Tuesday, February 15, 2011

¡Hola!
So I have had quite the busy week, between classes, errands and of course my weekend trip to London!
So to begin the week, I had classes. Those went well, as usual... although my advanced grammar class is a little too easy for my liking. For example, we learned the genero, aka masculine and feminine nouns. Yup, I believe that I learned those my first day of Spanish class 4 years ago. So that resulted in my notes from that day looking like this:
But, the bright side is that this comic is completely in Spanish, and about the genero! Yup, I am thinking about going pro.. ;). In cooking class We learned how to make a tomato sausage stew, a fish soup with potatoes and some green sauce, and my favorite... Churros and chocolate :) 




 The ingredients and some churros :)

On Wednesday, a friend and I climbed the castle and passed some guys playing soccer. They decided that it would be cute to kick the soccer ball at us (our heads) and that we would be flattered. We, mainly me, were not flattered in the least bit, and refused to run after the soccer ball to retrieve it for them. This made some of the guys mad and they started swearing at us, to which I replied that I would throw the ball back once I reached it, but I refused to run for it.  They continued to swear at us, and only one guy thanked me for throwing their ball back to them. Later, my friend and I are convinced they threw a shoe at us... We were walking on the sidewalk below the field, and all of a sudden we heard a thud, and saw a shoe on the sidewalk... And I have now given up the hopes of a cute Spanish boyfriend... that should make my dad happy.
And now... Londres :)
My London trip was a blast. I arrived on Friday morning and made it to the hostel around 3 in the afternoon, thanks to a ridiculously long customs line and some traveling by trains. I met up with my friends ( one who goes to NAU with me and is currently studying in France and one of her friends) We then walked around the area looking around. Later we got some fish and chips and a Guinness beer at the hostel. I had never tried Guinness before, but I must say I am a fan ;) The fish and chips weren't bad either. We then just hung out and talked. 


The next morning we caught a bus into downtown London and wandered around, catching sites like Big Ben, the London Eye, Westminster Abby, Parliament Building, Buckingham Palace, the London, Waterloo, and Tower Bridges, The London Tower, St. Paul's Cathedral, and a few more, but those were the main ones. We didn't pay to go into anywhere because it was really expensive, especially with the exchange rate, but we all wish that we could have gone into the Tower of London. We walked everywhere too, and that is saying something since all the main attractions are along the river, so they are definitely spread out and not near each other... But we had a fabulous time just walking around London and being tourists. We even ran through a park, just for the heck of it (and all screamed when we found out that there was a giant mud puddle in the middle of the field haha, the looks we got were priceless). 










After a busy day of sight-seeing we hurried back to the hostel to get ready for Les Mis. We ended up getting off one stop early and started running to our hostel, which is when we realized that the bus stopped in front of our hostel... and the bus passengers were laughing at us. I feel like we got a good workout that day though haha :) We were in such a hurry to get ready in the hostel that our dinner was nutella sandwiches and we had to take a cab to get there on time. While waiting for the cab, we had to head to the gas station on the corner to get money... what my friends did not realize was that it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to speed walk in high heels. Without them fine, but with I am painfully slow. And they were trying to run. Eventually I said eff it and ran in my tights. Like my mother always says, you can dress me up, but not take me out. My friends also realized that I had quite the temper, which I took out on the ATM machine (because my feet hurt) and they found it extremely amusing to watch haha. The cab was waiting for us when we returned and we had a nice cab ride there, which included the cab driver laughing at me (I was still a little agitated lol, apparently I am amusing to watch when annoyed??) and us when we started singing I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys, haha. We got there with about 7 minutes to spare, and realized that no one in London dresses up for musicals. We and aprox. 5 other people were dressed formally, everyone else was wearing jeans. The woman who sat next to us was a real riot though. She told us that we all looked gorgeous and that it was nice to see that other people still cared about formal occasions (she was also dressed nicely). She then explained that the reason she was there was because her boyfriend was in the doghouse, but it wasn't anything an expensive musical couldn't fix haha. 
The play was amazing and I cannot believe that I finally got to see it live! When the opening music started, I just started grinning because I was there, even though the musical is beyond depressing. The only thing that bothered me is that because I grew up watching the dream cast 10th anniversary concert, some of the characters didn't work for me. I wasn't too big of a fan of the man who played Javert or the woman who played Cosette (but then again, I never really liked Cosette) The actress who played Eponine however was brilliant, and so was Valjean. I also liked Marius and Fantine. I shockingly made it through the musical dry-eyed, unlike my companions, but it was incredible. Once it ended, I wanted to watch it again!








After the musical we headed to a restaurant for some wine and desserts. We ordered a nice rose wine that tasted like strawberries, and a coffee dessert. Afterwards, we ordered some real food haha. It was so much fun just hanging out, dressed to kill and talking about the musical. We caught a night bus back, which apparently surprised some of the English, because we were Americans on a night bus. They also explained to us that we are supposed to call them English, not British, because they are from England, and I forgot the rest of the reasoning.. But they were a super nice couple who we talked with on the bus ride back.






