Tengo una novia

The day before yesterday we decided to plan out “el ultimo dia,” as we decided to call it. We planned to go to school, eat lunch with our senora’s, then take advantage of our pool on top of our apartment, steal some internet at my apartment, then go running in the parque de retiro. Well, all that changed after Robyn and I talked to Paquita. We asked her if our friends could come over and lay out at the swimming pool. So, as usual, she said a lot of Spanish and somewhere in there we caught that we couldn’t go to the pool because they were cleaning it. And we were just so excited about it! But it will happen soon! Of course, I will be applying lots of sunscreen because I am the child of Jim and Susan Lockhart.

Changing the plans of our ultimo dia, we decided to find this little coffee shop we saw when we went exploring the day before. This coffee shop, we noticed, had WIFI, which is always a bonus to us! I suggested we whip out our big, touristy map to find the exact location of it and take a different metro stop. So we found the right metro stop, got off and of course didn’t know where to go from there. And these creepy men were staring at us so we decided to run across the street. Again, we took out our huge map of Madrid. Thankfully, we hear this “are y’all lost?” in perfect English. It was an American! It was this cute, young woman from Virginia who was living in Madrid and teaching English at an American school. She was so great and told us exactly where to go in nice, English directions. Oh the joy we get out of meeting fellow Americans. It doesn’t matter that you would normally ignore them if you saw them in the US. When you see an American in a foreign country, you are instantly bonded!

As we were making our way to the coffee shop, we stopped at this tiny shoe store because it had these certain, tom-like shoes that we had been wanting. But, we kept holding off buying them because we thought we could find them really cheap. And sure enough, these were 5 euros! What a bargain! We all got a pair (some of us multiple)! Then we all had to wear them, because they were just too cute to pass up!

We made our way to the coffee shop, and it was even cooler than we expected. We all ended up ordering the same thing, something called like a caramelo. It had coffee, caramel sauce, and vanilla ice cream in it. D-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s!! And after much confusion and partially stressing out the baristas of the coffee shop, we got internet connection. But, it only lasted about an hour before it mysteriously stopped working on our computers. We decided to go back and relax at our houses before dinner. We also wanted plenty of time to get ready because we wanted to do something fun that night.

This is a picture of the inside of the coffee shop

caramelo coffee drink

oh, just reading at the coffee shop.

We ended up deciding to meet around an area called Sol. And let me tell you, it is the happening place at night! We got out of the metro to wait for our friends CJ and Julie. While we were waiting, we had like 5 people come up to us handing us free entries to various disco-techs and dance places. It was hilarious! After our friends got there we decided to try this one place called Joy. (We mentioned this place to Paquita and she got so excited and said there were “muy chicos” there! She always gets so excited when we say we are going out during the night) We ended up realizing we got there waaaay to early and decided to make a little detour to this place that the American teacher told us about earlier. It is a restaurant that is open 24 hours a day and serves the best churros in Madrid with this excellent chocolate dip. We tried to order just 6, one for each of us. But he ended up bringing us this huge plateful. And since it was right there in front of us we had to eat almost the whole thing!

We ended up going several different places and just making fools of ourselves having fun on the dance floor. We even busted out some classic Sing moves. They were a big hit with the local Spaniards. We tried to teach them our skills, but it didn’t work out so well.

So around 3:00am, we decided it was time to leave because we did have to get up at 6, I repeat 6 in the morning to leave for our weekend trip. Just for clarification, this was all of our first experience with Spanish taxi’s. We told the driver to take us to our area, the Herrera Oria, not knowing that it was a huge street. We ended up driving around for about 20 minutes until we realized that we were nowhere near home. After completely confusing the taxi driver, yes it is possible to get a taxi driver lost, we remembered a street name close to our apartments and he took us there. He ended up being really nice about it and not charging nearly as much as he should of. But at one point in our conversation with him, Robyn told him that "tengo una novia," meaning that she had a girlfriend. While she meant to say "tengo una sobriena," she had a niece. It was hilarious! We finally got home at 3:30, slept for a couple of hours and woke up bright and early at 6am. 

