eating homemade applesauce

soo i´m really gonna miss this food here and eating more than i should but it´s healthier than anything i´d ever eat in America so it´s ok (well, that´s my excuse anyway haha). i can´t wait to dig into a BARBECUE with cheesburgers with EVERYTHING on it, my chips, potatoe salad oh AND my WATERMELON right with it. that´s right. fruit and my food at the SAME sitting!!!! what a concept!!! and i miss my CHOCOLATE MILKSHAKES!!!

sueños en español : )

SO. i dreamt in spanish last night!!! ahhhhhhhhh and as if THAT wasn't GREAT enough, i spent the whole entire day on the most beautiful island ever!!!!! cheyaaaaaaa!!!! A-MAZ-ING day!!! literally living a dream!! : )

but so yes, my dreaming in spanish, it was by chance i even realized it because i don't remember the last time i've dreamt.and remembered a dream. i'm not going to get into details. all i will say, the only people i can remember in my dream are those that have been helping me out with my spanish. i had fallen asleep with my computer open and the battery sounded cuz it was dying and i had woken up mid-dream...bummmer i know....but at least i was able to remember enough to know what was going on and that not only were people speaking spanish, but i was. how cool! everyone always says, you're going to dream in spanish. ok yeah but i did not believe a word of it just because of how i view my spanish capabilities. in other words, living in Spain would be my shot at dreaming in Spanish and i never thought i'd get to where i am now. so yes. i'm very proud of myself!! : )

all smiles : )

otra vez, no tengo las ganas de hablar en ingles ahhhhh pues bueno vale para mis amigos escribo...i just finished giving my 5 min shpiel about sports with my profesora. 3 months i don't think i would've been able to do that. for spanish classes at LC i'd have to have my script for presentaciones for class at hand and if i didn't i'd feel SO lost. well, not the case. hey guys! i can speak spanish!!! : ) jaja speak without al the pressure and be relaxed and omg i'm in loveeeeeeeeeeeeeee <3 and this is why i don't wanna leave. i serisouly think in my head sometimes. i know i'm thinking in spanish often if not almost all the time now cuz there are times i will stop and think "WOW when i go home and have to explain this it's going to be a piece of cake" que triste. i like having to figure out new things and how to describe them in spanish. in english, i don't have to try at all i realize well duh but you realize how easy it is for literally everything in your life to be in your native tongue. it's ridiculous! ahhh i don't wanna leave so soon! today was the last day of classes before la semana Santa and then only one week more of classes and then a week of exams : '(  hmp i'm living a dream right now.

willow is a riot

ahhhh i really don't wanna write in english bahhhhh puesssssss today, with class we went to learn how to cook some typical gallego dishes. i'll write about this in my spanish journal so mabes just look that up under mis diarios when i finish putting them up which will be in a month... but yeah. so this past weekend we had gone on a partial camino and well the frase "to bust one's shit" is now clear for our profesor. for longer than we needed, we spent time on saturday trying to figure out how to best say this in spanish and well we came up with "romper la mierda" but does doesn't really matter because i ended up providing literally the best example of it later on sunday. so there are not questions as to the significance of that frase. the camino will also be in my spanish journal so you can read more about that in there at a later time lo siento. no tengo las ganas de escribir en inglés nada. so back to the story i actually wanted to write about for my own reference in my later years. so yeah, i twisted my ankle (don't worry it's nothin, a lil bit swollen but it's fine, i walked into a hole in the ground and instead of a simple roll it twisted differently, it's fine, no te preocupes por favor) so Pura is like a medico here and was having my dip it in agua caliente y depues en agua regular (frio) well, to say the least i was making the most absurd faces one could possibly make and making sounds to go along with it cuz the water was HOT!!! no no kelly no es demasie hot, oh si si demasie hot! well seeing as how understood everything she was telling me and what to do and that i was able to comment back like i would if i was back home, i'd say that that's a major plus for my spanish, props to me. but yeah, that's about it. just writing a conclusion to my internship and counting the hours. ealier i had practiced my "speech" i have to give 2maro for Rocio that needs to be 5 min of me talking so i can boost my participation grade un poquito porque al princpio no hablaba muchi pero ahora muchísimo y es probable más que la gente quiera. mira. no puedo escribir en inglés nada. y pues no quiero tampoco. lo siento my english speaking friends and family. OHHHH i did forget to say that i was on a ROLL in Rocio's class today with my grammar. wat up. when classmates ask a question about something they've been wondering and i know the answer (i try to explain the best i can in spanish but in my head i know exactly), that's totes a booster right there.

bromas

talk about  being caught off guard woah! today during lunch, after i told them yesterday that i was from the United States because clearly i translated a fwe things for them into english yesterday, go today, "we thought you were espanola" yeah clearly something was wrong with that picture. interesting.

bonding bonding and more bonding...LOVE it

sooo i had to interview Pura for class today on behalf Liv & me and i learned some things. nothing didn't already know but yeah haha. then her friend (se llama Celine creo) came over and we charlar-ed for a while like mabes a lil less than 2 hrs. in the beginning i'd be in my room when they came over because i didn't understand a word, ok yes i understood words but not very much, but NOW i'm able to participate and join in the convo and not always be like "como? como?" ahhhh how enjoyable. one thing that i know i have improved on is listening and understanding is for sure! Pura reminds me Gee (my grandma). always an interesting convo and i can't describe the rest but yeah. only good things to say. we talked about students they've had in their house and then Pura pulls out a huge pile of letters from the students that have written to her that use to live here! que guay! i was even part of that too! i sent her a letter a few weeks before arriving but unfortunately it came about a month after arriving here haha whoops! but yeah, already part of a pile that i'm sure will grow with others from me. she was saying that the americans never really write her. but i told her "no te preocupes porque escriberé" haha. seriously, i feel like i say it a lot, but i couldn't ask for a better family here. estoy MUY contenta! no quiero marcharse España! que triste! no me gusta escribir en ingés nada más tampoco : P ni hablar, pero necesito más trabar con mi forma de hablar. puessss lo siento para el español pero es la verdad people

austria

2 girls age 18 apparently arrived today while i was out and about learning about Santiago and walking around on a mini tour with Lola and our guide. vale, in the beginning i liked having company, but i kinda liked the peace and quiet and all the attention with the other gone...that sounds bad! lol (only 7 days but i'm pretty sure more are coming on sunday!! i'll be on el camino!!) but with someone always being here ehhhh idk. and i just interviewed Pura for our class about her hosting students...she has good answers : ) me likey.

hmmm

soooo like i said. the weather this week is buenísimo! everyone look really cute in class today in their nice summer dresses. and here i was in my athletic shorts and a t-shirt. i guess i could put a little more effort into looking cute for class. but seriously, why waste 2 outfits when i'm gonna workout later anyway? hmmm i'll have to figure this one out. but we leave for el cmaino Saturday morning so when i come home from there mabes i feel like looking cute again for class. need a break from the constant jeans and just wanna be comfortable and sporty haha but for reals, i do look good every day. only today and probs 2maro too haha : P

buena semana : )

sooooo last week my parents came to visit me and arrived in Santiago Wednesday after a lil excursion of their own. it was fun. apparently we walked an awful lot but i have no concept of what a lot is anymore cuz on a typical day i walk a lot and besides i had softball and the hills and stairs of the LC to keep me occupied before the hills and cobblestone of Santiago. we went out for tapas a few times. thursday we went out for Kely's (friend from Brazil) last night in Santiago and chatted in Spanish with some English so that all could understand. i had a blast.

friday, my american family met my spanish familia and mi mama espanola cooked up a grand meal with a bunch of typical dishes (which i love!) that means tortilla espanola, croquetas, empanada, carne con patatas, pan (porque "yo como pan como un gallego" so i'm told) y i think i'm missing one but that's all in my spanish journal so no worries. but for POSTRE (because i can't spell that in english) she made my gallegon crepes con nata y strawberries mmm : ) que delicioso! i stuffed myself and still had room. i'm kinda used to it now. but my family , on the other hand, was struggling thru it haha. oh right, she also made chocolate flan mmmm Dad loved that! i've been eating it since they left. and you can just eat it and eat and eat it cuz its THAT good! and to think i'm not a flan person. (mabes that'll work with art...gonna be learning about arte in class ick but mabes after i see what we're learning about i might like it? nawwww but i'm sure the profe will make it interesting!) but yeah, the lunch (bigger than a american-sized dinner) passed well.

can't sleep.

probs cuz i have to leave this magical place in a month now...only 4 weeks more of class. i'm really torn that this fairy tale has to end. well as much as a fiary tale it's been, it also consisted of studies and working hard so it wasn't all fun and games, but i've never had such a fun time studying before. cuz when i study, it's stuff i can apply whenever i want to. que guay! i'm not one to cry unless everything starts to fall apart and i need to let out the frustration, but tears are gonna roll soon. this sux. i don't wanna leave booooo : ( too bad im in love with Spain and never wanna leave!!!

crappy day in Santiago?

i think not. well the weather is pretty typical aka rain but my spanish woah hold your hats on there lady and gents cuz i don't wanna blow em or nothing (ok that was really cheesy y lame haha) but today's weather resembles the transformacion de mi español muy bien. this morning it was wet, cloudy, and really windy outside. When I had to leave around 430 I walked outta the house and there was a little bit of sun but still cold and 3 steps in it poured for literally 8 seconds and cleared up again and it was actually warm out. qué extraño! Upon my return home after un reunión, sunny, warm, and beautiful day in Santiago. this is a typical day in Santiago. the weather had its times but it eventually got significantly better. I'd say this is about a typical day and weather pattern in Santiago. What a day I'm tellin ya. así es la vida ; )

i know no limits

you place churros y chocolate in front of me and you bet i will eat them until there are no more! Pura serves the italian guests first (cuz i'm part of the family right) the paella from lunch. i got the pasta from yesterday mmm!! she heated it one by one in the microwave so yeah it took awhile well, lucky for me she treats me so well. while the other got served their paella, i got served churros y chocolate omm nom nom mmmmm delicioso!! que fabuloso! i must be special or something. so i got the first share of the desert. she commente, something along the lines of "poor kelly being served last, i know you don't mind mixing foods (you american you: i know that's what she was thinking! lol) wanna start with chocolate?!" mwuahhhhhh cheyaaaa you bet i will!! kinda feeling all the chocolate i just consumed...do i regret it? nahhhhhh of course not silly : P

these past 2 weeks

idk why, but the past 2 weeks have been a struggle just in general. the 2 weeks after our vacaciones and whotnot and going back to class. i know what i need to work on. i only have about a month left here and it's hard not to think about it. i'm really gonna miss this place. so i'm taking full advantage of everything else i can while i'm here.

