UIMP, wi-fi and Lazarillo

I realized that I haven't really shared any information with you about my university or the house I'm living in (except for letting you know about my VERY tiny room). I finally took pictures of my University and some pictures of the city that I want to share with you. There will be more to come. Anyway, the piso that I live in is a decent size; it's actually very large in comparison to the size they normally are. There are 4 bedrooms (1 for me, 1 for Naomi, a guest room and Tete's room), a large living room, a beautiful yellow kitchen with a laundry room attached to the side, 3 terraces, and two bathrooms. The side of the piso that I live on looks out onto one of Santander's main streets, Avenida de los Castros (the one I use to walk to school), and the ocean. The other side of the piso looks out onto the parking area and a small park with benches and colorful trees. I do enjoy living in this piso. It is a 15 minute walk to school and about a 30 minute walk to downtown. To get to downtown, I need to walk through a tunnel which is a shortcut. The tunnel has pathways for pedestrians to walk on without being near the cars. The following pictures are of my piso in Santander.

The walkway that leads to the guest room. On the left is our bathroom.

My quaint bathroom that I share with Naomi.

The living room where I watch my futbol games!

The beautiful bright yellow kitchen! In the picture you can see one of our tortilla dinners already prepared.

UIMP: Universidad Internacional de Menendez Pelayo (the abbreviation is pronounced as "wimp"....funny, I know!). This is the university that I'm attending. It is actually a language university that only offers classes in Spanish and English. The professors that teach English are from the UK and Ireland so it is fun to hear their accents when they are talking in the halls. The university is a modern building, but very nice. The university is in a gated area which has large areas of grass to use to rest or hang out on. There are four "residencias" which are dorms for students that are not from Santander and a dining common. Also in the university there are two computer labs and a cafe with wi-fi access. In the building where we have classes is the ISA office (the program that I am with) and we have two wonderful ISA workers who are so helpful and are like friends to all of us. They really care about us and always want the best for us. Carmen is the director who went with us to Madrid and Toledo and Mayte is the assistant. Today they decorated their office with Halloween decorations to make us feel more at "home". It was sweet!

In front of the university gate there is a "caseta" which is the reception and someone is always there to keep an eye out on things. I do enjoy the university because it is not overwhelming and the classes are small. I have 8 people in my grammar class and only one is Swedish, the rest are from my group. I have a different professor for each class and all are female, but with very distinct personalities. My grammar teacher, Marta, is always a mess when she comes in, as if the wind blew her in. She is very sweet, but assumes that we know as much Spanish as she does. My literature teacher, Inma (short for Inmaculada-immaculate, always teaches us as if she is telling a story. She uses a deep voice and talks as if she is telling a tale from the 16th century. It makes the class more interesting and I love all the literary works that we are learning about. We just finished the Middle Ages and now learning about the Renacimiento (Renaissance). My culture teacher always cracks me up because when she talks she is basically yelling, which is typical for Spaniards...hehe. She always makes interesting facial gestures and body movements to exaggerate what she is saying. I love everything I've learned about in that class so far. So I am having a good time at school even though some days may not be so fun. The pictures below are of my university and the places I see on the 15 min walk to/from school every day. Enjoy!

The park near my piso. When I walk back to the piso after class sometimes there are children with their grandparents here.

The path that leads to my school and to the ocean!

Santander has SO many roundabouts. This one has a tunnel to the left of it that leads to the center of the city. If you keep walking by the roundabout, it's about 1 min away from the university.

This is the caseta (reception) of the university and on the gate you can see the school's name: UIMP.

This is a view of my university from across the street.

These are the dormitories for students studying at UIMP who are not from Santander.

Here is a close up of the university. The part of the building on the left is the cafe and on the right is where our classes, the computer labs, and the ISA office are.

Here are my two favorite people, Mayte and Carmen, showing the Halloween spirit!

Wi-Fi.....it's a miracle!
So, last Thursday I turned on my computer to upload pictures and I curiously looked up the wireless networks that are near me (I had done this before, but they all are locked.) and surprisingly there was one network without a security lock! I know it might sound bad that I'm using someone else's internet for free, but I am so happy that I can have more contact with all of you! I'm super excited, but not sure how long this will last.

