It's Almost April?!

I cannot BELIEVE it's almost April... I love it! I seriously feel like it was two weeks ago that I was sitting in my piso looking at my iCal and just wanting it to be February SO bad. Time's starting to fly, and I'm really loving it. 

As weird as it sounds, I feel like I enjoy Spain more and more when the end is closer and closer. It's sort of that "okay, I'm going home in six weeks, I know I can make it, and I know that I want to see this and this and this before I leave, so I have to get on it". Maybe that's strange? Not sure! In any event, I'm enjoying the rest of my time here but will be absolutely ecstatic to come home in 41 days!

It seems like almost everyone at CEGRI is hitting their MAJOR homesick wall right now. I thought it happened a few weeks ago (which I blogged about), but this week has been even worse. I'm really glad I hit mine early (ummm... like the first two weeks...) because I feel like I can get a lot out of the last chunk and I know the gist what to say to the people who are really down right now. 

My cousin Lauren gets here on Thursday and I'm so excited to see her! We're doing a mini eurotrip VonderHeide style :-). On Friday, we're going from Granada to London, then going from London to Dublin on Sunday, and then Dublin to the Canary Islands (Tenerife, specifically) on Wednesday, then flying back into Malaga on Sunday and getting a bus back to Granada Sunday night or Monday morning. It should be awesome! I'm hoping that I'll have internet access to put up some blog posts!!

Pictures! :-)

The presentation of Matt's sea bass... so impressive!

Props to Breezy for this paparazzi picture :-) 

Throwing up the "dos" at BADos

We loved the fountains!! This is in Plaza Nueva

Halftime at the game!

The Real Madrid crowd

Pregaming at a pub by the stadium

Ambushing Matt at baggage claim

I apologize for the delay on these! The internet at our hotel in Madrid was REALLY slow last night! Back in Granada now :-) 

Best Week Ever

Okay, get comfortable... this is going to be a loooong post!

So, this week was the best week ever. Hands down. Matt and I had SUCH an awesome time together and it was so great to get to show him Spain and let him see where I live and what my life is like over here. 

I sometimes have attention issues, so I'll divide this up by day

SATURDAY: Alli and I took the bus up to Madrid to go to the airport and meet our guys. Our friend Kaitlin was also on our bus, and it turns out her dad was on Matt's flight. So, the three of us took the metro from the bus station to the airport. I managed to put on eyeliner and mascara on a moving metro (subway) with only the mirror in my bronzer case. I was very impressed with myself. We got to the airport and managed to find where we could wait for them. I kept saying I was either going to throw up because I was so excited. I was literally bouncing up and down and shaking while we were waiting for them. They were laughing because I was staring at the baggage claim doors way too early. Matt's flight had just landed and I was sitting there staring at groups of people who were CLEARLY not from Chicago coming through the doors. Finally, we started hearing our midwestern accents and Kaitlin's dad came through! At this point, I was starting to freak out. I kept staring and staring and saw Matt come through a few minutes later. SO exciting. I (of course), did the whole crying and making a scene thing, but it was just so good to get to see him. We went and sat in an airport cafe and had some water/diet coke (guess who had which), and I got a tortilla (egg and potato omelette) bocadillo because I hadn't eaten since dinner the night before. So Matt got his first few bites of boc in and we hopped in a taxi and got to our hotel. 

We checked in and then both crashed for about four hours... we were tired! After our long siesta, we decided to venture out. We went across the street to the Parque de Retiro, where we saw more people making out than we ever had in our lives. Seriously, everywhere you looked there was really intense Spanish PDA going on. Ew. So we took some good pictures, saw some good stuff, and headed back. We then got ready for dinner and walked up to Chic Atocha (the wine bar I went to with my friends in January/February) for a few glasses of wine while we waited for 8:30 to roll around so we could go to La Sanabresa, which I truly believe is one of the best-kept secrets in Madrid (even though I originally heard about it through a guide book... okay, maybe not so secret). In any event, we had our first glasses of wine of the trip and headed up the hill to get to the restaurant.

La Sanabresa was even better than I had remembered it. It has incredible, incredible food and is extremely reasonably priced. That night, I had chicken croquettes and RABBIT (I know! It was so good!) and Matt had mushrooms and swordfish, which he dubbed some of the best fish he's ever eaten. And Matt really likes fish, so that's saying something. We split a bottle of Marques de Cacéres, which was absolutely phenomenal red wine and is available in the US (we clearly checked the second we had internet) and split a piece of cheesecake for dessert. Amazing meal.

After dinner, we stopped by an alimentación to pick up a bottle of wine to have in our room. Breezy had called earlier that day and asked if we would be up for going out with her and her boyfriend, Chris, that night. Matt's jetlag wasn't too bad, so we said we were definitely up for it. We went back to Kapital, the seven-floor disco that I described in my Madrid post from January/February. I have to say that going with Matt was SO much different than going in a group of American girls. We had a blast and totally threw Matt and Chris into the world of Euro clubs.  We got back to the hotel (which was RIGHT around the corner) at 3:30ish and then just crashed for the night.

