Ireland: The pilgrimage to religious places

On Monday March 21st, we began our day with a lovely breakfast. Like this breakfast had all sorts of things involved unlike my breakfasts in Spain. There was meat and cereal and yogurt and oatmeal, everything I could possibly have wanted to eat for breakfast basically. Then we packed up all our stuff and headed to Mercy Center International. Since I was on a school's trip, they obviously had to go see their founding peoples or whatever. So Sister Mary Catherine was the one that started the sisters of Mercy but before she became a sister she started this house place that is now the Mercy Center International. She was all about helping the poor and seemed very social workery, using her inheritance to help those in need. Then she was basically forced into becoming a sister but went with it because it was a way to help those in need still and keep truthful to her religion or whatever. While it was interestingish, I wasn't too interested so I won't bore you with the details of that, but there were blood stains on the floor that hadn't been replaced from back in the day in that place just so everyone is aware. I obviously had too much time on my hands to stare at the old infirmary floor while everyone else was listening to something or other.

Once we were done with that we began our journey to Clonmacnoise. On our way out of Dublin, our amazing tour guide, Tony, told us about the Easter Rising of 1916 and made sure we saw the bullet holes that were left over from the rising on the statues we drove past. It was pretty cool if you ask me. Tony was a wealth of information and I quite enjoyed all the stories that he had to tell, though I cannot say that I will remember all of them.

Photo Cred: Mildred
Clonmacnoise

So Clonmacnoise was a monastery or something that kept getting attacked by vikings. Everyone time it was attacked it would be rebuilt and so there were a bunch of different century things there. The cemetery was pretty cool to check out I suppose.

Photo Cred: Mildred
Clonmacnoise

Well after our tour/visit to Clonmacnoise we headed to our second hotel, Menlo Park. After dinner my mum, second mom and I went on an adventure around Galway. We listened to some music and ate some gelato. At one point we entered a pub but couldn't get in very far because there was people dancing to the musicians playing a guitar, drum, and some sort of flute. I ended up standing in this awkward alcove where there were two guys just sitting there. It was very small and just the three of us were chilling there watching the dancers. I don't actually know what the guys were doing because I decided to not look at them after awkwardly intruding on their alcove. It was extremely awkward though I cannot stress that enough.

As the evening wore down, we began our journey back towards the hotel. At first we were just walking on some random road because I didn't feel like retracing the bus's steps from when Tony dropped us off in town. Then my mum decided we should probably actually go to the hotel because we were getting a cranky second mom. She was being a complete bitch let me tell ya. I was pretty sure on the way we needed to go to get back to the hotel when we did retrace steps but neither my mum nor my second mom believed me so my mum kept asking for directions. I would like to point out that I was completely correct on the directions. My second mom was just bitching about it and tried calling the hotel for directions when we were perfectly fine. Her attitude kept up for the whole trip and let me tell you, it was very grating to the nerves. If you're going to travel, you better be open to getting lost because that's half the fun....

Photo Cred: Mum
Knock: Mosaic in the Basilica

Photo Cred: Mum
Knock

The next day, Tuesday March 22nd, we had another breakfast of anything I could possibly want before heading off to the Marian Shrine at Knock. I wasn't too impressed, but then again I'm not religious and basically just decided that people probably came together and made an elaborate story in order to bring in tourists later on in life. I'm sure they probably thought they saw something but I still wasn't impressed. I did sort of enjoy learning about life back in the day though. There used to be taxes on stuff, I don't remember what the tax actually was now that it comes to writing about it but I know it was a ridiculous tax. We did eventually learn about there being a window tax so some of church windows and such were made smaller so that they didn't have to pay as much when they put glass windows in. It was actually the glass that was taxed. For the most part I was pretty bored at Knock though. The mosaic in the basilica at Knock was pretty cool though. I want to know how long it took them to make it because it's huge...

Photo Cred: Mum
One of the Stations of the Cross

Once we were done at Knock, we headed off to Ballilntubber Abbey. This Abbey is known as "the Abbey that refused to die" because back in the day Catholicism was very much so illegal in Ireland, but people still practiced. I believe this is the Abbey that was built because someone important grew up there and he wanted to repay the people. The only thing was that he accidentally repaid the wrong people because his stonemasons went to the wrong village, so he repaid them twice technically speaking when he did end up building the Abbey after all. So in this Abbey there was no roof for a long while because it was burned by an army in 1653 (yes I'm reading the itinerary that has all this great information about places). Even though the Abbey didn't have a roof, they still had mass there. The children and older adults would get to be under the one section that had a roof but everyone else would just stand under the open sky in rain or shine. I'm sure it rained a lot too. The Abbey has stations of the cross and something else set up outside on the beautiful grounds that are made in a Celtic fashion so we got to see the Celtic version of the stations of the cross and such. It was pretty cool even for us nonreligious people like myself.