Lazarillo de Tormes.
So in one of my previous blogs I shared that for my literature class I had to read a Spanish story (before the 20th century) and then write a paper on it by the end of December. The story I chose to read is Lazarillo de Tormes. I had read a few excerpts from this story and really enjoyed it. I borrowed the book from my school library and kept it for 3 weeks until I finally read it this past Tuesday. I was worried that it would be hard and take me forever to read (even though it is adapted for students learning Spanish), but when I sat down to read the story I enjoyed it so much that I read it in 1hr and 30 min! I was amazed I read it that fast and relieved it wasn't as hard as I had thought. The story is very famous and important to Spanish literature. It is a story about a young boy who must leave his poor mother to learn about the world and work for men who need a servant. The first person Lazarillo goes with is a blind man. Now I don't want to bore you with all the details, but Lazarillo basically plays tricks on the blind man because he won't feed Lazarillo very much. Then Lazarillo goes with a priest, soldier, friar, a man who sells miracles and a "policeman". With all these people Lazarillo works for, his situation gets worse and worse. Either they don't feed him very well or his work gets harder. The story starts when he's about 10 and ends when he becomes an adult. The story has a happier ending when Lazarillo meets a monk who introduces Lazarillo to a young woman, who becomes his wife, and Lazarillo becomes a respectable man in society. His life ends up turning around for the better. Anyway, it is called a "picaresco" which was a new form of story telling. Picaresco is a story about playing tricks and fooling people. The reason this story is important to Spanish literature is because it was written in a time (16th century) when religion was very important and if you noticed most of the people Lazarillo worked for were religious figures. Well, in the story Lazarillo finds out that these people aren't as "holy" as they seem to be and may not be as good of people as they ought to be. So the story challenges the role of the church and religion. It's a very interesting story and very entertaining.

Well, I hope all of you are well. I think of all of you often and only wish you the best. I'm going to Portugal tomorrow (Halloween) until Monday so I will have lots to share soon!
Besos, Celeste

I smell something fishy...

Reflecting back on my trip to Valladolid, I realized that I forgot to mention a major event during that trip. So for the last "comida" (lunch) that I had there, Edita made Paella and homemade ice cream...yum! But she also made us small appetizers before the main meal. As I saw Edita put each plate on the table, I realized that it was all fish. She had made each appetizer plate look beautiful and I wish I had taken a picture of it.

On the table there were: oysters, smoked salmon on small pieces of toasted bread, squid, clams and fried calamari. As all of you know, I don't like fish. Well Sarah (one of the new girls) doesn't like fish either so we were the only two sitting there drinking our water and not eating. Kaeyln asked me if I was going to eat and I told her that I didn't like fish (now Edita and Julio were not offended because they already know that I don't eat fish). Well, Kaelyn kept telling me to try the salmon because it didn't taste or smell fishy and blah blah blah.

Eventually I got up the courage to try the smoked salmon on the bread and I have to say that I really enjoyed it. I liked it enough that I had 4 of them!!! Because I decided I like the smoked salmon I decided to try the fried calamari. I made sure to put enough lemon juice on it and when I tried it I liked it too! I couldn't believe that I found some seafood that I actually enjoyed. After trying these to plates I DID NOT go as far as trying the oysters...I think that I had enough of a fish adventure for one day...hehe.
Besos, Celeste

La Familia y Amigas

Here is the picture I took with my Spanish "abuelos" and friends.

In the picture (L to R): Kealyn, Sarah, Julio, Edita, Mayuka and Me! This was a wonderful dinner. I´m glad that I always will have a family in España.

P.S. Here is a video I took at the beach to show you a panoramic view of the ocean and jardines de piquio (gardens of piquio-where I live). Hope you can watch it!

My return to Valladolid

I took a 3 hour train ride from Santander on the 17th to Valladolid. The train was very comfortable and there even was a movie. The whole ride I was getting more and more excited for the moment when I would reach Valladolid and be able to see my Spanish "abuelos" (Julio and Edita) and my friend Mayuka again! When I got off the train and entered the station, Julio was standing there waiting for me to arrive. We walked together to their piso and when we walked together I felt like no time had gone by during these past 3 years. There were some changes that I noticed since I have been gone. By the Campo Grande (a huge and beautiful garden), they put in a small resting area with benches and a fountain with bird baths.

