Dónde está MacKenzie? En España!

Helgen Gelgen!! Portugese Adventures & Life en general...

2010-05-05T07:57:00.000-07:00

So I got back from Lisbon late Monday night, and I leave for Morocco tomorrow night. That gave me about 72 hours in between to do productive things. But, as usual, I do everything possible that is "productive" in my world but not so much productive for school. Por ejemplo, I have uploaded my pictures onto facebook, roughly figured out what I want my schedule for Fall quarter at WWU to look like, done laundry, and am currently listening to Kenny Chesney and writing to all of you. While some of the more important things on my to do list include, but are not limited to, my linguistics paper, my Civ & Culture paper, and my Women in Spanish Literature paper. Anyways. I will now proceed with storytime.

First I'll start off with a MacKenzie being totally pissed off recount. So last Tuesday, my friends and I get all hyped up to go dancing to Mae West, because it's free on Tuesday nights. We get all ready, go to the Chupiteria (shot bar, if you can't remember by now) and Marisma, and by the time we're ready to head to the Mae, we are all significantly intoxicated. We hoof it to Mae West, which is about 10-15 minutes away from where I live. Allison, Emily, and Adam were ahead of King, Alyssa and I, and they got into the discoteca with no problems. Then come King, Alyssa, and I, and the jerkface bouncer asked us for our ID's. First of all, I have been living in Granada since August and never have I been asked to show an ID at a bar, discoteca, nowhere. Thus, I do not carry it with me. The bouncers surely know this, because this was just their way of not letting us in. So we called the others, who drunkenly tried to contest the final answer, but to no avail. We walked away with heads hung a little lower, wondering why we weren't allowed into the discoteca. We were all dressed up! I can only think to explain that Allison, Emily, and Adam are all tall (over 5'10"), and thin. And I made up the tallest of our little clan at not even 5'9". In addition to that, which we think is the main reason we didn't get in, King is Filipino, so obviously he is darker and Spaniards are bastards. So we watched a bunch of ugly ass Spanish girls get into the club, and I will never be returning to Mae West, as I don't condone their racist/anti short/chubby folk getting into their discoteca.

Academically life has been interesting. I have discovered that a few of my teachers do not mark off the days when we miss class, so I fill in the blanks when I do go and skip more class. Devious, yes? The reality is that in my Hispanic American Lit class, there is absolutely no reason for me to be there. It is utter garbage. And the final is a paper that I've already completed, so this gives me no reason to go. However, outside my classes I have been enjoying my work. For my women lit class I had to read a contemporary novel, and I chose a book called La Voz Dormida (The Sleeping Voice) and it's about women who were imprisoned during and after the Spanish Civil War and the beginning of Franco's regime. Once I got beyond the difficulty of reading a Spanish novel, I became used to the vocabulary and surprisingly got totally into this book. And for my essay for class I had to compare it to a movie we watched in class, Las Trece Rosas (the 13 Roses). It's hard to explain how I was affected the last few weeks by the book and the movie. Las Trece Rosas is a true story about 13 women who were executed for a crime they didn't commit, as a way for Franco to kill off the Communists who were imprisoned. It is incredibly sad, but when it comes down to it, it's a story of hope, dignity, and fighting for what you believe in. Cheesy, right? Wrong. I had tears streaming down my cheeks when we watched the movie in class, and they didn't escape me when I watched the second time at home. It still continues to amaze me the wrongs that were committed in Spain during that time, and that nobody stepped in to help them. I don't know where I'm going with this. Basically, I will always remember those women, although their story has been lost in history, more or less.

Brief note. I've decided to up the honesty in my blog. However much I love my roommates Ana & Jess, I am more than excited to be living at 6720 Oakwood Place, Arlington, WA 98223 starting May 26 until I move back to Bellingham. Our kitchen is always absolutely disgusting, and we have cockroaches. Yep.

OK, now for Portugal. Awesome trip, absolutely perfect! Emma, Allison, Emily, Alyssa and I went for 4 days to Lisbon, and I absolutely fell in love with that city. It's beautiful, clean, open, and full of so much more diversity than Granada, or pretty much Spain in general. We didn't do much touristy stuff, which of course I loved. Only downside of the weekend was that apparently Portugal is allergy world for MacKenzie. Here's the rundown:

Day 1: Friday
-extreme exhaustion due to being up late on the overnight bus from Granada to Madrid
-after meeting Emily & Alyssa, who had an earlier flight, we bussed to our hostel and then embarked on some initial exploring of the city. This was when I first discovered that I love Lisbon
-SHOPPING. i know, I'm an addict. But you see, when H&M and I get together, we love to be friends. Thus I decided to lend my friend 75 euros that I probs won't be getting back anytime soon. Though I did make an awesome find for myself & bff Shayna, though I can't reveal it here in the very unlikely case that Shay Shay reads my blog.
-we ate at the not so good Wok, which wasn't horrible but not as good as Seville.
-and then we went to bed. And I slept like a rock.

Day 2: Saturday
-Day Trip to Sintra-we took a train an hour north of Lisbon, and visited the quaint little city there
-Emma, Alyssa, and I paid to visit the Moorish castle which looked remarkably like the Great Wall of China, and was fun because I felt like I was at a playground made for grown people.
-We reunited with Allison and Emily at Pizza Hut by the train station and downed 2 family size pizzas. We think this is the first time Pizza Hut in Sintra had experienced a purchase of such gran cantidad (so freaking enormous)
-After some nice napping, we went to McDonald's for dinner (just raking in the health food, I know)
-Pub Crawl: 5 euro, and after Allison's dress was blown halfway up her body when walking over a subway grate, we found Miguel, our fearless, drunken pub crawl leader. Lisbon has basically free for all botellon, aka drinking all throughout the streets. We went to bar number one and had some sangria that was supposed to be better than Spain's but this was totally bogus. There we met two Finnish girls who taught Alyssa and I the phrase "Helgen Gelgen!" which apparently meant Cheers in Finnish. (later we discovered that Helgen Gelgen is not cheers but in fact a word that Finnish people teach foreigners in order to make them laugh--nice). Bar numero dos was a salsa-ish club, and apart from being 500 degrees it was a total blast. Emily and I found ourselves in quite a bind a few times when we were completely surrounded by males staring at us, but all was well again when the other girls returned and Lady Gaga's Bad Romance came on....and then things got crazy. Let me just say, when Jordan and I go to Gaga August 22, it's gonna be nuts. And when you add Sexy Bitch into the mix at a good dance club, that's when I call it a good night out. Anyways, the night was great and we danced and danced and danced, and then at some point Allison decided to speak in "British" to Miguel (the half British/half Portuguese pub crawl leader) and I believe there is nothing significant left to report. Helgen Gelgen!!

Day 3: Sunday
-All intentions of going to the beach failed. It was too cold (in the morning) and there was no bus.
-So then we began a trek to Belém to find Starbucks. This was the longest walk of my life. I was fine, because my new sandals are awesome. However Emma and Allison had shitty footwear, and Alyssa had a popped blister. So Emily and I kept the troops trucking, and after many hours we reached Belém. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED this walk. There's basically the Golden Gate Bridge (see fb pictures) and the Jesus statue from Rio de Janeiro. It was sunny and breezy and hot and just the loveliest walk ever. And when we finally reached Starbucks, I was completely red eyed from allergies but that Mocha frappucino was delish!
-Dinner that night was the Hard Rock Cafe. This wouldn't have been our first choice because 1. it is very touristy, and 2. it is very expensive. However, it was basically the only thing open besides McD's, and veggie girl Allison couldn't handle more french fries. So we splurged. I had a BBQ Burger & a chocolate milkshake and it was quite possibly the most delicious thing I have ever consumed in my life.

Day 4: Monday
-checked out of our hostel & Emily and Alyssa went to their flight, so Emma, Allison, and I waited for ours by sunbathing in the grass in our clothes. Not quite the beach but as close to it as we could get!
-many hours of traveling by bus, metro, plane, ending in Granada at 2:30 am and finishing off my night with a shawarma.

I go home in 20 days, which is a sad fact. I live a fabulous life.

MacKenzie Jo

LIFE.

2010-04-16T10:53:00.000-07:00

well I just wrote an extraordinarily long blog updating you all on my trip with my mom. And not much has really happened since then. On Easter I went to a procession and saw some people who looked like the KKK, but they weren't, just some Catholic sinners. I am becoming somewhat overwhelmed with the amount of work that keeps piling up in school. I think I'm in denial that I have to do work in Spain.

Last week we went to see Tensión Sexual No Resuelta, a Spanish film with API, which was basically a porno, no surprise there. Then this week my friends and I went to see Querido John (Dear John) and I thought it was the dumbest Nicholas Sparks movie I have ever seen. It was depressing and I felt that I left the movie less of a person than when I arrived.

I have been trying to go out a lot more because I realize that after I get back to the US, it will be a very long time before I can go out again (aka 9 months), and the nightlife in Granada is way better anyways. And, though I didn't expect it to happen, I am getting sad that I am leaving people again. I don't know why but I didn't expect to make good friendships like I did last semester, but I must be crazy. Now I have amigas in Wisconsin to go visit! haha. But luckily Allison, Jess, and King live in the Pac NW, so I will be seeing them this summer and hopefully for years to come. :)

Travel news: In two weeks the girls and I will be in Lisbon, Portugal! It's going to be a lovely beach weekend (weather permitting) and I'm totally pumped. And the weekend after that...the girls (minus Emily) are flying to MARRAKECH!! This will be Africa experience #2, for 5 days this time, and I'm expecting it to be 10 billion times better. I am nervous because we're going with girls, no boys, and we're not going with a tour group. But this is what it's all about. ADVENTURE.

As for now though, I need to get some school work done, unfortunately. I have been reading up a storm for my Images of Women in Spanish Lit class, and I would really like to get a head start on my papers that are due at the end of the term. If only I could just be here in España, sans school.

TIME GOES BY TOO FAST.

un besito,
MacKenzie

far too late=Mom's visit!

2010-04-16T10:24:00.000-07:00

I have now showered and french braided my hair, cut my nails, mascara-ed my lashes, and settled into bed. What? Something isn't adding up...shouldn't I be going out? NO. First of all, I'm sick, and I went out last night which did not help matters. Second of all, I have an ever-growing list of things to do that is about to take over my life. In conclusion, the last possible thing I could possibly do to procrastinate is write in my blog. Which is actually on my list of things to do....so I'm being productive...right? Anyways.

Hey, it's been awhile! I haven't written in over a month, and I have done so much since. I'm going to try to remember everything but we'll see. So Mom arrived to Spain about a month ago (can't believe so much time has passed since she was here!) I met her in Madrid, and we spent her first evening in Spain at dinner (eating raw fish-yikes!) and then exploring the area near our hotel. There wasn't much touristy stuff around, plus it was like 11 pm, so we just walked to the Plaza del Toros in Madrid, which I thought would be a nice starter for Mom's European experience. It was funny having Mom here, very refreshing actually. Because she really reminded me of just how different Europe is than home. I've been living here so long, and I've done so much traveling, that I am kind of getting to the point of realizing that people are people no matter where you go, and despite the differences in appearance and food and language, the world is really the same through and through. But Mom had never been to Europe, so she commented on everything, because everything she ate and saw and heard was completely brand new to her. The street signs. The street. The buildings. The windows. The lampposts. The gas stations. The cars. I could keep going. =) But it was really fun to start to be the tour guide for Mom's first adventure in Europe!

On Sunday, March 21st we tried to fit as much Madrid culture as we could into the day. Although we had a late night the night before, we were out of bed at 7:30 to get ready to explore. We had some difficulties though. We could NOT figure out how to get the shower to work!! Only the tub. So after trying to wash my hair under the faucet with no success, I took the first bath I've taken since I was like 6. And really, I think baths are kind of gross. Soaking in your own filth? Ick. Anyways. After we got all ready we took the metro over to the city center and visited a few museums. We went to the Reina Sofia Art Museum, which is really famous for contemporary art. I had already been there when I was in Madrid in August, and I didn't like it too much but since it was free on Sundays I wanted to show Mom Picasso's Guernica painting (super famous-look it up if you haven't seen it before). Then we went to the Prado Museum which has more traditional art and is one of the most famous art museums in the world for paintings. I loved the Prado in August, I loved it in March, and I hope to go back again someday. Mom enjoyed the Prado much more than Reina Sofia also. After our museum visits we were pretty tired from standing for so long so we hopped into a restaurant that seemed full of Spaniards (when in Europe-do not go to a restaurant unless you see people who live in that country dining there-it usually isn't good if there aren't) and Mom had her first paella! I was a little nervous because no paella amounts to the deliciousness of Marí Carmen's, but this was the best paella I have ever eaten in a restaurant. Score! Plus it was a huge meal for a real good price, which is hard to find when you're surrounded by tourist traps. Looks like I'm becoming less of a tourist maybe?? We hopped a bus to Granada and had a very long awkward ride in which Mom was sitting behind this nasty guy who had his seat leaned back and was snoring and making strange noises the whole time. Mom wanted to say something (naturally) but did not have the language capabilities, and I of course could not be assertive and say something myself. I need help. I really do.

Our time in Granada was absolutely amazing. I loved all the time we spent together during Semana Santa too, but my favorite part of Mom being here was getting to be the tour guide, showing her all around my city. I honestly feel like I have more of a relationship with this city than with Bellingham! I couldn't believe how many places I wanted to take Mom--the tourist places, all of my usual places, tapa bars, regular bars, my gym, etc. I would never have that many places to show anyone in Bellingham! The only crappy part about Mom visiting at that time was that it was midterm week, so I had to waste some of my time studying. But I guess that's why I'm in Spain at all....anyways. There wasn't anything wildly exciting about anything we did, but we spent our days exploring the city, and our nights wandering to tapas bars for dinner. Mom agrees with me that tapas are the best invention in the world, and we want to start a tapa bar someday! I can't say it isn't a serious goal, it would be amazing. Tuesday we made the hike up to the Alhambra so Mom would be able to say Granada's, and even Spain's, most famous landmark from the Muslim reign in Spain. She thought it to be pretty cool, as do most people who visit Granada. It's impressive. However, on the way up to the Alhambra Mom, not so surprisingly, tripped and twisted her ankle.....which didn't seem like a problem at the time but proved to be a significant hinder to her activities for the rest of the 2 weeks she was here! I always made fun of her (obviously) but I really did feel bad that that happened, because it was clear that she hurt herself and her ankle really bothered her the rest of the time. When I was in class Monday-Wednesday Mom usually read in the sun or I sent her to Cafe Futbol (where my friends and I get churros) or Hannigan's (the Irish pub by my school). She wanted to walk around a little, but not having a phone and Mom being slightly directionally challenged, I didn't think this was such a good idea, because I don't know what I would do if I lost my mother in Granada. So we walked around a ton together when I wasn't in class. One day we went to the Cathedral in Granada which was a cool experience because although I've seen 7,000 other cathedrals/churches in Europe, I hadn't been to the one in Granada and Mom had never been to one ever! It is huge, and I thought it was really cool for Mom to see. We also got to see something I didn't even know was in Granada! Next to the cathedral (though I think it's technically part of the same building) lie the remains of the Reyes Católicos (Catholic Kings) who threw out the Muslims and who sent Christofer Columbus off the the Americas in 1492. We actually got to go down into the crypt and see their coffins through a glass window! It was very cool, and I felt remotely lame I didn't even know that was there until now!

One quite hilarious event was when we went to the Flamenco show with the rest of API. We walked up to the Albaicin (which hurt mom's ankle, and her lungs, a bit) and everyone crammed into one of the refurbished caves that they use for flamenco shows. I loved it! Everyone last semester said it was kind of lame but I thought it was really cool, especially since we had been learning about it in my Spanish Civilization and Culture class. Oh, but the comical part. Well, at the end of the show one of the bailadores (dancers) grabbed mom's hand and pulled her up to dance with him. Out of all the people in the room, all the young college girls, he grabs the visiting American mother's hand. And she of course went for it and began to SHIMMY when the dancer guy began to shimmy. I do not think I have ever laughed SO hard in my entire life. It was so hysterical. And I thought I got it on video but the memory card was full so all I captured was about half of a shimmy! What a bummer. But a few of my friends got some good pictures. So that was memorable. Good times at flamenco!!

We walked A LOT. I recently learned that Mom lost 6 pounds on the trip, whereas of course I remain the same or gain weight. But we also determined this is because I do this all the time, and Mom doesn't really work out and came and got the workout of a lifetime with all that walking! But don't be fooled, we also did a lot of eating. I took her to Café Fútbol, Café Bar Playa, Feng Shui, Poë, and then we explored tons of new tapa bars that I hadn't been to before. One day in Granada we walked up to the Albaicin/Sacromonte neighborhood, where you can see a beautiful view of the Alhambra and just more beautiful and older buildings than the city center or where I live. We went to Parque de Garcia Lorca and walked along the river...I feel like we did everything! I was just trying to make sure she got a feel for what my life is like here. It was frustrating sometimes because there was so much I wanted to fit in and so little time, but we surely made the most of her time here in Granada.

And then the second leg of her trip=travel time, for both of us! On Thursday, we headed out of Granada on a Ryanair flight to Barcelona (Mom's first and probably last--she thought we were in trouble when the plane turned abruptly and everybody on the plane started screaming...yes this is a cheap airline if I've ever seen one!). Allison and her sister Jessica were already there and staying in the same hostel as us. The hostel was really nice and a really good price for the quality of it. We arrived at the bus station in Barcelona and the next objective was to locate the hostel. Which was difficult. We had a bunch of luggage, no map, some very vague directions, and no real sense of where we were. So Allison directed us in the right direction finally, and after we realized we must be lost, she told us we had passed the street. And how in the world did we pass the street!? Let me just tell you. You see, on our little journey we happened upon a gas station on a corner, in which Mom thought was the coolest thing in the world, and rambled on and on about how we should come back to take a picture because the gas station is so different than the US. We then moved on. When we went back to retrace our steps after Allison informed that we were lost, we saw the gas station once again, and realized, oh! that was where we were supposed to turn. So Mom named it "the station of our wayward wanderings." I couldn't have said it better, madre! We ended our long day with some delicious Indian food with Jessica and Allison and it was really fun chatting with the girls. I was glad Mom got to spend some time with Allison because she's my best friend here in Spain now! :)

Friday we had a whirlwind tour of Barcelona. Barcelona is one of my favorite cities in all of Europe, and I'm glad I'd already been there before so that we could execute a 7 hour tour of what I loved when I went with Court and Shan back in October. We went straight to the Sagrada Familia, because one can't visit Barcelona without seeing the strange, eclectic cathedral looming above the normalcy of the city. We didn't go inside though, because I learned last time that it was a total ripoff! After grabbing some Starbucks--it's been awhile--we walked all the way down to Park of the Citadel. We walked around the Park and headed to the Chocolate Museum-something I missed with the girls because it was closed when we were there. It was totally fun! Our entrance tickets were dark chocolate bars-score! We then headed through Park of the Citadel, which was absolutely stunning and filled with huge groups of kids on field trips, on our way to the beach. I just love Barcelona. It is so laid back, but such a huge city at the same time. I want to go back...maybe even live there? Who knows! Just before hitting the beach (without swimsuits or shorts because we weren't expecting the nearly 80 degree weather!) a man rode by us on a bicycle...COMPLETELY NAKED!! He was at least 50 years old, maybe even 60, and at first I thought he was wearing a speedo like every other European man at the beach, but no. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Naked man on bike, riding through Barcelona. Only in Europe, only in Europe.....it was totally halarious though, I will probably never forget that moment we were cracking up so much. We spent a few hours walking through the sand, went to lunch on the beach, and then this Asian woman asked if we wanted massages, so we got massages on the beach! Only 5 euro, which I thought was quite the deal! It was kind of awkward though because she whipped my shirt up and basically took my bra with it, so that was kinda.....well, awkward. But whatever. Then we finished our Barcelona circle by walking along the pier, scrambing up Las Ramblas (famous but in my opinion highly overrated street) and made our way back to the hostel to grab our luggage. Nearly cruise time! We grabbed the metro and soon enough were on the cruise.

Our Semana Santa week was a blast. I have a few things to say about the cruise.
1. I had a fabulous time.
2. The service we had at dinner was horrendous, we missed nearly every show on the boat because of that. The food wasn't very good either.
3. I met some awesome people, and our dinner table was a ton of fun, despite the terrible service. We sat with Kevin (studying in Barcelona, my age) and his mom Geri, Travis & Carol (the old newlyweds), Nyree and Katherine (The Aussie girls who work in the UK), and Jim (the FL travel agent cruisin solo)
4. Mom and I got a bit tipsy when we had XL Strawberry Daiquiris and drank them in the 30 minute "Bubble Lady" show. It was fun. PS. Who devotes their lives to creating bubble performances, really?
5. I had a huge crush on one of the guys who worked on the cruise. My hopes for an Italian wedding were crushed on 70's night when I saw him chatting with some tall, leggy Italian girls, dang.
6. My mother and I really cannot sleep in the same room. Our accomodations were fabulous (we paid for a room with no windows but ended up staying in a huge room with a balcony!) but we clearly have different sleeping needs. She is ALWAYS hot, so I had sweats and blankets on while we slept with the AC on...kill me!
7. The first night at the "buffet" that only served pizza, I spilled boiling hot pizza, which scalded my leg through my jeans, that was stressful.
8. The most fun night on the cruise was the group dance party, when Mom and I danced to YMCA, We Are Family, etc.....my mother and I also have very different dancing styles. And then she gets mad at me for laughing at her. :)
9. I had my first experience gambling. We both lost 10 euros. I can see how people get addicted to this.
10. This was the best possible way for us to see so many different parts of Europe in such a short period of time. Everyone else who had been on a cruise before, especially an American cruise, said this was the worst cruise they've ever been on. And yes, I will definitely go on an American cruise before I judge cruises. But, I have to say it was so worth it, and a total blast!

I have now decided lists are much easier and more fun for me to write. So now I will describe where we went/highlights.

Marseilles, France (Saturday, March 27):
1. We were total guiris (foreigners, in Spanish) and thought it was summer weather. It, in fact, was windy and freezing despite the presence of sunshine, so we were miserable in our shorts and dresses.
2. So, we spent 1.5 hours in H&M. I spent about $200, and promptly changed into/added some of the clothes I bought to further warm myself.
3. We went to lunch, visited a church, and tried not to be blown away.
4. Marseilles was not the best example of our travel skills.

Savona, Italy (Sunday, March 28):
1. Beautiful, beautiful place. I am in love with Italia, as usual.
2. In Savona we went to the cathedral and sort of attended mass, and for some reason I got all weepy because they were all singing and it was just really weirdly emotional. We also went to a street market and sampled lots of cheese and say a pig's head. Gross!
3. We completely one-upped our travel skills of the previous day and utilized our hand motion skills to communicate and hopped a public bus to a nearby town, Celle Ligure, where we further fell in love with Italy.
4. We consumed the most delicious gelato I have ever had. YUM.
5. Captured beautiful photographs and I just love how all the families were out and about that Sunday, enjoying the beach, playing soccer, eating, smiling, laughing....the place just really put us in a fabulous mood.

Naples, Italy (Monday, March 29):
1. Visited a castle. Castles, like churches, get boring after awhile. But we did see skeletons in the ruins of the castle!!!
2. I met the love of my life, the Italian man Giovanni, at a pastry shop in Naples. He told me, I quote, "Your eyes, they make me feel like I could fly...." and the sweetheart that I am, promptly replied, "You can't even see my eyes, I'm wearing sunglasses." No wonder I don't have a boyfriend. Anyways, I will be returning to Naples one day, expect to be flying far for my wedding people! He was so beautiful.
3. Here, I discovered that I am much either much prettier in Italy than in Spain, the men are whores, or Italian men are just reasonable people and don't expect their ladies to weigh 20 pounds. My mother and I got lots of attention, let's just say that.
4. I loved Naples. It was exciting and fast paced and beautiful all at the same time. A different vibe than Rome or Savona...unlike anything I've experienced.
5. We got to make our own pizza. Yes, in Naples, pizza capital of the planet, we happened into a little pizza/pasta place, and we thought it was closed but the employees told us to come in anyway. Then since we were the only customers we got to go back into the kitchen and make our own pizza! It was so cool!

