As long as we keep on dreaming, we've got the world...
Hola!! We moved out of the hostel this morning (yay!!) and in with Lucia temporarily. She took us to UPV this morning, and we became official students! We go back later in the week to pick what sections of the classes we want. We also looked online for apartment ads while we were there, and after some searching, we found a few. We ate lunch in UPV's version of Garst (MSU's dining hall); they give you a TON of food for lunch! We had this cheesy, meaty enchilada mixture on one plate and this rice that tasted like Doritos on another. It wasn't bad, but we felt really stupid while going through the line because we didn't know what we were supposed to do. Oh well! Oh, here's something that's VERY different from Garst: when choosing your drink in the cafeteria, you can choose water, pop, juice, or ALCOHOL! That's so weird and hard to get used to! I chose Coke. :)
When we returned to Lucia's, we both took naps and watched a bit of TV (CNN in English and The Simpsons in Spanish), and then Lucia took us back into the city in order to view the apartment. We both really liked it! There are four bedrooms total; a French girl and some other guy will be living there, and the other two bedrooms are empty. It's across the street from campus, in the price range of our scholarship money, HAS INTERNET!!, in the neighborhood that Lucia and Alberto like to hang out in, and is basically just everything we want! However, the people are showing it to more people tomorrow, and then they will call us to tell us whether or not we got it. Pray for us!!! This seems like the perfect place, but we'll see...
Alberto brought us to his parents' office to get on the internet (I think they think we are addicted!) because they don't have it in their apartment. In a few minutes, we are going to watch Alberto play soccer (or football, as they call it!). Later, there will be dinner, and we may show Lucia and Alberto a movie in English (with Spanish subtitles)! They are very eager to learn English, and it's fun teaching them.
Anyway, adios for today (or until we have internet access again)!
...spinning right in our hands.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Sunday, January 27, 2008
lesson learned: don't stay up all night in order to be awake in time for free breakfast.
We are colored people...
Our sleeping schedules here in Spain are just a little messed up. I won't tell you how late we stayed up, but let's just say that we were awake when they started serving free breakfast here in the hostel. We had actually thought about going to bed before they started serving, but when we realized that FREE (I emphasize the word FREE!) breakfast would be served in less than an hour, we decided to stay awake a bit longer for a meal. As we were waiting, the funniest thing happened! Our friends from MSU each gave us a little object to remind us of them. Well, Henry gave us this duck that quacks. Emily forgot it was in her backpack, and she hit it on accident, and it started quacking and would NOT stop (Thanks, Henry!!). This woke everyone in our room up, and they were NOT happy about it! I'm pretty sure they hate us, and I don't blame them; we are quite possibly the worst roommates ever! We stay up late, sleep late, and are accidentally loud at awful times. Oh, and we can't even communicate with one girl, but that doesn't really matter because the two that we can communicate with (We think they're from Ireland.) don't WANT to talk to us!! Oh well! Better luck next time, I guess! :-) Anyway, when the duck started quacking, we tried to act like it was our alarm, and we had wanted it to go off on purpose, and we sprinted downstairs for the free food. It was some sort of cereal that slightly resembled Wheaties, lemon muffins, toast in a package, very sweet milk (It kind of tasted like cream.), and nasty apple juice. Oh well, it was free!
Anyway, we headed to bed as our roommates were waking up, and we slept for a few hours. When we woke up, we showered, got ready, and waited for Abril. She is Catholic (along with most of Spain), and she had found out what time mass started at the cathedral at La Plaza de La Virgen, so we decided to go to mass with her. The service was completely in Spanish, and while we could keep up for parts of it, there were also many times when we found ourselves zoning out and getting confused. When you add this to the fact that I am not Catholic, and therefore, not very familiar with the Catholic ways, it was a little confusing. Fortunately, Abril coached us through the rituals, and we got to enjoy the service with her! Even though there were parts I did not understand, I still really enjoyed it! I found it so amazing to be surrounded by other brothers and sisters in Christ in a foreign country. They may worship in different ways and speak a different language, but the important and most awe-striking thing is that, despite those differences, we are worshiping the same God and celebrating the same Love! We may not understand each other, but we understand that we are bonded through Him! Isn't that simply amazing? I think so. :-)
Aside from the actual service, the inside of the cathedral is so beautiful! They are doing some restorations, but still, there are huge paintings everywhere, and the rooms are lined with golden ornaments and crystal. We only saw a small part of it, but apparently they do tours throughout it often, so I definitely want to go back and take an official tour and hear all about the history of a major cathedral in Spain that's been standing for almost 800 years!
After mass, we headed for dinner at McDonald's! I am so impressed with the McDonald's over here. They're basically upscale! The one we went to a few days ago had covered parking spaces, and the one we went to tonight was two stories and very modernized. It's definitely a step up from the Mickey D's in Pryor Creek! The Euro menu isn't as big as the dollar menu, though, so that's a downfall. Drinks are also a lot smaller here. A large (grande!) in Spain is a medium size in America. You'd think America was fat or something. :-) Over dinner Abril told us about Mexico, and we told her about the United States. It was interesting.
