Hola y bienvenidos! If you don't already stalk me on Facebook, I'm going to use this blog to document my time studying abroad in the beautiful country of Spain. Feel free to comment or say hi, and hopefully you're not bored and enjoy reading about my adventures :)
What is a huelga, you may ask? In Spanish, it means strike. Today, March 29th, there is a giant (and I mean GIANT) strike against the transportation or something like that. I'm not sure exactly why they're striking, but I know that all the forms of transportation are pretty much closed or run VERY slowly. For example, a Metro car that would arrive at a station every 3 minutes will arrive every 15 now. Also, there are protesters, I can hear helicopters outside, and there are police everywhere. I was walking home last night alone, and three police vans were alongside me and stopped at the corner where I usually have to turn left, and an entire Spanish swat team jumped out. I started to kind of freak out in my head and I was just saying "Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus" over and over.
Don't worry though, I'm okay and the cool thing is that my classes were canceled because of the huelga because we all need to take trains, buses, and Metros to get to Getafe. Truthfully, I wouldn't have gone to school anyways because I live by and take the cercania (train) from Sol, which the the center of the protests. It's like saying hey, there's a giant protest at Grand Central Station that they've been planning for months, and I'm going to take a train for them. I might die, but at least I can get to school. NO.
The cool thing is that since there's no school today,
we're starting our spring break early!! Here, it's called Semana
Santa, which means "holy week," referring to Easter. So I don't have
any school until April 10th :) Pretty cool, huh? The break here is
longer than in the U.S. so that made me happy. We can finally take it
easy and relax for a bit - take a breather. So today to celebrate the
beginning of Semana Santa, we're going to Retiro (the giant park)
and having a picnic and renting rowboats for like 2 euros and going
around the lake. It's going to be super relaxing and amazing, and I
can't wait!
Picnic in Retiro in perfect weather :)
The strike/parade
Btw, the next posts may or may not be in chronological order, but since I have a lot of time today I'm planning on catching up on blogging on some of the day trips that I took.
You probably looked at the title of this entry and thought what in the world? Well the weekend that the others went to Paris, I ended up spending a lot of time with Nery (UC Merced). First of all, she's awesome. Second of all, I love her because she's always smiling. Even when she trips and scrapes her knee, while she's saying, "Ouch, I scraped my knee, it's bleeding!" she's laughing as she says the word "bleeding." She is a very positive person and loves to laugh, so it's very uplifting to spend a day with her. We went shopping, ate lunch, did homework together, and explored Madrid.
On Friday, she had an excursion for her class, but afterward we met up at Gran Via, one of the main streets where all the shops are, and we got some frozen yogurt with fruit and granola - SO GOOD. Then we shopped for a bit (don't worry parents, I didn't buy anything) and went to Lavapies, my barrio, to get a doner kebab for 3 euro. We ended up sitting in the empty restaurant at our table in the back, and we did our homework together while a Bollywood movie played in the background. It was awesome.
At Retiro
On Saturday we wanted to go to the Museo Arqueologico Nacional, but when we got there, turns out it was under construction. We were kind of disappointed, but we decided to walk around. We ended up walking around Parque del Retiro. The only times I had been there, I was running, so this time I had a chance to actually walk around and take pictures. It is seriously HUGE. We ended up walking around the monument thing (don't know what else to call it) and sitting on the steps and looking at the lake. As we watched the people row their boats around, we had a deep conversation about our pasts (hardships, boyfriends, school, girl stuff) and talked about what we want to do in the future. It was really nice getting to know her a little better. When we were talking we realized that we had a lot in common, and that's when she called me her sister from another mother. Seriously, I love that girl.
It was about lunchtime then, so we went back to the frozen yogurt place and got another delicious snack. While we were sitting there, we met this lady who was from a university in Indiana. She was the head of the abroad program, and she was checking out Madrid and trying to see what the students can do there. She asked us for recommendations, so we told her all the hot spots in Madrid and made a list for her. It was really cool, we felt like locals!
The next day we went to El Escorial with Nic, but I'll save that for another day :) In the meantime, here are a few pictures for your viewing pleasure.
On our way to the closed museum :(
Retiro is BEAUTIFUL
It has tons of trees...
