So, if I were to put myself in a box of being on top of this blog or not, I would have to be put in the second one. To remedy this, I intend to write un montón in this one :).
A Coruña, the city of crystal/glass, was gorgeous. We went to la Casa de Ciencias which is essentially a Science City in Spain that uses Castellano and Gallego to describe scientific processes. Fortunately, these processes are pretty elementary so it wasn't a strain to read in a foreign language; also, I'm deciding to be pleased that I could read everything and understand it. In another proud Spanish moment, when we were at the planetarium (!!! I know!!) I DID NOT fall asleep and understood almost everything the guy was saying. One might ask, Kate, why would you be proud of not falling asleep? You couldn't fall asleep during the day if your life depended on it. And I would agree and then say that the night before Valerie and I went out and didn't come home until past 6 and I had to wake up at 8 to get ready for the bus ride. And since I was paranoid about missing the alarm I don't actually know how much I slept.. but enough of that tangent. So, I followed the whole presentation and feel like I learned something, as well as talking with the helpers at the exhibits so I could get the most out of all the buttons you could push.
After the Casa de Ciencias, we went to the Plaza de Maria Pita to hang out for a few hours and explore the city and eat. Valerie, Mindy, Farashta, and I immediately left to find food because some of us were starving. We went to a typical little café place and ordered everything. Less than full with my tortilla española, I told the waiter I wanted boquerones. My bad. Apparently, boquerones are like anchovies. I think my little misunderstandings with the language barrier, despite being borderline dangerous, have all ended well. Caves in Portugal? Don't exist, but there's some nice wine at the end! Boquerones sounded like a sort of sandwich? Not quite, but they were not nearly as bad as they looked. After this meal, we headed for the beach. We were warned ahead of time not to go too far into the ocean because tourists do stupid things and basically get sucked into the current and slammed against the rocks and die. As pleasant as this sounded, Mindy and I went into the ocean just to get our feet wet. Making a point to not go too far in, we were standing there minding out own business when an errant wave splashed into us!! We tried running out but it's really hard to run in water. So, our jeans were wet and the wave started to take away our shoes. This was NOT going to go down because those were my new shoes and I am infatuated with them and have a bizarre attachment to them. So I chased them and grabbed them and then said a few bad words about how my socks and shoes got soaked and now my pants are wet, and everything is going to be sandy and smelling like ocean - read fish poop and other stuff - but really the beach was gorgeous. Another adventure, like always.
After this we went to the aquarium! I looove aquariums! I was the resident scholar on marine animal behavior because of all the hours I've spent watching Animal Planet. When we saw the tiburones I pretty much was very excited. The profesores thought it was funny how obsessed yet knowledgeable I was with sharks, but seriously, I love shark week so it's fine. :) We leave the aquarium to head back home -- it still weirds me out that at the end of all our trips 'home' is Santiago, in SPAIN -- and everyone falls asleep on the bus except Mindy and I, so we talk with Mar and it was a good conversation about really important things. We talked about suede - seriously, why would you make shoes out of suede in a climate where it's always raining? - juice, an important topic for me, and banks.
The next big thing that happened was Valerie's birthday! She turned 21 in Spain, totally pimp, I was reminiscing about how I turned 16 in Spain and then 18 in Vienna and how cool that is, so we celebrated her birthday in the Euro-American style we do best: pre-partying and partying but with international people. We went to Moore's for the English/American trivia night, which is fun as always but I'm feeling kind of over it, and Valerie was treated to a few drinks. It was a lot of fun, within the trivia competition Anna (the girl from France) and I ganked the microphone and sang Happy Birthday to her. I think we should have apologized at first, but I couldn't really hear how we sounded. Hopefully just enough to sufficiently embarrass her! :)
The next significant event, not school-related (we had our first actual paper, none of that asinine page response fluff work): Valentine's Day! Even though Valentine's day has been sufficiently advertised everywhere, oops, I forgot to talk about our excursion to El Corte Inglés [ basically just another time where public transportation sucks, a live and learn experience] and they had signs about the WEEK of San Valentín, the actual day seemed pretty anticlimactic and insignificant. It is apparently only celebrated by novios/amantes, so even if you want to wish a friend/Valerie's resident dictator 'Happy Valentine's Day' they find it awkward and it's kind of an uncomfortable situation because they assume that there is something more, but really it's just another casualty of the language barrier. Anyway, despite the number of stores with Valentine's displays and cards, there were not very many people purchasing these. I saw only a handful of guys with flowers, the firefighters parade was bigger than the V-Day hubbub, which started to debunk the Latin lover stereotype. That night, for my V-Day date with Manu, we went on a cute walk around the city and he gave me a flower that he picked from a tree and a card he made. I didn't get him anything because I haven't known him for that long and figured I could get away with not knowing how things work in Europe (a common strategy, if there's an issue or a difference, chalk it up to being American and not knowing any better. Also, every time I totally whiff on something, I call it learning instead of just being stupid). Then we went to his piso and played Mario Kart. Seriously. The most 'romantic' part was that he had a candle in his room. I guess the Latin lover stereotype is more about the sweet nothings/harassing comments you hear rather than romantic gestures.