Today we toured Cordoba and are staying in a hotel in Sevilla. As much as I would like to inform you all about my day today, I am much to tired to write anymore tonight. 

So, adios!

Maria

so what if I'm a tourist

Today was another great day! I took my first examen and composition and think i did, eh, ok. I probably should take the whole school thing more seriously since that is the main reason why I am over here (and it would help me in talking with Paquita). 

After school, Robyn and I were finally able to take a siesta. It was much needed and left us feeling very refreshed and rested afterwards. This is when I realized: why don't we do things like the Spaniards? They wake up at the same time we do, ok maybe a little later. Have their morning, eat a later lunch at around 2. Have siesta from 2 to 5pm where EVERYTHING shuts down. Take a long nap or even just a break, then continue till about 10pm. Eat dinner and still have a few hours to have fun! I'm not that tired when I add a siesta into my day, and it makes the days seem so much longer! Plus, everyone seems just overall less stressed out over here. It's truly wonderful! 

After the siesta, Robyn, Caitlin, Beth Anne and I decided to go into the center of the city and visit that mercado I wrote about earlier. I loved it. Its like a fancier central market. 

After that we explored various streets. We then decided it would be fun to try to take pictures of objects that resemble letters and create a piece of artwork that spells our names. If any of you are from Baylor, you have probably seen something like that from Spice. It kind of gets addicting and all you start looking for is hidden letters. We also started trying to take artsy pictures since we have all noticed that Caitlin is particularly good at them. So Caitlin, Beth Anne, and I had a little challenge of who could take the best picture of some random cracked wall:

this would be my picture. I tried really hard. 

And this would be Caitlin's picture. Can you guess who won? If you guessed me, sadly, you are wrong. Caitlin wins every time!

After exploring for a while we decided it was time to start sus tarea (homework). We tried to find a new park to study in and remembered a friend told us about the park de retino, I think is what it is called. Let me just say, it is BEAUTIFUL! Like, I would move here just for this park. Its like the central park of Madrid. This is a picture of when you just enter it. 

When we left, we saw this man painting the fountain in the park. So, of course, as american tourists, we had to take a picture. Robyn took this one and was practically in his face. We got a good laugh out of that one! 

We decided to give up the whole "blending in" technique and just accepted the fact that we are tourists after about the 2nd day in Madrid. We look different, talk different, dress different, have different humor. One way you can tell we are americans is when we are on the metro. First of all, we are kinda big compared to the native spaniards. I think my senora thought it was hilarious how tall I was. Second, it probably doesn't help that half the time we are doing some sort of balancing challenge or trying to work out our calves while riding on the train. I'm sure the locals just love it when we step on their toes or bump into them. It happens at least once a day. Anyways, here is a picture of when we sit down. Its literally like a puzzle piece. 

Ok, enough for now!

Chow,

Maria

Picture Time!!!!

Finally I have the time to put up more pictures, so enjoy. We are waiting on Paquita to get back from yoga class. Yes, its true ladies and gentlemen, Paquita takes Spanish Yoga. P.S. The pictures are in backwards order. I'm still figuring out this blogging thing...

This is Ferdinand and Isabellas Palace. 

The infamous picture of Caitlin's challenge to jump with a professor. 

When we first got into Toledo, some guy approached us, said some spanish, and beckoned us to follow him. It appeared like we were getting ourselves into a sketchy situation. However, he led us to this little factory where they make this jewelry out of hammered down black metal and hammer gold into it. Hard to explain, but its really pretty.

Cathedral in Toledo.

This is that one picture I snapped and afterwards got in trouble for it. 

The streets of Toledo! Pictures just don't do it justice. 

This is the order that my friends and I are in every time we ride up and down the escalator. Note that I am in the back because I have difficulties entering and exiting escalators. The people in the picture for those that don't know them are Beth Anne, Robyn, Caitlin, and me

Pi Phi's in Spain

Toledo!

