my year in photos

the one and only p.b.

besss fran

my boo <3

getting big bro home for the holidays....best present possible

setharoniii

dillectable

first picture :]

shawna & i kn the new house

pod 119

smash & i @ our last football game

Picking Up Loose Change

Before.....

So I have just started my venture for Semana Santa aka my soon to be incredible spring break trip to the Grand Canary Islan

ds. My trip is a little complicated. I am taking a bus from Granada to Madrid, taking a metro to the airport, sleeping there for a few hours, and then flying from Madrid to Las Palmas.

So I am leaving from the bus station at 7 and get there a good forty minutes early. It takes about 5 minutes to check in and get on the bus, so i figured i would have plenty of time. I walk up at 6:50 to the driver, hand him my billette, and wait for him to let me on. He says no and laughs a bit, so I think he is just being funny. I laugh with him, and then he proceeds to say no again. He tells me today is the 24th and my ticket is for the 23rd. The woman at the counter messed up and didn't give me the right ticket. AHHHHH. I try not to freak out, because i know that won’t help & ask if there is anymore room on this bus. He looks at the list, says there is plenty, but I have 5 minutes to go get a ticket. I literally SPRINT up the stairs with my bag to the ticket counter, where there is about 500 people in line.

At this point i think my trip is ruined & there is no way I’m going to make the bus. But... then i remember there is an automatic bill station thingy, and run to that. There is about 15 people in this line. I start asking every person- Puedo pasar, tengo tres minutos hasta my autobus esta saliendo. I get yeses all the way up to the very first person in line! I go to one of the machines, and it wont take either of my credit cards. At this point its about 2 after 7 and my hands are starting to shake. I switch machines and put in cash instead and Viola! I have a ticket. At this point i don’t really care about the 3 extra euro that has fallen to the bottom of the machine. This nice spanish guy, cute by the way :) sees a damsel in distress, and starts to help me. I am dropping money all over the place, and don’t try picking it up. He picksup all my dropped coins off the floor and hands them to me. As I start sprinting away I yell graciasgraciasgracias!!!!

The bus driver is patiently waiting for me and is laughing as I run down the stairs and out the door. I tell him he isn’t funny & we laugh for a few seconds before i catch my breath and get onto the bus. I am hoping my trip is going to be just as exciting as my last 10 minutes in the bus station.

Here is a God thing for you; I took a taxi to the bus station because it is not much more money & it takes about 30 minutes less. I went to the ATM and was only going to take out 20 euros, but took out 50 instead just in case. If i would have only taken out 20 euros, i wouldn’t have had enough to pay for my taxi (5.25) and my new bus ticket 16.68. My total would have been 21.93 aka not enough to pay with a twenty :)))) Just a cool little tidbit I thought I’d share.

After....

Madrid, Toledo & Valladolid

So I have been a slacker on my blog! I’m sorry. :((

But I am back and ready to fill you in on some cool stuff. Since i blogged last, I was able to go to Toledo and Madrid, watch Sarah Baras ( the best Flamenco dancer in Spain) and visit a friend from home in

Valladolid, Spain.

At the end of February I took a little vacation to visit a friend from high school who is also studying abroad in Spain this semester. Lauryn and I are birthday twins & we thought it would be super fun to have a weekend together. I took a long 8 hour bus ride to get to Valladolid, but it was well worth it. It was so nice to be 6000 miles from home & see a someone from Ripon, let alone someoneyou are friends with. Lauryn played tour guide for the weekend and showed me around her pretty town. We went out for tapas with a spanish friend of hers, and one of the nights I was there, we went to a salsa bar. I was really tempted to dance, but they were so good i didn’t want to embarrass myself. The weekend was very relaxing and Lauryn and I got to catch up which was really nice. So much has changed for the both of us since high school, so it was neat to see where we both were at in our lives.

A few weekends later my program took us to Madrid for a weekend, and it was a blast. We left on a friday morning and drove to a place called Toledo. Toledo used to be the capital of Spain, so it was really neat to seeall the history. It was a gorgeous place, and I am hoping to maybe take a day trip back so I can look around the city a little longer.

After Toledo, we traveled until we got to Madrid. We checked into our 4 star hotel & went out and wandered around for a bit before getting dinner. I was staying in a hotel room with 3 other girls and it was a blast. We all decided we wanted to go out to a nearby discoteco, so we got ready and as we were about to leave the hotel, the receptionist gave us free passes to get in! Yes!! I love free things :)) Joy, the discoteca we went to was having an event sponsered by Coca Cola, so it was packed. There were people trapezing from the ceilings & people on stilts, and people in crazy costumes. It was super fun.

