Adam Gilbertson Study Abroad: mayo 2008

Hey everyone,

A lot of cool stuff has happened lately. I leave two weeks from today so everything is flying by. I just finished a research paper and now I just have to study for my finals.

Two weeks ago was the day of Europe and to celebrate the day the city hall invited the exchange students to give speeches infront of everyone.

My friend Flo from France was asked to speak on behalf of the private university and she rocked. She talked a lot about us, her friends, and just life in Pamplona. The mayor then gave a speech and so did the Governor of Navarra, the state we live in. It was pretty formal but we weren´t dressed for it. Kath and I went and we didn´t even know if we were invited lol.

There were tv crews and we ended up being on the news. After they had some delicous pinchos and drinks. We all ordered cali mocho, red wine and coke. It was so funny, red wine and coke at a government function lol. I guess we were in the newspaper though, I wouldn´t know. Spanish news can be a little boring. Its usually just basque protests and ETA bombings...

We have been just hanging out on the weekends with eachother. I went for a long walk yesterday all thru town and learned a cool thing about Pamplona. Since everyone here lives in apartments they can´t have a lawn or a garden but they have something else. In the valley below the city there are tons of little plots with fences around them. I guess you lease a lot that´s maybe 25 ft by 25 ft and you can plant a garden or just hang out in this little lawn. They are all next to eachother and I saw tons of families working out in these little gardens and collecting the produce.

Last night there was a soccer game and Pamplona lost the game, but if they almost had to go into a lower leage in soccer. What this means is that the old town was nuts. We went out for pinchos and there were so many wasted soccer fans screaming and dancing in the streets. I love going out for Pinchos and we got some duck liver last night which was really cool. The old town was packed with people and you have to almost fight your way to the counter to order some of the little pincho snacks.

I think I will make some videos of stuff here so everyone can actually see what it is like.

I also went to the mall on Saturday and bought some new stuff. While in there I was kindly reminded of how quiet these people in Navarra are. If you bump into someone they don´t even reply. They just continue on their way like nothing happeend. It was really weird and I found myself saying excuse me and so on, when it wasnt necesary. It was a culture thing I still am not used to.

The land lord we have is nuts. He was showing people our apartment the other day and was saying we need to clean it and that we should turn off the lights. I think he is crazy and he swears all the time. Oh Florencio. If he were a landlord in the US he would be sued by someone in 6 seconds. We are foreign so we hope he doesn´t try to keep our deposit.

The weather has been terrible lately. It rains everyday and then the sun sometimes peaks out. It is annoying because we would like to go to the beach before we all leave.

Everything is coming together now and we all know we are going to be gone soon and it is a weird feeling. We all leave in two weeks and its going to be rough. This is the last week of class and then exams. Every group of friends has its fights and now that we know we are all leaving we are just enjoying eachother. I will give a blog about my friends later this week showing explaining all about them.

I am done teaching English now so no more 15 euros a week. I actually loved teaching English and the I will miss Sara and going to their cool house every week. I have been spending a lot of money lately and I dont know how. I stopped caring I think and our exhange rate is so bad. I wonder what this year would have been like if our economy wasn´t so terrible.

Marie from France and I showing the coffee they consume...

This is my classroom. Note the massive cross on the wall.

Tonito and Marie had some French friends over.

Europes day, us americans were there... This is Tonito getting interviewed.

Flo giving an awesome speech in Spanish to all of us and the governor.

The mayor of Pamplona, she was really nice.

This is the plaza, the heart of the city. We go here all the time.

Less than one month away and I will be home. This year has flown by and I am having a blast here.

Last weekend I went on a trip to the South of Spain with 3 other Americans. I haven´t ever traveled with these people before but it was a great time and I got to know them all a lot better. I went with Tina Post from Golden Valley, Andrew from Virginia, and Hannah from Illinois. We were a perfect group of four and all got along really well.

