Accion de Gracias!

Also known in Amerrca as THANKSGIVING!

I absolutely had the best Thanksgiving EVER. Everyone from our program went to a nice big dinner (YES with good ol american turkey, stuffing, pie, and LOTS of wine, cavo--spanish champagne, and tinto). Later, we all went to the discoteca with our profesors! Only in Spain will you be able to go out to the discotecas with your profesors, take shots with them, and have them stay out longer than you--I'm talking about til 6 in the morn. Yes, I'm a gramma compared to my profs. I had the best time everrrrrrr.

Pictures and descriptions to come, promise!!

ok so this is the funnest game ever. do the BRRR BRR thing, while taking a picture. aja

At the discoteca with my profs. Elli, my art history teacher is the cutest. She's so cool and sweet, and I get super excited when I go to a museum and see something we've learned about in class. And Antonio, my history of spain prof. He's probably the most passionate teacher I've ever had. It's amazing how he remembers ever single detail, date, sidenote, movie, book, painting, quirks, and random dumb things without any notes. He really made me history come alive for me. (Oh, and all the girls in the program have crushes on him). Ahaha at the discotech, I finally mustered up the courage to tell him he was my favorite profesor. 

(funny story side note: so I was taking my history midterm and I was answering a question about the Spanish Inquisition. Antonio said beforehand that our grammatical mistakes don't matter, the important thing is the actual content. So, to say the least, I was not paying attention to grammar at all. When I got my test back (with a proud 9.1 out of 10, yea I'm bragging about my history grade), I realized that for the inquisition question, I wanted to say the Catholic kings used torture (tortura) but instead, I wrote, Los Reyes Catholicos usaron tortuga (The Catholic kinds used TORTOISE!). AHA, just imagine his face while correcting all these tests.---ahah reminds me, sorry I keep trailing off, of a conversation I was having with my Spanish parents about scary movies. I was describing psycho and wanted to say, 'all of a sudden, someone appears with a knife'. BUT INSTEAD, i said, 'all of a sudden, someone appears WITH A SPOON'. Ahaha, I'll bet I've confused plenty of people during my stay here. It's no wonder people are always giving me confused looks)

AH I CAN'T BELIEVE I HAVE ONLY 3 WEEKS LEFT!! Next week is my last real week of school, then I'm off to Porto and Barcelona, than Scotland at the end. I'm really going to miss it here. Especially my spanish family, and I know this is nerdy, but my classes and profesors :(

shutterfly site updated!

Slanty Town

canals almost on every street!

crazy how many bikes there were!

So amsterdam has inspired me to write a children's book titled "Slanty Town" (watch out for it in 10 years ahaha). Why slanty town? Well, because amsterdam is built on a canal, the foundation isn't really flat, so in order for the buildings to stay up, they are all slightly angled (or so I think, I very well might have just made that up). But not only are the buildings completely skewed, so are the perceptions of amsterdam. When people hear amsterdam, they automatically think weed and hookers, and maybe Anne Frank, but it's so much more than that. It's being in this quaint little town with an intricate system of canals, a place where there are bikes of all shapes and sizes (portable fold-up ones, ones with carriages for kids, ones with carriages for dogs, sidecars, and ones with seats on the handles for your kids--I'm sorry, but in what world is this safe?), a place filled with cute bagel shops, nice people, tall people (for a change), Indian food!, Van Gogh, and so much more)

We're not supposed to take pictures in the museum, but.. technically, this is outside

I'll make my voice heard. I'll go out into the world and work for mankind!- Anne Frank

I must say though, the Anne Frank museum was probably my favorite. I don't know why, but I imagined her house to be different from the others, to stand out because, wow, it's Anne Frank's house. But no, if it weren't for the line outside, I would have never guessed it was her house. Anyways, from the moment I went in to the moment I left, I was just overwhelmed with a mezcla of sorrow, awe, hope. It was crazy. You learn so much about her in history, about the Holocaust. But to actually be in the house of someone who's suffered so much, to be able to see physically their living conditions, to walk the steps they've walked, and to look out the windows they've looked out from, is just an indescribable experience. It was almost as if her spirit was really there. 

This is the church that Anne write about in her diary. How the church bells are evidence to her of the outside world. To be able to witness this, to hear the very exact bells she heard, wow. 

