Summer in Spain 2011

Hahahaha, this never gets old! tbandler: #aprilphotoaday...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:47:02 -0400

Hahahaha, this never gets old!

#aprilphotoaday category for today is #tiny. My 2 month old baby picture should work… But it doesn’t. #wellfed (Taken with instagram)

"El pelo mal cortado, a las ocho días igualado"

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 10:00:06 -0400

“El pelo mal cortado, a las ocho días igualado”

- Fernando - it means that if you get a bad haircut, in 8 days you’ll be guapo anyway… quite useful

"Las lentejas, si quieres las come. Si no quieres, las deja"

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 10:00:06 -0400

“Las lentejas, si quieres las come. Si no quieres, las deja”

- Fernando - a saying about one of my favorite meals our padres cook. It means if you want the lentils, eat them… if you don’t want them, don’t eat them, lol very deep

Last Week!

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 13:32:14 -0400

So this has been our last week in Salamanca and I feel badly cause I haven’t tumbled for a while, but I’ve been really busy trying to jam in all the Salamanca adventures and homework as possible. Plus the internet is unbelievably terrible everywhere, so I’m excited to back in the wi-fi filled USA. In the past few days we’ve seen the final Harry Potter movie premier in Spanish, gone to the pool, gone to the Rastro (an outdoor market), played cards in random restaurants around town, and rented boats along the river. Harry Potter was awesome, but the voice dub over’s were almost too ridiculous to take the movie seriously. Voldemort sounded like a guido and Bellatrix Lestrange sounded like she had sucked in helium. The lines, like “¡Harry Potter está muerto!” followed by a guido laugh and “Solo yo puedo vivir para siempre”, just didn’t have as much impact in Spanish. I was proud we could understand it, but I will definitely be seeing it again in english when I get home.

I’ve been having a fantastic time and the more I realize I’ll be leaving in 5 days the more I appreciate what they’ve got going on here. This is an amazing place and I’m so glad I got to come live here for 9 weeks. I’ve got 2 more days of school and I can honestly say I’m not going to miss that part at all! We’re getting a lot of credits, but they were anything but an easy grab.

In preparation for the return home, I have created a list of foods that I would like to be cooked for me. Just in case mom hasn’t gotten it yet, I will post it again here as a fail-safe, lol

http://cl.ly/1q0H1a1X0c1d241k001L

Tapas

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:00:06 -0400

Tyler, Shanananananaon, and I went to tapas two days ago with a group of kids from Sampere. All in all there were about 8 of us: 3 from the U.S., 1 from Canada, 2 from France and 1 from Belgium. It was really cool getting to practice Spanish and meet kids who didn’t speak English but through all of our attempts at Spanish we could understand each other perfectly well! The guy from Canada’s first language was French, and even though he was the only one who knew English, he wasn’t allowed to talk to us in it, so we were forced to use Spanish. I was amazed though at how fast the French kids picked up Spanish… some of them had only been at it for a year or two! I never realized how easy it would be for people who speak one romance language to pick up another. Anyway, at tapas we tried some really odd foods… Shannon ate pig snout, ear and belly as well as octopus before the night was over, lol I too was priviledged to eat a pig nostril and octopus, hahaha both were really chewy. So the night was a lot of fun and culturally rich, lol

Video

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 06:37:38 -0400

Haha some of the lyrics go “… We can travel to Spain...

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 06:37:28 -0400

Haha some of the lyrics go “… We can travel to Spain where the rain falls mainly on the plain, sounds insane cause it is…”. I thought it was just a joke, but for real, it has only rained twice since we’ve been here… Once in Madrid and once yesterday, but when it rains, it pours! Yesterday, we had hail, just for a second, but lots of it! I took a video…

Plaza Mayor

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 06:24:20 -0400

Plaza mayor is the best hang out spot in Salamanca and it is amazing! It was the scene of the movie Vanage Point, but until you see it in person you just can’t understand. I took a panoramic to try and get the best nighttime view possible… check it out!

Discovering Lego-Bacon-Jesus in Portugal!

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 06:33:00 -0400

This weekend we took a trip to Portugal and it was far from the ideal, problem-free vision of a weekend trip that we had in our minds, but it was awesome nonetheless. Our first troubles happened when we bought the tickets for the bus ride there. We all went as a group to avoid any discrepancy there could be between our tickets if we all bought the separately… Unfortunately that also meant that any mistake was repeated on all 8 of our tickets. We had decided to book the bus out of Salamanca at 2am Saturday morning which meant we would arrive in Oporto at 6am (7am Salamanca time). We bought our tickets and left the station very satisfied and excited.