Palermo, Sicily, Italy (Tuesday, March 30)
1. This was the craziest/dirtiest city I've been to in Italy. Maybe in the world.
2. When we were exploring, we somehow found ourselves in a plaza filled entirely with men. We were frightened, and then we left, not without being hounded by them. Why was there a plaza filled only with men? Creepy!!
3. I loved the Bavarro (I think) Market. It was really different than other markets I've been to. I could tell there was more poverty, and that these people were truly out here every day to survive. The life in the market was unlike anything I've ever seen, loud, colorful, stressful, kind of put me on edge but at the same time I loved it.
4. We walked very far to find the Catacombs. And they were so cool! Who would've known walking through underground hallways filled with dead bodies could be so cool.
5. A boy on a moto tried to come and capture me, I think he wanted me to stay in Italy with him. Uh-oh!

Tunis, Tunisia, AFRICA (Wednesday, March 31)
1. This marked Mom's and my 4th entry into a new continent: North America, Asia, Europe, Africa.
2. We were a little disappointed with the overall experience, for it being our first time in Africa. We paid for a tour through the cruise, and it was probably the best idea because of the time constraints, but it felt like we got ripped off and didn't see the authenticity of Tunis.
3. Mom thought our Tunisian tour guide, Morad, was rather attractive. We then determined that North African men in general are rather attractive.
4. At the carpet store, mom was pulled out of the crowd to sit on one of the carpets during the presentation. How does this always happen? Apparently my mom just looks like someone who wants to participate!
5. At our final stop (a shop to barter and buy some cool stuff) mom was offered like 200 camels for her hand in marriage, and I was chased down upon leaving by one of the sales guys, giving me his facebook info. Oh Africa.

Palma de Mallorca, Spain (Thursday, April 1)
1. Newsflash, Costa Cruises!: next time you plan a cruise, don't set aside 6 hours for AFRICA and 12 hours for a Spanish island, where there is nothing to do. Now that's just common sense!
2. We arrived at 2 pm. For those of you who aren't aware, Spain has siesta time from 2-5 pm, thus, nothing was open.
3. We were all pumped to go to the "Caves of the Dragon" with the people from our dinner table. It was one of the excursions through the cruise company but I figured we could go for cheaper on our own. I put half the group in a taxi, thinking the taxi driver said "uno setenta," like 1.70 per person. When we went to get in our cab, the English driver said it would be 70 euros each way, because the Caves were an hour away. So then I quickly had to run and stop the other taxi so that I didn't send my friends on an hour long drive with a nearly 200 euro taxi bill. So unfortunately we didn't get to go to the caves. I'm just glad my miscommunication didn't cost my friends a LOT of money.....
4. So instead we walked around, ate gelato, paella, and basically were bored. But it is a really beautiful place!
5. That night we paid for the excursion to go to this "Son Amar" show through the cruise, and it turned out to be amazing! It was like a Vegas show, Mom and I were having a total blast! The music was fabulous, the dancers were amazing, and there was this totally awesome magician. I was in heaven.

And that was our cruise. In reality, so much more happened, but it was a month ago, and I figure this is a pretty decent synopsis. I'm sure more stories will come up in the future. The truth is though, I had a blast spending so much time with my mom. Never in my life have I spent so much time with just her! And I was so fortunate that she got to go on a vacation, because she hasn't done that in years. Thanks so much to Dad & Lena, who made it possible. I'll never really be able to express my gratitude for sending Mom over here. After we returned from Barcelona, our last evening and day in Granada was relaxing. Mom tried (and loved) shawarma, and got to meet my Moroccan shawarma friend Morad. We spent all day Saturday shopping in a Granada that was so packed because of Semana Santa tourists. And I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty sad when she left. I absolutely despise saying goodbye. When I took her to the bus station, I was proud of her for going to Madrid on her own (braving the subway at 5 am in a huge metropolitan city where you don't know the language is scary) and sad to see her go. I definitely cried when she got on the bus, and again when the bus left, but then Allison came over and we chatted and I watched the Biggest Loser so life was all better.

Love you Mama!! and Dad & Lena love you so much, none of this would've happened without you. Everyone else, hope you enjoyed hearing about our adventures, it was 2 weeks I'll never forget! But now I need to do homework, but look for another blog soon!

Un beso,
MacKenzie

Life happens.

2010-03-17T07:17:00.000-07:00

I last wrote just before we went to Seville, and the reality is, it was a perfectly normal weekend, nothing exciting happened really. We had rain rain and some more rain, as per usual this time around España, and Emily, Tina, Allison, Alyssa and I spent our time eating, sleeping, and shopping. Since we had already been to Seville we didn't have to tromp around in the rain at the Cathedral or Alcazares, so that was nice, we just had a 4 star weekend in the hotel! We ate at this delicious Wok restaurant, basically an Asian food buffet, with Chinese/Japanese/Thai food. Yum! And I hear there is one in Granada which I'll definitely be checking out soon.

This past weekend was a busy one! Thursday night I went out with my roommate Jess (also from Washington, not sure if I've mentioned that before-she's from the Federal Way/Tacoma area) and her friend Mischa, who's from the Czech Republic. We went to Hannigan's Irish Pub for karaoke, which I've done once before and I think through both times, I have decided that karaoke is somewhat lame and annoying. Especially when people get up and sing like they're actually trying..who does that? So after waiting an eternity with the same Spanish guy going up like 20 times and belting his tunes, Jess, Mischa and I went up and sang, "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor. Let's just say I don't think I'll be doing karaoke again. I think the negatives of being embarrassed, everyone looking at you strangely, not knowing all the words and feeling awkward are not worth the satisfaction of belting out a classic 70's song. I can do that on my own, anytime I want. When we finally left Hannigan's it was pouring down rain, and I had no umbrella, raincoat, or suitable shoes, so naturally I got soaked. I am beginning to truly hate rain. I live in Bellingham, I have never hated rain! It just absolutely does not work here in Granada. We darted into a club that I'd never been to before to escape the rain. It was called Havana Club, and immediately when I went in I noticed 2 things: I loved the music & the look of the club, and I was surrounded by middle aged men. I would say the youngest people besides us were 28-29, and there were maybe 4 other girls in the place. Surprisingly I ran into our favorite waiter Mauricio from Café Fútbol, but I kept it short and sweet and just said hello as I didn't want my fave waiter to get creepy, as they sometimes do in places like this. After 15 minutes I was totally uncomfortable and ready to leave, it's a shame that the clubs that have good music have to be filled with creepsters so that I can't go and enjoy myself.

Friday was dedicated to cleaning the apartment as it was the day of mine and Ana's birthday fiesta. Around 7 I ran up to Plaza Nueva and met up with Annie Thordarson, who I went to high school with and she was visiting with her program from Seville. It was so good to see somebody from home! Annie and I aren't even really that good of friends but she is super nice and we share a lot of the same friends in Arlington so that was really cool to see her. I took her and some of her friends to tapas at Feng Shui (CLARO!) and we just had a good time chatting and I liked hearing about their program/studying in Seville.

When I got home, Jess and I grabbed shawarma for dinner, and it was the most delicious shawarma I have ever had in my life! So crazy, because usually you don't want to be eating that stuff unless you're intoxicated enough to forget what it consists of. Then Sam came over and we all finished up getting ready for the party. Sam swept and mopped the piso for us--how convenient! :) I blew up balloons and set them up around the house, and then we all got ready in time for people to show up. Jess let me borrow one of her dresses and I got lots of compliments, plus I was totally comfy! I won't waste much time on the party--It was much like the Fiesta de Navidad the girls had here in December, except I knew way less people. It was a lot of fun meeting people though, including some of Ana's Spanish friends that I haven't met before. Mischa was so sweet and brought Ana and I bracelets for our birthdays! Her other gift to us was some sort of hard alcohol from the Czech Republic...that stuff was crazy! Yikes! haha. Again, the piso was totally crowded but it was a ton of fun. Afterwards I went to Vogue (a dance club near my apartment) with King, Allison, and Brian, and that was when I lost 20 euros...way to go MacKenzie! awesome....not. Dancing was fun but eventually we left and King and I grabbed some shawarma to top off the night. Yes that's right....2 shawarmas in one night. What is the world coming to!? haha

Saturday was pretty unproductive with the exception of a tapas date with Leah and her friend Katilin, Emily, Allison and I. We found a tapa place that has hot dogs! Epic...and of course went to POE because it's just delicious (thai chicken!) and then finished off at Feng Shui. That night I tried to get to bed early but could not fall asleep which was a shame because I needed sleep to be ready for SNOWBOARDING! Which is what we did on Sunday!

My experiences in Europe snowboarding have been so different than going to Mt. Baker at home. But that's ok because the point is that I'm here so it probably should be different! I woke up at 6:30 and Jess and I got ready to go, and Allison met us at our piso just after 7. I was a little antsy about making it to the bus station on time, but sure enough we did! It was the set up for an interesting day-Allison has been snowboarding for awhile, I am just fine at snowboarding but nothing special, and Jess was planning on trying out skiing with her friend Alejandro who works up at the Sierra Nevada. We got up there and waited for him, then bought our lift tickets which he got us on discount for 35 euros. We found a shop to rent snow pants for Jess and gloves for Allison. Then the adventure began with finding equipment. At this point it was already 10 am, and we waited for nearly an hour only to find that there were no snowboards left at that rental shop. 11 am. We go to a different rental shop and quickly get outfitted in snowboards (Jess ended up snowboarding because her friend had to actually work that day) and by 11:30 we were hitting the chairlift. Not as early as we had hoped, but finally we were taking to the snow. It was going to be a different sort of day for me because this was only Jess' second time snowboarding! And the teacher in me came out because I wasn't just going to leave Jess! After all if I was in her position, especially on a strange mountain in Spain I wouldn't want to be left. I didn't really know how to teach how someone how to snowboard but I guess I know what I'm doing because Jess couldn't really do anything at first but at the end of the day she was totally doing toe-side and heel-side turns and linking them and sometimes taking big spills but the majority of the time just taking her time and doing awesome! I was so proud of her! And proud of myself too because I doubted my abilities to help her out. But I just tried to stay really patient and teach her everything that I know. I love teaching! It's a good thing that I'm pretty sure that's the direction I'm headed in life. And maybe someday if I improve immensely I can be a snowboarding instructor! Anyways as far as weather goes the day was alright, there were periods of straight sunshine but by the end of the today the mountain was totally foggy and it was kind of stressful snowboarding. I didn't have my typical sort of snowboarding day because I was mostly with Jess the whole time, but I did get a few quick runs in. New experiences, that's what it's all about.

My friends have I have been becoming big fans of Asian food here in Granada. Little did I know, the Oriental cuisine goes so far beyond Feng Shui and I had no idea! I really am going to miss Granada's cheap meals and tapas when I leave this place. Yesterday Emily, Alyssa, Allison and I went to lunch at a Chinese restaurant and the night before we had tapas at a sushi place! Delish! :) Oh and in other news the beautiful weather is back! Today I wore a dress and leggings and a cardigan and flip flops, and the cardigan was only so the fur coat wearing Spaniards wouldn't think I had completely gone off my rocker. But it's like 70 degrees today! Yahooo!!

Another update is that API had two basketball games through the CLM against other programs. The first was last Tuesday and we kicked butt, I discovered my friend King is a total baller, I had like 10 points and it was a lot of fun except for me nearly getting killed by the completely out of control person named Sam on the other team. But we won, so that was exciting! Then yesterday we had our next game (the intramural system is kind of set up like a tournament, play until you lose, and we unfortunately lost. The team was way better, we weren't playing together like the week before, King was off, I turned the ball over every time I touched it, etc. Not so good. It was a bummer though because the next game would have been next week and my mom would have gotten to see it! That's alright though we still have volleyball beginning in April.

On a much more serious note, my roommates and I have had a very interesting past week. We found out on Saturday that Ana's mom has breast cancer (we knew something was up because she always came to Granada to visit the doctor but we didn't know for sure) and she had an operation yesterday. I don't feel weird writing about this because it's been really emotional and it's a huge part of my life right now. In the operation they learned that there was more cancer than they thought, so she'll be in the hospital for another week and they're waiting to see if the glands surrounding the tumor are cancerous. Ana has obviously had a really hard time with all of this and I'm just trying to do my best to be here for her. Her family has been in and out, and her dog Tim is staying with us right now, which has been frustrating for me because whenever everyone is gone (all the time because they're at the hospital) he barks and barks and barks and cries and it's just so terribly annoying because I can't get him to stop. I have been taking him out when he needs it, I figure it's the least I can do for Ana during this tough time. But everyone, keep Ana's mom Simona in your hearts and thoughts! :) She's a wonderful woman and I know she can fight through this.

Among all the chaos and the good things as well, Mom is coming on Saturday. The timing isn't very good what with the complications of Simona's health, but I still can't wait for her to get here. I miss her so much and it is so unreal that she is actually going to be in this apartment in just a few days! On Saturday I'm taking the bus up to Madrid to meet her at the airport and to get 5 hrs of quality study time in. Oh yeah...school...well I officially have SIX essays to write this semester (IN SPANISH) not to mention midterms and finals and travel travel traveling! It's overwhelming but wonderful. This has been an interesting week but I just need to keep my chin up because there is always something positive. Always. :) Life happens, there's no avoiding it, and there's no reason to want to avoid it. I'm not a religious person, but I think things happen for a reason, and there truly is good in everything.

Photo Blog

2010-03-05T05:55:00.000-08:00

Oh! I nearly forgot! With the inspiration of Floe, I have started a photo blog, just through this same Blogspot website, to showcase my photography and look for input/advice/comments from anyone who is experienced or just anyone who is interested! All of the photos are on facebook from one time or another, but I just wanted to organize it so all of my favorite, quality photos are in one spot. There isn't any particular order, and I'm not done loading everything, but if you're bored and have extra time after reading my novel-esque blogs, feel free to check it out! Here's the Link:
http://photomack.blogspot.com/

people & talking.

2010-03-05T05:52:00.000-08:00

I want to talk about people. And how much I love them. I have been finding so much joy in the littlest things lately. People & Spanish are concepts that go hand in hand and skyrocket my confidence and joy and curiosity and every other emotion. This may seem confusing. And it is, to me even. But the reality is, learning this language is opening up so many doors for me. And not doors like careers or resumes or grad school or all that bullshit. But doors to the lives of the people who live in Granada. It's like I have a secret code to find out who they are, and the more I know, the more I can explore and delve into the lives of the people who live here.

I am getting much more comfortable with my roommates. I have always liked them and enjoyed them, but now I can really just talk to them, and it's getting easier to talk to Jess in Spanish, even though our common tongue is that of Washington! The more Spanish I master, the better I get to know my roommate Ana, and she is going to be my friend for a very long time, I know it. Today though, we were just sitting in our sala (living room) chatting and laughing and I don't even have to think. I don't even have to think. That is what is so amazing about this process. I feel like in the last week or so I have had some sort of breakthrough, I know that I can communicate and when I realize that, just the confidence boost alone improves everything else.

Today I went to a salon type thing near our piso called Solarium and got a full leg/bikini wax (sorry if that's too much info), but hey we must pamper ourselves once in awhile. Anyways, for all of that it cost me 14 euros, which is equivalent to $19. Nineteen US Dollars!! A full leg and bikini wax at Gene Juarez in the US costs WELL over $100....unbelievable! I have found that the US is so CONSUMED with money. I can't even really explain it, but seriously-WHY should something cost so much? Anyways, this was not why I brought up my waxing experience, nor was it to make you uncomfortable. Back to talking about people, and Spanish. After the whole salon thing, I was just laughing and talking with the salon girls like I would in any situation in the US...and it is so silly how happy that made me, how invigorating it is to be able to be understood, to joke, to do things that are so normal for you in your native language but are so hard to be comfortable with when you're learning your second...it was lovely. :)

Life is so good. When I pass Cafe Bar Playa (where I used the internet last semester) I give a smile and a wave to Antonio and Pepe, the bartenders who know my name! On my way home from my last class I say hello to my Moroccan friends Morad and Josef who work at the shawarma place near my house. I am just so happy being a part of this city. One notable change from last semester is that I do not go out or drink as much as last time. This is both a good and bad thing. It is good because it is healthier, it saves money, I don't spend my days sleeping or my classes wanting to kill myself because I want to be sleeping. It is bad because I feel less social, haven't met as many people as last semester, I know when I get home I will will wish I had gone out more, etc etc. But honestly, I am enjoying a lot more just going out for tapas and chatting with my girlfriends than going to botellón or discotecas or drinking like a fish. And I think that's just fine! :)

Last Monday was a really nice turn of events, because one, the weather was BEAUTIFUL (it has since returned to it's dreary state, please don't be alarmed!) so Alyssa, Allison and I went on a hike for a few hours. I didn't know where we were going really and we just walked along the river until it turns into a dirt road, and leads out of Granada towards an outside pueblo. We crossed the freeway away from the river and started up some trails into the hills outside of Granada. It felt so amazing. I can't even express it. I live in Bellingham, I am not a city girl, there is nothing I love more than getting outside and roughing it a little (with access to a shower afterwards of course, I'm not that rough as we all know). It was so adventurous, just hopping through the mud and brush and climbing up hills that weren't so easy as I was holding on to roots and the dirt was crumbling beneath my feet! Don't worry, it wasn't dangerous, just a little more outdoor-sy than I'm used to, what with being in the city for so long. We finally reached the top of the mountain, and sat and ate crackers and hydrated ourselves, just chatting and looking out at the Sierra Nevada and the pueblo beneath us. It was so beautiful, quiet, and peaceful. It felt like we weren't even in Granada, like we were the only people in the world that day! Eventually though, we had to make our way back to the city, and to be honest, I can't wait for the next nice day to retreat into the campo again!

Classes are going alright. I absolutely love my Spanish Civilization and Culture class. My professor is so nice and funny and all the topics we cover are so interesting to me. We covered briefly the history of Spain including the Moorish rule, Franco's dictatorship, and now we are talking about gypsies! History is just so much more interesting to me when I can see remnants of it all around me, when I am living in the result. And I am really enjoying how a lot of things I learn in my classes are intertwining, relating, overlapping with one another. For example, the treatment of women in Spain comes up in a lot of my classes-in Civ & Culture, obviously in Images of Women in Spanish Literature, and also in Hispanic American Lit. I love it because it all connects for me and I feel like I'm actually learning something. That feminist lit class is getting a lot better, and now that I'm used to my professor's accent, it's a lot easier to get into and I am really enjoying analyzing the literature from this perspective because it's a complete new topic for me. My Hispanic American Lit class is pretty boring, all we do is read the works out loud in class and a lot of it is old Literature so it's difficult to understand, sort of like reading Shakespeare is difficult to read in English because the style of old English is different. Linguistics...ahhh what a class. I always feel anxious because we have to actively participate, but I guess that's good because if we didn't have to participate I would completely check out and have no clue what's going on. Back to Civ & Culture...one thing I think is amazing is that before coming to Spain, I knew nothing of their history. From the 30's until 1975 Spain was under a horrendous fascist dictatorship, and I had never heard any of this in the education that I've received in the US. I understand that we can't learn everything, but it frustrates me that the United States does not teach us about anything unless they were directly involved in it. Here, we learn that Franco is a name that goes RIGHT alongside and is associated with Hitler and Mussolini, but before coming to Spain, I had never even heard of this dude Franco. It's amazing to me. Hitler helped bring Franco to power, and Franco reigned a completely isolated, controlled Spain for 40 years or so, killing thousands of his own people. I know this is probably not exciting at all to you, but to me it is SO interesting, and appalling that I had no idea this happened until moving here. My POE class is funny and manageable, but it's frustrating because I won't receive credit towards my Spanish major for it so I have no motivation to do anything in that class. But overall it's just a bunch of laughs, and we learn important ways to communicate in Spanish and a lot of coloquial terms that the young people use, so I guess overall it's helpful.

In other news, I received my first phone bill of the semester, and was horrified to see that it was $179! I had no idea that using my phone in Switzerland would be so harmful, but my one week staying there and sending a few text messages/having a few short phone calls brought me down about $100. Soooo frustrating. That is one thing the US has on Europe, the dang phone system. Come on guys, doesn't unlimited texting/1000 minutes a month for like $40 sound nice? YES.

Two weeks ago we went to see the Spanish movie Nacidas para Sufrir, which was very strange, I don't like Spanish cinema all that much from what I've seen but it's good to go and practice the Spanish. Last week a few of us girls went to see Valentine's Day, which was a fun little outing, and the movie was nothing special but it was fun to see in Spanish. I don't think I would've thought it was worth seeing in theaters in the US, but in Spanish yes. Last Thursday we had an intercambio with API and it went really well. Allison and I talked for a little while with a woman in her thirties and a younger guy who studies engineering, and it was fine but overall there wasn't a lot of conversational chemistry and it was kind of boring. But then I met this guy Pablo and we spoke in Spanish the entire time which was really fun! Again, it's so exciting and makes me so happy to have experiences like that where you can just TALK to people.

Tonight we're going to Seville, I have to leave in like 45 minutes actually. We went last semester so I'm not going to visit the cathedral or Alcazares (kind of like the Alhambra here in Granada) and it's supposed to rain the entire weekend so that's a bummer. But it will be nice to shop and stay in the hotel and just walk around and stuff. Mom comes two weeks from tomorrow! I am very excited because last weekend I was slightly homesick missing Jordan's show (I watched the videos online though, if you haven't gone and you're within 2-3 hours driving distance from Arlington-you MUST go! It looks incredible) plus I am just really pumped for Mom to be in Spain! Excited to see her, excited for her to get the opportunity to travel, and PUMPED for our cruise during Semana Santa! Looking forward to everything. Also just booked tickets to Lisbon for April 30-May 3, and my friends still have to buy their tickets but they haven't done so yet. So....I'm definitely going...hopefully not alone! haha.

okie dokie I should go because this is getting long and I need to get ready to leave. I will write again sometime next week!

updates

2010-02-24T08:37:00.000-08:00

Well I have a few stories to tell...and a bit of time to tell them, so here we go!

Carnaval is a celebration that occurs immediately before Lent, with two weeks of celebrating! The most famous in the world is in Rio de Janeiro, and the most famous in Spain is Cadiz. So when we heard about a 22 euro round trip bus ride to Cadiz, we were hooked. I crafted my Greek goddess toga costume out of Jess' costume from Halloween, Allison dressed up as a flapper, Emily as farm girl with my American Eagle plaid shirt, and Tina as "stripes" (just dressed all in stripes!) and we were off. The bus ride to Cadiz was boring but manageable, and when we got there the streets were alive! Kids everywhere, adults everywhere, alcohol everywhere, but most of all COSTUMES! Music filled the air along with the screaming and laughter of everyone around, and although the wind was brisk and the sky overcast, it seemed to be the beginning of quite the night! (And oh how it was...more on this to come) One thing I noticed was that it seemed the majority of people were dressed up in groups, either all identical or had costumes in some way relating to each other. There were groups of chickens, babies, American football players, gladiators, etc. I loved seeing all the costumes, but they did make me feel very non-creative. But Emily said that the Spaniards take this costume thing very seriously, and put a lot of time/money/effort into their Carnaval get-up. I didn't put any of those things into my costume so I guess that's ok then! We spent a short amount of time by the water, but it was extremely cold over there so we hung out mostly by the cathedral and were just talking to people. Meeting Spaniards, meeting more API people, it was really fun to just chat, especially in Spanish! I love that I'm at the point where I can completely have a conversation with someone, now I just need to start creating more opportunities for using Spanish. I would say that right now, 70% of my life is in Spanish. and that is when Ana hasn't been home (her & Jess are in Paris for over a week). I want to make it so about 90% of my interactions this semester are in Spanish! What a goal....Oh, anyways, back to Carnaval. So it was pretty dang fun, and around midnight, it started to rain. No big deal, I brought out my rain jacket and my fleece underneath to stay warm, we pulled out some umbrellas, no pasa nada, right? WRONG. so....very....WRONG! The rain got increasingly worse over the next half hour so we decided to try to find some sort of cover...So for an hour or so we were crammed in with hundreds of Spaniards who were blowing whistles, screaming, just completely drunk and pushing us all over the place. This is only the beginning of the misery. Honestly, I would love to elaborate with every hour of the night, but it was so awful I don't really want to recall the entire thing, and I can safely write that we were STANDING for six hours waiting for the rain to stop, which it never did. The bus wasn't going to be unlocked until 6 am, so it was a tortuous wait, and at first we tried to be positive and chatty and play games, but that lasted maybe 45 minutes. And after that it was all about taking my mind elsewhere, trying to forget about how my feet were wet, the wind was blowing, I was freezing and unhappy and REALLY wishing I hadn't dished out 22 euro for this clearly NOT FUN evening. It was so hard to not be outwardly negative so I kind of did the turtle thing and retreated into my shell for the entire evening so as not to bitch at any of my friends unintentionally. But I think they understood, because we were all in the same boat.