Photo Cred: Mum
Ballilntubber Abbey

On our way back to Menlo Park Hotel after Ballilntubber Abbey, we saw Ashford Castle. Tony basically tricked the guy that was guarding the entrance, telling him we were just going to a gold store to buy some stuff because we were golfers. We literally just took some pictures and didn't do anything else. We weren't allowed anywhere near the castle without paying, which we didn't. All we wanted were the pictures after all.

Photo Cred: Mildred
Ashford Castle: All those cars and we ain't allowed over

After that we headed back to Menlo Park Hotel with only some minor car sickness problems because damn was the road not okay. The view was marvelous though, if only I had been able to keep my eyes open without getting motion sick.... Once we got back, mum and I went on another adventure in Galway, just walking around and chatting. The river they got in Galway is pretty cool. When Tony drove us into Galway, he played us some music to get us "in the mood" for going to pubs, because that's what everyone else was doing on the bus. Mum and I made it back to the hotel that night without any problems.

Ireland: The Adventure Begins

So for Semana Santa (also known as SPRING BREAK), my mum and her school had spring break at the same time and they had a trip to Ireland planned out that my mum was on. The only obvious thing to do was join the trip since it was a trip to Ireland and I wanted to go to Ireland. I am extremely glad that her school allowed me to join the trip to so shout out to the wonderful school for letting me tag along!

Photo Cred: Google Images

In order to tag along, I obviously had to get to Ireland which involved a flight to London, 9 hours of sitting in the airport which obviously involved reading 2 books and some games, and then a flight to Dublin. Let me tell you, both flights made me extremely annoyed with Ryanair. I mean sure I was in no hurry to get to London or Dublin, but I didn't need the delays that I was given at all. Especially since they never said the flights were delayed, they had us boarding for what felt like an hour even though the plane hadn't arrived for us to board and we were just standing in line waiting for it to show up. Both places I was overly culture shocked. I didn't get culture shocked in Spain when I arrived in January, but let me tell you going back to an English speaking place was a major culture shock. It took almost the whole week to actual adjust to that.

Photo Cred: Google Images

Anyway after I arrived in Dublin, I had the whole day (because I arrived around 9am or something) to chill and get to the hotel where I would at some point meet the group. I had no clue when they were actually showing up at the hotel because the one day in the itinerary without times for everything obviously had to be the first day. I figured they'd get there around dinner time since I did do some investigating on where they were going and the amount of travel time that would take and then I decided how long they would probably stay at each place.

Well since I decided I had until dinner time, I took a bus into City Center of Dublin and walked around there. EVERYTHING was closed because it was Palm Sunday, obviously great planning on my part, and so I just aimlessly wandered around. Also this may be way too much information, but I really had to pee by now because it was Sunday and I left Saturday afternoon for the airport. I didn't pee at all during my travel time because I refuse to take my bags into a bathroom, that's just gross. I REALLY had to go by then. So I was aimlessly walking around, not really sure where I was going but wanting to find a cafe or something. Cafes are a lot harder to find when nothing is open but eventually I found a Starbucks, that had wifi, and just chilled there for a few hours.

Photo Cred: Google Maps
What my walk looked like

Then with my phone at the ready and backup directions on my iPad, I began my 2 hours walk to the hotel. It took 2 and a half hours though because I took a detour when the highway looked like there wasn't a sidewalk anymore and I wasn't really up to walking on the highway. I made it to the hotel though and only had to wait about an hour or so before they showed up much to my surprise, but then again I forgot dinner isn't around 9 for Americans. I was thinking Spanish time instead of their time so they would've been right on time if I had been thinking American time. So they arrived and we went to our rooms and then we had dinner where mashed potatoes were involved. I love mashed potatoes and didn't realize how much I missed them until I had them...

But yeah that was the beginning of my Ireland adventures. I'm bored of writing so day by day posts seems to be whats going to happen.... yay.....

Mussels Almonds and Saffron oh my

Wednesday, March 16th
So for our cultural event this week, we got to participate in a cooking class!