We walked around for a bit before returning to the hostel. When we came back, I cammed with Asho over messenger, and I got to chat with Harrison! Since I can't easily (or cheaply) call the U.S. from over here, I seem to ask lots of people on messenger to call my parents for me and ask when they will be available. Tonight both Ashley and Harrison called my parents for me, so thanks to both of them!! I definitely appreciate it! It makes things so much easier. Later I was able to talk to both my mom and my dad at the same time on Skype! Happiness!
While I was talking to them, Lucia, Alberto, and Little Lucia (Lucia is the name of Lucia's daughter.. so I will refer to her as Little Lucia!) showed up at the hostel, and they brought us a present... A CELL PHONE! They gave us one of their old ones! All we will have to do tomorrow is buy a sim card, and we'll be good to go! Maybe I'm just slightly addicted to my cell phone in the States, but I've been finding it hard not to have one here! It's just so much more convenient to have a phone with you whenever you want it and a permanent number to give out whenever someone asks. Anyway, that problem will be solved tomorrow!
Lucia also showed me lots of her family pictures while she was here. She and Alberto are so nice and cute together! While she was playing on my computer, this 40-something German man who has been staying in our hostel attempted to talk to us in this broken Spanish with a VERY heavy German accent. It was really awkward because he's tried to talk to us before, and we couldn't understand him! You meet all kinds of people in the hostel.. haha!
Since we will be staying with Lucia and Alberto tomorrow, and since we have SOOO much luggage, they decided to take some of our luggage tonight. When Alberto saw the tag on my suitcase that says "64" he said, "64 kilos??" Nope, 64 pounds! :-) Poor guy had to lug the suitcases out to the street and into the car, but he did so very graciously! We are very thankful to have the mentor that we do! She is absolutely great, and Alberto is equally amazing.
We have to check out of our hostel at 11:00AM, but we're going to try to make it to the bank before in order to exchange our American money for euros. Considering the exchange rate, that'll be a sad process, but we need to do that soon! Then, Lucia is coming to pick us up, and we're apartment hunting! Wish us luck! Hopefully we will find a place SOON, but until then, we have amazing friends, Lucia and Alberto!
...who depend on Holy Grace!
Our sleeping schedules here in Spain are just a little messed up. I won't tell you how late we stayed up, but let's just say that we were awake when they started serving free breakfast here in the hostel. We had actually thought about going to bed before they started serving, but when we realized that FREE (I emphasize the word FREE!) breakfast would be served in less than an hour, we decided to stay awake a bit longer for a meal. As we were waiting, the funniest thing happened! Our friends from MSU each gave us a little object to remind us of them. Well, Henry gave us this duck that quacks. Emily forgot it was in her backpack, and she hit it on accident, and it started quacking and would NOT stop (Thanks, Henry!!). This woke everyone in our room up, and they were NOT happy about it! I'm pretty sure they hate us, and I don't blame them; we are quite possibly the worst roommates ever! We stay up late, sleep late, and are accidentally loud at awful times. Oh, and we can't even communicate with one girl, but that doesn't really matter because the two that we can communicate with (We think they're from Ireland.) don't WANT to talk to us!! Oh well! Better luck next time, I guess! :-) Anyway, when the duck started quacking, we tried to act like it was our alarm, and we had wanted it to go off on purpose, and we sprinted downstairs for the free food. It was some sort of cereal that slightly resembled Wheaties, lemon muffins, toast in a package, very sweet milk (It kind of tasted like cream.), and nasty apple juice. Oh well, it was free!
Anyway, we headed to bed as our roommates were waking up, and we slept for a few hours. When we woke up, we showered, got ready, and waited for Abril. She is Catholic (along with most of Spain), and she had found out what time mass started at the cathedral at La Plaza de La Virgen, so we decided to go to mass with her. The service was completely in Spanish, and while we could keep up for parts of it, there were also many times when we found ourselves zoning out and getting confused. When you add this to the fact that I am not Catholic, and therefore, not very familiar with the Catholic ways, it was a little confusing. Fortunately, Abril coached us through the rituals, and we got to enjoy the service with her! Even though there were parts I did not understand, I still really enjoyed it! I found it so amazing to be surrounded by other brothers and sisters in Christ in a foreign country. They may worship in different ways and speak a different language, but the important and most awe-striking thing is that, despite those differences, we are worshiping the same God and celebrating the same Love! We may not understand each other, but we understand that we are bonded through Him! Isn't that simply amazing? I think so. :-)
Aside from the actual service, the inside of the cathedral is so beautiful! They are doing some restorations, but still, there are huge paintings everywhere, and the rooms are lined with golden ornaments and crystal. We only saw a small part of it, but apparently they do tours throughout it often, so I definitely want to go back and take an official tour and hear all about the history of a major cathedral in Spain that's been standing for almost 800 years!
After mass, we headed for dinner at McDonald's! I am so impressed with the McDonald's over here. They're basically upscale! The one we went to a few days ago had covered parking spaces, and the one we went to tonight was two stories and very modernized. It's definitely a step up from the Mickey D's in Pryor Creek! The Euro menu isn't as big as the dollar menu, though, so that's a downfall. Drinks are also a lot smaller here. A large (grande!) in Spain is a medium size in America. You'd think America was fat or something. :-) Over dinner Abril told us about Mexico, and we told her about the United States. It was interesting.
