A Coruña y La Mar

Friday, Jan 29th.
First off, I've been told multiple times that its El Mar and not La Mar, but I have done research on this! I was told back in my high school days that La Mar was more of a "I love the ocean" type thing and El Mar was just calling it the ocean. So my research revealed that La Mar was more poetic than El Mar. Some people said that La Mar was more of a romantic use and a sailor or someone who lives close to the ocean talk. I'm using La Mar though so people can just stop arguing with me about it :D

So we took a train to A Coruña for a day trip, it was about 11 Euros to get a roundtrip train pass, which was great because we can easily go back there and there wasn't really any need to be worried about seeing everything while we were there. A Coruña was lovely and wonderful and pretty. All of the above ya know.
We first went to a children's science museum, because I love museums and we happened to stumble upon this museum that Steph had been telling us about. 

Photo Cred: Morgano
The Children's Museum

It was only 2 Euro to go in the Museum, great price let me tell ya. So we of course went in to explore the place and it was awesome. There was a swing set that was set up sort of like a swinging bench, to show people what resistance feels like. There were two swings and you could swing together or in opposite directions to feel the pull that happened. We also watched baby chickens be hatched, which apparently no one in my group has ever done before. I suspect that the museum rotates out eggs and has some agreement with a chicken farm to do the baby chicks because that exhibit seemed like a pretty permanent exhibit.

Photo Cred: Morgano
Soon to be BBQ Chicken

Photo Cred: Morgano
Pendulum 

This Pendulum was on the main floor and dropped one of those sticks every half hour we think. It was pretty cool to look down at once we got all the way up to the top of the Science Museum.

Photo Cred: Morgano
See pretty cool to look down at

Photo Cred: Morgano
The Bathroom Signs at the Museum

Photo Cred: Morgano
La Mar, Love at First Sight

Once we were done with the Museum, we made our way to the beach where we say beachy things like the OCEAN, LA MAR, my true love. We walked out on some rocks to chill out there and also decided that the beach may be considered a nudist beach. The old lady was being smart though because who would want to have tan lines when they could easily do without?

Photo Cred: Allison
Can you tell I have food in my mouth? #lunchwithoceanview

So we were going to head to a park that was supposed to be right on the "riverwalk" (even though its an ocean I'm calling it the riverwalk! Oceanwalk sounds weird to me). Some of us wanted to take the direct route to the park and some wanted to stay on the riverwalk, so we split ways with Allison and I taking the riverwalk. After walking more than the mile that Morgano told us we were going to be walking, we found out that we could not get up to the park because there was a mountain in the way. That was a slight problem so we ended up just doing our own thing for the rest of the day since we couldn't really get to them without backtracking a ton. 

We had planned on going to another park as well, so we first ate lunch with a wonderful view of the ocean and then headed towards the other park to try and meet up with them later. We never did meet up with them until we got to the train station since they hadn't actually gotten to that park, but we had attempted. We took our time walking over to that park, enjoying the view, plus 15 miles was pretty tiring on the feet and for me it felt like my feet were covered in blisters. It was the same feeling as when I was on the Camino though, so I wasn't too concerned about it seeing as it felt like blisters on the Camino and then it was just sore feet not blisters. 

Photo Cred: Allison
Octopus Power!

Photo Cred: Allison
Surfer Fountain

On our way over to the park we came across some random Octopus that was on the side of the riverwalk. I admit that we also saw this same Octopus on the search to the park everyone else was at, but we walked passed it twice and this picture is from the second time we walked passed it. We weren't completely sure where we were walking to get to the park, other than we could see the building that they had pointed out earlier so we were just headed for that building. 

We came across a fountain on our way to the walk as well that had surfers. We found this fountain either right after or right before we spotted the surfers in the water. The surfers were really had to distinguish whether they were birds or not at first because they were just bobbing heads in the water, until they actually got up to do some surf things. They were pretty good and doing flips and such. It must have been a good day for surfing because there had to have been at least 20 people out there waiting their turn to catch a wave. 

Photo Cred: The Lovely Mildred with Allison's Phone

 So the land mass that is the furthest into the above picture, the smallest land you see (other than the island thing in the middle of the picture), is where we started our walk to the second park to try and find our friends. We walked all the way around the ocean on the "riverwalk" to get to the point the picture was taken from which was right now to the building that you see below. The building was called the Tower of Hercules and was an ancient Roman lighthouse, yes I googled what it was.

