Leaving

SOO last night was our goodbye fiesta, which was hilarious and really bittersweet at the same time. A large group of people, mostly from Nebraska, left last night also so there's only a small amount of people left here. Its me and a group from Ohio, and we have a bus picking us up at 3:30 in the morning tonight, so I will be home soon enough! As much as I can't wait to be home, its terribly sad to go, too. Somewhere along the line, this ceased being a vacation or a trip and it became my life. Leaving it is what seems foreign to me now. I've hit 9 cities in 7 countries while I've been gone, and while its all been jaw-dropping and incredible, the people I've met are the most important thing I've experienced this summer. Its really not about how many gothic cathedrals you see (over 15) or how many spiral staircases you climb (at least 13). Its about the people you touch and the people who touch you in return. Like I said... bittersweet. Regardless, all good things must come to an end... Adios, bon voyage, SEE YOU IN AMERICA!!!!!!!!

more of my holiday in spain

here are the last batch of a few tidbit pictures of my latest frolickings before i come home and you can see the real things!.... by real things, i mean you can see it on my digital camera... right.

we had this idea to have one of our friends take a
baywatch-esque picture of us dramatically running into the
atlantic ocean for the first time, so if you squint, you can see us :)

mekita and i on an out-of-class excursion
to the castle wall outlining the old town of toledo

me, melissa and baylee looking out at toledo as the sun sets

from the left: katie, me, melissa, anna and mekita
hanging out in zocodover (i LOVE zocodover)
after school one day

mekita and i waiting for the mayor's speech our first week in toledo

el martes de mi semana última

Since our grammar professor is no longer able to come to classes, our work load has been cut down severely (darn...) and we got out of class 45 minutes early today. Of course, we were told to use that time to practice our canción for the upcoming goodbye fiesta where each class has to perform SOMETHING... somehow, we decided to sing and dance to one of the most popular Spanish songs of the summer, La Camisa Negra by Juanes. For your listening pleasure... esta aquí. Imagine me, on a stage at our goodbye fiesta, pretending to sing this song whilst my classmates do the worm or something in front of me. Whatever.... Anyway, nothing new to report except that I bought way more souvenirs than I originally thought, and lugging them home is going to be quite the task. But, in comparison, a girl in my class bought an entire extra suitcase, the size of the main one I brought, to lug home all her stuff... so at least I'm not in that boat yet. Emphasis on the yet. Buena suerte a mí... ;)

Cinco días

Ok I'm FINALLY back from Portugal which was AMAZING!! My favorite part of the weekend was swimming in the Atlantic ocean and stuffing my face full of weird Portuguese food. My least favorite part of the weekend was the hike from hell that we took on a day trip to Sintra, to get to the top of a mountain to tour the ruins of an ancient Moorish castle. I know I've barked about climbing to the tops of cathedrals and what have you, but this one ousts them all. My entire body hates me right now, but the view was, as always, totally worth it. I'm extremely glad I don't have to do that again though ;) Our night train got into Madrid this morning at 8:30, and we ran through the metro a bajillion times to get to the bus station to catch the 10 buc to Toledo to catch our 11 o'clock class with our Spanish professor Maria because we have our final exam tomorrow with her. We got off the metro at the bus station at about 9:55, and somehow we still managed to scurry our little legs through the station to the bus and got on at the 10 o'clock minute mark. Awesome, right? Maybe. We walk into class at 11 on the dot, and come to find out, our professor Maria (who was due to dar la luz on the first of August) had her baby a few weeks early this weekend...!!! So she is at home with baby Candela and now we don't have to take an exam. This is all really really cool, but at the same time, I spent two hours running through transportation systems to get to the BIG EXAM review class, which is no longer even in existence. So aside from that small drawback, we had an amazing weekend. Pictures to come in approxiamtely 5 days!

LISBOA :)

We made it to Lisboa yesterday and spent almost 7 hours at the beach so now I am friiiiiiiiiied but I spent a good 4 hours playing like a 4 year old kid in the Atlantic ocean! Happy day. Also we went on a free pub crawl of Barrio Alto in Lisboa last night so we are doing good as far as the Portuguese experience goes. I am only allowed 10 minutes on this computer so I hope to update you later.... We think we are going on a bike tour today and maybe seeing one of the worlds largest aquariums!