This is that church that was built by oppressed prisoners of war

Most of the girls of our group.

Really cool mercado, or grocery store. We hope to make a visit to it later this afternoon. If you know me well, I have this obsession with going grocery shopping, so I am very excited about this special visit. 

Will post more later!

Adios amigos!

We made it!

Due to a request from a certain, special person on my trip with me, I need to "put a cap on my blog" and start to shorten it because it is apparently too long for the blogging world. Just a foreward to this post.

If I could sum up today all in 2 words it would be challenge day. Today the 

whole group took a day trip to Toledo and were able to walk through one of the cutest small towns I have ever seen. However, we maximized our fun in that town times ten by getting really into the challenge game wherever we went. More to come about that later...

We first stopped at a cathedral which was one of the most intricately decorated cathedral I have ever seen. So much detail was in it! And since I think it had been built from the 1500s to the 1800s, it contained a lot of different styles of art and architecture in it. I would post up cool pictures, but sadly they were not allowed inside. When I tried to secretly take a picture, I was caught by a guard. Of course I pulled the stupid american card a

nd pretended like I didn't know it wasn't allowed. Worked great!

Then we had a couple hours to eat our sack lunches (which Paquita DID remember to pack. Don't worry, it was not 1, but 2 sandwiches, an apple and some water) and explore the town. Its a very hilly town with precious cobblestone roads everywhere. Instead of taking the touristy route and stopping by all the museums, we decided to do a little shopping in some really unique stores. 

We then began the multiple challenges. First challenge was for Robyn to take a picture with a random bullfighter on the street. It ended with Amy Gibson taking a picture with him while she acted like a bull. HILARIOUS. Then, after taking a rea

lly great jumping in the air picture, I challenged Caitlin to take a jumping picture with a teacher. The picture that came from that was priceless, especially because Dr. Larson only pretended to jump because he claimed he was injured. Other challenges were made that day, like Beth Anne had to take a pic with Larson and Amy had to serenade everyone on the bus, but those gave us the most laughs. 

After our fun in Toledo, we hopped back on the bus and stopped at, what I am pretty sure was THE house of Ferdinand and Isabella. Another awesome place with the most ornate decorations. However by that point, our bodies began to ache so much from all the walking that we really just wanted to get back on the bus to sleep. It was tremendous to see, and fun to picture Isabella in that house a long time ago.

Ok, now for some pictures!!! Only a few because it takes forever to load...

this is the Plaza de Espania. A favorite place to study and an even better spot to catch some "muchos besos" as we call it. Better know as Public Display of Affection in the US. 

This is a central spot in Madrid where we first got dropped off and had to drag our luggage around. 

The infamous Plaza Mayor. Such a fun place to come sit out at night and watch the eccentric people of Madrid. 

Mi apartamento!!

Our beds

This is the other side of the room. Its so nice to open that window when it gets really hot to get a nice breeze. 

Hope you enjoy!

Buenos noches!

