I don't know what to title this entry.

I finished my first week of classes. At first I was all excited but then I realized the class is too easy. So I really want to switch up another level and on Thursday I take a test to see if I can. Everyone takes the test after 2 weeks. And even if I don't pass, I am going to ask IH if I can anyway because I have been bored out of my mind. We spent 2 days on the future tense, which I know like it's my own child. Then we proceeded to spend 4 days on pronouns. Pronouns are no fun, no matter what language you are learning. Therefore; I am glad that I will be taking the test soon.

Today is San Juan. In Spain they celebrate Saint John who was a cousin of Jesus. People celebrate the night before and it's supposed to be purification of the body and the sins. There are bonfires and fireworks to represent burning away the sins. Then at sunrise you are supposed to swim in the ocean after the night is over, to be “purified”. Although over the years the holiday lost its charm. Now it's just drunk people staying up all night at the beach. People still have bonfires and fireworks and there's music wherever you go but it's just a little less classy. For San Juan, I went out for a bit with friends. We set up a hang out spot on the beach right in front of a crowd of drummers and tambourinists. It was a lot of fun but I called it quits early. Staying up all night didn't appeal to me very much but I stayed up pretty late. In Spain nights are really short. The sun doesn't set until 10pm and you don't eat dinner till 10pm. So that is San Juan in a nutshell. I am glad I experienced it.

Now on to a total different subject-

So there's this little place I like to call heaven. It's an isolated cafe located on the corner of two empty gothic alleyways. It's a place where nothing is white or black, only cream and ebony; where candles are a requirement and the wood floors and stonewalls whisper to each other about the past. The light bulbs are placid and embrace the soul; the phenomenal smell reminisces of fireflies and fairies; and the people speak in the exotic tone of Catalan. It's a place where you laugh with the cheese, love with the pastries and cry with the tealeaves. It's the perfect time to be here anytime. It's Latin, it's magical, and it's better than Harry Potter and Disney combined.

I probably am not going to ever tell anyone what its name is or where it is because it's my little secret heaven. Hehe.


I went to Parc Montjuic. It's beautiful. Here are two pictures but my camera battery died as soon as I got there. =[ This picture don't really look like you're in a park but it's actually very green and huge. I am going to go back though because there's some photos that still need to be taken.









Hope everyone is smelling fresh air because I am not. 99% of people smoke here.




Peace and Love,


Emily Tu Tarjeta de Cine.( It was the first thing I saw in spanish near me)

*Sigh*

Hey guys! I am offically going to tell you what has been happening with me for the past 4 days! Be ready.

So I moved in with my host mom on Sunday at 11 am. Oh boy! I took a taxi there and I don't think I have ever felt so many emotions at once. I was excited, sad, impatient, nervous, scared!, happy, nauseated, dizzy, the list going on an on. I got there and she buzzed me in. I didn't even notice the marble floors and chandlers in the entry until later that day. I squeezed my way in the rusty elevator because after all everything is smaller in Europe. I got up to the fifth floor and was dripping of sweat. She came out to greet/help me. "Carmen." As she smiled and said her name, I recited my spanish routine, in a mumbly manner, that I had been practicing in the taxi. It was supposed to sound like Spanish but I am pretty sure it turned into Swahili. From then on I stuck to nodding. She showed me my room and I kept nodding. She showed me how to work the appliances and I nodded some more but I wasn't really listening. She told me her schedule. I don't remember that either but I think this was the part where I thought "I'm probably nodding too much." So i stopped nodding all together, however; this created a problem since I am an genetic "nodder". It's natural instinct for me to nod. So now my head is just twitching and that's even worse than nodding constantly. I took a breather and continued to nod. She soon finished and I ended up collapsing alone on my bed. As by head hit the pillow, I sighed a sigh like no other sigh in my life before. Thank the lord jesus.

To be honest, I had no idea that it was going to be like that. I thought it would be a bright shiny day and I was just getting ready for my new life! I was probably closer to tears than anything. After all, I have never been this long without my parents. I stuck through it and it only went up from there. My parents came to visit that night for tea and Carmen and my family really bonded. It was a much need relief for them to meet even though ANDEO said they shouldn't.

Four days later I have had 8 hours of awesome spanish learning, taken a night stroll down Las Ramblas with an Italian boy, got into a nightclub, successfully sculpted 2 bowls out of clay, gotten lost by myself 3 times, seen my french roommates' bod but haven't actually met him yet, had one lady fall on me in the metro and almost threw up.


The week keeps getting better and better. I think tomorrow I am going to see a movie. Terminator in Spanish? Maybe.....





Hope everyone puts vinegar and olive oil on their vegetables. (Try it. It's good!)




Peace and Love,

Emily Urquinaona




P.S. Here are some pictures of my room.









The view from my window. We are on the top floor. =]

This is old. Sorry!

