los ultimos dias :(

Today is El Dia de la Madre en Espana! ... aka.. Mother's Day! In the USA Mother's Day is next Sunday (which is exciting because MY mom will be here!) but in Spain it's today. Yesterday when I was walking home from studying in Plaza Cervantes I stopped by a flower shop and bought Primi (my spanish mom haha) a nice little bouquet of flowers (ramo de flores) ... just a couple roses and some other pretty lil flowers. Then this morning I gave them to her and she was just SO excited!
She is a mother of 6 children, but only 3 of them live close by. Her youngest son, Roberto, lives here (he's 27), but he works at a bar and so his schedule is completely opposite than hers. He works all night and then has to sleep all day, so there have been many times where he was supposed to come over for lunch but was still sleeping haha. Then her daughter (Raquel) lives here in Alcala with her family, and they come over for lunch quite often. And 2 weeks ago Primi and I went and met up with Raquel, Raquel's husband, and their son, Sergio (the funniest lil 3 yr old... I tried to teach him how to play frisbee once... failure.), and we all got coffee and churros and then walked around and went to the park (so Sergio could play!). Then she has another son who lives in Madrid (whom she calls her "gordito"... which in direct translation means "little fat boy" hahaha, because he's a bit on the heavier side.. but apparently here that's not an insult or anything hahaa). He and his girlfriend have come over for breakfast or lunch a couple times, but his girlfriend is in a wheelchair, so I think it's just difficult for them to come often.
But today Primi's mom, Raquel and her family, and Roberto are all coming over for lunch. She's been cookin' like crazy all morning! Wooh!
Well, the weather has been absolutely beautiful here... in the 70s almost everyday! I've been running everyday too, it's too pretty to stay inside! There are lots of parks that I run around/through, and one thing I LOVE about Alcala (well.. and most of Spain) is that there are sidewalks everywhere.. which encourages people to walk!! Because.. well.. they can do so without getting run over like in Oklahoma. Also, there's this cool outdoor gym near the river (which is about a 10 minute jog from my house), and so I've been jogging there, working out, and then jogging around a bit and then back to my house. I've also been trying to read and study as much as I can outside so I can soak up this beautiful weather.
One thing I've noticed about Spain is that I can wear skirts... and not be afraid that at any moment the wind will blow my skirt up and the whole world will see my unda-pants. Jajaja, during the Spring in Oklahoma I have to be extra cautious when I wear skirts/dresses while walking to class (or anywhere outside) because of that darn Oklahoma wind! Jaja, I miss Oklahoma, but I don't miss that wind!
This weekend has been really fun, just a nice chill weekend in good ole' Alcala. On Thursday night me, rachel, spencer, brittany, and sarah went to this pretty park and had a little botellon, which is basically where you drink outside (it's a common thing here in Spain.. don't worry). We just had a drink or two, and enjoyed sittin' outside under the stars in the beautiful weather (it was still in the 60s at midnight!). Then we went to Manamana and CanCan (some really fun bars here in Alcala where u can dance dance dance), and it was so fun because there were SO many people there! Basically our whole university was out on Thursday night because it was the last big thursday night fun we can have here in Alcala before everyone leaves :(. It's so unreal, I can't believe the semester is over. I really just don't like to talk about it. :(
Then Friday I went on a lil jog, studied outside on Primi's patio, and chillaxed a bit. Then Pablo, one of the guys from Madrid that brittany and I met in our hostel in Rome, and 2 of his friends came to Alcala for the evening and we went and got tapas and walked around and just hung out for a while. It was a pretty chill night!
Then Saturday I studied studied studied, went on a lil jog in the lovely fresh air, and watched a spanish movie that I have to do a presentation on for my "Espana en Images: cinema en Espana" class (spanish society through movies). I planned on going out to Gabanna Saturday night, but I wanted to skype with janna clare before she went to prom, so we skyped at my 12:15 and her 5:15, and then I left to go to the bus stop at 12:30. Welllllllllll, I found out after 45 minutes of sitting at the bus stop (with a couple making out next to me the whole time. awesome.) that the bus wouldn't be there until 1:45am. Sweet. So I wouldn't even get to the bar until 2:15. Wonderful. So I party-poop'd and went back home, read, wrote in my journal, and then went to bed. It was nice and relaxing.
Then today I've just been studying and playing with Primi's grandson (Sergiooooo). He loves bugs (like all 3 yr old boys) so we've been out on Primi's big ole porch/garden looking at bugs and talking about caracoles (snails!). I like talking to him, because he says really simple things... I think my spanish speaking level is somewhat near his... I may be at 1st grade level though, he's still in Pre-K. Yeah beat that Sergio! jajajjaa :)
Well, I'm about to go to a partido de futbol (SOCCER GAME!) in Madrid (Wooo go Real Madrid)! So I need to go get ready! So excited!
:( only 18 days left in Spain,
Katrinaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

no puedo dormir.

i can't sleep.