When we arrived at the piso, I could tell that Edita was waiting for us at the door, because as soon as she heard our voices in the hall she opened the door and came rushing out to give me besos. It was wonderful to see them again. I put my things down in the guest room and then went to the living room so that we could catch up on things. We talked about everything and my studies and plans in Spain for the year. They currently have two girls from Montana living with them until December. They are really nice girls and invited me to go out with them a few times.

Around 7pm Kaeylan & Sarah (the new girls) were planning on going to a cafe and invited me to go. I went out with them, but I also called my friend Mayuka to come with us too because I really wanted to see her. When Mayuka showed up at the plaza we were meeting at, I was so excited to see an old friend. It turns out that Mayuka knows Sarah from one of their classes together. We all headed over to a cafe, which was a very funky place with different types of specialty coffees. Mayuka and I ordered the cafe bonbon (bonbon=sweets). The coffee had espresso, cacao, milk and caramel in it. Definitely not your normal coffee, but it was delicious!

Mayuka told me about going back to Japan, graduating, and working so that she could save money to return to Spain. She is going to study in Valladolid this year and then next year go somewhere else in Spain. She told me she wants to try to find a job so that she can live in Spain until she´s 30! She´s 24 right now, so 6 years! I thought that was great. Around 9:45 we left the cafe because at Edita´s we eat at 10. For dinner we had Tortilla de Patatas and salad....yum!

On Sat. I had breakfast with Julio (we both didn´t get up until 10am). It was nice to just have a relaxing morning. Then Mayuka and I had plans to meet at 12 in front of the Ayuntamiento. If you look at the picture below it says "100 years" of service in Valladolid.

When Mayuka and I met up, we decided to walk around the town a little and we ended up going to Zara, which is one of the most popular clothes stores in Spain and one of my favorites. I was careful to not spend money here. I only bought one shirt. We continued looking around the shops and then walked around Plaza Zorilla and made our way to Casa Cervantes. I had always wanted to go there, but for some reason Katherine and I never made it (by the way she is teaching English in Ecuador!!!). Casa Cervantes is the home of Miguel Cervantes (author of Don Quijote) when he lived in Valladolid for some time. I´m not sure how many years he lived in Valladolid, but it was a while. The house has been maintained the same way as when he lived in it, with all the same furniture, the books he read and wrote, and a very small kitchen. Enjoy the pictures. Mayuka is in the picture of Cervantes´"office". It is pretty cool to have been in his home.





After we walked around some more, we then went to go eat lunch. After lunch, I took a siesta (very necessary) and then spent some time with Julio and Edita. Around 7:30 we met up at the Pza Universidad so that we could find a bar to watch the Real Madrid vs Atletico Madrid game...woo-hoo! Real Madrid won 2-1 off a penalty kick! I love soccer!

Sunday was short, but definitely a wonderful day. Mayuka and I walked around Campo Grande early that day and it was so beautiful because the leaves are starting to fall and change colors. Also the park is FILLED with peacocks (or Pavo Real). It was fun. Here are some of my pictures.




Then for lunch Edita made Paella and home made ice cream!!! It was perfect and she was even sweet enough to invite Mayuka so I would have more time with her and so Edita could meet her too. Kaelyn and Sarah were there too and I had such a fun time talking to everyone. The picture below is after our lunch. I returned back to Santander at 10:30pm and as soon as I got back to my piso I talked to my mom for a bit and then went to sleep.

I can´t wait to go back to Valladolid again. In November or December, I plan on returning!

Besitos, Celeste

School and new friends

My classes have been going well and I´m really enjoying what I am learning. In grammar we´re learning the rules of Spanish, in literature we have just finished learning about the different literary terms we will be using in the class and I finally picked a book to read as my final assignment. The book is called Lazarillo de Tormes; it is a story that was written during the middle ages (around the same time as Don Quijote) so it´s written in "old spanish", but the version of the book I´m reading is adapted and specific for students studying Spanish. I´m really excited about reading the book because it is a very important piece of Spanish literature. I have read excerpts from the book, but not the whole thing. It´s a picaresco story. I´m not really sure what that is, but I´m sure I´ll learn about it soon in class. In culture class we´ve been talking about what things we have noticed in Spain and why they are daily occurences and yesterday we started learning about the comunidades autonomias (the different regions) of Spain. Culture is definitely my favorite class.

