So much has happened...get ready to read a while!

So this is to catch you up, and I will post pictures tomorrow :)

ahem.....(disclaimer. I am at the point where I am sandwiched between two languages, meaning I speak/write english way worse than before so don't get too frustrated reading this...)

lets start with last weekend of the 9th-11th. PAMPLONA!! I am sure you've heard of the running of the bulls, but I dont think you know how crazy it gets here. Out of control. A group of us took a bus up to Pamplona, about an hour away, and arrived around 7. We were all decked out in our red and white outfits, seriously if you didnt wear that you were a weirdo and a target for the drunk people who like to steal stuff! So we were loving the street vendors and performers, and by midnight we needed to go find a place near the street where the bulls run to get a good view in the morning. We felt like we were waiting in line for a harry potter movie or something. But it was a night to remember...both good and bad. We somehow found this perfect ledge that fit all ten of us and it was kind of gated off so none of the borrachos (drunk people) could mess with us. But boy was it chaos! People running around, singing and drinking, pouring their food and drinks on people, yelling at us, and it was absolutely filthy. By one in the morning the streets were so crowded that it took us an hour to go down the street to find a bathroom. And we stayed in our little spot until 8 in the morning....needless to say we didnt sleep. So 8 rolled around, after an eternity and several rounds of "first kiss" stories and "most embarrassing moments", and we were so excited to see the bulls! And we did see them, for the shortest four seconds of my life! They ran by, we got videos and said, well? Lets go home. So yes it was cool to be there, to see the craziness but...I don't think I need to go back:)

The next day was the Final game for futbol. Our group went down to the center of town where we watched all of the games before and little by little, the whole town started to show up. By the last few minutes of the game no one was breathing and the streets were silent. Then, the game was over and SPAIN WON!!! We all jumped around, hugged anyone in sight, and headed straight for the town's giant fountain. The tradition is after a win you jump in the fountain, and we sure did! Jeremy, Seth, Lauren and I climbed up to the top and joined in the song "We are the Champions" with the thousands of others who were singing along. Because, they really are the champions its insane! I can't believe I was so lucky to be in Spain studying while they won the world cup. It just blows my mind every time I think about it! So I have some awesome videos and pics from that night.

(Sorry these aren't very detailed but I have so much to write about still!)

This last week has been really awesome. I have spent a lot of time with my spanish mom, Carmen, and getting to know her more has been such a neat experience. My routine is this: everymorning I wake up to carmen sitting in the kitchen waiting to eat breakfast with me. She makes homemade orange juice and then we chat about the day, our plans and say goodbye. I come back from school and they are ready for lunch so Javier, Maria, Carmen and I eat delicious Spanish food and talk for a good hour before everyone takes a little siesta or goes swimming. (The other day she made stuffed peppers and that might possibly be my new favorite food). At night time I help Carmen put together salad for dinner and it's usually us who are home so we eat and talk and clean up. We have talked about our religions, eating healthy, favorite things to cook and eat, our families, her childhood, my studies...just everything! I have absolutely loved getting to know her and this family. I told her this morning that I was going to leave early (Wednesday for rome instead of friday) and she got all choked up! She said she thinks of me as a daughter and has loved getting to know me. I just love her. I am excited to go to Rome but not to leave Logrono. Here are some of Carmen's favorite things to say: "oi!" "a ver..." "madre mia!" "un beso chica" "se te nota" "claro, pues...." just to name a few. And she laughs everytime I accidently say one of them and says, "aww pareces como una espanola" she thinks I am becoming a little Spain girl. I would love that!! Javier and I have bonded too so thats sweet. Mostly because one day I got really sad because I couldnt speak about something in spanish very well...or something like that so I told him how frustrated I was and got all teary eyed and he and said I was speaking so well and just kept talking to me about my day and was so sweet. Thanks javi, youre the best!

So on to classes. This last week was painnnffulllll.....it was four hours of history of things we had no background information of, with a teacher who liked to use ridiculously hard vocab, who didnt use any expression in her voice, and who really liked showing video clips in black and white with muffled sound. It was rough. But, I got really good at doodling and learned some random vocab. The only thing I would change about this trip would be the last week's classes. I wanted to get into a couple things, like famous artists and poets and focus on that more, and not so much on trying to teach us every single things that happened over the last 200 years.

Cooking class ended today and that was sad. Our teacher, Paco, is the MAN! He is hilarious and really, its just like its a big group of friends hanging out in a giant kitchen learning how to make delicious food, then eating it! Its such a blast, and I cant wait to make all the different food. Today we had a red pepper puree with pork and verduras and un manzana with chocolate in the center with piel de narangja and ohhh man it was so great. Rich but worth it. A couple of us are going to start a "Tortilla de Patata" night in Logan to keep up on our food making skills :)

finger stretches....>

Alright! on to this weekend.