Photo Cred: Allison
Tower of Hercules

Since we had walked all the way to the Tower of Hercules and it had an amazing view, we just sat on a bench for awhile and listened/watched the ocean waves. It was a very peaceful time and I probably could have sat there all day, even though the ocean breeze was slightly chilly. 

Photo Cred: Allison
Disclaimer: Not actually the bench we sat on 

We of course took some pictures because OCEAN, LA MAR, Love at first sight. I don't think I can describe to you how much I love the ocean.... One of my favorite places on earth really. Here's some random pictures of me and my love though....

Photo Cred: Allison
Before walking to Tower of Hercules

Photo Cred: Allison
the Peninsula of the Tower of Hercules

I may or may not have decided that the Tower of Hercules was a Peninsula. I'm pretty sure I'm right as it was almost an island except connected on one side to the land of land. If I know my geography terminology, which I really don't so don't quiz me, I would say its a Peninsula! Either way it was awesome and a wonderful view on all sides.

Photo Cred: Allison

Photo Cred: Allison
WAVES

Photo Cred: Allison
I'll just live on that bench now please

Photo Cred: Allison
La Mar <3 

But yeah after a few hours of being at the Tower of Hercules and chilling out, we headed back to the train station, with like an hour and a half to get there for our train departure, don't worry we made it with 20 minutes to spare. Luckily when we had walked from the train station the first time we had made comments about things and those comments had gotten us back to the train station, along with signs too but we could remember where we made certain comments and that was super helpful in retracing our steps since we didn't have the maps that other people in our group had. 

It was a really great day, though super tiring. My fitbit had me at 100 flights of stairs and 37k steps for that day, equating to almost 16 miles, so yeah lots of walking. Also, my new boots that I had bought like the week before I left for Spain are already starting to wear out, shows how much walking I've been doing!

Old Things and Gloves

Jan, 27th, Wednesday.
So I didn't have to wake up as early today so obviously I didn't. I went to class around 10:45 and we had an orientation on how to fit in and make the most out of our semester. There were some papers that were handed out that we were told we already should have seen, but of course Abby wouldn't have shown them to us so we hadn't. Then we did some fun talking about the differences between society, like the food schedule, the siesta- which apparently is not naptime here, sad day- and we also talked about the besos besos besos (kisses kisses kisses). It was some pretty interesting conversations, basically we were told to get rid of our personal bubble because it doesn't really exist here!
So after that we all split off and went our own separate ways. Allison, Steph, and I went to a coffee shop and started planning out what to do this weekend since we were thinking about doing a longer trip. Then the trip we had been thinking about sounded more like a day trip, to hot springs, so we decided against it. The other group that was planning a trip also had decided on a day trip so we are planning on going to the beach with them now on Friday. Once our plans were not decided on and we had our drinks, we went our separate ways for lunch.
Marisa made fish for lunch today and showed me how to eat it. I kept getting the bones in my mouth even with her nifty way of eating fish so I obviously need to practice that. She said we were going to have fish tomorrow too so I guess I get to try again then as well. Fish is expensive here even though we are right next to the coast. Marisa told me that its expensive because the fishing industry is such a dangerous thing. The fish have to be caught out in the sea and that means people have to go out on boats and catch em. Sometimes the boats don't make it back because they are small and going out in the ocean they can just be thrown upside down. There's also things that are harvested off rocks that are super dangerous to get because the ocean can swallow you up pretty fast. Last year we were told the golden rule of being near the ocean here, never turn your back to it.
After lunch, I chilled out in my room for a bit because I just needed some alone time. I was rather tired and she wouldn't let me help her clean the kitchen up so I was like, I don't know what to do while you clean and I don't want to just watch you clean. Not helping seems so rude to me but she doesn't want help...I ended up reading my wattpad story, Eye of the Storm or something like that, since it was a Wednesday and that means NEW CHAPTER. Since I read that I was almost late to where I needed to be, though we got there on time still. We went to the palacio de fansceco or something. I can't spell his name so yeah <.< He was like a founder of the USC. We were given a tour of the old town's part of campus, so the palacio and some building that had a library in it. The library looked amazing....

Photo Cred: Morgan

As we were walking through the library every single person looked up at us to watch us walk even though we were told to be quiet as possible. It was almost impossible to not notice our group of 9 students, 2 adults, and a tour guide walk through though. So it was super awkward and I felt bad for interrupting their studies, but the tour guide does what the tour guide wants right? Plus I wouldn't want to skip out on seeing the library! In the same building as that library there was a room that was the presidential room or something. It was an important room!