Last night Emily and I went out with two of our new Spanish friends: David and Andrea. We just walked around downtown and then went to a bar to have a drink and just talk. We only spoke in Spanish, because they are nervous to speak in English, but hopefully next time they´ll practice with us. Oh, and they helped Emily and I with our homework. Below is a picture I had taken last night of the four of us!

I´m going to Valladolid so when I get back I´ll tell you all about it. I can´t wait!
Besos, Celeste

P.S. The Santander futbol stadium is near my university and I can see it when I look out the window when I´m in class. Check it out!

Barcelona, Day 2 & 3

The first day was wonderful in Barcelona even though we were exhausted. We visited so many places and walked around the entire center of Barcelona. The second day we focused on the northern and mid regions of Barcelona. Emily and I left our hotel around 11am and decided to first go to Parc Guell because it was the closest. Well, in order to get to Parc Guell, you have to hike up this extremely steep hill. The funny thing is that there are escalators every now and then to help make the trip easier and quicker...hehe. Below you can see the hike we took.

The top of the hill is where the Parc Guell is. It is a beautiful park with amazing mosaic benches. Antonio Gaudi constructed the park as well as many other famous buildings in Barcelona. The whole park is surrounded by a long and wavy connected bench which is decorated in different mosaic artistry. It is absolutely beautiful. When you walk down the hill there is a beautiful fountain with a mosaic iguana and two buildings. One is a museum and the other is a souvenir store.

After the park visit, we walked all the way to La Sagrada Familia. On the map it looked really close, but it took us about an hour to get to it. It was a nice walk though because we got to see more of Barcelona. La Sagrada Familia has to be one of my favorite cathedrals in Spain (after Toledo and Burgos). It is amazing and has incredible Greek architecture. At the front of the church, Gaudi sculpted (with stone I believe) the "last supper", Jesus on the cross, and various apostles. It is amazing the work that he did. I don´t know if you all know this, but La Sagrada Familia was never finished. Gaudi had all his ideas for the cathedral in his head and never wrote anything down. One day he was walking from the cathedral to go home and on his way, he was hit by a trolley and died. So now Spain is trying to finish the cathedral, but how Gaudi had imagined it. Enjoy these pictures.


After La Sagrada Familia, Emily and I just walked around the area of Gracia and Exiample and saw some interesting buildings. Here is one called La Casa Terrades:

It was more of a relaxing day than the first, but it was very enjoyable.

On the third day we did not enjoy our time in Barcelona because everything was closed and we were tired from all the walking and touring so we just walked around the city. Our bus ride home was better than the first time because I slept the whole way and when I got to school I was tired, but not too much. I was still able to comprehend everything and participate in class. Hope you enjoyed my post about Barcelona!
FYI I still love Madrid; it is definitely my favorite large city! This weekend I´m going to Valladolid to visit my other host family and I´m going to stay with them and also see my friend Mayuka, who is studying in Valladolid again this year! Until next time, hasta luego!
Besos, Celeste

Barcelona, ole! Day 1

So this past Wednesday, we were told by our professors that we don't have school on Monday. This was news to us. Well, I had planned to settle in and get a lot of sleep, but Emily thought it would be a good idea to use this weekend to travel somewhere(we have 2 more weekends with a Monday free, but most of our other weekends are filled with excursions). We were trying to look for someplace close by to go to, but then we realized that 3 days could be enough to go to Barcelona. Well, because of such a short notice we couldn't find any flights and the one we did find cost 176 euros one way! Our director, Carmen, told us about this night bus that drives 9 hrs from Santander to Barcelona. At first this sounded like an awful idea, but then I realized if we do that then we don't have to pay for an extra night at a hostel. Also, we figured to get an extra full day in we could leave Barcelona Monday night and get to Santander Tuesday morning for classes (well at the time it seemed like a good idea). So it was only going to be Emily and I because other people just wanted to hang out in Santander.

It was settled. We bought tickets for a night bus leaving Santander on Friday at 9pm and getting to Barcelona at 6:45am. Then we would have all day Sat, Sun and Mon in Barcelona and then take a 10:30pm bus from Barcelona and get to Santander at 8:30am on Tues (since we have class at 9am we were going to take a taxi to school). We booked a really cheap hotel, but in a safe location, and we were ready for our trip. The hotel ended up being very nice. Because of the cheap price, I assumed it was a hostel, but it was actually a very nice and clean 4 star hotel.