We didn´t have class on Thursday so I left on Wednesday in the afternoon on my usual 5 hour bus to Madrid. In Madrid I met the others and we ate at Friday´s. It was so good to get some greasy American food. We then had to catch a bus to Sevilla at 11 pm. There was a problem though. I forgot my print out ticket and we didn´t print one out. All of my friends had tickets but I only had my passport. I somehow was able to explain to the bus driver that I didnt have my ticket and that I paid. It was pretty nerve racking but I got on the bus without having anything to prove I had a ticket. The bus ride was over 6 hours thru thru the night and we got to Sevilla at 5 am. We sat in some sketchy coffee shop for a while and played guess who while waiting to check into our hostel. It was labor day that Thursday so it was hard to find a hostel. We settled in and hit the town for a long day.

We visited the biggest cathedral in the world (by volume) and went to the usual sights in the city. Sevilla is really hot. It was mid 80´s the entire weekend. The town is so packed and messy it is so cool. The cool part of Pamplona is the old town, and all of Sevilla is like that. There are tons of tiny streets and it is impossible to use the map.

We got some ice cream and just toured for the day. That night we were pretty tired so we went out for dinner and walked around this old palace before hitting the hay.

The next day we slept in because we didn´t get much sleep in the nasty bus. We went to see the old city walls and to some plazas. Each city has different sights but they all are pretty similar. We bought some Flamenco tickets for that evening and toured for the rest of the day. I had to wear sunscreen the whole time because the sun was beating on us.

We went to the Flamenco show, which is a dance and singing show which is typical of this region of Spain. The woman was crazy and I thought they were going to fall at one point. It was cool to see this dance and after we went out. We didn´t go out too late but the town was pretty hopping. While walking around we found a street named after susan and it was so random because we had read about this street earlier. THis street has some old tale of how susan ratted out on her boyfriend about the Muslims or something and she was killed. She asked to have her head be placed on her door to remind people not to commit treason. It was a weird story and even weirder that we found this street.

The next day we took a bus to Malaga which is on the Med and it was a dirty beach town and we jsut slept and sat on the beach all day. Antonio banderas is from this city but we didn´t find much charm in the tourist town. We were tired from getting up so early and some lady was yelling at us at the bus station so we were just beat. They are a fun group though and for some reason we played this game called spin the compliment. It was pretty hilarious. We played the game through out the weekend. We caught a night bus to Granada and got there around midnight.

Granda is located in the mountains and it is amazing. It was the last hold out region of Spain for the Moors in the year 700 something so there is a massive muslim palace located on the mountain above the city. WE got to stay for free because Tina´s dad gets free hotels in europe. We all had to share a bed and layed head and toe. It was so funny. I loved traveling with them.

The next day we walked around Granada and were haggled by some old woman who used to be a Flamenco dancer. She had some weird flyers of her dancing as a young girl and now. It was so weird and we couldnt handle her when she spoke Spanish. She yelled "para comer" to us in a weird old woman voice, it may haunt me for years to come. We walked around that day thru the market and then toured the old Muslim palace. The guide books say you havent lived until you have seen this place so we made some good jokes about it the whole time.

After touring the palace we walked around some more and took pictures of a man powered carosel and a Winnie the Pooh character smoking infront of children. It was pretty funny. We took a taxi to the station later and got a ride back to Madrid. WE arrived at 2 am and I had to sleep in the bus station on my towel until 6 am when I got a ride home. It was a weird feeling but I guess sleeping on the floor is a humbling experience. I got home around 11 am on Monday and died in my bed all day.

Tina is from Concordia and I learned she knows Shane Hudak who is my cousin. They both work at Best Buy so it just proved how small this world is. This group was way different than who I usually travel with because they don´t really go out. It was so much fun and I hope to hang out with them a few more times before I leave. I still have my family here though and we aren´t allowed to talk about when we leave.

Last night we all walked around for a while and it is going to be weird leaving Pamplona. Everything is just coming together and I get a weird feeling thinking about not living here. I keep seeing my old roomate Alberto which is even weirder. I think my Spanish has improved a bunch but it can still get better. No big plans for this week, I want to go camping on the mountain here but my friends say we should sleep in the park. We will see what happens.

The map of my journey