10-15 # De Plane! De Plane!

I am a very cautious person, especially with my Spain budget. I want to be able to do all that I want to here, which makes me want to spend money at the same time as makes me want to save to make sure I can do everything. However, I have decided to be more spontaneous!
I just bought my plane ticket for Brussels next weekend on a whim! Though, after doing so I found out that all the hostels are full either Friday or Saturday night :-S... Oh well, things generally have a way of working themselves out :-)

Anyway, it is one of our Spanish friends' (Iván's) birthday tonight, so we're taking them out. Other than that, just worked on my last three semesters, how to work in Honors, and my excursions I'm taking to Brussels, Paris, Berlin, and Athens.

10-14 # D'oh!

Well, I've changed my mind back and forth and back again and forth again (can you change your mind "forth"?) about this whole Spanish major thing. After working on registration stuff today since class registration for next semester opens next week, I realized that I had two options:

Take 3 rather easy semesters (13-16 credits each) and graduate with an Honors degree in Software Engineering and a Hispanic Studies minor

Take 3 super hard semesters (18-20 credits each) and graduate with a regular degree in Software Engineering and a Languages and Cultures for Professionals major [I could still graduate with honors by adding on an extra credit each semester and turning one class each semester into a graduate level course. AKA "die"]
Alternatively, I can take this option over 4 semesters which would make it more manageable, but make me graduate a semester late and pay an additional 12 grand on my loans, which I don't think the difference between minor and major is going to be worth.

Now, I bet I'll go back and forth on it again, but right now I'm thinking that the first option is the best. With the extra time maybe I can add a little to my resume around campus or continue learning Spanish on my own time.

So to relate this back to Spain, it's awesome that I'm here right now because it completes the minor for me! Sweet!! Other than that, today consisted of classes, eating split-pea-like soup, and grilled ham and cheese. Mmmmm Juani's cooking :-)

10-13 # Holy Homework, Batman!

Wow! So we just got done with Spain's National holiday yesterday, and return for classes today. I only had two classes today, but they both had homework due today. Then, after handing in today's homework, we got a pile of more homework! I think this is what happens to make up for holidays: homework!
None of it's too horribly bad, I mean it's not a Physics 222 final or an Organic Chemistry midterm, but it is a lot of time-taking work.
Things I will be doing in the next few hours:

• Working with the provinces of Spain. Not just the 17 Autonomous Communities, but the 50 provinces. Luckily, he only said to fill out the sheet, not memorize them!
• A simple government lesson over Monarchy, Dictatorships, and Democracy. Did you know there are 11 Constitutional Monarchies in Europe and that there are at least 6 Military Dictatorships in the world?
• Read about the 2006 smoking ban in Bilbao.
• Write a story implementing intertextuality (yes, it's not a word in English, but I'm not sure what to call it) where I write a story that somehow repeats/refers to itself
• Define romanticism and explain when and why it appeared in Europe
• Find Romantic artists and comment on their works
• Write a paper about the life of "El Greco"

So that's a total of 3 worksheets, 2 papers, and 4 short answer questions, all due tomorrow!

Also, I booked my trip to Paris this past Saturday. I'll be going November 11th-14th, and am super excited. Now I just need to figure out how much Berlin, Athens, and Thanksgiving are going to cost me so I can see if I can fit in Brussels and/or Amsterdam and/or any other places!

10-12 # Café

Did I mention the Spanish like to stay out late? Yeah, it's worth reiterating!
So today we went out for coffee with the second group of Spaniards we've met (the first included Estibaliz, Sonia, Sonia, Maria, JPe, and Cristina, most of whom are done with school) which consists of Dani, Iván, Ismael, Raúl, Sarah, and Miguel. These guys are really good at English, some of them I would even call fluent!
Anyway, we met with them at about 6 o'clock for coffee, finally got everyone there around 6:15 (as is the typical Spanish fashion), and went to get some coffee. However, we ended up staying out until 9:30! I was definitely not expecting to be out that long, but coffee is quite the involved process over here :-).

Throughout our previous interactions with these guys, we'd already realized that they know a surprising amount of American pop culture. From video games to artist to movies.

Yes, that's Lady Gaga. They like her, and not just her music. ¿?

It's really funny talking to them and learning about the subtle differences between views on things like age-appropriateness of cartoons. For example, we were avidly told that shows like Dragon Ball Z are not for kids (as their content is too mature) but are for the older crowd, a view not shared by most Americans (except for Eric VanDenover and my floor last year :-) ).
At one point, two of the guys (Iván y Dani, the comedians) started singing Brittany Spears Hit Me Baby, One More Time and then proceeded to pretended to hit each other. It was quite an entertaining night.
Practicing with the Spaniard students is probably the best grammar/vocab lesson I get, because they speak enough English to help us clarify any concepts we're just not quite getting in Spanish, and they correct us when we make mistakes. I can't wait to go out with them again!

10-11 # El Puente

Tomorrow is Spain's National Day, so that means no school! That makes this a THREE day school week for us here (I feel like a slacker :-) ). However, an interesting fact is that when there is a Tuesday holiday, the Spanish like to make a Puente (or bridge) from Sunday to Tuesday, and just call Monday a holiday too. We were almost the only ones at the school (our professors said we weren't allowed a "puente"), and the entire city seemed on vacation. I like the Spanish :-)

10-6 # Winding through Cáceres

Today I decided to walk to class with some of my classmates, and it was definitely a good choice. To walk to class, I have to get up an hour early since the school is a little bit away. However, the back streets of Cáceres are amazing and that hour of sleep would not have been nearly as fulfilling!! They curve and wind, they're narrow, yet they still hold an expansive vibrancy in their history and architecture. We even passed a greenhouse on the way! It was definitely a good morning :-)

10-5 # Market

On Tuesdays I only have one class at the university. I should probably use the free time to work on my online class, but instead decided to write on my blog.

