Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Mi flore
Oh, I forgot to explain more about Sant Jordi's day... It is called the day of books and flowers, because men give roses to girls in remembrance of St. George giving a flower to the princess after he slay the dragon. Girls give books to men because April 23rd is Shakespeare's birthday and another great author's death day. There were thousands of stands for books and flowers of all colors and sizes. The whole city was full of flowers and flower sellers and books everywhere. It was amazing!! My two favorite things all at once. And, I received two lovely roses from Isaac! It was a beautiful day overall. The temperature was the warmest and sunniest this semester so far, and the overall tone of the day was very sweet. It was like a true, simple version of Valentine's Day, without the need to buy expensive gifts in order to show how much you care for someone. I loved it! That's all.
Tiempo vuelo
Palabra de el mes: "Tiempo vuelo" = Time flies!
I checked my last post, and yep, it was from April 2nd, the week before spring break! Time has flown too fast for my liking, and in only a few weeks I will be back in the states again. I am so happy in so many ways to be coming home, but I am also sad in so many ways to soon be leaving. So sad, in fact, that I am not going to talk about those reasons. But, as you will soon find out from my mom, I am staying an extra week. I decided that if I came home on the 8th knowing that I had the chance to stay a little bit longer, I would regret it forever and kick myself for not taking the opportunity. A certain person might have had some influence on my decision as well. So I'm changing my flight and coming home on the 14th, just before Jewell's graduation. But never fear, because I will be in the midwest this summer and never far from home!
So, what have I been up to in the past month? Answer: A LOT.
Let's start with spring break...Well, I'm not going to post about it now because that will be a big undertaking, but in a few short words, it was an amazing trip with tons of epic failures that didn't ruin the trip, only made it more exciting!
So after spring break...I actually had homework, with two papers due and things to do to prepare for the end of my classes! I also hung out with Isaac almost every day for at least a few hours. The trip I was supposed to take to Granada with the dormitory fell through on the weekend of the 17-18th. I was sad but also relieved because I had homework to do anyway.
Last week, I did not sleep much. I spent about 20 hours between Monday night and Thursday morning editing an 80 page paper for my sustainability class because I volunteered to be the editor and chief, along with another girl. Worst/best decision of my life! Worst because I stayed up till 3 one night, 4 the next, and 5 the last night working on it, and best because it was a piece of **** before Aura and I did our magic and turned an unorganized non-believable mess into a solid A paper. I'm pretty proud.
Then, after all of these nights with little sleep, Thursday was both Sant Jordi's Day (St. George who slayed the dragon and the patron saint of Catalunya) and also Pacos 2009, a big event my dorm hosts that is a spin off of the oscars in which students get 'Pacos' and Miss/Mister so and so. Not only that, but I also played in 2 hours of volleyball matches with Isaac and his friends, along with Megan, because they needed female players. So I went to sleep at 5 in the morning, got up at 9:45, ate, finished the paper, played volleyball from 12-2, ate lunch with Isaac, went to class from 3:45-7pm (and was so tired I couldn't even fall asleep in class), then came home and napped for an hour, before having to get up to shower and look nice for the Pacos, which lasted from 9:45-12:30. Then, afterward, instead of going to sleep like I should have, if I was in my right mind, I changed my shoes and went with Megan to meet up with Jaime and Isaac, and we then went to the 'Pacos After-Party' with our entire dorm to a discoteca. O, jessica. So I got home very late, then got up a few hours later to eat breakfast and study, because o yes, I had a spanish test that day! But I rocked the test, it was very easy. Afterward I came back with Megan and did laundry and then went to a rugby game in which they were playing a really good french team. So good that in the second half, the forwards on each team switched jerseys and played for the other team, so that they would be more equal. We invited friends to come with us to the game, and 6 girls came (the rugby guys were happy about that, haha). Afterward, a man from the french fans insisted we come onto the field and take a photo with the teams and other fans, so we did. Afterward, we waited while all the players went to shower and then walked to a fiesta del dia of the mathematics department with the UPC team. It was similar to the fiesta del dia of the engineering department I went to a month earlier. I stayed there for a bit, then left with the girls and went back to the dorm to eat dinner, shower, and take a nap. Afterward, I went back to the fiesta del dia with Megan, now a fiesta del noche for a while. The fiesta was also a sort of stoplight party with nametags in red, yellow, and green, which made it fun. The rest of the weekend was fun as well, and I slept in and spent most of it with Isaac.