Finally Sam called me and yelled over the people with him and all the crazy Spaniards with me, "COME! THE BUS IS UNLOCKED!" And from there it was go time. Emily, Tina, and I just started to book it to the bus which was located about 15 minutes away from where we'd been standing. The rain had picked up and the streets were mostly flooded. My polka dotted Vans were filled with water, my toga was drenched and nearly falling off, my North Face was completely soaked but thank god it protected my fleece and tank top underneath. It was a mad rush to get to the warmth of the bus, and on the way in the lakes of water on the road we saw abandoned umbrellas, shoes, costumes, garbage, CHAOS. I felt like we were in the movie The Day After Tomorrow or something, it felt, sounded, and looked like we were in a small scale hurricane. Finally we reached the bus, and everyone was half naked, trying to get as far away from their drenched clothes as possible. Thank the Lord, I had a pair of jeans and a tshirt that I had worn on the way to Cadiz before changing into my toga, otherwise I would've been a disaster, I don't know what I would've done, sat naked? sat completely freezing and soaked for the 5 hour bus ride? Who knows. Once the bus started going I was drifting in and out of sleep, but it was really uncomfortable because I was trying to keep my feet off the soaking wet floor of the bus. When we got back to Granada it was fairly sunny and I wished more than anything I had never left. I got home, and my violently growling stomach induced me to make a huge bowl of pasta and crash for the next 7 hours. So my sleep patterns this week have been a little off, what with Carnaval and yesterday, my birthday!

We started with the negative, now we'll go with the positive! After class yesterday Allison, Tina, Emily, Emma, Sam and I went to Chile Grande (the same restaurant where we ate Thanksgiving dinner last semester) for my Mexican dinner! I of course ordered chicken fajitas and Allison oh so sweetly paid for me as my birthday present! Tina bought me a BOTTLE of rum, which I am going to share with my friends the next time we have a gathering. She also made me a cupcake, but since cupcakes don't exist in Spain, it was made out of clay from the Chino store! Aaahhh it was so funny and crafty and sweet! I loved it. Allison and I had ice cream on the way home, and since Sam didn't want to go home he just came to my apartment and we hung out for a while waiting for everyone to come over. But...surprise surprise, Ana's mom and aunt showed up at the apartment at almost 11 pm, announcing they were staying the night. This was so awkward, and so confusing, and kind of frustrating because it was my birthday and I wanted to have a few of my friends over before going out dancing. But, it's their apartment, so what could I do? I got changed and then we headed to the Chupiteria & Bar Marisma (two of my favorite places in Granada), and then eventually went to Mae West for dancing. I loved that club! It was super fun, the music was really good, there weren't any Americans there really, the only disadvantage was it was absolutely PACKED. We left at like 4 am and I skipped my morning class today. It was such a good birthday!!

Speaking of my morning class, it's Spanish Civ & Culture and I love it! I'm trying really hard to get into my literature classes, they're just designed so differently from my lit classes at home. I think POE is a stupid waste of time but it's easy so whatever, and Linguistics is the bane of my existence, but I'm trying really hard to focus in the class so that I can be more enthusiastic about it. On the positive side, I feel like this is the first time since taking like, math, that I've had to use that part of my brain and learn concepts like that! Haha.

Tonight we're going to see Valentine's Day, which in Spanish is called Historías del día San Valentín, and tomorrow I have an intercambio with API, hope I meet some more Spaniards! Mom comes in 3.5 weeks and I couldn't be more excited! It's going to be such a blast. And I'm pretty close to booking a trip to Portugal for the end of April. I want to get my hair cut and highlighted (first time ever!), because it's cheaper here and Ana has a place in her pueblo she says is good. Which also means at some point I'll be going to Ana's pueblo which should be fun! Exciting things to come! I feel like this weekend I will be emotionally torn a little because I will be missing home like crazy. Jordan's show is this weekend and I'm soooooo sad that I'm missing it. He's such a talented singer and I love watching him sing! I am just thankful it's not his senior year and I'll be home to watch him finish out jazz choir next year. But my friends from Western are going, so he'll have a support system! It's still going to be hard though.

OK I need to go eat something and head to my Hispanic American Literature class, miss everyone!!
Besos,
MacKenzie

Roma, no podré olvidarte!

2010-02-15T14:40:00.000-08:00

In case anyone is wondering, the title means, "Rome, I won't be able to forget you!" And that's the truth. I must say that cities like Rome and Paris will constantly have me coming back, begging for more. I haven't felt that way with other cities like Munich, Vienna, Amsterdam, Prague, even Budapest. But with Rome and Paris, there's always something else to see. Which is why I will always be back.

I wasn't super excited about jetting off to Rome after only being in Granada for three full days. But hey, I paid for it, and a stay in a 4 star hotel, and what kind of selfish brat would I be not to go and appreciate it for what it was? And so, at 5 am on Thursday morning I was promptly meeting other API students at the bus stop to head to Malaga for our flight to Italia.

We arrived in Rome to overcast weather on Thursday, but it wasn't raining, so I was thankful. (I slowly met new API students throughout the weekend, which was good, but it's proving to be difficult to remember everyone! There are so many of them!) Allison, Sam, King (new person-awesome!) and I went to our first Italian meal at a restaurant called Pastarita near the hotel. I had some pizza and it did not fail to satisfy me--delicious! Then Allison and I relaxed and napped a little at the hotel. After showering we decided to walk over to Vatican City which wasn't more than a 10-15 minute walk from our hotel. We entered the "city" at dusk just as Mass was going on, and I must say it couldn't have been a more beautiful sight. People were gathered in the center of the plaza, in front of Saint Peter's Basilica that loomed above them, and each person held a candle in a red candle holder, giving the illusion of thousands of red tinted flames among the crowd. A choir sang hymns, and every so often the crowd would utter their prayers in complete unison, echoing throughout the giant courtyard. Allison knew the prayers they were speaking even though I think they were in Italian! Or Latin maybe. She was raised Catholic so she knew them just from the flow of the words. Darkness continued to envelop the Mass, and as we walked further away from Vatican City we could still hear the prayers, songs, and see the faint lights. It was really a calm, beautiful experience.

We wandered over to the river, and as we were walking, the shrieking sound of firecrackers hit our ears. So we ran over to the river for a better view, and for 15 minutes fireworks sailed over atop the Basilica and the river. "What a nice welcome to Rome?" I couldn't help thinking to myself. Sometimes when I'm here in Europe I just can't believe I'm actually partaking in the things that I'm doing. As we were walking, we were just thinking, oh, you know, no big deal, just walking along the Tiber river in Rome, underneath fireworks being shot off from the Vatican, on a Thursday night. Cool! :) I have these moments from time to time. I had a hunch that a collection of blue lighted arches on the other side of the river signified Gelato. So we crossed, following our stomachs, and sure enough, we happened across our first Italian Gelatería! I had chocolate (like always) and we walked back to the hotel completely satisfied with our delicious treat.

Thursday night Allison, Sam, King and I, along with a few other API people that I am not totally sure of their names, partook in a pub crawl. This was really fun because I haven't ever done a pub crawl before, and I've heard they can be rip-offs but this one seemed well worth the price. It began at the Colosseum, and from there a huge group of people headed off to this restaurant, where we received awesome t-shirts, had an hour long open bar, and got pizza included in the price. From there the entire group-I'm guessing over 50 people headed to another pub by bus, and then again to another. I spent most of my time at the second pub dancing with fellow API students, some Italian boys, and just having a really fun time! The pub crawl was really fun because I met Brits, Italians, Swedes, Spaniards, Americans--it was a blast!

Friday we awoke to a most curious sight-SNOW! Apparently we were fortunate enough to be in Rome during it's first snow in something like 30 years. So, while I was quite cold, and my feet were very wet, it was still a cool and very memorable experience that morning. We went on a bus tour of Rome, which I was quite sleepy during and kept nodding off in the warm bus, only to be rudely interrupted by random walks outside in the slush rain snow. Allison and I ditched the tour a little early because it was just extremely cold and wet and we were borderline miserable. So we hopped into a café and downed some hot chocolate, which is really more like melted chocolate than hot cocoa, and then headed back to the hotel. I had some quality bonding time with Allison, which was nice! We have a similar budget for our travels, and we'd both already been to Rome so we weren't interested in the touristy stuff so much. We started watching the Olympics! And took a nap in our lovely hotel room. Man, I miss that bed and those towels! haha. We were living the high life. Friday night after dinner we walked up to the Spanish Steps, had a nice little romantic time up there, ha! And then we took an early night in due to Thursday's late night out, and we were like a little married couple reading our books in bed in the hotel listening and half watching to BBC. Precious!

Saturday, our final day in Roma, was shockingly beautiful! Not a cloud in the sky, we could hardly believe we were in the same city as the day before where it had been snowing! Allison and I ate a delicious breakfast at the hotel and then set out on a leisurely stroll towards the Colosseum. We walked by the river the entire way, as it was a nice walk and a good alternative to getting completely lost in the streets as we headed to the Roman Forum. It was toasty warm to us Washingtonians, so we just walked around in our t-shirts. Yes it was probably like 55 degrees, but compared to the snow on Friday, it seemed like summer! We got many stares though from fur-coated Italianos. Don't be hatin! :) Seeing the ruins in Rome was cool as ever, I always imagine who walked around there thousands of years ago! We finished off our day with some shopping at H&M, I bought a new coat! and then spent the afternoon napping like usual. I know it sounds lame, and lazy, but I've been sick for two weeks, and after walking for four hours one is quite tired! We finished off our trip to Rome by meeting up with Tina, Emily, and Alyssa, some of the other "Year" girls. We grabbed our last gelati for the weekend and took another spin by the Spanish Steps.

And that was basically Roma! =) It was a blast, I loved every minute of it, from the naps to the walks to the buffet breakfast at the hotel, to the pub crawl. It was an amazing time.

And I am out of my funk that possessed me before leaving for Rome. Now I'm back in action, communicating a lot more clearly in Spanish, and ready to plan some trips! I just purchased reservations for the a Mediterranean Cruise for when my mom comes to visit me! It will go to begins in Barcelona and goes to Spain, France, Italy, and Africa!! It's going to be a blast, I can't wait for her to get here, and it's right around the corner. This weekend I'm going to Cadiz for Carnival, and I think Ana has come up with a good, warm idea for me to dress up as a kitty cat! :) Still trying to fit in trips to Portugal, Galicia, and Morocco, but we'll see how the rest of the semester treats me, both money/time wise. My 20th birthday is a week from tomorrow, and I'm excited to celebrate but bummed because Ana and Jess will be in Paris! But a whole week alone in the apartment will allow me to adjust and start a cooking routine for the rest of the semester. Life is lovely, I am very happy and settling in quite nicely at this point. I will go to the gym tomorrow for the first time, exciting! And my only wish is that the weather would improve a bit, so I wasn't so cold all the time! That's about it though. Anyways. Oh-Olympics--go US!! I hope I can catch a few events at a bar or something while I'm here! Love & miss everyone, hope to set up some skype dates in the near future!

Besos, MacKenzie

settled?

2010-02-10T14:18:00.000-08:00

Right now I'm feeling slightly...annoyed with myself and with parts of Granada. First of all, the weather has been terrible since I arrived, which is really the only reason I'm annoyed with Granada. My boots are currently soaked, and I'm hoping it doesn't ruin them, because right now they look very...spotted with rain.

I'm annoyed with myself because I feel like I can't speak Spanish (though this has improved over the past few days). Sometimes when Ana talks to me I just feel like my mind is blank and I haven't a clue how to form the sentence of what I want to say.

I am not eating very healthy. Switzerland got me into a chocolate eating frenzy, and the giant Toblerone bar that Brigitte sent me off with is only getting smaller. I FEEL extremely bloated and fat...as all I've been eating really is carbs carbs carbs....counteracting everything I did over break. When I come back from Rome I need to do a serious healthy shopping trip-for meat, vegetables, eggs, and fruit. I need to not buy the junk I've been buying and limit those things to only once a week or even once a month! On a positive note though, Allison and I joined a gym today. It is 45 euros a month for students, with limited hours, but they're great hours for me. I can work out Monday-Friday from 7 am-4 pm, which is perfect because the majority of my classes are in the evening and I wouldn't want to exercise after class anyway. I am not sure if I'm actually gaining weight or if I'm just facing the grave realization that if I continue eating this way and not exercising I WILL gain weight. ahhhhh....so frustrating. Anyways though. The gym. Very nice, has a pool, cardio equipment, weights, and lots of fitness classes that I plan on partaking in. Allison and I have a meeting with a trainer next Thursday (we're not exactly sure why...the guy who registered just told us we have to). So we're not sure if we're having a training session or just learning the way the gym works...or what? Ha I don't know. But I'm very excited to go to the gym every weekday, and the weekends will be my rest days, or just days to run by the river or something.

Granada doesn't quite feel the same yet, I haven't gone out since I've arrived. Granted, I've only been here 3 nights but still. This city feels very strange without some of the people from last semester. I am walking the same streets and seeing the same places, but the faces are all unknown, different, and not Shannon, Eric, Courtney, Cory...I could go on. I don't want to seem like I'm dwelling on the fact that they're not here, because I'm not, but I do miss them very much and sometimes I feel antisocial because they're not here. I really love living with Ana and Jessica though, they are both just wonderful people and I'm enjoying getting to know them more. I also feel like part of the reason I've been somewhat anti-social is because Ana and Jess have finals going on and no class, so they're kind of holed up in the apartment all day long. It's just very different not having Courtney & Eric pestering me to go out nearly every night! Haha. I'm sure things will find their normal course when I return from my trip to Rome, but this week has just been kind of strange.

I had my first days of classes today and yesterday. I'll give a brief rundown. My first class yesterday was POE which seems like it's going to be an easy buy pointless class. Second class, Images of Women in Spanish Lit, is going to be tough. My teacher has a pretty strong Andalucían accent, and it just seems like it's going to be hard to follow unless I'm completely focused all the time. My third class, which gets exhausting, having 3 1.5 hr classes in a row, is Linguistics, and I can already tell that this class is going to kick my butt. Not only is the concept difficult, like I feel it would be hard to learn in English, but this professor also speaks rapidly with a strong accent. So...Tuesdays and Thursdays aren't going to be too much fun. But today was a lot better. First of all I have class from 11:30-1, Civilization and Culture of Spain. My professor speaks really clearly, the class seemed pretty interesting, and I get to go home for a few hours afterwards. This is nice because I walk twice to school on Mondays and Wednesdays, which can only help me, that's for sure! Then in the evening I have Hispanic American Lit with another clear speaking professor, and we started watching a movie today which was pretty good, but hard for me to understand because the accents were Argentine and it's really different from Spain's accent. Overall I feel like I need to put in a little extra effort to school compared with last semester. Which is ok with me, but I feel like I can't summon up the amount of energy it takes to focus completely in class! Hopefully this will improve once I start working out in the morning and eating a healthier diet.

Hhhmmm....what else? Well I have to meet at the API bus stop in...6 hours, we're off to Roma! I'm kind of excited, kind of not. I don't want to spend money doing anything touristy in Rome because I have already seen everything, and money is not something I want to waste. However, I am excited for the good food and the shopping! Kind of bummed because the weather is supposed to be rainy (also supposed to be rainy in Granada for at least the 10 day forecast ahead-which I don't get because it rained like 4 times last semester). But I think once I get going Rome will be fun. Allison and I are rooming together and we'll probably be hanging with Sam quite a bit. I also hope to see Liz and get to know some of the new people.

Oh! Today I had two great encounters, I ran into Marí Carmen, Pepe, and David walking to my first class this morning! I was so excited to see them and they seemed very happy to see me too. David is so cute!! And then on my way home in the rain from my evening class, I ran into Marí (the daughter), David (the husband), and David (the baby)! David was all excited and said "Camión" (truck). I couldn't believe he's learning new words! Both run-ins seriously lifted me up, I feel like so much that I'm experiencing is overwhelming new-ness....and it was just good to have some familiarity for once.

Overall, I would say I'm doing OK. I anticipated that re-assimilating back into life in Granada would be much easier. But what I'm realizing is that EVERYTHING I'm doing is completely different. My living situation. The style of my classes. My food preparation. My friends. It's pretty overwhelming. I hope I can get out of this slump soon...And really it isn't a slump, just a general uneasiness that I can't quite put a finger on what is at the heart of my troubles.

But, the show must go on. I'm going to Rome tomorrow! And I need to be thankful. :) Everything will turn out right, I just need some time to adjust.

Till I return...Miss you all!

Besos,
MacKenzie

Estoy aqui. :)

2010-02-08T15:57:00.000-08:00

Home Sweet Home. After just over 24 hours in my new apartment, I am feeling pretty dang settled. Not every single thing is in place, but everything is unpacked, I have groceries in the kitchen, I purchased sheets, which are not yet on my bed but in the wash along with my dirty clothes from Switzerland, and I am home.

Pedro Antonio de Alarcón 73 1C

18002, Granada, España

Ana and Jess welcomed me with open arms last night around 9 pm after my 13 hours or so of consecutive train, plane, and bus traveling from Chur to Granada. Ana had made some delicious pasta that I wolfed down gratefully, and Sam, Sabrina, and Allison came over to hang out for a while. It was great to see people! I was so tired and pretty out of it so I didn’t have the best time, but it was nice all the same.

Once everyone left I was exhausted and my room was full of bags, shoes, clothes, everything I own here in España. I didn’t know where to find anything or even where to begin with unpacking, and overall I was just extremely overwhelmed. However, I will note that I am very thankful that I arrived in Granada with a lovely piso (apartment/flat) waiting for me, where as many of my fellow API year colleagues were not so fortunate, and had the stress of being homeless/finding a place to live for a few days. That being said, I was still overwhelmed. ;) I knew the only logical solution at that point (1:30 am) was sleep, so after that fact being confirmed by good ol’ J Floe (love you bestie) I hit the hay.

Today, I can gladly say, was PRODUCTIVE. Slow kind of, but productive. I figured out my schedule, which is as follows, for those of you who care. ;)

Monday/Wednesday: 11:30 am-1 pm Spanish Civilization & Culture

6:30-8 pm Hispanic American Literature

Tuesday/Thursday: 3:30-5 pm Oral & Written Production (POE)

5-6:30 pm The Image of the Woman in Spanish Lit.

6:30-8 pm Intro to Linguistics

So tomorrow I’ll have class from 3:30 to 8. All my classes are in Spanish. I’m pretty happy with my schedule except for the fact that I have to take POE (it doesn’t count towards my major at WWU). It will be strange having class in the evening (never experienced this before) but also awesome that I never have to wake up early. Yay! And…sitting through nearly 5 hours of class on Tuesdays and Thursdays will be rough. But manageable I suppose.

Anyways. So the other things I accomplished today were grocery shopping, purchasing a pillow & sheets and other random things I needed, enjoying a nice slice of pizza and some quality hang out time with Miss Allison who I have dearly missed, and looking into joining a gym. There is one a block over from my street that is very big, very nice, and pretty expensive but I think I am going to join it because of everything they offer and the hours they’re open. Hooray for not getting fat again this semester!

This weekend, Thursday actually, API is going to Rome. This is weird to me for two reasons. One, I feel like I just got here, which I did. And two, I know basically nobody out of the nearly 70 spring API students. But, no pasa nada, I’m going to Rome this weekend, how many people can say that? It will be fun and I’ll get to know the new people. Things in API are strange though, Eli is now gone, she got a new job. So now it’s Carmen, Alicia, Jonathan, and Laura. So strange…And I introduced myself to a few new peeps but there’s so many it’s a tad overwhelming and I can’t even possibly imagine knowing all of them. Anyways, that’s all for the updates of program, travel, and life I guess.

Tonight for dinner I had strawberries, crackers, and a sandwich. And you know what I loved most? The fact that I chose exactly what I wanted to eat. Jess, Ana and I watched Internado, a Spanish telenovela (soap opera) which was silly, intense, and fun. I think I’m going to like this. Actually let me rephrase myself. I know I’m going to like this. Life is good. =)

Hasta pronto, y os echo de menos!

MacKenzie

Adventures in Switzerland!!

2010-02-08T15:28:00.001-08:00

I apologize now for how ridiculously long this is. It covers a significant chunk of time & was written over a few different days! (Note, the random changes in time period)

Well, here I am. Switzerland, day number four. I finally feel totally adjusted to the time change, but apart from that I’ve developed a bit of a cold. Last night I slept over 10 hours, took Dayquil this morning (that drug is a blessing, I swear) and I’m feeling alright today but kind of drained. It’s so weird to me that my family is on the other side of the world, once again.

Leaving this time was so much easier than the first. There was some general anxiety and unnecessary eating the few days before takeoff, but when I left Mom, Dad, Lena, Jordan, and Max, there were no tears as there were the first time I traveled to the further side of the planet. My flight went smoothly from Seattle to New York, and then from New York to Zurich. The only problem was I arrived in Zurich at 7 am Friday, after leaving Seattle at 5 am Thursday. And the goal was to remain awake until a reasonable bedtime! Sooooo difficult….anyways I promptly purchased an $8 grande mocha at Starbucks in the Zurich airport, knowing full well that I won’t be drinking my delicious chocolate-y pick me up for a long time, not to mention I needed it to jump start the rest of my travel process. I ventured over to the train station, not entirely sure how to use my Eurail pass but then discovered it to be pretty easy. The guy working told me where to go and I boarded a train headed for Chur, where Brigitte was going to pick me up. When I finally sat down on the train with my iPod and breathed for five seconds, I discovered how beautiful Switzerland is during the winter. I was here two years ago in summer, and I was even amazed then. But this is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before! And that was only the beginning. I panicked a little when I couldn’t get a hold of Brigitte on her cell or at work, and then struggled to call my mom from my phone. I wasn’t sure if my cell wasn’t working or what, but finally Brigitte received my text, and we sorted out a meeting place. I know for a fact that I have spent an un-Godly amount of money already because the fees for using that phone outside of Spain are absurd. Oh well…that’s Europe I guess! I’ll just have to be extra frugal with my phone when I get back to España.

Brigitte met me at the train station in Chur, and we went grocery shopping then headed back to the house for lunch. Aita came home, and was surprised at finding me there! She thought I would be arriving in the evening. The three of us ate lunch (in most villages in Switzerland the kids come home to eat lunch for about two hours before heading back to finish their school day—Brigitte doesn’t like this so much because it basically requires at least one parent, usually the mother, to be home during the day which isn’t financially feasible for every family) and Brigitte headed back to work and Aita to school. I walked partway with Aita to school then turned off and did a scenic loop past their village, Zizers. The sun was shining, nobody was around, all I could hear was the crunching of snow beneath the boots of Brigitte’s that I’m wearing while I’m here. My friends here have no idea of the beauty in which they live. The scenery is like a fairytale, everything almost fake looking. Zizers is a small village nestled right in the Swiss Alps, mountains rising above it on both sides. Absolutely incredible. I was so exhausted from being awake for so long, that the walk took all my energy out of me, but it was so unbelievably gorgeous. I went back to the house and slept for 3 hours or so, and when I got up Aita had returned home from school. We talked for a few hours and pretty soon Gian Martin came back. When he came inside I heard him say hello before I saw him, and I asked Aita if it was Heinz (her dad) or her brother, and indeed it was Gian Martin! Ha I haven’t seen him in a year and a half and he has grown up so much and sounds so much older! Both of them actually. Aita is fifteen and her English is amazing from the last time I saw her (she couldn’t say anything!) and Gian is seventeen and is taller than me and I just can’t even believe how much he’s grown up since visiting Seattle in 2008.