Well, the bus trip wasn't too bad. I had my ipod so I listened to music and was able to sleep very well, until a 2:30am wake up call. The bus driver had us take a 30min break to use the bathroom and get something to eat if we wanted. Then when we got back on the bus and I slept on and off. Well, we woke up because we realized the bus had stopped at a station. We just assumed it was in another city. Then as we left the station, I saw the sign: Barcelona-Sant Station. That was our stop! Emily and I couldn't believe it (but the driver never announced it). So we stayed on the bus and figured it had to stop somewhere else because other people were still on the bus. We ended up getting a tour of the city. We got off at the Nord station (which ended up being better because it was 2 blocks to the center of the city). We stayed at the station until 8am, when the sun came out.

We left our backpacks in lockers at the station, found some maps, and ventured out into Barcelona. Now, when I started walking around, I couldn't believe we were in Barcelona. There were no sky scrapers or really tall buildings. The streets looked like I could have been in any other city. It was a really nice feeling, like I wasn't in a large city, and since it was so early barely anyone was out walking. We first went to the Arc de Triumf. It is beautiful.

Next, we just wandered the streets looking for the city center. We went to a nice garden area where the parliament building was and took some pictures. Then we walked around some more and found a small cafe to stop at and have a drink. After, we walked down Las Ramblas, which is the main road that leads you to all the attractions. We walked to the Port Vell, where there is a mall on the other side of the bridge. We went to Placa Reial, which I believe is their plaza Mayor, and Plaua Guell, which was a disappointment because it was a building constructed by Gaudi and the outside is beautiful, but inside we were only allowed to go into the basement so we didn't see much, but it was free! We walked to the Barri Gotic (Gothic neighboorhood) where everything was designed as Gothic architecture and we saw the Catedral de Santa Maria. Then we went to Placa Catalonia which was filled with hundreds of people. We found the Hard Rock Cafe (which was recommended by our director) and decided to eat there for lunch, but there was a line so we walked around the streets and around 2 had lunch. After we went back to the bus station to get our backpacks and check into the hotel (check in was at 2), we rested and used the free internet, woo hoo!

Statue of Christopher Columbus pointing to the Americas.

The Catedral de Santa Maria. A very large Gothic church.

The front of Palau Guell. It's hard to see but at the top of the building there are 4 triangle structures which look like they were made with fruit and have very beautiful and interesting designs.

Emily and I are in front of a fountain in Placa Reial. It is a beautiful Plaza (remember that this is at 10am after an all night bus ride...hehe).

That evening we walked around the area we are staying in, which is supposed to be the "posh" area of the city, but it looked like a normal area to me. Then we ate dinner and went back to our room to watch a movie. All in all, it was a great first day in Barcelona.
Besos, Celeste

Santander-I finally settled in!

This is the view from my room. I can actually see more of the ocean too.

Sorry that it has taken me so long to write about where I have been living the past week. I have just finally settled in and now I can share all about my new city with you. Santander is the farthest north you can get in Spain and it is right on top of the beach. It sounds great, no? Yes, I love being able to open up my window and look out onto the beach. Unfortunately, it rains a lot in Santander. This part is not so much fun when you have to walk to school without an umbrella (I finally got one though)! We have been pretty lucky with the weather. It has only rained 2 1/2 days and the rest have been sunny, but with Santander you never know what kind of weather you can have.

Santander is considered a small city although it is very spread out. There are a little less than 200,000 inhabitants in the city. I was one of the lucky students to live right across (I mean like 10 feet) from the beach. Along the beach there are walkways and beautiful gardens and benches everywhere to enjoy the view. I plan on using these areas to read and get some good walking in when the weather is good.

Here's my living/studying situation. Host Family: I'm living with Naomi, who is from Japan, but studying in the states. I have my own room because Naomi paid for her own. At first I really wanted to be with a roommate, but I do like having my own space even if it is ridiculously small. Look below.


The couch you see in the picture is actually my bed. Every night I take off all the pillows and pull the sheets back to sleep under them. My pillow is on a shelf under the little table in my room and there is an extra blanket there, too. This experience in Santander is truly helping me to learn how to adjust to completely new settings.

My host family consists of a 68 yr old woman who is a mother of four, who all have their own families. She is a very nice woman and cooks very healthy (unlike other families), but she is a very modern woman because she is NEVER in the house. It makes me a little sad that I never have the opportunity to sit down with her and talk to her about her life or Spain in general. Naomi and I usually eat alone or I'll eat by myself because Naomi likes to eat early. Oh well, just a new situation to try to adjust to. The house is nice and from my window I can see the ocean, which is beautiful!