Photo Cred: Melisa
I have no clue what this is called

Photo Cred: Melisa
Tarta de Santiago

 In our cooking class, we all divided into two teams, there was a lot of us after all. I'm not really sure how many of us decided to go (its obligatory so we didn't actually decide) but there was the 9 from my program and then more from another program as well. Anyhoo I got stuck in the real food team. We had to start by chopping up onions so I being the kind person I am declined and just watched because I didn't want to chop up onions. Obviously I was avoiding the sting onions love to hand out but it didn't work because just about everyone got a little teary eyed. It made for some great jokes at the time though. I helped with the mussels and pulled them outta their shells. I had to cut off some barb like part on them but it was super easy and I went through it pretty fast. I only started getting burned towards the end because the water was so hot that the mussels were chilling in. Oh well though right? The other team was working on tartas de Santiago though. So to make this they used garbanzo beans as a weight to cook part of the crust so it was nice and pushed down, weird I know. And then they did a bunch of other stuff, I just know the garbanzo beans part because I was playing with the warm garbanzo beans while we waited for it to finish cooking. Then Steph and Morgue got the joy of cutting out the sword cross thing that is basically the symbol of Santiago, it may actually be the symbol but that would require I pay attention to know if that's true or not. Then they threw that guy on the tarta and powdered sugared the crap outta it.... like so much so the piece of tape couldn't be used to pull up the paper sword cross. It was hilarious. After that we got to eat all the yummy food. I wasn't a big fan of the tarta de santiago because of the texture. It had lemon peel in it so I'm sure that's what was making the texture grosslike. Other than that it was all wonderful and we had a wonderful time talking.
It was a great cultural event, but then I may have had an allergic reaction to one of those two things I ate and it wasn't so fun after that. So basically I may be allergic to mussels, almonds, or saffron but who knows because there was a lot of common allergy foods in that meal! #lyfewoo

Life Update: Week 6: Rolling Rock Champion

Week 6 of classes marks the halfway point for classes. So here's to being halfway done with classes! Of course there is spring break not being counted so I still have 7 weeks before exams and 8 weeks before the program is completely done. I'm not ready to be halfway through the program, I need more time!

Which brings me to my annoyance and frustration of the day, which this blog post has a lot of frustrations in it in case you wanted a warning. Today after my internship, Mary and I went to talk with Gene about whether we could count our outside reading hours as preparation hours for our internship. She said we weren't supposed to have any outside/preparation hours at all, everything was supposed to be done at our internship, which is ridiculous because we have to prepare for some things such as book club. We already have barely any free time and she's making us count less hours than we put in. I'm super frustrated with the fact that we barely have any free time and they are preventing us from doing a lot of things that we want to do because in the afternoons all we get to do is our volunteering or internships. We don't get to have classes with other students either, so when exactly are we supposed to be making friends, when we rarely have a chance to speak with people our age, and practicing our Spanish? It's ridiculous and I'm just getting exhausted with the schedule that we have.

Photo Cred: Google Images
But seriously... how are we supposed to do that?

Anyhoo! This week was interesting to say the least. At my volunteer I'm pretty sure the person was talking in Spanish instead of Gallego, when they normally speak Gallego, because I was actually understanding what she was saying when she as going over the newspaper. I lost her a few times when she did switch to Gallego to talk to another worker but other than that I was following. She was also teaching people how to say "My name is" in English and ended up writing it out on the board to say "mai naim is" for pronunciation to make it easier for people to say. I got to pass the balloon around to get people moving for my volunteer and some of the adults were being ornery. I just patiently waited for them instead of arguing with them to pass the balloon though. I'm pretty sure they were making fun of me but they were speaking Gallego so I only got the fact that they were talking about me and laughing really hard. Plus they were trying to not let me get the balloon too. It was nice to have them in good moods even if they were feeling ornery. It was a good ornery at least.

On Wednesday, I went to make up my internship hours that I skipped last week, plus this last Monday when I was feeling too motion sick to move so I hadn't gone. Wednesdays are the day that they clean a cemetery I found out. It wasn't really a cemetery but a path outside the cemetery. The cemetery was a lot nicer looking than one in the USA, it was all about the green life and looked more like a personalized family cemetery than anything. I mean it could have been just a family cemetery, I have no clue. Anyhoo, we were cleaning a path outside the cemetery up. So everyone got put into teams with different jobs, and I got put on the rock moving team. Well the rocks were huge and too big for anyone to carry so we had to roll them.

Photo Cred: Google Images

Okay so maybe the rocks were smaller than this boulder, but it sure felt like they were that big. It took a lot of time to roll the rock from the start point to the stairs where they then had to be rolled CAREFULLY down into a building and then out the building to the rock pile on the other side. The start point to the stairs was pretty long too. I didn't have any gloves because cleaning the cemetery was a surprise and I forgot my weeding gloves in the USA that I don't even own. Also in case you don't know, it rains a lot in Santiago so we were working in "mud". It was pretty solid mud for the most part but the rocks were covered in mud from being dug up and then we were rolling them into mud. Needless to say, my hands got a little bit on the muddy side and then my jacket did as well because I gave up rolling rocks after I rolled two to the stairs since it was bothering my wrists. I started carrying rocks though that were small enough to carry so that got my jacket pretty dirty.