Sunday I finally studied for my history test (essay prompts), and slept a few hours Sunday night and had my final Monday morning. I think it went well. I came back, took a nap, went to lunch, and went with Megan to the Parc del Laberint. It was cool, but had many blocked off construction areas. We consoled ourselves by throwing sticks and small rocks at ducks and turtles! Afterward, in the evening, I saw Isaac and a few of his friends (Jose, Padu, y Sergio) and had a great time discussing such things as American Football and the swine flu epidemic, haha.
And now, today, finally. I had one final and one class. In my class, I found out the good grade on the big big paper I completed. I took the final next in my Oceanography class and did well enough, especially since on the paper due two weeks previously, I received a solid A and that alone was worth 30% of the grade, more than the final. Now on to enjoy the rest of my time in Spain!
I checked my last post, and yep, it was from April 2nd, the week before spring break! Time has flown too fast for my liking, and in only a few weeks I will be back in the states again. I am so happy in so many ways to be coming home, but I am also sad in so many ways to soon be leaving. So sad, in fact, that I am not going to talk about those reasons. But, as you will soon find out from my mom, I am staying an extra week. I decided that if I came home on the 8th knowing that I had the chance to stay a little bit longer, I would regret it forever and kick myself for not taking the opportunity. A certain person might have had some influence on my decision as well. So I'm changing my flight and coming home on the 14th, just before Jewell's graduation. But never fear, because I will be in the midwest this summer and never far from home!
So, what have I been up to in the past month? Answer: A LOT.
Let's start with spring break...Well, I'm not going to post about it now because that will be a big undertaking, but in a few short words, it was an amazing trip with tons of epic failures that didn't ruin the trip, only made it more exciting!
So after spring break...I actually had homework, with two papers due and things to do to prepare for the end of my classes! I also hung out with Isaac almost every day for at least a few hours. The trip I was supposed to take to Granada with the dormitory fell through on the weekend of the 17-18th. I was sad but also relieved because I had homework to do anyway.
Last week, I did not sleep much. I spent about 20 hours between Monday night and Thursday morning editing an 80 page paper for my sustainability class because I volunteered to be the editor and chief, along with another girl. Worst/best decision of my life! Worst because I stayed up till 3 one night, 4 the next, and 5 the last night working on it, and best because it was a piece of **** before Aura and I did our magic and turned an unorganized non-believable mess into a solid A paper. I'm pretty proud.
Then, after all of these nights with little sleep, Thursday was both Sant Jordi's Day (St. George who slayed the dragon and the patron saint of Catalunya) and also Pacos 2009, a big event my dorm hosts that is a spin off of the oscars in which students get 'Pacos' and Miss/Mister so and so. Not only that, but I also played in 2 hours of volleyball matches with Isaac and his friends, along with Megan, because they needed female players. So I went to sleep at 5 in the morning, got up at 9:45, ate, finished the paper, played volleyball from 12-2, ate lunch with Isaac, went to class from 3:45-7pm (and was so tired I couldn't even fall asleep in class), then came home and napped for an hour, before having to get up to shower and look nice for the Pacos, which lasted from 9:45-12:30. Then, afterward, instead of going to sleep like I should have, if I was in my right mind, I changed my shoes and went with Megan to meet up with Jaime and Isaac, and we then went to the 'Pacos After-Party' with our entire dorm to a discoteca. O, jessica. So I got home very late, then got up a few hours later to eat breakfast and study, because o yes, I had a spanish test that day! But I rocked the test, it was very easy. Afterward I came back with Megan and did laundry and then went to a rugby game in which they were playing a really good french team. So good that in the second half, the forwards on each team switched jerseys and played for the other team, so that they would be more equal. We invited friends to come with us to the game, and 6 girls came (the rugby guys were happy about that, haha). Afterward, a man from the french fans insisted we come onto the field and take a photo with the teams and other fans, so we did. Afterward, we waited while all the players went to shower and then walked to a fiesta del dia of the mathematics department with the UPC team. It was similar to the fiesta del dia of the engineering department I went to a month earlier. I stayed there for a bit, then left with the girls and went back to the dorm to eat dinner, shower, and take a nap. Afterward, I went back to the fiesta del dia with Megan, now a fiesta del noche for a while. The fiesta was also a sort of stoplight party with nametags in red, yellow, and green, which made it fun. The rest of the weekend was fun as well, and I slept in and spent most of it with Isaac.
Sunday I finally studied for my history test (essay prompts), and slept a few hours Sunday night and had my final Monday morning. I think it went well. I came back, took a nap, went to lunch, and went with Megan to the Parc del Laberint. It was cool, but had many blocked off construction areas. We consoled ourselves by throwing sticks and small rocks at ducks and turtles! Afterward, in the evening, I saw Isaac and a few of his friends (Jose, Padu, y Sergio) and had a great time discussing such things as American Football and the swine flu epidemic, haha.
