Trip to Estella, the city of dreams...

Emanuel, Alia, Me, Estefania








Hello everyone,

I don´t know who reads this but I hope you enjoy it. I am lazy about doing it but any writing is good practice.

Spain is treating me pretty well. My classes are way to easy though, and I often don´t go because I have already learned a lot of the information. I hope the classes are more difficult next semester. We only have final tests so it could get pretty scary. We have finals on the 19th and most of my friends will be returning home. Most will return here in late January, so I will be here over christmas.

I don´t have specific plans for christmas but I know I will be with my friend tef cause she is here aswell. We will have to buy some chestnuts which they sell on the streets here and have a grand ole christmas.

Thanksgiving was great. All of us Americans played a huge game of football in the city park. It was really funny because we were infront of the bus station and I am sure the Spaniards had no idea what was going on. Later on we went to Bob´s house, to eat a huge feast of turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and all the other fixings. It was really nice, and they had the nicest apartment I have been in. It overlooks the famous plaza where the running of the bulls is held. We had to all say what we were thankful for and it was just like normal. We had Spanish deserts after the meal and they have these cookies that are like Russian Tea cakes but way better. It was like eating powder, but good powder.

We haven´t traveled for a while so we went to the bus station last saturday and just picked a random destination on the wall. The town was estella, it has 14000 people and i loved it. It was only 3 euros to go there, which is super cheap. We climbed this massive mountain that contained these old roman ruins. It had a beautiful view of the city and mountains. It was a really fun time and we later on ate at a chinease restaurant and toured the cathedrals. I tried to learn the Lord´s prayer in Spanish from my friend teff, but I wasn´t successful.

The city had no people in it, and i think we were the only tourists there. It reminded me of home. We even went to an antique shop, but the lady got mad cause we took pictures with all the weird junk. It was a nice trip and we just hung out and got to know eachother really well. It is kind of weird, I have been hanging out with the same people but we typically go out and haven´t really had serious conversations. I think that is why we enjoyed this trip so much. We also have so sweet jumping pictures on the mountain... The town was only an hour away and the weather was great.

I am sorry Minnesotans but I love the weather here. The high in Moorhead, where I go to school is 9 degrees F and I don´t miss that. The high today is 45 here and sunny. These temps are perfect cause you just need a fall coat and a good walking pace to keep warm. We haven´t had much rain -knock on wood- so it has been perfect.

We are plan onm going to Madrid, the capital, next weekend because we have two days off. We also have tomorrow off because it is the day of the Saint here. They have these weird traditionals and I will be sure to get some pictures.

Some other weird news...

My roomates just bought a chipmunk, but they said it is an ardilla which means squirrel in Spanish. In Spanish there aren´t nearly as many words as in English. It is kind of sad, but we can just express more I guess. I don´t know why they bought a squirrel but to each his own.

I was almost tapped by a car when crossing the street the other day. The car was maybe moving 2 mph but it was deadly. No worries though cause I am an excellent jumper and can evade anything.

I went to mass again, which is news to me. I don´t know why I go, probably because my friend Dylan makes me, but half the service is a prep for communion and I just sit there and do nothing.

We have tons of days off coming up so I should do something exciting. I have called a few people from home, but I am kind of bad about it. Have fun in the snow and cold. I will be enjoying the green grass and the nasty pigeons flying all over.

Life in November

I am going to miss thanksgiving but we are going to have on of our own. Most of my friends here can cook very well so I am fortunate. Also, my friend Kath from New York knows some American family here who had invited ONLY Americans to come eat at here place on Saturday.

November has gone by pretty fast but I can´t believe I have been here so long already. My Spanish has improved some, but not as much as I would like. My South Americans prefer to speak English because they don´t have to explain so much, but I recently gave them a good talking to. I however, can understand almsot everything people say so it is good. We haven´t travelend anywhere lately and we need to. We just go out to the same places in town every weekend but there is always something new to do or see in this town.

I go for walks around on Sundays and I found the coolest place last week. It was maybe a 2 hour walk thru the new part of town where I haven´t really been. I climbed this hill and found a massive heard of freely wondering sheep. It reminded me of England and it also had an awesome view of the entire city. I forget to bring my camera as always, but the memory is in my mind.

I decided since I haven´t been traveling that I would go out to eat for once. I went to Pizza Hut and ordered a personal pizza. Let me just say it isn´t like home. The employees where your typical fast food workers, and they had to use computers instead of real cash registers. The woman could hardly understand me and her Spanish sounded like humming. I kind of felt dumb because I couldn´t understand much but I got thru it. I then had to wait for 25 minutes to get my pizza, and it was only a personal one. I guess this story isnt very interesting, but it leads me to point out that Customer Service sucks in Spain. My culture teacher said Pamplona is the worst and even people from other Spanish towns complain. They will never say thank you, or try to even be nice. They act like you are bothering them when asking for something. I have no idea why people put up with this and I will never leave a tip for someone.

