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!