And now, today, finally. I had one final and one class. In my class, I found out the good grade on the big big paper I completed. I took the final next in my Oceanography class and did well enough, especially since on the paper due two weeks previously, I received a solid A and that alone was worth 30% of the grade, more than the final. Now on to enjoy the rest of my time in Spain!
Thursday, April 2, 2009
I don't know what to call this post...more updates!!
I'll start with last Wednesday, where I was just about to get to in my last post. Megan and I were invited by Isaac, Jaime, and Eloi to a fiesta del dia their university (UPC) was holding. This fiesta was an all day event that students went to between classes and had food, drinks (the innocent and not so innocent kinds), music, and tables for organizations that were fund-raising or just advertising. Megan and I went after our class (well we actually left Spanish class early) and were there from 3:30ish to 9. We witnessed spaniards singing The Beatles and Wonderwall, really well actually, "Flying Flan", a competition to see who could catch flan in their mouth from the farthest distance (SO SO hilarious!! and I got flan splattered on me from being too close to a guy catching it), and Catalan flag shots, another competition between a lot of guys and a few brave girls to see who could down 9 shots of alternating beer/sangria the fastest. When they were in order, the shots represented a red and yellow Catalan flag (very patriotic ha ha). When the fiesta was winding down, I went with Isaac to see if he could find another helmet so he could take me home on his motobike. He didn't find one, but we ran into a few rugby friends of his and ended up walking down diagonal to have a few drinks with them. I primarily just sat there and looked pretty while he and his friends talked in Spanish. I could understand a lot of the words they were saying but had a hard time stringing them into sentences and understanding the whole thing, but I was still proud of myself. Isaac or Jose, the other guy who knew english well, would occasionally fill me in on what was happening or make sure to include me in the conversation. However, a lot of the convo was about rugby and I didn't mind just relaxing since I know nothing of rugby!
Thursday was pretty uneventful, but on Friday I had no classes! Because of this, Megan and I decided we would go to Montjuic with our sack lunches and see MNAC and the Botanical Garden. We also wanted to see the Labyrinth park but that didn't work out. MNAC is the museum of Catalan art, where they have preserved a lot of art from churches and monasteries that would have been destroyed or stolen if it wasn't removed. When we got to the museum, we discovered that we had to pay and decided it wasn't worth it at the time, so we went to the free exhibit (which was NOT cool). Afterward, we went to find the garden. We found a small, wild-looking garden and explored it and ate our lunches there. At first I thought it was the botanical garden but after walking through it we found it was WAY too small to be so. However, the garden was beautiful and had actual dirt paths. We stayed there until a group of 7 yr olds showed up and started running and screaming everywhere. We then walked up past the Olympic stadium and got some good views of the whole of Montjuic mountain, and afterward found the Jardin Botanic behind the stadium. Before going in, we saw a really nice looking patch of flowers and ran and lay down in them! It was refreshing to lie in grass for once. We then got up and went inside the garden and oh was it beautiful!! It was set up with plants from 8 different areas, including California, Africa, the Med., Australia, etc, and a lot of flowers were in bloom. We walked around and often caught a whiff of something magnificent, in which case we would stop and look around until we found the culprit and then go stick our faces in the flowers to soak up the smell!! We walked around until it was almost time to head back to the dorm to get ready for a birthday party! we had to go to that evening. Before we left the garden we found a little boardwalk area over a large goldfish pond, and decided to take some pictures of us doing cartwheels, jumping, etc etc...Well, we returned to the dorm and got ready to go out, and then met Jaime at UPC. It was Isaac's and one of his friend's birthdays and they were all celebrating together. I got to meet tons of new people and had A LOT of fun! We all went out to eat Chinese together, which was delicious, and then went out to a bar, where Isaac's friends attempted to get him and his birthday pal really drunk..those hombres traviesos!
Saturday was a bumming around day because it started raining and then rained ALL day long (it hasn't stopped yet and it's Thursday now!) On Saturday evening Megan and I went to a show called Opera y Flamenco. It was really intense and we both enjoyed it! However, when the show was done, we were flamenco'd out. The show had a violinist, violist, guitarist (2), vocalist, drummer, and pianist. There were also 2 opera singers and 2 flamenco dancers. They would basically just go from song to song, dance to dance, and intersperse these with Opera pieces like the Habanera from Carmen. At one point the female flamenco dancer had a dress on with a very long skirt that she kicked around with her heels and she tripped and fell down HARD. However, that girl was good cause she got right back up and made it seem like the entire fall was part of the act. Megan and I weren't sure that it was actually an accident (but it was :D). After the show we went to Pizza Hut to try their pizza. It was not good. At all. I'll wait till I'm back in the states to have pizza hut again! We then went home and went to bed!