SUNDAY: I woke up around 9:30 and headed down to the McDonalds (AMERICA!!!!!) that was on the ground floor of our hotel building to get a diet coke and some free WiFi while Matt slept off some jetlag. He came down to meet me and we got in a solid 30 minutes of internet time. Then we dropped my laptop off in our room and ventured out to explore a little bit. On our way downstairs, we were in the elevator with a soccer player from Recretivo, who are a Primera Liga team and were playing in Madrid that day. The team was staying in our hotel! We walked down the street and saw some sights, bought some more wine (notice a theme developing) at an alimentación for that night, and enjoyed the 73 degree and sunny weather. We then dropped out stuff off in the room, got changed, and headed over to Gran Via for lunch at TGIFridays (I know, I know... I just really miss American food!). When lunch was over, we hopped on the metro and got to the Bernabeau stadium for the Real Madrid game!! 

Oh. My. Gosh. I am SO SO SO glad we were able to go to that game. It was an atmosphere like nothing I've ever experienced. We got off the metro and were immediately inundated with Real Madrid mania. There were vendors completely lining the streets selling shirts, jerseys, scarves, pictures, and soccer balls, people screaming Real Madrid chants, people from all over Europe wearing the logos of a million different football clubs, and a British man dressed as a chicken (including a yellow mini tutu). Absolutely nuts and absolutely awesome. We met up with Breezy and Chris in a pub across from the stadium and had a few Amstels (not Amstel light... "Amstel heavy" as Matt calls it) and had a good time getting ready for the game. We took a lap around the stadium at about 4:15 and got up to our seats at 4:40, perfect timing for the 5:00 kick off. 

The game was so cool. Soccer in Europe is seriously a way of life. The Bernabeau stadium, home of Real Madrid, is an 80,000 person stadium and was completely sold out. There were people everywhere waving scarves and flags, screaming, and chanting. I had a lot of the cheers stuck in my head for the rest of the day... very reminiscent of sorority recruitment ("come on in join the fun..."). Real Madrid beat Almeria 3-0, which was very exciting. The stadium went crazy every time a goal was scored and they really do scream "GOL!!!!!!" at the top of their lungs. It was so great and the best part for me (sorry, cheesy) was getting to watch Matt's reaction to it.

After the game, we went out to dinner with Breezy and Chris and Alli and her boyfriend Matt. We just got some quick bocadillos and sat outside at this little cafe. It was great to get to talk with everyone and hear how everyone else's weeks were going so far. After dinner, we went back to the hotel and crashed for the night. 

MONDAY: Monday was one of our travel days. We got up pretty early and checked out our free hotel breakfast, which was fantastic, and then headed out to the bus station to catch our bus to Granada. The difference in the bus rides alone and with Matt were insane. The five hours flew by and I was able to introduce him to the world of the Spanish bus system. We got back to Granada, checked into the hotel, and then relaxed a little bit before heading out. We went to an internet café for a little bit and then got some ice cream at my favorite ice cream place and walked around the city. I took him to SuperSol, the grocery store by school, and we got some tinto de verano to botellón with that night at the mirador de san nicolas, the best view in the world. We got ready and met up with Breezy and Chris to hike up there. We were hoping to make it by sunset, but by the time we got there, it was dark. It ended up being even better, though, because the Alhambra was lit up and it was a perfect temperature. After walking down, we decided to all head over to BADos for some drinks and tapas before dinner. 

Matt LOVED BADos (as I knew he would.... there really isn't a way to not like it). We first ordered drinks and the first round of tapas (hot turkey and cheese sandwiches with olive oil and french fries with garlic aioli and some sort of spicy ketchup-y thing. After that round, Matt was hooked and we decided to stay there for more tapas and make a dinner out of it, which I am always up for. We got another round of drinks (tinto de verano for me and Alhambra beer for Matt) and the second round of tapas, which are Spain's version of hamburgers with pasta salad and fried shrimp, and then a third round with the tortilla española sandwiches and more fries. Our favorite bartender, Alé, was working and was very excited to meet our novios. It was a fabulous introduction to BADos for Matt.

I then took Matt to Dolce Vita, which is one of Granada's chupiterias. A chupiteria is a shot bar, basically with a huge list of shots that you can order. Some are tasty (i.e. #43-- "Shamrock." Mint, chocolate liqueor, and Bailey's). Some are awful (i.e. #83-- "Five Star General." Jagermeister, mint, rum, tequila, and Goldschlagger). We had three pretty solid shots and then headed back to the hotel to relax for the night. 