It was an experience to say the least, and pretty funny when you think about my group struggling to roll rocks down a path and getting them down the stairs. I wouldn't say it was the funnest thing I've ever done, but it wasn't terrible. It was entertaining for sure. One of my friends after I told them I was rolling rocks around made a "Rolling Stones" joke about it, which I mean I guess I was rolling some stones around too. Because rocks and stones are the same to me. After that we were supposed to go to a self defense class for our internship, but we needed to get cleaned up before our required tapas night that the school randomly has sometimes so we had to skip that.

Photo Cred: Google Images
I'm the true expert of Rolling Stones now

Tapas was okay. I found an alcoholic beverage (#cider) that wasn't terrible. That I'd be willing to drink. In fact, I almost ordered it without realizing it had alcohol in it because one of my other friends had ordered it and I was like "GIVE ME CIDER," but then someone pointed out there was alcohol in it so I decided not to. Someone made a huge deal about how I was going to drink alcohol which made me feel like I was doing something wrong which pissed me off. I can drink alcohol if I want, I don't see why it has to be a big deal, but I digress. Mostly because I wanted to say digress.

Photo Cred: Google Images
CIDER.. GIVE... NOW...

On Thursday in my first class of the day, we were put in groups to write a story based off a song we listened to. Now for those of you who can't tell by my blog posts, I'm a story writer. I write stories, its my life. So I was put in a group to write a story and I was ready to go until I heard who I was in a group with. We had to come up with a group name and I was all for "Elefantes intelligentes" because Elephants have amazing memories so they would be great story tellers. Instead we ended up being "Lana" because we were both wearing things made from yarn. Lamest name ever I must say, but my group member didn't give a shit what I thought. Then we get to the story making part and I would say things just to have my ideas shot down or ignored, which is never good for me. If I get shot down or ignored I'm just going to shut down because why should I even bother? What's the point in me trying if what I say isn't even taken into account. I was pissed and frustrated and feeling extremely hurt from it. It was a wonderful moment where my depression just popped its head in and was like "okay we will take over from here" since I had shut down. I love when I just give up and shut down and it seems like there is no stopping it... After class though I had a lovely chat with my host mom, I think Obama was discussed and my rock rolling abilities were for sure discussed. And after lunch, I spent the rest of the day in my room recuperating from my social interactions of the day that had not been successful. My recuperation took me 4 tv episodes and 2 movies before I was ready to do anything and by that time it was dark and I didn't really feel like going out since it was dark out so I watched another 2 movies. I'm a loser, I know, but I watched some great movies that I've been wanting to see forever.

Photo Cred: Google Images
One of the movies I watched

Photo Cred: Google Images
Another movie I watched

On Friday, I had my internship where I couldn't think of the words "your, his, hers, their, our" in English but I could think of them in Spanish. Too bad it was an English learning class right? Not that I have perfect English grammar or anything close to it, but I probably should have been able to think of your instead of tuyo. We ended up getting out of our internship early so Mary and I went to get chocolate con churros (okay I wanted froyo but the place was closed so we had to improvise) and we checked out a few shops as well. Then we went to chat with Gene and as you read above, it was a very frustrating conversation.

Anyhoo, that was my halfway point week, where I rolled rocks like a champion and now my body is super sore and not happy with me. 

ESN Trip: Part 3: Sevilla

So on Friday we arrived in Sevilla, but we didn't really do much. Steph and I went on a walk to buy pizza at Telepizza, which we have wanted to do basically since we got to Spain. We took the first chance we could to buy it since in Santiago we aren't going to buy it with our host moms cooking meals for us, never pass up a "free" meal (that you already paid for) is our philosophy in life. I also no longer was living on the 2 euro life after this walk, so excitement, I could eat again! Not that I haven't been eating, but my galletas only could get me so far in life ya know? Oh and in Sevilla I was rooming with Morgana and Melisa. 

So on Saturday, March 5th, the Sevilla adventure actually began. I'm pretty sure Friday night they had a big, huge party that I didn't go to because I didn't feel like buying the party pack. I mean why would I buy it when I'm not a partier ya know? Speaking of the party pack though, everyone who bought the party pack, got a condom in it (and a t-shirt that says "responsible party" on the back). The condoms were great though because they had "ooo", "ahh", or other things written on them. My favorite was "umm" because it led to great jokes such as "umm should we google how to do this", "umm wikihow to have sex". In all honesty, who puts the word "umm" on a condom? Its like you aren't even sure about what you're getting into! 