Around 11pm thursday night, I got a call from Carson saying we needed to check our ticket times immediately. We were chilling at the local McD’s getting some Wi-Fi gratis so I wasn’t concerned, but pulled out my ticket anyway to see to my horror that our bus left in 3 hours! The ticket had been booked for July 1 rather than July 2. Granted we didn’t check the tickets when we got them, we had asked specifically for saturday morning at the bus station, so the lady behind the counter must not have realized that June only has 30 days. We live a 45 minutes walk from the bus station, so we promptly packed up and forfeited any McDonald’s sunday for that night. By the time we got to the bus station, the other members of our group had already found out that the station was closed and so we had no chance of changing our ticket before the bus left. We sulked the 45 minute walk back and decided to take McDonald’s up on that sweet, comforting ice cream, lol.

The next day I explained the situation to our Padres, Pepa and Fernando. They were determined to make this right, so Fernando volunteered to drive us down to the bus station and talk to the lady for us since he can actually speak spanish. By the end of the day and one more trip to the bus station with Fernando, we had our tickets changed and we were good to go! It was so noce of Fernando to be willing to help us like that and I have no doubt that they wouldn’t have been as accommodating if we had tried to explain the situation to them in Spanish.

Saturday morning, we were off to Portugal! The bus left a good 15 minutes early, so we were very grateful to all have gotten there 30 minutes ahead of time. This bus was a nightmare! It was hardly lit at all, so the only option was to sleep, but I guarantee you our bus driver was a member of an underground bus racing club, because the ride felt like a combination of crazy taxi and the night bus from Harry Potter. We arrived in Portugal 2 hours early (due to the incredible speed at which we hurtled, unsleeping, through the night) at 5 am. Unfortunately for us, Portugal was freezing and since it was 5 in the morning, not a single place was open, lol. As we wandered to our hotel, we consulted our spanish list of directions, passing many early morning partiers and dank, dirty allies. At one point, we came to our next turn, which was a tiny ally chock-full of hobo-ish drunkards. The ally smelled terrible and there was trash everywhere. This also reminded us of a Harry Potter reference (Nocturne Ally) but this didn’t make our desire to avoid the street any lesser. After reluctant declarations, such as “Is this obligatory” and “This can’t be the right street” we barreled through it and continued on to the hotel, weary but triumphant.

When we arrived, we attempted to talk to the man behind the counter. Unfortunately, he didn’t speak any language at all, just a sort of weird grunting and maybe soe Portuguese, idk. Eventually, we figured out that we couldn’t check in till 12 that day, but we were welcome to leave our backpacks in a safe room if we wanted to lighten our loads. So we dropped off the non-essentials and made to explore the city.

Oporto was really cool! The city is the oldest in Portugal and looked like something out of a movie.

We walked all across town, crossing the Duero river, saw a flea market, ate some delicious pastries, and encountered Lego-Bacon-Jesus. He was standing in an alcove that would typically have a fancy and elaborate statue in it, but instead of a work of art, we found a miracle! There was literally a life-sized, lego-shaped, jesus-lookalike wearing a suit made of what I’m sure was high grade bacon.

I have no doubt that this unique miracle is why Oporto is so famous. We also got to see the library where Draco Malfoy slips Tom Riddle’s journal in Ginny’s book bag in the second Harry Potter movie. (This picture is highly coveted because pictures were strictly forbidden… Luckily, I’m a boss, so nbd)

Fun fact: J.K. Rowling lived in Oporto for a while and that is where she first had the concept of Harry Potter. So technically, we visited the birth place of Harry Potter! After a full day of touring, we took a much needed nap and then went out for dinner and to see Oporto at night. We had a great time, but were very tired and called it a night early.

The next day we rode the devil bus back to Salamanca and had successfully survived our weekend trip to Portugal! Pictures to come soon, I just can’t upload them at the library, so I gotta go to McDonald’s and upload them. Were doing well in Salamanca and did America proud last night for 4th of July! Haha,

U.S.A!

