Little Things

Now that the weather has been gorgeous, we've finally been able to go outside and swim in the pool!! Marta LOVES to swim and really likes that I'll go swim with her. I don't have any photos of that, but we have a good time. She loves doing handstands and I taught her how to do a somersault in the pool as well. I can't actually do one, but I could teach one! When I came home one afternoon she cutely asked me if I'd go swimming with her so she could go because Nuria was cooking and she can't go to the pool by herself. How can you say no to this adorable little face?!?! You can't... Haha.

After we went swimming on Friday, I went out with some friends to get hamburgers before the big fiesta in the park. I haven't eaten a hamburger in forever and it sounded so good! I didn't eat a normal hamburger though. It had a burger, ham, fried egg, bacon, and barbecue sauce! As weird as that may sound, it was super delicious and totally hit the spot. YUMMMM...

I didn't stay out super late at the fiesta in the park because we had our trip to Toledo in the morning, but it was a fun preview for Saturday night's fiesta. I'm really going to miss these fun little spontaneous things like swimming with Marta or grabbing burgers with friends. Gotta take advantage of these opportunities while I still have them here! I'm currently "babysitting" Marta at the moment because Jesus is working and Nuria had to run some errands, but I'm enjoying the sister time! I won't have much more of it! She got a tablet for her birthday and so I'm going to download and set up Skype on it before I leave so I can still talk to them and see them when I return to the states.

Another fun little thing I did this weekend was make pancakes!! I stayed at Kelli's house (my host mom's sister is Kelli's host mom, so we're family sort of) on Saturday night and then on Sunday morning we made pancakes for her family. It's actually the first time I've ever made pancakes from scratch! It was a little difficult at first, but we made it work. They don't use measuring cups at all, but I'd brought some from the US and then we just guesstimated with the teaspoons/tablespoons. They also didn't have a metal flipper thing so we had to use a wood one, but it turned out. They were really yummy and her host mom and brother both liked them. I miss pancakes! They don't have maple syrup here though, so we had to eat them with peanut butter and nutella. I'm hoping to make something for my host family if I have time this week, but I don't know if I will! They are going to teach me how to make the Spanish tortilla one day though.

Climbing Las Murallas!

Well, this is my 50th blog post so I'm glad it's a fun one!! :)

On Friday afternoon, my family wanted to take me to climb up on top of the murallas (walls). You can't visit Avila without climbing the walls, right? Shanna and Emily decided to come with us too so it was fun to have a family/friend adventure and have photographers along so we weren't always taking selfies. The weather was ridiculously hot up there and we were dying, but the view was amazing and we got some great pictures. I wrote a little bit about this before, and it's pretty self explanatory, so I'll just share some pictures!

Seriously, just look at that!! How gorgeous is the view here?! It's like living in a castle.

We went around to another part of the wall and had my host mom take a picture! I LOVE this one :) Plus it has the gorgeous mountains in the background.

The four girls! It was fun to have Marta along because she can always lighten the mood and is so dang cute!! She is really shy, but was actually talking and laughing and enjoying spending time with Shanna and Emily. I think she really likes them, and I know they love her too!

Mi Familia! We finally had photographers and were able to get a picture of the four of us. I think I might print this here and buy a frame and leave it as a gift to them.

Classic picture of the murallas. Now I know where all those beautiful pictures online were taken!!

Hanging out in front of the walls with my girls! Can't believe we've been living here for almost 6 weeks and only have a few days left. We've definitely had the time of our lives here :)

Climbing the walls was so cool and fun. We only went about half way around because it was so super hot, but it'd have been fun to go another day when it was a little cooler and walk all the way around. Now I guess we are true Avila citizens!

Real Monastario de Santo Tomas

Okay, here goes! I'm going to try to catch you up on all of the things I have done over the past few days! It's been pretty busy, so I''ll try to keep these short and sweet!

On Thursday afternoon for our cultural activity, Cristina (our dance teacher) took us to see one of the monasteries in Avila. I've heard a lot about it so I was interested in visiting it. The area where we were at was a big piece of the Spanish Inquisition and over 69 million people were killed or tortured there. That is so many people and is crazy to think about.

We got to look around inside the monastery, at an oriental museum, and the church. The church was crazy big and really beautiful. They choir corrals were really cool and the back of every single seat was different! It must have taken forever to construct.

This was a tomb inside the front of a church. I can't remember his name, but he was the son of the queen and set to take the throne as king one day, but he died at the age of 19. So his mother had this grand tomb constructed for him and they built the big church around it.

Overall the monastery was a really neat thing to see and is a big part of Avila. And the weather was gorgeous so it was nice to walk around outside in the sunshine :)

Quick Check-In!

I have been CRAZY busy the last couple of days. And this upcoming week is going to be even crazier! I feel like we are cramming so many things into this last bit of time here!!! I have taken a million pictures in the last few days as well, so I need to get cracking on those too!