...and places to sit down...
...and this building monument thing.
Rowboats!
Relaxing :)
Frozen yogurt with granola, kiwis, mangoes, and strawberry sauce. SO GOOD.
This is going to be a short post, but one thing that bugs me about Spain is that the people here don't care about germs. Do they want to die? Maru gets sick a lot, but the sickness she's had lately is that she has a cough and mucus in her throat. She's taking medicine, and that's fine, but when she coughs she doesn't cover her mouth. Actually, I've noticed that a lot of people here don't cover their mouths when they cough. Shiesh, first the no washing hands thing, then this. Are they related? hmm...So Maru prepares my food and is in the house all day, so I've been careful not to breath when I'm around her and not to get in her line of fire. Last night, I felt my throat starting to feel a little weird, and I though NO WAY, I am not getting sick again! I quickly gargled some salt water and drank some hot tea with honey.
I've already gotten sick twice since I've been here, and I hardly get sick. In high school, I had almost perfect attendance my sophomore through senior years because I never got sick. I thought I had a good immune system - until I came to Spain. Literally ALL of us have gotten sick at least once. When I woke up this morning, guess what I had? I was coughing up mucus. It was funny (well, not really hilarious funny), but when I woke up, I coughed and was like what in the world, I'm sick again? Then I heard Maru coughing outside my room, and I thought YOU. YOU DID THIS. I told her that I thought I was catching what she has, and she gave me some stuff to take. (As I write this, she's upstairs hacking up phlegm. It's quite disgusting.)
Hopefully it doesn't get any worse because the cold weather + classes + sickness = misery. Plus, when one of us gets sick, we're all together so much that we kind of pass the sickness around. Isn't that nice? Well I have to go to school, but if you don't hear from me for a while it's probably because I'm sick in bed again because of these wonderful Spanish germs. Hasta luego :)
Last weekend I went to the oldest restaurant in the world!...well according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Its called Restautant Botín, and I was surprised to find out that it's near my house, like 5-10 minutes walking. Well actually it shouldn't be that surprising since I live in the center of everything - I'm just lucky like that.Well at about 1:30, I went with Nikki and met with Nery and Angela at Sol - our usual meeting spot. Then Ariel showed up at 2 because he's always late. We knew that Botín would be a bit expensive (oldest restaurant in the world), so we became American for a while and ate a small lunch at McDonald's. You know they have a Kit Kat flavored McFlurry here?? It made me excited.
Well after our mini lunch, we made our way to Botín. It's near Plaza Mayor (not like any of you know where that is), and from the outside you wouldn't know that it's something super spectacular. It looks really nice from the outside, but like a cool old kind of tavern nice. We were looking at the menu, and while some things were very expensive, some things were fairly reasonably priced. It looked really good! Inside, everything looked really old, and was kind of like Applebee's in that there's old stuff on the walls, along with various paintings. It was really cool! Ariel had made a reservation, so after 5-7 minutes, we sat down.
Mi comida
We were on the second floor in the corner, and when we looked around we noticed we were the youngest ones in the restaurant - probably because it's usually expensive. The menu had some really good choices, and while some of it is very expensive, some of it is pretty reasonable priced. The wine list though...the cheapest bottle was 20 euro, and the most expensive was in the hundreds. Well, I got one of the specials, potaje de garbanzos y espinacas with an egg on top, which is a soup type thing with potatoes, garbanzo beans, and spinach. It was really good. Angela and Nery got chicken and potatoes, and Ariel got this omelet thing that looked good too. We shared a pitcher of sangria, and we had a great time just talking and eating together.
At one point, the guy at the next table turned to us and asked us what part of the U.S. we were from, and we told him California. He then pointed to the guy sitting across from him and was saying he was from California too, and when we looked over, the guy was just shaking his head. The first guy had a little too much to drink and was speaking loudly and acting crazy. It was funny to watch though, his friends were mouthing apologies to us. Well after all that, we were finally done eating, and my meal cost about 10 euros.