viaje con clase

like almost every wednesday, we have some class outing (a movie or tapas). we hopped on the bus with Lola and all the other internacional kiddies to the Cuidad de Cultura where we met up with Maria who gave us a tour of the place and all the buildings. you can see the building (if you can call it a building) from my house. i always wondered what it was and wanted to see it cuz it looked cool. someone had told me that it was something cultural or another but i'm glad we go to visit it. we learned a lot in detail about the buildings and how they are formed and why they were constructed the way they are. it was pretty cool. i've seen pictures of buildings asi pero nunca been to any. we actually got to climb up the wall of one the buildings. yes, we climbed up a wall. you heard that right. i'm sure someone in our group has a pic of that so i'll be sure to snag one off fb at some point. but yeah, it was a bit long but it was interesting. it's something to do, something to learn, i'm outta of the house, listening to spanish and well speaking spanish (usually) altho on the bus ride back i did cave for english. its so hard to speak spanish when its just our group. its much easier when i know its the only way of communication between people. for example. Kely (from Brasil) is always on top of me, espanol Kelly, always callin me out if i say a word of english lol but so yeah. i could speak more spanish outside of my house i guess. and that's why i enjoy these outings every wednesday cuz its ONLY spanish. and then when we go out on the weekends we try to speak spanish too. alright, well i think i got very off topic here. but that's what i got.

technology and I aren't friends

sooo as if taking my computer ealrier this semester, now it's taken my camera which was working perfectly the last time i used it....something is wrong with the lens (in the actual camera) because everything works escept for when i take a picture. its as if the lens is closed, but its not. cool technology. stop hatin on me ehhh? that would be great.

¡¡ I AM LIVING A DREAM !!

that is all. i had intercambios today with a friend of a host mom of one of the Japanese students who studied here. I had some churros con chocolate and whatnot. next time there will be more espanolas which is awesome for me! it's in English and Spanish but so when i don't know how to say something its cool. i can learn how to say things a bit easier this way sometimes.

after class today i paid a visit with one of my professors to talk about how i'm doing in class and to get in some extra practice talking and whatnot. it was very worth it and we figured some things out and its all good.

i LOVE Spain and i never wanna go home...ever! 

peace & love

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

yes i can : )
now just to use it with actual words!! yippeee!!

buen finde

Thursday:
St. Patty's Day...interesting...nough said

Friday:
Central Perk and then a club but called it a semi early night (SO unlike me)

Saturday:
beautiful weather so i went on my first official run thru the Alameda (around 70 F that right!)
skyped Kristin, Stef, and Kel and caught up with friends, not to mention i actually went to bed before 2am on the weekend for once (EARLY compared to the normal 630am)

Sunday:
beautiful weather once AGAIN : ) so i went on another run thru the Alameda after wonderful around the area where i live a bit so scope it out a bit. i need to explore the other end of the city now next weekend.
and skyped with Señora...so good to talk with her!! : )

first few days of spring = like the first few days of summer, say what?!
this was a never-ending weekend...i LOVED it! usually when we travel, we jam-pack our days so its feels long. and when we stay in Santiago i usualy sleep thru a good portion of the weekend cuz we stay out at the discotecas but being in Santiago this weekend and not having to go to my internship Friday was a nice break and change of pace, especially cuz St. Patty's day was Thursday! Que suerte! I enjoyed the beautiful weather of Santiago! this is the life : )

ciao italianas

three 16 yr old girls moved in today and will be living here for the next 2 weeks. once again they speak English. little Spanish, but they understand everything i guess. cool.

i think i just had a revelation

Celina i love you SOOOO much. i don't know what just happened. that is all i'm saying at this point in time.
ummmm so that song is on non-stop repeat...lol

weekend project

soooo for our comp class we have to write journals every week. mine are significantly getting longer each week cuz clearly i like to talk and well i just transfer that onto paper so yeah. i've been making the corrections and still have to add pictures and make it look pretty now. but as i'm correcting this and re-reading what i've written, (let's remember i'm writing a lot so i have something to show for being here and whatnot and want my pofolio to be legit) and i don't know if i'll be able to read what i've written in a few years. soooo a few of the girls have ben thinking about finding a summer program in a spanish speaking country. I would absolutely love to do something like that. i know during christmas break, Jose's family said i can join him when he goes to Mexico to visit his family next summer. but i fosho wanna do something more than just a semester.

the moon

mi mama espanola took me outside 2nite to show me the moon and told me that this is that closest its been to the earth in more than 20 years (she didn't exactly know how many). beautiful.

but i do remember, idk where i was or who i was with, but i saw the harvest moon and it was GIGANTIC so i dunno...but it was still pretty

what a beautiful day!!!

for a run!!!! ahhh i went on my first official run 2day around the Alameda. well, first i was spotted out by Liv, Alice, and Celina just chillen looking cute in the grass. so of course i joined them and i think i even got some sun!! 70 F today...yes, no mentiras! que guay! cuz the last time i attempted to run my ipod died withint the first 5 min and it was chilly for shorts and a tshirt to be running around so that clearly did not work out. but yes, we chilled in the Alameda for a bit just looking pretty as always...welll them, not so much me, i had just woken up and decided to go for a run so you can use your imagination haha."Res bun" it was. i jogged a bit then hit of the "workout machines" in the park. they are actually more legit than i thought they were, well i like 2 our of the abot 8 of them but hey its closer than the school, and on a beautiful day like today it was PERFECT! literally, it was a perfect day: sun shining, warm weather with just the perfect breeze in the shade to cool your run, spanish music playing on my ipod, good scenery...just about perfect. minus my ability to do anything spanish when i woke up this morning, it was wonderful!

to study or to speak spanish, that is the question

well i kinda have an exam for my least favorite class 2maro on all the different varieties of spanish and it's boring material, altho i do have to say it has been handy at the museums when the descriptions are written in one of these languages and i am able to understand it so props to it, but its dry boring material. just spent the last 2 hrs chatting away with mi mama espanola and the 2 german girls after dinner about various crazy topics like: about Japan and i made the comment about the world ending in 2012 which sparked one conversation, about america and how it censures everything and there's not really any here (is what i took from the convo), about younger generations in general, i brought up how not only the school system and how the children behave i guess is different but now that i've taken educacion classes how the US is so much more strict with what and what not a teacher is allowed to do and all that stuff. we had some really interesting conversations and its even better cuz i get to give my input. so much easier just having a convo like this around the house and whipping out my spanish with good grammar than talking in class gahhh haha. but yeah, besides learning how to speak, as in roll my "rr", my goal is to in general just be able to speak spanish much better and at ease so in my opinion it was worthwhile and i'll just have to look at my notes a bit later and in the morn. i was told you'd have to make decisions asi but i didn't think i'd actually have to. now i understand and i know what i want so i'm going for it. couldn't be more happy with my spanish family.

i'm being haunted

by my inability to roll my R's holy shmoly! as if mi mama española trying to show me isn't enough lol, now every profe basically knows and is the popular topic of class (hence my beautiful american accent ha)...Thank God there are 3 of us and i'm not riding solo with this one gahhhhh seriously, my goal for the for semester: i need to learn how to roll my "rr" that would be just wonderful! i'll just practice when no one is around, which isn't very often. Aimee and I will go to the park and practice baha oh mi vida!

and that's all it took

so literally the week before i leave for Iralnda it's like a was hit hard with a gust of knowledge of spanish haha c uz all of a sudden i'm understanding things i never did before. yeah i've been reading my grammar book and all that jazz but yeah how cool! finally back with the fam and my beloved spanish! (if you saw me in class you might not believe that just cuz i have my moments of being taken off guard and sometimes just not thinking but who doesn't...i just usually show always show it haha) so anyway, spent all day with the fam today. literally all day just chillin in the TV room and listening to fast talkers and then i chirped in later when the fast talker lady left just because i wasn't really followinf cuz i was working on mi porfolio y cosas. later on, Pura (mi mama espanola) asks her daughter to get her some honey with lemon. she comes back with a HUGE spoon of it! DANG! and ten half a lemon to i guess just eat with the honey. weird, but looked good actually. well Pura made the comment well in english it would be something along the lines of "WOAHH all of this?!?!" well as it goes, i replied, "yeah, like yesterday with MY huge spoon of chocolate!!!!" bahahaha i was dying. cuz yesterday after we finished off the fiollas...we didn't even use the chocolate cuz there was like none left, so she literally scooped out the edges of the bowl and gave me this gigantic spoon of it just to eat by itself lol. i was like "WOAH byitself? i need something with it!" so i got some bread but yeah it was funny if you were there. i cracked an american joke today during tea...finally starting to just be myself with the spanish. and LIFE IS GOOD : )  basically just livin a dream right now and i never wanna wake up!

long day back

first day back in classes today. what a long day, and in reality it was only 3 hours compared to the normal 4. a profesora from LC is here this week. i don't really know her. i only had to talk to her in spanish for like 10 min last year for una entrevista for class or something so everyone else is really excited to see her and well i could really care less i guess? but we're all meeting with her during the week to discuss things so my opinions will surely be expressed about certain things (aka service hours). she will be taking us out to lunch (traci, becky, y yo en miercoles) on Lora's dime, WONDERFUL!!!

