Jason's Visit

I am so happy that my hubby was able to visit me, it had been 2 1/2 months since we'd seen each other.


I had classes and exams so I couldn't miss classes when he first arrived, but I think he managed pretty well exploring on his own. I think he saw and went to more things than I have in Salamanca haha. We went to a Brazilian with a group from Cursos one evening and enjoyed the food so much that we are definitely going to have to take Maria and Beatrice up on their offer to visit them in Brazil. :) The next night we went to an Asutrian restaurant (Asturias is in the north of spain along the Mar Cantabrica) and tried the sidra a hard apple cider which was o.k. but really awesome the thing they put it in to serve it.


sorry you gotta turn your head to view the video. :) haha Jason absolutely loved the food and the cafe con leche. I'd warned him about the horrible service here and ofcourse he had no troubles and had great waiters the entire time. haha

We decided to take a trip to Sevilla and Granada.... I'm tired now, the rest will have to wait until next time. poco a poco... haha

Oh My!

So I've been putting off the blogging because I hadn't written in a while and so I didn't want to do it because I had so much to catch up on... makes a lot of sense right? haha because now it's been even longer and have a ton more to write... so I'm just going to start with the current and maybe back track if I feel like it.

...and

So it has been a while and I was putting it off because I wanted to write in Spanish but didn't have any desire to do so, a lot has happened so I'll just have to catch you up in English and then the next one will be in Spanish... maybe? :)

So I went to Valencia the weekend of the 19th of March and had an Amazing time! Here are some pictures!

:( I made a video but it's not loading....



There were soo many people in Valencia, I'm glad I'm not short or I wouldn't have gotten any good pictures or video of the parade hehe. In the video you can see how many people there were, it was soo crowded at one point I could lean back and not fall because we were soo squished. I didn't mind because it was cold, but after the fire started burning it was very very hot that everyone was pushing everyone back. What an experience!

Maria, Stine, Cara and I all went and shared a room in Silla, it was bout a 20 minute train ride to Valencia. We though we were getting a room with 2 twin beds and a double but when we arrived we had an entire apartment, with two rooms and a kitchen! Though the kitchen didn't have any dishes or pots and pans... I shared a room with Stine, and Maria took the one room and Cara slept on the bed in the living room. Stine is from Norway and I thought she was crazy the first night... She came in and turned off the lights and asked if she could take everything off. I thought oh my Norwegians are pretty open and like to sleep nude then she said she didn't want to be claustrophobic. I said it was fine but she wasn't allowed to cuddle me. I was happy for the dark. The next morning I noticed she was still wearing her clothes and I was confused... later it came up and what she meant was could she untuck the sheets? hahaha She said she thought I was weird because after she said that I told her she couldn't cuddle me. lol

The day after all the Fallas we spent walking around Valencia. We went to the beach (but it was cold) I did walk barefoot in the sand, which felt wonderful after all the walking, and dipped my toe in.

We also visited the big science center, we tried to see an Imax but you have to buy those tickets a few days in advance (at least during Fallas weekend :) ) So we only used the bathroom there... haha it was quite a nice bathroom. Haha we also got free entrance into an art exhibit looking for a bathroom, we went in a side door and didn't realize we were supposed to pay until we noticed the ticket booth. We didn't stay long, we were there only to find a potty. lol

Overall we had a really good time! I think if I write anymore it will have to be in a part 2. I'm done for now. ;)

En Español

Esta tarde estaba durmiendo cuando oí un ruido. Era el timbre, una mujer antigua estaba en la puerta, y yo estaba en casa solo. Llamé para Maruja pero ella se había ido para comprar servilletas. Por suerte Maruja subía las escalaras poco despues de abré la puerta. Pues, estoy despierta ahora...

Ayer, Maria, Stine, Cara y yo compramos boletos para nuestra viaje a Valencia este Jueves. Estoy entusiasmada por a ver los Fallas. http://www.fallasfromvalencia.com/ . Nos vamos despues de clases jueves.


He estado enferma, no me gusta estar enferma. :( Todo este fin de semana pasado, quedé en casa descansando y durmiendo. Domingo compré antibióticos, en la farmacía de la esquina, con la ayuda de Cristina. Los son muy baratos, solo un poco mas de dos euros.


Vale, tengo un dolor de cabeza, y no quiero escribir mas en español.

I don't think anything else interesting happened. There were only two students (including me) in my first two classes on Friday, everyone else went down south on an excursion.

Well, that's it for now. If you know Spanish, feel free to correct my mistakes! I am here to learn. ;)

Escribiré mas cuando regreso de las Fallas. ;)

Hmmm 3 days.

Well, let's see it's been 3 days since my last post, where to begin.

Today has been a kind of hard day, a lot of mixed feelings. Conflicted, sad, happy... and anything else you can think of. I've felt kinda icky today and yesterday, physically. I'm not sick, I'm not pregnant... haha everyone asks that when I say I don't feel too hot so I had to throw that in there. I have my womanly gift, (I'm sure you want to know that) but I'm sure that's what's amplifying emotional states. I've met a lot of really Awesome people! There is good and bad to both groups I've met. All the Spanish natives I've met are extremely nice and personable but they are guys, and well, I can't just go hang out with a bunch of guys all the time. I'm sure Jason wouldn't like that too much. I've met some great girls too, and I LOVE hanging out with them, but we speak English because it's the common language we all know, which is nice, but may have a negative effect on my learning. Also, all the English blogging and facebook etc. probably isn't helping either. I want to learn but the things keeping me from full submersion are also the things that are keeping me not so lonely. I miss my wonderful husband very very very much! He is soo amazing and supportive and great and I'm soo very blessed to have him in my life. Being so in love with him doesn't help the being away part though. haha It does bring me a smile when I think of him, but it almost makes me cry at the same time since I miss him and would love to hug him. My dream is for him to visit but I know that it's not possible. It's only been a week! I don't remember his sea trips being this difficult. Also another positive is I got the scholarship from Royal Arcanum $750 for school. Jason seems to think it might be per semester but we wont know until he sends in some paper work I guess.