I am starting to plan more trips to other countries. I am only going to visit my friends who live in these countries so I will get a better experience than any tourist. I will be going to Munich for new years to visit my friend Emanuel. I am hoping to go visit my friend Lode in Brussels, he lived in Cannon Falls two years ago. For easter I am going to the Cheq republuic to visit my friends (family as i call them). Also, France is only an hour away and there is a cheap airline that flies to Dublin from twon near here. It will be pricey to do all these excursions but I don´t think I will travel Europe for a long time after so I might as well venture out now.

If anyone has any questions please ask cause I dont know what more to say about stuff here.

Today it rained and I was too lazy to get my umbrella so I walked for 15 minutes in the rain. I was soaked for class but the really expensive umbrella I was given wouldn´t have helped much. It got to freezing the other day and everyone complained. What a bunch a babies.

Fotos

They are obsessed with Mary

The mountains








I plan on buying this lovely riverfront home.





They don´t have dryers





The city gates in the old part of town





The view of the newer part of the city.





The awesome streets in the old town.











Halloween friends.



Note the nice clothes pins, and the hand made torch. Creativity is the key to life.

I love Halloween

First and foremost I would like to thank my aunt Maureen for the wonderful package. It had pop tarts, candy corn and lots more. I brought a lot of it to a little Halloween party and helped spread our magnificent culture.

I have been up to a lot lately and I haven´t informed anyone for a while. I get kind of lazy because my classes are really easy and I rarely have homework. I like being busy and I never really am here so it makes me very lazy. Halloween was great here, I haven´t traveled much lately but we may be going to Barcelona this weekend.

In Spain they don´t celebrate Halloween and they are very against change, but us Americans are the same. My art teacher said if a Spanish child came to his door and said trick-or-treat he would call his parent an imbacil. They don´t have costume shops or Goodwill stores so I had to be creative and use the sheets on my bed for it. I wore a toga, made a torch from the shoebox Maureen sent me, and made a head thing with some ivy leaves i got from outside. It was cold so i had to bring a coat with it and I looked like i was wearing a dress lol. They don´t use safety pins so I had to use clothes pins, this was a bad idea because my German friends Ruth thought it would be funny to pull the off at times. This caused my to be half naked in public, but I yelled at here a lot. We went to this party and these Spaniards asked me why I was wearing a costume. I love Halloween, and in years i bet it will get more popular here.

Last weekend my friends rented a car and they invited me to travel around the state here. It was really pretty, but Pamplona, the city i live in, is way nicer than than the rest. We went to this monestary in the mountains, this sweet ravine, and it was just nice to get in a car and see the countryside. I should put some pictures up to show you all.

I am always tell you what I do but there are many things I feel here that are just odd. Today we talked about racism and here it is much more prevalent than in our area. Of course it exists everywhere, but here one profesor said to the students, ¨Africans have the biggest lips in the world¨. This wouldn´t fly at our schools so it is weird to hear that.

I also realized that everyone feels like they can say stuff about america. We are used to hearing it, but it is weird how every country can do that. For example, if some Spaniards came to the states we wouldn´t normally say our opinion of their politics or their people. I am with foreigners in all my classes and they say things about our country, our president and our people that are just annoying. We wouldn´t directly say things about Europe to people from there but since our media and society is so broad and well known, people find the need to give their opinion always. I may not be explaining this perfectly, but everyone knows our business thru the media and it is kind of annoying.

Spaniards also make fun of people who can´t speak perfect Spanish. They even sometimes tease the people from Latin America. I am sure this exists in the states as many of the small farm communities are filled with racist people, but I just am not used to it. I am learned tons about intercultural communication and my advice would be to never make fun of a person learning another language. It is really discouraging and if you have ever learned a language you know it can be tough. I haven´t had any bad experiences but it is just annoying, no one is perfect. If languages were all meant to be perfect there wouldn´t be much diversity so bring on the bad grammer.

The school I attend if supposed to be the Harvard of Spain, but I would not even compare to it to our schools. Here they only learn about their subject and don´t take generals. They have very young profesors and it is so odd. I often see them out on the town on the weekends. I saw my Spanish teacher out with her friends partying last weekend. I know a profesor here who is fresh out of college teaching a marketing class. I would never take a class taught by someone that young because they won´t know too much about the real world. I am fine with my Spanish classes here, but I can´t believe people think this school is amazing because it doesn´t have much prestige.

Everyone should live abroad though because it completely throws your mind of a loop but there are things that should be the same, like religion. They only have Catholic churches but it is still christianity. I am a religous person and even though everything is different, you can always turn to this for the same advice. It is a nice thing to have but I need to find a protestant church because I don´t like being excluded from communion, but I understand.

My friends just told me I need to write some funny stuff in this blog so I will write some good stuff soon.