TUESDAY: Beach day!! We got up pretty early and caught our 10:00am bus to Motril, which is the closest beach to Granada. We had a great bus ride there and the weather was fantastic. We did have a slight hiccup when we got to the bus station and couldn't decide how to get to the beach. After the group decision had been made to try to walk, we started wandering Motril trying to find the beach instead of waiting 20 minutes for the bus. As you can probably imagine, the walk to the beach ended up being us wandering Motril for two hours, asking three different people how to get there, before asking a policeman where the beach was and having him tell us that it wasn't in walking distance. So we hopped in a cab and got there within ten minutes.

The beach was absolutely gorgeous. The sand was perfect, there were really cool rocks everywhere, the waves of the Mediterranean were incredible, the Sierra Nevada was behind us.... just absolutely stunning. We waded a little bit into the sea and spent most of the day just laying around and relaxing. We took the bus home around 5:00pm and got back to Granada around 6:15. We relaxed and got ready and then went out for a fantastic dinner in Plaza Bibrambla. 

We went to Centro, the restaurant my dad and I discovered during his visit last month. We got a great table outside and just had one of the best dinners I've ever had in my life. It was so incredible to get to sit in such a beautiful place, with Matt, eat great food, drink great wine, and just sit there with all the time in the world to talk about whatever we wanted to. It's definitely an experience I'll never forget. Matt had the sea bass and it was the most impressive presentation of fish I've ever seen. It was an entire fish (scales, fins, eyeballs, and all), cooked in a mound of coarse salt. They brought it over to the table and set it up on a tray and then filleted it right at the table for him. SO cool, and he said it was really good.

After dinner, we went back to the hotel and just relaxed. We're big on watching old episodes of The Office at home, and getting to watch them with him on my computer here felt so awesome! It's one of the things I miss most about home :-)

WEDNESDAY: Wednesday was one of our only non-travel days. We slept in a little bit and then ventured out a little bit. We got some tortas de chocolate for breakfast (YUM!) and then walked around by my school a little bit. I had to go and take a literature test, so I did that really fast while Matt tried to find some internet. Our internet café's internet was down (weird) so we went to CEGRI to use their computers super fast. It was fun to get to show him where I go to school! After our internet adventure, we went to get some schwarma for lunch and then walked back up to the Mirador de San Nicolas to see the view in the daytime. That's a view I will never get sick of... it's so gorgeous.

We hiked back down to the city center and got some more ice cream and walked around and shopped for souvenirs and then went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner with my host family! We got over there at around 8:30 and I showed him around and we chatted with the kids before dinner. Carlos was absolutely in AWE of Matt and didn't leave his side the entire night. They bonded over Super Mario, which was adorable. Rosario loved Matt and kept telling me that I was a very lucky girl and that he was very handsome (both of which I already knew). She served us crema de espinaca (cream of spinach) soup, cured ham (Matt loved it), and tortilla española (my favorite), plus flan for dessert. Carlos was asking Matt if he liked chocolate milk, and Matt happens to love chocolate milk, so Carlos sprinted into the kitchen to make them each a glass. So cute!

After dinner, we went to Chupiteria 69, another chupiteria, for a few shots before heading to BADos to meet up with everyone one last time and say goodbye. We each had a glass of wine and then bought a bottle at an alimentación to enjoy back at the hotel while we watched more of The Office and relaxed.

THURSDAY:  We got up early, had some breakfast at the hotel, and then hopped in a cab to get to the bus station for our bus to Madrid. It was a great ride (watched a lot of Office on the laptop) and we made good time. We took the metro to our hotel, checked in, relaxed a little, and then headed back into the city center to have dinner at La Sanabresa again. It was a great last dinner. We headed back to the hotel and had one more night of relaxing and watching The Office and CNN International.

Friday we got up and had breakfast and then went to the airport. It was so hard to say goodbye, but it was just such an amazing week. I am glad beyond words that he was able to come and visit and that we were able to spend such a great week together. It really could not have been better :-)

Back!!

Ahhhh I apologize apologize apologize for the lack of blogging this week. Matt and I had an AMAZING week and there will definitely be a loooooong entry about it in the near future. I dropped Matt off at the airport this morning and then Breezy and I spent the morning reminiscing about the awesome week, watching Jon and Kate Plus 8 on my computer, eating lunch at TGIFridays (a cheeseburger not made of pork!!!!!!!!!) and buying snacks/dinner food/pop/wine at the alimentacion to prepare for our night of watching The Office and more Jon and Kate in our Madrid hotel. Not the most Euro way to do Madrid, but definitely what we need after our tough morning :-)

More details to come, I promise!