The last topic to discuss in this epic of an entry is Barcelona. Um, so I just looked at how much I've written and have decided that I'll make a new entry dedicated solely to Barcelona so that no one is overwhelmed by reading all of this. If you are a student, I hope this is more interesting than whatever reading you may be required to do and if you are not a student, I hope/bet that this is more interesting than your actual work - with that being said, I hope everyone read all the way to this spot!! :)
XOXO, besitos,
Kate
Friday, February 23, 2007
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Flickr!
Voila! I've made a Flickr site and even though it's taken me forever and a day, I have my pictures from Porto up completely and most of my piso. Next up will be a little from Santiago as well as from our day trip to A Coruña. Yay!!
My Flickr website thing!!!
My Flickr website thing!!!
Thursday, February 1, 2007
FINALMENTE!
I realize it has been QUITE some time since I have updated my blog, but I've been busy and/or without internet, so I'm using Valerie's line to stay in contact. Anyway, I'm going to try to put my pictures up now... This first part is of my PISO! Affectionately known as the basement, the cave, or the hallway.
Ok, so, my pictures aren't quite loading yet. But after class... watch out! Anyway, to do a brief update.
Classes have been going well, I've been keeping up with the reading sufficiently and cramming in the grammar homework before class. I've been going out with the same schedule but not drinking because I'm realizing how expensive it is.
On Thursday, Valerie and I had an exciting adventure. We woke up early because I wanted to look for shoes. We searched high and low and finally meandered to a really far away part of town. A homeless guy started talking to us and then kind of left, but then he came back to give us croissants that he just bought. Valerie freaked out, per usual, but I accepted it and then we had a lot of fun feeding all the fat birds in the lake next to where we have class. When I say 'where we have class' I mean, the dorm where they stick us foreign kids so we have a place to learn. Then we bought our tickets (see below), at the end of the day I bought the shoes I really wanted, although for more than I originally wanted to spend.
Last weekend Mindy, Valerie, and I went to Porto, Portugal! It was a lot of fun! It seemed almost like Santiago in that it had a modern and antique feel all at the same time. It was absolutely gorgeous at night even though there were some parts of town that were kind of sketchy. The bus ride there was miserable for me. I got pretty car/bus-sick so, that totally sucked. I adamantly refused to undergo that again, so I bought some anti-motion sickness drugs in a Portuguese pharmacy. yay! I'm pretty sure the most memorable part of this trip was my terrible confusion between Portuguese and English. Really, it's absolutely hilarious.
So, I wanted to see the 'caves' of Portugal. But really, 'caves' is CAVA and not CUEVA en espanol. So, instead of seeing caves, like where Batman lives, we walked for 3 hours in an opposite direction, nearly walked to the ocean, walked all the way back, and then we found out that 'caves' are WINE CELLARS. Which worked out just fine because we wanted to go to a wine tasting event anyway. It's funny how things always seem to fall into place, even if they aren't planned. One of the things Mindy and I are most proud of is Valerie coping without a set itinerary made three weeks in advance with options of what to do should something go wrong and a map that has everything one might need in a rare occasion. Yay Valerie!
When we returned, it was still Santiago. But it was weird to return from a vacation, to a vacation. Everyone always says "Whew, I'm going to need a vacation from this vacation!", but tada! We are actually living it. Except with classes.
I've been hanging out with Manu a lot lately, it's helpful to practice my Spanish and always fun to be with new people. :) Plus, I'd say that Manu and I provide positive stories that are shared before classes start. Haha.
Lastly, on Friday our group went to A Coruna. I really enjoyed this city! It was kind of like Santiago - I'm not sure if this is a size of city thing, that it's in the same part, or the same age or something - so big enough that you could always find something to do but small enough that you would eventually run into someone you know on the street looking for something to do.
Valerie and I were discussing doing something new, and I wittily replied that there's not much TO do. It's possible to change the location of the bar here, but you are still going to be going to a bar. Anyway, Mindy and I stood out in the ocean! It was way fun and then a giant wave came out of no where and attacked us!!! So our jeans and shoes were wet the rest of the day. PS- we went to a planetarium and aquarium!!!! OMG. Love, love, love. I saw some tiburones, so pretty much my day was perfectly complete. In the planetarium, while basically everyone else was sleeping (cough Valerie cough), I was very pleased that I understood most of what the guy was saying. Granted, it's geared toward elementary school kids, but my Spanish is probably equal to a third-grader's.