Emily and me at the beach.

La Universidad Internacional de Menendez Pelayo: The school is a 15 min. walk from my piso(flat). It is a very small language school, but I really like it. They have very good professors who are very friendly and informal with us, but really try to help us. When I first took the placement test for grammar, I was placed in superior which is great, but I really needed the review and practice so I decided to be in advanced and that actually was a great decision. I'm also taking Literatura Espanola and Cultura Espanola. Both classes are interesting. Culture is fun because all we do is talk about the culture and observations we have. I think Literature will be good, but right now it is difficult, hopefully it will get easier. I have to read a famous Spanish piece by the end of the 3 months.

Other than that I've just been trying to get acquainted with the city. The center of the city is far from my piso, but there's a tunnel I can take or a bus to get to the center. I'm really happy with everyone in my group. Everyone gets along together and we do a lot of things together while trying to practice our Spanish. Oh, and last Wednesday we had intercambios (exhange) with Spanish students who are learning English. The point of the intercambio was for us to meet some people from the town to hang out with, but also for us to practice our Spanish and for the Spaniards to practice their English. Well, I met 3 people that I really liked, who are really easy going and fun to talk to. They are Pilar-22, David-22 and Andrea-24. My friend, Emily, and I went with the three of them to a bar/cafe just to talk and get to know each other. So we plan on getting together again next week sometime. I'm very excited about having Spanish friends again!

Well, that's all for now. I hope all of you are well back at home. Besos! Celeste

Toletum (Toledo)

I have to say that Toledo was one of my favorite cities in all of Spain and maybe in the world (after Venice of course). It is this beautiful medieval city that still has cobble stone streets and very small streets that the cars can barely fit through. There are two sections of Toledo, la antigua (old section) and la nueva (new). Our beautiful hotel was in the new section and the best part was that it had wi-fi! We arrived in Toledo the evening after El Escorial. That evening we had a tour, by bus, of la antigua. Later, we went to the hotel to rest a little and around 8pm we all went back to the city (except my roommate Naomi) and split up to have dinner in different places. Three other girls and I found a small, but very delicious Italian restaurant and after we ate we walked around the city for a little bit. On our own we found La Catedral, which is one of Toledo´s greatest sites. Around 10pm we returned to the hotel to rest before the next day.

The second day we were in Toledo was very busy, but fun and educational. For the first half of the day (9-2), we had a tour guide named Mario. He took us around the city to show us where the Jewish neighborhood (barrio Judio) used to be and we randomly met an older man who is from one of the last Jewish families in Toledo. This elderly Jewish man was commissioned to excavate the old Jewish neighborhood. Then we walked over to a small church that houses a very famous painting, by El Greco, that is called El entierro del conde de Orgaz (The gravesite of the Count of Orgaz). Above the gravesite is an amazing painting that shows the connection between heaven and earth and how this connection is being made by two angels who are bringing el Conde de Orgaz to heaven for all the great deeds he has done.

We walked around and Mario told us about the different architecture that we saw around us. We went into a synagogue and also into a beautiful Roman influenced church. The church had a garden and patio at the center of it (which was outside) and the pillars of the church had very intrinsic designs. The church is called El Monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes. Here I am with Carmen (my resident director in Santander) and Sheila (una buena amiga).

After our tour, we were free to do what we wanted until the end of the day. Three friends and I found a place to eat and then decided to roam the streets to shop a little. I ended up buying many things (not just for me) with no help from my friends because they kept encouraging me to get the souveneirs. So this is what I bought: A sketch of La Catedral de Toledo, a beautiful gold bracelet that is typical jewelry of Toledo-inlaid gold, two scarves, and a cute bag with Madrid written on it. On our way back to the hotel (around 7pm), we stopped to buy some ice cream and then on our way to the plaza to get the taxi (Plaza Zocodover) we got lost.

Oh, and the most exciting part of the experience is that when Mario took us to see La Catedral, we just so happened to arrive at the exact time that a wedding party was leaving the church. Before we realized where los novios (bride and groom) were, they came out of a small church and we were ALL covered in confetti and rice from the celebration! It was fun though. I´ll write about Santander soon!