¿¡10 days!?

TEN DAYS until I get to/have to come home!! I am soo looking forward to being home, yeah, and sitting in my basement watching the office on dvd and eating food that doesnt have eyes or tentacles... but at the same time I'm really bummed too. Its a love hate thing. Anyway today wasnt anything special at all, if you consider living and studying in Europe nothing special ;) But TOMORROW WE LEAVE FOR PORTUGAL!!!! Its our last vacation before we all leave... boooooo. But it is going to be way too much fun. Atlantic Ocean here we come!

Mercadillo time

SOoooo today we only had about 30 minutes of our first class and SURPRISE we get to leave and go to the open air market here in Toledo for some cultural education and shopping fun. Mostly just shopping, lets be honest. I am a happy camper because I bought a new wallet, a new watch and a new pair of sunglasses. I broke my wallet trying to stuff 9 billion cards and pieces of paper and receipts etc etc in it in Berlin... I broke my watch when I found out it was allergic to swimming... and I broke my sunglasses in a cave last weekend. Why was I wearing sunglasses in a cave? Even I couldnt answer that question. Anyway we are done early today, thank God for shopping!! Nothing new to report except that yesterday we bought our trenhotel tickets to Portugal for Thursday night... should be a good time :)

Ay yi yi :(

Nothing new to report today except that my friend Baylee's roommate is coming in from Toledo Ohio to visit us! She is going to spend the week here and even come with us to Portugal, so at least now we can pretend that we know the culture and the city to show her around :) On a worse note, my IPOD IS BROKEN. I thought it was just frozen, so I tried to unfreeze it. No such luck. I tried downloading iPod resetting software but these computers don't let oyu downlaod anything. It won't charge or even give any sort of sign that it was ever a functioning mp3 player. How lame is that. I MISS my musica, and I can't figure out if there are any Apple stores nearby or even in Madrid to fix it. Also, a girl here said this exact thing happened to her and in trying to get it fixed or replaced at the Apple store, they said they couldnt do it because it had been frozen for over 3 weeks. It's been frozen for about a week and a half now and I leave in about 2 weeks. Yeah. This is good.

Boooooo rain

SOOO the plan for sleeping on the beach all weekend in San Sebastian didn't exactly work out because we decided to be awesome and NOT check the weather for the weekend... alas, it was cold and rainy and would remain so the rest of the weekend. The beach is NOT fun to sleep on when its raining, so after spending 2 hours in San Sebastian we switched our bus tickets and came back home to Toledo, which actually turned out really okay. We get back Friday night just in time to get on the bus Saturday morning for the free day trip to a local cave (cool.... kinda) and some natural pools eon the top of a mountain. Also cool.... kinda. But there were a lot of cool people from our group there and we had a blast swimming and being treated to a really good meal so it was a good day anyway. We we able to go out to the local young people hot spot last night, Perladera, and we stayed out dancing til 5 am anyway ;) So the weekend actually was a blast. AND..... Pamplona was out of controoooool!! If you ever ever get the chance to see the running of the bulls, you HAVE to take it. We got off the bus at about quarter to 1 in the morning, and immediately we see the gigantic park where all the students and backpackers pass out for the night. It was littered with kids dressed in all white and red scarfs and massive amount of booze containters. I feel like I have been to some pretty decent parties in my day and Pamplona during San Fermín OUSTS them all. It was the biggest nut house I have ever been to. We watched a concert for about an hour and a half, and then ventured on into the city center to find the running course. The city plaza was a giant party, and apparently the cool thing to do is throw glass bottles in the air and see what happens to them when they shatter on the cobblestone. Neat... if youre not wearing flip flops. We hung out all night, wandering around and talking to various people, locals and tourists, partying and dancing and trying to learn the San Fermín song until about 4 am when we went to the arena where they release the bulls in the morning. They were playing and having fun, completely oblivious to the fact that they were going to get run through the city in a few hours and then killed. Sad day kinda. Anyway at 4:30 we claimed our spots right near the beginning of the course, a little ledge with a bench about 4 feet off the ground and right on the course. Front row seats. There was a little coffee shop nearby so we took turns buying expresso and trying not to pass out from lack of any sleep at all that night. By 6 am there were massive amounts of people around and it was impossible to even move without kissing our front row seats goodbye. We almost got beat up by a little old lady who claimed she had been there since 6 pm the night before, and I'm pretty sure she was totally drunk. I'm not kidding, these people go NUTS for this festival. Anyway we got on a few local news channels by the time the running got started, too. There were TONS of runners right in front of us, a few of them American students, boasting about hos prepared they were and how they were soo excited to run, blah blah blah. They sang the San Fermín paryer 3 times before they ignited the firework and actually released the bulls. I took a video of it on my camera, but I was screaming incessantly the whole time... we had to stand on this bench because people were crowding us so bad, and the bench had a guard rail that hit me at about mid thigh. I totally felt like I was going to for sure get pushed onto the course about 3 seconds before the bulls rounded the corner where we were standing, but I didnt :) Anyway, it was HILARIOUS to watch the runners go from ready and excited to run and watching for the bulls to come around the corner to completely terrified and sprinting in the opposite direction of the bulls. It was sooo funny, and it was SCARY to be so close to those massive animals. It was one of the coolest things I have ever done though, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. If you are anywhere NEAR Pamplona during the month of July, you are aboslutely out of your mind if you don't go to Pamplona. After that, we hopped a bus to San Sebastian right away which was a bad idea because right after the running, all the buses were chock full of drunkards trying to get to a beach somewhere. We had one kid sitting right behind us vomit everywhere on the bus, but luckily we got out of the way before it happened. It happened about 5 minutes before we got there though, so its not like we had to sit on vomitbus the whole time. It was definitely an experience! Less than 2 weeks not before I come home :)