I spent the rest of Friday afternoon chatting with them, trying so hard to stay awake. Aita made sort of a pizza thing for dinner and we watched Get Smart with Steve Carrell and Anne Hathaway, which I hadn’t seen before and it was pretty funny, but I haven’t a clue how it ended because I kept drifting off. I went to sleep at 10, before both Aita and Gian Martin, and slept until Saturday at 9! I obviously had to catch up a bit. J Saturday morning was low key and relaxed, and Brigitte explained that they like to sleep in on weekends and have slow, lazy days! I immediately love them for this, reminds me of weekends at home with mom. I explained to them that Dad and Grammy do not function in this manner and it drives me crazy! Haha….So we went into Chur for a few hours, Gian had stuff to figure out for his new job (lifeguarding at a pool in Chur) and Brigitte had to run some errands so Aita and I just shopped around Chur and got to know each other. She is such a sweet girl and really mature for her age, I have enjoyed spending time with her! And she’s much younger than my brother, so obviously I’m not used to hanging out with 15 year olds!

We spent Saturday afternoon relaxing and Brigitte made some soup for dinner, then we piled in the car with Heinz and picked up Gian Martin’s friend Dario and headed to the outdoor ice skating rink! Now this is the first time in my life that I’ve ice skated outside, and it’s quite the romantic activity if you were with the right person!! Gian and his friends (another one, Stefan joined us at the rink) were racing around kicking a hockey puck, while Aita tried to help me not fall! Ice skating is surely not my forte. I am not terribly bad, I only fell once, but I definitely am not very graceful! But when Gian and Aita held my hand I went quite fast! Which was really fun. It was sooo cold though, but they didn’t think so, just me, only being used to Mediterranean & Pacific Northwest weather. I loved ice skating and I hope we can go again this Friday! It’s something I don’t really ever get to do. Everyone here knows how to though, and pretty much all the boys play “ice hockey” which is what we just call hockey haha. Even Heinz was good at ice skating! He played hockey when he was young. And Gian Martin is such a good skater and I missed his hockey game last night but I want to hopefully watch one of his other games before I leave.

After ice skating we went to the bowling alley! So much fun, even though I sucked at bowling. We played two games and it was just nice to have some good quality fun with the kids and Heinz. And the night was not yet over, we then headed to this party, Maskenball, which roughly translates to a costume party. It was a celebration in Chur as a preview for Carnaval. It is so strange because the drinking age here is 16 to buy beer and wine, and 18 to buy hard liquor. I was Aita’s “adult” so that she could get into the party, because I’m over 18. So that was weird…being old enough to get children into places!! And I won’t lie, I bought her a Smirnoff! Well, I guess it was Gian’s money, but I purchased it with my adult legal capabilities. Haha! This was all very strange to me at first because the last times I’ve seen Aita & Gian they were nowhere close to a party age but now, in Switzerland at least, they certainly are! J Anyways the party basically consisted of 8 or 9 bands that get dressed up in crazy costumes for Carnaval and play popular music, but it’s all instrumental. My favorite band was the one whose entire setlist was ABBA songs!! Loved it of course! The whole band vibe of the place reminded me a lot of my basketball games in high school, warming up to the pep band beforehand. So naturally I loved it. We danced and chatted and had a few drinks, and overall it was just a really cool new experience and fun to see Aita & Gian with their friends in a sort of social activity that’s normal for them in Switzerland. But towards the end of the night I was so exhausted, still feeling the effects of jet lag, and when we got back home past one, I totally crashed into bed as I had a big day ahead of me.

Sunday: Snowboarding!! ….in the Alps! Never thought I would check that off my list of things to do, but sure enough, I have done it now! It was different than home though, usually if I was going up to Baker for the day I have to wake up at 6, be there at 9, stay the whole day, and in general I usually dread it until I am actually snowboarding and then I remember that I love it. This was nice because apparently they spend shorter days at the mountain, which was good for me because it was a new mountain and I was tired anyways. Heinz took us down to the train and we caught it around 9:45, where Stefan was already waiting for us. I have to admit I was nervous, because one, I’m a nervous person in general, and two, I was about to embark on a snowboarding adventure in a very different environment than what I was used to, with two boys who were presumably FAR better on skis than I was on my snowboard. The train took about an hour and a half, and when we arrived, I was on edge. I had never experienced a gondola before. So we put our skis and boards in these little contraptions outside the gondola, and climbed in, as it took us up to the altitude where the base of the ski resort was. Second trial of the day was the first new chairlifts I got to experience. Keep in mind that I say first. I have only been to Mt. Baker and Stevens Pass in Washington, and our chair lifts don’t have bars that come down in front to keep us from falling. Which, looking back, I think every chair lift should have this! Safety you know………….

OK I’m back, I took a break from yesterday’s writing. So now it’s Wednesday and I’m still in the snowy Alps, but unfortunately the weather has changed and now it’s windy and snowy and not so beautiful as before. Anyways, back to snowboarding. So I sit down on the chair lift and Gian says, “Pay attention…” and I didn’t know why he was saying that until the bar came down in front of us and my leg was smushed because I wasn’t sitting in the right spot. The boys were chuckling and I felt so stupid! I had to explain to them that I had never been on a lift like this before, I’m sure they thought I looked as if I had never even been on a mountain before. The first few runs went well with a few falls as usual, and once I started to get my bearings things went more smoothly. Something seemed strange though. Overall, I felt like something was different, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Then as I was sitting with the boys on a chair lift ride, the lightbulb came on in my head. “There aren’t any trees!!” I looked around me, relieved that I had identified the weird aspect of the mountain, and sure enough there wasn’t a tree in sight. Gian explained that with the high altitude there couldn’t be any trees, but it was still just so weird. Looking down on the slopes it was just vast fields of snow, and I loved the width of the runs, and how everything seemed gradual and nothing too steep. It was just all so different from Baker back home. Then, the last extreme challenge of the day was these entirely new looking chair lifts that I have never seen before in my life. Not even anything remotely close to it. Attached to the cables going up the mountain were not chairs, but little contraptions that I can only describe as looking like pick axes? And for skiers they were easy, all you had to do was sit on them slightly and the cable would essentially “slide” you up the mountain, with your skis on the ground. Naturally, things were different for snowboarders. Gian clearly did not understand that I had absolutely NO clue how to get on the thing, but it became clear when I repeatedly fell 3 or 4 times in a row. We kept letting people behind us in line pass (luckily there weren’t that many people, I was embarrassed enough! Haha) and finally the guy working the booth thing came out to help me. He said something to me in German which I obviously couldn’t understand, and I kept trying to sit on this chair pick axe thing. Finally though, they explained that while Gian’s side was to be sat on (the skier), I had to put my side BETWEEN MY LEGS so that my snowboard would be perpendicular to the mountain. The next “pick axe” arrived, Gian swiftly leaned back and I grabbed the bar and put it between my legs, and away we went! I had to hold onto Gian for moral and probably needed physical support, but I was excited and proud that I finally conquered the strange new chair lift! Now the only question was how to get off, which Gian said we would figure out at the top. Great. On the way up, which probably took 10-15 minutes, my left thigh and butt cheek just started burning like crazy, because I was in such an awkward position. I don’t care for these chair lifts, but apparently they are all over Europe! I was wondering if they’re anywhere in the US? I had never heard of or seen them, but I wonder. It was hilarious and interesting all the same! The first time up I totally fell disembarking from the “pulling lift” and the second time I made it off without hitting the ground! Yayy! Overall though the day was a ton of fun. The boys helped me a lot and were so nice and fun. Gian & Stefan were FLYING down the mountain, sometimes Gian would just you know, be cruising down on one ski of just go backwards a bit. I was stunned! I guess going snowboarding 3 times a year doesn’t make for cool skills like they have though. Stefan told me he usually goes 40 times a season. Dang. That’s a lot! But we left the ski resort around 3:40 and played a new card game (to me) called “Asshole” which was really fun and hilarious.

Sunday night we had dinner with the whole family, Brigitte had this grill in the middle of the table and we fried mushrooms, cheese, beef, bacon, and had pineapple and salad. It was so delicious! I remember having it when I was here Summer of 2007. I really am thankful that I have these friends here in Switzerland, and I am so glad I came here this winter before heading back to Granada. I am developing good friendships with Aita and Gian Martin, and I also love talking with Brigitte and Heinz. Heinz is such a good natured, kind man, who is very soft spoken but also very funny at times! And Brigitte is just a feisty woman if I’ve ever met one, she’s just different than other European women it seems. We spent the evening chatting, and then they had a visitor that they said was actually for me! It was their friends whose daughter, Silvana, is 21 and looking to study and maybe work in the US for 6 months. She was asking me about it and I wish I knew more details and specific places and programs she should look into, but for the most part I told her to avoid the middle of America and stay on the coasts! Haha. An unfair statement I suppose, considering I’ve never been to the middle of the US, but still. I added her on Facebook so now I am going to look into programs for her.

Monday I had a bit of an adventure on my own. I woke up early and went to Chur with Brigitte, then at 9 headed off on Bernina Express, a train that is celebrating it’s 100^th year anniversary of scaling the Alps. If you ride the train completely, which I think you can only do during the summer, you go all the way from Chur to Italy. (I think, not positive.) But I just rode from Chur to a village in southern Switzerland, near the border of Italy, called Poschiavo. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and the train had panoramic windows, and we climbed through the Alps, passing church steeples in small villages, hordes of cross country skiers, all the way up to the bare, treeless areas of the mountains, the sun bright and shining the entire way. It was absolutely beautiful. I took so many pictures but I’m not sure how any of them are going to turn out because of the glare on the train windows. But it was amazing nonetheless. I had my headphones in to block out the boisterous German family to my left, and it was really peaceful. I never get time completely to myself, and Monday was the perfect day of that. I was content and alone in my thoughts, and I just let my mind wander as we passed picturesque places. Nearly four hours later, I arrived in Poschiavo, and would have just under three hours there to explore. I quickly realized I could explore this village at a very slow walking pace in maybe 30 minutes tops! I didn’t mind though. A river ran through the village and similar to Zizers, the mountains rose high on each side of the village. The only strange thing was nothing was open! It seemed a lot like Spain, because the entire place was shut down and apart from the people like me who had come from the train, the village appeared to be empty. It was so quiet that at times it was a little creepy. I moseyed along, taking pictures and humming to myself, enjoying the fact that I was just hanging out in a small Swiss village instead of being at work in Marysville or in class at Western. This is the life! J I only saw two open restaurants, one of which was extremely expensive, and I wasn’t terribly hungry but I had walked around for an hour and a half and was starting to get cold, so I went to sit in an Italian restaurant near the train station. First experience dining alone. And I loved it. The restaurant was nearly empty, save for a mother and daughter who chatted with the one waitress, and an old man reading a newspaper towards the back. I ordered Spaghetti Bolognese, and read my book (Three Cups of Tea-amazing…everyone should read it!) in the warm, quiet restaurant. I finished off my lunch with some delicious vanilla gelato and then headed back to the train station.

The adventure of the day decided to be that my train would break down in the mountains about 10 minutes from Poschiavo. With a four hour train ride ahead, I was not thrilled. We were stuck for well over an hour, and all the Germans were quite cheery, but the New Zealander chick next to me wasn’t too happy, and I would’ve been fine if it hadn’t been for the fact that when the train is stopped, the doors to the WC (bathroom) don’t open, so I was in a very uncomfortable position for an hour and a half, needing to pee terribly. There was no announcement or anything telling us what had happened, but I roughly learned from word of mouth that the wheels on the train wouldn’t turn, similar to a car stuck in the snow. So we ditched the last train car, which made our car a lot more crowded, but allowed us to keep moving. I was in and out of sleep until arriving back in Chur around 8 pm. It was a relaxing, beautiful, but VERY long day. Heinz picked me up at the train station and we went to Scheirs, another village about a half hour away, to pick up Gian Martin from his ice hockey game. I had hoped to see the latter half of it, but due to my train issues, I missed it, so that was a bummer.

Yesterday Aita and I did absolutely nothing, she stayed home from school and it seems we’re both a bit under the weather. I have a cold and am not feeling too hot, but my Dayquil and Nyquil are helping me get by. Today will probably be a fairly lazy day as well, and tomorrow Brigitte and I are going to see the Matterhorn! Cool! OK. This blog is so long. I apologize. And it’s only going to get longer because I am not posting it until I get back to Spain, because it’s on my laptop where I don’t get internet. So…I will write more soon!

………….Brigitte’s and my trip to Zermatt was a lot of fun. We had another fairly lengthy train ride across to the southwest of Spain. Our train was delayed for awhile, and we sadly learned it was because another train had hit a woman who jumped in front of it committing suicide…it was really sad. L and because of the delay, we didn’t end up getting to Zermatt until after dark. So Brigitte and I only saw a dark, shadowed outline of the Matterhorn, and sadly I did not get a picture of it. We had a hostel to stay overnight and after chowing down at the restaurant beneath the hostel we went out for a drink. I felt bad that I was not a very exciting party companion as my cold had taken over at that point and by 10:30 pm my energy was far from existent. Early the next day we woke and, still unable to see the Matterhorn, hopped the train to do a bit of a roundabout through Switzerland. This is very possible considering the size of this small country! We stopped in Bern for lunch and a very wet, rainy walk. I’d like to go back when the weather is better! I was so exhausted and when we finally got “home” to Zizers I couldn’t have been happier. But the time with Brigitte was so nice, I just love talking to her! That night we ate DELICIOUS cheese fondue and I got to look at pictures from when Gian Martin & Aita were little—so fun!

Saturday was my final day in Switzerland, and we slept in and spent the day relaxing until two pm when we headed down into their village (Zizers) to watch the parade for Carnaval. I am so ashamed that I did not bring my camera with me. Gian thought it would be boring but it was such a new experience to me that I thought it was awesome! The parade was filled with bands and organizations all dressed in the craziest costumes to celebrate Carnaval. Afterwards we went back to the house for awhile, then ate dinner with the whole family. Following dinner, Heinz, Brigitte, Gian and I went ice skating, and I improved greatly from the previous time the week before! Gian and I played hockey! And by played hockey I mean I kind of stumbled around with a large stick in my hand, trying to ignore the fact that I can’t really ice skate to begin with. ;) It was a ton of fun though. I was sweating and smiling and even when Gian barreled me over (barreled is probably an exaggeration) I was cracking up and just having a blast. Later I went down to the village to party, sort of, with Aita and Gian, which was fun but mostly I was freezing and tired. We got home and I said my goodbyes to Aita and Brigitte so they wouldn’t have to wake up for me the next morning, and when I left at 6:45 am on Sunday I said goodbye to Gian. Heinz took me to the train station and bid me farewell. I can’t wait to go back to Switzerland, whenever that may be. I can’t express enough how thankful I am to have such great friends, to know such an awesome family halfway across the world that I now feel like I can almost claim as my own. I look forward to seeing the Meiler family again!! J And then off I went to Granada….which will be discussed in the next blog…. ;) be prepared! Ha!

Hope you enjoyed my stories from the land of winter!

MacKenzie

and here i go, once again...

2010-01-25T23:03:00.000-08:00

Well, two days left in sweet little Arlington. I don't know what it is, but I guess I'm just not one of those people who gets sick of this place. I am growing slightly perturbed with my family and am eager to escape that realm, but when I'm running the airport loop, through the crisp Washington air, looking over my shoulder to see the Cascade Mountains in the distance, I can't help but admit that I am going to miss this place. It's where my heart lies. But then I also remember that I'm on my way back to where the rest of my heart resides, in Granada. It's going to be so refreshing walking down Recogidas, hearing the buzz of Spanish around me. ....Spanish....that language I once spoke...this will be another interesting challenge, diving back into it.

I'm not ready to go back in the sense that I have not packed, and I have a huge to do list for the next 60 hours or so before departure. But I have seen everyone I need to see, done everything I need to do, my break has been complete. Reading the blogs of Nikki (who's down in Haiti working to clean things up after the earthquake) & Emily (who's just embarked on her Semester at Sea), I am eager to get out into the world again, anxious to travel! I am realizing that from this point onward, I'm not going to be in one place for very long. There are so many places I want to go, things to see, and challenges to be met ahead of me, that as much as I love Arlington, Washington, it will always be my home base, but may never be where I permanently reside.

As far as my Phase 2 of South Beach, it's going alright. I would say I'm "roughly" following the rules. Which means I've been cheating, which isn't really ok. But at the same time I'm managing what I'm doing, and I'm working out hard! I am so glad that I've started being active again, and I need to keep that up for the next 4 months overseas. The next week and a half in Switzerland is a bit agonizing as I won't really have control over what I eat, as is the upcoming trip to Rome Feb. 11 or so. Pizza & Pasta here I come? We'll see. Basically I just can't let myself go backwards. If I stay the same, fine, Hawaii Bod 2010 will resume itself in May. But there will be no backwards. I have worked too hard for that!

I probably won't write again until I am in Switzerland. I am totally excited for my time there, but not too excited about the travel aspect of getting there. I feel like I just hopped off a 10 hour flight at Sea-Tac and now I'm getting right back on! But hey, you gotta sacrifice for the fun I suppose. Well, hopefully I can pack wisely and get everything I need to do done! Peace out, America, see you May 25th!

Love, MacKenzie

no recuerdo como hablar espanol...

2010-01-18T00:40:00.000-08:00

Well, Happy New Year everybody? At the moment I'm sitting in the Birnam Wood Apartment of my dear friends Heidi & Kelli, and as Kelli snores and Heidi and I make random comments about whatever we're looking at online, it is hitting me that I will soon be flying over the big blue again, back to Europa. Dang, time truly flies.

My break has been...entirely satisfactory. Now I know this blog is predominantly full of my adventures in Spain, but I suppose I'll break it down for you a bit, because hey, immersion into my former culture is important to document. Let's just say I haven't had too difficult of a time. Christmas was amazing this year, maybe because it beat last year's break by far, maybe because I hadn't seen my family in months, but whatever the reason, it was memorable and flawless. I raked in the dough from my fam, which will be helpful upon my upcoming transition back to the Euro. yay...not! =)

I recently spent about $150 (yikes those things are expensive, but I just can't hold back when I get to Michael's!) on scrapbooking materials and have been spending my days busily cutting, stickering, and creating away, which makes me miss my loves from Granada and passes the time quickly. It's going to be very strange returning "home" without them, I am not sure how it's going to turn out exactly.

Another major update in mi vida is that I am currently doing the South Beach Diet. Crazy, I know. But guess what, it works! Let me just give you some background so you understand my motivations. Two weeks ago my good friend Tyler Varnell and I were all set to go up snowboarding at Mt. Baker. The night before, I slip my snowpants on...brand new North Face ones bought only last year...and they won't come even close to closing. That's right, traumatic. Now, I had already faced the horror of the scale and realized that my body had uhh...developed...15 brand new pounds since departing in August, but this was the final straw. After a bit of a fit, a day of active snowboarding (wearing my DAD'S ski bibs, real cute), and some coaching from my stepmom Lena, I began Wednesday, Jan. 6 on Phase 1 of South Beach, armed with an awesome cookbook and more willpower than I thought I could ever have. And now, a mere 12 days later, I have lost 10 pounds, and counting! It will be interesting maintaining this completely healthy lifestyle in Spain, but I am going to try my best and hopefully I can work out some sort of situation that will prevent me from engorging once again.

Second piece of my weight loss plan/activities to keep me from being bored during my 6 week Christmas break is that my Dad and I have been working out fairly religiously together. He's on leave from the Navy so he hasn't been going to work, and we've run/walked the Airport Loop (6 miles) by my house many mornings, and we recently started going to the gym at the Base in Everett together. It's really good bonding time, and I've been getting in way better shape.

Let's see what else. Well, I've spent the past two weekends visiting my good friends up in Bellingham. Last weekend we saw Avatar (amazing, awesome, stupendous) and I am fairly certain aka positive I hit a raccoon on the way back. I visited the kids I have babysat for the past two years and took them to the park, I can't believe how big Blake and Barrett have gotten just in the past 6 months. I try to go to Quinn's home games at the high school, I cannot believe she's a senior, especially since we played together when I was a senior and she was a freshman! And mainly I have been loving being home with my family. I try and cook my new healthy dinners for Mom & Jordan and they seem to be appreciating it! :) Overall I'm absolutely loving my time home.

But...that most certainly doesn't mean I'm not excited to go back. I'm not scared this time, or nervous really. I'm looking forward to Switzerland for 9 days! It's going to be a blast to see Heinx, Brigitte, Gian Martin & Aita again, it's been 2 years. And then back to Granada. Home! My new apartment with new roommates Ana y Jessica!! Can't wait to see them. And of course can't wait to see Allison and the other returnees. But I'll be there soon enough. As for now, it's time to hit the hay!! Hasta luego...

MacKenzie

death of a 20 year old, birth of a 21 year old. we're almost done...

2009-12-13T07:06:00.001-08:00

It is 1:44 pm, and I am laying in my bed, recounting the weekend that just passed. And I have come to the conclusion that it was certainly the most epic final weekend one could spend in Granada. Of course, I'm coming back to Spain February 7, and I have four more months here, but many of my friends will be gone. However, I have just learned that I have an apartment for next semester that is literally two minutes from my apartment now, and I'm going to be living with Ana, who is Spanish and amazing! I love her. And also Jessica, who's from Federal Way, which is nice because I have Spain and Washington in my new home. Perfect. I have to meet up with them soon to work out the details and such, but it's pretty much gonna happen and I couldn't be happier, as I don't have to hunt for an apartment and I'll be living with friends, one of whom is a Spaniard! Yayy!

Anyways, what has happened lately? I last summed up my trip to Brussels, and since then it's basically been an effort to go hog-wild and enjoy Granada. We've made some stops at Feng Shui, and recently Court and Allison introduced El Tren to me. It's a coffee shop with these delicious drinks called “El Tren” that consist of coffee, hot chocolate, some sort of alcohol that is completely non-tasteable, regular whip cream and chocolate whip cream (which I didn't even know existed until now!), and this delicious little wafer type stick to top it all off. Yum. We've been there twice this week and it's a nice place to go to and chat for a few hours. I've gotten a lot closer to Allison lately and we love hearing stories about Jon the Fascist (Allison's dad), who raised this girl literally measuring her skirt length, not allowing temporary tattoos, no piercings until 16, etc. Way to create a rebel, man! But she watched the Shining at age six, how does this fit in? Haha. And Shannon contributes stories of Dudley the Inappropriate (who always says inappropriate things whenever he wants), and of course my father Joe the Child (who lives life in the most fun way imaginable, which often leads to extreme embarrassment in public places of my brother and I). These girls keep me laughing for sure.

We reverted back to the old ways with going out many nights in a row, and let me tell you, it has been a total blast. Thursday was fun but fairly low key, as I had a presentation on Friday where I presented good ol' Western Washington to my classmates. Never have I been more proud of where I live until I live in a society/climate/geographical region that differs so greatly from it! After class Friday we had our final API activity, the goodbye lunch. It was at a Mexican restaurant near the CLM and by the time we got our food (which took forever with 50 people) it was so delicious since my stomach was essentially eating itself in hunger. I was exhausted seeing as the previous night had ended around 4:30 am for me, and all I wanted to do was sleep after lunch. But instead I headed over to Eric's and he and I watched this ridiculous show called Jersey Shore, which is some reality show about guidos living on the Jersey Shore. Disgustingly entertaining is the only way I can accurately describe it. Then he introduced me to The Office after chastising me for never having seen it (it is on at the exact same time as Grey's, why in the heck would I be watching it!?!) We watched the Christmas episode and the episode from Pam & Jim's wedding, and I discovered that I could easily get hooked. Oh no, I don't ever need more television in my life! Grey's and Friends reruns are enough!