had a test today, wasn't too bad at all actually (our comp class) and have another on wednesday (for varieties) and well i hope i do well on it cuz we have 4 packets of info that just rambles on and on about who knows what (don't get me wrong i've actually utilized things we've learned in this class but the actual class itself is blah), and then in the class of language thursday. nothing says welcome back to class like 3 exams! lol back in the roll of things it is!

i was struggling hardcore today, really pay attention just couldn't quite grasp the concept this afternoon of when to use el subjuntivo vs el futuro when talking about hipotesis y probablidad. i remember doing this before in hs mas o menos, so i don't know why i was having as many problems as i was whoops! but anytime i have a hard time, i go back a few years to my 2nd year of spanish and i didn't quite have a high enough grade to stay in honors for my 3rd year but was given the chance to do better the next go around and did it. probs my biggest accomplishment all thru high school now that i think about it. yeah there have been other things but those have always come easy to me. i actually had to work for this one. nothing is impossible if you want it. my words of wisdom for the day. that being said. i need to look this stuff over for 2maro.
peace out ; )

aight, this blogging thing...

so it's getting harder to blog cuz i'm writing so much about my trips and whatnot en mis diarios para clase. i ought to upload those to here actually. i should probs get on that and organize all those. weekend project it is!

hello Germans

there are Germans in the house! arrived today (only here for a week). speaking spanish with them, but they speak good english haha eontonces cuando no comprendo algo, ingles it is : P

IRLANDA!!!

sooooooo i like Irleland and all but i miss Santiago!!!! ahhhhhhh so i arrived last night. Rob was a a little clueless but i arrived to his place safe and sound, no worries ; ) it was interesting traveling by myself. i met a guy from Brasil at the aiport and we talked for about 3 hours at the airport. i can't even tell you, like you wouldn't believe it, but it was hard switching over to english. i couldn't believe it myself haha. so i had to translte for this brasilian when we got to ireland a bit. i suprise myself with my ability to speak spanish sometimes.

sooo today we spent the day exploring the cit of Dublin. Rob, Matt, and Mo gave me a tour of the place and i bought my fam some souvenirs. we went to Stags Head. Rob owed be a pint so he got me a Guinness, Cheers! great time. then they ordered fries. FOOD!!! they don't eat much here in ireland cuz they live on their own in an apartment so they don't eat often. food, hot food, tasted SO good!

now you could tell their place is a boy's apartment haha. they have shelfs of every liquor/beer they have drank. their cabinets are stashed with glasses of Guinnes and others. so Rob was kinda enough to get my a Guinness glass to come back from. WOO HOOO. i'm having a great time. but i do miss speaking spanish and i do miss my home in Santiago. it has become my real home and i LOVE it SO much.

thinking in spanish?

soooo this weekend was grrrrrrrreat, especially Sunday speaking Spanish the whole time in a relazed environment. sometimes class is a mittle much but yeah. since sunday, it's been wonderful. all of a sudden my comprehension legit spiked! = ) i'm writing my diarios on this weekend so they probs won't show up on here for awhile yet sorry. but yeah. so we watched Slumdog Millionaire last night i think it was. legit, i've never understood so well i my life!!! it was A-MAZ-ING!!! my ear has improved SO much : )

yesterday for our first class, we interviewed a women about her job something social or another i can't think of the translation right now. but she's from Colombia. it was very interesting. and WOW was it SO easy to understand her. not saying that the people here are hard to understand cuz like i just said, idk what happened but i'm getting it now, but i'm used to peolle speaking with the south american accent and w/o the "th" so it was naturally easier for all of us to understand her VERY well. well i think i've finally reached that point with the Spanish here in Spain. to the point that when i listen to music i understand it w/o translating it in my head to the english ya know. mabes not. but if you speak another language i think you can understand what i'm getting at. and then i've been listening to podcasts as often as i can and i've started picking up more on what they are forming the sentences and linking things together, what tenses, etc...the understanding is there now w/o having to try so hard. in other words, instead of me usually trying to make sure i understand what is being said i'm paying attention to more of the grammatical things which is where i want to improve right now.

OHHH and i do have to say, i did enjoy reading the comments i received on my last 2 diarios in my 2 classes jaja not to mention there was significantly and noticeable less pen marks = )  (sorry i def couldn't figure out how to say that gahhh) but yeah, much less pen marks on my writing ha! improvement.

if you couldn't tell i'm really excited. i leave for Irlanda not 2maro but the day after. i can honestly say i can't wait to go see Ireland but i can also honestly say i'm going to miss spanish and i hope i don't loose much from talking english all the time there now that i've finally reached a level that i'm enjoying : /

karaokeeee en España!!!

First, let's start with the dinner conversation. One of the few times i have time to converse with my family. so for the past few days, how we always get on this topic, i do not know. but i think the whole house enjoys it haha.I don't know what i do you cause al lthe laughing in this house but apparently everyone thinks i'm funny i dunno. So i can't roll my "r"s right. well i youtubed it and am learning. so everytime i leave the house mi mama espanol rolls an 'r' in some word to remind me to practice haha. isn't she so cute : )

last night i went out with the Japs for some karaokee. SO much fun! well you know me when it comes to karaokee. during tea before Yuki y yo left, we were talking about music. and wait, let me just tell you, for being i think like 70 this women has a GREAT taste in music hot damn. did not know that our famous what i think are american songs, are also in Spanish! like "believe" by Cher yeah well it's in spanish aka se llama "creer" --Teddy informed me of this. but mi mama espanola had me look up some artists and we found their most popular songs....UMMM Piano Man en espanol!?! uhhh cheyaaaa!!! i'm absolutely lovin this! so then i proceeded to play some of these in english for her and whatnot. of course i sang along, and well she told me that i have a good voice lol i dunno about that but i have no prob belting any song ha!

So Yuki y yo nos fuimos for karaokee. i sang 2 songs. the second was Garth Brooks "friends in low palces" classic. i can't remember the first one i sang tho. i sang it well too hmmmm darn. but then my name came up on the screen again. Samuel put my name down for "Poker Face" and grabbed the mic from me. i think he secretly wanted to sing it just didn't want anyone to know lol. after karaokee night the gang headed over to central perk. i got a tap and then 2 free shots (took one with Yuki). did not like it. it was a coffee liquor something or another. thank god i had that beer as a chaser cuz it was nasty!

Karin reminded me, the first song i sang was "Don't stop believing" thank you very much. i pretty much rocked it. just sayin ; )

love tapas con clase!

even tho i'm crunched for money because i'm trying to save it for Ireland because it's expensive there, i sucked it up and gave my 5 euros for tapas after our movie for class yesterday. the movie was at 5pm. last time i got lost trying to find it, no worries, i'm pro at this city now (i think haha). unfortunately i was a bit tired and missed a good portion of this first half of it. i dunno. the first movie we watched was legit and really good. this one just couldn't hold my attention even when i was awake. it was hard to get into it. it was about the era Franco and some people graffiti-ed the university wall against the regimen de Franco so they were trying to make their way to France for safety. i mean it was historical in a sense then but it just didn't grab my attention all that much.

so before we went out for tapas, i walked around for like 45 min give or take until we had to meet up again. the only americans who went were Sam, Lauren (not from our group) and then Traci, Becky, and myself (from our group). i really enjoy going out for tapas because i get to speak spanish with my friends and there's no pressure whatsoever. it was funny. we went to 3 places throughout the night. but the one place we went to we had a huge table for us. there was a huge group, us and the Japs, Kely (de brazil) y una chica de Italia. it's so interestingly learning about the differences between our cultures and countries. i love it! but so yeah, the table was huge. usually we have to cram and the us girls get to sit at a table while the majoirty of the others have to stand by the bar. we ended up going to 3 different places...in other words thats 3 rounds of drinks (3 of tapas)...my spanish is getting there,,,well its going somewhere, idk where lol

record: wearing jeans

world record for me wearing jeans: Jan 7 (the day we arrived) until Feb 22 (today)...never thought it was possible. well i guess that's what you get when you don't pack any sweats whatsoever, how stupid of me. what did i think i was gonna lounge in around the cold house! i wore my yoga pants to class. couldn't be more comfortable: yoga pants, gym shoes, shirt, and fleece. yeahhhh totes rocked it! not to mention i came home to my computer. fabulous day minus the morning and being tired.

hola ordenador, gracias a dios

it's about time...the lib hours were not working for me whatsoever!!! FINALLY, the little easy things are little and easy again!!!

love my internship

will write about tueday tutoring and adventures of friday when i return from Madrid this weekend!!! : )

bailamos

totes can´t tell if i spelt that right whoops! i found the lib tho today. hence i´m blogging via internet there. spain keyboard yeah it defs took me a while to figure how to use the @ sign. puesssssssss today´s outing we went dancing! ay dios mio. it was cool learning about the dif instruments and stuff and the wardrobe but the DANCING!?!?! dude.  my hands were ICE COLD. thank god by the time we left they were warm. and i mean it was cold outside. but it was not from the cold. soooo i pretty sure my dancing partner was the other profesora named Maria cuz there always happen to be more chicas que chicos right. but we def were the best couple out there to say the least ...insert smiley face....idk how to work this keyboard...as i was saying...so yeah. it was lots of fun! it was us and the Japanese students. great times. ok well. i have 2 journals, a project, and some other hw i have to figure out what i´m suppose to do soooooooo hasta luego blog. never thoguht i'd see myself in the lib in spain. awesome. btw i just found the apostrophe on the comp. slowly but surely i will get acustomed to a keyboard from spain.

walking on sunshine

ohhhhhhhh ohh walking on sunshine, don't it feel good!!! i just recieved the best care package i think i will EVER receive in my life!!! THANK YOU MOM!!! gym shoes and my "coffee mug" were the biggies!!!! ahhhhhh LOVE IT!!! my poor feet...will be wearing gym shoes for at least the next week : ) : ) : ) you have no idea how excited i was when i saw the package waiting for me when i walked in the door! wearing gym shoes is like walking on clouds!!!! how comfortable!!!!!

sin embargo no mis gafas de sol...necesito comprarla!!!

worst day ever. no broma.

