Well, guys, I had some plans to write more about classes, the end of the semester and classes, my trip to Germany with my parents after leaving Spain. However, these things never happened and now, I’m afraid, they probably never well. I hoped you enjoyed reading my blog, it’ll still be here if you ever venture to Spain and want to know about some of the things I did there. And if you really go back my posts about my internship in Santa Cruz still exist.

Thanks for reading!

Sarah

Monday, November 23rd to Sunday the 29th

Sunday we went to Amistad Cristiana, the church I’ve been going to during the semester. I was still really tired and sick, and did not feel like myself all day. After church we went to the Retiro park and ate lunch. We tried to just relax in the park but it was cold and I wasn’t feeling any better, so we ended up going back to my house.

David was planning to get something at the grocery store to eat for dinner, but Any invited him to just eat at the house. It was so nice of her, he ended up eating dinner there all week, which was very helpful and much better food than if we had eaten out.

During the week I had classes, but we found things to do. Monday we went to bible study I worked on homework so that tuesday we could spend the afternoon in Madrid. On Tuesday we saw more of the Retiro park and visited the Prado museum. I was surprised how much David enjoyed it, he had learned about some of the paintings in a class so that made a difference. I think we are a good match for museum visiting, we both enjoy going to them but don’t need to spend a lot of time there.

Thursday we went to Aranjuez and saw the royal palace and gardens. They had a tour in Spanish, but since it let us see more of the castle we went and I translated the interesting parts (which were few, mostly the guide talked about dates when the wallpaper, curtains and furniture were added). We got back a little later than intended and hurriedly got dressed for Thanksgiving dinner. The dinner was for our group but I brought David along. We had it at the oldest restaurant in the world (also one of the most expensive…). It wasn’t home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner with the family, but it was good and David was there so I couldn’t ask for more.

Friday we did more stuff in Madrid. We went to the Naval Museum, the Royal Palace (where David got a hold of my camera and took lots of candid pictures of me), the Cathedral, saw the sunset over the Temple of Debod, went to theplanetarium (unfortunately we were too late for the last show), and hadsangrias and tapas.

Saturday we had planned to go to Segovia, but in the end we were tired and just didn’t feel like doing more stuff. So we hung out at my apartment and celebrated Any’s birthday (she had family over). David decided to try out the piano and Any asked me why he hadn’t played before, because of course he plays beautifully.

Sunday he had to go back home :(. I was sad to see him leave, but there are only four weeks between the time he left and when I get to see him again! (Now down to one week!!)

Saturday, November 21st 2009

After getting back from Santiago de Compostela and still getting over being sick for the second time this semester, I decided I wouldn’t go to a picnic that I had been planning with some friends on Saturday. I just felt like staying inside and resting. So I told Eric, and as I expected he would do he tried to pressure me into coming anyway. He even went so far as to offer to bring the picnic to my neighborhood, bit that seemed a bit extreme and the guilt worked, I could tell he was serious about coming and I didn’t want them to go to the trouble. We did move it to another park closer to my house that was more convenient for the majority.

We got there and then had to wait about 20 minutes for half the group to get there. Then we walked to the park, supposedly looking for the perfect spot. I was getting annoyed because we passed plenty of perfectly good spots to sit at and I though Eric should be more conscience of the fact that I was sick and tired. Before eating, Fernando and Eric said they had a skit for us that had to do with two super heroes with silly powers. It was slightly ridiculous but I wasn’t surprised, it was Eric and Fernando. Fernando’s power was to freeze people, and of course I was the one who got to be frozen. I was really starting to wonder if there was any point to the whole thing.

Eric started looking around for someone to “save” me. Suddenly I hear someone yelling and look up to see some blond guy running towards us. “Ok, now this is just ridiculous”, I thought. This “play” is not worth having arranged someone to hide in the bushes, who the heck is that I don’t know any blond guys here in Spain, OH MY GOSH. I couldn’t do anything bit stare as I realized it was my amazing boyfriend standing in front of me. “Yo la salvo.” “I will save her.”

I honestly didn’t recognize him until he was standing right in front of me. Even when I realized it was David, he still didn’t really look like himself. I continued staring in complete shock as he sat beside me. He felt like an impostor, my mind hadn’t really accepted that he actually there. I stared at him for another couple of seconds and poked him a few times to make sure he were real.

We did eventually eat and talked for a while. As far as being sick and tired, I was feeling much better! After a few of us went to Sol, walked around a bit and got some tapas for dinner.

Friday, November 20th 2009

Everyone thought Lisa and I were crazy for going to Santiago de Compostela for just one day, but since we took the night train there and the night train back it was a full and worthwile day. The night train wasn’t so bad, it was long (nine hours) but supposedly being asleep makes it seem shorter (though I didn’t sleep much on the way there).

Santiago de Compostela (Santiago = James in english) is the end of the famous Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route that starts in the south of France. According to tradition, the apostle James traveled through Spain and evangelized to a Spanish queen, and died in Santiago de Compostela. People now take the month-long trek and end up there, but we just took a train and skipped the long walk.