I've been hanging out at Valerie's piso because mine just depresses me. There is no natural light, the lights we do have are kind of dingy, it's kind of musty/moldy/stank smelling, and I haven't really bonded with any of my Spanish piso mates. Which is fine, my piso is essentially where I shower - every other day, thanks to the freezing water that takes two hours to heat up - and sleep, which is actually amazing because there is no light I can literally sleep until 3 in the afternoon and not know it although I guess if I have class this isn't really so great. Speaking of, the night before we left for A Coruna, I didn't quite get 3 hours of sleep because I was worried I would sleep through it and REALLY did not want to miss out on the aquarium!!
Well, I apologize profusely for not being able to put pictures up. I think I'm going to get a flickr account and then just direct everyone there for the pictures, it will probably be easier and more reliable than anything else.
I love getting everyone's comments!!! It's like a little piece of home on the other side of the planet :)
Ok, so, my pictures aren't quite loading yet. But after class... watch out! Anyway, to do a brief update.
Classes have been going well, I've been keeping up with the reading sufficiently and cramming in the grammar homework before class. I've been going out with the same schedule but not drinking because I'm realizing how expensive it is.
On Thursday, Valerie and I had an exciting adventure. We woke up early because I wanted to look for shoes. We searched high and low and finally meandered to a really far away part of town. A homeless guy started talking to us and then kind of left, but then he came back to give us croissants that he just bought. Valerie freaked out, per usual, but I accepted it and then we had a lot of fun feeding all the fat birds in the lake next to where we have class. When I say 'where we have class' I mean, the dorm where they stick us foreign kids so we have a place to learn. Then we bought our tickets (see below), at the end of the day I bought the shoes I really wanted, although for more than I originally wanted to spend.
Last weekend Mindy, Valerie, and I went to Porto, Portugal! It was a lot of fun! It seemed almost like Santiago in that it had a modern and antique feel all at the same time. It was absolutely gorgeous at night even though there were some parts of town that were kind of sketchy. The bus ride there was miserable for me. I got pretty car/bus-sick so, that totally sucked. I adamantly refused to undergo that again, so I bought some anti-motion sickness drugs in a Portuguese pharmacy. yay! I'm pretty sure the most memorable part of this trip was my terrible confusion between Portuguese and English. Really, it's absolutely hilarious.
So, I wanted to see the 'caves' of Portugal. But really, 'caves' is CAVA and not CUEVA en espanol. So, instead of seeing caves, like where Batman lives, we walked for 3 hours in an opposite direction, nearly walked to the ocean, walked all the way back, and then we found out that 'caves' are WINE CELLARS. Which worked out just fine because we wanted to go to a wine tasting event anyway. It's funny how things always seem to fall into place, even if they aren't planned. One of the things Mindy and I are most proud of is Valerie coping without a set itinerary made three weeks in advance with options of what to do should something go wrong and a map that has everything one might need in a rare occasion. Yay Valerie!
When we returned, it was still Santiago. But it was weird to return from a vacation, to a vacation. Everyone always says "Whew, I'm going to need a vacation from this vacation!", but tada! We are actually living it. Except with classes.
I've been hanging out with Manu a lot lately, it's helpful to practice my Spanish and always fun to be with new people. :) Plus, I'd say that Manu and I provide positive stories that are shared before classes start. Haha.
Lastly, on Friday our group went to A Coruna. I really enjoyed this city! It was kind of like Santiago - I'm not sure if this is a size of city thing, that it's in the same part, or the same age or something - so big enough that you could always find something to do but small enough that you would eventually run into someone you know on the street looking for something to do.
Valerie and I were discussing doing something new, and I wittily replied that there's not much TO do. It's possible to change the location of the bar here, but you are still going to be going to a bar. Anyway, Mindy and I stood out in the ocean! It was way fun and then a giant wave came out of no where and attacked us!!! So our jeans and shoes were wet the rest of the day. PS- we went to a planetarium and aquarium!!!! OMG. Love, love, love. I saw some tiburones, so pretty much my day was perfectly complete. In the planetarium, while basically everyone else was sleeping (cough Valerie cough), I was very pleased that I understood most of what the guy was saying. Granted, it's geared toward elementary school kids, but my Spanish is probably equal to a third-grader's.
I've been hanging out at Valerie's piso because mine just depresses me. There is no natural light, the lights we do have are kind of dingy, it's kind of musty/moldy/stank smelling, and I haven't really bonded with any of my Spanish piso mates. Which is fine, my piso is essentially where I shower - every other day, thanks to the freezing water that takes two hours to heat up - and sleep, which is actually amazing because there is no light I can literally sleep until 3 in the afternoon and not know it although I guess if I have class this isn't really so great. Speaking of, the night before we left for A Coruna, I didn't quite get 3 hours of sleep because I was worried I would sleep through it and REALLY did not want to miss out on the aquarium!!
Well, I apologize profusely for not being able to put pictures up. I think I'm going to get a flickr account and then just direct everyone there for the pictures, it will probably be easier and more reliable than anything else.
I love getting everyone's comments!!! It's like a little piece of home on the other side of the planet :)
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