So I go to class at 10 and get out at 11. This gets me home very early, and I ran into Juani before she had gone out to go grocery shopping for the day. I asked if she needed help and she assured me she didn't. I didn't think she quite got that I truly wanted to accompany her so I just flat out asked if I could go. She was delighted and took me along with her.
The first place we stopped at was the Meat Store. I have to tell you, for a butcher shop, it smelled awesome. They have some crazily awesome spice floating around in the air there. There, Juani bought some chicken and some sausages. The community environment here is so much different! She was just talking away with the other women in the store buying food, even though she didn't know them, and they were all talking among themselves too. The butchers were just working away and talking to whoever made their way to the front, yet there was still a sense of who came in first and no one really cut in front of anyone else.
When Juani got up there, she asked for her food, they prepared it, and then she realized she had forgotten her money. She told them she would run to the bank real quick and they were absolutely fine with it. Absolutely. Not like America where you might get a glare because you should have come prepared. Not like America where they're busy and you're wasting their time. To me, it seemed like they would have run to the bank for her if she had asked! Very nice people, those Spanish butchers.
Next, I asked her about supermarkets because I had wandered around and found one. I was there and about to buy a bottle of pop, but then realized everyone had "club" cards, so figured it was like Sam's Club. However, apparently it's not, and those were like mini Sear's Cards. Though upon talking to Juani about this, she explained that even though I can shop at that one, there's one about three times the size right next door. She took me to it and I cannot explain how dumbfounded I was when I realized that for the past 3 weeks, I've lived right above the Spanish equivalent of Hy-Vee.

Well anyway, I am going to go and enjoy my siesta and maybe grab something from the Hy-Vee-ish store!

10-2 # Lisbon/Sintra Day 2

The streets of Portugal

To the left is a picture of the street from our hostel. I really wish I had pictures from the hostel to put here, but I forgot to get them until right after we had checked out. Anyway, I got up around 8 and relaxed for a bit in the morning while my fellow travelers got ready for the day. We ate food at the hostel (pretty awesome breakfast) and then talked to some fellow travelers. We ended up hooking up with 2 or 3 other groups of travelers to go to Sintra for the day (a little city of castles about 40 minutes from Lisbon).

Our group consisted of an Australian girl, four Irish guys, a Brazilian guy, an Arizonan girl, us five Iowans and one Nebraskan. It was a pretty diverse group!





So when we got to Sintra, we were a little worried about what we were going to do. The first thing you see getting into Sintra is a large hill. A very, very large hill. With a castle on the top that you just know is the one you're here to see :-) Luckily, we found a tour bus to take us up the mountain.

The tall mountain. On the very top is a castle, hard to see from here.

Anyway, we got up the mountain and went into the first castle/fortress/ruins thing that the bus stopped at (there were 2 main stops). We only ended up going into one of the two stops, but we were very with our choice of the first one as our stop. It was a castle wall that wound around the large hill and overlooked Portugal and the little town of Sintra.

This is where we got onto the wall and started our climb

The view from the very top of the castle. The ocean in the background

The cat that followed us from the bottom all the way up the castle wall

After Sintra we went back to Lisbon and hung out at the hostel with our group for a bit before boarding a train back to Cáceres. Writing about it makes it feel like we didn't really do a lot, but it was a pretty loaded and fun day!

More pictures here.

10-1 # Lisbon Day 1

This weekend was our first excursion out of Cáceres, along with a lot of other firsts.

This was my first train ride, which was surprisingly comfortable. The leg room on a train is much larger than the leg room in an airplane! Also, the rocking on the train really puts you to sleep!

Here was my first train, and everyone's behind me saying I should step back :-P

We got off at the wrong train stop, but on the bright side that gave us extra time to walk around. Also, we ended up changing our Day 2 plans (next post) so we missed going inside the Oceanarium, but because of taking the wrong stop we still got to see the outside.

Jerónimos Monastery

After we took a stop at our hostel (which was absolutely amazing, by the way) we went to the Jerónimos Monastery and the Belém Tower. These two locations together make up a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The monastery was an excellent example of Gothic architecture.

After the Monastery, we went to the Discovery Monument, which I'm pretty sure was a Portuguese monument to us, the Americas. It was a large tower with Cristóbal Colón and his crew looking off into the distance. Behind the statue of the men is a large pillar with a viewpoint on the top that we were able to visit. I got some awesome pictures of Lisbon from up there, but the panorama didn't turn out too well because I got some of the platform in the pictures (apparently half the picture close and half far confuses panorama makers).

Jerónimos Monastery from the front. Nice fountain there.

After the Monastery, we went to the Belém Tower, but because it had an entrance fee we opted out of going inside. The outside was really the interesting part for us anyway.
There, we found a little beach-like place where the tide had brought some sand up by the tower. We did one of those little classy hand-prints in the sand pictures.

One of the cool things I didn't know was that Lisbon, Portugal is like a sister city to San Francisco, California! They both are on the coast, but better yet, they both have Golden Gate bridges! Almost identical looking and almost identical in size (SF: 2,737 m, Lisbon: 2,277 m). Finally, both have very similar cable car/tram systems. In fact, originally (in 1901), Lisbon imported their first trams from the US to replace horse-drawn carriages (though you can definitely still find some of these in the city).

Golden Gate Bridge, Lisbon, Portugal

Finally, as it was an excursion to a coast town, I had to try some seafood. We asked around and found a nice, yet cheap, local food place. However, apparently Portuguese food is not very different compared to stuff you can find in the states. This was my coastal seafood dish, which was pretty darn awesome:

It was awesome. Be jealous.