Friday night was amazing. Ana & Jessica (my future roommates! Aahhh I just can't stop getting excited about that) hosted a Christmas party, and from both my memory and just judging by the pictures of this event, it really looked like an American house party. Just think, way too many people in a small apartment, where everyone is yelling because they're trying to be heard over the other people who are yelling, and just a dang good time all around. We got there early (very un-Spanish like, I know) and I helped make the sangria (a recipe which I will be taking to the grave—ha, kidding, actually I'll be sharing it with friends and family upon my return home. I poured wine, chopped apples, and then I volunteered to be the camarera (waitress) and from that point on my hand really never left the ladle, and I served sangria all night long! We had it in a huge bucket, and when it was gone, I made more! Tony, Ben, Sam & Doug had a little beat boxing rap session for Michelle's birthday. Pat apparently had to take his pants off for a time because he got “bearded” which I don't even really know what that means because I didn't see it, I was busy serving sangria. Sam, Allison & I decided which should triple room in Seville next semester which should be....interesting...and Shannon was doing some facial expression all night that resembled a very sad fish. The night was so much fun, almost all of my beloved early-starters were in attendance, and although it feels like the end, I am enjoying so much making these final memories with my group. And that was Friday.

At 1:43 pm on Saturday my phone woke me up from a deep, pleasant sleep, and it was my mom! She said Max had gotten her up to go to the bathroom at 4:50 am and she just wanted to hear my voice! It was so sweet. I absolutely can't wait to see her in a week from today! Unbelievable! We talked for awhile and I recounted the sangria night to her. Marí Carmen and Pepe were gone for the day, as lunch was left on the table, and I was about to get pissed if they didn't return, as we needed to shower to look cute in our party dresses! Luckily they did come back, and both Court and I got to shower before the epic night, but I was very antsy before then. I hooked Cory on Grey's episodes, and we went on an unsuccessful churro hunt, as everything was way too busy, before I had to rush back and get ready for the night.

And now, the crazy night. “The death of a 20 year old, the birth of a 21 year old,” is how Court christened her birthday celebration. Courtney looked damn good in her fringe/sequin dress bought on her recent trip to Milan, Italy, and I was workin' the black dress I bought for $17 at Ross last summer, improvising with my blue scarf from Barcelona as a waist sash. We dashed over to Poe for dinner, eating way too many tapas and ations of food. Poe is God's gift to the tapa world, I will be taking any and all visitors next semester to experience it's goodness. Immediately when we walked in we noticed a group of three attractive boys looking at us quite obviously, but they left so we were like whatever. Court and I started eating and gradually the rest of the group arrived. But then they came back! And so Shannon and I struck up a conversation with them. They were all of different heritage but all grew up on the island of Ibiza, off the Eastern coast of Spain, and each of them spoke like five different languages! I hate the US mentality that English should just take over the world, all of the kids in the US should be raised knowing all these languages too! I bought Court's dinner and drinks as a nice little roomie birthday present, and we all headed to the Chup with the foreign boys in tow. Tonight was the night that Courtney would reach chupito numero cincuenta (shot number 50), thus earning her hard-labored Chupetería 69 t-shirt. It was a noble moment when she downed that fiftieth shot and was handed her prize for her very expensive and drunk-induced camiseta (tee). The night began to get crazy from there as tons of API early starters showed up, and shots were being bought/gifted left and right. I am not sure how many shots I had or what I even paid for because the guys from Ibiza kept giving us all of their chupito cards, which is usually how I keep track! So apparently I now have a t-shirt to pick up as well, but not because I earned it, because Courtney and I combined ended up with 30 chupito cards from last night alone! And I already had 31 of my own! “Hard earned” t-shirt here I come!

After awhile at the Chup everyone was quite...happy...you could say, so we headed across the street to the African bar Kulengali (spelling is probably way wrong but whatever). I haven't been there since September because as a blonde the Africans usually surround you with propositions to dance, but as I was accompanied by a few boys in my program, I felt alright about it. And it was a blast! It was a nice little pre-dance party before going to Granada Diez. Ohhh, Granada Diez. The entry fee was 10 euro unless you had accepted the facebook invitation, so as about half of us had accepted the invite, we headed over to the facebook line. I didn't think I'd accepted so when I got up to the bouncer, who was holding the list, I just glanced at a name and introduced myself as Rebecca so and so...and I got in for free! Oh Spain. You just have to know how to work it! Look what Courtney has taught me after all these months! :) I swear everyone I know was at Granada Diez, and we danced for hours (I think, when you're there you really have no concept of time), the place was packed, and the music was bumpinnnnn. I danced with everyone, Allison, Shannon, Court, and I even got some boys in with Eric, Ben, and Cory! ;) It's always more fun when you can dance with chicos, especially ones who you know aren't creepers. Our dogs were barkin' after awhile and after waiting forever to get our coats and bags, we headed to shwarma and for the first time in my life I didn't even finish it, and Morad, my rather cute Moroccan friend let me have a coke light and a water for free! :) Around 5:30 Court and I went up to our apartment and as we approached our door for whatever reason we just started cracking up, and of course we were supposed to be quiet so we just kept laughing harder...luckily Marí Carmen and Pepe didn't wake up as we just laughed our ways into our rooms for the night.

And here I am. Just recently woke up about an hour ago, I am starving and am wondering when Marí Carmen is going to present lunch, and really hoping it's paella. I have a bit of homework to attend to, but not too much. Girls churro night this evening, and after that 5 days of school then goodbyes and I'm off to Amsterdam for a night then home in a week. A week. Unbelievable. It amazes me how much I've experienced, how much I've changed, how much I've loosened up and the amount of fun I've had in the past four months. Dang. Well I think I hear food so I'm cutting this off just in time. 5.5 more days till departure...

MacKenzie

a vacation.

2009-12-09T08:00:00.001-08:00

Here I am, having the first relaxing day in Granada that I've had in a long time. I can't exactly remember the last blog I wrote, so I am going to cover Thanksgiving, Paris, and Brussels all in one! Yikes! Prepare yourself for lots of reading! But that's the way it goes when one is a travel extraordinaire and cannot simply find the time amongst all of their travels to document said adventures. Only kidding. I'm only about half that snobby. ;) Alright here goes.

Thanksgiving 2009 was by far the most unique I've experienced thus far, being, one, that I am on the other side of the world and not in Spokane, Washington, amongst a plethora of other reasons. I woke up Thursday morning and headed straight to school (second infraction on the normalcy of the holiday) to take my November exam (first injustice, I would say!). Upon completing my test I had a relaxing day of packing for Paris. I called my Dad, who was preparing to run the Spokane Turkey Trot with the rest of the fam, and chatted with them for a bit. I made my cousin Maya promise to say a toast at Thanksgiving dinner, announcing to everyone how much I miss and love them, followed by a hug from me, through Maya. (I later found out this toast never occurred. Oh well, I suppose that's what happens when you put all faith into a seven year old.) That evening I Skyped with my mom, Grandpa, and Grandma in Spokane. I was bummed to be missing Grandma's famous chip dip and the ever present shenanigans of any Meyer family gathering, and when I said goodbye, I was feeling pretty down in the dumps. Eric came to my rescue though, and as we walked with Court through rainy Granada towards our surprise Thanksgiving feast, my smiles returned as I simply enjoyed being with my closest friends.

The entire API clan lumbered through the streets of Granada, ending at a Mexican restaurant (infraction numero tres). We all sat down, Allison, Shannon, Courtney, Dana, Michelle, and Liz at my table, pondering over the strangeness of celebrating our American gorging holiday at a Mexican restaurant in Spain. We were all looking forward to an American dinner, so when Mexican soup was served (spicy & delicious but still not American) we started to become a little uneasy. But, lo and behold, we were served turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, corn, and carrots. We were given the option of a second plate, which of course I wanted, but when nobody else wanted it, I decided to be a follower and create a new record for least amount of food I've ever consumed on the Thanksgiving holiday. I did eat my pie though, one slice pumpkin, and one slice apple, despite the fact that I'm not really a pie eater. It was delicious, and so very American! We laughed and laughed, our “leader” Tyler gave thanks in Spanish, instructing us to do the same. I was thankful for meeting so many amazing new people. Dana was thankful for the fact that no regular start people were sitting with us....except Allison was. Awkward! Ha, but it's just Dana, so it was funny.

After dinner Halee, Shannon, Cory, Doug, Kaitlin & I went to Cafe Fútbol to ring in Doug's 20th birthday and to further our Thanksgiving feasting with churros! It was totally fun and very memorable, and essentially I stayed up way too late for our 5:30 am departure to Paris Friday morning.

PARIS. A damn good time. When I went to Paris before, I wasn't the biggest fan, but after spending time there with my friends and doing some quality exploring of the city sans museums (they're really, really not my fave thing in the world), I am completely enamored by this city, frustrated at it for being impossible to conquer because it's so huge, and I can't wait until my next opportunity to return! Every day, we got “creped”--Kaitlin's new word for the consumption of delicious French crepes, filled with anything you want in them. I personally enjoyed nutella & banana, and there's even crepes with meat and cheese and vegetables in them! Seriously, go to Paris & eat a crepe, your life will not be complete until this has occurred. API provided with a ton of free time in Paris, which bothered us at first but turned out to be a blessing. While traveling with the entire fifty or so students was a blast and gave a lot of choices of who you wanted to hang out with all weekend, doing things as an entire massive group was sooo tedious. Friday when we got there we relaxed, ate some good Italian food, and Court, Shan, Allison & I enjoyed some cheap mimosas in our hotel room. We headed off to Starbucks (because as I've previously stated, when one lives in Granada and travels to the real world, Starbucks is a necessary purchase even if it converts to nearly eight American dollars for a grande mocha), and then went to the Eiffel Tower. I was pretty excited about this because Grammy & I missed this crucial sightseeing event on our trip. I had been up to the Eiffel Tower by day, but never by night, and I hadn't been to the top at all! A big group of us went up and it was soooo cold so we danced in line to keep warm. We discovered French boys are quite beautiful as we passed the Eiffel Tower ticket holder, and we freezed our butts off at the top but were so excited to just be there! Looking out at lights as far as the eye could see was enough to show us just how big Paris was, and it was unbelievable that we were at such a famous landmark in such a famous city. Doug & Kaitlin cracked us up with their kissing pictures, and we all couldn't help but tease them. But hey, who's to blame them? Kissing on the Eiffel Tower? It's like the epitome of romance. Can't say I wasn't hoping that ticket holder would mozee on up and give me a smooch! :) Prior to our Eiffel Tower ascent, I had needed to go to the bathroom but couldn't find one (this always seems to be an issue in large cities, and I always wonder, where does everyone else go to use the facilities?), and so after our nearly 2 ½ hour Tower excursion, I really had to go. And no offense to the lovely group I was with, but they must not have quite understood the urgency of the moment as they were just waltzing along, slow as can be! Finally we found a metro that led us back to the Bastille, and everyone was starving and hunting for a crepe stand to eat dinner at. I, at this point, was freaking out because I was sure I was going to wet myself. Megan and I both had to go, and when we tried a bar that denied our request for the bathroom unless we sat down for a drink, I was near tears. Luckily, we happened across a Subway and I sprinted in and relieved myself then we snuck out without paying for anything. Thank. The. Lord.

Saturday was bus tour day, where we essentially saw all of Paris from within a very stuffy Greyhound with minimal leg room. Ha! I love how dismal I can sound sometimes. Actually it was fun, I can't say I learned much from the tour guide's limited English, but it was nice to spend time with the entire API crew and see the majority of Paris' important sights. Plus it was raining and Paris is enormous, so seeing everything wouldn't really have been possible/enjoyable any other way. The bus tour finished at Notre Dame, and we walked through the cathedral then a group of us went to the Latin Quarter for lunch. This was kind of when I started to realize that I love Paris, because there are so many quaint restaurants, shops, nooks and crannies that can so easily be missed. We stopped in at a restaurant and I was going cheap so I had an omelet, but apparently France is famous for omelets! Our plan was the Catacombs, but we discovered they were closed for renovations (which really bummed me out because that's another thing I didn't get to see last time) so Cory, Halee, Eric, Doug, Kaitlin, Megan and I went to the Opera House that Cory had been dying to go to so badly. It's pretty famous I guess, the setting for the musical the Phantom of the Opera. Saturday evening we got a big group and strolled through the Christmas Market (first of many that week, it turns out) on the ever-famous Champs-Elysees, and nothing else could have put me more in the Christmas spirit at the time! We mostly bought food and drinks because the gifts and jewelry and scarves at the Christmas market were just ridiculously expensive compared with our bargain land of Granada, but it was a great time anyway and oh-so-Christmasy.

Sunday, Day 3, Paris: DISNEYLAND! We paid $67 for a one day two park pass, and we tore it up in the Magic Kingdom all day long. Allison, Shannon, Halee, Cory, Lexi & her boyfriend Aaron who traveled from Germany to visit her (they're so cute!), and I Disney-ed it up in the wet and cold. Luckily it only rained a bit in the beginning, the rest of the day was rather frigid but clear. I won't waste too many lines but I will give our final Disney comparisons: Indiana Jones & Haunted Mansion are WAY better in Cali, Tower of Terror is exactly the same, Space Mountain Paris kicks Cali's ass all the way to Pluto (we went 4 times! I was nearly Space Mountain'ed out!), the fake snow was cool as were the Christmas decorations, and I enjoyed the character parade! I did a bit of Christmas shopping at the end of the day, and when we returned to Paris my feet hurt & I was completely tuckered out, but we enjoyed our day of reverting back to our childhood! Now to complete my Disney Life Experience I must get to Orlando, Tokyo, and a Disney Cruise somewhere in there!

Monday was our final day in Paris, and the whole API group went to the Louvre. I was still exhausted from Disney the previous day, and I had been there before, so I was somewhat of a zombie on our tour and didn't really see much. We spent the rest of the day before our flight with an all girls group strolling and shopping through the Latin Quarter, eating some delicious French Onion Soup, and visiting my only serious destination goal for the trip—a bookstore across the Seine from Notre Dame called Shakespeare & Company, it was in my guidebook as one of the most famous English bookstores in the world. I loved it and can't wait to go back to Paris one day and go again! Leaving Paris was sad because in a way it was the last sha-bang of the semester, the beginning of the end, everyone realizing just how little time we have left. I fell in love with the city, and I plan to go back many times, because there's no way it is possible to see it all, but I want to see as much of it as I can.

We had about a 36 hour hiatus between our trips to Paris & Belgium. Somewhere in there was a day of class, frantic repacking of completely dirty clothes, two or three meals with my host family and then Allison, Shannon & I were off once again. After coming way too close to missing our flight from Malaga, we arrived at Charleroi airport in Belgium and were greeted by Laura Johnson, the mom of a friend of Shannon's from high school. Now I'm going to be honest, when I learned we were staying with friends of Shannon's, I was a little nervous. Not as any reflection upon Shannon whatsoever, but because it is just a little nerve-wracking anytime you're going to spend time living in somebody else's home. But in reality, I had absolutely nothing to fear. Pat & Laura Johnson may as well be my new parents, not to mention two of the coolest and nicest people I've ever met! Pat is a US diplomat through the Armed Forces with Russia (or something like that, I'm not very politically knowledgeable), and they have been living in Brussels for over three years. So we got to stay in their beautiful home, eat wonderful American food, and be driven around be our own personal tour guides for 4 days! It was amazing.

Thursday we drove to a quaint city called Bruges which is about an hour away from Brussels. Now, I will be tempted to say quaint in every single sentence because really, that is the only word that can accurately describe such a city. Despite the fact that it rained on and off all day long, it was as if we were walking through a fairy book land. We visited the Belltower and churches, a Christmas market, had the intention of going ice skating but the rain hindered us, bought the world's most comfortable pair of slippers, went to an Ice Age sculpture park with a giant ice slide, tried our first Belgian waffle (HEAVEN), and were treated by Laura and Pat to a delicious, probably very expensive dinner at the end of the day. I had a classic steak and frites (french fries), and was happy as a clam with my simplicity. Shannon ate reindeer! I tried it but wasn't a fan, but Allison's vegetarian wok was quite tasty.

Friday was more low key, we slept in a little and Laura drove us down to spend the afternoon in Brussels. Pat couldn't join us because he had a meeting with Hillary Clinton (just chillin' with Hil, no biggie! Allison, the political science major was absolutely dying over all of this political action Pat was getting). In Brussels we explored more Christmas markets (this is mainly what we did all weekend), rode a ferris wheels to give us a sunset view of the city, ate yet another Belgian waffle, visited a strange statue that is a highlight of Brussels called Mannekan Pis (see facebook pictures), basically just browsed around the city all day. Laura showed us where all the popular bars were, but we were much more enticed by Guitar Hero and American movies. Sad, I know, it probably sounds like we weren't living it up on our trip, but the reality is, we can pay to party in Granada anytime we want for significantly less money. So instead we basked in the relaxation of “American life”, Allison made Kraft macaroni and cheese for dinner, and we watched the tail end of Air Force One. (Never realized how dumb that movie is until now).

Saturday was an early morning with a nearly three hour drive to Amsterdam. Up at 6:15, out of the door by 7, we arrived to our 4th country of the week sleepy and cold. I've been to Amsterdam before, so Allison and I skipped out on Anne Frank and walked around while Shan visited the historical attic, and for the rest of the day we all walked along the canals and ate Frites and visited markets. Very chill. Shannon and I both wanted to visit the Red Light District because we'd never been there before, and it was an interesting and kind of...saddening experience in a way. Shannon was pretty bothered by the prostitution, and I didn't mind so much unless I really started to overthink the whole concept of legal prostitution and what exactly that...signifies? Anyways, I know this probably is extremely boring to read but we honestly didn't really do all that much all weekend besides relax and visit Christmas markets, but it was still an awesome time simply because it was more low key than we're accustomed to. I have an overnight layover in Amsterdam the 19th before I fly back to Seattle, and Courtney is also going to be there, so maybe I will explore the city more with her. I'm always up for seeing more of a city!! You can never see it all....

Sunday was our final full day of our second mini vacation, and we started a little late (Laura was busy and we got to watch the second half of Pearl Harbor anyways-such a good flick, although it made me tear up 3 different times only in the second half! We discovered that the Armed Forces network is definitely into war and/or hyper-american movies. You'd think the military peeps would want a rest from all that and just watch Forrest Gump or something, but no! Lol.) Anyways, we hit country number five when we arrived at the highly anticipated AUTHENTIC German Christmas market in Aachen, Germany. Just over the border between Belgium and Germany rests this town where Charlemagne's bones are laid to rest in a church that we visited. And while we had previously been to Christmas markets in Paris, Bruges, Brussels, and Amsterdam, Aachen was like the mother of all Christmas markets! It just kept going and going and was filled with food and decorations and music and lights and all sorts of heart-warming wonderful Christmas time cheer. I encountered a giant schnauzer and was pretty much freaking out because he looked EXACTLY like Max just about 50 pounds heavier. I think I freaked the dog's owner out as I was stalking it, camera in one hand and giant German sausage in the other. Americans....haha. We essentially ate our way through the day, not really needing meals but snacking and snacking and snacking...yum. Shannon and I also found some tasty German boys who were selling wild boar (not so tasty) and we all concluded for the thousandth time that I am a huge baby and am incapable of approaching an attractive member of the opposite sex. We left the Christmas market in the spirit of the holidays and me wondering exactly why I grew up to be such a socially inept person. Haha. Our final night with Pat and Laura was spent laughing and telling stories, talking about the changes, hardships, and blessings of living abroad, over....guess what meal—CHICKEN FAJITAS!!!!! It was like God came down and granted me my biggest Christmas wish. It was absolutely delicious and such a good end to an unforgettable stay with these new friends of ours. I won't be able to ever thank them enough for their genuine kindness and hospitality.

And now....I'm back, sitting in my room in Granada. And the strange thing is, I have 10 nights left sleeping in this bed. It is so unbelievably weird to me! I can hardly believe that I walked out of my house on August 25th. It's December 9th and I haven't seen my mother, my dog, my room! But it's been ok! Actually it's been more than ok, it's been amazing and unforgettable and perfect! I went out on a school night last night with Courtney, Allison, and Eric, and maybe we're reverting back to our old September ways, but to be honest I don't care. I have very limited time with these people and I'm making the most of it! Tonight we have our final API movie, and we have our goodbye lunch on Friday. Court's 21st celebration will be Saturday night, which will be crazy in itself but a ton of fun as I'm sure that's the last discoteca I'll be attending this semester. I am so thankful that I get to come back to Spain for another semester to experience it in a completely new way. But for now I need to stop writing, go get my homework done, so I can be with the people I love! :) Till next time, which hopefully will be before I come home, but if not, I'll see you face to face Washingtonians!

Love, MacKenzie

so i met my future husband in a vampire movie.

2009-11-24T08:40:00.000-08:00

I can safely say I have left the slump. It was a long one, that slump. I can accredit it to homesickness, my attempt to save money which kept me corralled in my room at home much of the time, and my dang attitude. But, with a little over three weeks left in Granada, something clicked and I realized I don't have a whole lot of time left with these people and I need to make the most of it! After all, I don't know when the next time I'll see my friends will be, I won't be living with my host family anymore after this (of which I'm a bit thankful honestly), and I have only good things to look forward to. So that's good! :)

My only complaint about life is my own fault, my lack of control to not eat everything in sight, haha. Dad & I have discussed major exercise-age upon my arrival back in the states, I need it for sure! It's alright though, this host family Spanish life was a good experience even if I did pack on a few pounds. Needless to say, I am SO pumped to put my Y membership to use again, and next semester should be a huge improvement because I won't be eating 17 pounds of potatoes a week. Oh, and speaking of the Y, I am so pumped to get back to work! I need to make some money for sure...

And speaking of money...like I said earlier and in my previous blog, I was trying to budget, which I have been doing a lot better than the first half of the semester, but at the same time, it was getting to the point where I was turning down invitations to go out and do stuff because I didn't want to spend money. And the reality is, I have a lot of money, just no income. And I really want to buy a car when I'm back in Washington for the summer, but I can worry about that then, and for now I'm not going to go hog-wild with spending, but at the same time I'm not going to worry about money. I worked hard to come here, and I did not come to Spain to stay in my room complaining about our lack of internet access. Don't you love when you have revelations like this? After all, it's only money, as Grammy has always told me! Love that woman's advice.

Last week a big group of us went to the long awaited movie LUNA NUEVA (New Moon, second movie in the Twilight "saga") in Spanish of course. It was thoroughly entertaining. It wasn't even necessary that I understand the Spanish dubbing because I have the whole story memorized! Now, I always wonder, why can't they make these movies better quality? But the most important part of the movie was not the plot or the quality of the film or any other shenanigans like that. Ladies, have you seen Jacob Black? Well, google Taylor Lautner, and you'll understand if you don't already. Who would've known he could be so beautiful? If only, if only. Rumors are he's dating Taylor Swift. Ridiculous! Ha. Anyways, so last week with Celda 211, 2012, and Luna Nueva, we had a movie kinda week, which was great because I love going to the movies, in Spanish or English. It's how I've been raised! :)

At the moment I am writing this, I am procrastinating instead of studying for my test that's on Thursday. A test on Thanksgiving! Absurd! But then Friday morning our whole program is going to Paris and it's going to be a blast. I've already been to Paris, so my main goal isn't to go to all the touristy places (besides the Eiffel Tower because we failed to reach the top the last time we were in Paris) but to search for more obscure things in Paris--Dad sent me a guide book and I'm going to use that! Everyone else is probably taking a trip to Versailles and I don't want to pay for it because I've already been there! But overall I'm just pumped for Paris with all of my friends in the program. Oh! and we're going to Disneyland Paris on Sunday! What more could I ask for?

OK, but seriously, I need to go study. So, look forward to stories from Paris!
Love, MacKenzie

my tummy's turning and I'm feeling kinda homesick...

2009-11-16T11:07:00.000-08:00

First I must explain that the title of this blog is definitely a quote from my new anthem, Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA." I don't give a crap that Miley is a little ho, I love that song, and I listen and dance to it whenever possible. Also, that little lyric kind of applies to how I'm feeling at the moment...