Tour of Andalusia pt. 2

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:16:00 -0400

Good cliff hanger right?! Haha, the next morning, we packed up and headed on over to Gibraltar to see Africa and some monkeys! Gibraltar is a British possession right on the tip of the Iberian Peninsula that is so close to Africa you can see it from the shore.

Because of this cultural confusion, many people speak the most intense Spanglish you can imagine, except they don’t call it Spanglish, they call it Gibberish! Its easy to get by knowing either Spanish or English, but most people will switch between the two without even thinking. Gibraltar has a gigantic rock on it that is made of limestone and served as a cannon mount for British forces against the Spaniards that tried to take it back.

We got to tour these man-made caves as well as the natural caves made in the limestone by water. The rock is home to hundreds of tailless monkeys that are far from afraid of humans. They will jump on your shoulder without a second thought and climb all over looking for food. Lots of the kids in the group, including me, had a monkey jump on their shoulder and feel quite at home there.

After, touring the giant rock, we flashed our passports again and headed out of Gibraltar towards Torremolinos. By this time, its halfway through the week and we’ve gone 100 mph the whole time and a break is much needed. So Torremolinos was the relaxation part of the tour of Andalusia. Torremolinos is a beach town that thrives off tourism, and almost everyone here spoke English. We spent 2 nights there and had one day to chill on he beach. It was a little overcast, but that was welcome because it cooled off a little and allowed us not to sunburn as quickly. We relaxed, played cards and enjoyed the beach all day and got ready to head to Granada the next day.

Kira!!

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 12:05:00 -0400

So our Madre and Padre’s daughter came over the other day with her two daughters and their brand new 3 month old french bulldog puppy! It made me miss our dogs so much, but it was awesome to get to play with a dog again.

Tour of Andalusia pt. 3

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 12:05:00 -0400

Granada is an amazing city with a gigantic Moorish influence. It has tons of little markets full of teas, tapestries, hookahs, knives, incense, lanterns, and other middle eastern items.

We arrived in Granada and visited many of these little markets, ate the best italian gelato I’ve ever had, and took in the views of the city. That night we ate dinner and had a little spat with the waiters… They asked us what we wanted to drink, but by now we knew that they were not going to be very keen on us drinking tap water because they make a ton of money on drinks. We asked if the water was free or if we could have tap water. They shook their heads and said that the water costs 3 euros and that they didn’t even have a tap. We were getting frustrated because its obvious they have a tap if they are able to wash dishes and prepare food and because every single room in the hotel has a sink that is perfectly suited to fill up water bottles. We agreed to one bottle of water and they walked away satisfied. The minute they set down the water bottle, two other waiter came out with pitchers full of FREE water! We were livid.

They lied TO OUR FACES so the next time they came around we asked them why they lied to us and said that we shouldn’t have to pay for the water they forced us into buying. The waiter explained to us that the pitchers of water had never been done before and that in English we could consider what they had done for us a “favor”. Biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard, but they were being jerks and we couldn’t do anything about it by then. Long story short, restaurants will try and rip tourists off if they can, and we learned our lesson. Then we went for a late night stroll to see the Alhambra all lit up, which was astounding!

The next morning we got to tour it in the day time. It is the biggest Moorish palace in Spain and it was incredible.

After the tour, we had finished the tour of Andalusia and headed back to Madrid to drop off the part of the group that would not be staying for 4 more weeks in Salamanca. After saying some sad goodbyes, we drove to Salamanca and met our new padres. Our family is awesome! We have a madre and a padre and they are best friends with Julia’s madre and padre! Julia lives right across the streets from us, so I can already tell the next four weeks are gonna be awesome. We head to our first classes in Salamanca at 2 today and then we will have a better idea of the layout of the city. I’m really excited for what the next four weeks have in store and will be much more vigilant about keeping everyone updated!

Tour of Andalusia

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 05:50:00 -0400

For the past week we have been driving around Andalusia (the south of Spain) and taking in all of the unique sights it has to offer. I didn’t have a reliable source of Wi-Fi, so I wasn’t able to update the Tumblr, but now I’m gonna give a quick run through.

First we stopped at a place in La Mancha that had tons of old fashioned windmills. These are he same windmills that Don Quixote is said to have fought in his epic story.

After that, we stopped at La Mezquita in Córdoba, one of the biggest Mosque/Cathedral/Schools in Spain. By the the temperatures were in the 100’s!!!! It was unbelievably hot!