The next day we were taken to the Royal Palace and then had the rest of the day free to explore. A few girls and I went shopping and then we met up with some of the boys in our group to go out to dinner. Yes we were in madrid, but there was a Hard Rock Cafe. We get to HardRock and order a plate of nachos as an appetizer. Let’s just say this massive plate was gone in less than five minutes. Half of us order hamburgers the sizes of our faces, ant the other two got ribs & chicken. The rest of Spain doesn’t know what ranch is except for HardRock, so we took complete advantage. I think our waitress brought 6 or 7 cups of bbq sauce and at least the same if not more ranch. It was great.

We could only finish half of our burgers, so we took them home for later. It was the best meal I have had in Spain thus far. is that sad?? Maybe. But sometimes it’s so good to have something familiar.

After dinner we were taken to a spanish theater production. To be honest the acting was not that great, and they were a bit hard to understand, but it was an experience. I may or may not have fallen asleep for a few minutes. :))

My favorite part of Madrid happened on our last day. We got to go to the Prado Museum. It was absolutely incredible. 3 floors of the most important Spanish Art. Goya, Velazquez, Picasso and more. Caitlin and I decided we wanted to see every room & every piece of art in the place! I think we were in the museum for almost 4 hours. It was incredible.

There was one painting that i stopped and stared at for about 15 minutes. Jaw dropped and everything. It was a painting of Jesus getting the crown of thorns put onto his head. But in the painting, the crown isn’t being set nicely onto his head, the man putting the thorns no Jesus is putting all his force into the task. There is blood, there is pain, and there is anger in the faces of the men surrounding Jesus. It was so moving, I had tears in my eyes.

Never before have i cried over a piece of art. One day I will have that somewhere in my house.it doesn’t have to be big, but it will be there. It is a good reminder of a sacrifice someone made for me, even though i am undeserving.

After the Prado, Caitlin and I picked up a straggler in our program who got a bit lost in the museum, and went out to lunch.We found a tiny italian restaurant and thought it would be fun to try. It was delicious. After lunch we walked back to the hotel to get on the bus and make the journey back home. It was an incredible weekend. Whenever Veronica takes us somewhere, it is never a disappointment!

Carnival in Cadiz

So I guess i talked about not staying out to late, yada yada yada , but that didn’t seem to be the case. This last weekend, i went to Cadiz for CARNIVAL!!

Carnival in Spain is much like Mardi Gras in the states, minus the nudity. People tend to follow the rules here, and seemed to be less out of control than i expected. Yes you do get the occasional person who wants to go crazy, but there’s one in every group; always.

A few friends and i decided to dress up as fairies/ballerinas, so we made tutus outof tool, and I am very proud to say, they turned out super cute. I decided to go crazy on the make-up and wear tons of glitter and sparkles, and it only added to our already beautiful outfits :))

It was a five hour bus ride to Cadiz, so you could say it got a bit interesting! Lots of talking, singing and bathroom stops on the way, but we finally made it. The plan of our trip was to go to Cadiz, stay out till 5 am, and then get back on the bus and drive home.

Crazy right! I have no idea what we were thinking!

Everyone started off in this massive plaza which was packed with people. We got to watch young flamenco dancers, singers, and entertainers. The noise was ridiculous. A lull roar almost. Not too loud where you couldn’t hear, but at the point when you had to talk a little louder than normal. Yep that’s where we were at. :)) I loved every minute of it!

Hanging lights decorate the streets and we used them as a map in the sky. As long as we

were on a street with the flashing joker heads and irridescent squares, we were in a safe place. Since we had so much time on our hands we decided to search for kebabs. A kebab is like a think tortilla split open, filled with goodness (aka chicken, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, olives, & yogurt sauce) , and put back on the grill to finish cooking. Kebab restaurants are ALL over Granada, so we thought we’d be able to find one. Stopping every so often to ask, we kept getting pointed in the same direction. “the Red plaza, next to the blah blah blah, you're almost there, only a few more blocks, a la derecha de la...” Ay ay ay. The kebab restaurant was nowhere to be found! We did happen to pass an Italian pizza place- La Bella Italia- that smelled great, so we opted for that.

For Carnival, it is typical for students to get pretty drunk and maybe make bad decisions, but i am really glad i decided to stay with the friends I did. We had drinks, but were all really responsible, stayed safe, and had a blast without getting schnockered!

Oh I forgot to mention the parade!!! One of the coolest things of the night. On our trek to to find kebabs, we stumbled into a parade. We rounded a corner, and whack I ran face first into a man in a plane costume. Haha no harm done, but for the next 15 minutes or so, on this tiny side street in Cadiz, we got to experience Carnival in its splendor. 100’s of people in costumes, playing instruments, being led by two police officers. It was amazing. (the picture above is with one of the airplanes)

So after all of that, we got back to the plaza, met up with some other students and are enjoying the music when a few rain drops hit our foreheads. Since there are a ridiculous amount of people here, we decide to find some shelter before the rest of the crowd. We walk towards the bus, and don’t get to far when we see a casino doorway that is just big enough for all of us to fit in. We stayed there for close to an hour as the clouds start to let loose.