But as I was saying, the Sevilla adventure began with breakfast. It was slightly disappointing since it was a normal Spain breakfast of bread and bread and bread. There wasn't even very many types of bread, though they did have my favorite prepackaged croissant rolls that I can eat 300000000 of in one sitting (okay maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit). Once breakfast was eaten and people were awoken, we started the touring! We weren't on schedule though because of the big party the night before making other people want to sleep, but we tried to stay on schedule, mostly because I wasn't in the ESN whatsapp group that said the time was pushed back so we were ready to go at the scheduled time without knowing important, vital information! 

Photo Cred: Obviously this is an ESN photo
The start of the Sevilla Adventure Tours

So we began our adventure at this water fountain that you can't see in the above picture because we had a lot of people in our group. That's our super cool group of ESN Santiago people though, we even got a sign to proclaim we are ESN Santiago, which was very helpful since Sevilla was the party central for ESN and there were so many ESN groups. Shortly after taking the above picture we got one with ESN Uric too. The tour was cool and we got to learn a bunch of history, which I did not soak in because I was looking at cool things and not really paying attention. I'm pretty sure a lot of the history that we learned about had death in it though, because death always makes for a good story after all. 

Photo Cred: Obviously ESN
Sevilla Cathedral

The first city tour ended at the Cathedral of Sevilla, which was pretty snazzy looking. I felt like I was looking at a castle when I saw it. Sevilla was really just all around gorgeous looking. We did a lot of walking tours through Sevilla, that was basically what our whole day was, but when you think about all the cool things we saw obviously the best way to do that was walking tours. Some people went in the Cathedral, I think, but it was a long line and we chose to use our free time to do other things. One of Melisa's friends is studying in Sevilla right now and said we had to go to a certain bakery because it was probably the best bakery and our life would forever be changed. Okay I'm not really sure why we had to go, but I'm sure that's probably the reason. So the cool group, plus a lot of additions and minus Greg, went to the bakery during our hour or so of free time between walking tours. Technically it was our lunch time, so some people actually bought food. I was living on the galletas diet because I was promised Telepizza again for dinner so didn't feel like buying food for lunch when I knew I would be eating dinner later.

Photo Cred: Mildred
Ania and Carlos

So, two every important people in our cool people group, would have to be Ania and Carlos. Ania is from Poland and she didn't actually want to study medicine in Santiago, she was wanting to go to France, but it didn't work out in her favor so she is in Santiago. I personally am pretty glad it didn't work out because I wouldn't have gotten to meet her and she's awesome. The day of the Sevilla adventures was her 25th birthday, so we had a dance session/celebration in front of the cathedral after our free lunch time to celebrate her birthday. We were using the microphone that was supposed to be used during the tour for talking and information giving, which it was used for that too, for playing music from a phone so that all in our group could hear. It definitely made our ESN group the best ESN group in Sevilla, plus the fact that it was the group I was in because let's be honest, I'm biased and would say any group I was in was the best group. So Ania was super cool, I mean she still is and hopefully we will have many more meet ups to come. Then there was Carlos, the older brother I've never had. In Sevilla, okay maybe in C-town as well, Steph and I were acting very mature let me tell ya and we may have gotten told we remind him of his little sister with all our antics. So we became the little sisters to keep his homesickness that he never mentioned at bay. We are nice people like that. In C-town, he became a liar because he told us he was 19 but then later revealed he was actually 21 almost 22. Always a liar in our hearts. He's from Mexico and is studying Law at Santiago and only has 15 hours and 3 days of class a week, which Ania was very quick to mention because she has a lot more. Carlos basically said that Santiago was a vacation not schooling.  Basically throughout the whole day in Sevilla, we were yelling "besos" whenever Ania and Carlos were around each other because everyone thought they were adorable together or something, at least thats what I thought. Ania wasn't exactly happy with us for that, but we must express ourselves! But anyhoo, back to the Sevilla Adventures....