Photo Cred: Morgan

Photo Cred: Morgan

Photo Cred: Morgan

Those are pictures from the important room. Also before we went in the library and this room we went to the roof of the building which was an amazing view! I would've stayed up there longer even though it was really windy and slightly cold.

Photo Cred: Margaret's Selfie Stick

After that we went to the Palacio and were toured around there. We saw some exhibits room and then we went into the American Library, which was probably my favorite library. I really wish we had been allowed to go upstairs for a really cute library photo but sadly the room is super old and the stairs and upper deck probably couldn't have held us. An upstairs photo would have been perf though....

Photo Cred: Morgan

In the library there was a really old book. It was an exact copy of some other book, with bug bite marks and wear and tear. All of the exact copyness things that were necessary. Since it was such an old book, you had to use gloves to touch the book. Plus random people couldn't touch it, only special people with special credentials like our tour guide! So I mean we got to see the inside of the book but I've always wondered why on earth they only use white gloves for these things. Are white gloves that much better than other gloves or is it just for show? Tell me I need to know why white gloves are all that and a bag of sticks....

Photo Cred: Steph's snapchat (so Steph duh)

WHY ARE THE GLOVES WHITE, JUST WHY.

Okay but anyhoo, we had that tour blah blah blah. After the tour Allison and I just walked around Parque de Alameda for 2 hours in the rain, it was more like a mist than a rain and I had just bought an umbrella so it was okay. We also walked around old town and got lost during those 2 hours. There was a guy that had picked like the prime spot to sing/play guitar because the acoustics were so great there.
Once it was close to time to meet up with people, we headed to our meet up location for the school trip for Tapas. Turns out we weren't having Tapas though and we were actually just bar hopping and have drinks, so I felt very lied to. We met a ton of Korean students that didn't actually speak Spanish very well because they were just learning or something, I'm not really sure. Their professor was hanging out with us the whole night, even after Lola left us. It was a pretty fun time though I would've been fine without going as well. I wasn't drinking anything so my 5Euros I had to pay the night was really just wasted on everyone else, but I dislike wine, and alcohol in general, and I can only drink so much....

Keys.... I still can't open my apartment building door. So I tried and I tried and I just cannot open it. I tried to call/text Marisa but my phone didn't work, which I don't think I will be getting it to work this semester as the phone stores I have seen only have smartphones and plans with data so there's almost no point in me even getting a plan because it would have data.... But anyhoo, I waited about 20 minutes for someone to come let me into the building and then went to bed feeling pretty frustrated that I could not open the door and slightly annoyed that Marisa hadn't buzzed me up, though I found out later that she had asked who was there and the buzzer system thingy just hadn't worked (awks).
#mildredout

Swords and Snitches

A running commentary of the day, because people keep asking and I don't feel like making my own journal so people don't gotta read everything I do....plus journals in my opinion are for my entertainment as well so sorry if you aren't entertained by the same things that entertain me....SO HERE READ MY JOURNAL PEOPLE. READ IT.

Seriously, don't eat my blog.... that sounds unhealthy for everyone involved

Day 2 of Spain, a nice Sunday with wonderful weather. I had a terribad time sleeping though and didn't sleep until like 6am. Oh timezone changes you were wonderful, so I woke up at about 1:30 and had breakfast. Marisa was at church so it was just me. When she got back we had lunch together and I really don't know how people eat so much food. Like I can barely finish one plate let alone the 2nd dish and dessert. I had a hot apple today for dessert. I have no clue what they are actually called, she told me on my first day when I had one but I don't remember. It's literally an apple that was put in the microwave for 5 minutes, it sort of tastes like hot applesauce except not really because I dislike applesauce and this apple is great.

After lunch we watched Saber y Ganar, a game show that asked the weirdest questions. I'm really not sure what was going on because contestants kept disappearing and others kept showing up. I was super confused by that. The questions though were ridiculous, there was a category called "cuatro ojos" or 4 eyes and was all about glasses. Who wants to know all about glasses for a tv show? That person actually knew the answers too....game show contestants always amaze me.... Once that show was done, we watched something in Gallego so I was completely lost and then she switched it to a movie for me to watch while she did something else. 

Let me tell ya, the movie took me forever to realize it was an English movie. It was in Spanish but the sound and lips were matching up ya know? I have no clue what was going on, other than it was hilarious the whole time, except for when the little kid asked the adults where their pants were when he walked in on them.... 