Fiesta de Primavera

So today has basically consisted of me trying to distract myself from freaking out all day about the fact that Matt's getting on a plane in, oh, an hour!! I just seriously can't even begin to explain how excited I am! :-)

I spent the day walking around the city and window shopping. One of the things I love about Granada is that there are so many tiny side streets that you can walk for hours and still have so much to see. I got a manicure and pedicure, too! I am always the girl who messes up a manicure the second its done, and today was no exception haha. I went to dig through my purse to pay as soon as it was done and, of course, ruined the nail polish on one hand. The lady was so nice and literally pushed me back into the room to re-do what I had just messed up. After she was nice enough to re-do my entire left hand, I tipped her and then left, only to drop my phone as soon as I got out of the salon and wreck the same hand picking it up haha... no pasa nada!

After my appointment, I came back to the piso for lunch and to say goodbye to Rosario and the kids for the week. They're at the beach with their dad and are so excited. Carlos came in to say goodbye and was showered and wearing a brand new outfit because "vamos a quedarnos en un hotel de cinco estrellas" ("we're going to stay in a five-star hotel"). That kid is too funny!

Alli and I met up to go to the fiesta de primavera this afternoon. Fiesta de primavera is the celebration of the first weekend of spring and basically consists of EVERYBODY in Granada under the age of thirty gathering in one part of town (which happens to be right by us) to drink and relax and enjoy the nice weather. It was a really cool cultural thing to see. I took some good pictures that I'll post later. We then just walked around and got schwarma for dinner. The best analogy I have is schwarma : Granada :: cheap pizza places : Champaign. There are schwarma places EVERYWHERE, especially in our part of town, which is right by the University. I had never tried it, but it was good! It was basically a chicken wrap put on the grill and served hot... delicious!

Now I'm just doing some last-minute stuff and getting ready to meet Alli to get on the bus to Madrid! I can't believe it's today!!

Why I Love Conversation Class

So, today, only half of my conversation class was present. Half of the class is five people. (Classes at CEGRI are teeny).

So we get into class and Yanira, our teacher, looks at us and said that we should do something fun. So she took us to the bar next door for a glass of wine. I got credit today for sitting outside in 75 degree weather with a glass of red wine talking about my boyfriend coming to visit me.

I can handle this :-)

Matt gets here on SATURDAY MORNING!! I am so incredibly excited! I met up with Gina for ice cream today to talk about how excited we are for Matt and Tom (her boyfriend) to get here, and Breezy, Alli, Kristin and I have been freaking out all week. It's going to be so so so great!

On a more serious note, today marks the two year anniversary of when we lost my uncle Tom. Tommy was one of the greatest people I have ever known and we miss him so much every day. If anyone's looking for a good cause to support, check out www.abta.org. We love you, Tom.

Adventures at La Caixa

So, the big event of the day yesterday was getting Real Madrid soccer tickets for Sunday's game!! Aaaand it was an event.

So, background. Breezy, Alli, and I have been talking about getting tickets to this game since the very beginning of study abroad. All of our boyfriends will be in that weekend, and we figured it would be so fun to take them to. Plus, Matt is really into European soccer, so I was taking him regardless. So Matt and I have been researching this for two months, and we figured out that the most secure way to get tickets is to wait until they go on sale (a few days before the match) and then buy them at La Caixa, a bank that has automated ticket selling machines (kind of like ATMs).

So yesterday was the day the tickets went on sale. They went on sale at 10, and Breezy and Alli had class until 10:45, so the plan was that I was going to stalk the La Caixa machines and call them if it looked like we were going to have a problem getting them. So, I check at 10... 10:05... 10:15... 10:30... 10:40... and I'm thinking that we're not going to have any problem at all. It was telling me that there were TONSSS of seats left. So, we all meet at school, walk the two blocks to the machine, and try to buy our tickets. Every time we would find sections with available tickets, they would be sold out. We would try to get one ticket in a section that said it had 51 tickets, and we'd get the little red exclamation point in a triangle that haunted my dreams last night and it would say "entradas agotadas" (tickets sold out). 

At this point, we're all on the verge of tears, just trying so hard to get these tickets and getting so frustrated. I ran back to school and used the internet to try to see if I would have better luck trying online, and Breezy and Alli kept trying at the machine. After an hour of me freaking out in the computer lab and Breezy and Alli yelling at the machine, crying to three different Spaniards, and running across town to use another machine, we GOT them!!! Tickets magically opened up in one section, and all six of us (Breezy, her boyfriend Chris, Alli, her boyfriend Matt, Matt, and I) are going to the game! We are SOOOOO excited!! The hour and a half of stress was totally 110% worth it... it's gonna be awesome! 

Happy Birthday, Mar Mar!!! I love you!

Córdoba

The intricacies of the ceiling of the mesquita catedral

You know you're a study abroad student when you have 35,395,295 pictures of ceilings and continue to take more because they're all really cool

Interior of the mesquita catedral.... the red is brick and the white is stone

Yup, more pictures of ceilings!

Columbus getting permission to discover us

Gorgeous. In the gardens of the Alcazar

I love this one

Orange and lemon trees

Gardens of the Alcazar

Alcazar from the garden

So yesterday we had our school sponsored day trip to Córdoba. It was a really cool excursion but very exhausting!

