152 peldanos...

1/22-Day 19


Yesterday we went on an excursion to Segovia to see the town and specifically the Roman Aqueduct. It is around 30km and supplies water for the city from the nearby mountains and river. It was made by the Romans solely out of stone, no cement or anything to keep it together. Crazy!

Visited La Iglesia de San Martin.

Catedral de Segovia. The last Gothic cathedral built in Spain.

Alcazar, fortress where the Kings of Castilla y Leon lived.

Protected on three sides because it is on the edge of the city, aka cliff. And there is a moat surrounding it.

Chairs for the King and Queen.

View from the top of the Castile.. 152 steps up a narrow winding stairway. I got a little claustrophobic to say the least.

Looking down on the center where we started.

We also had some free time and did a little shopping and wandered around the city. It is very small and basically has two main streets, so there wasn't a ton else to see. 

Nuestra casa!

Day 14- 1/17

This is my house! Well apartment, people in Spanish live in apartments in the city. We live on the 11th floor and our piso is about 10 minutes from La Plaza Mayor (the city center) and a 35-40 minute walk from school, which isn't bad. It's not that cold here, 30s in the morning, but no wind just lots of fog..hay niebla todo el tiempo hasta febrero. Much better than snow!

This is the fancy living room, salon, and a dining room. We never really go in here. We watched a few movies in there on Sunday and then our WI-FI went out one day so we did a secret operation to unplug everything then pray it worked again. It did!

This is the kitchen. Everything is super modern and sleek looking.

This is where we eat and watch a lot of Spanish TV. We eat lunch around 230pm and dinner around 9pm. During the day watch the news, las noticias, probably like three times. But we also watch Bob Esponja, Spongebob, and Entre Fantamas, a lot. It the Spanish version of Ghost Whisperer show with Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Here is the fridge, microwave, oven and sink. Maria keeps her kitchen very clean and is always sweeping the floor during the commercials. We have pan del dia, every day. People go to the store everyday to buy fresh french bread. It's a little harder than what we would normally get for a loaf so the crumbs go everywhere, thus the chronic sweeping!

This is through the little white door you could see in the last picture. It is her stove with the washer under it. This is basically an enclosed deck room off of the kitchen, it's not heated so she keeps most of her vegetables and garbage out here.

That's it! There's two more bedrooms for Erin and Maria, and one full bath and a 3/4 bath!

Vamos a tomar vino!

Day 11- 1/14

Mi mama bursts into my room and says something completely foreign, as in not even Spanish..

And that's how my day started.. apparently Erin tried to teach mi mama English but the sounds are so different she couldn't even repeat what she said haha.

But we shortly found out that she was saying Let's go drink wine! We met up with her brother-in-law, su cunado, and basically went bar hopping through Valla. In addition to excellent wine we had deep fried shrimp and patatas con salsa, basically potatoes with a gravy for appetizers. Then we had the same meal we had at La Bola Taberna but it tasted a ton better because it wasn't all mixed in and she explained what all the meats were. Churizos y cerdo. 

Juan Carlos asked what we normally eat in the states and I replied with puerco.. thinking that that was the word for pork. But apparently it means we eat chicas gordas (fat girls). Haha, oops.

We also watched youtube video of his son, Hugo, singing in English and Juan Carlos called him to tell Hugo that he was with two blonde girls. Being blonde, chicas rubias, is a big deal here and the first thing anyone comments on.

Here is Hugo singing.

Maria Jesus kept saying how terrible his hair looked because it was too long. 

Juan Carlos was the classic Spaniard, hair slicked back and he smoked 4 cigareets INSIDE right after lunch haha. Very different, but very typical.

Now it is time for a siesta so we can go out tonight! Maria showed us many bars, discotecas and a Plaza that is for young people to party. She is very excited for us to go out and experience Valla at night. 

No hay pies de nieve en Espana..

Day 10 - 1/11

We started school yesterday. I have grammar everyday otherwise it rotates between history, geography, lit, and expresion oral (a small group class where we work on our speaking a lot). I really like my teachers they are super nice and talk a little slower than everyone else, at least for now.

After school today we had lunch with our host mom. Everyday we start talking and understanding her a little bit more. We ate lunch and then watched Spongebob, Bob Esponja, and George of the Jungle. 

Our mom asked us if it is much colder where we live than here, (it is in the 30s-40s everyday and this morning we got our first dusting of snow) and we tried to explain to her how much colder it is in Wisconsin, but the difference between Celsius and Fahrenheit  got a little lost in translation, pero si hace mucho mas frio en Wisconsin. I also tried to explain to her that we usually have a couple feet of snow by now, although this year has been a little warmer. After not realizing why she wasn't understanding me I had an Ah Ha moment..there are no "feet" in Spain or anywhere else in the world soo that's probably not the best way to describe anything haha. 

Still working on getting the discounted bus pass, apparently they try and make it as difficult as possible :/ But Erin and I are going to start walking to school tomorrow, 35-40 minutes=buen ejercicio. 

Empuje!

Day 5- 1/8

Today we took a bus to Valladolid to meet our host familiies. Everyone was very nervous for what to say/to start talking all in Spanish/doing the check kiss thingy. I am with Erin and our family is a divorced lady, Maria Jesús, and she has a son, David, a daughter, Laura, and one grandson, Marcos. 

She also has two fish that are in a bowl on her breakfast bar. The orange one’s name is Colorina? And there’s a blue one I couldn’t understand when she said the name. Erin and I each have our own room. Erin is staying in her daughters old room and I am staying in her grandson’s room for when he comes to visit. It is decked out with Dora, carebears and story books. 