.... So I thought I'd write a bit!

Well, it's finals time. Yes, they happened again... every year around this time they pop up.. it's inevitable. Dang. However, this year it's a tad different because they're all in spanish.. wooh spain! I have one paper and one presentation out of the way, but i still have 1 paper, 2 presentations, and 3 exams left. Eeeek! But, it's alright, I'm truckin' along.

This past weekend had a great turn for the better.
You see, I was supposed to go to Ibiza (a beautiful island in the Mediterranean Sea) for 3 days, but because of that awesome volcano and its mounds and mounds of smokey ashes floating around above Europe, the university of my friends (whom I was supposed to be traveling with) prohibited anyone from their school to travel by plane. It was rather silly because if you have seen ANY of the news or have internet and can google "CRAZY EUROPEAN VOLCANO 2010" you would see that the ashey smoke stuff hasn't come this far south... and we would've been totally fine (as in.. the airport wouldn't shut down while we were still on the island.. because the smoke would never actually reach Ibiza unless it was like thooper dooper thpeedy thmoke.. super dooper speedy smoke.). Howeverrrrrr, rules are rules and we follow them. So since they weren't allowed to go, and it was unsafe for me to go alone, the trip was cancelled altogether. Pooooop!
Buuuuuuuuuuut, instead of going to Ibiza, I had a wonderful weekend here in Alcala/Madrid. Thursday night I went into Madrid with a couple of my friends from Mexico and saw an opera in Teatro Real (royal theatrrrrrre). It was so cool! I'd never seen an opera before.. much less in Spain! It was all in Italian, but they had a screen above the stage that had the Spanish translation of what they were singing in Italian. It was pretty tight cuz about halfway through I realized.. 'HEY I understand what's going on... and I understand what they're singing... because I understand what I'm reading... and it's all in Spanish...... TIGHT.' And that's exactly what I said in my mind. Another cool thing about the night was that usuallllllllly tickets for the opera are REALLY expensive, but we got there an hour early and bought the left over tickets that had never sold and they were about 90% off the original price. So my ticket was 14Euros... and all the people that sat in my same section paid more or less 130euros for the exact same ticket.... DAG YO! what a steal!



Then Friday morning was "El Dia de Libros" ("Book Day") in Spain... it's like a national holiday and everything. And since Miguel de Cervantes (the spanish equivalent to Shakespeare) was born in Alcala de Henares (where I live), it's a big deal here. For the last 2 weeks there have been lil book stands set up in the plaza selling books and promoting new authors and stuff.

I bought a novel (which I've read like 15 pages of so far.. it's pretty good!), a children's book, and a cookbook (all in spanish might I add. woop. practice.)! Yahoo for reading!!! But the best part of this day was that the King... yes... The King... The King of Spain..... came to Alcala to present an award for the best author of the year. And there was a big procession of him coming into the plaza.. the soldiers were all lined up and they were playing the national anthem on their lil trumpets, and there were soooooo many people there! The Queen and Prime Minister were there too! So... that was a good time.

Then afterward I went and got a limonado slush in Plaza de Cervantes and chilled with my friends for a bit.

and then watched these guys sing... and then watched them sing to US. hahaha

Later on Friday I went to Madrid with Ale and Brenda and met up with some spaniard friends that I met in my hostel in Rome (small world!). We went to dinner and then later went and drank some wine in the park (it's a normal spanish thing to do... they love drinking in the outdoors... and I love the outdoors... so naturally I love this tradition), and then went to a discoteca and boomshackalacka dance dance danced the whole night! It was a lot of fun!!
The rest of the weekend was pretty chill. I worked on homework and presentations, started studying for my finals. On Sunday morning I went to Mass at Santa Maria... the children's mass to be specific.. I love it because the kids do all the readings, the homily is always somewhat simple to understand and he talks slow so I usually understand it! Also, during the Lord's Prayer, all the get to go up to the altar and form a big circle around it and say the prayer with the priest. It's so cute! And you just hear their lil voices and it makes me wish I was a spanish child so I could be that cute when I speak Spanish... but alas.. I often sound like a robot. During Mass I got really sad though because I was just thinking how normal it is to hear things in Spanish all the time, and how I'm so into my normal routine here in Spain and how I love it so much, and how this semester is coming to a close SO quickly and how I've loved the past 4 months SO much... and I just got quite sad.
Going home will be rather bitter sweet. It'll be great to see everyone, especially my family (and dogs!), but it's just going to be so weird switching back into American mode so quickly. I've always heard that when u return home you experience a similar "culture shock" as when you arrived in the foreign country. When I got here in January it was SO hard to adjust to Spain at first, everything is just so different than how I was used to living! But, eventually I adjusted and now I love it here! However, I feel like going home is going to be quite the same. So, with that said.. I'm reallly excited to go home, but I'm also really going to miss it here. agridulce. (bittersweet.)
So anyways, after Mass I went and sat in the grass under this really pretty tree in the plaza near our school and read my new book for a while. It was quite enjoyable. Then on Monday I decided to go back because I just enjoyed it that much, but my tree had been claimed by 3 teenage couples who were enjoying their make-out time under it... ewwwwwwwww P.D.A. ewww! gross. I'm kinda used to it now actually, kissing in public really is not a big deal at all here. Oh those spaniards..