Wednesday June 10th-


Yo Yo. Today we took the train to Barcelona. This morning we had a panic attack because my clothes were in the washing machine and we couldn’t get it open and we were literally leaving for the train. We have had sooo much freakin trouble with the stupid washing machine. It locks when you close it and you can’t force it open. You just have to wait till the cycle is done. Well we had to knock on the neighbor’s door and ask them if they knew how to open it and she did! Thank god. Otherwise I would be minus 2 bras some panties, and a shirt. So Dad flipped a crap because he thought we were going to be late but really we got their with an hour to spare (no exaggeration) they hadn’t even assigned us a “via” or a dock yet. They were still boarding the 9:30 one and ours wasn’t till at 10:30. So me and mom zoned out dad with a little help from our ipods. We all had first class on the train and it was really nice. =] I had to sit by myself in a different coche because it cost less and I didn’t want free alcohol. But I was really glad I sat by myself because I would have punched dad if he were near me. The train ride was about 3 hours long and we stopped in Zaragoza. Which makes the train average about 100 miles an hour. The whole time I reclined and played games on my ipod while listening to Dispatch which was oh so relaxing. I felt like I was in a movie. I mean, we were traveling through the countryside of Spain! I saw beautiful flat hills full of light green grass and shrubbery. I even saw a mixture of houses similar to Ron Wesley’s house and something from The Hobbit. They were so cute! When we got to Barcelona I felt gross. I got that “I am gross and I have been sitting forever in a closed environment” feeling even though it was only 3 hours. Well we took 2 taxis to the apartment which is right across the street for La Sagrada Familia (a church designed but Gaudi that has been being built for over 100 years and it’s finished. Lets just say it’s like the Mini-Great Wall of China but with Jesus.) But we are right across the street and I mean right across the street! Like 70 feet away. It’s only a 2-lane street and the sidewalk is not very big. It takes me 10 seconds to run to touch the Sagrada Familia from our building. No really! I timed myself. Next we ate lunch at a place down the street. Then I convinced the fam to visit the beach because I wanted to put my feet in the Mediterranean. So we bought metro tickets. It was prime time beach time because it was just after people got off work and it was sunny. It was REALLY crowed and I was scared to walk bare food because there were a lot of cigarette buds. (Everyone smokes her and the only place that it is illegal is the metro. Restaurants, shops, and public places, it’s legit.) There were aloud of naked people at the beach, so I kind wanted to get out of there quick. And I had to tell mom cause she did notice. There were also a bunch of Asian people offer people massages to everyone on the beach. Surprisingly there are a lot of Asians in Spain. Maybe I was just being ignorant but I thought it was unusual; and they speak Spanish which was weird to me. Sometimes I forget that America isn’t the only country that people immigrate to. Anyways we left and just went back to the apartment for the rest of the night. We tried to cook frozen pizza but it didn’t turn out well because the oven is kind of broken. But I still ate it. We also watched the only channel in English on the TV which played some really really bad shows from Canada. First was Will and Grace which was great! But then some detective show came on and some medical show. They were like the bad versions of CSI and ER. (Does every show on television HAVE to be an abbreviation?) We also watched CNN in Spanish where this guy got his arm cut of at a bread factory. Tomorrow dad and I are going to try and rent bikes and ride them around the city. !Que chic!



I am skipping thrusday.


Friday June 12th-

Today was a weird day. We did lots of things unlike yesterday. We actually left the house at a reasonable time and went to Sangrada Familia across the street. It looks amazing from the outside but the inside we phenomenal! I decided Gaudi is my favorite artist of all time. He was a genius. The church had been being built sense the mid 1800’s. It a huge project and Gaudi knew from the beginning that he would never see it finished. Gaudi was a hard core Catholic. We got to go to the top of a tower and that was the best part! (Also I saw a guy who looked exactly like Mr. Kelgard!! Except he was speaking French.) We spent like 4 hours in the Sagrada Familia and my mom and I were ready to kill ourselves because their were so many people crammed in there. We were definitely breaking fire code. In the afternoon we took a stupid bus tour. You will never guess what we saw waiting in line for the bus! Never. Any guesses? A car accident? Someone on fire? NO! A NAKED MAN WALKING DOWNT HE STREET! N-A-K-E-D! It was oh-so disgusting but also hilarious. We only saw he butt because he was walking away from us but he was naked. EHHH. Anyway back on the bus, dad loved it. He is like a kid in the candy store on those stupid tour buses. We took it to the Gaudi’s Park. I’ve been there before but it was still pretty. After that we the bus again to the UNICEF Barcelona soccer club soccer team stadium which I think is the biggest in the world? Maybe not but it’s really well known. I am going to try and see a game there. Barcelona just won their 3rd cup in a row. Last but not least we went to Gaudis apartment and it was heaven. I want to live there so baaaaadd! It is my favorite of all the stuff he has done. We went out for Cava- a famous Spanish champagne/wine. We sort of got lost and mom got cranky. We found a place by the port and our waiter, Lorenzo, was very nice. The End.