Madrid is so cool! We spent saturday morning at the temple and then went to the palace. It is the third most impressive palaces in Europe, even over Buckingham! It has 2000 rooms and I was so impressed. It was ginormous. We then went to Reina Sofia to see works by Picasso and then to the museo de Prado to see some others by Velasquez, like Las Meninas. So beautiful. The next morning we went to Segovia and saw an Aqueduct that is several centuries old, a massive cathedral, a castle, and another palace with the prettiest gardens I have ever seen. We could have been there for four hours looking at them but ran out of time. It was a very hot couple of days with lots of walking and lots of history!

So there is a little update! I am leaving Wednesday for Rome and will be there for two days, then Seth and I are going up the coast for a 3-day walk along these cute little cities on cliffs. Look it up its so cool! "Cinqueterra" is the name and I am so excited.

I will upload pictures tomorrow and I hope you made it through my horrible writing and the vague details. All in all, I am so lucky to be here, I speak so much better and wouldn't trade this experience for anything! Hasta luego!

I am a SLACKER

I am not very good at this anymore! I am way busier now and don't have tons of time at night. So this one will be brief but I will catch you up as much as I can.

Alrighty...so, my class of El Camino de Santiago finished up and I was ready for it to be over. It was all about the different types of churches and cathedrals in spain and dont get me wrong, it was really interesting...the first 20 churches we talked about. But the last 100 got kind of boring. It has been really cool to actually notice my understanding of spanish increase. I dont have to pay attention with every part of my brain to get something out of it, so that is nice!

This last weekend I had SO MUCH FUN! About eleven of us decided to take a bus (2 hour ride) up to San Sebastian. It was supposed to rain the entire time so I wasn't too excited about it, but we got lucky. Not even exaggerating, the moment we got there it stopped raining, and the minute we left the next night it started up again. Que suerte tenemos! The beach is soooo beautiful. We got there around 7 at night, found our cute little hostel, and ran straight for the beach. We swam out pretty far to use the slides and diving boards and we were literally the only ones out there. (probably because it was late at night and the water is cold to everyone else). Oh but it was hilarious, on the swim back to shore both of my feet cramped up and so my friend Lauren started pushing and pulling me. So, naturally, it looked hilarious to everyone else so they started laughing...then i started laughing..and when i laugh there is no possible way to swim at the same time. So needless to say, I almost drowned! We spent the night in the hostel and woke up bright and early to go on a hike. It lasted about two hours and we were able to make it to the top of a nearby mountain to get a perfect view of the city. We spent the rest of the day exploring and swimming at the beach. There were millions of surfers and it was fun to watch them! There was also a sand soccer tournament going on, I would love to live in San Sebastian.

We caught the late afternoon bus to make it back for the Spain/Paraguay game in downtown Logrono. Holy smokes it is the best thing ever watching the game with everyone!! They scream when we almost get scored on, and start pacing around and biting their nails, it really is their life! I was getting all into to it to, you can't help but yell and scream along with everyone! After they won the game everyone was waving their flags from their cars and honking the horns and singing songs...it was so cool to be there. I just hope they can make it all the way!

Sunday was really cool too, I went to the spanish branch they have here and it is tiny! Us Utah Staters made up half of the ward, but it was really fun to talk to the members. It made me miss the branch back in Oregon. But after, my family here took me to a nearby town and it was beautiful. (I will add pics of that later, they are still on the camera.) And then they made different kinds of pinchos for me to try. A pincho is a piece of hard bread, kind of like brucheta, with different toppings. So for example, I had one with roasted mushrooms, another with goat cheese and melecoton (peach), jamon, y also tortilla de patatas (like a potato omlette). Oh man, everything was so delicious. I am not lying when I say I have loved everything I have eaten, from octopus to sardines, to muscles and goat cheese...I am a believer in the food here in spain! I cant wait to come back and cook different types of food in america. Yummmmm.

My cooking class is so great. Tonight we made a salad with shrimp that melted in your mouth and yummy champinones and then some rice with chicken and pimientos (peppers) and last but not least, a pear that was roasted with butter, almonds and sugar. I took one bite and handed it to Andrew to eat the rest. It was way too rich for me!

Well that's that for now! I have so many more stories and fun things that have happened but I am super tired and still need to review some poems for class tomorrow. And get up and run because eating this good comes with a price :) I will write soon!