Championes del Mundo

Okay, so just a few more words about the World Cup.... It was awesome!

There were SOOOOOOOO many people! I think the entire country was celebrating ALL NIGHT! What's really crazy is.... they were all awake and at work and school today. Impressive!I took lots of pictures and videos, but I think I will never be able to accurately describe the hysteria.

WORLD CUP!!!!

So I have SO much to tell you about my trip to Gibraltar but.....
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! SPAIN JUST WON THEIR FIRST WORLD CUP!!!!!!!!!

When they FiNaLlY scored a goal in overtime, or whatever that is for soccer, there were shouts from everywhere, horns blowing.... it was really cool. And when the game ended, they all went crazy. Actually, I can STILL here them going crazy through my window. Pretty much the entire city.... teens, adults, elderly, parents with their children of all ages.... came outside to celebrate. Suddenly, there were hundreds of cars going by all honking and waving their flags out the window. Everybody crowded around the walking bridge and was jumping into the river. There is also a HUGE statue/fountain of Isabel and Ferdinand a block or so away and apparently people were jumping in that (says the now wet house brother, Nacho). Conchi told me that every major city has a fountain like that or very similar where people go to celebrate.
There were even fireworks going off!... which is cool since Nacho told me they were illegal in Granada.
More on Gibraltar tomorrow.... I have class at 8 and it is 1:15am  :0

French Tortilla

Hey, I'm back!!! AND I just finished lunch... it is about 3:45ish Spain time :)
Lunch = yuck. It was some kind of white beans... yuck. Cold tomatoes... yuck. Tuna... yuck. Green olives... yuck. Onions... okay, though preferably not cold. Egg... okay, depending on the way it is cooked.

Conchi decided that the reason I didn't seem to like it was because I am still unaccustomed to the amount of Olive Oil they use... not so sure about that. But then, she brought out the usual fruity dessert.... an Apple (yum) that was big enough to be a meal by itself!

I have found that a lot of food we are eating here is very similar to what we eat at home, but different. For example, last night I ate 3 hot dogs (though they looked like better quality meat than our hot dogs and were smaller in size) and mashed potatoes (not the real kind, but still pretty good). I don't USUALLY eat these together, but I like them both. She also gave me Ketchup. :) The night before, we had a potato soup which was REALLY tasty. Conchi also made what I have since learned is considered the French Tortilla. It is an egg cooked on the stove like normal but flat like a tortilla. To go with this, we had a slice of Bologna.

In other news, Monique has moved out into another house so I now have my own room and, more importantly, my own fan. yay! A word about that.... Monique was soooo rude! She arranged to be moved out and the school called Conchi during the day to tell her. Monique told me at school, but didn't come home with me. Later, while I was eating lunch with Conchi and Nacho, she came into the house and the kitchen, looked directly at me (and only me) and told me, IN ENGLISH, to tell Conchi she was getting her stuff and not coming back. Then she left, and went into the room to get her stuff. Conchi went in there after a few minutes and was talking to her. She was pretty much asking for Monique to go say goodbye and thank you to Nacho. (He had helped her when her luggage hadn't been here at first and had let her use his phone and stuff). But Moniue just kept saying "No entiendo. No entiendo." (I don't understand.). Then she left. The weirdest part was that she didn't even take everything! And. later that week, a box arrived for her from her mom with a few pants, shirts and underwear in case she hadn't received her luggage yet. They were boy clothes. Conchi thought that was the weirdest  thing ever, and I had to agree it was pretty strange.

One of the worst parts about that whole situation is that Conchi likes to discuss it with me over and over and over again. Now I have nothing against Spaniards, right, but they are racist. I'm not just talking in an "under the table" sort of secret way... but like in a "full out everyone knows" kind of way. To be fair, they have a lot of issues with people coming over illegally from Africa and causing trouble around the city, so it is no surprise they act the way they do a bit. Conchi had never hosted a "persona de calor" as she calls Monique, but had assumed it would really be no different than any other person...her mind is forever changed. It is a little sad that Monique's bad attitude has negatively influenced Conchi, but there is really no remedy for that.