We then headed to my house to plan. We had been talking about going to Portugal and everything, and we still needed to decide what to do in Semana Santa, our spring break. Nikki and I wanted to all get together in one place and talk and actually set dates, so Maru let us hang out in the living room and discuss stuff. We had our dates for Portugal, and we needed to reserve plane tickets NOW while they're still cheap. I didn't want a repeat of Paris, where the tickets got too expensive...then again Paris is expensive all of the time. We found tickets and bought them together so that we'd all be on the same flight. That way we could stay together and split cab fare when we go to the airport to our apartment. Yes, an apartment! I'm SO excited!! Ariel found an apartment in Lisbon that would cost about the same as staying in a hostel, maybe a bit more. Still, we have 3 beds (there are six of us, so we'd snuggle and share), a kitchen, a living room, and our own bathroom so it's a much better deal. Also, we don't have to deal with sharing a bathroom with the whole floor in a hostel or a share a room with 14 other people. Split, it'd cost about 45 euro for each of us for 3 nights in Lisbon. Thank goodness Portugal is cheaper.
Ariel, Nery, and Angela
Also, Nikki came back from Paris last night!!! I was so happy to see her, I missed Nikki, Angela, and Ariel. Listening to her tell me about her trip, I was secretly really happy I didn't go to Paris (thank you Jesus for the fake travel company!). Apparently she spent close to 200 euro, and that was only mostly lodging and food. Paris is beautiful, but it's so darn expensive! She was telling me how there high points and low points - highs: the Louvre and getting to share a bottle of wine under the Eiffel tower; lows: their hostel giving away their reservation when Ariel had confirmed that morning, and having to pay at the least 14 euro for every meal. So in the end, I'm glad I didn't go to Paris (shhhhh!) because I still had a great weekend here. We're all excited for Portugal, and there are 6 of us going so it'll be even more fun (and we can split the cost for more stuff). I can't wait! :)
Guess what? Nikki is my new roommate! Well technically she's my housemate because she lives in the next room, but we call each other house sisters :)
So this is how it happened. She had been living with an older couple and had a roommate from the U.S. but from a different program. Basically, she hated living there. I don't think she had a lot of problems with the husband, I don't think he was there a lot, but there were other things. For one thing, she wasn't allowed to go into the living room. Basically, she can go into the bathroom, the kitchen, and her room. So she spends a lot of her time sitting in her room. Also, I guess her host mom didn't give her enough food. She had to spend some of her own money to buy food for herself because she was still hungry. Also, I don't think her host mom respected her beliefs. Nikki is Catholic and doesn't eat meat on Fridays. She told her host mom, and she complained a lot and said, "That's really inconvenient," even though she serves fish all the time anyways. Nikki gave up bread for Lent (EXTREMELY difficult when living in Madrid), and her host mom was complaining a bunch again. Besides all that, her roommate is at a higher level of Spanish, and I guess she got a big head because she only spoke English with Nikki, even when Nikki would ask her a question in Spanish. She told me that she basically only spoke English at home, which surprised me because home is where I speak Spanish the most.
Well every day at dinner, I usually talk with Maru (my host mom) and tell her about my day and everything that's going on. She knows all about my friends, and one day I was telling her about Nikki's situation. She was shocked and kind of upset that this was happening to her. One thing that she thinks is important is that we feel comfortable in our home-stays because they're, well, our homes. The first week I was here, she kept asking and asking me, "Are you comfortable here? Are you happy? Is there anything I can do to make you feel more at home?" I appreciated this so much. Maru suggested that, if Nikki wanted, she could move in and stay with us.
Our typical Madrileña dinner - Ariel, Nikki, and Maru
A few weeks passed, and thing with Nikki seemed to be okay, but after a while I found out that not much had changed and that she was still unhappy. I told her about Maru's suggestion, and she seemed super excited. Maru had made a "typical madrileña dinner" one night, and I invited Nikki and Ariel over. It was a fun night, and we sat and talked for 3 hours straight (Maru loves to talk). Nikki got to talk to her about the situation, and everyone was okay with it! The next day Maru talked with Rocio, our program director, and got the okay.
The thing is, she had to move in the next day. It was going to be March 1st, which is when they pay the families. All of this happened in the course of 2 or 3 days, but thank goodness Maru is laid-back and awesome. She said Nikki could move in right away, so the next day when I came home, she was all moved in!
