helado

Alexis and I walked to la Plaza de Cervantes again last night for a little treat. We were originally going to go to a pastelería, but it has been so hot recently, that we decided to get helado instead. When I was ordering, I did not know the word for cone, but discovered that it is simply un cono. Good to know :)

At first we were sitting at these tables in the plaza, but then a man came over to us and asked us if we wanted to order something, and that we couldn't sit there unless we were to order something, so we promptly moved to a bench. We were just trying to look like locals. We practically are locals at la plaza de cervantes because we go there at least once a day because besides our school, it's the only place we really know how to get to and from in Alcalá. But luckily it's a cool place and I think we are getting a tour of the city on Saturday. Let's hope so. 

Classes are going well and it's crazy how after only one week, I'm practically always thinking in Spanish now. It's hard sometimes to write an email or blog post in English because I start to think of my responses in Spanish...pretty cool! I'm getting excited to go on our first mini trip on Friday to Segovia. And we received our bus passes that we can use to get to Madrid, so I'm excited for some fun excursions there as well! 

Un Paseo por Alcalá

con las fotos...

Paella

We ate paella for lunch today and it was delicious. There was practically every type of seafood in this paella. It had shrimp (still in it's shell with it's eyes), clams, calamari, baby shrimp, and oysters. Did I mention that it was good? And not to mention it was beautiful. We ate so much :)

Luisa also made us a delicious lemon cake that we've been eating throughout the day as well. 

Luckily we walk like crazy here, otherwise I don't know where all this food would be going. We walked to and from church today and it was about 2 miles each way. But church was awesome. It's amazing how no matter where you go, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is still the same. And I was proud that I could understand a lot of what was said. I'm learning a lot! First day of school is tomorrow...wish me luck!

Madrid y otras cosas

We took the train to Madrid on Saturday with our whole study abroad group. We walked around while having a mini tour of the city. The only problem was that our guide spoke really quietly so I couldn't hear/understand him, but everything is beautiful in Spain, so I enjoyed looking around and taking pictures.

Here's Alexis and I in Sol

There are lots of street performers such as this one, where the people dress up as statues or in this case a baby and he spoke in a crazy high-pitched voice in hopes of earning some money...not my dream job.

Here I am in La Plaza Mayor

We walked through this awesome supermercado that was pretty high end...I'd say kind of like a Wegmans. They had the cherries stacked in a perfect pyramid, tons of cheeses and olives and of course, jamón.

I'm pretty much obsessed with all of the awesome doors here, so here I am in front of a cool door close to a church that we went into.

Inside of one of the churches we went to, there were amazing paintings on the ceiling. I love all the colors and they seem more modern than most cathedrals. There was one room with incredible mosaics from Christ's life on all the walls and I loved it. It made me want to start doing mosaics.

After our tour, we all went and ate churros with chocolate...SO DELICIOUS!! I am a total fan of the churros, especially when they are dipped in hot dark chocolate :)

After eating, we were aloud to explore on our own, so Alexis and I walked around Sol and looked at all the different stores...there are tons of cute clothes and shoes here, but I'm trying to show restraint.

Here I am with a famous symbol of Madrid, "El Oso y El Madroño"

After Alexis and I spent a good amount of time taking pictures and exploring some of Madrid, we decided to head home to take advantage of the siesta. We asked for help at the train station (in spanish!) and we could understand and everything was going smoothly, we got on the right train and switched at the right time, but we accidentally got off too early, but it worked out fine because we realized and just waited for the next train. It just added to our list of adventures :)

After taking a nap and eating a delicious dinner of fish and salad, we decided to venture out for the final festivities of the fair here in Alcalá. Luisa had already left to go on a paseo with her friends when we were ready to go, so we were on our own with directions. We found this concert going on, on our way to La Plaza de Cervantes, so we stopped by for a little while. It was cool to hear some original Spanish music.

Then we finally made it to the Plaza after some second guessing, but we made it. There was a parade going on, so we watched the end of that. Then there were some hilarious street performers that we watched for about an hour. They were a comedy/acrobat act and we loved it. We were sitting right at the front with all the other little kids.

After the act, we started to head home, but then this creepy guy started to try to talk to Alexis and he started following us, but we walked really fast/ran into a crowd to get away from him and it all turned out fine. We were saying our prayers and staying with groups of people so we could be safe.

Despite that little incident, we finished the night by seeing some fireworks on our way home and it was pretty awesome. But when we got home, we were mainly just glad to have made it home safely and to have had a great day.