Photo Cred: Mildred
Cynthia, Ania, and I outside the Cathedral

Photo Cred: Carlos, who stole my camera
The "To Die For" Bakery

Photo Cred: Mildred
So many horses

Photo Cred: Mildred
Carlos and Steph being weird

Photo Cred: Mildred
The Metro line that was basically a sidewalk

Photo Cred: Mildred
Sevilla

In the area of Sevilla we were in for our lunch break, there were millions (yes exaggerating again) of horses. Horses, horses, horses, all ready to pull you around Sevilla and show off the sites. Of course we didn't use the horses for such purposes, but it was an option. Before our lunch break during our walking tour, we did come across a protest and let me tell you it was the silentest protest I ever did see. I'm not sure what exactly they were protesting but it had something to do with interpreters for the hearing impaired. People were walking around carrying signs (the cardboard kind) and doing signs to talk about it (not the cardboard kind but the hand kind). I don't speak sign language though so I didn't understand, I obviously needed an interpreter. The protest was happening on the metro line, which there is a picture above to show. We quite literally just were walking around on the line like it was a sidewalk. During the protest the line was shutdown but after lunch it was back up and running whenever the metro was trying to get through it would just honk at people to get off the tracks and continue on its merry way. 

During lunch we had a nice break in some plaza where Carlos and Steph were being weird, though we were always weird when Carlos was around because siblings no matter how unrelated are weird together. It was a pretty cool plaza, with a statue of a horse and rider in the middle and then the ground had different pictures made from rocks to try and figure out what they were.
After our lunch free time break we took another tour where we needed up in Plaza de Espana or whatever, which let me tell you is a pretty plaza and pictures do not do it justice. I can try though! I'm not really sure what the point of the Plaza was, but there were lots of places with signs to show different places in Spain so it was literally a Plaza to celebrate different Spain locations in my opinion, but I have no clue what the actual point of it was or if it was even to do any celebrating at all. 

Photo Cred: Mildred
Plaza de Espana 

Photo Cred: Mildred
Plaza de Espana with a random stranger in the picture

Photo Cred: Mildred
Plaza de Espana

Photo Cred: Mildred
Plaza de Espana

Photo Cred: Mildred
Plaza de Espana

The Plaza de Espana was gorgeous and definitely worth all the walking around we did. It was also where I decided how truly awesome the group I went on this trip was because one of the "venders" tried to get Timothy to buy something from her and as he was walking over to the stuff she was selling, a bunch of different people in the group grabbed him and made him walk away telling him it wasn't a safe idea at all. We've been warned a lot to ignore the women trying to "sell" or "give gifts" to you on the streets because they are going to try and steal from you somehow so it was nice seeing that everyone in the group had our backs if we tried to do something that wasn't a bright idea.
The picture that I have here with a random stranger in it is only making the blog because it was the perfect shot and then the stranger got in the picture without warning me, so I took another but it wasn't as good as the one he's in so I have settled with this random guy being my favorite random stranger of the trip, not that I have any other good pictures of random strangers because he's the only one that got in the way.

After Plaza de Espana, we walked through an area of ceramics. There obviously was a lot of ceramic work in this area, which really everywhere in Sevilla I think had a lot of ceramics going on, but this road we walked down was all about that life. It was just wide enough for a car to drive down with two people walking on opposite sides of the road, not as narrow as some of the roads we saw, but the tour guide pointed this out for some reason so I will too.

Photo Cred: Mildred
Ceramics

So one of the buildings we stopped at on this road is pictured above. You can't really see all the details in the picture and it doesn't do it justice at all. The tour guide made us find the date the ceramic building was made, which actually took awhile because it was "hidden" within the ceramics. Its between the large two windows at the top on opposite sides of the small two windows at the top in case you wanted to know where the year was. Obviously hard to explain where they are. After our walk down the ceramic road we headed back to the hotel and that was the end of our walking tours. Steph and I went and bought dinner, which ended up not being telepizza. We had guac and chips instead along with raspberries and apple juice boxes. It was a good dinner but gave me some wicked acid reflex so that was a pleasant experience.
There was another super huge party for the party pack people that night and I'm sure that everyone had fun during the party. Then at 11 o'clock on Sunday, March 6th, we packed up the bus and began our journey back to Santiago. I tempted fate and challenged my car sickness to a duel, which I sorely lost and was not pleased with losing at all. I had to finish my book that I had started reading the night before though! I was in suspense and car sickness was not going to hold me back! I got super car sick though and felt like puking, which is great because I don't normally feel like puking when I get car sick. Then today, March 7th, I still feel pretty car sick and couldn't move for awhile because of it. It was a great feeling let me tell you. 

ESN Trip: Part 2: Córdoba

I refuse to say the name of the city we traveled to on Friday, March 4th, because I can't put the accent in without Blogger being weird so just refer to the title to know where I'm talking about. I will be calling it C-Town though since I probably will want to reference the city at some point.