I have to say, I'm a little jealous. Her room is seriously 3 times as big as mine. I don't know why Maru had given me the smaller room. I think it's because mine has a closet with sliding doors and drawers, while Nikki's has a wardrobe. Still, her room is seriously huge (bigger than mine in California), has tons of natural light, she has windows, and she has a desk. My room has a window, but it doesn't open into the outside. It opens into the hallway, which means no air, which means my room is very warm. Since I have no window opening to the outside, Also, I'm the only person I know in the program who doesn't have my own desk in the room. I usually do my homework on my bed or go into the living room. I can't believe Nikki got her own desk!
Sorry lol. I think I'm just in a jealous mood right now. I've just been eyeing that room for the longest time. At first I was a bit worried about how it would affect the relationship between Maru and me, but now, I LOVE that she's here. Maru, Nikki, and I get along extremely well. Nikki's super super sweet, understands my sarcasm, and gets Maru's jokes. Nikki and I like the same things, and we're both from SB, so we can talk about that stuff too when we get homesick. Also, she's pretty studious, so she makes me feel guilty and want to study too.
En fin, I am SO HAPPY with how things turned out, and I am so excited with to have my house sister. Also, you know how in my last post I was really sad that I couldn't go to Paris? Well okay at this moment I'm still kind of bummed because they're all in Paris at this exact moment, but in April around Semana Santa (Easter break), I'm going to PORTUGAL! Ahhh I'm so excited! Everything actually turned out great. I mean yes, I do want to return to Paris and see it on MY time, not on my tour guide's time, but I have been there before. I've never been to Lisbon. Anyway, that's all for now :)
Last week was probably the worst week I've had on this trip. Fake companies. Midterms. Loneliness. Those things can pretty much describe most of it. Let me explain.
Fake companies. So about a month ago, me and three of my friends had plans to visit Paris for a weekend - this coming weekend actually. My friend Ariel has a friend in Paris who had studied abroad at UC Riverside, and he was going to visit him and he invited the rest of us. Well, Ariel had a ticket, and so did I. I bought a ticket through this travel agency that was fairly cheap, and I was so excited. My friends Angela and Nikki wanted to go as well, but for some reason they weren't buying their tickets and were hesitating. I literally found the tickets for them, and all they had to do was type in their info. Then all 4 of us had tickets to go to Paris! Exciting right? Until about a week ago. I was checking my bank transactions online like I do sometimes (to make sure everything is okay), and I noticed that there was no transaction for my plane ticket. I went to the airline and typed in my confirmation number. It didn't exist. I tried again, and it kept coming up as an error. I started to panic then. I gave the number of the airline to Maru (my host mom), and she called them for me while I was at school. Turns out, my confirmation number wasn't valid. I don't know if the agency was fake (which I think it was) or if they didn't reserve my ticket or the payment never went through...I don't know. All I knew at the moment was that I didn't have a ticket to Paris, and to get a plane ticket for the times I wanted a week before the actual trip would be nearly impossible. I discussed everything with my dad, and he told me I could still try to find a plane ticket, my limit being about $150. Every single day that week, I checked literally 10 different websites in the morning before school, during school, and at night when I got home. At the end, I gave up. Every flight I found started out with a fair price and then skyrocketed once they added the online fees. Plus, the cheapest flights were to Orly airport, and all my friends have tickets to Charles de Gaulle. I'd have to find a way to get from my airport to the hostel or de Gaulle by myself in the middle of the night. No way.