We walked around for a bit before returning to the hostel. When we came back, I cammed with Asho over messenger, and I got to chat with Harrison! Since I can't easily (or cheaply) call the U.S. from over here, I seem to ask lots of people on messenger to call my parents for me and ask when they will be available. Tonight both Ashley and Harrison called my parents for me, so thanks to both of them!! I definitely appreciate it! It makes things so much easier. Later I was able to talk to both my mom and my dad at the same time on Skype! Happiness!
While I was talking to them, Lucia, Alberto, and Little Lucia (Lucia is the name of Lucia's daughter.. so I will refer to her as Little Lucia!) showed up at the hostel, and they brought us a present... A CELL PHONE! They gave us one of their old ones! All we will have to do tomorrow is buy a sim card, and we'll be good to go! Maybe I'm just slightly addicted to my cell phone in the States, but I've been finding it hard not to have one here! It's just so much more convenient to have a phone with you whenever you want it and a permanent number to give out whenever someone asks. Anyway, that problem will be solved tomorrow!
Lucia also showed me lots of her family pictures while she was here. She and Alberto are so nice and cute together! While she was playing on my computer, this 40-something German man who has been staying in our hostel attempted to talk to us in this broken Spanish with a VERY heavy German accent. It was really awkward because he's tried to talk to us before, and we couldn't understand him! You meet all kinds of people in the hostel.. haha!
Since we will be staying with Lucia and Alberto tomorrow, and since we have SOOO much luggage, they decided to take some of our luggage tonight. When Alberto saw the tag on my suitcase that says "64" he said, "64 kilos??" Nope, 64 pounds! :-) Poor guy had to lug the suitcases out to the street and into the car, but he did so very graciously! We are very thankful to have the mentor that we do! She is absolutely great, and Alberto is equally amazing.
We have to check out of our hostel at 11:00AM, but we're going to try to make it to the bank before in order to exchange our American money for euros. Considering the exchange rate, that'll be a sad process, but we need to do that soon! Then, Lucia is coming to pick us up, and we're apartment hunting! Wish us luck! Hopefully we will find a place SOON, but until then, we have amazing friends, Lucia and Alberto!
...who depend on Holy Grace!
Saturday, January 26, 2008
a protest in the plaza, agua de valencia, and more!
I hope tomorrow...
Today was our first day without Lucia to guide us (although she did drop by to check on us!), and we made it through by ourselves just fine! Okay, so in actuality we stayed up until 6 or 7am talking to family and friends on messenger and Skype, which caused us to sleep a large portion of the day away. The chats were definitely worth it, though, and when we awoke, we found out some great news: OUR LUGGAGE HAD SHOWED UP WHILE WE WERE SLEEPING! This means we now have more clothes, cute shoes, coats, hair supplies, etc. We can look cute again! Plus, we don't have to worry about it anymore! We're definitely having a lucky streak; let's hope it continues (knock on wood)!!
After getting ready and situating our luggage, Emily and I headed out for el centro de Valencia. Basically, our hostel is only one or two streets away from the very heart and center of Valencia, so it took no time to get there! Our first stop was La Plaza de la Virgen:
That's a huge cathedral in the background of the first picture (I plan on attending mass so I can not only attend church but also see the inside!! :-)), and obviously, there's also a huge fountain! It looks like something that belongs in a movie. It's kind of in the middle of everything, and as you can tell, it's pretty historic. Apparently a lot of the stuff associated with the Fallas happens around here! After some googling, I've learned that apparently a lot of people think the holy grail is housed within the cathedral, and the building of it started in the 1200s! So amazing!
We wandered away from the plaza and down lots of little streets and alleys until we reacher a newer area of Valencia. As we walked, one thing became very clear: the people of Spain are very okay with public displays of affection! Everywhere we looked there was some couple making out or groping each other. I'll admit that everything is very romantic, but seeing that was kind of gross! Whatever! :-)
After lots of investigation, we decided to return to La Plaza de la Virgen for a dinner outdoors at a cute little cafe. However, La Plaza was not the same little peaceful place as when we had left! Instead, there was a huge protest going on outside the door of the cathedral, and people were holding signs that said stuff like, "Stop the massacre!" (in Spanish, of course!), and waving Palestine flags. They were also lighting candles as a sort of vigil. As we ate dinner, the mob got larger and larger, and then these girls showed up wearing huge, extravagant dresses, and they got out, walked around, went in the cathedral, and then cars sped through the alleys, and they were quickly ushered inside of them, and the cars would hit the gas and speed away. And then men wearing these kilt-like skirts appeared! It was so strange! We really have no idea what was going on, but we are thinking that it relates to the Spanish Prime Minister agreeing to support Palestine earlier in the week. We tried to find someone who spoke English to ask, and although we found one group of people from England, we didn't ask. Even with all the commotion, we were able to enjoy a delicious meal of tortellini with ricotta (Note the Coke in glass bottles and orange trees in the background!):
We had been seeing advertisements for "agua de Valencia" all over the place, and since we were unable to drink any with dinner, we decided to set out on a journey to find some authentic agua de Valencia. There was a little shop in the center of the plaza that had it, but they were closing up by the time we paid for our dinner, so we headed to the unknown in hopes to find some! As we were searching, we came across this:
More fountains!! And more beautiful buildings! Why is everything so old and pretty here? I love it! Still, we didn't find any agua de Valencia, even after asking a few stores, "Tienes el agua de Valencia aquí?" We did, however, find Spain's version of Panera (bread co!!), a Burger King, more McDonald's, and... THIS:
SODEXHO!!! For those of you not familiar with MSU, Sodexho is the company who prepares all of our meals and catering at the dining hall at MSU. Sometimes they have good food, but the majority of the time it's very routine and nasty, and thus, Emily and I are glad we don't have to eat it this semester! However, seeing this sign in SPAIN blew us away!! Sodexho in Spain?! Are they following us?! I hope the Spaniards don't think that American food is like Sodexho! haha! And seriously, who would PAY to eat at a place that has Sodexho food? :-)
We were about to give up and return to the hostel, but we accidentally stumbled upon a tiny bar and decided to try our luck one more time. You could tell that most of the people in it were "townies", and what do you know, they had agua de Valencia! They only served it in pitchers, but we decided we could just share one, so we ordered up the agua de Valencia and waited! It finally arrived!:
It's apparently made with FRESH Valencian orange juice, champagne, vodka, and gin. It was really good at first, but started to get stronger and stronger... Still, we can say we had the agua de Valencia! The fun part is that we spoke to our waitress in Spanish, but as we were leaving, she started talking in perfect English (with a British accent)! Oh well, at least we got some Spanish practice!