I have 3 tests tomorrow so I need to get to studying, but I hope to do a good blog post or two with pictures sometime tomorrow!! I need to recap the monastery visit, climbing the Murallas, our day trip to Toledo, swimming, making PANCAKES, family dinner, and kayaking through the mountains!!

It is unreal that I only have 5 days left here. I have had the BEST days ever the last few days and I just don't want it to end! Now that the weather here is gorgeous, I feel like my summer has finally begun and I don't want to leave it behind!

Final Weekend

I can't believe this is my final full weekend here in Avila!!! I feel like I have so much to do and am going to be running like crazy trying to fit it all in!

Yesterday afternoon our group went to see the Real Monasterio de Santo Tomás which was really really cool. It was a much more fun cultural activity than just playing games or something, plus we got to go outside!! The weather was gorgeous. 

Today was a super fun day. After lunch, my family wanted to take me up on top of the murallas! We've been planning it all week. Shanna and Emily came along too, so it was a fun family/friends adventure on the walls. I got some AMAZING pictures. The view was incredible and it was so cool to be up on top of the walls. I felt like I could see forever, and it made me realize just how little I am in this big world!! I have a ton of pictures, but I haven't been able to sort through them all yet. Here's one that was toward the beginning I'll put on here for ya. I'll upload a bunch more later. :)

It's like being on top of a castle.

It was SO SUPER DUPER HOT though. And being up even higher on the murallas and walking around was deadly. We were sweating and so overheated and drank our bottles of water really quickly. We only walked  around on the northern half of the walls because we got way too hot. It'd be fun to go up another day and walk all the way around, but I'm just so glad I got to go up there and look over all of Avila. My host dad took us to a museum of the history of Avila afterwards too which was interesting to see.

When we got back home, Marta was begging to go swimming in the pool. Jesus thought the water would still be too cold, but there were a few kids in the pool and they said it was fine. So Marta and I put on our swimsuits and jumped in. It felt so amazing and it was really fun. She LOVES to swim and was doing handstands and somersaults galore. I was going to go out with my friends afterwards so I didn't want to get my hair all wet, so I just walked around in the pool a little bit and kept my hair out of the way. On Sunday I told her we'll swim for real and I'll play with her more :)

After that I went out with some of my friends for burgers! I haven't had a hamburger in so long and it sounded so good. I got a crazy burger! It had bacon, a fried egg, and barbecue sauce! (It would have had a bunch of veggies too, but I don't like them so I had it without.) Haha. As weird as that sounds, it was very delicious. After that we went to explore a big fiesta they're having in town this weekend for a little bit, but I'm planning to stay out at  it more tomorrow night, because we have an excursion tomorrow and it's gonna be super hot and I want to be better rested. 

So yes. Tomorrow we are going to Toledo! I'm really excited to see it, because I've heard it's beautiful. However, it's going to be SUPER hot again. It's supposed to be 95 degrees there tomorrow, and there's not much wind in Toledo. The streets are really narrow too so it gets really stuffy and humid. Should be quite the adventure. I really can't decide what to wear, because I don't think I'll be comfortable in anything! I'm debating a sundress, but I'm going to be all sweaty and gross so that won't really be fun either. Ugh. Gonna have to pack lots of water and sunscreen! We're hoping to find a pool there to utilize during free time. Haha. I need to go to bed for the night, but one day here soon I'll have to go through all of my pictures from the monastery, climbing the walls, and then Toledo! I'll have lots of pictures to upload.

One week from right now I'll be packing up all my stuff and preparing to leave my wonderful home here. AHHHH.

Abbey Road!

I know this is a little bit delayed, but I didn't have these pictures on my camera and I just now stole them from Abbey :) So here's a look at the four of us leaving our mark on Abbey Road!!

We look just like the Beatles, right?!

We had to have a little fun while we were there. This was SUCH a fun picture to take :)

We debated not going to Abbey Road since it was so far away from everything else, but I am so glad we made the decision to go! Definitely a highlight of the London trip and something I'll never forget :)

Single Digits!

Oh my gosh, I only have 9 days left in Spain!! It's so hard to believe that my time here has gone by so quickly, and that in just over a week I won't be seeing any of the people I've been spending all of my time with. It's also kind of crazy for me to think about the fact that next Saturday I'll be halfway across the world back in Minnesota. Airplane travel is crazy! It's definitely going to be weird adjusting to life back in the US.

School is starting to wind down now that we're in our last 2 weeks. I have my final exams for conversation/composition and my culture class on Monday, because the Spanish teachers need to turn in their grades to Rico by Tuesday. And then my final with Rico is on Friday, which is not cool at all. But next week will be fun then because after the finals we won't have any homework or anything, so we'll have more free time and will be doing fun stuff in class like Spanish learning games and learning songs and other things like that.