España

Day one in Spain has already been AWESOME! When we arrived at our host home, I found this cute little room all set up for me. There is another room next door where Alexis stays. We unpacked and got settled while Luisa, my host mother, made us a delicious lunch.

Let me just say that Spaniards know how to eat. We had delicious chicken, a vegetable puree soup and a tomato, olive and onion salad, and watermelon. The fruit and veggies have so much flavor here...I love it. Luisa loves for us to eat. She just keeps the food coming, so I may or may not be unrecognizable when I return because of all the delicious food I will be consuming for the next 3 months. 

After lunch, we had time for a siesta, which is the greatest thing ever. Why don't we do this in America? I napped for a couple hours so that I wouldn't be dead, but also so I would be able to sleep tonight and get adjusted to the time schedule. 

After relaxing we had a small snack of some sweet bread and a chocolate cookie thing...delicious! Then we went to a fair for Alcalá. If I was worried about feeling homesick, no need because they had Justin Bieber towels that I could win. haha jk. 

The fair was really fun and Luisa treated us to some delicious churros. We would run into people that she knew and had the custom double kiss on the cheek greeting, which takes some getting used to. 

Then we walked around all over Alcalá. Luisa showed us where the Universidad is that we will be attending here. Everything is just so beautiful here. The architecture, old brick and stone streets. I love it,

Here is Alexis and I with Don Quixote.

There are so many plazas everywhere in Spain and there is always something going on. There was a band playing and lots of dancing, so here is Luisa and I dancing together in the plaza de cervantes.

As I said before, Luisa loves to feed us, so she treated us to some ice cream and I tried the crema de alcalá  because I figured that when in Alcalá do as the Alcaláns.

It is only day one and I have already had a ton of practice with speaking spanish and have had great food and adventures. Can't wait to see what tomorrow holds!!

hasta luego!

I made it!!

After having our first flight cancelled, hurrying to get on an earlier flight that was then delayed to the original time, arriving in Philadelphia and being delayed, a seven-hour plane ride, waiting at the airport for a couple hours, meeting my host family, and getting a flat tire, I MADE IT TO SPAIN!!!! 

I am already in love. It is so awesome here and I would definitely say that we've had some adventures thus far. 

Here's Alexis, my roommate, and I about to embark on our 3-month adventure in Spain.

Here's the flat tire that we received once we met up with our host family and were driving to our house. Luckily, the people in Spain are super nice and there was a man that helped us to change the tire. It was a great beginning to our adventures!

Despite majorly lacking in sleep, I've had the greatest day! More pictures to come!

Nearing the end of Summer...

Since I'm leaving in 2 days, Summer is winding down and we decided we needed some good eats to celebrate a great Summer. Emily, Matt and I went to Nielsen's Frozen Custard for a delicious Turkey Avocado grinder and frozen custard. I indulged in some pistachio custard, which was deeelicous! 

I can't believe I leave in 2 days!!! Almost finished with packing :)

Delicious

Friday night, R.boody, Courtney and I ventured off to Dupont Circle in D.C. for some delicious eats. We first hit up Crepes-a-go-go for a delicious tomato and avacado crepe. SO GOOD!! Then I tried to go to Tangy Sweet for my favorite frozen yougurt, but it was unfortunately closed. So we opted for Shake Shack instead. Also delish. I got the custard flavor of the day made into a shake... a chocolate peanut butter fudge shake? Who could say no?

It was a great evening in the city with awesome food and friends! (and we just missed getting soaked by the huge thunderstorm, so that was great too). 

Nannying

This past week was my last week of nannying for the Summer. It was bitter sweet. I enjoyed hanging out with these girlies, going to the library, swimming, eating food, playing spies and making Justin Bieber music videos :) But I'm super excited to be done working because that means that I'm going to Spain REALLY SOON!!! (less than a week soon)! 

4 days!!!

"I wanna hear some music..."

A couple weeks ago, R.boody discovered that Jack's Mannequin was coming to Wolf Trap, so we knew we needed to get tickets to celebrate Summer and listen to some great music. Lady Danville played first, and they were good! I really liked their music.

(Rachel and I wore matching t-shirts that she got  for me for my birthday...I think people were jealous ;) )

Then Jack's Mannequin came on. THEY WERE SOOOO GOOD!! Andy is just the greatest performer and he's just so fun to watch and listen to. He's always just dancing around while playing the piano and singing and he even likes to jump off his piano or come and dance in the crowd. The best!

Then Guster played, which I didn't know many of their songs, but I greatly enjoyed them as well. They had a really cool sound and incorporated awesome instruments like bongo drums and the trumpet.

Overall, it was a fabulous Summer night with awesome music, conversation and friendship.