That closes, and we are kindly asked to leave, so we huddle together again under an inadequate amount of umbrellas and head for some shelter. We find a Burger King, only get to stay for about 40 minutes and were kicked out again! It is now starting to rain really hard, and there is nowhere to go. I see some bright lights and suggest to go to whatever it is that i see across the street. It turned out to be a churreria (churros & chocolate). We run, cram ourselves inside of this massive tent, and scrounge for 7 or 8 chairs. Picture one of those huge white wedding tents. That is what we were sitting in. We are freezing, soaking wet, and the thrill of carnival is wearing off just as fast as my makeup. This is where I spent the next 4.5 hours of my life.

Once it hit 5:30, we made an attempt to get to the bus as fast as possible. It was probably half a mile of torrential downpour! We met a new friend, who ended up going to school with us back in Granada, and he and i ran back to the bus as fast as we could. Gold medal sprinting is what i was doing actually.

By the time we got to the bus i

think i was soaked to my kidneys, i had no makeup left, and my straight, dry hair, turned into the curly creation God intended me to have in the first place. The ride home was a nightmare. We were all freezing, but we all made it back safely to Granada.

No Pasa Nada.translated into english basically means no worries. I will look back and remember all the good things that happened to us in Cadiz, and laugh at how miserable we all were.

Fiesta!!!

So last night was the first night i have actually gone out "Spanish Style." Everything here happens late. You wake up late, eat late and stay out late. A friend of mine had a birthday last night, and about half of our program went out to a discoteca called Granada Diez. Paige, who turned 20, had a great time, so it was a good night!!! It is pretty common for young people to go to discotecas and stay out till 6 or 7 in the morning. We didn't quite make it that late, but I'm proud to say we made it till about 5 am. We walked home with a big group of people and once our heads hit the pillow, Julie & I were OUT! It was fun to experience, but i don't see another one of those nights in the near future. x

Migue y Yo

So Miguel & i decided to have a little photo shoot yesterday before dinner using the lovely Photo Booth on my mac. Hope you enjoy the results :))

oh heyyyy

one word: grillssss

too legit....to legit to quit

very attractive i think

queso

BARCA!!!

After my trip to Morocco, I came home for approx. 12 hours, but was then on a flight to Barcelona! This past week has been a whirlwind of emotions! In the past month, I have visited 3 different countries. While sitting on the plane to Barca, I was thinking about the fact that few hours ago I had been in AFRICA!!! I am truly blessed. I have always pictured going abroad, but today i realized it is happening. This is as real as it gets.

Anyways on to the fun stuff :)

Stephanie, Julie and I stayed in a hostel for the 3 nights we were in Barcelona. Before arriving, i was a bit nervous, because I have always thought that hostels were sketchy. I was prepared to sleep with my purse under my pajamas & have my luggage next to me in my bed. I was wrong. The hostel was clean, and there were lockers for our stuff to go in. I tend to overreact sometimes.

We all realized we were super hungry once we got into the city,

& at this point were craving some familiar food. Right before we got to the hostel we passed a pizza place that smelled delicious! So we checked in , ate, and then came back for a nap. We ended up wandering around the city looking at things the first night. We did happen to find espresso, gelato & McDonald's. Normally I'm not down for Ronald McDonald's happy place, but the Golden Arches reminded me of home &

it was a perfect 4 euro meal :)))

The second day consisted of clothes shopping, a chocolate factory, and the Picasso Museum. Seriously, chocolate and art, and I'm in my happy place. Picasso was one crazy man, but he was incredibly intelligent. To save some money, i cooked dinner for us in the hostel. Spaghetti, bread, corn and milk. It was great, and cost less than 10 euro for 4 people. We made friends with 2 girls from Lebanon and ended up going out to a tiny spanish bar with them. It was very cute & the bartender gave us a free drink because he said we brought business to his bar! Yay :)

The third day was my favorite by far. We slept in late, got ready and left the hostel for La Segrada Familia. The SF is a chapel/museum/nativity scene/work in progress. Antoni' Gaudi', the artist of this whole thing, never got to finish his work, sue to the fact that he was hit & killed by a tram. It is too hard to describe in words how i felt about being here. I am putting up the link for the website so yall can go look at it. Let me just say i am going to be visiting Spain once it gets finished. It is absolutely incredible.

http://www.sagradafamilia.cat/sf-eng/index.php

Add in some more Gaudi stuff, more gelato, a five euro skirt, people watching and i would say my trip to Barcelona was a success. x