I met Breezy at the juice bar (our normal meeting place) at 7:15am to get to the Palacio de Congresos on time to catch the bus. The ride was about two and a half hours long and the craziest bus ride EVER. We were going through curves in the road so fast and I think I legitimately felt the bus go on two wheels at some points. We were all bracing ourselves and trying not to freak out! The twisty ride also led to the most intense game of "luggage" the world has ever seen. (For those who have never played, luggage is when everyone in a car-- best if it's the backseat of a station wagon on the way home from some sort of extracurricular activity-- leans to one side when making a turn and screams "LUGGAGE!!" at the top of their lungs). At one point, I was trying to sleep and had my iPod on my lap and it went flying across the bus so far that I had to stand up and take a few steps to get it. We made it there and back safely though, thank God!

When we got to Córdoba, we started out by touring the Alcazar de los reyes católicas, or the Castle of the Catholic Kings. It was pretty intense and had the most beautiful gardens I've ever seen. It was such a gorgeous day and it felt great just to walk around and enjoy it. This castle is also where Christopher Columbus met with the Spanish king and queen to get permission for the voyage that would lead to the discover of America (fun fact!). 

After touring the Alcazar, we walked around the Jewish quarter of Córdoba. It was really interesting to see because the city has been either EXTREMELY Muslim or EXTREMELY Catholic for its entire history, so this little section is completely different than the rest of the city. We visited an old synagogue and walked around some of the patios of the homes.

Then, it was everyone's favorite time... boc time. Boc is our abbrev for bocadillo, which means sandwich. (I abbrev(iate) all the time in English, so it just makes sense to do it here, too. But instead of obvi meaning obviously or def meaning definitely, bocadillo becomes boc and bufanda (scarf) becomes buf). So we ate our bocs on the patio of the mesquita catedral (mosque cathedral) and then had two hours to walk around and explore. Breezy and I did some good exploration and saw a lot of the city in that time. We also got what was, no joke, the best ice cream of our lives. It was phenomenal and exactly what we needed on that 80 degree and sunny day (I know, it's tough! :-) )

After our break, we took a tour of the mesquita catedral. It was absolutely ENORMOUS. The architecture was incredible and the intricacies of everything were amazing. It was really cool, too, because it started out as a mosque years and years ago and then was converted into a cathedral when the Catholic reconquista began. 

After that tour, we just got on the bus and headed back to Granada. Everyone was exhausted by the time we got back! It was a nice little excursion but it was definitely nice to crash when I got back!

OHHHHHHHH We're Halfway There

Number of times I have played "Livin' on a Prayer" today: four.

Today marks my halfway point of study abroad. Holy. Moly.

It's really weird, because in some ways I feel like this just snuck up on me and I can't possibly be halfway done already, and in some ways I feel like I've been here foreeeeeever and can't possibly be only halfway done. I've learned so much about the language and the culture of this gorgeous, peculiar, completely foreign, fun, sometimes silly city since getting here, and I know I still have a lot more to learn.

I was trying to explain to people today that I'm so glad that the end is starting to be in sight, and it's not because I'm miserable here by any stretch of the imagination. It still absolutely sucks being away from everyone I love and being away from familiarity and the luxuries of America, but I have adjusted pretty well and am doing okay living here. The reason that I'm so glad that the end is in sight is because I feel like I can start to focus more on the great things about Europe than on the things I miss back home because those things will be in sight. It won't be like the first week when I had to wait four months to see my mom and to go to a restaurant with free refills of Diet Coke and take a hot shower for as long as I wanted. I will be so excited that my home is in sight that everything will just be that much better and that much more enjoyable. This might sound depressing, but I really don't mean it to!

For a "deep thought with Sally" moment, I just have to comment on the feelings of study abroad students. Study abroad is a lot harder than people think it is. The vast majority of the kids on my program came in the program SO excited about study abroad, having to have wanted to do it forever, so excited to travel and to live in a foreign country and all of that good stuff. That was one of the hardest things for me at the beginning. I did NOT want to be in Granada at the beginning and was so homesick and just was having a really tough time. I've gone steadily up since then. There are good days and bad days, but on the whole I've been doing better and better as time has gone on. The vast majority of the kids, though, are starting to get out of the honeymoon phase and are missing home like crazy. What interests me, though, is that most people don't really talk about it. People feel like they have to be like "oh my gosh this is GREAT! This is the best thing EVER, I never want to LEAVE!" It's almost like there's a stigma attached to admitting homesickness. My advice to future study abroad students is to allow yourself to feel how you feel. There will be days when you can't get the key to your apartment to work and you had trouble communicating something to the store clerk at Blanco and you look at pictures of your friends at school on facebook and they're all having a great time and all you want to do is go home. And there will be days when you have an amazing conversation with your host family and you get asked for directions by someone on the street who thinks you're a native and you walk around the rest of the day feeling so Euro and you walk up to the Mirador de San Nicolas and look over the city and realize how incredible it is that you have the opportunity to do this. My advice is to just feel whatever you are feeling. Don't let your feelings of homesickness get you completely down, but it is important to feel it and not to feel like you have to constantly be ecstatic. Don't let anybody make you feel dumb for being homesick. It happens to everyoneeeee and the absolute best thing you can do is acknowledge your feelings, feel them, and then try to pick yourself up. (I do realize that 90% of the people who read this will not study abroad, but I want to write all this down before I forget!).