El Escorial & the Misadventures of 6 American Girls.

Here are some of the students from my group (notice how there are only 2 guys). I'm on the far left.

The good thing about going on these excursions with ISA that I've been on before is that I remember where everything is and I remember some of the history. Because of this, I am able to ask more questions and enjoy the tour more. So yesterday, Oct. 3, we left Madrid early in the morning and went to Valle de los Caidos. Valle de los Caidos is a church that the dictator Franco had built into a mountain, which is near El Escorial. This church was built to show Franco's power and strength. In this church he had soldiers buried here who died during the Spanish Civil War (but only the soldiers from his side). Later, this became the burial place for Franco. Inside the church there are several beautiful chapels with various statues of La Virgen. The view from this church looks out onto a beautiful landscape.

After we spent some time in Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen) we went to El Escorial to visit el Monasterio de San Lorenzo, which is in the city of El Escorial. Now I've been here before, but I absolutely love this monastery. I've never seen anything like it before, but the city doesn't have much to offer. Some history about the monastery: it was built during the 16th century by Spain's most powerful king, Felipe II. The monastery was built as a palace because the Palacio Real hadn't been built yet. San Lorenzo is beautiful and all the rooms all serve a different purpose and have different styles and decorations. Today, the monastery is for monks (obvio!), but they also have a school there that is for boys to study to become monks or priests themselves. Our tour guide, Victor, was fantastico! He joked around a lot with us and was very knowledgeable. All of the tour guides I have had so far have been amazing and have I mentioned that the tours are all in Spanish? YAY!

We walked towards the city center of El Escorial to eat lunch and like I said, there is not much here, but I do have a fantastic story. I hope it is as funny when you read it as it was to experience it.

So six of us decided to venture off and find a small and cheap place to eat. We stopped at a restaurant called Brillante, which had a terrace outside (more like patio tables across the street) for us to eat at. We liked the idea, but we wanted to sit inside. The waiter came out and said go around the corner of the restaurant and there is a door on your left to go into to sit down. We did what he said, but as we passed by the doors, none were open except for the 4th one. As we got there, a young waiter (about 18) popped out and excitedly welcomed us into the restaurant. Now, we assumed that there was some "secret" passageway between the two places where the older waiter told the younger one that we were coming. We sat down and the walls were covered by beautiful water color paintings of San Lorenzo. Now, the thing in Spain is when you go to a smaller town, the menu is on the outside of the restaurant and you're not always given menus. The young guy asked us what we wanted to drink. Rachel said water and he asked "con gas o sin gas" (carbonated or regular). She didn't understand and had him repeat it 3 times (mistake #1)! Then I tried to politely explain to her what he said. The rest of us quickly said "agua sin gas". He then asked what we wanted to eat and we asked if we could see a menu. He then asked "menu del dia?" (menu of the day). We said yes and he left (mistake #2-you'll see why). Now we were probably sitting at the table for 10 minutes before the young guy came back with our waters and a menu. As he left we then noticed that the menu had been hand written! He took is time to write out the menu! The poor guy spent so much time just to give us the menu. The worst thing is that only 1 of us ordered off that menu. When he brought the drinks he also brought bread and jamon serrano (curred ham). Then we ordered. Rachel ordered the menu of the day, Emily & Sheila ordered bocadillo con jamon(french bread with ham in it), I ordered a bocadillo con tortilla and Naomi wasn't hungry so she ordered a Cola Cao (hot chocolate and mistake #3). When Naomi gave her order the young waiter said "I have to go ask my boss" and then he left. No one said anything to Naomi, but first he wrote out the menu for us, then only one person ordered off the menu and third one person just wanted cola cao! He didn't come back. We all talked a little while we waited for our food and talked about the monastery. Then our food arrived. We all started eating and everything tasted great, even Naomi's cola cao. Ten minutes into eating, Sheila realizes that what she ordered for lunch is the EXACT same thing that we had as an appetizer(bread and curred ham) just with another piece of bread on top (mistake #4). Now Sheila is an easy going person and as soon as she had this epiphany she started laughing at her self then we started thinking about everything that had happened at the resturant and we ALL started realizing that we were probably at a different restaurant and we had no idea. So now ALL (well except for Rachel) started laughing nonstop (part of the problem was because we were tired). Later the waiter decides to check on us (by the way we are still talking about our stupidity), but he didn't come alone. He brought a friend. He comes up to our table and says "el es mi amigo" (he's my friend) and we all said hi. They both start removing plates from our tables but halfway back to the stairs (we were underground) the friend starts laughing and has to put the plates down so he won't drop them! Now he wasn't laughing to be mean, I KNOW our waiter told him about us, but because we were laughing at ourselves I think it was hard for him not to laugh either. We waited around a little, then we asked for the bill. The friend returns (we think our waiter couldn't hold in his laughter and that's why he didn't come to our table). Now in Spain the waiters wait for the bill, but normally for dinner one person just pays immediately. Since we all planned on paying for our own food we took a few minutes to figure out how much we all needed to pay and who got what amount of euros back (mistake #5). The poor friend was just standing there, but as we were trying to figure out everything, he had to turn his head away from us 2 TIMES to try to hold in his laughter! He left and came back. By the way, we were STILL laughing at ourselves. As we left, we said a friendly good-bye to both guys and started walking out, but I stopped just outside the doorway to see the name of the restaurant ( it's Jarana, not the same one as we thought!) and as Emily and I stepped out the doorway we heard rumbling laughter coming from inside the restaurant. One thing I wish I had thought of was to have taken a picture of the two waiters, just to have as a token for that hilarious and memorable lunch. I have the best time telling this story (and trust me, all 5-because Rachel was NOT happy at all-of us have told this story to EVERYONE in our group). I hope you enjoyed it and that I wrote well enough for it to be funny.