Photo Cred: Mildred
Our first view of C-town

Photo Cred: Mildred
The ESN Santiago group leaders
Location: Sevilla

Photo Cred: Mildred
The Narrow Road 

So it was about a 2 hour drive or so from Granada to C-town and we got a couple of hours to hang out in C-town. It was a city/town/whatever you want to call it, that had a strong Arab presence in it during history. There was a mosque that we could go in, some people did but I didn't because of the 3 euro life and I was more interested in exploring C-town than the mosque. We got a nice tour of C-town from our cool ESN people, which here is a picture of our cool ESN people in cause you wanted to know how was in charge of us for our long weekend. Anyhoo so we went on a road that was nice and narrow and pretty cool that lead to a little plaza with a fountain but it was a dead end. That was where the tour ended and the fun began. One of the leaders had pointed out a place that sold 50 cent cervezas so almost everyone in our group ended up there for "lunch" and chill time. This is where we met our people, because why shouldn't we call our new friends "our people". After everyone did some drinking and chilling we split up into groups, people who wanted to see the mosque and the cool people group (obviously my group). 

Photo Cred: Mildred
I'm ready to use my key to unlock this huge key hole

Photo Cred: Mildred
I have no clue what this. but it's cool

Photo Cred: Mildred
Because I needed an irrigation picture

 So once we split into the cool people group, we just walked around aimlessly and explored C-town. I don't really know what else to say except we were great explorers who probably gave Dora the explorer a run for her money because of our awesomeness. In fact I'm pretty sure I'm calling it C-town because its where the cool people came together and created the coolest group of kids ever.
We sat outside the Mosque for awhile towards the end for some people, all the cool people except the Mildred of now 2 euros to her name, to eat ice cream and sunbath (okay I was part of the sunbathing party). We had some great inside jokes created, such as Carlos is beautiful and a liar (beautiful liar?). It was just a very relaxing day with new friends and I greatly enjoyed it. I didn't even have to pretend like I knew how to make friends, they did all the work for me.
After a couple hours in C-town, we loaded up into the bus to head to Sevilla where the ESN big huge party was going to take place. I'm assuming its their winter party but I'm not sure if its still winter or not because what are seasons. ESN has a huge party 3 times a year or something like that though and when I say huge I mean someone said 2,000 people huge. But that's for the next post, since this one was only to congratulate myself on making friends somehow, probably with magic.

ESN Trip: Part 1: Granada

Photo Cred: Melisa
Alhambra, Granada

During our first week of what I would consider real classes, we decided to take off for a long, extended weekend. ESN, which is a group also known as "Erasmus Student Network", is for international students to get involved in stuff. They have a ton of activities planned throughout the week and then plan different weekend trips to places. Some of my friends took an ESN trip to Porto, Portugal in February and our trip to Andalusia, Spain was an ESN trip. Compared to what it would have cost us to travel to the three different cities that we went to with ESN, we saved a heck of a lot of money so missing class was definitely worth the price that we paid for the trip. Anyhoo, on Wednesday, March 2nd, we began our journey around midnight. We went to class and everything that day, so we only really missed one class. We even went to the horrible cultural activity which was a 2 hour tour of the old zone of Santiago, because we haven't been around for a month now or anything. I slept for most of the bus ride, with my own seat and everything because I don't know how to share. The bus ride was about 12 hours or something, with us arriving in Granada around noon or 1, I'm not really sure when we arrived. We checked into our hotel and then the adventures began. We started our adventures at Alhambra, which was gorgeous. I would say it was like a garden with some castle things going on.

Photo Cred: Melisa
Alhambra, Granada

Photo Cred: ESN
Probably in Granada on our city tour with Alhambra in the background? #noclue

After the Alhambra, we went on a city tour of Granada and learned all about the calle de triste or something like that. There was a hotel that everyone left sick for a reason I can't remember anymore, but we were all ready to hike over to it and weren't "allowed" to because we had to get in our city tour. The tour was wonderful and we got to see a bunch of cool things. The cathedral where we started the tour had red writing, graffiti, on the walls because when you graduate something back in the day, you would try and climb as high as you could and leave your mark on the cathedral. I'm pretty sure that is what our guide told us. It was rather hard to pay attention since it was later in the day and we were starting to space out. I know it was an interesting history lesson but I just can't say that I took a lot of it in.

Photo Cred: ESN
Flamenco 

After our tour we went for tapas, where I just stared at people while they ate because I didn't want to order a drink. I mean I did go to Granada with only 3 euros (cash) to my name, so I wasn't really feeling in the mood to buy anything while I was there. There was some great elephant pants that I wanted though, everywhere I looked I saw elephant pants so its a really good thing I didn't have money on me. Then we went to a Flamenco shop after tapas. I wasn't super impressed with the show. The guitarist was amazing but both dancers seemed bored out of their minds when they weren't dancing and were just backup singers or whatever. The singer seemed rather bored as well. I just didn't get the vibe that they wanted to be there and it sort of ruined it for me. The dancing was dramatic and they obviously had practiced a lot to do some of the moves, but some of the time they just reminded me of a child throwing a temper tantrum with tap shoes on.

