Saturday February 7, 2009 (9:00 PM)
My second week has already passed. I still cannot believe I am here in Spain. Life here is very different, and I know I’ve mentioned some differences but each day I find more. Yesterday, Fran and I went to the Wal-mart of Spain, Carrafour. It was huge!! We walked about 30 minutes there from the Plaza, which is 20 minutes from our house, so once we got there, we were a little hungry. We walked around a bit. Fran needed a better straightener than the ones we bought for 5 Euros. As for me, I’ll just deal with the mess that is my hair. Anyhow, we both bought a snack to eat on the way back because we had class in 45 minutes. As we were eating our snack and walking back, we noticed that no one else was eating anything as they walked. Well besides feeling like fatties, we felt very foreign once again. We asked our teacher about this, and she almost fainted when we said we ate while we were walking. You would have thought we had asked her if it was ok to walk about naked or something. That day we learned that it is very inappropriate to walk and eat while in Spain.
Earlier in the week, my madre’s grandchildren came over. Alejandro is 9 and Marcos is 5. They both attend a bilingual school, so it was perfect for us to chat. The boys were so funny! Little Marcos stayed a little while longer to talk to me. He showed me how he could count to 30 in English, though he missed about 6 or 7 numbers. He played with his food and was silly like little boys are. It was then that I realized how cute Spanish kids are. When we are walking on the street (not eating snacks), the children are always so very well dressed and just plain adorable. We all talk about how we want to take one home. I realize this may sound weird to you all, especially those of you with children, but if you ever see a little Spanish child running around, you too will wish you had one. I think too that they are so cute because I don’t actually understand what they are saying, so they all just look very innocent to me. Either way, I enjoy the time I spend with Alejandro and Marcos.
This week was also trip-planning time. We all frantically search the net for the cheapest tickets we could find. It is a very stressful task, and I respect travel agents so much more after getting into this. There are so many tiny details that I’m afraid I have yet to encounter. I guess the only way to find out is to just jump on a plane and go. In a few days I will book my first tickets for my first trip outside of Spain. Austin is coming to visit in March, and we’re going to go to Italy for a couple of days because I have a random holiday off from school. I love Spain and their Carnivals! At the end of March, I am going to Paris to visit Jenn, one of my good friends from Dalton, and well the Eiffel Tower. She is studying in Paris this semester too. Molly, Kristen, and I are going to London and Ireland for Spring Break. I have an extra week of Spring Break, so I think I might go to southern Spain with Daniella. Sadly, I don’t think I’m going to get to go to Austria while I’m here because flights there are very expensive, and no one else has Austria on their places to see. I’m not really that comfortable traveling by myself either. Not so sure how safe that would be. I guess that just means I’ll have to come back to Europe sometime to take that Sound of Music tour (secretly the only reason why I want to go to Austria anyway…kinding…kinda). ISA, the program that I’m here with, has several excursions planned for us within Spain. We’re going to Sevilla next weekend, and I’m really excited about that. I am really looking forward to the travels that lay ahead. Hope the bank account is prepared!
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