Maria

Good news! I realized today that I can charge my computer!! The brilliant inventors of mac included a converter on the charger. No wonder it started to spark when I tried to plug it into another converter. It is now siesta time in Madrid and what are we Americans doing? We are on our computers of course! We just had a delicious meal of some mixture of rice and peas, chicken, and pears. These meals are just too too good and Paquita is a very good cook. She is starting to calm down on the offering us huge portions. Funny story about Paquita and food-- Yesterday, our group went on a day trip and had to have packed lunches from our senora’s that morning. So, the night before, Robyn and I made sure we told Paquita very clearly that we needed a sack lunch and that we were leaving at 7:30am. This whole conversation which could take about three seconds in English, took about 8 minutes, due to our lack of Spanish-speaking skills. But we felt very confident about this one and went to bed in peace. However, you have to know Paquita and her sleeping habits. She stays up really really late, like I have never seen her go to bed before us, and wakes up really really late. She makes us breakfast in the morning, then goes back to sleep. So, when we arose early the next morning to go to our day trip, no Paquita. Breakfast was set out, probably from the night before, but we had no packed lunches. We thought we would just wait awhile and surely she would wake up. We even tried to be noisy around the house so surely she would get the hint. Still no Paquita. So we thought the best option would be to make our own lunch finding random foods in her house. Slash it was a good excuse to peek in her refrigerator. We ended up wrapping up two sandwiches in napkins, grabbing two oranges, and taking two prepackaged sweet breads from breakfast and sticking them in a corte ingles bag. Hilarious! Later that day I checked my phone and had 3 missed calls from some random number. Called the number back and guess who it was? Paquita. She said, “Maria!” and started spitting out tons of Spanish. I go into panic mode and only speak in English because I can´t think of anything to say other than si. I”m guessing what she was trying to say was that she was sorry for forgetting our lunches. Then I managed to put together that she wanted to speak to this girl Kristen, who is a student of one of her friend’s, who she knows speaks really good spanish. Kristen then translated everything for me. She said Paquita was really sorry and that we could buy whatever we wanted at a restaurant for lunch. How sweet! But of course, we could not convey to her that we already packed ourselves lunches. I guess she missed the fact that she had 2 less hamburger buns and a lot less turkey in her refrigerator.

So, a little later my friends decided it would be HILARIOUS to challenge me to call Paquita back. We have this little game we started at the begining of the trip and its basically where one person dares or challenges another person to do something, and the person being challenged has to complete the task or they are completely out of the game. So they would challenge me to call Paquita back. You probably get this by now, but I have a very hard time speaking with her and get nervous trying to think up sentances, and speaking on the telephone only heightens my fear. So after much peer pressure, I gave in and planned out this seemingly brilliant excuse in my head on why I called her. I was going to pretend like I meant to call her.

So Paquita answered. I got flustered. I said, ¨lo siento.¨ then, I began to say Sally? pretending like I meant to mistake Paquita for my made-up friend Sally. Realized later on that the name Sally could easily sound like another word in Spanish, because she isn´t familiar with english names. Anyways, what was supposed to be a conversation lasting a very short time turned into a hilarious and chaotic phone call ending in a very confused Paquita. Terrible on my part. Really, I think Paquita thinks me and Robyn are complete idiots.

Anyways, yesterday turned out to be a great day trip. We toured this palace that was built I think by the Hapsburg family. It wasn´t really that extravagant (I have seen much better in Germany), except for the room where they kept the tombs of the members of their family. The rooms and tombs themselves were very beautiful and had all been intricately decorated. Lots of marble and gold.

After that, we drove to another monument, which was a church that was built by slaves that were being oppressed by a tyrant who ruled Spain for a while. I would give more facts, but I´m not really good at remembering those types of things. Ironic, because what was supposed to be a place of worship was built under a very terrible condition. You could feel the anguish that went into that building when you walked into it because it was so dark and morbid. Not what you would picture a cathedral to be. However it was neat going through it and seeing the bigger picture behind it. I wish I could post pictures of the insides of these places, but we are only allowed to photograph the outsides. Again, pictures are coming soon now that I have internet access at my house.

Enough for now, I am about to study in the beautiful Plaza de Espania!

Hasta luego!
Maria

so much to say, so little time...

So, I finally, after mucho problemas with computers, chargers, adapters, and internet cafe's, I can update my blog. Sooo much has happened in these 4 days that I will only hit the highlights. However, I feel like I have been in Spain for like 2 weeks now. Especially since we stay up later than my usual be in bed by 10 pm schedule.

Plane ride was good, mainly due to the fact that I was on drugs to take away my extreme fear of flying. But, it flew by and we were in the Madrid airport before we knew it. Funny moment #1: Watching 5 of us typical Baylor girls carrying our enormous luggages across these super busy streets in the center of Madrid trying to follow our professor, Dr. Larson, who was yelling at us to hurry up! And these spaniards drive CRAZY. Almost as bad as in Mexico. They have no boundaries, they just go.