So after awhile Morgan and I went out to explore because who doesn't do that? We ended up seeing QUIDDITCH so we stood around and watched that for awhile at the University. It was interesting figuring out that game. They didn't have brooms, but rather were running around with just sticks that were probably the length of a plunger stick. I'm going to use some really technical Harry Potter terms now, so try to bear with me. 

Get it? BEAR....hahahahahahaahaha

So, those one peoples that hit the balls away to protect the other peoples from getting hit by the flying balls, were actually just chucking balls at people. If you got hit by the ball as you threw for a goal, the goal didn't count and you had to run to your team's goal and tap it with your "broom" before you could go back to playing. I mean you had to do that no matter what if you were hit or not. And I'm bored of explaining Quidditch so just google it, I'm sure its great fun and probably basically the thing we watched, except maybe wiht a snitch. BECAUSE THE SNITCH WAS MISSING, was pretty scary terrible stuff not to have the snitch running about but sometimes you gotta settle.

This isn't actually what was going on.....or what the weapons looked like....

So anyhoo on the same field there was another game going on that apparently popular in Spain, Germany, and somewhere else, and IT IS NOT LARPING. Though they did tell us in Spanish so maybe they told us the Spanish word for Larping. They weren't dressed up though so if they were larping they failed so I'm going with not larping! It's literally were people have swords, made of foam of course, ball and chains, made of not metal of course, and shields, and they run at another team to fight. I'm not really sure of the technical things that go on, but there was someone with something that was kinda cylinder shaped that had to make it to the other side of the field into some goal like thing. It was a fascinating game that had to be talked about, so Morgan took the initiative and we chatted with some guys who were playing the game. They showed us that their foam swords didn't actually hurt, by telling us to hit them with the sword. Then of course Morgan had to get us hit by swords. One of the kids was Danish and spoke to us in English almost immediately, which made us find out that most of the kids speak English. I think they said 80% of kids speak English and understand about 80% of what is said.... They probably just like the number 80. 

Pedro told us that one of his friends had been to the USA before and people kept mistaking them as Latino even though they weren't. He was all "there's a difference!!! like American English and England English" and we were all "yeah!!! but Murica doesn't get that and doesn't get that there is more than just Mexico in Latin America either..." Disclaimer: Not exact quotes because I don't have that great a memory.

Then Morgan made sure that they knew Trump would be our next president. Don't worry, they find Trump just as big a joke as we do! 

Down with Trump!!!!

But yeah Pedro, Oedi, and Axel were great people to chat up with and woo we met people that were students on the 2nd day!!! So other things happened but I'm too lazy to speak of them. Though we did see a lot of street performers once we left the playing field and ventured to old town. There was a harpist just chilling out on the street, and a bagpiper, all doing quite well musically. 

Once I got back to the apartment, Marisa's son came over and started hanging stuff up for her. So I have a full length mirror in my bedroom now because Marisa says "nos mujeres necesitamos verles", "us women need to see ourselves" and theres some new pictures up on the walls throughout the apartment now too. Which all the picture in the apartment are awesome, so its cool that there are even more to stare at! 

In the beginning...

Warning: This is a journal like thing for me, so some of these things may not seem very interesting but I am a pro at journalling and write about basically everything that comes to mind because why censor my thoughts ya know.

Before I began my adventure to Santiago, I figured I should buy another tube of toothpaste since its the one thing I cannot live without. However, Crest disappoints me with this information (which means click on that, even though its not important whatsoever to the story). I am being forced back onto mint toothpaste it would seem, which is the 2nd most disgusting flavor of toothpaste, the 1st most disgusting flavor being cinnamon. Maybe I'll just go for the toothless look from now on....#reallyupset #boocrest

I arrived in Santiago yesterday, January 22nd. To get there, I took a sketchy plane ride to the Chicago airport. First, the plane was delayed like a half hour while we were already out on the run way because a light had come on. The pilot explained it as being, the company needed to fill out some paperwork. So we were delayed because they failed to have paperwork filled out before the plane was supposed to take off I guess. Then, the turbulence was really bad and we were getting blown around everywhere. The people on the plane were actually doing collective gasps which was pretty entertaining for me whenever the turbulence would whip us around. I'm sure the airplane was just listening to the whip nae nae song somewhere. So all in all that was a sketchy plane ride and airplanes should not be allowed to listen to the whip nae nae song.