I think I mentioned it before, but it is hot here!... though without humidity, so honestly it feels a lot better to me. Since I am not used to Celsius, though, I only just now realized that we went over a hundred at least three or four out of the eight days I have been here, maybe more.Thankfully, I have been very fortunate, I now realize, in ending up with Conchi. The only room in her house that has air conditioning is the kitchen, but she uses it freely, so that is nice. Also, she placed a fan in my room for me to use. She has actually come into my room before when I've not had it on and scolded me for not using it! This is completely different from some of the other students in my program! Some of them aren't allowed to use a fan even if they buy it themselves!

Also, in other news, I have figured out a little more of Conchi's children... Miguel is the oldest and lives in Malaga from what I can tell. I am in his old room, which has a bunch of sports posters, most of then American, including a SIGNED Michael Jordan poster. Cool. Now for Rosa and Nacho.... you'll never guess... TWINS! I think Rosa is older though. I am still not sure what she does, but Nacho gets up really early in the morning and works till about 3pm.They are both nearing 30 years old. Apparently in Spain, though, it is completely normal for kids to  live at home until in their 30s when they get married and move away. Miguel isn't married, so I am assuming he moved for work. I didn't want to ask in case it was a touchy subject, but the Mr. Conchi (or whatever his name was) appears to be deceased. Conchi's mother was over the other day, though... ancient! But Conchi was feeling particularly generous and fed me some of the ice cream they were sharing!

Hmm, what else? Oh yeah: SPAIN IS GOING TO THE WORLD CUP FINAL!
It is funny how many Spaniards were sure they would loose the semi-final. When they won, they lost it. Seriously. They were crying, screaming, running through the streets and jumping into the river and fountains.... some of them were even sin ropa  0_0

Umm... lets see.... I have started my classes. From 9am-11am I take Conversations with Dr T. Then, I have to high-tail it to the other building for my 11am-12pm Historia class. After that, I have a 1:30 to 2:30 Spanish Civilization and Culture class, then home for lunch :)

What is weird about classes here is that when teachers miss class, they just assign makeup classes or replacement classes. My History teacher, for example, missed the first day, so yesterday, he told us we had to come back later for another hour of class. And my Civ and Culture teacher made us stay an extra hour after class yesterday as well because she wanted to cancel class today. Dislike. Why should they get to do that??

Anyway, so this weekend is our only completely free weekend while we are here. I am pretty sure I am going down to Gibraltar tomorrow which I hope will be really awesome :) That's all for right now I guess.... time for my siesta (which reminds me, we Americans should also petition for a nationally recognized nap time).
Hasta luego.

La Playa Herradura

July 3rd 2010
THE BEACH!
Breakfast at 9:30... toast and some bread that had a sort of cinnamon flavoring on it. The milk was not room temperature this morning, but cold, thank goodness. I noticed that Conchi had boxes of milk stacked up in her pantry, so I guess she sticks them in the fridge only once they're opened. Having cold milk was better, but it still tasted way different from my beloved Publix brand skim milk back home! Thankfully,  Monique got two pieces of toast so no more trouble there.  :)
After that, we headed out to meet up with the group at 10 for LA PLAYA!!!!... Of course, we didn't actually leave until 10:30. The beach was about an hour away but there was some pretty cool scenery along the way.



Surprisingly, it was sort of windy and overcast which is pretty rare for Spain at this time of year. It was perfect for me though because I didn't have to worry about getting sunburned! There was no sand on the beach, but instead there were rocks.

Group shot!

 I went kayaking with a girl named Haven who, coincidentally, is going to be my roommate next year at school. We made it all the way out and almost all the way back before we flipped. What was funny about flipping was that it was so sudden we hadn't even really realized what was happening then BAM!.... in the water. The COLD water. After we got back, we spent about thirty minutes looking for Sea Glass and then walked over to a little sea side restaurant to eat. Apparently, our House Moms are supposed to pack us picnic lunches for things like this but ours hadn't bothered. Instead, I got Rosada Frita and then some chocolate ice cream.

La Playa Herradura

My Rosada Frita

A pic of the shore... you can kind of make out the rocks.

After that, we pretty much headed back.
At 8:30, though, Spain was playing Soccer so Monique and I went out to watch with some of our other group buddies. Since we would be leaving around 8 and dinner is usually around 9:30, we asked Conchi if she would maybe make something for us before we left. She refused. "Spanish people only eat at 9:30" she insisted.