my computer kept dying on me so i finally called the phone number for spain and the company or whatever you call it. thank you loras laptops...you suck. the same problem i had fixed before i left. anywho. so i had called the dy before. i said i needed to talk to someone in english because computer talk and spanish = i stood no chance whatsoever. so after dialing the option for english i had to talk with 4 people in spanish before i finally got to use my native tongue. and even then i had to talk VERY slowly with simple words so that thelady could understand me. well after all that nonsense i received a few emails. in spanish of course. duhhh kelly you´re in spain. so i was so gracious (idk if thats the right word here, i can´t really think right now) to have a profesora help a girl out and fill me in. well the mailman came by during lunch and i was clueless and as much i tried to comprend slash understand it wasn´t happening for mehhh. so after mi internship Teddy came over and translated every for me that mi mama espanol was saying. i stood no chance with my spanish today. no whatsoever. as in i spoke as much english as i could after the experience to let it all out haha. ok so yeah. Teddy and i walked to the UPS store and got it all handled (i think). then proceeded to a guitar shop cuz he´s gonna buy some ancient cool instrument that the US probs doesn´t have and if it did would be VERY expensive. i jammed on a guitar for a bit. i might just get one. i wonder what my parents would say? i would tell them its a GREAT deal to get one here and it´s pretty modern. i´m thinking about it lol. anywho. so my day couldnt get any worse right? no. wrong. the ONE time i dont have my bombi sorry umbrella (our group calls it a bombi) i downpours. its been raining a lot this week...last week was sunny so this week was just asking for crappy weather. welllllll to my surprise it starts hailing. yes hailing. what i lovely surprise. i was walking thru rivers in my boots. this as a picture perfect kodak moment when i walked in the house. literally ALL drenched. from top to bottom. DRENCHED. first time i used a hairdryer here. so yes, def won´t forget the happenings of today.

adios ordenador

did not understand a word of what just happened...this sux...fml...Teddy is going to be life savor.

§Parra tenía un perra, y Guerra tenía una parra; pero la perra de Parra rompió la parra de Guerra y entonces Guerra con la porra, pegó a la perra de Parra. - Oiga compadre Guerra, ¿ porqué pega a la perra con la porra? - Pues si la perra de Parra, no hubiera roto la parra de Guerra, Guerra no hubiera pegado a la perra de Parra !

i'm determined to get it!!!

me llamo Kelly

hola, me llamo Kelly. English: hi, my name is Kelly. mi mama espanola told me the other day that she remembers my name because of Grace Kelly. so i had to play that song for her...oh SO catchy! but yeah, how we sparked this convo. i can't even begin to count how many times she asks me what the Japanese girl's name is lol. it's Yuki. Said like "you-key" welllll she says "ya-key" as in like ewww gross disgusting. i  told her in spanish that when she says her name wrong like that, that is english it means como "que asco" lol. she cracks me up. i think she might finally have it down after tea 2nite. we'll have to wait and see tho.

especialmente para Señora : )

I spent a solid idk how long talking with mi mama española today! and finally i UNDERSTAND her! ahhhhhh it's the best feeling ever! i think she talks slower because la chica Japonesa (btw sidenote: they don't use muchacha here). ok idk if it's slower but she's def cut down on the hardcore lisp she had going in the beginning. we talked about that today too haha. but yeah. i love being able to just casually have a conversation with her. i am getting much better at putting words together! my writing has always been better than my speaking ( you know that well) but i can tell i've improved since arriving : )

from the get-go my English has taken some hard hits but seriously, i don't mind at all. that means i'm thinking Spanish better. but now finally, i can notice myself improving un poquito here and there. language is such a beautiful thing. it amazes me actually. espanol es MUY suave. i think English is an ugly language...ok mabes i won't go that far. but german i think super ugly and you're not to far from that. mi mama espanola made a comment about that during tea, that's why i bring it up. she said english sounds smooth (like waves) but i think that's true of spanish. it's all what you're used to i guess especially when they talk fast.

ANDDDDDDDD she gives me hope about my incapability to roll my "rr's" apprently she had a student here who couldn't but kept at it and by the time she left was able to roll her R successfully. now i don't know if this is possible for me, cuz i've tried. oh believe me, i've definitely tried. no se puede. but i'm gonna give it another go and see what happens.

best bfast evaaaa

Filloas con chocolate (gallego crepes), galletas (chocolate cookies), y orejas (ears: like elephant ears with powered sugar) mmmmmmm nom nommmm YUMMY!!! ohhhh y cola cao but i didn't make any because i didn't have time too lol

aight.

sooooooooo i spent all day translating back and forth spanish to english and vice versa. legit. it's hard. i'm better at the spanish version haha. i know what we're taling about but i forget the words for it in english. weird. i guess it's not a bad problem to have tho: forgetting english. cuz i'm really soaking in the spanish.

i was la guia de la ciudad today. we walked all over. for th first time i walked thru the Alameda...it's HUGE!!! ANDDDDD there are workout machine type things so when the weather gets better you bet your bottom dollar i'll be there too!

wellllll i've got some homework i've got to get done now...40 pages of a spanish novel for tuesday.

JAPAN!!!!

today a girl from Japan moved in (wow i def just struggle write that sentence in english was def about to say "arrived a girl from Japan today" haha). she's my age, has a bf, speaks english alright, knows very few words of Spanish so i get to translate (haha yeahhhh). she's only here for 3 weeks tho. she said they have a special program. after talking to Lola and others i learned its hard to go from Japanese to Spanish. Yuki goes from Japanese to Englsh then to Spanish sometimes i think is what she told me. but yeahhh there's 10 people in her group and they are here to learn about the culture. she said something about having a class or 2 in english here because they don't know spanish. i can't even imagine. i have a decent vocab and don't understand things and they know very little. Que loco! p.d.: we're friends on facebook now.

ma, you got some competition in the kitchen

Pura makes my fave food ALL the time! i LOVE it!!! she's made patatas ali oli, filloas (gallego crepes)--i fill them with chocolate, and the other day patatas bravas mmmmmmmmm yummmm!!! in our Galician class the today we were talking about different dishes and i was able to say that i had filloas last night for the 2nd time haha ahhhh so good! then she proceeded to talk about patatas bravas and well i had that one covered as well. so i had to ask what the difference between patatas ali oli and patatas bravas are because they taste very similar. notes from class are as follows: (las salsas)

Patatas ali-oli -- AJO + mayonesa

Patatas bravas -- Ketchup + picante

and that ladies and gents is the difference between the 2. i tell ya they are the most amazing patatas evaaaaaaaa

mom--your potato salad and grilled diced potatoes have some competition...i'm a sucker for that garlic sauce!

**but yes, if will be coming home knowing how to make patatas ali oli, patatas bravas, filloas, y tortilla espanola i will tell ya that!!!

~officially love it here...never wanna leave~

i LOVE being surrounded by a SEXY foreign language ALL the TIME and TRAVELING and everything else that SPAIN has to OFFER!!! the FOOD, la GENTE, the festivals, the SUN, being chill, puesssssss TODOS!!!

the land of the leprechauns

i just booked my flight to IRELANDDDDDDDDDD!!! ahhhhhh i'm SO excited!!! i will be there march 3-12! it is the one place that i have to get while here so I DID IT!!! YAY!!! can you tell i'm excited?!? i will be visiting the Loras Crew over there and Aoife (a friend who lives there).

I want to spend time on the coast by the ocean in the fresh air! i'd also like to travel a little bit while there since i'll have the time and see some of the highlights of Ireland! i wanna climb a mountain and get to the ocean! haha i was told Croagh Patrick aka Mount Patrick! (Westport, Ireland) ... Shop on Grafton Street, see Trinity College, find a coastline (in Howth) and feed the seals or something, hit up some museums in Dublin like the Jameson distillery but i wanna get to the Guiness Storehouse fosho : ) and wander around St. Stephen's Green. i didn't really know all that...thank you Justine : ) a friend of mine studied there for a semester awhile back and told me about some of that stuff haha. and then well of course, go out and experience the nightlife ; )  i wanna meet up with some of them amuricans over thur and maybe go to a rugby game! i dunno lol just wanna experience all there is to experience and have a good time!!! probs take some mini trips around the land too! i canNOT contain my kernels (that was for you iowa haha)

bus'in it to service

our service finally got swiched after 2 horrendous days at the first place (the house of Castro or something...idk i don't remember the name) but the lady there was not very welcoming as she told one of the other workers that we can't speak any spanish so she purposely had us working with people who were incapable of interacting verbally. all we did, literally, was push old people in wheelchairs up and down the first floor hallway back and forth for a solid hour. the first day, we were lucky enough to have the weather be decent so we sat outside for about 15 min for some fresh air. we were there for 2 hours each those 2 times. not comfortable with that at all. i seriously thought like something would happen to the person i was walking with cuz her head kept nodding off and all i could think of is "pleaseeee don't break your neck, pleaseeeeee don't break your neck" yeah totes not gonna be going there every week.

lunch time convo

today's lunch was interesting.  we had clam things again. after i had soup, chicken, patatas fritas, i had 5 clams and then of course she still tries to feed me more but i think i called it quits after the fish. i tell her i like the food but i don't think she believes me cuz i don't eat as much as i did in the beginning. for me, once i become costumed to the type of food i don't need to chow down on it, plus, i've learned how to portion myself much better since arriving.  i need to stop inspecting the clams, i think i spend more time looking at them than anything. they're good don't get me wrong, but i want to know what i'm eating. at least it doesn't have teeth like some of the others i've seen.

but of course, meal conversations are always the best. i forget how it started off...but i had brought up how i need a travel mug....oh she probs asked me why i didn't make cola cao this morning...then she proceeds to answer her question...you didn't have time? she told me that the spanish don't eat nor drink on the streets when i asked about where i can buy a travel mug. well, i guess once i get one shipped to me, i'll be a true american walking the streets drinking my hot cafe or cola cao ; )

spanish views of america

durante mi empresa hoy, los chicos de ultima hora me dijeron que ellos aprenden inglés de Inglaterra porque inglés americano es “ghetto/gangster” (no puedo recordar la palabra que usaron) lmao palabras asociado con Chicago: Al Capone, Michael Jordan, y "wat up" jajaj

haha better late than never

my card finally came in the mail today that  sent a week befor leaving and i've been here for 4 weeks now...you do the math!