off to the PAMPLONA!!!!

I dont know if the US broadcasts the running of the bulls every morning during the festival of San Fermin but if they do, WAKE UP (at 2 am central time) to see if I make it on tv!! We are taking a late bus to Pamplona and getting in around 1 am tonight to start the running festivities and try to convince 2 of our guy friends not to actually run with the bulls. Yeah. We aren't wasting 20 euro to sleep in a bed for 4 hours tonight either so the plan is LOTS of espresso once we get there and sleeping on the bus to white beaches San Sebastian tomorrow... oh the life. We are each bringing one change of clothes from the white and red outfits we are wearing to the running tonight and tomorrow, a few bucks and a camera. Talk about the simple life... yikes. Anyway our professors took us out of class today and took us on a tour of the ancient wall type structure that goes around the old city of Toledo... which of course meant more and more spiral staircases and tight corners and at one point I literally had to get on my hands and knees to get through a stone doorway underground this thing. The things I do for education... it was really really cool though and totally worth all the cobwebs I touched and how my legs are burning from all the stairclimbing and descending. Wish me luck this weekend, its do or die ;)

No pasa nada

Yet ANOTHER day in the life of a Spanish student... nothing more to report today. We didn't do anything terribly interesting last night, nor are we going to tonight. Class was decent today.... tomorrow we leave for our weekend vacation so that is exciting. 4 of us are leaving right after class (skipping class Friday... yesssss) to take a bus to Madrid to catch another bus to Pamplona for the Friday morning ENCIERRO! But we will for sure be safe, no worries ;) Then we are catching another bus Friday after the running to San Sebastian for 2 nights for white beaches and soaking up too much sun. Be back in Toledo Sunday night and back in class Monday morning! Joy... ;)

¿¡mas photos!?

ok so i'm not posting many photos, i know, because it is hard to get the computers here to do ANYTHING that you want them to. alas... but to keep your attention here are some photos from the last few weeks :)

this is our ESTO group with people from Nebraska and all around the United States at our FAVORITE outdoor bar, Enebro

this one is old, or at least it feels like it. this is the group from London & Paris, my first program, in Trafalgar Square

this is my attempt at taking a picture of myself in front of the eiffel tower at night. the black blob at the bottom of the tower is my right foot.

these are some of my favorite people in the entire world right now on a night out in Toledo this past weekend. from the left is Hunter (nebraska), Baylee (Ohio), me and Melissa (nebraska)

annnnnd this is something in amsterdam. i took a canal tour and this is one of the best views of the city from the water :D

No siesta...