What made things worse was thinking about how the others weren't even going to go, and I pretty much found their tickets for them, but mine was the one that didn't work. However, after thinking about it I decided to stop being a baby. Maybe it wasn't God's will for me to go to Paris. I mean, technically I've been there before, although it was with a tour group and I never got to SEE Paris...just the touristy side where all the Parisian people hate you. Also when I went my sophomore year of high school, our lovely tour guide never took us to the Eiffel Tower in the daytime = no good pictures of the Eiffel Tower. She only took us at night where 95% of my pictures didn't turn out and we couldn't see anything from the top. Still, the others have never ever been to Paris, so it's important that they go. We're so close to France, they absolutely have to see Paris. In the end, I'm content with how things turned out. I mean, I am in Madrid. I am a little disappointed, but it'll give me a chance to rest that weekend and save some money. I did make them promise to eat a crepe for me though ;)
Midterms. We just started our couple weeks of midterms. First of all, yuck. Second of all, WHERE DID THE TIME GO?? I just got here, and I'm already halfway done??? Well I'm fine with midterms, technically they're just a review of what I already learned. It's just harder because I'm taking all the Spanish literature classes, which is a lot of reading, but it's what I love to do. Still, I had two midterms back-to-back for my two hardest classes. On Wednesday, I had my midterm for Literatura hispanoamericana which has interesting readings, although my professor is super boring in this class. Our midterm was to write 2 essays, which is standard for a lit class. I studied hard for that class, waking up at 5:15am to study in the mornings after sleeping at about midnight. It was open notes which was cool, but we still have to write in Spanish and make it sound good. My other midterm was for Literatura del Siglo de Oro, where I have the biggest reader I've ever had in my life - even bigger than the ones at SB. Apparently it's the class with the most reading and is super hard for people that just like to breeze their way through. However, it has one of the best professors I've ever had, and he's the main reason why I'm still taking that class, even if it is my only Monday class (and I could have had a 4 day weekend). I had my first midterm at 5:45 Wednesday evening and my next midterm at 10:45 the next day. It wasn't so bad, except for the fact that I had homework for my other classes as well. I had a short essay due for my Cine class at 11pm the evening after my first midterm, I had to write a one page article for my Lengua class, and I also had readings for my other lit class, Cuento. While all this stress was going on, that was when I realized that my Paris ticket wasn't valid. Needless to say, I was pretty miserable. The whole week I was simultaneously studying/doing homework and looking for cheap tickets. You won't believe the relief I felt after my Siglo de Oro midterm. The next day felt AMAZING.
Loneliness. With everything that went on, I suddenly felt this overwhelming loneliness. It was a different kind than what I felt my first day here. Last time, I had no friends, but I had God. This time it was the other way around. I have incredible friends here, and I love them to death already even though I've only known them for 2-3 months. Then again, we spend so much time together, we're kind of forced to get to know each other. Anyways. After I found out about Paris, that's when the loneliness hit. I don't care if it sounds pathetic or whatnot, it's what I felt. I kept thinking to myself that the others were going to have so much fun without me, and that I would miss everything they were going to see. I had even searched online and made a list of about 15 free things we could see and do in Paris. I started to think that even though I had made that list, I couldn't enjoy anything on it. I felt that plus the stress from midterms, and I started stressing out about money, panicking and thinking I won't have enough. For a while, I didn't want to eat lunch because I wanted to save money. I'd be hungry, but who cares? It seems like that's the only way I could save money. At that point, everything was hitting me all at once, and I just sat on my bed and cried. I felt so helpless and alone. I was confused because I can't remember that last time I felt this way. It felt different. Then I realized what was missing.
Where was God in all this? I asked myself, when was the last time I talked to God? Read my Bible? Really really prayed? I glanced at my Bible sitting there, just like it has been for the past couple months. Then God brought me the song "All I Have Is Christ" by Sovereign Grace Music that I had first heard at Resolved, a conference that my church hosts every June in Palm Springs. I don't know why, but as I listened to that song, I felt like He was speaking directly to me. It was the second verse that hit me though. When I heard the phrase "indifferent to the cross," I started to bawl (but softly because Maru was asleep). Every time after that when I listened to that song, I cried. I still cry when I hear it. That night, I had a nice long chat with Jesus. The next morning, I cracked open my Bible and started to read Galatians...and then I Corinthians because I couldn't decide which one I wanted to read.
After that, my stress was still there, but it was significantly less than what had plagued me before. I felt calm. I felt a peace that I have not felt for quite some time, and it felt like a cool wave washing over me.
God is awesome. That's just the end of it all. If I ever forget that, I'll just read this blog again, remind myself of what a nitwit I am, and remember why I'm on this earth in the first place.
Hallelujah, all I have is Christ. Hallelujah, Jesus is my life.