mi acento muy americano

clearly...i know this. i've always been a better writer than speaker. but i do love to talk so it gets frustrating when i can't express what i'd always like to say...well for the most part i'm good cuz i can use the words i know, but it's the commenting on things that get hard once in a while. sooooooo 2 night ago, after dinner, yo, Pura, y mi hermana espanola were chillen at the table and i had brought my homework down to work on it. sometimes i go over it with them and ask questions so i'm prepared for class and understand everything so i'll have minimal questions later on. anywho. LANGUAGE BARRIER. i have issues understanding them sometimes and vice versa. i've met lots of people from all over and it's awesome to hear their accents when they speak spanish, i can only imagine mine in spanish tho. yikes! but Pura told me a had a strong american accent haha really its nothing i didn't already know but i thought it was getting better. it better be getting better! that's why i'm here! my one goal while studying here to to improve my spanish, especially the speaking portion! sooo tyda during lunch again, she continues to tell me...listen to more radio, TV, yada yada yada...I"M TRYING!!! and continues...speak less English...i know! i'm trying with that too! i speak more spanish with Pura but it's frustrating cuz we have issues understanding each other gahhhhhhh this probs sounds worse than it is but it's hard to understand each other. i understand literally everyone else better.. grrrrrrr.

so this past weekend when i soley talked in spanish for the most part, my confidence sky rocketed because it was good and i could understand everything and was able to say everything i wanted, only to be brought back down upon my return. coolio. and so month 2 begins...

i don't understand how they live

literally, there is SO much english here it's insane! Ok mabes not that much, but when you don't wanna speak engilsh you tend to find it, right? there is so much american pop music playing everywhere.  my spanish sister made me lunch today because mi mama espanola is sick and resting. so i was talking with her and asking her about the basic stuff. thanks god i can understand her. this makes me feel better. cuz all weekend i spoke spanish with the group because it was the only language that everyone in the group understood. it was a booster fosho! it's easy to listen to people and understand them when you don't have the pressure and aren't required to haha and plus foreigners are easier to understand cuz they don't talk like the natives with the lisp. but anywho, back to my story. by spanish sister is very easy to understand. i was asking about what music is popular here and stuff, but with the different languages here there's different stuff. but she gave me some music. she was asking where we hang out when we go out and so she gave me some names of some cool bars too. and i've been dying to watch spanish movies but unfortunately they don't have any DVD's here so i'm limited to the internet which does not have the spanish subtitles i'd like but she gave me a spanish site to watch movies in spanish. i can't watch movies in english, it's onl holding me back. i only have 3 more months to go : (  but then i was asking her, cuz the majority of movies here are originally in english so its voice overs in spanish when they watch. and i can't stand it when the words don't match the moths of the people talking! she said yo get accustomed to it. i guess. i won't ever. but serisouly, living in Spain and not understanding engilsh has to to suck for these people, cuz there's so much of it here! america 1, spain 0

the worst part about walking to school

is not the 25 min walk. it's the birds. the pigeons. they don't scare. sometimes when you are about to crush (ok def not the right word to use here lol i'll start over again) sometimes when you try to scare them they might fly but not very often. when i walk to school, the birds own the sidewalk. no joke. i walk around them at a great distance afraid that they are going to fly up in front of my face. cuz when they fly, they do so right in front of you at on uncomfortable distance and then i freak out and look like an idiot while walking down the streets haha...Tonya and i had this conversation over the weekend and there was def a moment over the weekend where i freaked too haha i play the game "dodge the birds" on the way to class or actually at all times when i'm on the street haha. it scares the shit out of me when they fly right in front of my face..

weekend trips!!!

ok. i'm apologizing ahead of time. but for class, 3 of our profesoras require us to journal and i can't continue to repeat myself in both languages for multiple people anymore cuz i want my spanish porfolio to be legit and really good, ya know! so my weekend trip journals might be all in spanish...sorry!!! i LOVE talking about it but it's time consuming and after this past weekend i have this new motivation to avoid English cuz not much english was spoken this weekend with the Brasilians...they speak portugesua and well one of the girls didn't know any english and us americans (with exception to Samuel) don't know Portuguesa soooo we vowed to speak Spanish with each other!!! it's really easy to understand each other and other foreign people but the natives and their lisp ay dios mio i'm still struggling with understanding mis propios padres espanolas here!

Ourense!!!

This past weekend in Ourense...(coming soon...possibly in spanish sorry!!!)

all eyes on me

Thursday night, a bunch of us went out to Momo...thought we were going to meet up with the Arabs since they were leaving this weekend but they never did end of coming around midnight. So I was the first one back since i had my internship Friday morn at the crack of dawn.

Friday: internship today...teddy was a no show...yikes! apparently it's a big deal. i had a hard time stayin awake whoops! not that that's any different from any other typical day tho.  during the last class of the day, Marisa (the math professor whom i follow to every class) tells her students to go talk to me since they had free time before the assembly thing.  AY DIOS MIOS...ALL EYES ON KELLY!!! Marisa had to specify to speak only spanish...no english because they love practicing English haha. it was craziness! i couldn't see past any of them.  all their elbows were on the desk, with their hands holding their chins up, ready to listen. they talked fast but luckily one of the girl got it and kept reminding her classmates to slow down cuz i needed it haha...didn't talk about much but it was fun : )

mi vida es una broma

ay dios mio! (p.s. i've been dying to use that frase as a header!) Boy do i have the story for you. today I was ALL over the place. no joke. the past 2 days i have been somewhere else during class. as in i pay attention and understand i just can't speak a word of spanish. just one of those days (or two).

today's classes

this morning i had my 2 favorite classes. comp and then civ with 2 of my fave profesoras. our classes are each an hour right. our second hour we spent the whole entire, yes the whole ENTIRE class talking about beer and coffee. maybe now i'll know how to order things with no questions! this is the culture tho so topic was well suited for our night out! Lola asked us during tapas what we learned and i don't think i've ever been able to repeat that well what i had learned in spanish. props to us : )

que chaos

i need to organize my life...major!

i don't know what day it is, which classes i have, who teaches what class, who is who, ay dios mio es muy complicado!

workouts: i need to start scheduling these asap cuz even though the food here is healthy i can tell i've gained a few cuz they like to feed me too much!!! and once this weather get s bit better and i have some good gym shoes shipped my way, yo ubet i'll be running las calles de Santiago!!!

Outside of class need to start learning spanish:on my own. so i have. my goal is to dramatically increase my vocab by the time i leave so every bit counts!!!

Dear Reader,

It gets harder to write in English day by day. English is not good for me. I am trying my best to not use English, but it's hard because blogging about my adventures is addicting (yes I know I've been slackin recently, my apologies) and I need to write so that ya'll can understand me. What a conundrum! I need to immerse (i think i can use this word) myself into ALL español in order to get the full effect and improve my speaking and writing. I am sorry if there are frases in Spanish that you don't understand. Sometime I don't even realize I am writing Spanish. In fact, the other day I went to write a blurb for homework and I didn't even realize I typed the word I needed without even thinking about it.  How cool?! I was thinking Spanish, YAY! Well, in order to maintain that thinking, and trust me, Spanish is a whole different thinking. It's hard to switch back and forth. You cannot think in English terms whatsoever. This amuses me to say the least. It means I am making progress. My poor English speaking and writing are good signs.  As one language goes up, the other, well apparently drops a bit. So when you see these things in my blog postings, you can just think to yourself, "Wow, Kelly, you are doing muy bien over there!" Wow, I don't think I've used English more simpler than this before, yikes! I have to say goodbye to English nonsense on my computer. As you may know, my facebook has been in Spanish for well over a few months now by advice from friends. Everything I do now, I want and need it to be in Spanish. It'll make or break me.  I know it will probably more than likely overwhelm me at times and I may break down once in awhile, but it needs to be done. My vow to talk only in Spanish unless I am completely lost and something strongly depends on mi understanding in its entirety stands. From this day forward, I your dearest friend, family member, and companion, promise to utilize la lengua español to the best my my abilities and speak only Spanish unless I'm really, at the point of death, struggling. But only then shall I Speak a little English until I understand; then Back to Spanish it is. (I feel like i just took my AP spanish pledge, my not as well thought out hmp). Blogging will be my only use English in addition to the previous stated. Ok. Enough of my rambling. I don't even know if any of that made any sense whatsoever.

Full immersion. Starts now. Goodbye English. Hola español.

My apologies for using Spanish terms that you may not understand. I will take it as a compliment : ) Oh and I will try to remember to toss the English translation in as well.

Yours truly,
mwuah

back to reality...spain is not a vacation

although while being in spain is a great opportunity to travel europe and well around spain too (and we have been!) the language is finally starting to hit me. today was hard but well worth it. pretty sure i was on the verge of tears i nclass today. (and this is why i hate that this blog is public...for these kind of comments i make) it was just stressful and i was anxious to be done particpating cuz for the life of me, today was just one of those days that i could not speak spanish

i just got back from mi empresa/practica (ugh i hate switching the spell check back and forth from spanish to english gahhh anywhoooo) and i need una siesta. me duele la cabeza. so much to take in! although it was hard and a lot, this is what i'm here for and this is what i want even if i complain that its hard. i didn't think it was going to be easy by any means. a deep part of me (idk if that makes sense hmmm) wants it this way cuz this is how i am going to learn. 

i have 20 more pages to read of the novel by Thursday but a group of us are meeting up at a cafe to read together. i like reading it on my own, but i'm going to go out anyway to hang out and just make sure i am understanding what's going on : )

ay dios mio

no puedo hablar una palabra es español hoy...pero ahora tengo mi clase favorita coolio

la república

me encanta noches del cine con mi familia española. i just wish movies didn't start SO late (10:30pm) oh well. sacrifice my sleep to get the spanish experience is what it's all about some times.

la cena típica

dinner is the least formal fo meals en mi casa. we sit and eat whie we watch the news. it's interesting cuz there's usually always something abut the US at some point but stuff that i would never ever pay attention to. idk if people from home even would care to know the stuff. i dunno. random.  but the spanish people don't know much at all about america except for like the "stereotypical american" i guess you could say. always on the run.

ay dios mio! most AWK dinner convo evaaa right now...was just asked how old i think Pura is...apparently she is 76? believable but she's more active than what i would picture a person that age in america. not going to get into details of this convo....ay dios mio! wish there was a word for "awkward" in spanish!