Game day spirit was pretty intense. Now this is July 2010, so the World Cup is going on and Spain is still in the running. We went to this one place where they broadcasted the game live on a HUGE screen inside a tent. It was packed! On top of that, any restaurant, store or bar with a tv (which was almost all of them) had crowds. Everyone was cheering and decked out in red and yellow. Wherever we went, we could hear the people's reactions to whatever was happening in the game. Once, when we stopped in a Burger King for one of the girls with us to use the restroom, and while we were there, an enormous roar came from the kitchen and one of the workers burst out front yelling that Spain had scored. Everybody eating started chanting, cheering and singing.
Even as Monique and I were walking home (the game was not over yet) the cars in the streets were honking the tunes to their favorite fight songs back and forth to each other. When we turned onto our street, the children were all running around with their flags shouting "Viva Espana" and kicking their soccer balls. I have never experienced anything quite like this is America... things like the Superbowl don't even compare!

Tortilla Espanola

Okay, July 2nd 2010
Friday, Day 2.... Test Day.
Test? We had to take a placement test at 9am so the people at the University of Granada could make sure we were placed in teh correct class level. There were three parts:
1.) Written.... I got about a 6/9 on this.
2.) Grammar.... 4/9... yeah....
3.) Oral.... 5/9ish
My average? Still not sure what they officially decided but it was a 5 or a 6. So, yay!!!!!

This is my breakfast...for today and every day while I'm here!

I should tell you about Breakfast, though. When Monique and I woke up, we went to the kitchen. Conchi asked what we wanted to drink. When I asked if she had milk, she wanted to know if I wanted chocolate or sugar put into it and if I wanted her to heat it up. She looked a little weird-ed out when I kept wanting plain white milk. It was room temperature. eww. She also gave each of us one piece of toast and then put a basket of these cracker-like things in front of us. Monique didn't really like the cracker things so she asked for another piece of toast. I seriously thought Conchi was going to throw a fit. She kept saying things like "One piece of toast EACH and then the crackers." Then, she huffed off and brought Monique another piece of toast. She said "TWO pieces of toast each morning, now. You will get TWO pieces."
Monique speaks practically no Spanish, mind you, and does not seem very interested in trying, so communicating is going to be a hassle.  Whew, but with that out of the way, we prepared to head  off to the school.

Conchi walked with us to the University for our tests so we would know where to go... it is about ten minutes away.I might have never found it, though if it wasn't for her! While we walked, she pointed out things along the way, like a really old movie theatre or a big fountain. She tried asking us about ourselves a bit, but Monique kept lagging behind and was uncooperative.

This is the school. Unreal, right? It is just this cute courtyard! Actually, it reminds me of my high school, which also had Spanish styled courtyards like this. The top had a retractable roof to create shade during the afternoons. 

After the tests, we had an "orientation." Basically, Thompson told us some stuff and then some lady gave us some papers to fill out and then this guy (I will call him Rec Guy until I remember his name) told us about  activities we could participate in.

This is the whole UCF group!

When we finally went home for lunch.... Spaghetti!!! It was very Hamburger Helper tasting though, and Conchi gave us each about four times the amount that I would ever be able to eat in one setting...and then grumbled when we couldn't finish it. Monique didn't like it, but I thought it tasted okay even if there was wayyy too much to eat. There was also a girl there, Rosa, who looks to be in her late twenties. At first I had no idea what she was doing there, but then she explained that she was Conchi's daughter who also live at the house. Apparently she had been out until late the night before.
While we were eating, Rosa asked if I wanted a Banana as well. I would eat a couple bites of Spaghetti then take a bite of banana and so forth.... Rosa could not believe it! She kept saying "No, No, the Banana is for after the meal. You like them together?" This leads me to believe that fruit is more like a dessert.
After lunch, Monique wanted to go out for a bit but first Conchi taught us how to work her locks. She has a crazy door! It has four dead bolts that close when the key is turned all the way... no amount of credit-carding will get you through these locks!
So I stayed in, trying to get the internet to work.... got to Skype with dad (yay) and then went and walked around for a bit. I could see the hills and mountains through the buildings.There is still snow on the tops!


When I got back, Monique had just taken a shower and had been told she was using too much water. Now our showers the first day had been about 5 minutes each... I thought that was pretty good for two United States girls, right? Instead, Conchi wants us to get wet then turn the water off and wash ourselves THEN turn the water on again to rinse off. I tried my best to use AS LITTLE WATER AS POSSIBLE when I went in next.I was not lectured, so I guess I did an all right job.
Okay, so it is 9:30 right now as I am writing this, and I am HUNGRY! Monique was laying down so I went into the kitchen to see what was for dinner. Nobody was there. Well, I didn't know what to do about that so I went back to the room and told Monique. Thankfully, Conchi's daughter popped her head out of her room just then and told us she was making dinner. Back in a flash!