Yesterday was a pretty typical day at school. But guess what?! I wore shorts for the first time! The temperature yesterday was 86 degrees and it was super sunny and finally warm enough for summer clothes!! I had a jacket on at school, because it's pretty chilly in the building, but in the afternoon and evening it was total summer outfit! The weather here is gorgeous and is supposed to stay that way for the rest of the week. I can't wait! Except for the school part, it totally feels like summer :) The only bad part about it is the allergies! Now that it has warmed up we all seem to have runny noses, scratchy throats, and watery eyes. It's not as bad inside, but when the weather is this gorgeous I can't sit inside all day and just stare at it through the window! Haha.

Finally rocking our shorts!!

The sunshine was so wonderful so we spent the afternoon hanging out in the plaza and a park enjoying the sunshine and breeze and eating some frozen yogurt. They have an amazing fro-yo place here called llao llao. They only have natural (regular) flavored yogurt but they have tons of fun stuff to put on top. Then we went to Amalfí's pizza again for dinner which was amazing like always. That place has such good pizza!! We got to sit and eat outside in a cabana type area which was really nice with the beautiful weather. 

When we walked back from Amalfi's it was dark out, and the plaza and murallas were so gorgeous. I've never been over on that part of town during the night because I try to avoid walking alone at night. So I was able to get some nice pictures. The skies were clear and beautiful and everything was lit up. We even saw The Big Dipper, which was SO cool because it makes you realize that even though you're across the world, you're still under the same sky :)

Nothing Better than a Spanish Sunset

Look at this absolutely beautiful sunset we had tonight. I can't believe I'll only get to see these beautiful mountain sunsets 10 more times...

Catching Up!

I've been really busy the last few days and haven't really had much time to update, so I'll give you a quick run-over of my last couple of days. Nothing very interesting has really happened. Haha.

SUNDAY.
I slept in until 11, which was SO nice. Especially after being up so late the past few nights. Noelia and Celia were still staying at our house for a while, so I played with them and I also helped Nuria with her English homework. She is taking an English course and her online activities are very similar to the Wiley Plus and Quia stuff we do at UND, but for English! It's pretty simple for me. Noelia was helping too because she's pretty good with English and she was having fun learning. I learned stuff too because when I was trying to explain things or translate them into Spanish, they'd help me phrase things correctly. Sunday afternoon we had our grand lunch with all of the family at Nuria's parents' house. It was really fun this time and the food was super good. The family is so sweet and nice and they love to ask us questions and see how we will respond to things. Another girl in our program, Kelli, lives with Nuria's sister Raquel, and so she's always at the family gatherings which is fun. It's nice to have another person I can talk to and actually carry on a good conversation with because when lots of people are talking at the same time, it's difficult to pick up much. So Kelli, her host brother (who is 19), and I hung out and talked after dinner and it was a fun family afternoon. That evening I went to Shanna and Emily's house and the 4 of us (Abbey was there too) curled up in their beds and watched the latest episode of the Bachelorette! It isn't broadcasted on TV here so we download the episodes and watch them on Shanna's iPad. It was a fun evening, but I had a LOT of homework waiting for me when I got back to my house. That is one thing I won't miss about being here is the classes and homework! Haha.

MONDAY.
Another day of classes. We officially just have two weeks of classes left! That's so crazy. Monday was a kind of long day. Classes seemed to take forever. In the afternoon we had an OPI session at the school and afterwards we all went to llao llao and got frozen yogurt. The weather has finally started to seem like summer here so frozen yogurt was a great treat. After llao llao Shanna and Emily and I came back to my house and chilled for a while so they could use the Wi-Fi to Facetime and Shanna and I wanted to work on our difficult lit homework together. My family was gone for the evening because Marta had a violin audition for something. We hung out for a while and then tried to crack down on our homework, but the drama we had to read was super difficult to understand so we worked for over an hour and then just gave up and decided to go to sleep. The pollen levels or something in the air are SUPER high right now and it's actually irritating me. I don't know what it is exactly, but my throat has been all scratchy and sore and icky. Luckily I brought some allergy meds with and that's helping a little bit.

TODAY.
I was super tired this morning, but as the day has gone on I've gotten more awake! I survived my classes of the day and after classes I had a conference with Rico about our experience here and our families, classes, etc. I didn't have much to say because I'm very happy here with almost everything. Oh, I forgot to mention that yesterday (and today we saw them too), Emily and Shanna and I were in the computer lab at school and met a bunch of the girls from Illinois! There is another group of students from the US (Illinois) who are studying here at the same school we are and staying with families too. It was fun to talk to them for a little bit and see how they're liking the experience. All of their classes are on the second floor so I hadn't seen them before, but when we were in the lab it was totally obvious they were American and I'm sure we obviously were to them too. We just had lunch which was really good, and now I'm relaxing for a little bit and about to head over to Abbey's house so we can watch the next episode of The Bachelorette. I've never been huge into the show, but they love it and watching it with them so far has gotten me hooked on the season. After that I'll have lots of homework to do, so hopefully I can get started on it and not have to be up super late! The weather is gorgeous today finally, and it's supposed to be in the 80's the next 3 days. I can't wait!! FINALLY SUMMER.