Vigo y el cine y tapas diario

Vigo 

El tercer fin de semana pasemos todo el sábado en Vigo. Llegamos muy temprano en la mañana (a las 8). Viajé en tren con Aimee, Olivia, Celina, Tessa, Tonya, Traci, Teddy, Samuel, Becky, y Alice a Vigo. Pasamos un tiempo bueno. Quisimos encontrar las playas pero no tuvimos éxito. Sin embargo, encontramos algunos puertos. Nos tomamos un descanso cerca del agua y disfrutamos del sol. Caminamos por la ciudad, fuimos de a compras (mucho), y más tarde, Traci, Teddy, Samuel, Tonya y yo encontramos un jardín muy bonito. Tonya y yo esperamos en un jardín mientras los otros fueron a explorar más. Mientras Tonya y yo hablaba más en inglés un poquito describiendo nuestra día, oímos a un hombre al lado de nosotros riendo. Pues, ha entendido nuestro inglés. Hablamos con él pero en inglés porque era de París y con su acento en español fue muy difícil entender una palabra. Cuando los otros volvieron, el hombre de París nos mostró lugares (baros) porque teníamos algún tiempo antes de llegar el tren. Entonces, fuimos de tapas y cervezas con nuestro amigo nuevo. Tomamos algunas bebidas y nos reímos. Pasé un buen tiempo en Vigo con mis amigos.

i've been here how many days...?

and just learned we have 2 bathrooms in this small house. i turned the water on to shower this morning but it lacked any and all sense of getting cooler...(as in warm. i call it getting cooler cuz it starts off at a freezing cold temp) or warm. so i didn't shower this morning. don't worry tho, i showered last night, so no biggie. i just didn't look my best today, that's all. during lunch, Pura explained to me i should shower downstairs when the weather is this cold because the warm water won't make it to the upstairs bathroom that i utilize. go figure, the only rooms i've been in are my room, what i thought was the only bathroom (would've saved me much trouble if i knew this earlier), the TV room (where we eat dinner while watching the news), and la cocina (aka the kitchen).

people have countdowns on how days we have left here...as in they wanna leave soon! que ridículo! when i see the countdown...my reaction: "i only have that much time to become fluent?!?! ahhhhh! necesito mas!" i don't get what's not to like about here. i came to learn the langauge and i intend to do so. i don't understand my fellow travelers at all!

my hobbies

i'm making spanish my hobby...this isn't a vacation altho the weekends are great for trips...i'm crackin down and reviewing my grammar and my goal is to learn 8 new words (on my own...so in addition to what i learn during the day) a day. sound like a lot? well by the time i leave i will have expanded my vocab

worst class evaaaa

is becoming better because i can now understand her better. she talks fast and with words i don't know, but i'm beginning to catch on. 2 hours of this every monday morning. but good news is after our descanso, tengo 2 horas de mi clase favorita!!! cultura y civilización : )

Vigo

Saturday (yesterday), the whole group from LC (plus Sam, the other american) spent the day Vigo. we hit up the stores on the main street and did a lot of walking as we always do on our day trips. Tonya and i wondered off for a while and met up with the rest of the group at one of the ports. the pictures are very misleading. yes, there's sol and blue skies but it was COLD!!! Traci, Teddy, Sam, Tonya, and I went exploring and found a beautiful garden which was quite a hike from la estación del tren  while Traci, Teddy, and Sam decided to continue climbing the never ending stairs, Tonya and i found a nice set of looking steps to chill on and talk about upcoming trips and probs embarrassing things if someone could understand English. well, just our luck. this guy has followed us up and was chillen at a bench near us and we sat there the whole time wondering if he could understand us or not. yep, he was def laughing at us. he def understood our english. we should've talked faster and maybe it would've sounded like jibberish like when spanish speakers speak so fast you can't decipher what they are saying. he was from Paris, France. we spoke english with him, cuz his spanish with his french accent was not spanish...that deserved a language of its own. after the others finally came back, we decided to go out for some drinks since people decided we were gonna wait spend literally the WHOLE day in Vigo (8:50 am tren to Vigo & 9pm back to Santi) so the guy from France showed us some bars as we made our way back in the direction of la estación del tren. i was tired, cold, had a cold, and the one estrella galicia threw me off a tad...i crashed as soon as my head hit my pillow.

i wake up every morning...

to the smell of Pura cooking something deliciously wonderful for lunch on Saturday afternoons...tortilla espanola mmmm

Vigo

day spendt in Vigo. crashing. peace out world. i'll write about you in the morn.

¡Troya!

just watched my favorite movie en castellano...¡ Que buena! but i'm leaving prematurely to go to bed now. waking up muy temprano to catch el tren for Vigo. good night.

in a land far far away

as of today, i officially live off in the land of tranquility all by myself.(cuz Alice switched houses). school is a solid 20 min walk. the closest friend is a solid 15 min walk. built in exercise/walking.

round 2 de mi empresa/práctica

so far so good. the economy class was aight. i couldn't tell if it was in gallego or not this time tho. probs gallego cuz i didn't understand much. if i don't understand something, it's probs in gallego. the next 2 math classes had exams so i whipped out my grammar book that i had brought with but it still doesn't compare to my poor lonely notes at home which are so wonderfully organized and simple, but while i wait for them to be scanned this will do. i also touched up in some words to extend my vocab some and then read yet another page of the book we have to read. page 12 of 40 which has to be complete by the end of next week. not too shabby if i may say myself. ok well page 12 is really the only 2nd page with words on it so i have quite some bit to go. i'm trying to figure out the best way to go about reading it. i've been going thru page by page underlining words a don't know and after finishing the page, going back and looking those words up. which has proven to have been successful for knowing the words cuz Celina's mom used the word "gama" i knew knew exactly what it was w/o explanation...yay me haha. not hard i guess cuz like a gama ray, a range of colors, or a shade. yeah well, i was proud of myself : P

at the end of the day there was a speaker. did i understand him? well he with más despacio, so no not a word. jk. i understood some stuff and then he threw some english out here and there. he was talking about nomos something or another and then i understood more about what he was saying about the USA and how some people have "perfect pitch" and are able to hear something and instantaneously know the pitch. pretty cool huh. but that's about all i understood cuz then i started dozen off into my own little world. which is why i'm keeping this short and about to take una siesta : )

detour...mini road trip!

las madres de Celina y Aimee walked the 3 of us to the place for our service. it's a solid 40 min from my house. they looked at our map Gene gave us but had absolutely no idea where we were going. so we ended up on a mini adventure to get to our destination. we walked thru some overgrown weeds, rocks, and cliffs so mini army men. Aimee and i both enjoyed it.

Celina's parents picked us up from the "service gone bad" which means they drove us home. it was quite a walk for me approx. 40 min or so but thats just about all the exercise i get so i'm glad it's naturally built into my schedule. the drive was def longer than the walk so i was wondering where on earth we were going. turns out, Celina's parents wanted to show us some country side and horreos (pronounced like oreo like the cookie...i hope i spelled that right...shack like building where you keep extra grains and stuff like that). but then we stopped and got out and took pictures by this beautiful place...old town. me encanta : ) we spoke lots of spanish and it was fun.everyone was really easy to understand and if we didn't know a word, they'd explain it to us. in the car, i had complimented Celina's mom on her english and she said she only knew like 2-3 words. LIES. she knows MUCH more so every time she spoke english she'd wink at me, i'd just laugh cuz she clearly knows more than only a few words. after our detour, they offered to take us out for cervesas and well of course we accepted! and cervesas means free tapas yummmm i love tortilla.

(Celina, Aimee, myself, and Alba aka Celina's mom)

seriously, why are everyone else mothers so easy to understand compared to mine...

service gone bad

the required service hours we need yeahhh not returning to that place. Celina, Aimme, y yo pushed around people with the most advanced cases of Alzheimer. so we couldn't even talk to them. we understood the lady when she told the man that we'd be with the people with the most advanced cases because we supposedly can't communicate in Spanish. well we heard her loud and clear.  not to mention i was scared shit-less that the one i was pushing up and down the hallway for an hour at the speed of about 1 mph was going to break her neck or something cuz she kept nodding off. i was very uncomfortable to say the least. i'm talking to Gene to get this service switched. cuz the other day when we went on the night tour, we passed la concina economica (soup kitchen) and i would love to help out there if at all possible. i'd feel appreciated, know i'm helping someone, and will get to hold some conversations. 

well its a good thing i like fish

cuz we've had some type of fish every day this week. we had slamon a few days ago which was pretty good. it's been one of the few times i've had a dish here here with type of seasoning. yesterday was some type of shell fish which apparently tonya had too. celine said is was muscles of something idk tho. today we had some type of fish with its tail still on. ¡que asco! i had my own baby/medium sized fished.today. i mean it wasn't bad tasting but it looked blahhh. each day, i know less and less what i eat.

haha...that's all i can say

nuestra untilmo clase hoy, hemos oido sobre una "fantasy de amor" de nuestro profesor porque no entiendo algo...de nada : )

hola marisco

we had seafood today for lunch. idk what it was. i don't know what it is in english. i'm not a fish expert. i enjoy my fish don't get me wrong. but i've never had this type of fish this big before. it came in a shell and then you pick it out and eat. it was a weird texture. but than again i guess all fish have a weird texture. idk. i didn't mind it but it was def different. i think i spent more time starring at it's inside cuz i was fascinated by it than i did anything else. i only had a few cuz we had chickpea soup and it was a HUGE bowl loaded with chickpeas so i was kinda stuffed halfway thru eating that but wanted to try this scallop/clam/shell fish something or another.

i need my notes

I've never had notes so clear and precise and nicely laid out then Kowalski's. if there was not a weight limit and it would have fit. my 3 inch binder would've came with me. gonna have some of that jazz scanned and sent to me asap!

living with the experts

i love living with people who can help me with my spanish homework. i swear, the more i sit in this class, the more confused i get. it would help me not to pay attention cuz all she does is confuse me with what i already know. ¡ay dios mio!