Because blogs are boring without logos of Iberia

In Chicago we made it safely out of Chicago on Iberia, we didn't even lose the plane like last year! Improvements from last years flight definitely. Luckily this plane ride wasn't sketchy. There was barely anyone on the flight though, so I had my own row basically that I could lie down in and nap. Last year, I had problems with my ears feeling like they were going to implode on the plane ride. Since I have tons of ear problems because of my allergies, I am extremely intolerant of ear pain so this year I tried these weird plugs called "Earplanes". They are supposed to reduce noise or something, but my doctor said they would also help relieve the pressure and keep my ears from perforating. My ears perforate enough as it is. I'm not sure if Earplanes actually work or not because I was also hyped up on allergy meds to help them out but they felt and made everything sound like normal swimming ear plugs do.

Don't worry I googled a picture of it so you wouldn't have to since I only took snapchats of it.

So anyhoo, the Madrid airport is cool and all, but 8 hours in the airport was rather tedious. I was ready to sleep but I couldn't sleep in the airport. The Madrid airport is probably one of my favorite airports out of the many I've been in. It has some pretty cool architecture.  While in the Madrid airport, there was a slight scare when my travel card decided it had the wrong pin number and I couldn't use it. Luckily my mum decided to be up at 3 in the morning, and told me what pin number it had been previously assigned. Somehow it hadn't been changed from what it was assigned to what I had assigned it. I have no clue how it managed to not change when I distinctly remember changing it, cause I really hated the way I had to change it, but I probably did something stupid....

The next plane ride was probably only an hour or something. My fitbit must not work in the sky  because apparently I didn't sleep. I was out for that whole plane ride though. Literally, the whole plane ride.... I woke up for the announcement that we were landing but was out again until the plane actually landed. I wish I had slept like that on the other plane rides! After a few fails on our part because who reads signs at airports, we managed to get our luggage successfully and from there we were picked up from the airport by people (obviously we left the secure part of the airport to find these people), also I failed to mention I was traveling with Timothy and Morgan from the Chicago airport. They missed out on the sketchy plane ride, pobrecitos. 

Tortilla Espanola in the flesh

I met my host mom, Marisa, and she cooked me a tortilla espanola (basically amazingness on a plate). She's awesome. I'm not sure that I actually understand everything she tells me, mostly because I am super jet lagged and not following the conversation well, but she goes back and reexplains things pretty well. She made it very clear that this apartment, which is adorable and very homey, is my home and not just some stranger's home that I'm living in and that she is my Spanish mom not a stranger. So after my quick dinner, which was at like 7pm and pretty early for dinner, I went to bed where my fitbit tells me I slept for 14 hours straight. I obviously needed a bit of sleep or something. 

So today, Jan 23rd, my host mom and I had breakfast together (at like noon because I am a loser and slept 5eva) and then we went on a walk so she could show me where all the places I would need to go for orientation were. So hopefully on Monday I won't get lost and I actually soaked in everything she said! Otherwise, hopefully I'm more map literate than I think I am. I could still find my around pretty well from last year, except for the parts where I wasn't last year because well how would I know those parts? ;P We chatted about last years visit a bit, which I'm not sure if I actually made sense in what I was saying because even after 14 hours of sleep I'm not in thinking/awake mode yet. After our walk, we went back to the apartment and ate some food cause lunch ya know. 

Btw for those who asked me, this is Spain's flag

After my siesta I just kinda chilled in my room until it was time for tapas. My host mom went out after siesta time to visit her aunt, making sure to give me her number in case I got lost, which made me realize I should probably use my spanish phone.... We went out and got tapas and wine. We being the group of study abroaders minus 3 people, so Mary, Margaret, Morgan, and Stephanie. Poor Stephanie being the only non-M'er. I got lost on my way to the park to meet up with them and had a nice little adventure of randomly choosing streets to go up and down because I couldn't find my way. I did have a map in my pocket so I wasn't concerned about it, but I never actually used it because that required figuring out where I was. I just went with my gut and I eventually got there!

We walked around old town for a bit, which is my 2nd favorite place in Santiago, Parque de la Alameda is my 1st favorite place by far. Eventually we found a bar to go eat and drink in and just chatted for a couple hours. It was a fun night and I successfully made it home, which was a worry since I had gotten lost on the way there! I wasn't able to open the apartment complex's outside door though so I had to buzz my host mom. Luckily she was awake or I would have been SOL! 

Disclaimer: I admit to adding pictures because google was calling to me, so none of these pictures were actually taken by me. Google just wanted in on the magic of my first blog post.