Today was our day trip to Cordoba, which I'll blog about tomorrow. It was good but exhauuuusting! It's my bedtime!! Hope everyone's doing well!

Busy Week

I apologize for the lack of bloggage this week! I had a test yesterday and one today, plus a paper due today, so it's been a big study week.

Ummmm.... let's see! Here are some random highlights:

-The weather in INSANELY gorgeous. Low 70s and sunny every day. I've been spending a lot of time outside trying to get some color on me. Rosario told me that I looked tan and that she was shocked because I'm "very, very white". It was pretty funny. I'm not burning, though! Those OBBT summers have done me well. 

-Yesterday we had pizza for dinner. I tried to explain the concept of deep dish to the kids and they were amazed (of course, I then pulled up Giordanos' website and showed them). They asked how big the cheeseburgers were, so I showed them Chilis' website. Carlos gasped, turned to me and said "I am coming to visit the United States!" Then he told me that he was going to eat 90 pizzas and 80 cheeseburgers when he came to visit

-Carlos spent all of last night singing, "We Wish you a Merry Christmas" (in English). It was one of the cutest things I've ever heard, especially because he didn't know the "and a happy new year" part. He just kept repeating, "We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas" over and over again.

Today's our last day of class for the week, and then we have our day trip to Córdoba tomorrow. Tomorrow also marks the HALFWAY point of study abroad. WOW. In some ways it feels like it flew by and in some ways it feels like I've been here for ages. I've got a ton to look forward to in the second half of the experience, though!

T-minus 9 days till Matt gets here!

Paris!

Notre Dame... Look closely and you can see the gargoyles!

Eiffel Tower light show from the top of the Arc de Triomphe

Champs Elyssee

View from the top of the Eiffel Tower

SO GLAD I got to see Meghan! She's blogging too-- check it out! meghantravelstheworld.blogspot.com. I literally laugh out loud every time I read it!

Arc de Triomphe

SO cool.

Kicking off Unofficial with a Nutella crepe and a beer. I should remind everyone that I'm legal in Europe :-) (and less than three months to go until I am in the US, too!)

Chateau of Versailles

Carolyn and I in the architecture studio... we're 3 for 3 on celebrating at least part of Unofficial together!

This weekend in Paris was SO much fun! I expected to like the city, but I didn't expect to LOVE it as much as I did. It was such a beautiful city with a really cool energy. I had heard all of the ¨Parisians are rude; they'll be mean to you because you don't speak French¨rumors, but we were very pleasantly surprised by how great everyone that we met was. It was awesome!

We got to Paris on Thursday night after a loooong day of traveling (five hours on a bus, two hours on a plane, one more hour on a bus). We were so excited to get to our hostel! We got there and there was a line out the door to check in, so we decided to grab dinner in the hostel's bar/restaurant while we waited for it to die down. During dinner, Carolyn called and we made plans to meet in Versailles the next day... I was so excited! After dinner, we all jumped on the internet for a little bit and then crashed for the night.

The next day, we woke up, had our hostel breakfast, and then got ready for the day. Jenny, Betsy, and I took the metro down near the Lourve and walked around that area for awhile. It was Unofficial and we were all a little homesick and upset that we were missing it, so we decided that celebrating it in France was definitely necessary. We got some lunch and some drinks (I had a Nutella crepe for lunch. No big deal.) and then got in contact with Carolyn and started to make our way to Versailles. We got on the RER train and made it out there! Carolyn met us at the train station and after about five minutes of crying and screeching and hugging and jumping up and down and making a scene, we all headed out to her school to meet up with her friends and to celebrate Unofficial with them. Carolyn's friends were a blast and we spent a long time hanging out in their architecture studio before heading over to the Chateau of Versailles to continue the celebrations. We hung out in the gardens and then took out boats in the Chateau's pond. It was SO much fun despite the intense Oak Brook Bath and Tennis flashbacks of people not knowing how to paddle the canoe that they took out. But we managed to get back in successfully and had an awesome time. After that, we went back to the studio and Carolyn and I went and got some dinner to catch up. I can't even say how great it was to get to see her and catch up. We all ended up staying in Versailles that night and had such a good day catching up with U of I kids.