Pura was havin a ball thinking of Spanish sayings for me but then trying to explain them to me was another story haha. but i just had to go down and ask pops some questions about "ser, tener, y llevar" good thing he knows what he's talking about : )

i'm learning the tricks of the trade

that disgusting plain yogurt = add sugar
hot tea = add honey and lemon juice (pura's got a cool lemon juice squeezer thingamabob)
and i'm coming home knowing how to make patatas ali oli (and coming back with the recipe too)

Pura, along with other older people buy fresh meat and fish the day of for our meals unlike in the US where we buy in bulk for the week. some of the younger people are more busy here so they might not go every day but it's common for people to but their food the day of from the market. (learned in my fave class here and asked Pura about it)

mom, don't be mad

i have to take advantage of the rebajas (sales)! i love the entiendas (stores) here! i know you're gonna read this at some point mom, so don't worry, i'm only buying pretty clothes aka no sweats...i'm in SPAIN!!! today i got a shirt and a dress from Mango. i also picked up a spanish/english and vice versa dictionary for meal convos so i can fully understand something i'm not really grasping because they don't speak english. and also bought a book with good phrases to know and words by subject so i can study them...yes hopefully i'm going to study them and know them. oh and then i did by a nice crew neck sweatshirt with the university logo on it tho cuz i only have a fleece here and then my jacket so i need something else to keep me warm in this chilled house...huh sounds like home.

the trip to the famous candy store was yesterday...i stocked up. i need some flavor and variety. the food here is great don't get me wrong but they don't really season anything and i've been deprived of my juice! seeing juice, but especially milk come in a box is so weird. random note: there is not a word for "awkward" in spanish i don't think.

i had a wonderful time walking around with Olivia, Tessa, Alice, and Becky shopping....boots are SO tempting!

a day spent in heaven

with the exception of our first class. me encanta Pura. so yesterday i was telling her about our trip to Padron and how i ordered patatas ali oli and that they were basically horrible. well i come home during la siesta for lunch and what did she make? PATATAS ALI OLI!!! mmmmmmm i was in heaven. she had me try the sauce before lunch was ready...que delicioso! she thanked me for reminding her how much she also likes them so i was like DE NADA....MUCHAS GRACIAS : ) oh and she whipped out a nice bottle of red wine to top it off : )

and not to mention, i didn't bring my sun glasses to school today...during our break there was sun!!!  have never seen such a beautiful sight (ok i have have but there was SUN!!!) i'm meeting up with a few people to get some school supplies and possibly read in the park while we wait for las entiendas to open.

spanish novels : )

i'm actually kinda really excited to start reading our first book in spanish "ojos de agua" es un misterio

i plan on coming home with a spanish classic or two too : )

good thing i brought a watch

i have yet to see a clock in a classroom where i have class. it sux. cuz you can totally tell when i look at my watch haha. that goes for my classes here and in the classes that i'm observing/helping with for math.

every monday i have the class i like least for 2 hrs...wonderful

patron...wait i mean padron

Today, a group of us (traci, aimee, olivia, alice, and myself) took el tren to Padron for a day trip. We were on our feet literally ALL day! they were wet and sore from walking in puddles the whole time.  We went to the market down by the river (ish) and well needless to say i had found everything i had been looking for either in the past or just wanted to have haha. i bought a nice new pair of boots that i learned are not water resistent today, a new hat that comes down over my ears, and a pea coat : ) the market was great. you could tell that there was a lot of black market. the chocolate churros we had...omg...were A-MAZ-ING. we saw some animal parts too, in particular a pig's snout. oink. oink.

we decided to visit one of the churches there which is pretty old...18th century...one of the priests was kind enough to let us in and share with us a lil blurb about that place. it was pretty cool.

 for lunch we stopped at a cafe near the the small church...cheapest lunch evaaaaaaaaaa! i got zumo naranja (orange juice which was not good at all...the one at the train station was freshly squeezed and oh so deliciosa!) una bocadillo con queso (cheese sandwich), patatas ali oli (not as good as the one's from cafe iberico...not even close...potatoes with a garlicy sauce), y alguno vino rojo mmmm oh and for under 7 euro. that's right. best lunch ever.

it was a great time, with great people. i'm excited for more weekend trips with this group. they are awesome : )

update on shower situation

it's what i thought. apparently there's a box in the kitchen cabinet where you gotta switch a switch or something i dunno how to work it but i'll have to learn just in case. i enjoyed a nice warm shower this afternoon [insert big smiley face here]

pictures from everything and in between

1st batch of pics...check out my photos on fb...grazie

la discoteca

After our first week here, we decided to go all out Friday night. We hit up MoMo (order 2 drinks and the 3 is free...so 5 euro for 3 drinks of estrella galicia) with the whole group...so us Americans from the LC, the other American Sam, and the Arabs. we thought the 10 of us walking around was a bit much, well this group was at least 20 haha. so we chilled at Momo (i say Momo's...its an english habit). i usually stick with the group that speaks spanish but switch back and forth between groups for either spanish and english cuz sometimes you just need a break. as hard at it is sometimes, i enjoy talking to the guys our age who don't know english cuz then you're forced to use spanish. but i like talking the with people who know both spanish and english cuz i learn more when i don't understand the spanish because they are able to explain it with some english or provide an english translation. ok so after Momo we hit up the karaokee bar around 2 am because the discoteca still wasn't open. i submitted Man in the Mirror to sing but we left to early...oh well, i'll have to try that another time. la discoteca was SO much fun!!! first off, chicas get in free while the guys have to pay 5 euro to get in haha [insert smiley face with tongue sticking out]. they play a lot of english/american music here. there was quite a bit of Shakira going on too. didn't get home til 630 am. originally our plan was to stay out late enough so we could et breakfast. but literally that would mean like 10 am cuz nothing is open early on a saturday morning here because stayin out til 630am is part of the culture here. and we figured it out. we're on the same time schedule but there are 3 hours late with everything. i'm not used to the eating schedule tho because i still wake up at a normal time to go to class so its a bit off but i've started to snack. Aimee will tell you that i'm ALWAYS hungry cuz we sit next to each other in class and my stomach is always growling haha.

facebook

my facebook has been set to spanish for the past several months for some prep ha but boy i just love chatting with los árabes en español on fb chat...que bueno jaja

seriously. i would die for a chilled shower at this point

i've had one, yes ONE warm shower here thus far. it's day 8. that means i've had 6 chilled showers and today was ice cold. i seriously have no idea how this water system works. sometimes i can get it to warm a little, but today, NOPE, nothing but ice cold water. this morning i only washed my hair cuz i couldn't do it. before going out 2nite tho i sucked it up and showered in it. i think your body naturally warms itself after being frozen with cold water.

Pura thinks i'm crazy haha

So i've told Pura that I have this internship Friday mornings. but i think she forgot that I've told her about it haha. So i have to be there by 8:20 this morning so i woke up at 6:30 to take my ice cold shower. actually i couldn't do it so i sucked it up and only washed my hair this time. but anywho. i left the house by 7:50 am cuz i didn't know how long it would take me to get cuz when Gene showed us the way we stopped multiple times. i got there a little bit early but watevs. Pura finally learned i'm very puntual. Unlike Teddy who has showed up late to class countless times already haha i won't forget thursday morning when he came in "hola clase!" and he proceeded to show our profesora the girl's number he got the night before haha he wouldn't shut up...it was hilarious. sorry off topic. but yeah. she was shocked at how early 6:30 am was. and then i told her i get more sleep here than i do normally. so i proceeded to tell her that at school i have early morning softball and conditioning and she thinks the US is muy loca!

el primero día de mi empresa

WOW. so i walked in and was greeted by the door person (idk what you call them...its wasn't a secretary i don't think so idk) i was talking with her for a bit and then the principal walks in thank god (aka Alice's mom) and she correctly informed the greeter person what it is exactly i'm doing at the school. Then i was greeted by an English professor who started talking in English to me. It took me awhile to answer her back cuz i was in Spanish mode and i was caught off guard with the English haha. the first class was la economia en gallego so i didn't understand a word. but it was fun cuz we walked over to el mercado tradicional. i'm gonna have to get back over there and take pics cuz it was SO cool. like outta the movies. there were flowers, meat, fish (some of which were still alive. i think it was shrimp pero yo no se). haha at one point i was just staring at the leg/hooves of one of the animals (meat that was skinned and ready to buy) and la profesora (se llama Marisa...she's pretty cool) was commenting on my reactions the whole time haha. all the other classes of the day were math. level 2 & 3. 2 was in castellano so i understood some...as in i learned/picked up how to say a few mathematical terms in espanol.  the boys were adorable haha. everyone wanted to practice saying hi to me in English. one of the boys in the last class that i had met the other day when i was being showed around said hi to me in english and was super excited (adorable) had to stand the rest of the class lol

mandatory service (50 hours)

B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T. pardon my language. the spanish department designs the whole progam for us here. on top of this new idea of an intership, which i think is a good opportunity and will look great on a resume. and it gives us something to do. it's awesome that it's in our field (major). we need 100 hours total for this. 85 hours in the field and 15 in meetings with a profesora. now ON TOP of this. we are being REQUIRED to do 50 hours of volunteering (service). going into this, we knew about the internship, HOWEVER, not one person had ANY idea about this MANDATORY service we have to do here. it was totally SPRUNG on us during orientation the other day. the least they could have done is respect us and provide us with this information before we agree to the program, at least before we leave the country. several emails have been written and sent but we're waiting to hear back from Gene when she receives the information.