Saturday- June 13th-

I love how something unique happens to me everyday. I’m living life on the edge. It’s quite the adrenaline rush. So today was my last day with the fam and I made them go to the aquarium! Because I love aquariums! I would sell my soul if it meant I could be a dolphin with bird wings. They had squid! They were sooooo cool! I wanted them to hug me. After that we ate lunch around Las Rambles. Where they served squid….=[ that was really sad. And they actually had American size drinks in real glasses. After that dad and I went on a bike ride! I had wanted to go on a bike ride for this whole week. We rented bikes at the port and rode as far as we could north and then as far as we could south. It was beautiful except there were a lot of naked people on the beach again. So we decided to ride on the trail where you couldn’t see the beach but you could see the ocean. There are no laws in Barcelona about where you can ride. So you can ride anywhere. You can ride on the sidewalk, or even with the cars in the middle of the street, which we ended up doing. We went back to the apartment exhausted and rested. We concluded that the bus tour would be the best activity to complete our night but when we showed up at the stop we discovered it closes at 20:00 aka 8:00pm. We headed to the Plaza Catalonia, which is a very lively place for locals. It’s also a prime pick pocketing location. You are most likely to get pick pocketed in Barcelona that in any other place in Europe.=O We ordered Dominos Pizza which tastes the same but is way more expensive. It was like 15 Euros for a pizza. It was good though. Oh! I almost forgot. I called Carrrrrrmen today! It was stressful. The first time I called her she didn’t answer; So I left a message, which didn’t go through. She called me back and she didn’t know that it was me and started talking really really fast in Spanish and I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t even know if it was her and I wanted to die! So she ended up hanging up, maybe on accident but probably on purpose. So I called back and explained who I was and then she became really friendly! And she told me how to get to her house and what time. It was a relief but I can’t believe I have to speak Spanish now. Eek! I hope I will come out alive. FIN. (P.S. Disney channel is really popular here and there are posters everywhere for Disney shows.)

Madrid

On June 5th 2009, I left for Spain. I got to Spain June 6th 2009. Lets just say it was a pain but I am so glad I am here. It's also extremely intimidating.

Saturday June 6th-

Lots of activities happened today. Most of them occurred while I was... in a drowsy state. The first thing we did was checked into our apartment. It's gorgeous. This is be on our balcony. (The picture is supposed to be here) The landlady was super nice and only spoke Spanish (and to my surprise, I actually understood 90% of what she said! Yah!). At one point she asked me if fifteen mean quince. With delight, I gave her a smiling 'Si!' I have a feeling this is just the start of a close friendship. After we checked in, we headed to El Museo del Prado, which is, to say the least, overwhelming! The paintings are astonishing. I cannot even describe how incredible those babies are. Ya'll need to come check it out. I was super excited to see Goyas' Naked Maja (both paintings) They were very intriguing-to, both, the mind and the eyes.

After the Prado, we had our one and only Obnoxious American Moment of the day. This is how it went down- We wanted to look in the lobby of the Ritz hotel (famous-look it up) but ended up interrupting a formal lunch party in the back garden. I'm talking people wearing dresses and suits, while we trekked in and out of tables wearing socks and sandals (a tragic fashion statement even in the states). We brushed of the glares and actually made it out all right. We ended up discovering the lobby and it was fairly grand but I'm pretty sure our amazement was slightly exaggerated; Most likely because of the embarrassing sacrifice we had to make in order to get a glimpse.
Finally, we bought groceries, took the metro, bought some flamenco fans, and had some delicious thick hot chocolate with churros. =]

Sunday June 7th-

So people kept telling me that the Spanish like to party but nothing really could have prepared me for being awoken at 3 am from the people in the streets yelling and howling getting back from a late night. I swear they sounded like they were in my bedroom and my mom said she kept trying to look for an open window. With a little help from my earplugs I made it till morning (by ‘morning’, I mean 12:30pm.).

So we continued to fill the afternoon with shenanigans. We visited the Royal Palace which is “open every Sunday!” However; this Sunday the people of Madrid were voting. Therefore: Royal Palace + The only Sunday that my family was ever in Madrid and probably wont be there again. = A sign that says “CLOSED”.

Anywho, we visited the Plaza Mayor, which was oh so unbelievably awesome and full of life. We ate decided to eat lunch there at an outside café and during lunch, my mom decided she wanted to embarrass, both, herself and those around her. She proceeded to use sign language to communicate with the locals, sit on the toilet in complete darkness and drop euros in her underwear. It was quite the spectacle. Later we visited the center of Spain, which is marked by a small plaque on the ground about the 2ft by 2 ft. About a million people walk over this everyday and no one even cares. Its on a random street, rusting through the sidewalk.
Next, The Retiro Park. =] I love it. My mom and I rented a blue rowboat to take out on to the lake, which is under looked by a beautiful plaza with many steps and live entertainment. We became quite the laughing stalk by dad, grandpa, and nana as we bumped our way from dock to dock for the first 20 minutes trying to get to open water.

Later we took a bus tour and ate dinner at La Taperia. Now I shall conclude the evening with a light cookie and some warm socks.

Sorry this is kind of a random post. I haven’t decided how often I am going to blog or how I am going to organize it. But we are still in Madrid. Hope everyone is dancing to Mariechies.(This is where the other picture is supposed to be but blogger.com is being funky.)

Peace,

Emily MokaMoka