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 :)

Salamanca.acnamalaS

El fin de Semana de 22-24 de enero:

So my first big trip of the semester took place this past weekend. Me and 8 other supah cool american folks montaron un autobus earlllly Friday morning and headed off to the beautiful, historical city of Salamanca, about 2 ½ hours N.W. of Madrid.
So once we got to Salamanca (about 11:30am), we headed on over to our Hostel (se llama Youth Hostel Salamanca). This was my first time to stay in a hostel, and I must say it was pretty nice… & only 13Euros a night… not bad! There were 10 people to one room, and since we had 9 people we just got the room all to ourselves, which was awesome... halllahh woopitywoooo! bonus: there were bunk beds. just like summer camp! haha
After we got settled into the hostel & ate our sack lunches (mmm gracias Primi!), we set off to explore the city.

We stumbled upon (well I mean how could ya miss it?) the magnificent Convento de San Esteban, and marveled at its beauty for probably 20 minutes. You can see why!

Our next destination was Los Catedrales de Salamanca:

(check out da background. oh wassup grande catedral?)

I took these pictures in "La Cueva", which was near the cathedrals

1 John 1:5 “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.”

There are 2 Cathedrals of Salamanca, built at different times, but joined together. One is called Catedral Viejo (old) & the other Catedral Nueva (new) [the names are so original.. i know.].

This was one of the entrances to Catedral Viejo

One of the entrances to Catedral Nueva:


We got to walk around the towers of the Cathedrals (so many awesome spiral staircases... If I had to be a staircase for the rest of my life, I'd chose to be a spiral one. Or an escalator. But probably a spiral.), and see into the 2 Cathedrals from the surrounding balconies.

This was the best picture I could get of Caterdal Viejo.. there was no flash allowed and it was so big! Oh pooperscoop.

On the roof of one of the towers! Hello there beautiful Cathedral!

View of Salamanca from the roof. So beautiful.

Little bity doorways on the roof!

These are pictures of Catedral Nueva:

By the way, those columns are about 8 or 9 ft in diameter! HUGE!! And it's about 4 stories tall!

It was about 3:00 by this time, which is prime time for some good eatin in Spain. So after the tour we found this awesome lil bar/cafe place in La Plaza Mayor & ordered some wine and tapas (free appetizers) & chilled for a bit.. wooh!

Then more exploring of the city....

We found the famous Astronaut that had been added to one of the walls of the cathedral in the '90s when they were renovating it.. hahaha!

Psalm 90:17 "Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us"

It's so pretty!

Cathedral at night!

Then we had a lil bit of fun shopping at H&M, & walked around a bit more. We somehow stumbled upon a grocery store & bought wine & microwaveable pizzas for dinner (there was a lil kitchen area in our hostel), then headed back to the hostel for quite a feast. Haha :)

To Janna Clare: Arrubba!

Wine... in juice boxes... only .95euros

Now Salamanca is not only famous for their beautiful history, but also for their exciting "night life". Night life is an understatement though... it seriously is a night world! When people in Spain go out dancing (woooh discotecas!) or to the bars, they don't leave their house until 1am, then they don't come back until 6am. It's crazy.

So after our dinner, we all took a lil nap, got ready, and then went out! When in Spain, do like the Spainards do, right? Right. There were probably more people on the streets and in the restaurantes/bars/cafes/discotecas at 2am than there were that whole afternoon. So we just hopped around all night, & I danced the night away.... danced so much.. that I briefly lost my glasses on the floor of one of the discotecas (who wears glasses out anyways? Oh yeah, ME. I'm an old lady.), and when I got to them they were supah doopah scratched up. Blast it. I'm an idiot. But it's okay. I have an extra pair of glasses... and contacts... still an idiot though.

The next morning we woke up, had breakfast, and hit the town again for more exploration!

Plaza Mayor de Salamanca

They love frogs (ranas) in Salamanca! lil galletas ranitas

bridge. awesome.

un puente grande (big briiidge!)


american gal, light pole, bridge, cathedral

Then that night me, the other katie, sarah, and rachel went to Mass in La Iglesia de Purisma. It was absolutely beautiful. We would've gone to the Cathedrals for mass, but the only time offered was at 11am Sunday morning, and we would already be on our bus by that time (booo!). After mass, this man came up to us and asked if we knew the history of the church.. of course we said no (duh, we're just silly american gals now), & he continued to tell us the history of the church (in spanish of course.. and he kindly talked very slow for us, i liked this old man). The huge paintings behind the altar were all painted in Italy, and the church was built around them (they couldn't fit them in i'm guessing???). Also, the people who funded the building of the church (some sort of royalty, can remember though..) lived in the palace across the street from la iglesia. When they died they were buried under the church! crazyyyyyyy.

La Iglesia de La Purisisima, Salamanca

After mass, we met up with the rest of the group & went and got some delicious pizzaaaaaaaa (with pineapples! just like hideaway. mmm. except not at all actually haha). Then about 11:45pm we headed back to our hostel. We were tiiiiiiiiiiiiiired (probably due to the lack of sleep the night before!), and I was ready for some shleeeep!

The next morning Lauren, Richard, and I walked to the University of Salamanca and found the hidden frog. They say if you spot it you'll have good luck for a year!! 2010. You're gonna be a good one.

Can you find it.....???

Hint: It's on the right column.. on one of the skullzzz!

Ah yes there it is! on da skullz head! hello good luck.

Then we met the others at the bus station and headed back to good ole Alcala.

Twas a lovely weekend.

Hasta Luego,

Kah-tee

:)