first week of classes...check.

my first week of classes has now come to an end. i think i'm going to enjoy them all with the exception of las variedades...but all is good en la ciudad de Santiago de Compostela : )

la lluvia y el sol

(the rain & the sun)
its rains everyday. but i learned the other night from the Peruvian that's lived here for 2 years (Jose) that for every week of sun you get, you get a another week or so of rain so its a bit predictable. i don't think it's predictable literally like someone was saying but it's legit. one of the mom's was saying that it usually rains everyday up and thru febrero and then we start to see a lil bit of sun in march, more in abril, y entonces mucho en mayo (the month we come home...on the 8...so we won't have TOO much time to enjoy it but we'll see)

hello spanish, goodbye english

on our way home today after cafe y tapas, i was talking with Aimee and asked her a question about what a word means. in spanish sometimes i'll something something along the lines of "¿que significa este palabra?" well i asked her in eligsh and asked "what's the significance of the word ___" and in reality i would never ever say that. i'm proud of myself. this is prof that i'm starting to think more in spanish : )

my sense of direction

i'm horrible with directions. ok not horrible but it take me awhile to get to know a place and if i'm not driving or am with a group of people who know where they are going i'm either not paying attention where i am going or we go too fast for me to visualize where we are. i walked to school all by myself yesterday (i sound like a little kid jeez haha) and started recognizing where i am on the map in my head and how to get places. it was a bit hard at first cuz the streets do not run staight and they curve like crazy. but after today i have a pretty goood grasp around these lands. the old town need some work yet but otherwise i'm set ; )

vosotros vs. Uds

All thru high school and in college, we never learned the form of "vosotros" because it's only used in Spain. Well I'm in Spain now....awesome. With a program thru a school that doesn't even use vosotros in order to prepare us. Cool. It's not like it's a huge disadvantage or anything cuz it's not too bad to catch on if you know your stems but still it still throws me off a bit sometimes.

first day of classes

gahh there is so much to write about i'll come back to this later for now

la música americana

idk if i heard right or not, but i'm pretty sure i heard spanish music for the first time being played today walking home from school. i'm astounded with how much american ok maybe English music would be better cuz ew're not all from the US. but no joke, lady gaga and all the pop hits are played in the stores and i've even heard them on TV and the radio too. i think i've heard just about all the current songs that i like here...weird. i did not expect to see as much English as i do here. i wanted to ask Lucia (the daughter of Pura, mi mama) about that and if she understands it or not but  haven't really had the chance yet but i can't wait to have that discussion.

wat up spain?

Last night was a TON of fun! We met up with a Peruvian (Jose, whom by the way is smokin!) that a kid back at school met here and he brought a friend Dani : ) After all these tours with some of our profesores y los chicos. We went to Momo's last night for some drinks with just about the whole group. Played some flippy cup and just hung out. After you buy 2 of the same drinks, you get the 3rd for free (when you bring up your receipts). I had una estrella galicia (the cheap beer). I'm not really a fan, but after the first bottle I didn't mind it. The waiter was awesome. He provided us with some free shots and took them with us haha. The shots on the house tipped me over quite a bit. I think I had a little too much fun if ya catch my drift whoops.

I just got back from an AWESOME time!!! At 5 our group of international kids had to meet at 5pm in the town (my favorite part!). I, however, was exhausted after las clases and decided to take una siesta durante la siesta haha. Well, I set my alarm for a 20 min nap but instead it ended up being an hour cuz apparently the alarm did not go off. I woke up to Becky's phone call at quarter after thinking it was the next morning and I was late for class. So i was half an hour late, but no one besides los estudiantes de Loras College noticed so it's cool. My bad. So 2 of the profesores showed us the town parts of town (we were shown around the new part 2 days ago...like where to buy phones and that kinda stuff).

don't be crampin my style

OK. While I'm here studying in Spain I have an internship at the high school with one of the profesoras de matemáticas.  Let me give you a visual here. First off, I'm a huge fan of the old parts of town so this just makes it even better. This school is SO cool...it's older than the city of Santiago de Compostela!!!! (...right up my alley...pictures yet to come!) The building is huge. There's about 8,000-10,000 students from little kiddies to high schoolers. It's SO Hogwarts style...it's awesome! I'm going to get lost. Anywho. So Gene (whom as of today I know we're going to become best friends) walked us over to the school to meet with our professors. I was SO relieved that the 3 of us (me, Teddy, & Alice) with Gene sat down with our professors to arrange schedules cuz knowing me I would be very lost and not be following what was happening. So after sorting out the horas and whatnot (cuz we need 100 hrs of practica and 85 working, 15 of meeting with one of my professors) hrs of service (50 hrs...no one is happy about it...that NO ONE told us about!!!), we each split up and went with our professor to learn more about what we would be doing for the semester with our internship. We walked and talked around the whole maze of a school and she assured me she would  pick me up at the entrance, gracias a Dios! First she showed me la clase de economia that I would be observing in for the first hour very Friday (so I can fit all these hours in). You continued to her classroom and she showed me how they teach some of there classes, por ejemplo, math class is taugh in "gallego" aka the other language of Spain. She asked if I would be able to explain how to do this math and yeah I could, but I told her I don't know mathematical terms in Spanish, yet alone Gallego. I asked a few questions and she proceeded to tell me wonders. I thought I'd just be observing in this math class. Oh no Kelly. You are wrong. Only in the beginning. I told her I didn't know math terms in Spanish but she said once I learn them I'll be explaining stuff and helping student...YIKES!! (option 3 will have been very well explored.)

placement

Today we took a written test....fue muy fácil (easy).  I can't tell you how much I rely on my high school Spanish.  Thank you Señora Kowalski...you have no idea!!! All those prompts and conversation stuff we did...I would be no where without all that practice. Very confident in my responses on the written portion.  Apparently, not everyone answered the question right, but I'm good, no worries : )  I just got outta my interview (oral portion).  She had to repeat herself a few times just to make sure I understood  what she was asking but overall I thought it was pretty easy too. So we'll see if I'm in the intermediate high or intermediate low. IDK.

la siesta & la comida

I'm loving the BUILT-IN NAP deal. But my poor hungry body cannot take the long hours without craving food!!!  Por ejemplo, this morning I had breakfast at 9 am and then didn't get outta class until 2 pm so I made it home around 2:30 pm -ish give or take a bit. This is siesta time...from the end of class until 5pm when stores open up again (so like 2-5pm i guess). All through class all I could think about was food, food, FOOD!!! I come home to a HUGE lunch. I can't keep doing this. No food, LOTS of food, no food (starving!), LOTS of food. Ain't no good...no good at all. I'm used to eating like every 3 hours or so and never being starving nor full...i like being content, and i have yet to feel content here.  Lunch is the biggest meal of the day.  And then dinner is really anywhere between 8 and 10 pm. Today is the only day I've had dinner before 9pm so idk the program all that well yet but so far that's how it's lookin.

Pura loves to feed me. We usually have some type of soup, then the main course (which includes at least 3 different selections like chicken, potato, some really good bread which she makes sure to always have lots of for me haha etc...). After having my plate loaded with this food and asked if I want more, she proceeds to ask if I'd like some fruit or yogurt. And well yeah of course I do! Not making fun by no means, but the way los españoles pronounce the word yogurt is just tooo precious and adorable. I couldn't imitate if I even tried.

it's raining...shocker...or not

Yesterday was the first day here that I've seen sun en Santiago. It's ALWAYS raining. Ok when I say rain, I mean it's either hardcore raining or misting.  Generalmente, it's a good mist. If I was at home or school, I would def not be using una paragua este tiempo but seeing as how I live farthest from everything and everyone and everyone else uses una paragua for this weather well una paragua doesn't sound too bad. Soooo walking around the city takes strategy with everyone's paraguas (umbrellas).

Directions take me awhile, especially since all these streets curve every which way and there's forks at like every corner.  So during the day, since it was nice yesterday, I took advantage of it and just walked around the city trying to scope things out and become a little more familiar with how to get places on my own. I would enjoy another day, preferably when it's not raining, to go out by myself and explore because that'll be the easiest way for me to learn where everything is and how to get places. I need to wander solo.

Orientation Day (Mon & Tues)

I'm sure something I could write about will happen today...thus far my life is ANYTHING but dull.

La catedral

we went to noon mass there today...all in Spanish with Latin mass parts. But I agree with Teddy, I'd like to go to mass where I can understand what is going on so I can get something out of it.  It was a good experience tho.

Arriving en España

Well the flight wasn't too bad.  Although it was easily recognized that I was Americano. I sat next to a Spaniard. But we did meet various people studying abroad in Spain so we exchanged numbers in case we decided to visit each other's areas.

Gene (the director person who is responsible for Loras College students) picked up us from the airport. Fortunately it wasn't raining, but the skies were pretty darn grey.  The poor bus driver had to carry all of our luggage back and forth on the bus. She looked like she was struggling a bit. WHOOPS!  As soon as we got on our nice and compact bus, it started to "pour" good thing I packed mi paragua (umbrella)! Gene called out our names. I was called 2nd pero Pura, mi mama espanola, was not anywhere to be found.  All of the other parents were there waiting at the school.  I felt like I was being adopted.  In a way I was.  Just imagine a bus full of small and cute puppies (yes, that would be us) and you have all these parents outside waiting to see which one of us will be theirs for the next 4 months.  I would be living with this woman and her husband for the next 4 months. So ya know, out of all people this would happen to me of course. Mi mama did not show up after multiple phone calls were made. So I got to see and wait en la oficina de Gene (quien es responsable para los estudiates de Loras College).  Finalmente, my familia espanola came to pick me up.  We had dinner (noodles and chicken broth, chicken, and potatoes).  Then I was asked if wanted a nap, but I was doing better since our connecting flight. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out cold and didn't wake until right before landing. I showered and unpacked most everything and found my casa nueva en el mapa that I was given.