Things are crazy here in the life of MacKenzie. You see, I have recently made the formal decision to not live with my host family next semester, and to live in an apartment with Spaniards. Now, this choice basically requires that I arrive in Spain in early February (classes start on the 9th) not knowing where I'm going to live. I'll have a hostel booked and after my week in Switzerland with Heinx and Brigitte, I will be stuck in Granada frantically searching for a room to live in. This, to me, is both exciting and terrifying. It is crazy to me that my first experience with bills, rent, and completely random roommates will be in Spain. But I also think that it will be better to do this in my second semester, because right now I'm completely comfortable in my homestay and oftentimes bored. Which is why I made this decision. My family is kind of alarmed, because of safety, (Mom couldn't help mentioning Amanda Knox from UW who has been in Italian jail for nearly three years because of allegedly murdering her British roommate, in their apartment in Italy), with which I explained that is an exception, a freak thing and I can't live my life being scared of things like that. At the same time I think they know I am sensible and wouldn't be involved with the wrong people, so they're all being supportive and I think this is going to work out. But my emotions have definitely been frazzled lately, I am anxious to get back to Washington for a bit. Also, I'm having the general college student crisis of, "I have no clue what I want to do with my life." I thought that coming to Spain would solidify all of the questions that I've had my entire life surrounding this question, but ironically, this experience has instead opened my eyes to so many other options and lifestyles and paths that I could take. I don't know.

Anyways....this past week I have been trying to commit to spending less money...such a daunting task. Paris is coming up Thanksgiving weekend, and I want to be able to spend more money there (our only two paid things are a bus tour and the Louvre, what a freaking rip off API! take me to the Eiffel Tower!). So naturally I've been doing less. I'm starting to get frustrated with the fact that my house doesn't have internet (because when you don't want to spend money the alternative in Granada is pretty much staying in your house and not doing anything, unfortunately). I discovered that we get internet in the lobby of my apartment building, so sometimes I sit down there with my sweats and jacket (it's usually pretty cold) and stream episodes from this season of Grey's onto my computer using Megavideo. PS, Grey's is amazing this season, they're over their slump of the past two seasons I've decided. Yesterday I watched Coyote Ugly and Princess Diaries on my iPod, and I've been reading like crazy. Right now I'm reading Dreams from My Father by Barack, and it is so good! I recommend that everyone read it. It seriously has nothing to do with him as president, so all you bitter Repulicans that like to read should still read it, it is a great book. I know it probably sounds like I'm being kind of a homebody, which is probably true. But isn't it also true that sometimes you just need a break? I mean, at home, I am never going going going all the time (well, I guess I am, but at least the things I do are either free most of the time or I EARN money from doing them), and here sometimes the culture becomes overwhelming and I just have to take a step back.

Sorry, this isn't the most exciting blog, but things have been pretty low key lately. We went to a movie with API last week called Celda 211 (a Spanish movie), and it was really good but extremely violent and graphic, go figure. And then Allison, Courtney, and I saw 2012 on Friday (in Spanish of course) and were thoroughly entertained. One area where I'm noticing extreme improvement is my listening in Spanish, I can understand these movies so well! (Probs because they're not in Granada's Andalusian accent, but still). And the thing I'm looking forward to this week....LUNA NUEVA!!! (New Moon, Twilight #2, aka where I get to see Jacob Black lookin' fine). Again, it'll be in Spanish but hey, the Twilight movies are so silly I'll probably get more out of it by seeing it in Spanish anyways.

Christmas is coming! Granada is beautiful with all of it's Christmas decorations, hanging in all of the main streets are lights in the shapes of poinsettas, angels, bells, and I cannot wait for when they are all lit up at night! Sadly, I have discovered that the only Christmas music on my computer is Celine Dion Christmas, which of course is my favorite Christmas album, but that is going to have to be sufficient until 5 days before Christmas when I come home! Crazy! I've also done some Christmas shopping and as always, am so excited to give my gifts to people (especially since they're from Spain!)

I'm going to finish up with a somewhat funny story that happened on Saturday. Allison, Cory, Shannon and I were walking around Granada yesterday evening, doing some Christmas shopping and people watching. We were wandering around the shops near the cathedral that have a lot of cheaper authentic Spanish gifts, and also touristy type gifts. There was one store that had a pond in the ground, a little pool type thing, with three or four fish swimming around it. Now, understand, this pool was in the middle of the floor, with a ledge that lifted 6-8 inches above the ground. I had seen the pool, but somehow, in the midst of my deep conversation with Allison about Christmas gifts or something, I stumbled over this ledge, and my right foot plunged right into the pool! I just covered my face in embarrassment, laughing, as Allison, Shannon & Cory are all cracking up, and the storekeeper says, "ah, ha bañando" (ah, she has taken a bath), and people are seriously walking by the store looking and pointing and laughing! I couldn't move until Allison assured me that I had not stomped on and killed a fish, and after that I had a wet foot for the rest of the day. It was so embarrassing! Ahhh! The silly American girl that stepped right into the pond! Haha.

Alright, I'm done, hope I didn't bore you to death. Miss you all back in the US, I'm not gonna lie, I can't wait to come home. Love, MacKenzie

love makes the world go round.......

2009-11-08T12:40:00.000-08:00

When I came to Spain in August, Floe, the angel that she is, sent me off with four letters. One, to open at Sea-Tac as I was waiting, terrified, to board my flight. A second, to read during my journey, preferably somewhere over Greenland, as she said. Third, a letter to read after my first full day in Spain. And finally, letter number four, with which she specifically directed, “This is a letter that is for a rainy day, wait for a day when you're feeling down or homesick or lonely. It needs to be at least a week after you get there, and a day when not even biscotti will cheer you up. Understand? Good.”

I haven't read her letter yet, which I think is unbelievable. It is Sunday, November 8, 2009. I left my house in Arlington on Tuesday, August 25, 2009. This is the longest I have gone in my life without seeing my family, my friends from home or Western. And I haven't read her letter. One day, in September, about a month after I arrived here, I had a breakdown. I cried. I was homesick and sad, but I sucked it up and Cory and I ate some good chocolate, and I saved the letter. I figured, it could be worse, I want to read the letter for when I truly need it. And now I have a hard time believing that I will need it. You have ups and downs in life, no matter if you're comfortable at home or thousands of miles away from everything you know. I don't really know where I'm going with this. All I know is, Floe's first three letters guided me out of my fear and anxiety at the beginning of this journey, but as of yet, I have not needed the final letter, and I really don't think I will need it, even when I am a little “homesick.”

Yesterday, I noted, was 6 weeks until I fly home, which is not very long, is it? A part of me absolutely cannot wait. It is so strange living in a new culture that you both love and don't understand sometimes, where there are benefits and flaws and you don't want to compare it to home, but in the back of your mind you kind of always do. I miss a lot of things about home. Concrete things, abstract things, random little idiosyncrasies about home. I miss my family, more than anything. I miss my dog, Max. My friends. Driving. Going to Boulevard Park with friends and watching the sunset. Watching my brother sing at the high school. Arlington sports. My Y kids. Working at the info desk. My friends visiting me at work in between classes. Coaching basketball. Playing @ the rec center. Washington weather (crazy, I know). Movie nights with the girls. Chicken fajitas. Chicken teriyaki. Food in general. Blake and Barrett, the kids I've babysat for two years. Meeting family for dinner at Olive Garden halfway in Mt. Vernon in the middle of the week, just because. Weekly dinners with Heidi, Patty, & Weston. Working out with Shayna in the summertime, her kicking my ass every step of the way! WWU Intramurals. Texting. Grey's Anatomy. People watching and cracking up with my brother. My life.

But at the same time, since I've been here, my life has expanded so much. This new one is entirely different, and in some ways here I'm an entirely different person. And what's amazing is that I have both lives, two completely separate parts of myself that entirely make up ME. And since I'll be returning to Spain for second semester, the only thing I'm really dreading leaving in December is the people here that I've grown to love so much. It's crazy, because you never imagine just how close you can get to people, and in two and a half months, I have come across some of the best friends I've had in my entire life. Mi hermana, Courtney. Eric. Shannon. Cory. Halee. Kaitlin. Douggy. Lexi. Ben. Alicia. Tyler. Megan. Michelle. Tony. Sam. Dana. Liz. Kelly. My early starters, I love them. Each and every single one, for who they are and for how we all balance each other out even though we're so completely different. Obviously there are many others, but I am most strongly connected to these people because we've been through it all together, we were here from the very start, thrown into the heat of Madrid in the middle of the summer wondering, “what the hell are we doing here?” I am so thankful that I have these people in my life, friends all over the country that have made this experience unforgettable so far and that I cannot even begin to describe the effect they've made on my life since I've been here. So now it's up to all of us to keep those ties connected in the future. I will be connected by heartstrings to all of these people, all throughout the US, but it is my job in the next 6 weeks to make so many more memories, and to enjoy these amazing people as much as I fully can before they all have to leave. And now, I'm literally crying as I write this. Why do I do this to myself? Haha. But it's ok, gotta get it out right?

I'm not sure why I'm exactly going to post this in my blog, because I'm not usually this open about how I feel with so many people. But maybe I want to share a more personal aspect of how I'm feeling here, and maybe I want people who read this, at home or in Spain, to know how much they mean to me. And although I say that, and despite the fact that I love to write, and that I think I'm fairly good at it, ;) just know that no matter what I say, words are never sufficient for the love I have in my heart for all of you.

I guess I'll wrap this up by sharing something Floe shared with me in that third letter she gave me. Gotta love that girl and her quotes, she always finds good supplementary words! :)

“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles behind you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.”

Frederick Buechner

And with that, I need to go dry my tears and go for a run with mi amigo Cory.

Love, MacKenzie

so here's the story. it may take awhile.

2009-11-06T08:35:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am, a week later (or a little more I suppose), and I survived my trip with Eric to Vienna & Budapest. Barely. :) First, I must point out that Eric and I succeeded in spending six days together, basically not ever separating, and we did not kill each other. And honestly, speaking for myself at least, I never really even got annoyed with him, and I enjoyed myself tremendously. He's a great guy and a good travel companion. I've heard stories from a few different guy/girl travel buddies that did not go so well, but as far as I'm concerned we had a great time and I loved spending time with him. Well, aside from the night that I laid in bed for a half hour listening to him snoring. At that moment, I kind of wanted to kick him in the face, considering it was 4 am. And I don't know if Eric feels the same way, but as he is one of the most blunt people I've ever met, (more on this to come) I'm pretty sure he would have let me know if I was bugging him. Now that's friendship! Ha. Also, I'm slightly nervous because apparently Eric has been announcing to everyone who asks about our trip that I'll be writing a blog about it (including his madre), so pressure's on, hope I make this one good!

We left Granada at 5 am Thursday morning, tired but pretty excited. We flew to Vienna through Madrid, and when we arrived in Vienna we were disappointed to observe that it was pouring down rain. Especially since I'm always the prepared Washington State girl with my dang North Face rain coat, which I had failed to bring. Stupidly, in my opinion, there is no metro actually at the Sudbahnhof, the train station we were dropped off at after the airport. So we embarked on a very wet search for the U-Bahn, which would take us to our hostel. At that point, we were all excited about the cold, comparing it to Granada, comparing it to home in Arlington and Gloucester where this weather really isn't that bad. Marveling over the fact that a week before we'd been sitting by the pool at the Seville hotel in 85/90 degree weather and now we were in Austria! In the rain and cold! Exciting, or so we thought.

We stayed in Meinenger (sp?) Hostel, a hostel chain where Eric had stayed in Germany over the summer. Right next to our hostel was a peep show place, and throughout our stay in Vienna, Eric continually assured me that he would be going to the peep show after I went to bed, that instead of going out we should just both go to the peep show, etc. Hysterical. ;) When we finally got to our hostel I wasn't expecting what we found, because I figured all hostels would be like Graffiti Hostel in Barcelona (which none of you really know about unless I've told you because I suck and haven't written about my Barcelona trip, but anyway). I was honestly really surprised when we walked into our room, and there was a blanket on the beds! Who would've thought? Eric assured me that all of the hostels he had stayed in were pretty much fully equipped, and that my sketch experience in Barcelona was certainly not the norm. Thank goodness! It was only around one in the afternoon when we arrived at our hostel, but we'd been awake for eight or nine hours, it was dark and dreary outside, and the beds with blankets were so inviting. So, like the good Spaniards we are, we siesta'd for like 3 hours. Que bueno.

When we woke up the number one goal was food, and after some unsuccessful searching we ended up going to Burger King. Guilty, I know. But it was delicious! We walked around in the drizzle for an hour or so and were kind of soaking up the general difference between Spain and this new world that seemed so modern and more similar to home but where we couldn't understand people or communicate at all if they couldn't speak English. Kind of made us appreciate our limited Spanish that we are able to use in Spain, even if we aren't fluent or anything. Back at the hostel, we were going to go out when we met our new hostel roommate, a guy named Michael from Germany. At first it was very clear that Michael assumed Eric and I were dating, as he continually referred to romantic places we could go to in Vienna. “Oh, you should take a walk along the river at night, it's very romantic you know. You should ride the ferris wheel, also very romantic!” When he asked how we're going to deal with me being in Spain next semester and Eric being back in the US, we figured out that he definitely thought we were together....so we cleared that up, haha. After chatting with him Eric thought we should ask him to join us for the evening, and as I'm always somewhat awkward in new social situations, I kind of shrunk back and let Eric decide. So Michael ended up coming out with us and the evening was chill but turned out really fun!

Talking with people from other cultures and countries is always so interesting. Because the things you think are completely normal, they have never even imagined, and likewise for your thoughts on their customs. Michael was somewhat fascinated with the term red-eye [flight] that we taught him, but even more so he enjoyed our discussion on the word “fuck.” (I know, this comes up a lot in my blogs apparently, I don't know why.) Eric was explaining to him that it can be used to describe something, or to take the place of “really,” or obviously it can be used as an insult or as a verb. Michael focused on using it as “really,” and asked us, “So, would it be right to say to a girl at the end of a date, I had a fucking good night with you”? Or, to a stewardess at the end of a “red-eye” flight, “Thanks, I had a fucking good flight!” Eric and I were trying to explain to him that you should probably reserve this sort of language for close friends, maybe family that you're very open with, but that those aren't exactly the most appropriate places to use that word...It was really funny though, we couldn't stop laughing about it. He asked me if I'd been a cheerleader in high school and if Eric had been a football player like in the American movies, and had he not been a foreigner with a very skewed version of females in American athletics, I may have punched him in the face. But instead, I smiled and calmly explained to him that I played both volleyball and basketball in high school. He was really surprised that I played competitive sports. Girls don't play sports in other countries! I mean, I know that is a total generalization and obviously there are girls that like sports but there aren't really competitive leagues, or an emphasis at all on female sports. Girls, those of us that play sports in the US and think we're not respected/under appreciated, talk to someone from another country and think again. Michael was adamant that we visit him in Germany and go skiing/snowboarding, which would be fun but I doubt we'd be able to swing it. He asked about Obama's popularity in the states, and despite whatever opinions we have (I don't even know what's going on in politics or my opinions about it), Eric gave a very diplomatic response because neither of us really wanted to talk about politics, especially to a foreigner we just met. Overall it was just very entertaining talking with him and comparing weird little quirks about our respective cultures.

The next day Michael had disappeared before we woke up but left us his card, so Eric is going to email him and hopefully he'll set up a facebook so we can keep in touch and maybe meet up someday in the future. We spent Friday walking around in the crisp fall air, I was in love with the leaves and grass and all of these traditionally seasonal things that are absent in Granada. Note that I still say “crisp” at this point. We went to the Natural History Museum, which was fun but I wasn't as wild about it as the one at the Smithsonian in DC. At first it was sunny, but eventually turned overcast, and a little chilly. We walked for a few hours along the Danube river, as Michael had suggested as one of the romantic activities. ;) Overall it was just relaxing and though we weren't doing a ton of touristy museums or sights, we were just hanging out in Vienna! As we were walking around, we were approached by a very aggressive woman (ha, not physically aggressive, but she wanted to sell her stuff!) who was insistent that we attend the opera, and actually said to us, “You mean that you came to Vienna, the classical music capital of the world, and you're not going to see an opera? Shame on you!” So we walked away, feeling shameful, and when Eric turned to me a while later and was like, “Hey, wanna go to the opera?” I have to admit I was a little surprised. But I agreed that it would be a cool experience. We went back and found the lady, and after we dished out the cash for our seats, I have to admit I was pretty excited. After all, we were going to the opera/ballet, in Vienna, Austria! How classy is that? So we got all dressed up, went out for a few drinks beforehand at a cute little bar close to the theater, that was attached to an ice skating rink. This made me really want to go ice skating, and we planned to go after the opera, but alas, it was closed when we were done. Nowhere in the world is like Spain where 10 is early. Oh, but the opera. It was good. I must say I liked the opera singing more than I expected, but I definitely preferred just listening to the classical music without the singing, and watching the instrumentalists. And the ballet dancers were so good too! Earlier in the night Eric had confessed to me that he thinks it would be kind of cool to be a gymnast or a figure skater (hope I wasn't supposed to keep that a secret) but during the ballet, he leans over to me and says, “Now, if I start talking about wanting to do ballet, that's when you should start to worry...” I don't know Eric...figure skating? :) We got free champagne at intermission (score!) and afterwards, we felt so cultured. We went to the opera in Vienna. After all, how many people can say they've done that? We went out afterwards, and at our first bar we people watched. Rather entertaining. We spotted two girls who were clearly out to get some that evening, hicky girl and blondie with the headband. Both were making out with strangers at one point, and Eric claims he saw one of the guys sucking on blondie's hip. Yes, sucking, on her hip. Strange? Very. Then they proceeded to climb onto the window ledge right behind Eric and I and awkwardly dance as their previous pursuers looked on with skepticism. During their drunken dance their make out partners ditched, and after they'd concluded they found two new guys to pursue. I love people watching. We went to another bar that had cheap cocktails, but of course I never like anything I order with alcohol in it, so Eric drank basically all of my drinks. I learned about the crazy world of Eric's summer job, which is just a completely mesmerizing subject to me (he's a waiter at a nice restaurant in Mass), and we just spent the rest of the night chatting chatting chatting. When we went to go home the metro had closed so we had to take a taxi back. Pretty sure we got ripped off, but, of course, that is the curse of being tourists and having no other option but to submit ourselves to the mercy of the cab driver....

Saturday we visited the Palace in Vienna, which I thought was neat, despite the fact that basically all the palaces I've been to have essentially been the same, lots of elaborate rooms that you really don't understand why these people deserved this ridiculousness. We agreed the palace wasn't as fancy as the one in Madrid or Versailles, but still over the top of course. But I enjoyed learning about Queen...Elizabeth...of Austria, there was an exhibit about her. (PS, Eric, I'm apologizing now for any historical things I butcher in this blog, I am not good at retaining that sort of information!) Really, what I recall most about the palace is walking through an exhibit of dishes for probably 45 minutes. Yes, dishes, thousands of them. There were dishes for breakfast/lunch/dinner, gold dishes, silver dishes, thousands of candlesticks, dishes for traveling, etc. They were serious about their dishes man. After the palace we ate delicious sausage things for lunch and walked around Vienna some more, not really finding any concrete museums or sights to visit. We discovered that the entire time we'd been here we were pretty disoriented in the direction of our hostel, the city center, everything in general. We went to this Museum of Torture, which sounded cool at first but nothing was in English and we had to read this translation book to know what everything was, plus it was kind of cheesy and to be honest I thought it was dumb. By that time, we headed back to the hostel to get ready to leave for Budapest. Eric had to work on some homework for his translation class, so I just chilled until it was time to leave.

On the train, we faced a bit of a...problem, you see. Once we crossed the Austrian/Hungarian border, the Hungarian conductor took one look at our train ticket (printed online, and checked by the Austrian conductor with no problems) and just said, “No...eet is problem. Eet is problem.” Eric and I just looked at each other, myself probably appearing a little less panicked than I felt. We attempted to ask what the problem was, but to no avail, as she continued to say, “eet is problem, eet is problem, eet is problem,” and shake her head. My mind was full of fears that we were going to be dumped off the train in some random Hungarian town where we have absolutely no idea how to speak the language, in the freezing cold, just 19 & 21 year old American college students lost in Hungary! It's like the setup of a good horror movie plot! But, apparently, it must not have been that big of a problem, because miss conductor didn't kick us off the train, and to our relief we eventually made it into the city of Budapest. Our roommates were from Mexico, so we practiced our Spanish a bit with them and had some drinks. Our hostel had a sign warning boys that gorgeous women in Budapest will approach you in the streets inviting you to a bar or club for a drink, and when you leave you have a bill with a few too many extra zeroes. Crazy! That stuff actually happens! It warned not to talk to these women, because after all, since when do hot women just walk up to you and ask for a drink? Haha. I was teasing Eric about this, and he told me I better protect him if one of them comes up to him. I assured him that he already has his pretty girl with him so he need not go gallavanting off with some Hungarian ho. :) It was our plan to go out for Halloween, but my discoteca mood diminished as the night progressed, so we didn't end up going to a club but grabbed some late night shwarma (doesn't come close to as good as the ones in Granada, by the way), and headed to bed.

Within an hour of walking around Budapest, I had fallen in love with the city, and both of us were more enamored with it than with Vienna. We visited St. Stephen's Basilica, and went up inside the Basilica to see a view of the city. The church was really unique and unlike the other churches we've visited, which is interesting because sometimes I feel like if you've seen one church in Europe you've seen them all. It was weird because the church seemed so old but it was only completed in the early 1900's. We walked across to Buda (our hostel was in Pest, they're actually 2 cities if you didn't know), and explored the area surrounding Buda castle. We really wanted to tour the castle, but we searched and searched and I am convinced that touring it isn't an option, or else the entrance is extremely hidden. We walked around Fisherman's Bastion too (which we think is strange because why would a fish market be up on a giant hill so far away from the water?), basically the Castle is up on a hill with hotels, stores, restaurants, and other monuments surrounding it. We spent a few hours up there, and had traditional Hungarian goulash (like a beef stew) for lunch with some DELICIOUS hot chocolate, followed by strudel, which I'd never had and it was really delicious, which is saying a lot because I don't really like most desserts. It was the best meal for such a cold day. After that, we took the metro to another part of the city to visit Hero's Square and take a walk down Andrasy street/avenue (not sure). They're tourist monuments, and unfortunately I don't know exactly what they signify, but hey, do I ever? After that it was already getting dark and we were pretty tired, so we went back to the hostel. I tried to sleep, and struggled, but Eric, as usual, did not, and slept for like 2 hours. I had to wake him up so he could finish his homework, and by the time he was done with that, we had a hell of a time finding dinner. It appears that the rest of the world is definitely not on Spanish time, so going out searching for dinner at 9:30 was a difficult task, and we ended up getting Chinese takeout and eating at the hostel. Once again, we had a grand plan of going out, but the later it got and the more drinks we had, the less we wanted to step out into the cold only to search for places we didn't know the location of! So we ended up just chatting with random people in the hostel. While we were eating and chatting, I went and made myself a drink, and noticed that there appeared to be significantly less rum that probably should have been there, because we really hadn't drank much. I mentioned it to Eric, and he didn't seem too happy. We kept talking to these guys from Ireland and Austria, and as the night wound down everyone went to bed except for ourselves and two others that were sitting away from us and talking to each other. Eric went in to make himself a drink, and when he came back, he says to the guys at the table, “So...I don't know who's stealing my rum, but whoever it is, that's pretty lame..” Mortified, my jaw dropped and my eyes became huge in disbelief, as I am not a fan of confrontation in the least, and this was just too much for me! But as Eric assured me, we didn't do anything wrong, he was just mad because someone had been stealing our alcohol, and he was just assertive enough to say something. It was really awkward though, the guys got up and left, and I was just so embarrassed! ;) But that's what I said about Eric being blunt! And honestly, I wish I had the balls to do something like that. Neeeever gonna happen. Haha.