The next day is when all the trouble started... due to my great time management skills. I ended up leaving for the airport later than planned due to losing my room key and having to find that, one of the trains I needed being closed and having to wait for a cab. I also underestimated how long the express train took to get to the airport. Like I said, great time management skills...
So after sprinting through lines and the airport, I missed my flight by 5 fricken minutes!! >:( I ended up being stuck in the London airport for 20 hours until the next flight.. I saw others in the same situation, my favorite being the guy on a computer drinking a bottle of wine haha, but I guess I learned my lesson. It's okay to be late for anything but flights. Those I need to be on time for. So you will only hear me say this once... It was my own stupid fault for missing the flight. Ask me about this any other time though and I will blame everyone or every thing but myself, and I will deny ever confessing it was my fault ;) But I made it home, and am now back into the routine of school and other fun stuff. 
Granada is this weekend.. YAY! And it's a lot harder to miss a bus than a flight :)
Oh and I decided that England is the Northwest of Europe, the weather is even more gloomy than Washington! I was starting to miss my sunshine (ironically it's raining here right now... )
Well I believe that's all for now folks, sorry for such a long post!

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Swimsuits Optional

¡Hola!
First off, the weather here is gorgeous! Sunny and in the 60's! And it's only February! :)
So I had a busy fun week to share with you all :) First off, is my cuisine class. We made Fideua, a pasta like dish with lots of seafood. We added clams, muscles, shrimp (with heads and shells included) and many other things. It was delicious, (I even ate the shrimp whole, they were good, but I prefer headless and shell-less). Next we made tortilla de patatas. This is a very popular dish is Spain and is very good. It is made with eggs, potatoes and onions. You then pretty much make an omelet like dish. I off course managed to burn myself a little and broke my tortilla during the flipping process... ohhh well. For desert we made an unhealthy version of french toast.. aka torrijas. You soak the bread in milk, dip in eggs then deep fry them. Afterwards, you coat the torrijas in sugar and eat. Overall the class was fun and I can't wait to try out some of these recipes at home (without the burning myself and breaking my tortilla part, of course :).
 I had classes till Thursday, then Friday I had my favorite adventure in Spain so far. Two friends (Anna and Sarah ) and I were going to rent bikes and ride them to a famous beach about 5 miles away from here. We for some reason couldn't rent bikes, so we decided to walk. We started walking, but ran out of road after less than a mile. So we started walking on the beach, over giant rocks for the most part. We then realized that there was a road on the other side of the wall that we were walking on...! So we scaled the wall, got lots of funny looks from the drivers and a few honks because we are hot americans ;). We walked on that road for a while, then ran out of road again! So we went back to climbing over giant boulders and walking on the beaches. I loved it though. We found some beautiful little beaches, that I prefer more that the public beaches. These are called calas in Spanish :) We also found a sofa on some random cliff overlooking the ocean, haha. I wish that my XC team had been there, based on our history with random couches found in nature ;D. We passed through a lot of local small towns, some were so empty we felt like we were in a horror movie about tourists, haha. We finally made the beach, San Juan. We stayed for a little, then took the bus back to Alicante. On this trip I noticed that swimsuits truly are optional here... on our hike we saw about 3 naked guys and numerous women with only half a swimsuit... ohh Europe.
I also started running again. I ran a total of 2 times this week, which is a good start I think. For those who didn't know I quit the XC team at NAU, and haven't been running too much since then. I ran along the beach, and it is a gorgeous place to run. Although I made the mistake of running during everyones afternoon stroll today... and Spaniards walk so SLOW and take up the entire sidewalk at the same time. Very frustrating for someone trying to run..
Last night I went out with my host sister and her friends. It was really fun, but I still need to adjust to their schedule. We didn't start getting ready till midnight, left at one, and stayed out till 6 in the morning! I skyped my parents after I got back. They were a little shocked that I woke up early, but even more surprised when I told them I hadn't gone to bed yet! haha
Oh and today was the birthday of a family friend, Paco. So we went out to an Italian restaurant yesterday and today my host mom made octopus today. She said that I came to the best house for octopus, and I can see why. It was delicious!! Afterwards we had some chocolate cake that I made. They were a little taken aback when I told them that there could not be a birthday dinner without cake as long as I was there. So I made a cake, without measuring tools, but it came out delicious! :)
Well, I believe that is all for now. Everyone enjoy their Superbowl game today! I am off to watch Real Madrid vs Real Sociedad :)
♥Torin
 :)
 yummy
 Mi madre espaƱola y Chico
 Tortillas (mines the broken one, middle bottom)

 Fideua
 Should we touch it? 





















My Spanish boyfriend ;)
 Graffiti is everywhere here
La playa de San Juan