Besitos, mañana I will tell you about Toledo (both days I was there).

Madrid - la captial!

Finally I am here Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 na! The three flights I took to get to Madrid were dreadful, but I thankfully arrived here safely and with all my luggage. At the airport our ISA director in Santander, Carmen, met me and 4 other students at the airport to take us to our hotel, HUSA Moncloa (which by the way is the EXACT same hotel I stayed in with my Cal Poly group 3 years ago). Carmen is such a fun person. She is very expressive and likes to joke around alot. She is also really attentive making sure we are all adjusting to Spain well. I am really looking forward to working with her more in Santander.
Alright, before I arrived in Spain I was a little nervous about going back, but as soon as I arrived at the hotel I asked my roommate Naomi, who will be living with me in Santander, if she wanted to walk to la plaza españa. So the two of us walked there and it surprised me how much I remembered Madrid and how to get around the city. I easily was able to find all my favorite places to go to. La plaza españa is my favorite plaza because of the statue they have there. It is a statue dedicated to Miguel Cervantes who wrote Don Quijote. There are 6 seperate statues that are in the center of a pond and these statues are of Miguel Cervantes, Donquijote & Sancho Panza, and there are 3 other characters from Cervantes' stories. Later in the evening all the students in my group went on a bus tour to see the city and Carmen gave us historic information about the different sites of Madrid.
On the second/last day of Madrid all of us went to El Prado to see paintings by Velasquez (my favorite Spanish painter), Goya, Murillo and El Greco. It was fun for me to see all these magnificent paintings again. After that we had free time and Naomi and I took a bus to la plaza colón to see my friend Davíd (one of my friends from Valladolid who now works for the security department of Madrid's government as a computer engineer). I ended up missing him, but later in the evening around 7:30 I met up with him and two of my friends from the group came with me. We sat in the terraza to have some drinks and just talked. It was so much fun for me to be back with an old friend and to just remember the experiences I had in Valladolid.
After plaza colón, our group went to the Palacio Real. The current Royal family live in another palace, so el palacio real is more of a museum. It was a nice tour and the outside of the palace was beautiful, but the inside didn't impress me much.
Davíd y yo

It was nice to see it though. Then later I bought a few necessities at El Corte Ingles. This store always makes me laugh just becuase it is a store with everything in it, I mean EVERYTHING! It was a supermarket, clothes, electronics, a plant shop, bookstore, etc. all in one large building. Then I met with Davíd (as I mentioned earlier).
To end the wonderful day I had, Emily (a new friend) and I walked down Calle Princesa (one of the main streets) and went all the way up to Gran Vía to find some dinner. La Gran Vía is like Madrid's version of Broadway. We didn't find any place we wanted to go to, so we stopped at a gelato shop to get some ice cream and walked back to our hotel. I'll share with you later about El Escorial.

Besitos, Celeste