The next morning we got off to a later start than usual, didn't leave the hostel until noon. We mistakenly didn't get food right away, and didn't end up eating until about 3. Our goal was to hike to the Liberty Statue, which you can basically see from all over Budapest, as it's very high on a hill on the Pest side. While we were walking up the huge hill I discovered that I am very out of shape! Ha, actually I didn't need to hike up there to know that. One time we stopped to rest and this old grandpa comes walking by, slow and steady, beating us the whole way. That made us feel good about ourselves. ;) We thought that we could see the whole city from the Basilica; we were wrong. You really could see EVERYTHING from the point up at the statue, it was so cool! Eric went a little crazy with my camera, taking like 20 pictures of everything he could see. He climbed up on this ledge to get better pictures, which terrified me, so I yelled at him, but he ignored me and continued to walk around the ledge, risking his precious life just to get some pictures for a potential future history research project. Go figure. :) We visited a bunker from WWII (I think, again, Eric please don't kill me if I don't accurately remember these details). It was so cool, we got to go down in the bunker and a bunch of the rooms had wax figures labeling what each room was actually used for, and all the rooms had pictures and stories and facts about Hungary's involvement in the war. I am not usually into history but it really was so interesting. I like learning in situations like that where you're actually in the location of the historical events so you can personalize it more. Obviously though I was continually confused and had to ask Eric to clarify random things that I didn't know about WWII. After that Eric was basically on a history high (he's majoring in it at UMass) and we concluded that we were soooo happy we had come to these two cities, especially Budapest.

We were kind of on a tight schedule, as we'd planned to go on a Communist Tour at 3:30 that afternoon throughout the city. I was particularly interested because, again, I never retained anything in high school about the history of anything, plus I know I hadn't learned anything, ever, about Hungary or communism there. Plus, even though I took Political Science 101 freshman year, I really didn't understand communism still. Anyways, we booked it down the hill from the Liberty Statue (which took considerably less time than climbing up), walked across the Elizabeth Bridge (didn't know it was the Elizabeth Bridge until I looked it up-Budapest is famous for it's eight bridges that connect Buda & Pest across the Danube). On the bridge there were tons of country flags, so we tried to guess what all of them were, and discovered that we can recognize way less flags than we thought we could! (Especially me). We realized we had limited time to grab food and make it to the tour, and so after yet another hopeless search for takeout-ish food that isn't American, we found none, and resorted to Subway. Which normally I would love but this Subway was a little stingy with their veggie giving, so I was unimpressed.

We made it to the tour in time, and met the guide and our fellow...tour people. I don't remember the guide's name but know he was born and raised in Budapest, and that he thinks it's very important that a native Hungarian leads the communist tour, because they have personally experienced it and can tell the whole truth, and contribute stories from their own lives. I wasn't entirely thrilled about walking around for two and a half hours because it was freeeeeezing. The tour was mostly talking, learning about the ways of life and the benefits of their communist lifestyle, and the struggle Hungary is having in post-communism. It was really interesting because he made it clear that he wasn't nostalgic about the communist period, but there are definitely aspects of life that were much better during that period. We saw some buildings that hadn't been renovated since the communist era, and you could see how much Budapest has changed to become more of a tourist attraction and attract visitors. The city is unbelievably beautiful, but our guide explained to us that it wasn't always that way. In the tour, I liked hearing most about his childhood, memories, the life he remembers living under communist rule. The last portion of the tour was in an old communist apartment building that has since been renovated into a bar, and I was happy to be warm, but that is the point in the tour where I lost all interest. First of all, he talked an hour longer than was scheduled, and once he started on economics my brain immediately checked out. So much for learning about communism thoroughly. I just think it's so boring! Ahh. When he was finally done, we walked out and Eric was like, “Well, that was thorough.” Ha, so at least I wasn't alone in my antsy-ness and slight boredom at the end.

When we first arrived in Budapest we observed so many nice restaurants, and our little guide book the hostel gave us told us that Hungarian food is delicious and famous for it's spicy-ness! After being in Spain, the land of bland food where nothing has even a kick of spice (granted, the food is good, but I miss flavor!), we decided to make Monday, our last night, the big dinner night, and go out to a nice Hungarian dinner. So again, like opera night, we got a little dressed up and went to Arány Bárány, which I think means Gold Lamb or something in Hungarian, which was really close to our hostel. I had veal, which I've never had before (delicious), with baked potato wedges, and white asparagus wrapped in bacon with this delicious sauce. Eric had chicken, lamb, and pork with a sort of crepe looking thing and vegetables. His first bite was so shockingly spicy his eyes were watering! And it was strange because the whole meal wasn't that spicy. But our dinner was so delicious, and it felt nice to treat ourselves to a fancy dinner like that. My only qualm was that the violin player serenaded us a bit too aggressively while we were waiting to get our food. Satisfied and happy, we went on our way. That was by far the best meal I have eaten in over two months. We finished up our trip by walking along the river to take pictures of the night lights, and again I am just so thankful we went on that trip, it is such a beautiful city! I am frustrated with my camera though, it doesn't take very quality nighttime pictures. We struggled to take good pictures, but it was still absolutely gorgeous out and just a really amazing end to our trip.

Turns out...the trip wasn't quite over. We woke up at 6 and left the hostel, as our train was leaving at 7:10 back to Vienna. We sat down on the train, and when the conductor came by we showed him our ticket (the same round trip online printed ticket that provoked “eet is problem”), and he, who spoke not a word of English, just looked at the ticket and kept shaking his head an yammering in German. He tried German and Hungarian and we obviously did not understand a word of what he was saying, but we basically understood that he was not going to let us ride this train with this ticket. Horrified, Eric and I were just looking at each other with no clue what to do, when thank the lord, Jesus happened to be sitting next to us. By some far cry stroke of luck, the guy across the aisle is like, “Hey, do you guys need some help?” YYYEEEESSSS!!! So this random American guy who happens to speak perfectly fluent Hungarian asks the conductor what the problem is, and apparently without the “control” ticket that we should have received from the Austrian train conductor, we cannot ride this train to the border, and we have to buy another one. Mind you, we have ten minutes until the train leaves. So the savior stranger comes with us to figure out if we need to buy new tickets, and sure enough, we each have to pay 25 euro for a ticket that we each already paid 16 euro for. So frustrating. Oh, and thank god they took card, because they didn't take euros, and at that point we had no Hungarian money left, so Eric paid with his debit. We got back on the train, could not stop thanking our American friend from Reno whose father made him speak Hungarian at home as a child, and the train pulled away minutes later. These stories, they're so crazy and dramatic and when it turns out alright, like it did, fun to tell people. I sometimes wonder though, what would've happened if we hadn't made the train? Are stories where the close call actually ended up being a really crappy situation, would that be fun to tell? I don't know We would've missed our flight to Vienna, and who knows how long we would've been in Hungary. Again, I can't say it enough, I don't know why we were blessed with that man sitting by us but we were seriously so thankful!!

We had a bit of a struggle when we reached our stop in Vienna and the dang train door wouldn't open, so the train kept moving with us inside. It was embarrassing and frustrating, but again, thankfully it was a close call and there was a stop after that we were able to take. The remainder of traveling home went smoothly, just a very long, tiring, and boring day. Total we had a three hour train ride, an hour and a half in Vienna, three hour flight to Madrid, three hour layover in Madrid, hour flight to Granada, and then a half hour bus ride home. Finally, at 8:15 I sat down, exhausted, with my hermana and had pimientos con huevos, my favorite dinner that Marí Carmen makes. What a trip. Memorable, certainly. :)

Hope you enjoyed the stories, I'm sorry it was so long! There were many more and of course I'd love to include everything but I think this is sufficient. As always, love and miss you all back in Atown and Bham and Spokane and everywhere else like crazy. Till next time! -MacKenzie.

i officially suck at blogging.

2009-10-28T09:48:00.001-07:00

I hate blogging. I want to do it every day, or heck maybe once a week, but it's been basically a month! Pathetic. I am writing this epic story about my trip to Barcelona, but I just want to include EVERYTHING. And it is seriously so difficult. Obviously, I cannot include everything. But it was such a great trip with highlights around every corner, that I don't want to lose anything. But alas, it is nearing the end of October and almost an entire month has gone undocumented. I'm leaving for another trip tomorrow, and now that my packing is done I need to get this done, it's my homework. Nothing MAJOR has happened since Barcelona, so I'll try to just give an overview of how I'm doing.

I LOVE my host family. More and more everyday. I have been making conversation with Marí Carmen and PePe, and they have FINALLY learned my name! One day, I came home from school and was in my room changing, when someone knocked on my door and was like, “MacKenzie, comida...” I nearly fell out of my room in complete shock as I darted into Court's room. “Do...they know my name?” Apparently before I got home from school they had asked Courtney how to say my name, so after nearly 2 months, I finally am referred to as something other than “chica” or “rubia!” Exciting right!? I have fallen in love with baby David, who is becoming less and less of a baby everyday. Last week, I experienced the excitement of his very first steps! We were playing in the living room, and for a few weeks he's been walking with help, but all of a sudden he just walked from the chair to the bathroom door! I turned around, jaw at the floor, to Marí Carmena and PePe, who were just as surprised as I was. Since then, he's been walking everywhere, and talking more all the time! The thing about Spain is everyone is so chill. Sometimes it comes across as lazy and it gets annoying, but in a positive explanation, I just think they're chill with things. For example, I never once saw them try to get David to walk. He just kind of started doing it all in his own time. He's 14 or 15 months now I think, which I guess is pretty old to start walking, but hey, he did it when he was ready, and now he's waddling around everywhere. It's interesting the random things that I think are better than the traditional American ways I'm used to. I've grown up with the feeling of always being in a rush, or always needing to improve, excel, reach the next best thing, the highest level. But the Spaniards, they've taught me to chill. Everything will work out in good time. Whether we're talking about David walking, or me figuring out my life. No pasa nada. :)

I think my Spanish has been improving tremendously. Again, there are times when I totally freeze and choke on my words and sound like an idiot, but for the most part I can communicate fully with my family, and I have been more and more on a regular basis. And sometimes an entire conversation will occur, or I'll speak so fast that I haven't a clue what I said or how I said it. Which makes me so excited because that means sometimes I'm speaking naturally, like I don't have to think about it first. Yay! I still am frustrated with my lack of effort to make friends with Spaniards, but it is much more difficult and awkward than one would think. Which brings me to my latest struggle. Yesterday we had our meeting for the API students who are staying a full year. The meeting was about academics, plans for Christmas break, and housing options for next semester. Prior to the meeting, I was positive about staying in my homestay. After all, I absolutely love my family and my only qualms with living there are the hot water/shower issues that sometimes occur and the lack of internet. But Carmen, one of our resident directors, kind of is starting to change my mind. She highly recommends to all of us to live in flats/apartments with Spanish students next semester. I have until November 15 to decide. Her thoughts on it are that at this point, we are comfortable, and living in the host family may not be as much of a challenge as it once was. And when I think about it, she's totally right. Studying abroad is about stepping out of your comfort zone, and at this point, I have my comfort zone established, and I'm not meeting lots of Spanish people my age. So, I feel like my decision is mostly made, regretfully, as I will miss my host family very much. But in the next two weeks I'm going to ask around to get opinions and facts about prices, because ultimately it comes down to which option is financially more feasible. I hope it works out though, because I think it would be a good experience to find an apartment, live in Spain with Spanish students, and be scared again. Because at this point, I'm not scared. And one of the things I've learned coming here is that being scared is kind of a good thing. Shows you what you can take.

Hhhmmm...what else do I have to report? Well, I have been getting fat. Surprise, surprise. I am not totally certain about numbers, but I know I have clothes that fit differently than they did in the US, and my love handles have expanded. Ick. Awesome. However, what could I expect? In the US, I exercised somewhat regularly and never really drank, and here I drink somewhat regularly and never really exercise. So, as you can imagine, it really creates the opposite effect. So...that's been hard. It's frustrating too because I love food, as you all know. If you know me at all you probably know that I inherited the terrible trait from my dear father that I absolutely will eat anything put in front of me if it is edible. So it definitely doesn't help that PePe always tells me, eat more, eat more! No pasa nada! Ahhhh it's awful. So looks like I need to be firm with myself and cut back...Story of my life right?

Tomorrow my friend Eric and I are leaving for 6 days to go to Vienna & Budapest! I'm stoked! 3 days in Vienna, then the evening of Halloween we'll take a train to Budapest. Honestly, I don't know what we're going to do when we're there. I don't even know what sorts of touristy stuff there is to do! But we'll find stuff to do I'm sure, we can ask at the hostel and tonight I'm going to look online to get an idea of what we're interested in. I am just so excited to see these cities because I loved Prague so much, and I think I just like the vibe of Eastern European cities in general. 6 days with Eric though! Should be interesting. :) My friends Kelly & Tony traveled together to Morocco for the same amount of time, and were a little sick of each other when they returned, haha. But they also had a very intense travel experience, so hopefully our excursion will go smoother than their whole Africa experience. It's going to be a ton of fun, I can't wait! Except our flight leaves Granada at 7 am so it's going to be an early morning...

Speaking of travel, today I learned that I have spent an un-Godly amount of money since being here. I started to stress out about it because I have no idea how I spent so much money, or what I spent it on. And I've realized that I absolutely cannot continue to spend at this rate, otherwise I will not have money to spend for the whole year. Also, it was my intention to buy a car next summer, and that definitely won't be possible if I continue to spend so much! I hate credit cards though, I am honestly really annoyed that Grammy told me not to bring my debit card. I actually feel really stupid. Everybody here has debit cards, because with a credit card you're doing a cash advance, and I get charged $15 every time I take out money! So frustrating. Anyways, the verdict is I need to cut back, but unlike with food, where I know I need to lay off the bread and potatoes, I have no clue what to cut back on my spending because I don't feel like I've been spending unreasonable amounts!

Transition to something positive, yay! I spent 30 euro (oh, stuff like this, this must be where my money goes) for 8 salsa lessons! A bunch of friends and I are taking lessons on Tuesday and Thursday nights at Salsero Mayor, from 10:30-midnight. Our teacher is Latin, not Spanish, and I think he's gay but he's so cute and fun! And we all like his nice butt! His name is Miguel and he's seriously such a good teacher! I've only had 3 or 4 lessons, and I've learned so much already. I can't believe I never went to salsa club at WWU, and when I get back I'm definitely going. I love salsa though, it's really easy once you learn the basic steps and if you have a good leader. It would seriously suck to be a guy because you have to lead, I thank God for being a lady every time I'm at salsa. For once in my life I feel delicate and graceful, and I'm definitely taller than Miguel but it's so fun dancing with him because he's such a good lead. And there aren't really guapos at Salsero Mayor, but after my trip to Vienna/Budapest I am going to start going out more often because everybody that goes to Salsero Mayor knows how to dance! I don't really care if they're old, ugly, whatever. I just like to dance salsa, and I want to get better! I am so excited to come back to the states with something new (besides Spanish of course).

Well, yesterday Mandy called me and although we only talked for less than 5 minutes it made me so happy! And Dad & Lena called yesterday too, so it was really nice to talk to them. I'm so glad Dad is back in the US with Lena! It's strange that I'm the only family member abroad now! I can't help looking forward to going home to the States for Christmas break, but at the same time I do NOT want to rush it along, because I have less than 2 months left with these amazing people I'm here with, and most of them aren't coming back to Spain next semester! :( I also can't wait for when Mom comes to Spain in the spring to visit, because I can't wait to take her to all the places I frequent the most! Honestly, despite the stress of money, weight, and my plans for housing next semester, LIFE IS GOOD. Really, it is wonderful, and I have to be thankful for every single day that I have here, because it has been an experience like no other, and the stresses I have are nothing more than lessons I have to learn to get through to my next adventure. :)

Till next time, which will hopefully be NEXT WEEK when I get back from Vienna & Budapest!

the big kahuna of a blog post!

2009-09-25T11:48:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are once again. And once again, I have put off writing so my entry will be astronomically long. This will be the longest one yet! You see, I have to be in the perfect mood to write. I have to be alone, I have to be in the right mood, not be too tired, my creative juices need to be flowing. I don't want to give you an itinerary of what I do, I want to paint a vivid picture of my life here for you. And even if I don't capture everything, I have at least captured something, and something is usually good enough. But I can only do this when I'm in the mood, which is why my entries keep getting longer and longer. Please, enjoy, but only read if you so desire! Don't be bored with my rambling!

I want to start out with a cool fun fact that I learned upon my first hour in Spain that I have completely forgotten to relate until now. When I first met Eli, one of our API Resident Directors, she greeted me with a kiss on each cheek as is common with most Spaniards. She asked my name to clarify which students she was picking up and when she heard, “MacKenzie Tanguay,” her face lit up as she giddily exclaimed, “aaahhhhh so you're MacKenzie Tanguay!!” I wasn't sure about the overly excited response until she explained to me that immediately upon seeing my name on the roster, her and Pablo (our other resident director, who I will explain a bit more about later) were so excited because my apellido (surname, last name, etc) has a totally awesome meaning in Spanish. She explained to me that “tan” means “so,” which I knew, and “guay” means “cool,” which I also knew but was under the impression that that word isn't used in Spanish really. However, in Spain, it must be, because Eli then christened me “MacKenzie So Cool.” So there you go, Tanguays, our last name means So Cool in Spanish! I mean naturally, right? Tan guay! =)

I feel that I hit a little of the homesickness bug in the past week. This came on with the recent move in of all my Bellingham friends and the start up of WWU today, skyping with my Mom on Saturday, and just generally becoming aware that I have been here for 4 weeks (today!) and I still have a long time to go. However, all is well! What would an experience abroad be without a bit of homesickness, right? I have just been staying busy, doing homework (which there honestly isn't much of), writing, being with my friends, and chatting with my host family whenever I feel down. But things have been consistently busy (but at the same time not, it's interesting how this Spanish lifestyle is) so I have much to write about!

Last Wednesday we had our API excursion to the Alhambra, Granada's, and maybe even Spain's, most famous landmark. La Alhambra is an old Moorish palace no more than a 40 minute walk from my house (I can see it from my bedroom window if I lean out far enough!). I would love to tell more about the history, but although I participated in a guided tour with the rest of my program, it was in half Spanish and English, and I was much more interested in capturing it's beauty with my camera than in listening to it's history. Plus, I have my Spain guidebook, and I can always look in there if I really care that much about it. Basically, this building, or series of buildings, and the gardens surrounding it, are the most unique and among the most beautiful pieces of architecture I've ever seen. It was here that I really came to appreciate my Nikon, which I am so thankful I bought last summer. It really does capture images so much better than a typical digital. I could've been there for hours, I could've taken thousands more pictures of the exact same things just to find a more beautiful shot. And here, as I wandered through this ancient palace taking shot after shot, angle after angle, pondering about the history and the life that once inhabited the Alhambra years ago, is where I began to discover that maybe, just maybe, I don't know exactly what I want to do with my life. Up until I arrived here, I felt that everything had to be so structured, both because of my organized nature and because of the money sucking university world we live in that forces us to choose the career path we think we want at such a young age. I once thought I would just automatically be a teacher because it's typical and because I get summers off and because it's the best family oriented profession. But maybe, just maybe, what I want to do with my life is walk around places like the Alhambra and capture those images and then turn around and write about them. Maybe. Here in Spain my priorities have changed so much, I don't have a plan for anything but what I'm doing tonight and maybe some random specifics in the next month. But as for years? Who knows? I want to maybe join the Peace Corps, the FBI? Travel, speak Spanish, learn, research, write, LIVE the life that I have been so graciously granted. See what Spain is doing to me?

Well, that was certainly a tangent. Back to the Alhambra experience. At the conclusion of our tour, (which I loved because I got to spend time with the people in my program, most of whom I don't get to see on a daily basis. This is both a good and bad thing, because I don't want to be milling about with 20 Americans all the time, but at the same time they are great and I love seeing all of them!) it began to rain. And when I say rain, think Bellingham during February. Think Seattle. Think Arlington. Combined. And it was strange, because when we had finished our tour we sort of relaxed for about 20 minutes and watched the ominous rain clouds coming towards us, as if we couldn't recall that we had a 40 minute walk ahead of us. So finally we trekked home, and the good Western Washington citizen that I am, I of course had my black North Face rain jacket in my backpack, because someone had told me it might rain that day. So while everyone else got soaked to the skin in the tank tops and jeans, I was dry, except for my jeans, those were soaked just like everyone else's. And some people were complaining (granted, they didn't have a rain jacket) but I was just thinking, come on! It's rain, you won't melt! I was almost laughing at the absurdity of it, of the previous beauty and sunshine of the day that was so rudely interrupted by a torrential downpour. It was a beautiful taste of the Northwest, if you ask me. We finally made it home, and I was soaked but oh, so happy.

Transition: School is interesting here. Let me just tell you a little about a typical day in the life of MacKenzie. My alarm goes off Monday-Friday at 7:55 am (though I just switched it to 8 as I'm getting my routine down quicker). I usually curse the world for waking me, especially if we disco-ed it up the night before and I didn't get to bed till 4. I lumber out of bed, brush my teeth, wash my face, put my contacts in, attempt to do something constructive with my hair which is usually unsuccessful because straightening it takes too long and we can't take showers in the morning. I get dressed, make my bed (surprising I know!), eat my breakfast (2 slices of bread and margarine, and a small lemon muffin that I have eaten so often that I am immune to the lemon taste so it's ok) and leave my house at 8:30. Class is supposed to start at nine, but usually begins around 9:05 or 9:10, because hey, it's España! You just gotta roll with it. I am in the Intermediate B level, and I will move up to the Advanced A level in about a week and a half (next Friday). I have two teachers, Ana and Emelia. Ana is first, and I don't like her as much as Emelia. Professors here are much more animated than the majority of college professors in the states, its almost like they're acting because they're personalities are so vibrant and exaggerated. Ana has the most revealing facial expressions; when she is excited about something, you know, and you also know when she thinks you're an idiot. Every Monday she asks us what we did that weekend, and every day she asks us what we did last night. The majority of our class with Ana is talking, and we reviewed all the past tense verbs with her, watched a movie, did some brief cultural lessons, and we're now beginning to work on conditional verbs. We have a break from 10:50 or 11 to about 11:20, and then class with Amelia commences. Amelia is my favorite Spaniard, and one of my favorite people, in the world. She weighs no more than 80 pounds, dresses to the nines every day, has a short pixie gray haircut and is one of the most hysterical people I have ever met. Her favorite thing to say is “BIENNNNNNNNNN” and she says it to everyone, all the time, practically yells it and will drag it out for 10 seconds sometimes. She is much more encouraging than Ana, and seems more interested in our personal lives than Ana. I feel way more confident speaking in Emelia's class, and it goes by much faster and is really fun. With Emelia, we have learned Future tense verbs, when to use que (what), quien (who), and cual (what/which/who), and we're beginning with subjunctive with her.

Now when I saw school here is interesting, I am directly referring to one instance that occurred in Emelia's class about a week ago. I have no clue how we arrived on the subject, but all of a sudden Emelia was ferociously scribbling on the board and we were learning the difference between the words “joder” and “follar.” Now, excuse my French, family or anyone who is sensitive to swearing, but I have to describe this story completely accurately and I could not do so without being both explicit and vulgar in my language. Essentially, both of these words mean “to fuck.” Emilia explained to us that “joder” is mostly used to express happiness, worry, admiration, or hate, and when you say “jódete” you're saying “fuck you” in what Emilia dubbed a “lighthearted way.” She explained that an accurate usage of “joder” would be “Joder, what a cute dress you're wearing!” Interesante, no? And then she proceeded to explain that “follar” means the same thing but in a sexual context. She said that “Jódete” isn't really that offensive but wrote this on the board: “Que te folle un pez espada!” as an example of an offensive statement. I was slightly confused with the conjugation of the verb and the vocabulary, so I asked what it meant. My tiny, adorable teacher beams and in brilliantly accurate English, says, “Get fucked by a swordfish!” School here is interesting. Enough said! =)

Anyways, we finish school at 1 everyday, I walk home, eat lunch with Courtney and lately, my host family too, then take a 1-2 hour siesta, shower, and play with baby David. I am starting to like him more, except when his family is bugging him. The child clearly doesn't like to be held so I wish they would just leave him alone because he's such a happy baby when they're not touching him! Our host parents grow on us more and more every day. PePe talks about tapas more than anything else, and he's always suggesting tapas bars for us to go to. He continues to ask if we have found Spanish boyfriends, which Courtney sort of has one? Funny story. So I don't know if I have written about this before, but in the first week here, my friend Shannon invited us over to her house because there was a guapo boy repairing their shower. We talked to him, and chickened out in getting his number. Later, Shannon gave him her number, and he has without fail, called her every day since, and he lets the phone ring for approximately two seconds then hangs up. Shannon finally got to the phone recently, and Courtney talked to Tomas. He gets her number. They start texting, and we're sitting on the internet when Courtney hands me her phone. I read a text that one, was spelled terribly (in Spanish) and two, said, Oh, I don't have a girlfriend. Would you like to be my girlfriend? We laughed for 5 minutes without stopping. Is this kid for real? Courtney has talked to him once, three weeks ago probably and he's asking her to be his girlfriend! We showed Marí Carmen and she thought it was quite funny but said Courtney should probably be his friend before being his girlfriend. I love our host mom.