I definitely skipped siesta today in the interest of having clean clothes for once. Neat. Just another day in the life of a university student... today we booked a hostel for our last weekend in Portugal so its pretty much smooth sailing from here on out. Ummm I really have nothing else to report except that I am having the time of my life still! I don't know how any of us are ever going to leave...

OH and the top of Toledo last night was incredible. It was a gigantic hike and ordeal making it up there but it was worth it a million times over, and we got up there just in time to see the sunset. The city is so much more beautiful once you get out of it ;) Must go shower and fold my laundry! Salud!

Mondays...

MONDAYS. Oh well... we had class this morning as usual, and also as usual I slept through my alarm and missed watching the first running of the bulls on TV. Alas. But have no fear for I am playing hookey from class and watching it live this Friday morning!! haaaha. Anyway I have nothing much to report today as well... Some of us are going to go to a Spanish film tonight and then climb to the top of Toledo's tallest hill/mountain deal to watch the sunset. 20 days until I come home... :)

El Rastro

This morning, two girls and I left early to catch a bus to Madrid for EL RASTRO, the famous open air market in Madrid. It was AWESOME... but completely crowded and full of hot sweaty people. BUT, we each got white sun dresses and red scarves to wear to the running of the bulls in Pamplona on Friday :) We spent about 5 hours in Madrid, came back for tapas and tinto de verano at Enebro and walked around the city along the river. I definitely needed a laid back day. Nothing new to report so I hope every had a fantastic holiday weekend :)

Segovia

Last night me and two other girls pushed our tiny beds together and had a sleepover in my room, since my regular roommate went to Valencia this weekend, so of course we got little to no sleep, which is good seeing as how we had to get up at 7 a.m. to get ready for our day trip to Segovia. Segovia is about 2 hours northwest of Toledo approximately. We got there around 11 a.m. and just walked around the city a bit. Its almost a perfect combination of Madrid and Toledo. We then went to the famous castle of Segovia, which is said to be the set of many internationally renowned old films, one of which is the Wizard of Oz. We couldn't prove this, but it definitely looked the part so why not just say we toured the Wicked Witch of the West's castle where she melted, hmm? Also, we saw a gorgeous gothic cathedral... which I think is the 8th gothic style cathedral I have seen in the past 4 weeks. Honestly. We did some light shopping and ate lunch and now we are back. I am exhausted so I need a siesta before tonight! Happy day after the 4th of July :)

LO SIENTO

Ok sorry I have been short and shady with posting lately... we hardly get any time to browse the internet and I constantly have a stream of emails and things flying at me. Anyway, we met the MAYOR of Toledo yesterday and got our picture in the paper... I'm working on finding the picture online because you can see my tiny little face a few feet behind the mayor but its proving less than easy. I could just buy a paper. How old fashioned though...

About 5 of us bailed on our plans to go to Valencia this weekend because we couldn't get a hostel for tonight and we wouldn't be able to get back until Monday, BUT we are taking a day trip to Segovia tomorrow and spending the night in Madrid tomorrow night. About 8 people still went to Valencia, but its kinda nice having this place all to ourselves, too. We have big plans for the next two weekends though so we probably should lighten up a little this weekend ;) yeah right. We skipped siesta today (terrible idea) and went to the pool instead, only to spend 3 hours running away from bees. Other than that all is well! This group we have here in Spain is just as fun as the group we had in London and Paris, and 3 people have already canceled their return flights and rebooked them for 3 weeks later. We love it here. Hasta luego...

Adios :)

Sorry about the shady posting lately but we are incredibly busy here in Spain... I hardly get 5 minutes to myself these days. Anyway we are shipping off to Valencia today right after class and coming back Monday just before class so if I don't get to post all weekend, I am sorry! Valencia is going to be busy. Hope all is well though and that everyone has a great 4th of July!

A little tarde...

Blogspot isn't working very well on the computers in our residence hall, hence I couldb't get to posting yesterday. But we went out on Monday night to commemorate our first real night in Toledo. We went to a dance club that used to be a church... technically it still is a church, but obviously there is no form of organized religion practiced there anymore. We hit a few other local hot spots and made up for our late night with a long siesta the next day. Our first day of class was just like it sounds... first day of class. I figure class is the same in any country. Oh well, mustn't be late for class today!