When we returned to the hostel, I got to talk to my mom and Rachel on Skype, and Em talked to Chris and Henry. We got hungry around 1AM, though, so we decided we'd walk back to the McDonald's we had seen earlier and get some ice cream. Turns out the the McDonald's over here are NOT open 24/7 (Although they are much bigger and more upscale than in America! With covered parking lots and two stories!), so we went to some local ice cream place. I'm still amazed that people are out so late! I'm REALLY amazed that older people are at that late! It's just no big deal to them.
Now we are back at the hostel, and we have two new roommates for the night. There is a new boy and a new girl. We heard them earlier speaking English, although we were both halfway asleep, so we didn't talk to them. Our other roommate speaks NO English or Spanish, so we're not sure where she's from, but we're assuming either France or Italy. I'm going to bed soon; we are spending more time with Lucia tomorrow! We have a few leads on apartments, so pray that something works out SOON! If not, Lucia has offered to let us stay with her (for free!!) until we find something, so all will be well! Good-night from Spain! Love you all!
...is like today.
Today was our first day without Lucia to guide us (although she did drop by to check on us!), and we made it through by ourselves just fine! Okay, so in actuality we stayed up until 6 or 7am talking to family and friends on messenger and Skype, which caused us to sleep a large portion of the day away. The chats were definitely worth it, though, and when we awoke, we found out some great news: OUR LUGGAGE HAD SHOWED UP WHILE WE WERE SLEEPING! This means we now have more clothes, cute shoes, coats, hair supplies, etc. We can look cute again! Plus, we don't have to worry about it anymore! We're definitely having a lucky streak; let's hope it continues (knock on wood)!!
After getting ready and situating our luggage, Emily and I headed out for el centro de Valencia. Basically, our hostel is only one or two streets away from the very heart and center of Valencia, so it took no time to get there! Our first stop was La Plaza de la Virgen:
That's a huge cathedral in the background of the first picture (I plan on attending mass so I can not only attend church but also see the inside!! :-)), and obviously, there's also a huge fountain! It looks like something that belongs in a movie. It's kind of in the middle of everything, and as you can tell, it's pretty historic. Apparently a lot of the stuff associated with the Fallas happens around here! After some googling, I've learned that apparently a lot of people think the holy grail is housed within the cathedral, and the building of it started in the 1200s! So amazing!