It is a nice apartment on the 11th floor with three bedrooms. I had to take the elevator by myself because they are very small and I had all my stuff with me still. Apparently once the gates open on your floor you have to push the door open. I didn’t know that and was waiting for them to open and the elevator started going back down all the way to the basement then I had to ride it back up. Note to self: Empuje! 

Our mom is very nice and excited to have us. She does not speak any English and talks pretty fast in Spanish. I understand about half or 2/3 of what she says or just go si, laugh a little and nod my head. Same for Erin, haha. So we're definitely going to learn some good Spanish by the end of this.

We got our things settled, ate lunch and took a nap. During lunch we watchd the equivalent to E!, talked a little bit and watched some of the news. Maria is very concerned with the unemployment crisis. She does not have a job right now but will return to work in February. 

She took us around Valladolid for a bit and we got hot chocolate. There is still a lot of Christmas decorations up. It was in the 30s tonight and is incredibly foggy. I guess that is what their winter is and the fog will last for the next month. 

Mas vino por favor!

Day 4 - 1/7


We went to the Reina Sofia and saw works by many famous contemporary artists. We saw the Guernica by Pablo Picasso. It was huge and took up the whole wall. We also saw art by Salvador Dali. This ws cool because we have studied many contemporary artists in my spanish classes.

 Then we went to El Museo de Prado and saw works by El Greco, Rafael, Francisco de Goya and others. It was interesting but it wasn’t a guided door and was a huge museum with a lot of works by artists we had no studied so it was cool to say I’d been there but not my favorite.


Then a few of us went to El Jardin de Retiro. There was a couple lakes in the middle. One was huge with people paddle boating through it. There were a lot of cats and peacocks running around. It was very pretty but would be better in the spring when all the flowers are blooming and it isn’t so brown. But we saw a bunch of roses blooming around a fountain. 

We then went to La Mazarina for dinner. It was really really good. We had a few different types of tapas to start and a huge steak and some different postres for dessert, including cheesecake. And unlimited wine because our guide Bruce is a friend of the owner. Everyone was having a pretty good time. I also tried their coca cola for the first time. It is made with real sugar and tastes different, pretty good! 

El dia que nosotros casi vemos el rey de Espana...

Day 3- 1/6 

Today we took a tour of Old Madrid, our guide was a typical British man, Steven. He was hilarious, a historian and knew not only the dates everything happened but which day of the week it was. 

We saw the Senate, Egyptian pyramids at La casa de campo which is the boundary for the city of Madrid and the country side.

 Senate.

 Pyraminds in Casa del Campo.


We then walked around the outside of El Palacio Real of the royal family of Spain and the King Juan Carlos. The family does not actually live there because there are over 2,000 rooms but we saw the military parade for el Dia de los reyes. I guess the guy in the white on the horse is not the king but we thought so for a while, and took a million pictures of him to find out he wouldn't appear until later and we would miss him. Not that I knew who the king of Spain was before this trip anyways.

 Palacio Real...Mi casa, por supuesto!

 Not the king...apparently

We saw the courtyard outside the Palace. If the flags are up you cannot go in. There was a church near the palace, se llama Almudena, the domes are painted by Francisco de Goya. We then walked more around old Madrid. It was very hilly, but not as busy as the barrio around our hotel.

El Almudena

 Then we went for a Paella lunch at El Arrozal, una paelleria. The shrimp still had their eyes!! It was good but a little freaky. We also had Sangria and a dessert. Sherbet de limion con champagne! Delicioso!

Plaza Mayor

Plaza Mayor with Crystal

There were a lot of people in the square doing crazy things like dressing up as babies, weird creatures and statues in order to get money. We are going to a Flamenco show for dinner tonight! …The flamenco was ok. Similar to the one I’ve seen in Madison before.

Donde ponemos los platos??

Had breakfast at the hotel. Primeras palabras en español: donde ponemos los platos?! Found out that going into a restaurant/ordering/anything involved with eating is a little confusing because we don't really know if we leave our plates, seat ourselves, when to pay etc. Didn't think that'd be an issue but it's something we'll have to figure out. 

Then we took a tour of Toledo, que bonito! Our guide Emma was great. Lots of walking and everything was uphill. We learned a lot about la defensa de la ciudad. It is protected on three sides by the river, el rio Tagus. Las vistas fueron pasmosas. 

 With Erin, my roommate for the home stay.

We went to a Mosque, se llama El cristo de la luz mezquita, second oldest in the world! 

 Then we went to a synagogue, se llama Sinagoga del Transito.

 And lastly a church that is now el museo de concilios y de la cultura visigoda. These represented the three groups, muslim, jews and christians that co-existed in Toledo.

A few of us went to lunch at “Las Tapas” we had tapas y cerveza, I had jamon serano, which is like ham from the Iberian Peninsula thinly sliced on a toasted bread with cheese and Estrella is the type of beer. I think I like the wine better. 

That night a few of us went to the parade, la desfila para el día de los reyes. Jan. 6th is when children in Spain get their presents for Christmas. It was awesome. The floats were huge!! Men in Black 3, Spongebob, Yellow Lab puppies, dancers.. We geeked out when some of the children started singing Old McDonald Had a Farm along El Paseo de Castellena. 

Then we went to dinner at La Bola Taberna. We had a stew with chickpeas and lots of different meat. It was not my favorite but the dessert was delicious!! Fried apple a la mode basically. The subway was fun, possibly because we were very overtired. Discussed the best possible way to survive if you fall into the metro tracks. Decided that noun and adjective agreement was very important. We were having issues with the gender agreement and kept saying we were men on accident. Guy on the bus thought we were out of our minds. But it was entertaining.