The next morning, Carolyn came with us back into the city. We got off at the Eiffel Tower and decided to go to the top. We had gotten the tip that morning to climb the stairs to the second level and then take the elevator to the top from there. VERY good advice! The stairs are tough (670 of them!) but it's definitely worth not waiting in the loooooong line and saving 10 euro! Getting to the top was SO cool. You could see the whole city and it was incredible. And there are a lot of safety measures for anyone scared of heights! After the Eiffel Tower, we walked down by the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysses (I might be totally butchering the spelling of that). We grabbed some lunch and did a little shopping before parting ways. Carolyn headed back to Versailles and Jenny, Betsy, and I went back to the hostel for a much needed nap.

After my nap, I got a hold of Meghan!! She said that she was going out to dinner with her parents and her Italian and invited me to come with! I met her on the metro and we walked to her foyer to meet up with her parents. It was SO SO SO great to get to see the Hartsells!! We went out for dinner on Champs Elysses before going to the top of the Arc de Triomphe to watch the Eiffel Tower light up. It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen! After the light show, we went out for a drink and then they were nice enough to take me all the way back to my hostel. It was SUCH a fun night and I can't thank the Hartsells enough!

The next morning, we woke up and were really unsure about the whole Daylight Savings issue. We had gotten an e-mail from our program director, but (of course) just kind of skimmed it and assumed it was telling us to change our clocks ahead. Turns out we don't actually spring forward until the 29th! Weird! In any event, we played it safe and pretended like it was an hour ahead. Better to wait an hour for a flight than to miss it by an hour! We walked around a little bit, saw the Notre Dame, which was extremely impressive, had some lunch and some crepes, and then headed back to the hostel to grab our luggage. We had checked out that morning and had left our bags in the luggage closet there. Now, when we left, the closet was essentially empty. Buuuut when we got back, this long, narrow room was FILLED to the brim with backpacks and suitcases. So we ended up literally hiking through suitcases to get to ours from the back... it was pretty funny! 

After a metro ride, a bus ride, waiting at Beauvais airport for a few hours, a plane ride, another bus ride, and a cab ride, I made it home! It was a long trip but SO awesome! I can't wait to go back to Paris one day... although I think I might try to learn a little more French first. Repeating "bonjour" "oui" and "merci" can only get you so far!

Bonjour. Oui oui. Ooh la la. Croissant. Merci.

I'm practicing the five French words I know before my tomorrow :-)

Just wanted to check in really quickly before my trip to Paris! I probably won't be able to blog again until Monday, but I promise to make it a good one!

The Bachelor was ridiculous. Jason Mesnick, I rooted for you ALL of last season on The Bachelorette. I teared up when DeAnna broke your heart. I was SO excited when they said you were going to be the new Bachelor. And you BLEW IT! Two words: scum. bag. (Yeah, I know that's really one word but it's more dramatic like that). I AM ecstatic, however, that Jillian has officially been named the new Bachelorette!! ABC really knew how to welcome me home-- Jillian's installment of The Bachelorette premieres May 18, exactly one week after I get back :-) It will be really nice to get to watch this season at home, on a TV, with my parents. We love watching the show together and tend to get really invested in it. Last summer was HUGE because The Bachelorette (with DeAnna) and Legally Blonde the Musical: Search for the Next Elle Woods were on back to back on Monday nights. Amazing.

For everyone at U of I, have a really good, safe Unofficial weekend. I wish so much that I could be there with you guys!! It's making me miss you all even more than I already do! Be smart, be safe, and have fun. And remember, in the words of Patty VonderHeide circa 2008, "It's a marathon, not a sprint."

The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly in Granada

Weeelll... We're back in monsoon season here.

Today, my grammar teacher walked into class and said that she has never seen it rain this hard in her life. It's been pouring all day! We told her that it was annoying but that we've all seen a lot worse. We're Chicagoans 'till Chicago ends :-) I did get a good laugh about the fact that on the 10-day weather.com forecast, the three days that it's supposed to be sunny and warm are Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The days I will be in Paris. Where it will be 40º and raining (which, no big deal, I'll be in Paris! But still!). I also laugh because all last summer, I prayed for rain every night while I worked as a pool manager in an unusually dry summer. Where was this rain then?!

In any case, it's been a good few days. Yesterday, classes started back up at CEGRI. It was SO nice to get back to having a routine and having structure after five days of not really knowing what to do with myself. I got to see all of my friends again, too, which was so great! Now I only have one more day of class and then four days in PARIS! I am so excited for the trip and can't wait to see Carolyn, Meghan, and the Hartsells. Oh, and the Eiffel Tower :-) 