We wandered away from the plaza and down lots of little streets and alleys until we reacher a newer area of Valencia. As we walked, one thing became very clear: the people of Spain are very okay with public displays of affection! Everywhere we looked there was some couple making out or groping each other. I'll admit that everything is very romantic, but seeing that was kind of gross! Whatever! :-)
After lots of investigation, we decided to return to La Plaza de la Virgen for a dinner outdoors at a cute little cafe. However, La Plaza was not the same little peaceful place as when we had left! Instead, there was a huge protest going on outside the door of the cathedral, and people were holding signs that said stuff like, "Stop the massacre!" (in Spanish, of course!), and waving Palestine flags. They were also lighting candles as a sort of vigil. As we ate dinner, the mob got larger and larger, and then these girls showed up wearing huge, extravagant dresses, and they got out, walked around, went in the cathedral, and then cars sped through the alleys, and they were quickly ushered inside of them, and the cars would hit the gas and speed away. And then men wearing these kilt-like skirts appeared! It was so strange! We really have no idea what was going on, but we are thinking that it relates to the Spanish Prime Minister agreeing to support Palestine earlier in the week. We tried to find someone who spoke English to ask, and although we found one group of people from England, we didn't ask. Even with all the commotion, we were able to enjoy a delicious meal of tortellini with ricotta (Note the Coke in glass bottles and orange trees in the background!):
We had been seeing advertisements for "agua de Valencia" all over the place, and since we were unable to drink any with dinner, we decided to set out on a journey to find some authentic agua de Valencia. There was a little shop in the center of the plaza that had it, but they were closing up by the time we paid for our dinner, so we headed to the unknown in hopes to find some! As we were searching, we came across this:
More fountains!! And more beautiful buildings! Why is everything so old and pretty here? I love it! Still, we didn't find any agua de Valencia, even after asking a few stores, "Tienes el agua de Valencia aquí?" We did, however, find Spain's version of Panera (bread co!!), a Burger King, more McDonald's, and... THIS:
SODEXHO!!! For those of you not familiar with MSU, Sodexho is the company who prepares all of our meals and catering at the dining hall at MSU. Sometimes they have good food, but the majority of the time it's very routine and nasty, and thus, Emily and I are glad we don't have to eat it this semester! However, seeing this sign in SPAIN blew us away!! Sodexho in Spain?! Are they following us?! I hope the Spaniards don't think that American food is like Sodexho! haha! And seriously, who would PAY to eat at a place that has Sodexho food? :-)We were about to give up and return to the hostel, but we accidentally stumbled upon a tiny bar and decided to try our luck one more time. You could tell that most of the people in it were "townies", and what do you know, they had agua de Valencia! They only served it in pitchers, but we decided we could just share one, so we ordered up the agua de Valencia and waited! It finally arrived!:
It's apparently made with FRESH Valencian orange juice, champagne, vodka, and gin. It was really good at first, but started to get stronger and stronger... Still, we can say we had the agua de Valencia! The fun part is that we spoke to our waitress in Spanish, but as we were leaving, she started talking in perfect English (with a British accent)! Oh well, at least we got some Spanish practice!
When we returned to the hostel, I got to talk to my mom and Rachel on Skype, and Em talked to Chris and Henry. We got hungry around 1AM, though, so we decided we'd walk back to the McDonald's we had seen earlier and get some ice cream. Turns out the the McDonald's over here are NOT open 24/7 (Although they are much bigger and more upscale than in America! With covered parking lots and two stories!), so we went to some local ice cream place. I'm still amazed that people are out so late! I'm REALLY amazed that older people are at that late! It's just no big deal to them.
Now we are back at the hostel, and we have two new roommates for the night. There is a new boy and a new girl. We heard them earlier speaking English, although we were both halfway asleep, so we didn't talk to them. Our other roommate speaks NO English or Spanish, so we're not sure where she's from, but we're assuming either France or Italy. I'm going to bed soon; we are spending more time with Lucia tomorrow! We have a few leads on apartments, so pray that something works out SOON! If not, Lucia has offered to let us stay with her (for free!!) until we find something, so all will be well! Good-night from Spain! Love you all!
...is like today.
Friday, January 25, 2008
the city that never sleeps! for real!
Ain't going down...
Talk about a rollercoaster day!! We woke up late today (Lucia was coming at 10:00am to pick us up, and we didn't get out of bed until right before that) and totally missed the free breakfast at the hostel. Lucia took us to the university, though, and we walked around it a bit. We went to the International Exchange office, but they informed us that we needed certain documents before we could proceed, so we will have to go back later. UPV is huge! It appears to be a lot bigger than MSU, but I guess that's to be expected since they have about 15,000 more students. There is a lot of modern art everywhere on campus, and there are also lots of palm trees!
After walking around UPV, we drove to the beach, which is very close to campus. We didn't get too close to the Mediterranean water because we didn't want to get sand in our shoes, but from a distance it appeared to be very clean and much bluer than a lot of the beaches I have seen in Florida and California. I'm definitely looking forward to going back when it's warmer!
We did a bit of apartment hunting before coming back to the hostel, but the one we looked at was fairly dirty and small. Lucia thinks we can find something a lot better, so we gave up for the day and decided to try again later. This was really disheartening; we had hoped to find a place to call home today. Needless to say, by the time we returned to the hostel, we were feeling a little down regarding Valencia. We took an extremely long nap (siesta!!), though, and I got to talk to my mom later in the evening, which helped a lot. There were also quite a few other people encouraging us via IM, and that helped the situation a lot! (Thanks, guys!)
Lucia was coming to pick us up at 10:30pm, and we were not really looking forward to going out, so we decided to pray before going. We prayed to have good time and feel better about Spain, and we also decided to pray for Em's computer. Well, God answers prayers!! When Lucia picked us up, we instantly felt better as we started to drive around Valencia. It's all so pretty! We were also able to communicate a lot more with her and her boyfriend, which helped tremendously.
People in Spain don't eat dinner until after 10:00 (crazy, I know!!), so we all went to McDonald's for dinner, where we met a lot of Lucia's friends. The McDonald's here are pretty much the same as in the U.S., but there are fewer menu options. They have all of the basics like Big Macs, Quarter Pounders, Chicken McNuggets, etc, though. They also have a euro menu!! Ha! I'm pretty sure the McNuggets I had to night were the best ones I've ever had, but maybe that's just because I was extremely hungry! We had a really good time at McDonald's, though. Lucia's friends are very nice and also very funny. We had a fun time teaching them English (tonight we taught them how to say cool, and we explained what "Oh my God!" means), and they taught us new stuff in Spanish. When we told them that we are from Springfield, they automatically thought of the Simpsons! They think that the Springfield in the Simpsons is factual, and they asked us if we have a Moe's bar or a nuclear power plant. Later, when I was trying to explain what profession my dad has (They didn't understand the term 'principal', and apparently I don't know how to say it in Spanish.), they asked what Simpsons character he is! How funny! They're also pretty amazed at American money, and I am impressed that they can recognize some of our presidents on the bills! However, everyone over here dislikes the current president, but as you know, I tend to agree with them, so that's ok!