Let's see, classes are going well. I seem to think my conversation teacher picks on me a little more, but I guess I should be happy she is helping direct me to speaking correctly. Culture class is stressing me out a bit. I don't know anything about Spain's geography and I have to memorize this map and all the communities and provinces and what each are famous for in production and what festivals happen where and the list goes on. This is only a one month course! I need to study my lil booty off is what I need to do. Grammar is going really well, I'm glad I stayed there it's where I need to be. I just wish I didn't have to walk so far from class to class, haha it's quite funny because that's one of the reasons I didn't want to go to USC. lol Classes far apart and only 10 minutes to get there.

Francia... found out she is not from France, she is from Spain. haha So, I guess I will go on calling her Francia because she does teach French but... oh well. haha It's been nice having her in the house, she can help me with understanding things since she also knows English but does it in a way that doesn't use English.... I love Assunta as well, she knows a lot of Spanish and we have a ton of fun together. I'm a little jealous that she can speak Spanish better than me, she can have actual conversations with people while we eat. Kiki asked me how long it was going to be before I spoke Spanish faster... Nice Kiki, my biggest nightmare is that I come home and haven't learned anything more than I knew before I left. Well, I will know the map of Spain anyway lol.

I washed my laundry today, there are no dryers here so all of my clothes are on the line outside the window... including my underwear. :/ It's definitely interesting getting used to different aspects of the way of life. I don't think my stomach will ever get used to having to wait so long before it's next meal. I might have to go shopping for snacks!

Stine (pronounced Steena), Maria and I went to the Chocolatería and ordered Churros and Hot Chocolate (which is really like a fondue dip not like the drink). Really good, but greasy churros don't go to well dipped in hot chocolate I don't think... Too much at once for me! Haha maybe that's why I haven't felt well. lol

Well, that's all for now. I probably will only update this once a week, from now on. I have to think in Spanish! Or maybe I'll write it in Spanish and you can push the google translate button. :)

New Post ( so creative I know )

Tres Chicas Guapas

Plaza Mayor at Night

Last night I went out to eat with Cara (from Germany) and Maria (from Japan) we ate Italian. ;) We all had pizza, Cara's pizza had pineapple and bananas on it. Que interesante! For dessert I had periforoles... ? I don't remember their name. They were like little cream filled doughnuts with chocolate syrup and whip cream. Mmmm!

This morning my travel converter broke! I think it was my hairdryer... it was supposed to be able to work here says the voltage label but hmmm. Cristina... uh Francia ;) let me borrow hers so I'm good for now. We (Assunta, Cristina and I) are going to go shopping this evening. Assunta needs boots and I need a curling iron. I might buy some shoes... just what I need, something else to put in my suitcase! lol Francia took us out for tea this afternoon but it's not doing the trick I still need a siesta.... oh we are supposed to leave to go shopping in 6 minutes. :/ I'm tired!

I went jogging this morning! It felt soo good. I love jogging through the city and having all the cool things to look at. :) Everyday I see something else really cool.

Hmmm maybe I can catch a 5 minute nap. I don't think Francia is awake yet. :)

Classes

Today was my first day in my new conversation class.... we didn't speak at all? We read a letter and then filled out a family tree and started writing our own letter similar to it. I have no idea if this is a better class or not because I haven't heard anyone talk other than the teacher yet. The girl that read the letter was able to pronounce the words much better than the students in my other class so it's probably better but hello I'm in conversation class to talk! lol

My culture class is deffinately much harder, I'm wishing I stayed in my other class only because I want to be a little lazy. In this new class I'm going to learn soo much more, but I'm also going to be tested on soo much more! This is why I'd rather be in the other class hehe but I'm sure it's better for me to be in this one.

It's nice eating lunch with Spaniards, Edu helped me with my homework :) I'm sure it was really easy for him. haha I want to go to the Festival de Fallas in Vallencia, and I met a man from Vallencia today, small world. I asked him if I should go to the parade or the day they burn all the floats, and he told me the art was in the fire... so he helped me decide when to go. :) Now I just need some people to go with me. http://www.valencia-cityguide.com/tourist-information/leisure/festivals/the-fallas.html Here is a link describing the festival. :)

Yesterday I finally bought a Spanish phone, now I can call people to hang out and not just sit at home all day. :) It was soo hard for me to make the decision on which one to get, if you know me you know how hard it is for me to decide on a lot of things haha. I think I made the right decision and because I added an extra 10euros (wish I new how to make the euro sign) I get 50% off on all my minutes! ;) I was able to call Jason last night for the first time since arriving here. It was so nice to talk to him. We've been talking on the e-mail but it's good to hear his voice.

Today was rainy and Cristina my host mother let me borrow her umbrella. It was soo windy when I was walking to lunch that the umbrella broke and flew into the median in the street leaving me with the J shaped wooden handle. I ran to pick it up, luckily the traffic was stopped at a light. :( It's garbage now. Cristina was very nice about it. Haha

Tonight I think I may go to dinner with some of the other students. We'll see... It's hard to go out to dinner when I get dinner for free in a restaurant. :) haha And I always like dinner more than lunch. :)

Tis all for now in the Adventures de Jenny!