Remember me?

It's the night of the 15th... Tuesday.... and I am procrastinating homework. TODAY WAS SOOO long, so the last thing I want to do is to sit down and do more work! Therefore, I'm going to catch up on more of my blogging! Where did we leave off? Oh yeah... January 29th when Emma, roomies and I had all gone to the market, shopped with Abby and Grace and then had the wonderfully delicious BBQ dinner at the apartment of Alex Cherry - our local friend....

01/30 Sunday

Since last night ended a bit early for me, I actually woke up early today, stayed in - for the most part - to get homework and some research concerning possible future trips accomplished, and went out for a late evening run. Remember the vegetables that I bought yesterday? I ATTEMPTED cooking them but WHO KNEW cooking vegetables would be so difficult! They just got mushy and soggy.... gross but I ate them anyways. On another thought, whatever these green things are - which I believe are lima beans that haven't been shucked yet.... can someone please inform me of their name and how in the world to cook / eat them? :) much appreciated.

01/31 Monday

Today... the usual morning. Class! I wasn't feeling too hot, though... I think the jet-lag has finally gotten to me! We're reading Cinderella in my track class... and having to go through and write about what is wrong in the story provided-- LITTLE do they know that they are working with a Cinderella genius over here ;) watch out! After school, got home at 4:30PM and went to run a few errands; Alec Trainer - one of the guys in the program that has become pretty close to all of us at the apartment, walked with me because it was getting dark outside. First we attempted at getting a "tarjeta jóven" so we could get the discount bus tickets, but, the building was closed AGAIN so we ran on to our next destination: Holiday Gym. My friend, Anna, the Sigma Kappa from Maryland goes to this gym and she's been begging me to go with her, so Alec and I ran by there to see what we could do about getting me a membership for the few months I'm here in Spain. I got through all of the paperwork and then at the end, the guy said I had to have a bank account to link it with... why? I don't know... but I didn't know my transaction numbers for my good ol' Bank of America account, so oops - there goes a whole 20 minutes for nothing.
Alec and I passed by a home-style store on the way home with REALLY cheap blankets - so of course I stopped in and bought... um... two? *innocent smile* Do you really blame me though ?? I wake up with purple fingers, knees and toes (despite wearing socks and sweatpants), and they were only 4•euro each. I got a teal one and an orange one.... and they're very soft, very big PLUSH blankets! yay!

Today I also introduced Alec to a good Spanish chocolate cookie... mmmm... there goes HIS waistline!

02/01 Tuesday

((view from the top of the hill where cooking classes take place))

Classes ended at 1:ooPM today... and instead of waiting around for 2 hours for soccer to start, I went home and did a bit of homework because I was planning on giving my time to something else in the evening... guess what that is?!?! COOKING CLASS!!! :) yayyyy!!
We're only supposed to be allowed to take 18 hours worth of credit while we're here... and yes, I'm at 18 with all of my classes that I'm in. Cooking class is one hour credit so I begged and pleaded for them to let me in and they finally, today, said that I could be a part of the class. I was so excited that I debated buying a totally cool, totally unnecessary cooking apron so I could be on top of my cooking skill and on top of the cooking fashion... but then I thought about the unnecessary part and decided against it :)
After school, Caitlin and I both took naps and then we got up to go running. Mistake? Maybe... we found some more of that really cool beach workout equipment located in a park right near our apartment... but we also found a really fat, ugly woman squatting half naked in the middle of the street... clearly visible... peeing beside of a trash can. I mean, I know dogs can do it, but woman, SERIOUSLY?! There was a man behind her holding up her dress and laughing so hard he probably developed abs but he was probably only laughing at the disgusted face I made. He should have been choking on vomit from the sight of that nastiness. bleh. Later when talking about it with dad, he asked if I had taken a picture for my blog? Can I take a poll and ask who honestly would have wanted to see that?! Because I know I didn't and it was forced upon me... SPEAKING of vomiting, que yo aprendé es la palabra (which I learned is the word) "duelvo". The woman who lives above me and decides to move her furniture around EVERY NIGHT at 2:30am just happened to grace me with her loud vomiting sounds last night around 5am.... at first i thought it was a dog with short howls but then it kept going and after a few minutes of silence, I heard footsteps going back to her room. bleh. hahahahahahaha Oh Spain!
I met up with my friend, Sara, at 6:30 at La Plaza de Los Luceros and we walked to class with Hannah and Torin. The class is up on top of this LONG steep hill that takes about 15 minutes of speed walking to get up: QUITE the workout... but hopefully this food is worth it ;) Guess what? IT WAS!! Today was the first day and I was already addicted. To begin, my professor who's name is Nuño (like "nun-yo bizness"), is quite fabulous and reminds me A LOT of Mr. Bean... :) tee hee. I took a video of him and if you watch, you'll notice he says the word "Vale" which means "okay" about a MILLION times. He's way toooo precious, though and everyone in the class loves him.

Cooking Video #1
Cooking Video #2
Cooking Video #3

Today we cooked Paella!! It's a Spanish (VERY popular) dish.... well, on second thought, we cooked what is called Fideuá. The only difference between these two dishes is that a Paella is made with rice and a Fideuá, with noodles. They are both made with either meat, vegetables, or seafood (or all three if you like), and cooked in a very large, flat skillet-like pan.