We all headed to a bar after McDonald's, and Emily and I legally consumed alcohol for the first time. We also ate corn nuts (I don't think they have peanuts here!) and played Jinga. They had some American music playing in the bar, which was funny. Apparently most people don't end up leaving the bars until 5 or 6am over here, which I also find to be crazy! We, however, left a bit early - around 3:30 - because Lucia's boyfriend had to go to work early in the morning. Overall, my first experience in a bar as a legal adult was very fun. :-)
When we returned to the hostel, something amazing happened! While I took a shower, Emily talked to Aaron on Skype about her computer, and when she went to turn it on, it WORKED! It was amazing! God definitely heard our prayer and answered! He is so good to us!
As I'm sure you can assume, we are now much, much happier! It was very good for us to go out, and a working computer is always a plus! Thanks to everyone who's been supporting us with emails, comments, facebook messages, instant messages, Skype calls (by the way, if you have Skype, add me!), etc! You all have definitely helped us with our transition. We are very fortunate to have the friends and family that we do. I know that this will be an amazing experience; we just need to get through the initial overwhelming parts. Tomorrow (or I should say today! It's 5:45am!) appears as if it will be an exciting day. Emily and I are going to venture off on our own to explore Valencia! Hopefully we won't get too lost! Our hostel is right in the center of the city, though, and there is a lot to see around here. I'm sure I'll have tons of pictures tomorrow when I will feel free to be a super tourist, but for now I'll just leave you with a couple from tonight:
My bed in the hostel. Doesn't it look inviting...?
This is the [very narrow] street that our hostel is on! Isn't it cute?
McDonald's in Spain!! That is Lucia's boyfriend behind me and three of her other friends. One of them is named Aaron!!
Basically, happy 21st birthday to us! Ha! See the Jinga?
Anyway, considering it's 6am, I should head to bed! Adios!!
...'til the sun comes up.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Estoy aquí!
So long, so long...
Greetings from Valencia! We have finally arrived! I feel like I could write a book solely on our first day! To make a quick run through: Our flight out of Fayetville was delayed by 3 hours, which made us miss our flight to London. Our new flight to London was supposed to depart two hours later than what we had originally planned, but then it also got delayed because they had to deice it (However, we ended up with an entire row to ourselves, which made for plenty of room to lay down and sleep!). We made it to London, navigated through London Heathrow (Everyone speaks with such charming, cute accents!! We cherished the last bit of English language a great deal!), and caught our flight to Barcelona. I slept most of the way to Barcelona, but when I woke up as we were landing I was in awe of how beautiful it all was. I got my first glimpse of the Mediterranean Sea, which was green and lovely, and there were mountains in the background that looked absolutely perfect. I definitely can't wait to go back and do some real visiting. We didn't spend much time in Barcelona, though, because we had to catch our flight to Valencia. The flight to Valencia was the first time we were totally immersed in Spanish, and while it was kind of cool, it was also a little overwhelming. The airport in Valencia is small, and as soon as we got here, we went to an Iberia station and made a claim for lost luggage. They had told us in Chicago that our luggage was still on its original route, even though we were not, so we basically have no idea where it is. Hopefully it will arrive within the next few days!
After calling Lucia, our mentor, and some confusion, we finally met up with her and her boyfriend. Lucia speaks VERY little English, so it was time to break out the Spanish. It was confusing at times because she speaks soooo quickly, but we made it through. The brought us to our hostel, and they will pick us back up tomorrow to help us look for apartments, get a cell phone, etc. Our hostel is... well, it's a hostel. The room is very small (it's smaller than a Scholars House room for you MSU people), and there are 3 sets of bunk beds in it. The building itself is very nice, and the staff is very friendly, which is good! The best part is that our friend from Mexico, Abril, made it in, and she's in our room with us! I am very impressed with her English, and she's trying to help us with our Spanish. I know it's only the first day, but I can tell that I'm really going to like her! She will be accompanying us in our errands tomorrow, and hopefully we will all find a place to live relatively soon!
Of course, we wouldn't be Allison and Emily if something didn't go wrong right off the bat. With no surprise, something messed up. Emily's computer randomly died while she was using it, and now we can't get it to turn back on. I'm proud of my little friend for dealing with it so well. I know I would be freaking out, but she's surprisingly calm. Please pray for that situation!! Hopefully it's nothing major.
It's 1:20AM here in Valencia, so we're heading to bed. It sounds like we will have a full day ahead of us tomorrow. Please pray for us as we search for housing, deal with missing baggage and a dead computer, etc. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have pictures to post of Valencia! Miss you all! Talk to you soon!
...front foot leads the back one.