Then we continued on to Sevilla, where we unloaded our stuff at the extravagant Hotel to stay for 2 nights. The hotel was composed of 17 different buildings that were connected through a tunnel system and had little terraces to relax along the way. There was a pool on the roof that was a perfect escape from the blisteringly dry heat. The room we ate in was covered in mirrors and the food was delicious. This was the coolest and best hotel of the trip by far!

The next day, we took tours of the places close to Sevilla, like the Roman ruins, the biggest gothic building in the world (It was Princess Leia’s Palace in one of the Star Wars!!!), a Mosque, and a Cathedral.

These days were full speed ahead and packed, so by 3 o’clock everyone was ready for a siesta! We relaxed at the hotel and had free time (hit up the pool) and got ready for dinner. After dinner, we went to a Flamenco Show that was really different than my initial idea of Flamenco… Its more stomping and clapping than fast dancing (kinda like riverdance and stepping mixed, lol). We walked back to the hotel and crashed.

The past week

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 10:25:55 -0400

We’ve done a lot in the past week and taken even more pictures, so in the spirit of tumblr and because pictures are way more fun than reading, I’m going to share it all through interpretive and strategic picture posting… Haha, here we go:

The Museum of Natural Science:

El Teleférico:

El Escorial:

El Castillo de Manzanares:

Boats in Retiro:

And that was the last week in Madrid!

Youth Night

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 11:13:20 -0400

Friday night the youth from the church invited all of us to go to a concert that they were putting on for us! I didn’t really know what to expect, but thought it would be fun to go hang out and listen to some music. When we arrived, they had the stage set up ready for a jam session! They started with some christian worship songs, in Spanish of course. We then went into the lobby and played some games. We first played a round of Ninja, then had a scavenger hunt and finally a blindfolded taste test, which I somehow got volunteered for. I got apple/pear baby food puree which was much harder to guess than I would have thought! Haha, the fellowship and nature of the night was familiar and welcoming! It felt like I was back at SSBC hanging out with my own youth group. I was amazed at how similar some of the activities, music, and interactions were compared to what I was used to at home. The coolest part was that despite a language barrier, two groups of youth from two completely different parts of the globe could come together and find a common thread in the Lord. After the games, we had a little more music (even featuring our own Rachel Cobble) and then a short sermon on Joseph. We prayed and then sang some more praise songs. Most of them we knew from back home, but despite the words being different, the familiar tune and rhythm gave them away. After Ruben’s band played a couple of original songs, we went in the lobby once more to hang out and have a snack before heading home. I had a great time that night and it made me realize how long it had been since I had been to a legitimate worship service and how badly I needed to be refreshed. It meant a lot that they would go through all of that trouble to prepare and include us in a night of fellowship.

This sunday one of the youth, María is getting baptized! Her friend Jessica got baptized last Sunday as a statement of her faith in Christ and now María is getting baptized too! We were going to go, but Samford bought us bullfight tickets a while back for the exact same time and its too late to back out :( Lame, I know! I feel bad that we can’t be there to support her, but nonetheless its amazing that God is moving in people all across the globe!

Today is also Father’s Day and I just want to say thank you to Bob for everything he has done for me! I’m so lucky to have him in my life and I hope he has an awesome day!

Done!

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 07:09:00 -0400

Wow, I can’t believe it but the Madrid portion of the trip is almost over! I just finished my 2 finals, took my oral exam yesterday, and have all of the written assignments ready to turn in… Whew! These past few days have been crazy, but it’s finally over :) Now I have the whole long weekend and the weeklong excursion in Andalusia to look forward to! It’s incredibly hot and dry in Spain, but I heard from someone today that Andalusia is a scorching 118 degrees F! I just checked the weather and that’s completely false, lol BUT it is around 98 and extremely dry which will be a completely different heat than I am used to. These next few weeks should bring lots of changes and excitement and I can’t wait to see what’s in store!

Photo

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 08:21:09 -0400

I just got the pictures from the soccer game today! Haha, it was...

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 08:02:07 -0400

I just got the pictures from the soccer game today! Haha, it was awesome!

We get to go to a bullfight this sunday and this song has me...

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 15:18:16 -0400

We get to go to a bullfight this sunday and this song has me stoked!

Photo

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 17:51:00 -0400