Fideuá ingredients:

• Macaroni noodles - thick and small
• Fish stock / broth
• Cuttlefish
• White shrimp (small)
• Clams
• Crawfish
• Mussels
• Red bell pepper
• Green bell pepper
• Onion
• Garlic
• Crushed red tomato
• Sun-dried red bell pepper
  
• Olive oil

If you want the recipe - just message me and I'll give it to you, but it's late and I don't feel like translating and then typing the entire thing at the moment :)

We also made tortillas Españolas -- thick tortillas made from eggs, milk, potatoes and a few other things ... MINE WAS THE BEST LOOKING! ... and for dessert: Torrijas which are basically just deep-fried french toast rolled in sugar. Healthy? Nope.
Class ended around 8:30... walked home full and fat... homework and bedtime! Oh yeah, the girls and I have started watching a show called Pretty Little Liars. Pretty sure we watched an episode of this before bed :)

02/02 Wednesday

Today was a good day, as well... We had class as usual - ending at 4pm since today was business class day. After classes, Matt (our friend who lives right around the corner) said that his host mom invited us around for dinner. Another awesome meal in sequence with the one from last night? Yes, please! We went over right after getting off of the bus and were greeted by an 18 year old cat that looked like it wanted to murder the world. It's gray hair was sticking out like it had been electricuted, and when you pet it, you could feel how it's hair was actually matted so terribly that it had dreads underneath all of the fluff. AHHH gross? But it was the sweetest cat ever and poor thing couldn't meow even though it was trying with all of it's might. I think one of the claws was messed up as well because it got caught on everything it touched: my sweater, the table cloth... OR MAYBE it was just trying to do the table cloth trick where if you pull it from the table really fast, everything on the table just magically stays in place and doesn't go crashing to the floor. Could be.
Matt's host mom was incredibly social and sweet and she made us so much food. We had Fideuá - again for me, first time for the other girls - but it was with only little white shrimp and tuna.... In my personal opinion, it was way better than last night's fideuá. We also had salad and Spanish ham and bread. mmmmm :)
TOMORROW is our first exam in our Track classes... so Alec came over and studied with the girls and I for a few hours. We all finally went to bed sometime really late that night.

02/03 Thursday

Did I just get murdered? Seriously.... because I feel like that exam paper took out a knife and stabbed me in the brain. I'm pretty sure no one was expecting it to be as difficult as it ended up being... oh well - only time holds our fate in our hands now. The rest of the day was pretty good, though. In Conversation and Oral, the professor made fun of me because I looked dumbfounded when the seat I normally sat in got taken, so he sarcastically pulled his chair out at the front of the class and told me to sit there and teach the class. He then proceeded to sit in the rear of the classroom and grin at me while I stood there thinking about what to do. ... so i wrote the agenda on the board: tomarámos una siesta por 30 minutos.... meaning let's all take naps for 30 minutes. :) buttttt he didn't exactly agree to that SO, instead, I explained in spanish two american games that he'd never heard of before: telephone and head's up 7 up. CAN'T believe he'd never heard of TELEPHONE! seriously? We played them for about 10 minutes.... then he took over class and we had a worksheet on anúncios de contactos ---- basically dating ads for the newspaper. Although he took over teaching he made me call on whoever was to read the next anúncio and once I made Alec read a girls announcement in a girl voice; we all cracked up... he should not go into voiceovers as a living. ;) After, we had to write our own anúncios, anonymously, which he collected and then redistributed randomly for each of us to read aloud. Alec and a girl named Chantelle had a "phone conversation" about Alec's ad.... Chantelle decided to describe herself as a 90 year old woman who lived in a box but was pretty and fun. She proceeded to begin to ask if he wanted to go somewhere that week and as she paused to think of a place i just said "al hospital?" For some reason our professor thought that was just the funniest thing he'd ever heard.... covered his mouth laughing and all. haha :) I GUESS I'm on my way to being the next class clown, eh? Move over dad.. takin' yo spot! They agreed to meet for their first date at the hospital for a heart checkup :) how cute.
After school I had a few things to get ready because BARCELONA with Gabrielle, Grace and Abby comes veryyyy early in the morning. So I ran a few errands:
1. Went to the central market with a group from school.... saw the funniest, grossest fish I've ever seen. It's name in spanish: Rape... and it looks as such.
2. got a phone - finally:

+34674650935 if you want to call me, of course :)

3. booked a hostel and my train tickets to actually get to Barcelona.
4. I got some cheap and useful things for the apartment: bath mats for the bathroom since the floor feels like ice, brown fruit baskets for the counters in the kitchen, silverware since we only had 4 forks and spoons, and a shower caddy so my soap and such didn't have to sit on tiles that I didn't know the history of :) call me paranoid... but I feel more clean and at home now.
5. Packed and cleaned my room in preparation for the 6:55 AM departure time with Gab. *sigh*

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A continuation will occur later... starting with the crazy morning before leaving for Madrid. Write more when it's not 2:30 in the morning. LONG day tomorrow.

Sincerely,
Still behind in this, aren't I?