Greetings from Valencia! We have finally arrived! I feel like I could write a book solely on our first day! To make a quick run through: Our flight out of Fayetville was delayed by 3 hours, which made us miss our flight to London. Our new flight to London was supposed to depart two hours later than what we had originally planned, but then it also got delayed because they had to deice it (However, we ended up with an entire row to ourselves, which made for plenty of room to lay down and sleep!). We made it to London, navigated through London Heathrow (Everyone speaks with such charming, cute accents!! We cherished the last bit of English language a great deal!), and caught our flight to Barcelona. I slept most of the way to Barcelona, but when I woke up as we were landing I was in awe of how beautiful it all was. I got my first glimpse of the Mediterranean Sea, which was green and lovely, and there were mountains in the background that looked absolutely perfect. I definitely can't wait to go back and do some real visiting. We didn't spend much time in Barcelona, though, because we had to catch our flight to Valencia. The flight to Valencia was the first time we were totally immersed in Spanish, and while it was kind of cool, it was also a little overwhelming. The airport in Valencia is small, and as soon as we got here, we went to an Iberia station and made a claim for lost luggage. They had told us in Chicago that our luggage was still on its original route, even though we were not, so we basically have no idea where it is. Hopefully it will arrive within the next few days!
After calling Lucia, our mentor, and some confusion, we finally met up with her and her boyfriend. Lucia speaks VERY little English, so it was time to break out the Spanish. It was confusing at times because she speaks soooo quickly, but we made it through. The brought us to our hostel, and they will pick us back up tomorrow to help us look for apartments, get a cell phone, etc. Our hostel is... well, it's a hostel. The room is very small (it's smaller than a Scholars House room for you MSU people), and there are 3 sets of bunk beds in it. The building itself is very nice, and the staff is very friendly, which is good! The best part is that our friend from Mexico, Abril, made it in, and she's in our room with us! I am very impressed with her English, and she's trying to help us with our Spanish. I know it's only the first day, but I can tell that I'm really going to like her! She will be accompanying us in our errands tomorrow, and hopefully we will all find a place to live relatively soon!
Of course, we wouldn't be Allison and Emily if something didn't go wrong right off the bat. With no surprise, something messed up. Emily's computer randomly died while she was using it, and now we can't get it to turn back on. I'm proud of my little friend for dealing with it so well. I know I would be freaking out, but she's surprisingly calm. Please pray for that situation!! Hopefully it's nothing major.
It's 1:20AM here in Valencia, so we're heading to bed. It sounds like we will have a full day ahead of us tomorrow. Please pray for us as we search for housing, deal with missing baggage and a dead computer, etc. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have pictures to post of Valencia! Miss you all! Talk to you soon!
...front foot leads the back one.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
my last night in Pryor Creek for a few months.
I gotta take a risk, take a chance, make a change...
I turned on the radio a few minutes ago, and the song "Ready, Set, Don't Go" by Billy Ray and Miley (Hannah Montana) Cyrus just came on. I've heard the song before, but tonight it took on a totally new and very personal meaning. I definitely feel like God wanted me to hear that song tonight. It's very fitting for the current situation, although I don't think I'm quite as ready to leave as the girl in the song is!
My mom and I finished packing around 1:15 this morning. I'm happy to report that my checked bags are under the weight limit of 70 lbs, and while my carry-ons are very stuffed, they do close and zip! I think my mom deserves a special thanks for helping me pack and putting up with me when I procrastinated. Now let's just pray that all of the luggage arrives in Valencia at the same time that I do!
Emily and I will be leaving from Fayetville at 3:30pm (that's less than 12 hours away -- crazy!!!). We have three layovers in Chicago, London, and Barcelona before finally arriving in Valencia. It'll be a long day of traveling, but if all goes well, we will arrive in Valencia at 6:30pm Spain time, and our mentor from the university, Lucia, will be there to greet us, help us with our extremely heavy luggage, and guide us to our hostel. At the hostel we will finally be able to meet up with Abril! Abril is a girl from Mexico who is also going to Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, our host university in Valencia, through the same program that we are. We have been able to correspond with Abril over the internet for the past few months, but Thursday will be our first time to meet face-to-face. I'm definitely looking forward to getting to know her, and the fact that she is a native speaker of Spanish will surely come as some relief!
Emily and I have been planning this adventure for months and months, and now that the day of our departure is finally here, it just doesn't seem real. I guess it just hasn't really hit me yet, although there will be no denying it when that plane takes off from Fayetville tomorrow. I know that it will be extremely hard to tell our parents good-bye in a few hours, but I'm also confident that we are going to have one amazing semester abroad! Today my roommate Ashley said, "Don't worry because God's obviously got a plan for this experience or you wouldn't be going. It will be great!" There is no doubt in my mind that, as Ash said, God has a plan for us, and I am so excited to find out what it is! He has blessed me tremendously, and I am so thankful for the opportunities that He has placed in my life. I know that living in Spain will be full of triumphs and trials, and undoubtedly, there will be a lot of change and things I'm not used to. As you probably know, I absolutely despise change. However, I know that my God will always remain constant, and that gives me so much comfort!
Now that it's after 4AM here in the Sooner State, I should probably get some sleep. Please pray for us as we begin our semester abroad and say good-bye to our comfort zones. Love you all!