This is how they construct their roads

The market!

caramel wafer thingies. yum yum in my tum tum

buttons and things

Almost died while bike riding, seriously

Rode our bikes to this beautiful park

playing on the playground

soo crooked!

giant shoee!

red light district, for some reason, there were a bunch of swans there. I'd like to think it's some sort of symbolism.

the house where Rembrant lived and died in

example of bike with kiddie carriage

so funny because in amsterdam, instead of Santa Claus, they have a Cintra claus (sp?) with Black Pete. So I don't know what exactly cintra claus does, but black pete's the one giving out the gifts. He's cintra claus's helper, in reality, he was his slave. But Dutch parents don't tell their kids that, they just say he's black because of all the chimney chutes he's been down. AHA

Anyways, that's just a little bit of what I did in amsterdam. It usually takes me a week or more to process every single trip. We also went to the Van Gogh museum and the red light district. More of amsterdam to come!

By the way, in a moment of desperation, I stole these pictures from the internet. I'm so behind on uploading pictures just because my computer has absolutely no more space AH!

So remember how..

the other day I was craving spice in my life? Well, I got it! Just in time too (as it's freezing cold now)

Thanks dad for buying it and mom for sending it!!

WAFT

is my word for Paris

Why?

Because right after getting off the metro into the Beauvais station, I got a huge warm waft of delicious pastries. What other metro station smells of pastries?! Sure enough, I walk out and to my left, see a beautiful display of fluffy croissants, custards, and more. I knew I was going to enjoy Paris.

And I did

This is a croque Madame that I had. Just a simple sandwich with ham and melted cheese and an egg on top, yet it bursted with flavor. It’s funny because there’s a croque monsieur as well, but the madames the one with the egg ahah, get it?

Restaurant on the Seine River!

Yum yum crepe crepe!

Crepe #1 (not pictured) was stuffed with chicken and ratatouille

Crepe #2 Ham, Mushroom and Cheese

Crepe #3 Banana and nutella

Got into the Louvre FO FREEE

mummieez

Greek art. Reminds me of Hercules!

I was so excited to see El Greco cause we’ve been studying his art in my art history class!

HUGE painting don't remember what it was called.

Mona Lisa, which really wasn't all that

yada yada more paintings and sculptures. can't you tell that I just love museums?

Went to an authentic French Restaurant, Chez Janouz

This was kevin's rabbit

Many many metros

Chocolate and wine under the Eiffel!

Diamond lights every hour!

Montmarte watching a harpist

Lots of art!

Most amazing Falafel place!

My falafel with SPICE!

Then we went to eat our falafs by the river

Gargoyles!

what goofs we are

Hunchback of Notre Dame ahah

Gelato with as many flavors as you want!

Arc de Triumph (which really wasn’t anything but an arc)

Escargot

Haha just kidding--here it is

kinda ugly

Moulin Rouge

I’m really glad that I saw as many things that I did, but to be quite honest, I would have loved to sit for one sec with a coffee and just soak up the city. Instead, I was running around town, boarding the blue, transferring to the green, stopping at the red, then run towards this street, actually we missed it because we were going too fast, go back, go go go. PHEW! I know this sounds sucky but what I remember most about Paris is the buttload of metros we had to take to see all the things we wanted to see.

 I wanted so desperately to slow down, and admire things. But it was hard because everyone else was so focused on getting to their destination.

That’s when I realized, I’m someone who’s all about the journey. I’m able to enjoy what I come across when I come across it. I’m able to see and appreciate beauty in the simple things. I can be walking somewhere and notice a funny sticker on the wall, a leaf shaped like a dog, doves jumping on each other doing who knows what.

I don’t need to hold all my excitement to the end because I enjoy it along the way. But so many are unaware of their surroundings. They’re so focused on reaching their goal that they lose focus or they miss something so great. (Psychology note: so there’s this experiment on attention where students are shown a video of people tossing a ball. They are told to count how many times the ball has been passed. It’s funny because 30 seconds in, a person in a gorilla suit dances through the ball tossing, HOWEVER, because the students are so focused on counting, they completely miss it!)

So being on the other side, is a bit frustrating. It’s like, HEY STOP! SLOW DOWN. STOP FOCUSING SO HARD BECAUSE YOU’RE MISSING THE DANCING GORILLA! But that’s life, you’re always on the go. Take time to just relax and sit still. Guarantee, you’ll notice things you’ve never noticed before and you’ll come to appreciate them so much. I know I do.