~*~

Hello again!
About dinner...I did not eat much. Now I know I am a pretty picky eater sometimes but you'd think I would like at least one thing in a meal.
1.) Spanish Tortilla. Now, I've had some of these that did not taste too outrageous but this one tasted like mayonnaise. Cold mayonnaise. For those of you who don't know... a Spanish tortilla is generally made out of potatoes and eggs and is approximately an inch thick.
2.) Salad. I DO NOT like salad. It just taste like leaves to me. This one had some tuna stuff in it too, I think. I ate some to be polite...and in the hopes that my salad aversion might have gone away, but I did not enjoy it!
3.) Bread with a sort of think buttery/cheesy spread (this is pretty common in Europe) with some large pepperoni-like slices of meat on top.
I pretty much ate the bread and it's spread. For the record, I might have eaten more of the meat but it was hard to bite off with the bread. I also ate a pear afterwords.

After dinner, Monique and I walked around until about 11- which is not very late here. In fact, we passed streets and alleys full of restaurants and bars that were overflowing with people. There were people of all ages out late, too including families with small children. Some of the streets in the most popular sections have lights strung overhead, which are nice to walk around under. 


It was pretty interesting. We headed back and I am pretty much set to go to sleep right away... I think Monique is still adjusting to the time change here though. The Beach is tomorrow!

Coliflor

I wrote this on June 30/ July 1st 2010 (but I am posting it a day or two later)

Traveling sucks. Haha, well okay so I don’t really mind all that much I guess. =) But this was my first time flying alone so that was pretty cool. I took the 8am flight from Jacksonville to Atlanta. The 12:20 From ATL to New York JFK and then the 7:30 (which turned into 8:30) from there to Malaga, Spain. SPAIN!

I guess I don’t really have much to say about the flying. Maybe a few quick points?
1.) Waking up in Jacksonville at 5am is not fun. :/
2.) Terminal T in Atlanta is soooo long and is located before A, NOT after all the other letters. Weird.
3.) Turbulence can be both a plus and a minus. Plus: it is sort of like a fun ride at a park, ya know? Minus: They don’t serve beverages when there is too much of it. =(
4.) We flew in circles around Atlantic City because they wanted to stall our landing at JFK. DISLIKE. We stalled at exactly that level where your ears start popping really badly. It was soooo painful!
5.) JFK is NOT on my list of favorite airports. It was really crowded and confusing as well as really expensive… though there were not actually any good food options to choose from, of course.
6.) Sitting in the middle seat in coach is not exactly what I would call ideal on an overseas flight. Yes (mom) I did sleep some, but not well.

So, when we finally got to Malaga, 2 out of the 5 of us that managed to meet up did not get their luggage. On top of that, we had no idea what exactly we were supposed to be doing. Eventually we found Dr. Thompson (here on in, probably Dr T or just Thompson) and went to wait until 1:30 for a bus to Granada. Did I mention we were tired and starving? It was about 10am by that point (or 4am Florida time).

Granada is about an hour and a half away from Malaga and there were maybe about 10 of us on the bus. THERE ARE SO MANY OLIVE TREES IN SPAIN. I mean, I guess that is not weird, but they really were everywhere on the way to Granada.

The huge Bulls that are everywhere in South Spain!

When we arrived, the bus driver dropped all of us off in front of this little Mall and left. We had addresses to our places but, in case you don’t know, their addresses are a lot less specific than ours are. We got a road name (not pictured on the map) a number and a floor level. Yeah, we had no idea where to go. We asked a guy working in the mall if he knew and he sort of gave us an approximate location to head to which was about 15/20 minutes away.
We set off. It was myself, of course, my roommate, Monique, and two other guys in the program, Jeff and Alex. We stopped for directions again at a Mercado and found out that we were only a couple streets away. That is, we, the girls, were only a few streets away. What the boys found out (a little bit later, and after a a few more direction stops) was that their apartment was actually very close to where we had been originally dropped off! I do not envy them!
Let me just take a moment here to describe the streets of Spain to you: old and uneven. Okay, to be honest, a lot of them are fine, but they have patterns and grooves on a lot of the sidewalks. Normally, this would be something I wouldn't pay much attention to. My suitcase (and the hand that dragged it) however, said otherwise. I had blisters forming by the time we were halfway there! I also want to add, just for the record, that it was HOT out! 
So when we finally found our street, we decided the number after the street name must be the building number of the apartment. We knew the floor number, but this is very different in the USA. Their floor numbers are written as degrees. After that, there was a ‘C’ which we guessed was the specific apartment. There were two apartments, though, that were on the sixth floor and letter C. We guessed wrong the first time. When we got into the building, though, it took us three tries to find the room, because there were 4 elevators…. And they were extremely small.