...and breakaway.
I turned on the radio a few minutes ago, and the song "Ready, Set, Don't Go" by Billy Ray and Miley (Hannah Montana) Cyrus just came on. I've heard the song before, but tonight it took on a totally new and very personal meaning. I definitely feel like God wanted me to hear that song tonight. It's very fitting for the current situation, although I don't think I'm quite as ready to leave as the girl in the song is!
My mom and I finished packing around 1:15 this morning. I'm happy to report that my checked bags are under the weight limit of 70 lbs, and while my carry-ons are very stuffed, they do close and zip! I think my mom deserves a special thanks for helping me pack and putting up with me when I procrastinated. Now let's just pray that all of the luggage arrives in Valencia at the same time that I do!
Emily and I will be leaving from Fayetville at 3:30pm (that's less than 12 hours away -- crazy!!!). We have three layovers in Chicago, London, and Barcelona before finally arriving in Valencia. It'll be a long day of traveling, but if all goes well, we will arrive in Valencia at 6:30pm Spain time, and our mentor from the university, Lucia, will be there to greet us, help us with our extremely heavy luggage, and guide us to our hostel. At the hostel we will finally be able to meet up with Abril! Abril is a girl from Mexico who is also going to Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, our host university in Valencia, through the same program that we are. We have been able to correspond with Abril over the internet for the past few months, but Thursday will be our first time to meet face-to-face. I'm definitely looking forward to getting to know her, and the fact that she is a native speaker of Spanish will surely come as some relief!
Emily and I have been planning this adventure for months and months, and now that the day of our departure is finally here, it just doesn't seem real. I guess it just hasn't really hit me yet, although there will be no denying it when that plane takes off from Fayetville tomorrow. I know that it will be extremely hard to tell our parents good-bye in a few hours, but I'm also confident that we are going to have one amazing semester abroad! Today my roommate Ashley said, "Don't worry because God's obviously got a plan for this experience or you wouldn't be going. It will be great!" There is no doubt in my mind that, as Ash said, God has a plan for us, and I am so excited to find out what it is! He has blessed me tremendously, and I am so thankful for the opportunities that He has placed in my life. I know that living in Spain will be full of triumphs and trials, and undoubtedly, there will be a lot of change and things I'm not used to. As you probably know, I absolutely despise change. However, I know that my God will always remain constant, and that gives me so much comfort!
Now that it's after 4AM here in the Sooner State, I should probably get some sleep. Please pray for us as we begin our semester abroad and say good-bye to our comfort zones. Love you all!
...and breakaway.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Adios, Springfield!
Here's to good-bye...
I've been intending to start this blog for a while now, but I've been putting it off because I've been unsure what to say. I guess there's no more putting it off, though, because it's currently 2:30AM on Tuesday in Oklahoma, which means that we leave tomorrow. It doesn't yet seem real, but I'm sure that'll all change when we actually land in Valencia.
This past weekend was spent in Springfield, where I got to see some of my favorite people (MSU friends, Aaron, Krissy, the Dieke family, parents, etc). Overall, those few days were amazing, and Sunday made for the perfect ending. 104 and friends got dressed up and headed to Brew Co, and our sweet little friends surprised us with a going away party at Scholars. Thanks to all who came and/or helped plan it! You all are amazing and so sweet! I am so blessed by you.
It was a little hard to say good-bye on Monday afternoon, but really, that's a good thing. The fact that I have people in my life who make saying good-bye to so hard shows how very blessed I am. In some ways, it seems like it's going to be forever before I see the Springfield crew again, but I think back on this past semester and realize how quickly time went by, and I know that five months really is not that long, and sad good-byes just mean that there will be joyous reunions! What happy thought!
Considering the fact that it's almost 2:45AM, I should probably try to sleep. Today will be full of last minute errands, packing, and phone calls. Here's to my last day (for a while!) in Pryor Creek!
Love to all!
...tomorrow's going to come too soon.
I've been intending to start this blog for a while now, but I've been putting it off because I've been unsure what to say. I guess there's no more putting it off, though, because it's currently 2:30AM on Tuesday in Oklahoma, which means that we leave tomorrow. It doesn't yet seem real, but I'm sure that'll all change when we actually land in Valencia.
This past weekend was spent in Springfield, where I got to see some of my favorite people (MSU friends, Aaron, Krissy, the Dieke family, parents, etc). Overall, those few days were amazing, and Sunday made for the perfect ending. 104 and friends got dressed up and headed to Brew Co, and our sweet little friends surprised us with a going away party at Scholars. Thanks to all who came and/or helped plan it! You all are amazing and so sweet! I am so blessed by you.
It was a little hard to say good-bye on Monday afternoon, but really, that's a good thing. The fact that I have people in my life who make saying good-bye to so hard shows how very blessed I am. In some ways, it seems like it's going to be forever before I see the Springfield crew again, but I think back on this past semester and realize how quickly time went by, and I know that five months really is not that long, and sad good-byes just mean that there will be joyous reunions! What happy thought!
Considering the fact that it's almost 2:45AM, I should probably try to sleep. Today will be full of last minute errands, packing, and phone calls. Here's to my last day (for a while!) in Pryor Creek!
Love to all!
...tomorrow's going to come too soon.
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