In Granada we got to do rooms of three, so Timothy, Steph, and I roomed together. I decided we were great roommates. The next morning, we had a great breakfast that wasn't a Spanish breakfast at all. There was more than just bread ya feel me? We had bacon, and eggs, oh how I love eggs, and there was yogurt and a whole bunch of stuff. The breakfast was included with our ESN price for the trip but a sign said it was 7 Euros, cause hotels don't do free continental breakfasts. I enjoyed breakfast and all but if I had to pay for the breakfast, I probably would have just gone to a supermarket and bought something there. Around 11 we were checked out and on the road to head towards Córdoba. 

Baila Gallego y A Coruna: The Guayest

On Wednesday, Feb 17th, we had a class for learning a traditional Galician dance. First we got a lesson on the tradition dress for it, rich and poor style, and then we got to dress up in their traditional clothing. Once we were done dressing up, we were taught some of the dance moves. Basically we are experts on dancing the Galician style, not really since I don't remember any of the dance moves. There was a lot of hopping around though. At the end of our session we were given the opportunity to play the instruments. The instruments could have been anything, from things made to actually be instruments to what Timothy is holding, a frying pan. Everything makes music if you just let it.

Photo Cred: No Clue
We take music seriously.

On Friday, Feb 19th, we went to A Coruña for class. The weird coloring of the city name is because Blogger likes being a buttface and doesn't like ñ's. Anyhoo, we went on a walking tour of some places basically with our teachers. I mean it was the last Friday of class so we had to go do something fun after all. We went to a museum sort of place, it was someone's house though I forget her name. The museum was quite literally a feminist museum and actually rather interesting. After the museum we went to a cafe, where there was no food and everyone was hungry, but it was a bookstore so we read a little kids book about bellybuttons. It was great. Then we went somewhere for tapas and after that our teachers took off and we were left alone to do whatever we wanted. 

Since some people didn't make it to Torre de Hercules last time we were in A Coruña, we headed there. Some people, including me, paid the 3 euro to climb to the top of the lighthouse, which is the oldest still working Roman lighthouse in the world might I add. There was a history section on the way up, where the ground level had a bunch of history and then as we climbed there was history too. It was all very pleasant on the eyes and then we got to the top and saw the ocean. I probably would have stood up there all day, so I probably should quit school and become a lighthouse operator now, because the ocean was such a marvelous view. It was very peaceful and totally worth the 3 euro, in fact I would probably do it again. After we were done with our ocean viewing, we headed down to near the ocean where the waves were huge. Timothy got great action shots of the waves coming in behind him and we could taste the ocean spray we were that close. Obviously we didn't get super close because the ocean was in a violent mood that day, beating against the rocks with vengeance, but we got close enough to feel the ocean spray and taste it.

Then we started walking back towards the train station only to realize we were missing a Steph so we had to go in search of her before ending the day with a nice train ride home. 

Life Update: Week 4 of Classes

This week is our final week of grammar class or whatever this class is. Monday in our grammar class, Timothy and Morgan introduced our teacher to some nice videos, such as Obama's Victory Dance and then taught her the dance. In our culture class after that we were introduced to "Que dificil es hablar el espanol" because we introduced her to Billy La Bufanda. Tuesday in our grammar class we took the written portion of our test and had a discussion on a bunch of topics, one of which was Climate Change. Basically I could have formed great arguments against some of the things people said because of my Climate Change class last semester, but the whole talking idea threw me off slightly. Let's be honest here, I rarely talk unless I have to, though sometimes here I chime in without being prompted. It's weird because I normally need to be prompted to talk.
Our internship on Monday wasn't too bad this time. We had small groups for the skill building "class" where you just sat there and chatted. I'm too awkward for such life but for the most part my groups kept the conversation going, except the person who didn't want to be there. That person would answer if we asked 'em something but I suck at coming up with questions. At first one of them wasn't sure how to talk to me since they didn't think I spoke Spanish, and they had to ask someone else how to talk to me. Then other people would want to talk to me in English since they are talking English classes as well and want to practice, so they would talk in a mixture of English and Spanish. Much like how people just learning Spanish in the US do it, say whatever words they can remember in English and then the rest in their native tongue. That was probably the hardest to understand because they kept switching languages and its really hard to catch what they are saying when they speak English because it sounds so different than in the US. Accents are hard....