First we went to a market will all sorts of fruit, fish and meat. The fish was extremely fresh, there were shrimp that were still jumping around, big (whole) fish and slimy squid. They had whole pigs hanging with the heads at the bottom and skinned hare.

After that we went to the cathedral, the main to-do in Santiago. We wandered around the cathedral somewhat aimlessly for some time, noticing the mystic feel of the place. I was looking for the Portico mentioned in Rick Steeve’s book and we meandered into something we thought was the cathedral museum. We asked how much it cost and they said it wasn’t the museum but they had a free tour in about five minutes.

Not being in a hurry to get anywhere we sat down and watched a film about the restoration of the portico. After that she said we were going to see the portico and opened a case full of hard hats. We had no idea what was going on, but put the hats on and followed. We went back into the cathedral and up scaffolding to the portico. Being under restoration its impossible to see from the ground, but up on the scaffolding we were about 5 feet away from the carvings of musicians and religious figures.

After that we saw the carving of Saint James that pilgrims traditionally hit their head against to gain wisdom from the saint but is now closed off to protect from wear. Then we went back outside we met a pilgrim! He asked us to take a picture and told us that he had done the whole walk and it had taken him 32 days.

We were hoping to see the Botafumeiro during the pilgrims’ mass but knew it was a ritual done only 20 something times a year. But we got lucky! The botafumeiro is filled with incense and swung across the cathedral. It was incredible and lucky to see it!

After lunch we realized there wasn’t really much left to do. We wandered around various museums, none of which were particularly interesting and which for the most part were primarily in the gallego language… But we did find a triple spiral staircase and raced cars down the virtual streets of Santiago.

We took the night train back and I tried calling David, unbeknownst to me that he choose not to answer because he would be able to explain the noise of the airport…

Wednesday, October 21st - Monday, October 26th

We were a bit worried that not everyone would get on the flight, but both my parents, Emily (my sister-in-law) and her mom all got here without a hitch. They arrived Wednesday and were tired, so we just had dinner. It was miserable and rainy but fortunately we had great weather for the rest of the time.

Thursday they picked me up from campus (they rented a car, qué bien ¿eh?). We stopped in Ávila for the best meal we had while they were here, finished with an amazing chocolate mousse. We walked by the cathedral and go back in the car.

We got to Salamanca around 7:00. We didn’t end up doing or seeing much in Salamanca, but we were staying in a hotel right on the Plaza Mayor which is the main attraction. We wandered around for a bit and had some tapas and sangria.

The next morning we woke up, got some breakfast at McDonalds an left for Segovia. I’m not really sure why we went to Salamanca, but we didn’t want to take away time from Segovia just so we could see more.

We really liked Segovia. The cathedral from the outside was gorgeous, very gothic. We didn’t pay to go in because we were more anxious to see the CASTLE. The castle was a lot of fun, my first caslte in Spain. I would really like to see more castles but I don’t really think there are that many, Spain has cathedrals, and it would be hard to get to them by public transportation.

The original plan was spend the weekend in Madrid and let my family go without me to Toledo and El Escorial since I’ve been. But then flights booked up and they decided to leave monday.

So Saturday we went to the Prado art museum, got kebabs for lunch, Reina Sofia Modern art museum (we didn’t spend long there but had to see Picasso’s Guernica), Retiro park, and then went downtown. We saw Sol, el Palacio Real (royal palace), plaza mayor, and had sangrias, tapas and chocolate con churros. Quite a successful day!

Sunday we went to Toledo, and although I’d been before I went back with them. It was even more fun the second time being with my family. An I saw a couple things I hadn’t before; we found a place where you can go up the wall and went in a costume museum that my mom especially enjoyed.

Emily got out Monday and the other three managed to get back Tuesday. It’s too bad they didn’t see El Escorial but I think they got to see quite a bit in the time they had!

Friday, October 16th - Sunday the 18th

Pictures (along with some others of the sunset over Templo de Debod)

Before I came a friend who studied abroad last year told me about a church and Eric and I decided to check it out. From the first time we went I really liked it. The people are more friendly and welcoming than any church I have been to in the US, to be completely honest. They’re not tiny but they know each other and recognize when someone is new, and make an effort to greet them. We had at least five people tell us about Ignition, the youth reunion on Tuesdays.

Only the second time I went to church (and once to Ignition), I decided to go on their yearly church retreat. It was 65 euros, but definitely worth it (I slept there two nights and ate meals). Eric and Nick (who is in my class and came to church) also went, but I made an effort not to spend too much time with them and get to know more people.

The retreat was great. I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more interaction or breakout groups (and often had trouble staying awake through the multiple two hour long sessions), but the guest speaker had a lot of good things to say.

I met quite a few people but really got to know one of the girls. She’s German and only added proof to my theory that all German people are amazing. (To be honest a part of me wishes I ha learned German and was studying abroad in Germany, but that’s another rambling blog post).

It was nice being out of the city. We were at some sort of retreat center in the mountains north of Madrid. There were trees and grass and the second night I laid on a bench for a few minutes and stared up at the vast sky full of stars.