One more exciting thing! Today we had our "Graduation" from our university! It was a lil ceremony at 1pm today with everyone from America, and we all got called up to the stage one by one and received our lil diploma. Then we had a picnic behind the college with finger foods and chips and peanuts, etc etc etc.. yummmmm. But after that we were still hungry so some of us went and got tapas... oh how i'm going to miss tapas.

mis amigas y yo after graduation


one of my professors


high school musical graduation jump! wooh!

My last Flamenco class was today :( So sad! Our teacher was so awesome..we learned so much! Primi has already given me all her Flamenco C.D.s to upload to my iTunes, so I can totally keep practicing! haha!

my teacher and me

Here's a link to a video of me and my class dancing! hahaha (just copy and paste it into the search bar thing)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rydqn2Ez0IE

Here's a link to watch professional Flamenco dancers.. they're a bit better than us.. hehehee
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=LIG0r0CCBBw&feature=related

Well..... I think that's all for now..... I should probably go to bed, I have class in the morning and it's kinda late.
Over-n-out,
Katrina/Katalina/Kahtee/Kathy?/Katie :)

The countdown begins...

There's less than a month left of classes... I can't believe the semester is almost over! It passed so quickly! But then again, it seems like forever since I've seen my friends and family (and dogs, i miss them a lot too!).
However, last night I had a dream that I was back in Oklahoma and I was trying to make chocolate milk but I didn't now where anything was in my kitchen! It was a very strange dream because the kitchen in my house was the kitchen in Primi's apartment, but every time I would open a drawer to look for a spoon or a cabinet to look for the colacao (it's kinda like the spanish version of ovaltine haha mmmm), it was completely different! Then other really weird things happened (I cant remember everything though) and i just felt so strange being in the united states! it was a weiiiiiiiird dream! I just remembered I cried and said "I miss Spain!" a lot!
So obviously my feelings towards going home are going to be quiiiiiiite bitter sweet! I can't wait to see my parents in May and travel with them for 2 weeks! I think that'll be a nice transition from Spain to going home, and by that time I'm sure I'll be really excited to get home and see the rest of the fam and my friends (and dogs. can't forget my 5 best lil friends. jajaja).

Well this past week has been really relaxing, which was great because after Semana Santa I needed a rest! It's kind of funny because Semana Santa was like our Spring Break, a 13 day break from school, but I feel like after the break I needed to take another break to recuperate from the break (ahhhh yeah who just busted a rhyme?). Luckily this week we only had 3 days of classes, and there weren't any tests or papers or anything due, so it was a pretty chilaxxxxxable week. Also, the weather was absolutely wonderful!!
Wednesday morning I ate breakfast and read my bible outside on the porch, and then went on a brisk jog and enjoyed the lovely spring time weather.
Thursday afternoon I hung out with Lauren in Plaza Cervantes and we got ice cream and basked in the sun and made bracelets and just enjoyed the warm sunshine.
Friday morning I went on jog by the river, and then went to this cool outdoor gym and worked out there for a bit. It's so nice because there's so many people walking their dogs and jogging on the trails all the time, a perfect people watching atmosphere. haha! Then that afternoon Brittany, Kim, Spencer, and I went to this feria (fair!) on the campus, they had sangria and music and LOTS of spanish students haha! We played frisbee and once again just basked in the sun and enjoyed the beautiful weather. The theme of the Fair was Hawaiian so lots of people had leis, hawaiian shirts, coconut bras (hahhaa mainly los hombres which was funny), and were drinking out of coconut shells! It was a really fun afternoon! Then last night Rachel, Brittany, Kim, and I went to Madrid to hang out with a friend that Brittany and I had met over Semana Santa who lives in Madrid. We met in Plaza Espana, hung out there for a bit, drank some wine, and then went to a discoteca and danced the night away! We left the club at about 6:00 when it closed, went and ate some breakfast, and then we headed back to Alcala on the train. We didn't get back until 9! I was so tired! But it was a really fun night! I'm going to miss the night life in Spain. I feel like in the United States if you "go out" at night it's just going and drinking and drinking and drinking and not doing much more than that. However, here there are really fun places to go dancing, and the DJs are awesome! You don't have to drink at all (first of all drinks are WAY too expensive, 2nd why do u need alcohol to dance?) and everyone still has a great time! Also, when I go out in Spain I speak Spanish to everyone because everyone speaks Spanish because we're in Spain.. hahaaha duh, however in Norman not many people speak Spanish.. haha bummer!