This is the Apartment Building! Home sweet home :)

It was somewhere around 5pm when we reached the apartment and we were STARVING. It is too bad they don’t eat until 9:30pm in Spain.

So our host, who told us to call her Conchi, took us around her apartment. It has a lot of space. There are three full bedrooms as well as one room that seemed to be more of a study, though it looked like it might also have a bed. Our bed room has two small beds, a window, a long desk with two places and a large closet-like dresser. There is a bathroom right outside the door. The kitchen area consists of the kitchen, a place for her ironing board and a window that opens out to where she hangs her clothes to dry. It also has a wooden table with wooden booth-like seats. Connected, is a small living room. Branching off from the main entrance is also a Dining room and a more formal living room… or I guess you might call it a Den? Everything is decorated beautifully and VERY clean. She STRESSES cleanliness (hope you are happy, mom).

This is our room. I took the bed by the window.

Let me list some of Conchi's rules for keeping things clean:
1.) No bare feet. The house is entirely tile and she thinks that feet are dirtier than shoes, apparently. Thankfully, Flip Flops are okay.
2.) When we sit on the wooden booths at the table, we must sit on pillows if we have metal or plastic buttons on the pockets of our pants so they won’t scratch the wood.
3.) When we sit on the bed or put stuff on it that is rough (or basically anything not pajama/comfy clothes), we have an extra sheet we are supposed to lay on top of the other sheets.
4.) After we shower, we should spray the tub mat down to make sure there is no build up and check to make sure no hair has been caught in the drain. We also must hang our towels up.
Those are four rules, for starters. Now, in actuality, they are not really specifically extreme, but imagine trying to keep up with all of this in Spanish after just arriving from our travels and not having eaten anything since what little breakfast they gave us on the plane. Whew.

By now, it was probably closer to 6pm. Three and a half more hours till food. We milled around in our rooms and bathroom. Monique, having left her luggage in New York, did not really have much to unpack, but I put most of my stuff away. Conchi has a lot of books about Spain in our room so we sort of mulled over those as well as the Grammar book, Verb book and Spanish Harry Potter book that I had brought. Two and a half hours until food. We laid down (a feeling not experienced in MANY hours, now) and I, at least, was out like a light.

I woke up from my nap right around 9pm. Dinner finally. Monique and I went down to the kitchen where Conchi was cooking. Her two sons were also there. I am not exactly sure of their ages but the oldest one was named Miguel and he looked like he might be in his early thirties. The younger son was named Nachos and he was probably upper twenties. Both of them could speak a little English, but not much. They didn’t even stay for supper, they left to play basketball. So Monique and I sat down to our first Spanish meal. Are you ready?  Cauliflower. That’s right, I said Cauliflower.

It had some sort of Alfredo-like cheesy sauce on it. It...wasn’t bad, but let's just say I will not be willingly eating it again. She also gave us this grilled cheese sandwich thing. It was completely breaded on the outside and had cheese and thin strips of ham on the inside. Thinking back, it was probably more closely related to a cheese stick with ham inside. I was super impressed by her cooking skills to be able to have managed to get all that stuff inside the breading, but then I saw the box of them inside the freezer and was less impressed thereafter. Despite the "not-really-the-home-cooking-I-had-imagined" part, the dinner was okay.  To drink, we had water. There was no ice, but it had been in the fridge beforehand. After eating, she gave us some fruit, cherries for Monique and a pear for me. We also tried some of what we think were apricots. All in all, it was pretty good, I guess…though I was not really a fan of the potential apricot or the cauliflower. After dinner, we showered and were in bed by 11.

Spain soooooon!

June 29 2010
Okay, I am leaving for Spain TOMORROW!!!! Early :( I am not sure about my internet there, so I might be writing then entering the blogs later, I guess.