet stuff. Must work on that. But yeah, other than that, I've just been hanging out and doing the same old, same old. After our English group today, Lindsey and I tried out this Chinese place that we'd never been to before. And it was really good! They gave us a ton of food for less than 7 euros: egg rolls, two plates and dessert. We're definitely going back to that place again.

Today's picture is of my building where I live. The red doors on the right are to a little hamburger place where lots of college kids hang out. And the green door on the left is to a games shop where they sell chessboards and other fancy games. And that's me in the middle!

Fotos and Such

Well, folks, how goes it?

Things are going pretty great over here. I started an English group with my roommate and some of her classmates and we had our first meeting yesterday afternoon. There were 7 of them, which wins the award of my biggest English group yet, and we had a really good time. They are all very friendly and nice, and they know each other really well so they crack a lot of jokes and make fun of each other, which is hilarious. I'm so excited that this group actually started and I hope it continues to meet and that we can even hang out outside of the group. Really cool stuff.

In other news...Lindsey and I have signed up to take a dance class. We are going to take a class of 'bailes de salon' which means dances like tango, rumba, salsa, waltz, etc. I am so excited about this and our first class is tonight, so I'll let you know how that goes. I hope it's a lot of fun and that we'll meet some cool people too.

I've also created a new web album to display my pictures. You can check them out at Picasa by clicking on the picture below:

Madrid, Europe, Wherever

I hope this works out for the best. I'm just trying all sorts of new things, aren't I? So check those out and let me know if it works and you can see them and all that.

Well, this has been a really good week and I can only thank God for all the blessings this week. So many things are falling into place and I know that it must be a God thing! If you guys wouldn't mind, be praying for this new English conversation group that I started with my roommate and that I would find time to hang out with my Spanish friends. Thanks guys!