Adam Gilbertson Study Abroad

jueves, 20 de diciembre de 2007

Christmas Update

Hello,

For Christmas I will be going with my friend Tef from Ecuador to stay at her aunt´s house. It is near here, and it will be really cool to see the whole Spanish Christmas. We will go there tomorrow and stay until the 25 or 26. On the 26 we plan on, as of now, going to Barcelona for a few days and staying with her cousin and then catching our flight to Munich to see our friend Emanuel for a few days. It is going to be a fun time but I don´t know how much access I will have online so merry christmas and take care.

It is 57 degrees and sunny. The mountains all around here are covered in snow and it is a nice view.

lunes, 17 de diciembre de 2007

Christmas Dinner and some finals.

This week is finals week and things are winding down. Many of my classmates are going home for good so it is kind of a weird time now.

On Saturday we had a Christmas meal and it was delicious and fun. We even had the Christmas music blaring. My aunt Maureen sent me a package with Christmas stuff and I had to wear the traditional hat as seen in the pictures. The frenchies cooked us dinner and it was really good. It was mainly sea food but it was great. The dessert was the typical Spanish one and you can see it all in the photos. We went out after the dinner and it was really fun. We are a good group of friends and we call eachother our family.

Almost everyone will return home from Christmas but I will be with my friend Tef from Ecuador and my friend Fernanda from Bolivia. We will have a dinner and then go to Barcelona on the 26th and hang out until the 29 which is when we fly to see Emanuel in Munich Germany. It is going to be kind of weird without all our friends here, but we will still have fun.

It finally is getting cold here, it was below zero for most of the night and everyone is complaining.

I had two finals today, one involved me writing a commentary on some Picasso works. I have never looked at a painting for so long, but it made me really understand it more. I might have to just look at one piece for ten minutes when I go to a museum.

The other final was for my communication class and he asked me questions about this school and mine at home. I explained about how school was way to easy here and I never have homework. I was pretty much complaining the whole time, but he asked lol. I explained how it is hard to be an American here and the Spaniards are not tolerant. I thinkk he was really shocked. He is my favorite teacher here, and the others are pretty terrible.

I have 3 finals left, but they will not be too difficult. Things are going to calm down here now with everyone gone so I better get a new hobby. I have been watching CNN lately and all the politics are on all day. I know so much now, but have no one to argue with, it is kind of sad.

I will prolly write another blog before Christmas to summerize some experiences and stuff for this semester, but if not enjoy the time off. I am sure all my friends will be reuniting so I will have to give them a call. Take care and dont litter.

jueves, 13 de diciembre de 2007

Statistics

In my culture class we hardly do anything interesting, but yesterday was a shocker. We learned that 60 percent people ages 25-29 still live with their parents in Spain. ALso, we learned that 30 perct of people 30-35 still live with their parents. THis was so shocking. It is so different from the states, and this isn´t even close to the idea of the American idea. The stats are from their newspaper called El País so it is a credible source.

I may live at home for a while to get on my feet, but for Spaniards it must be a little bit harder. Jobs are tough to get, and they don´t make much money.

Spaniards are home bodies, they can´t speak many languages, and most never leave this country. MY roomate hasn´t even been to the south of Spain. For me the Germans with the prize of traveling and languages. They can speak everything. My friend Emanuel can speak German, Spanish, Portugese, English and some French. Good thing we speak English...

lunes, 10 de diciembre de 2007

Madrid

Hey everyone,

This weekend we went to Madrid. We had only Thursday off so we dipped out of class on Friday to insure we would have enough time in Madrid. Madrid was 5 hours away in bus and I went with my friend Emanuel from Germany. Our two friends Fernanda and Tef took the later bus. The ride was normal and we got into the city around 8 oclock on Thursday.

We didn´t know where we were staying but we knew that Fern´s cousin lived there and we could possible stay with her. We took a very expensive cab ride to get to her apartment and we ended up eating some dinner and getting ready for the night.

It was an akward time because we didn´t know anyone and Emanuel and I were told we needed to dress up a lot in order to get into a nice club. We hate clubs, but were forced to go cause the two girls we were with wanted to go. We went with them and it was the classiest club I have ever been to, but it was really expensive and I ended up leaving early due to bordem. It is one of the most famous clubs in Spain and our friend got us in. I don´t like clubs and I should have just walked around downtown but we followed the crowd.

We then slept in pretty late and got all ready to go. The apartment we stayed at was huge, but it only had one bathroom and there were tons of us. It took a long time for everyone to get ready. We headed out and looked at the sites.

Madrid has tons of art museums and we roamed thru them all and went to the massive park there have in the city. It was your typical city with tons of people, and thieves. My friend tef was robbed, but you have to be careful in these places. Due to the birth of Jesus many people were rushing around trying to buy gifts which made for tons of human traffic all over. We ate at Burger King and I always get annoyed because its where my foreign friends always want to eat. We later on went home and rested and got ready for another eventful night.

Emanuel and I just sat around and talked about what we wanted to do. Our friend Caetano from Portugal was in the city then and so we met him at the puerta del sol which is like the Times Square of Spain. We picked him up and while progessing thru the city tons of venders would attempt to speak English or German at us. They would offer free drink specials if you followed them to their bar. We took up the offer but it was usually just juice which we thought was great lol. We roamed around and were amazed at all the Germans and Americans in this city. We then went to some classy bar and met up with the two girls we came with and went to another club. Emanuel and I didn´t want to waste our money so we didn´t go in and went home. We had a nice time but the girls always wanted to go to these pricey clubs with preppy people.

We got up early the next day and went to some more museums and ate at my new favorite restaurant. Doner Kebab. It is very popular all over europe and the US needs to get it. AFter already being in Madrid we already saw most of the sights. We wanted to go to this sweet club but as again the girls we were with didn´t want to. We ended up hanging out with them and they ended up taking a cab to another club. We decided to walk there to save money and when we got there, we weren´t let in because we weren´t wtih girls lol so we walked around the city and talked to randoms on the streets. We ate some churros and chocolate and then went back.

The best part of the weekend was when we met this German girl infront of a hot dog stand and told us in the strongest German accent ¨"its cloooooooosed¨. We repeated this quote about 1000 times so far.

The city was full of foreigners and we couldn´t get a bus back to Pamplona until late and we got home around midnight. We learned a lot this weekend though.

I learned that I don´t know I want to go to a big city cause they are quite dirty and the chances of getting robben are very high. It is also very expensive to get transportation all over.

Emanuel and I learned that the girls we traveled with like to club a lot more than we do, but we still had a nice time wandering around the streets talking to Germans and Americans. I have lots of homework tonight and need to slave away. It is super rainy and kind of cold.

We are going to Munich with the same people as Madrid and I am really excited, we leave on the 29 and it will be great but we will see what these girls pull in Munich. Here are some photos.