Well, I think tomorrow morning I'm going to Madrid to run a 5k in el Parque Retiro. It's cool that Madrid is having a big race this weekend because the RedBud is this weekend in Oklahoma City which I usually run in! Then we're going to the Rastro, Spain's biggest outdoor market! wooooooooh junk! this is my weakness.


[This is a shout out to AbbyJuneMcCune back in okc... go read your book, but only if simon says so.]

Coming soon.... exploring the world one country at a time.... pictures from Semana Santa...

Venice


Rome.


Malaga

Overdue: Bonjour Mon Cheri! (My trip to Paris!)

During the weekend of Thursday March 4 to Sunday March 7 I was oh so fortunate enough to make my way up and over to visit the beautiful city of Paris, France.


Day 1: Thursday (evening) March 4

my first flight in europe... so exciting! I think it's so cool how in Europe you can be in a completely different country with a completely different language and culture in just a few hours! We left Madrid at 4:30 and by 7:30 we were in France! Woooh!

cloudssssssssss!


in the taxi to our hostel... it's clear that I've matured a lot since being in Europe..


me and my friend brittany before going to a discoteca!



Arc de Triumphe



Moulin Rouge at night! woooh crazyy!


dancing at a club in paris! just want to point out that we were the only sober sallys in the club, but probably had the most fun... wooh Americans!


the group in the parisian metro!

Day 2: Friday March 5


Moulin Rouge (during the day... not as flashy and cool!)




The opera house!



perfect imitation of the statues on the side of the opera house


those statues are SO happy! hey girl heyyyy!


Beethoven, Mozart..... you know.. just some of the greatest composers in the world have played here....!!



woahhhhh so big! so beautiful!


Opera House! So pretty!



this was an ad for a barbecue restaurant (yes.. barbecue in paris..), and that girl was their stereotypical American girl who eats barbecue... hahahaa, yep that's what us oklerhomers are all 'bout.


Outside of the Louvre Museum! That big pyramid is the entrance, then you go underground to the museum... it was so cool!



The Louvre Museum



"Winged Victory"


Oh hey M.L., nice to see you.




mummies!!!



ancient egyptian monument in the courtyard of the Louvre, this was a gift to france from egypt a looonnng time ago



only best pastry store in all of france... no lies! The deserts didn't even look like food... they were too pretty!


we finally made it to the eiffel tower and there were some crazyyy awesome break dancers (as you can see behind me), so we stood there and watched them for probably 20 minutes, they might have even been more interesting than the tower itself haha!



jumping with the tower!



zee eiffel tower and me!



my pastry! we enjoyed them sitting under the eiffel tower.... so french. :)



When the sun went down all of a sudden the eiffel tower lit up and started flashing and sparkling and blinking all the lights, and it was so awesome and exciting!!!! In fact, it was so cool that I yelled "WOAHHHHH!!!!!!" really loud and lots of people stared at me like i was some crazy foreigner... hehe but I am, so oh well! Anyways, this was probably the highlight of my night (no pun intended.. hehehe)


that tower is sure nifty.


Day 3: Saturday March 6 (MOM'S BIRTHDAY!)

Remember Quasimoto? You know... that hunchbacked man who lived in the belltower of an enormous French cathedral? Well, on Saturday March 6th I was fortunate enough to see him ringing the church bells... I saw that gypsy Ezmeralda too... no lies people.

NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL!!!


It was SO big! and SO beautiful!


peace, rubia, and notre dame.








the side of Notre Dame

After a series of intense tests and experiments, we realized that I am, in fact, almost as long as this little baby car. please observe..

clown car. clown car. clown car. clown car. clooooown carrrrrrr.



Inside the subway!


Our delicious French meal:

French red wine, sliced baguette, and escargot (SNAILS!!!)


the group at dinner!

Then after dinner we went to this HUGE discoteca and danced the night away. There was a famous DJ from the Ibiza (spanish island in the Mediterranean) who was mixin' up a storm of music that night, it was AWWWESOMMMME!




look at all the people!!! it was nuts!!


there's the DJ up there goin' crazy with that music! he was mixin' up some magic!

Then the next morning we headed back to Madrid...

good bye France!!!

I'm so fortunate to have been able to go on that lil' trip! It was such a fun weekend!
The End :)