OH! An exciting development from today was that Alli and I found a coffee place by school that has AMERICAN coffee to go! It's so rare to find American-style coffee here. In Spain, ordering "café" (coffee) will get you a shot of kind of gross espresso, and ordering "café con leche" (coffee with milk) will get you said gross espresso shot in a coffee mug with the rest filled up with hot whole milk. I'll never forget my dad's face at the Granada airport when he went up to ask for a coffee and came back with a Dixie-cup-sized muddy looking espresso. It's also very rare to find coffee to go here. Usually if you want coffee, you have to go to a café, sit down, wait fifteen minutes for the waiter (you don't tip the waiters here, so they really have no incentive to give you fantastic service. Reeeeeeally makes me miss our favorite Chili's waiter, aka Mr. Sarah Fabbri. He always keeps your Diet Coke full and your chip basket overflowing), then order your coffee, get it in a mug, sit there and drink it, then wait twenty minutes until you see the waiter again to ask him for a check, then wait about ten minutes for the check. It's a process. Anyways, that was a huge run-on-sentence-filled tangent. So this new place is called Café Bella and has any kind of coffee drink you could want to go. The best part, though, is that they have CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES. I have been missing homemade chocolate chip cookies so much and to be able to find them (even if they weren't exaaaactly homemade) was just so exciting.

 

Café Bella is also run by a Scottish lady so you order in English! The funny thing is that I got so flustered when I was ordering. I think I said something like, "Uhhh... Can I have grande, no, large, no grande, coffee American? I mean American coffee?"  Aaaaand this is a perfect example of how my English is slowly deteriorating. I guess it's a good thing for my Spanish skills, but it's starting to get scary! I'm the world's biggest grammar freak. Legitmately. If there's a grammar error on a test I'm taking, I get so distracted by it that I have to fix it before I can answer the question. But there have been SO many times recently where my mom has e-mailed me to tell me that I made an egregious grammar error on the blog! I can't believe it, but I've used the wrong "your/you're", "there/their/they're" and "two/too/to" a few times recently! iamsoashamed! So just know that if I make a dumb error like that, or blatantly misspell a word, or make the second grade error of typing "desert" instead of "dessert" (like I did in one of my Italy posts), just know that it's the Spanish getting to my head! 

Well, I think the Bachelor is just about done downloading, so I'm going to go watch what was apparently the most intense/psycho finale ever. Verrrry exciting! 

Happy March!

I am SO glad that it's finally March!! January and February are always tough months and it's so exciting to be getting closer and closer to spring. I always LOVE when it turns to March every year, and have no shame in admitting that I flipped open my phone at midnight on the dot to watch my phone calendar change from February to March (the future teacher in me is going to explain that I'm a very visual person. I understand concepts best when they're written down or drawn out methodically... hence my love for calendars!) Understanding my visual comprehension will also explain that I am SO excited to be able to see Matt's visit and Lauren's visit without having to change pages on my iCal (Mac calendar application). Very exciting!

I also have to admit that March totally snuck up on me. All of a sudden I'm realizing that I'm almost halfway done with study abroad and that I'll be coming home in a little over two months. In some ways it feels like just yesterday I was wandering the streets of Granada trying to grasp the concept of four months. I got to skype with one of my best friends, Libby, yesterday, and she was telling me that when she studied in Seville last year, the first half seemed to go by really slow and the second half flew by. I'm thinking that's probably what will happen to me too. The analogy I keep using is that when you're driving to a new place in the car, it always seems to take longer to get there than it does to get back. When it's unchartered territory, it feels like it takes forever, but when you know what you're doing, it starts to go by a little faster.

Today was a pretty good day-- I woke up late, worked out, got a coffee at Dunkin' Coffee (we're on day four with no Diet Coke... this is HUGE, guys!), then came back to the piso and watched When Harry Met Sally (so good!), caught up with a lot of people online, and all that good stuff. The kids' dad usually comes over for lunch on Sundays, but he didn't come over this afternoon. Instead, he got here at about 8:00pm and came for dinner. 

At dinner, we were all sitting around the table, eating our vegetable soup and tortilla española and having a good time. All of a sudden, the kids' dad got up to get some more soup from the kitchen and Maria yelled, "¡Siéntate! ¿Por qué estás levantándote?" ("Sit down! Why are you standing up?") and burst into tears. Apparently she was upset that her dad felt like he had to go get his own food. She started yelling at Rosario and telling her that she needed to take care of the dad and get him whatever he needed and that the dad shouldn't have to stand up. She said that was the woman's job.

Now, I'm not a feminist. I'm pretty far from it. I wrote an eleven-page thesis my senior year of high school on the importance of the role of a mother and how the ultra-feminist stigmatization of the stay-at-home mom was detrimental to our society. But that scene at dinner was pretty shocking. It really made me realize how progressive America is and how I do take the equality of opportunity for women in the US for granted. For an eleven-year-old to scream at her mother for making her father get off his butt and get his own second helping of soup? Wow. I do think that having your eyes opened to other cultures is one of the huge benefits of study abroad, and living with a host family is definitely a way to have the culture put right in front of you.

Okay, well I'm procrastinating on writing my two page essay on the Basque country. I should get writing...