We got to the spot where we met our senora's and I was really surprised by mine, Paquita. She was very fashionable and one of those always has her hair and nails perfectly done kind of a person. After the typical kiss on the cheek greeting, which is so weird, we hopped in a taxi to go to her home or apartment I later found out.

Let's just say the conversation in the car ride was an ultimate disaster. Me, remembering NO spanish, plus getting flustered trying to remember even a little bit, could hardly communicate to her that I did not speak it very well, or even at all. She got that point really quickly and it kinda became awkwardly frustrating for the two of us. So we just sat there...in silence. Good first impression for me!

We made it to her apartment. Took a quick tour of the kitchen, our bathroom, and our room. (pics to come soon once I can get my computer to charge) Our room is precious! From what I hear, I think its bigger than some other senora's houses. That afternoon consisted of many conversations that were a big STRUGGLE betweent the two of us and me just not knowing what to do with myself. We did make it to a mini meat market, where I did remember very clearly how to say I don't like ham or fish. However, she and the meat person thought it would be HILARIOUS for me to try some ham. This was not just any ham, it was a ham shaving of a pig's leg hanging from the ceiling with its hoof and some hairs still on it. Probably the grossest thing I have ever put in my mouth. It got a good reaction out of me. She did go home and make a really good meal. Some kind of fried chicken, but really different from the fried chicken we eat in the US. When I finally had some down time I hit the books, trying to cram as much spanish in my head as I could possibly fit in a short amount of time. I was like speed reading through my spanish-english dictionary.

Finally, that evening, we picked up Robyn, my roommate. But, I had the bad idea of assuring Paquita that Robyn was way better at spanish than me. She gets in the car, and its basically a repeat of my first conversation. We got no where. So Paquita was a little less talkative with Robyn, probably because she knows that anything she tells us is pointless because we just stare at her and say "si, si, si" when we really have no idea what she is saying.

The next day we began school and were rushed through the metro with some friends, which would become our regular route to escuela. This is when I realized, great I really know NO spanish and am one of the worst in my 2 classes. This whole school thing is going to be a struggle for me. We got out, went to the corte ingles, like a mix of a really nice walmart and dillards. Bought a few essentials and went home to another meal with Paquita. The thing about Paquita's meals are that they are no regular meals. They are ENORMOUS. Things we were offered for dinner:

huge portion of soup

tons of bread

apples

eggs

chunks of parmesian cheese

slices of turkey

yogurt

tortiella (mixture of eggs and potatos, really good)

The thing is, after like the soup and bread, we keep telling her we are full and don't want any more food. No she keeps bringing more and keeps bringing more. And this happens every meal. Apparantly she is trying to fatten us up.

That day consisted of tons of instances of us trying to interact with the people of Madrid and failing miserably because the three main people I hang out with are just like me, have no idea how to speak or understand Spanish. Although by now, we are getting a little better.

This is getting long, so here are some highlights of the trip:

Caitlin getting pooped on and hit by a car all in one day (don't worry, she is ok)
Robyn getting her wallet stolen on the metro, with three of us watching the whole thing happening but being to flustered and feeling too rude to say anything. We now realize we were just being idiots
Many instances of us trying to speak to spaniards in spanish and getting answers in english because we clearly seem american
me being dared to prank call my senora, Paquita (did I mention we have problems communicating?)
tasting the many unique concotions of soup Paquita whips together (some good and some bad)
getting lost just about wherever we go, thus getting tons of excerise!
Me almost starting a fire in my senora's house because my adapter doesn't work
I have probably gotten taken advantage of several times when dealing with euros because I have no idea how much things cost
Me and Robyn watching highly and inappropriate and sketchy TV late one night with our senora
Having random conversations with our senora's husband about Texas and him serenading us with old western Texas songs

Much more has happened to us, and I have probably never laughed as hard as I have on this trip. It has been way different than what I expected and I am loving every minute of it. Now its time to stop hacking on to our neighbors internet connection and get back to studying for my first test tomorrow.
Muchos besos,
Maria (my preferred name in Spain)