Meet Nicole! My roommate! At a bar in Granada
to watch the Superbowl. Late night the night
before our first day of classes. College! Haha.



2/20/2012

WARNING: THIS IS GOING TO BE CONFUSING. I am writing about some recent revelations and giving a picture summary simultaneously and they don’t go together at all but I’m still going to mix them so that it’s kind of like an adventure to read my blog. YAY! Parts in the picture-story update will have text highlighted in a different color (purple?), kind of captioning the pictures.  (there will be three more pictures in this post...I just can't get them to upload right now...so here's part and I'll edit this later or something). The rest (my revelations and not photo-updates) will be...like this. Haha.



Our room at the homestay. NOT where I use the internet. I'll
take a picture of the staircase, maybe. The magical staircase
of functioning WiFi. But it's kind of home, so that's okay.



Hace mucho tiempo, pero HOLA! Sorry, ya’ll. I have not written in an extremely long time. I have been exploring Spain, and it’s hard to write about everything while also taking everything in. I’m going to try writing this post a little differently, but I think it will be good. A little more brief, but maybe less painful to read. Alright.

Yarn STORE!!! Okay. Random. But this (I think) was the first
non-food place that I was able to actually purchase something.
And it's YARN!!! Haha.

So…the big picture. When I first arrived, I was tired. Incredibly tired. Also a little euphoric (“Ah, EVERYTHING is SO PRETTY!!!” You can hear me, right?). And then I was a little sad. So I just explained my version of culture stock, I believe. A couple days were really hard and involved some crying. Others were easier. But I feel mostly adjusted. I have a few friends here who I am getting to know more about each day, and it’s a little scary and very enjoyable. And I really like most everyone that I have met in my program. I am still working on making a few Spanish friends to improve my Spanish, but at least having people to lean on here is helping incredibly, and knowing I am helping a few people in return is even better.



Liz (left) and Alicia. CHOCOLATE and CHURROS.
Okay, so the girls are more awesome the food. But I like both.
New friends!

Ronda. What a beautiful city! I wish pictures were more
adequate for communicating beauty.

Tyler and I at a restaurant in Sevilla (with Liz and Dave)...
Tomatoes and cheese. BEST DINNER! Okay, so Maria
Carmen is a wonderful cook. But I love tomatoes!

Bells at the top of the Cathedral in Sevilla.
BEAUTIFUL! More amazing in person, again.

Another realization, after culture shock and making new friends, Spanish is sneaky. SNEAKY. I went to Cadiz, Spain for Carnival on Saturday, and I met several people while I was there, and had some conversations. They mostly asked if I was German, but they could tell what I was saying! (I think!) And I think I understood them. What is even crazier is how much I am able to communicate with my host parents. Each day still has its challenges; but I am not as shy, and I boldly step out into the idiot zone of Spanish, making all sorts of mistakes, and communicating more or less. They (Jose Manuel and Maria Carmen) told me the other day that they can tell I’m improving. I do more than just smile and nod. The most recent confirmation, though, was Mass last night. I forgot to look up the readings in advance so I could sort of follow along. I got to Mass and said an extra prayer for understanding and wisdom, and guess who understood most of the readings, the homily, and even followed pretty well with the prayers?! (reading along with the March Magnificat, since I missed the February one—only about a week more until I can ACTUALLY use my Magnificat to pray the Mass!) Okay, so I’ve had some small victories.



In Ronda. Beautiful view. (more beautiful in real life)
Dave (referenced earlier), Liz, and Alicia



Two more small realizations for today (there were three, but I can only think of two now. Maybe later…haha), before I continue living the Spanish life. First, obviously, I am not a very good blogger. I find it slightly tedious to write. I feel like I want to remember everything so I NEED to blog, but I want to experience EVERYTHING so I need to avoid the internet. What I need is a video camera to record 24 hours a day and a crew to help with that, and maybe someone to write a book about this also. Mostly for me to watch later (on Hulu?), but a reality TV show? Sure. Haha. I really will try to update more consistently, maybe once a week? On Fridays? Nag me if you really want an update, okay (Mom :D )? Alright.



This kind of relates to the text around it! Here is the bathroom
in my homestay. Toilet flush button and all. Please note,
the shower head doesn't stay up. We hold it. And turn
the water off and on. A lot. New experiences.



Second small realization. Finally, to close for now, I want to say a word about toilets. Random, I know. (P.S. Extra shout out to Kelsi if you’re reading, because your toilets oratory sometimes plays in my head here, especially the sound in the intro...) Bathrooms and toilets in Spain are WEIRD. I do not think I have seen a single automatic toilet yet. But I think I’ve also only seen ONE with a lever flusher. They usually have a button instead (sometimes two buttons, I think one with more water pressure than the other). And my favorite part: THEY ALL HAVE LIDS. (Well, almost. Definitely a greater proportion than in the U.S.) Let me clarify, though, that I love the complete lack of automatic toilets! I do wish more of the bathrooms had paper towels, though. Some of them do. Most of them don’t. Some of the ones that don’t have a “hand dryer” instead—these usually just blow a weak stream of coldish air that doesn’t actually make any difference. Haha. But…yeah. I don’t know why I just explained European bathrooms except that they are somewhat fascinating to me and I thought it might be a nice change of pace. At least it isn’t a boring summary. If you want more details or different ones, send me a message on facebook or something, maybe we can Skype. Haha. Weirdest post ever. I’m going to insert some RANDOM photos in the middle, periodically, to mix it up and THAT will be probably the short summary of the last couple weeks. I hope you can follow this, at least a little. Anyway…I miss you all. A lot. But I am also loving Spain. A lot. J Peace and love!



Danielle