Nothing exciting has happened since then. I've actually had homework to do (I know, amazing) and it has been rainy and dreary. Although yesterday my Spanish class went on a field trip to a market where our teacher had us sample these special donuts that Catholics eat during Lent. Guess what they have in them....Anis and Cinnamon. Anis, as in the alcohol that is in Absinthe...These donuts tasted WEIRD. Those Spanish Catholics....Today I am getting ready to go to Germany for a week!!! I'm so excited!! Frankfurt, St. Goar, Schwalmstadt, Freiburg/Triburg, Nuremburg, and Prague!! Say a prayer for me and my travel safety, por favor. And tonight I am going to see Isaac again as well :)
Goodbye for now and love for all!
Thursday was pretty uneventful, but on Friday I had no classes! Because of this, Megan and I decided we would go to Montjuic with our sack lunches and see MNAC and the Botanical Garden. We also wanted to see the Labyrinth park but that didn't work out. MNAC is the museum of Catalan art, where they have preserved a lot of art from churches and monasteries that would have been destroyed or stolen if it wasn't removed. When we got to the museum, we discovered that we had to pay and decided it wasn't worth it at the time, so we went to the free exhibit (which was NOT cool). Afterward, we went to find the garden. We found a small, wild-looking garden and explored it and ate our lunches there. At first I thought it was the botanical garden but after walking through it we found it was WAY too small to be so. However, the garden was beautiful and had actual dirt paths. We stayed there until a group of 7 yr olds showed up and started running and screaming everywhere. We then walked up past the Olympic stadium and got some good views of the whole of Montjuic mountain, and afterward found the Jardin Botanic behind the stadium. Before going in, we saw a really nice looking patch of flowers and ran and lay down in them! It was refreshing to lie in grass for once. We then got up and went inside the garden and oh was it beautiful!! It was set up with plants from 8 different areas, including California, Africa, the Med., Australia, etc, and a lot of flowers were in bloom. We walked around and often caught a whiff of something magnificent, in which case we would stop and look around until we found the culprit and then go stick our faces in the flowers to soak up the smell!! We walked around until it was almost time to head back to the dorm to get ready for a birthday party! we had to go to that evening. Before we left the garden we found a little boardwalk area over a large goldfish pond, and decided to take some pictures of us doing cartwheels, jumping, etc etc...Well, we returned to the dorm and got ready to go out, and then met Jaime at UPC. It was Isaac's and one of his friend's birthdays and they were all celebrating together. I got to meet tons of new people and had A LOT of fun! We all went out to eat Chinese together, which was delicious, and then went out to a bar, where Isaac's friends attempted to get him and his birthday pal really drunk..those hombres traviesos!
Saturday was a bumming around day because it started raining and then rained ALL day long (it hasn't stopped yet and it's Thursday now!) On Saturday evening Megan and I went to a show called Opera y Flamenco. It was really intense and we both enjoyed it! However, when the show was done, we were flamenco'd out. The show had a violinist, violist, guitarist (2), vocalist, drummer, and pianist. There were also 2 opera singers and 2 flamenco dancers. They would basically just go from song to song, dance to dance, and intersperse these with Opera pieces like the Habanera from Carmen. At one point the female flamenco dancer had a dress on with a very long skirt that she kicked around with her heels and she tripped and fell down HARD. However, that girl was good cause she got right back up and made it seem like the entire fall was part of the act. Megan and I weren't sure that it was actually an accident (but it was :D). After the show we went to Pizza Hut to try their pizza. It was not good. At all. I'll wait till I'm back in the states to have pizza hut again! We then went home and went to bed!
Nothing exciting has happened since then. I've actually had homework to do (I know, amazing) and it has been rainy and dreary. Although yesterday my Spanish class went on a field trip to a market where our teacher had us sample these special donuts that Catholics eat during Lent. Guess what they have in them....Anis and Cinnamon. Anis, as in the alcohol that is in Absinthe...These donuts tasted WEIRD. Those Spanish Catholics....Today I am getting ready to go to Germany for a week!!! I'm so excited!! Frankfurt, St. Goar, Schwalmstadt, Freiburg/Triburg, Nuremburg, and Prague!! Say a prayer for me and my travel safety, por favor. And tonight I am going to see Isaac again as well :)
Goodbye for now and love for all!
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