PePe talks slower for us, and I can usually always understand him. Marí Carmen, however, does not talk slow at all. In addition, she has the most significant Southern Spain accent of any Spaniard with whom I converse with on a regular basis. Andalucia is famous for their accent being completely impossible to understand, because it's like they don't finish their words, and they leave out letters in the middle. Most Spanish speaking people clearly say, “Hasta luego!” when they part. Marí Carmen always hollers, “Haaa lueo!” to us as we walk out the door. The first time we had dinner with them, she walked up to the table and said, “Quemapa?” My mind felt like a turtle, or like a blob of jam, as I'm thinking, “quemapa, quemapa, quemapa, WHAT IN THE WORLD DOES THAT MEAN!?” and then as she began to say it more, we realized she was saying, “Quieres más pan?” (Do you want more bread?) I mean, even if you don't speak Spanish, I am typing it exactly how it is supposed to be said, and exactly how she says it. Andalucians are so hard to understand!!

So our most favorite tapa restaurant is a Chinese bar called Feng Shui, I'm sure I've mentioned it prior to now. Tinto del Verano is 1.80 euros and 1.90 with a tapa of your choice, and the tapas are delicious. We go there at least 3 times a week and have since our first week in Granada. Part of the reason we go is because we enjoy the people who work there. Originally, there was Pink Polo (who always, every single day, wears a Pink Polo), Graphic Tee (who always, every single day, wears a graphic tee-though he wears different ones each day), and the Boss (who never does or says anything, and has gray hair and a red shirt and is always smoking a cigarette and leaning against the wall). They are all Chinese, and Pink Polo and Graphic Tee are very short (I once accidentally elbowed him in the head because he walked by me and I didn't know he was there and I was telling a story with my hands like I always do). We love how they say “tapaaa” in their Spanish language but Chinese accents, and we love how Pink Polo can divide our bill exactly just by looking at it and without using a calculator. Recently, we asked Pink Polo what his name is, and it's Linche. See, this is how we start to feel like we belong in Granada! Anyways, PePe and all of his tapa recommendations led us to tell him our most favorite tapa place. He always says, “no me gusta el chino, no me gusta el chino.” (I don't like....chinese?) And we always assumed he meant the food but then a few days ago he was telling us that at Chinese restaurants they cook actual people, and Marí Carmen said he's crazy and just laughed about it like she does with everything else. But then we started to think, well maybe PePe doesn't like actual Chinese people? So today, when he said that again, I asked him, in Spanish of course, “So, do you not like Chinese food, or Chinese people?” And.........PePe doesn't like Chinese people. Or Chinese food. Awkward! But it was just so humorous how he says it every single time we talk about going to Feng Shui!

Moving on. Last Friday, there was a party at a discoteca called Camporio, which is in the Sacromonte neighborhood (the old Moorish neighborhood) of Granada. The party was specifically geared towards international students, and we heard the disco was beautiful so we decided to go. It really was the coolest club I've ever been to. There are two floors, and outside steps between the two with an outdoor terrace. The terrace and the top floor both look across the river with an absolutely stunning view of the Alhambra at night. We walked across town and finally found the place, and the cover charge was 6 euros with a drink. This is the first time I've paid to get into a discoteca since being in Spain, Courtney and I (and by Courtney and I, I pretty much mean Courtney) usually work the people to let us in for free, or we go to specifically free events. There were a ton of people and the music was perfect, a good mix between Spanish pop and tons of American dance songs. We got our first drink and danced and danced and danced, and after awhile I wanted a second drink. I made the mistake of asking for a rum and coke and not asking how much it was. After it was already poured, the bartender told me it was 6 euros and kind of shrugged at me as my jaw dropped to the floor. 6 euros is like $8!! For a drink! I mean, I guess it was a learning experience, I won't be buying drinks at a discoteca anymore! But it was still really annoying and frustrating because what a waste of money. After that I was tired and my feet hurt but my friends were having a blast so I kinda chilled. At about 3 am, I was dancing with Courtney, and two of the people in our program, Megan and Tony. We were just doing our thing, moving to the music and laughing with each other, when this random guy reaches across Megan and shoves Tony. We all stopped dancing and just looked at the guy in utter confusion, as Tony did absolutely nothing to deserve this. Now, I have to explain that Tony is seriously one of the nicest people I have ever met. He is this great kid from Massachusetts and he is so genuine, and so friendly all the time. He is also very Italian, short, athletic, and very attractive. When the guy looked at him and tried to go towards him again, Megan stepped in front of the jerk to tell him to stop, I grabbed Tony's arm and pulled him to the other side of me, and Courtney stood between the two sides looking dumbfounded and completely confused at what was going on, as this whole situation was entirely unwarranted. Our efforts did nothing, as the guy swung past Megan, nearly hitting her in the face. I heard a glass break (which I later learned was Tony's that he threw to prepare to defend himself) and that's when I lost my protective instinct and decided it was probably best if I get outta there. I booked it through the people so I wasn't in the midst of the chaos and Courtney followed me. We turned as people were diving in to help and a Spanish guy asked us if we were okay and we were honestly so shocked we could hardly come up with the Spanish words to explain what the hell had just happened. The “almost fight” was broken up and we went back to Tony, who told us the guy punched him in the face but he didn't fight back. It was so bizarre! I have never experienced anything like it, because Tony wasn't doing anything, he was just with us having a good time! He decided to leave because he didn't want something worse to happen, and we were all kind of bummed out by the whole situation and so pissed at that jerk of a guy. So, honestly, Camporio, for me, wasn't the party it was supposed to be and was more of a lost night.

Saturday night, however, was amazing. API suggested that we go to a free concert outside of Granada, a fairly famous flamenco-chill singer Chambao. She has just recently recovered from cancer and this concert was sort of a break out concert after her sickness. I didn't really know anything about her but we spent like 5 or 6 hours at this place where there was a bunch of live music, food, and a flea market type thing where I got henna done on my foot. Her concert started around 11:45 or midnight (strange, I know) and went till about 2. I was exhausted but we were so close on the floor and it was a great concert! I love her music! I just couldn't believe it was free, it was such a steal, like a legit concert and everyone knew the words so I know she must be famous! It was nice to go out and do something here in Spain that didn't revolve around drinking, and overall it was just a really good night. I am hoping for more experiences like that in the near future!

I am going to finish with saying that tomorrow is kind of a big day, the remainder of the fall API group is arriving tomorrow. There are about 30 of them, and it's going to be pretty strange to have them around when our group has such a tight bond and we feel really established in Granada. Also, I am bummed because Pablo, our other resident director, got fired. For good reasoning, but I loved Pablo! He was my favorite resident director. The weekend we went on our San Jose Beach Trip, Pablo was supposed to come with us but he didn't show up because he was so hungover from the Zaidin Music Festival the night before. Pretty irresponsible. But I'm still so sad because he was so much fun. Now, Eli's sister is the new RD and I haven't met her yet but I probably will tomorrow or Friday.

Alright I'm done! Sorry this has been so long, I will try to write more frequently in the future so that reading my blog isn't such a task. But again, I probably will continue to do this because I only have the time and energy to write once in awhile. Miss you all and love you more! MacKenzie

No Wonder Elmer Fudd Wanted to Kill Bugs Bunny (my anecdote)

2009-09-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

Courtney and I are sitting at the dinner table, starved as usual after waiting for our royal family to commence their own dining at lunchtime. I haven't eaten since 9 this morning and it's 3 pm, and the empty carbs of my bread and margarine breakfast have long since worn off. I am completely ravenous for nourishment. Set in front of us is a bowl of the most savory, delicious looking meat, a plate of fried potatoes, a basket of bread, and half a small watermelon. Excellent. Time to dine.

Upon eating a bite of the saucy meat, which is rich and tastes sort of like prime rib meets BBQ chicken wings (in a good way) we wonder what kind it is. To me, it just tastes beefy, so obviously it's just beef! Courtney isn't so convinced. And really, I shouldn't have been so certain either because no beef has bones so small that when you take an average sized bite you have to fish out the bones from your mouth so you don't choke on them. We ponder what it could be, and honestly, it's delicious, so I really don't want to know. My mind wanders back to sophomore year when I ate a traditional Filipino meal at Blythe Conde's 16th birthday party, and I later found out that I had consumed an entree well known for being cooked in pig's blood. I love food. I would rather just be oblivious to what cute barnyard delicacy I'm munching on and not think about the short, aimless life they led before their inevitable end at the chopping block.

However, Courtney, aka Curious George, could not withhold the urge to discover, unfortunately. “¿Marí Carmen, que tipo de carne es esto?” (Marí Carmen, what type of meat is this?) “Ah, conejo. Es muy rico, ¿no? Mi hijo lo compró en el campo, estuve muy caro.” (Ah......It's delicious, right? My son bought it in the country and it was really expensive.) We missed the whole animal thing because it was unfamiliar word to us. As we ask Marí Carmen what a “conejo” is, she explains, “es pequeño, como un perro, ¡como un perrito!” My stomach drops. (It's small, like a dog, like a puppy!) Oh shit. Where are we, Thailand? And she starts making hand gestures by putting her hands in cups over her head like ears, while I am frantically trying to think of what animal this culture would consider “like” a dog, that is in fact edible as well.

Slightly terrified, I stand up and walk into my room to obtain the answer to my worst fears. I grab my small, green, Merriam Webster's Pocket Spanish-English Dictionary and flip the book from back to front, eyeing the right hand corner, I skim through, “raddle,” “ivy,” “tostar,” “pómulo,” “despiadado,” and finally to the page I need. I find what I'm looking for and my stomach flops with queasiness while my lungs simultaneously let out a small sigh of relief. Rabbit.

I tell Courtney the news and she isn't phased. She continues to put down that carne like there's no tomorrow. I settle with the potatoes, bread, and watermelon for the remainder of my meal, while Courtney chuckles and makes bad bunny jokes, and I recall my mom's stories of her childhood on the rabbit farm that used to sell the bunnies to the “rabbit man.” Well, now I know where the rabbits go when they go to the rabbit man...

Towards the end of lunch, Courtney goes, “mmmm, well now I know why Elmer Fudd wanted to kill Bugs Bunny so bad!”

Hey, it's been awhile!

2009-09-15T11:12:00.000-07:00

So, sorry everybody for the lack of storytelling. I have been meaning continually to get on the dang computer and write, but when I do I usually get caught up on facebook and email and trying to figure out random stuff about being here. But here I am, finally! I recently Video I-chatted w/ Patty, which was so great to see and talk to her!

Things have been quite eventful. Basically, life in Granada has been fairly routine, there are a few things though that I want to make sure I cover.
1. My food experience, which I may just post a 2nd blog for as I sort of wrote a short little anecdote of it already.
2. My weekend trip to San Jose
3. The baby that basically lives with us
4. The Spanish movie that I went to see
5. Zaidin festival
Alright, here goes...

So, we have a baby pretty much living with us. Marí Carmen takes care of her grandson, David, who is 13 months old, Monday thru Friday, from like 7 am-7 pm. You see what I mean? And since lunch is the big meal here as opposed to dinner, David's mom and dad come to the house for lunch every single day of the week to eat with her parents (my host parents). Are you following me? Good. So we have an absolutely adorable little child living with us that pretty much only says, "Hola, guapa!!" Which is exactly what the Spaniard men cat call to us on the street when we walk around. No wonder these Spanish guys are out to get some, they're trained from birth, as we are witnessing! This baby is Marí Carmen and Pepe's pride and joy. He can do no wrong. He screams when he is held, when he is fed, when he is told not to do something. Awesome. Every day, without fail, my nap is woken up around 6:30 pm by little David screeching at the prospect of eating. It's alright, I love babies and I play with him sometimes, but it just gets a little old, especially when we didn't know a baby was going to be there at all. And we figured we would be free on the weekends, but Sunday night when we returned from our beach excursion, who was there? The child and his mom. They know no separation of familial ties here! Ha, but I suppose it's alright. It is España, after all. However, one strange thing here. I like to do my homework in my room with the door open so that I can hear the banter of my host family chatting in a sorry attempt to understand their Andalucian accents. Little David the baby always crawls into my room, "hola, hola, guapa...." and his mom always pulls him out of my room and shuts the door with an apologetic look on her face. I'm really not sure if she thinks he's bothering me or if she doesn't want him in my room period. Either way, it's strange, because obviously I don't mind the baby if it's not screaming, which it usually isn't if you're not touching it haha! Cultural difference, I guess.

OK, moving on. Last week we were given the option to see a Spanish movie with API. I figured I would go because it's part of what I paid for and a good experience to learn to comprehend Spanish better. We went to see the movie "Agallas," and I have honestly not been more horrified at a film in my life. It was about drug trafficking in Galicia, which is a region in northern Spain. I understood the gist of it, but they spoke SO fast. It was so hard to understand the actual words and the only words I could honestly pick out were "joder, mierda," etc. (Look them up if you must) I was really surprised by the graphic images of sex, violence, etc. In comparison to the US I felt like there was no censor. Which, also makes me think of the news here, which is actually REAL news. It's not the crap MSN, CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC, etc. that we watch in the US that is just full of people bullshitting with each other and arguing about stuff we as viewers don't even have proof actually existed. The news here is oftentimes real footage, that is graphic and honest, be it violent, sexual, whatever. For news, I like it here better, because it's not a bunch of crap, it's what is really going on and you're not deceived by all kinds of pretty people debating with each other. ANYWAYS, back to the film. I just felt it was shockingly graphic, not to mention I wasn't really into the content. It was a good experience though, and I'm definitely going to continue to go to our Spanish movies every month because one, it's my only opportunity to eat popcorn, two, it's free, and three, it helps me learn my Spanish.

Last Friday a few friends and I made quite a hike across town to the Zaidin neighborhood for a free concert that our resident director Pablo told us about. What we encountered was a huge carnival/festival with rides, music, food, flea market, and tons of people! It was like the Puyallup Fair! Ha just kidding, the rides were mostly kiddy rides and sort of lame but the vibe was the same, except better because there weren't creepy carnies and the Spanish vibe to anything is always better! We moseyed around a bit and made our way over to the concert, which was rock music that I couldn't understand (even though they were British). It was loud and fun and I am not really into that type of music but the tunes fit the vibe of the locale, so it was fun. The hike back home was really long but I enjoyed chatting with people. I am loving the people in my program, there's only 18 or 19 of us total, so we've gotten to know each other pretty well.

The next morning (Saturday, the 12 of September) we left for San Jose with the entire program. After a 3 hour bus ride we finally made it to our oasis, heaven on earth. (Refer to facebook for pictures, if you don't have one, get one.) We stopped at a supermarket to grab water, snacks, etc, and walked 30 minutes to a HUGE, secluded, beautiful beach called La Playa de Genoses. This particular beach happened to be nude. I saw many body parts that I would have preferred not to see, but to each their own I suppose! Laying out in the sand and swimming in the Mediterranean with the sun blazing down on me, I was in heaven. For me, that is the ultimate vacation. I don't like to bother with museums and tours and fees, I just like to be one with the sand and the sea and the sky. That's all it takes. Eli, our other resident director brought her mom with her and we had fun on the beach just talking in Spanish. It was kind of interesting, we started discussing health care in Europe and the United States and it was really interesting hearing their perspective and us giving our opinions. This was all in Spanish, keep in mind! After 4 or 5 hours of ultimate relaxation, we made the hike back to the town, and showered and went out to dinner at a delicious Italian pizza place. Following dinner, the entire group went out to the beach again. Now, I have never been to the beach at night until then, I realized right away. What a shame! How romantic and relaxing and exciting and everything else wonderful, right? I will live near a beach someday. (The Puget Sound doesn't exactly count, unless all the rocks miraculously turn to sand). We all sat and drank and laughed and played "Never have I ever" (learning some interesting things about people, might I add), and I just looked around and realized how much I love this, how much I love being here, and how it is so crazy that I was afraid of not meeting people and making friends. The group of us are all SO unique, but we have in common the fact that we're here, and I love it, because it's what really brings us together. It will be so strange when the rest of our group arrives in a few weeks. Anyways, eventually, a few people left, and I suggested the best idea ever: skinny dipping. Now, I have skinny dipped once in my life prior to this, on an unbearably hot evening in Bellingham when 5 of us decided to sprint into Lake Padden in the nude. It was completely exhilarating. I was not about to pass up the experience of doing the same thing in the Mediterranean Sea, with awesome people and a bit of sangria in my system. Upon the presentation of the idea, some people were skeptical, others were all for it, as we saw quickly when Tony promptly stripped and sprinted into the water. Michelle followed suit quickly, as did Sam. Eventually we were all in the water, cracking up at how our actions in the US would be completely taboo but here in San Jose, at 11 pm at night, with probably 10 other people on the same beach, our actions were completely normal and probably not worth such an excessive amount of laughter. Eventually the chilliness took it's toll and we all lumbered out, not really caring that we were all naked and standing on a beach laughing and shivering. We got dressed, some went home, and I went out with people and bar hopped and danced the night away. :) Cliche, I know! The next day was essentially another beach day, but this one much cooler and completed with an intense game of futbol (soccer) in the sand where we all discovered just how out of shape we are but it was still a blast. I love soccer so much, I wish I was better at it though! We left the beach and were all out on the bus, totally exhausted from the weekend and ready to head back to home, Granada. Upon arriving the weather was freezing. (I'm sure it was like 65 or 70 degrees fahrenheit, but hey it felt dang cold!)

Since then the weather hasn't really been hot anymore, I've worn jeans all week to school, and sweats after class. Feels like home? There was a downpour for maybe a half hour today, it was kinda nice because it felt like home. I still love it here. I don't think it'll ever stop. We're in the process of trying to organize trips to Morocco, Barcelona, Portugal, and Belgium. We can fit it all in! I am making the most of my time here, I want to do so much, it's tough to fit it all in. Oh! Last thing, I discovered a bar right next to my apartment that has free WIFI if you buy a drink, for as long as you want, which is so much of a better deal than the dang internet cafe because you get a drink, a tapa, and internet! I love Spain. Anyways, much love from me to you, hope the US is treating you well. I heard about Obama's bomb speech, Kanye's Taylor Swift intervention, and Patrick Swayze's death. Guess what, I'm still glad to be here! :) haha. OK. hasta luego!
MacKenzie

"Chicas......comida!!"

2009-09-04T13:40:00.000-07:00

So, I´m pretty sure that Marí Carmen and Pepí have no clue what our names are. It´s all good though because I just love hearing Pepí sing to us, "Chicas....comida!" when it´s time to eat. More recently we have been eating lunch with them and Pepí is very adament that we both find a Spanish boyfriend with lots of dinero (money) and he is also very encouraging of going to fiestas todas las noches (partying every night).

The lifestyle here is SO different. I´m not even kidding. Seriously, students and even regular adults party ALL NIGHT LONG. But the partying is different than the US. Nobody is getting wasted, (well people are but it´s pretty rare), it´s simply going out, staying out late, drinking a little, meeting people and talking and taking pictures and having a good time, flirting it up! The hours of everything are totally different. For me, breakfast is at 8 am before school, lunch is at 2 pm after we come home from school, and dinner is between 8 pm and 9 pm. Siesta occurs between 2 and 5 pm usually. Everything closes down except for major stores, but most restaurants and shops shut down for a few hours mid day. And that, I suppose is when everyone gets the remainder of their sleep from being out the night before! I´m not a very good napper, so I have kind of just been losing sleep because of the late night habits and my inability to nap. I will get used to it one way or another though.

Hhhmmm...let´s see...I´ve had my first two days of school now, and I love it so much. I feel kind of unchallenged because I placed into high intermediate for this month. However it´s only the first few days and I´m sure things will pick up. Plus, it will be nice to have it somewhat easy at the beginning and the opportunity for a little review. I love my teachers, they are so much more animated than college professors back home. I have 9 people in my class (I kid you not. NINE.) This makes it so much easier and it feels so natural to participate because ít´s having a conversation instead of a lecture or discussion group. School is a half hour walk from home, so that´s an hour of walking around just with going to and from school. We walk EVERYWHERE we go. It is the sole reason I have not gained weight. Literally I haven´t even used public transit since being here. And honestly I love it! I will miss the Green Machine which has now been handed over to Jordan, and I will miss cruising around Bellingham but there is something about wandering aimlessly around Granada and getting lost in the maze of streets that is so adventurous and almost magical. (except for when it´s at 2 or 3 in the morning and you really just want to go home and go to bed and you think that the streets must be set up in square blocks because that´s how most cities are but then you find out you are very very wrong, haha. This has happened to Courtney and I twice already and we´ve only been here a week.)

The weather here is so dang hot. It´s pretty cool in the morning but it´s been in the 90´s I´m sure every day, not completely positive because I can´t read celsius but it´s SO HOT. We have air conditioning in our apartment but it is only turned on when Pepí is home and he turns it on. Patriarchal society, interesting, no? Because of all the walking and the heat, Shannon, Courtney and I have reasonably justified our consumption of helado (ice cream) every single day we´ve been here. However, today we have not had it yet! Amazing! I am pretty sure I´ve maintained and possibly even lost weight. The food here is getting pretty good, it´s almost like Marí Carmen didn´t want us to have too high of expectations so she started out alright and has been cooking way better food lately. We eat ham, paella (a Spanish rice dish), we had beef today, lots of bread still, lots of fruit, etc. Love it!

Last night we participated in "el botellon", an event that takes place late at night in a plaza in Granada where lots of young people congregate and basically drink wine and sangria for cheaper than the bars. It is prohibited everywhere else in the city except for that plaza. Our host parents highly encouraged us to go as it´s a good way to meet Spanish students. This is all so interesting, this "going out" business.

OK, well I better get going. Tonight is Friday night so we´re headed to our favorite place for tapas, a Chinese bar called feng shui. The tapas are delicious-chicken wings, calamari, rice, etc. Then who knows where the night will take us. Tomorrow we´re hoping to take the bus and spend the day at the beach. Excelente!

Besos, MacKenzie

A fast paced life.

2009-09-01T14:29:00.000-07:00

Alright, we're in dire need of a catch-up, otherwise the havoc and chaos in Madrid and my first impression of Granada will go completely undocumented. Not good! This entry is going to be super long and quite detailed, so please don't get too bored and realize that this is a quick way for me to journal as well as to relate my stories to all of you. Oh, and a word of warning—to all the family and friends (aka teachers) that are following my blog, please understand that I'm a 19 year old girl in Europe studying abroad, so there will be references to drinking and clubbing. If you find this either unacceptable or are unprepared for this, stop now! :) I will no longer give warning in my blogs, just know that if you're reading this almost anything is up for grabs, so don't go into a state of shock and call my parents or beg God to forgive me or whatnot. I'm in España, need I say more?

Madrid: Overall, the city was muy grande for me (way too freaking big). It's a cosmopolitan type city like NYC, London, Paris, etc. Tons of people, tons of tourists, from everywhere in the world. Upon initial arrival I was in an extremely exhausted, very surreal state where I could not for a second comprehend the fact that I was located in España and my family and friends were still far behind in Arlington, Washington. Almost immediately I latched on to my roommate, Courtney, from Memphis, Tennessee, and we've pretty much been inseparable since. We've also been hanging out with Shannon from Texas (city unknown....Temple maybe?), and the three of us have had a blast together exploring Madrid (read further for interesting details!)

Anyways, my very favorite tourist activity that we partook in was visiting El Prado museum, which houses some of the most famous and quality paintings in the world. I was surprised and impressed to see Las Meninas by Diego Velazquez, because I remembered studying that painting back in Señor Latorre's class in 10th grade. I could have stayed in the Prado for many hours longer, but our time was crunched so I only saw the most famous, tour-guide explanation worthy paintings. The Royal Palace was whatever, I didn't care for it much. Once you've seen one palace you've pretty much seen them all, and the King's lunch, dinner, sleeping, dressing rooms get old. El Escorial, an hour bus ride away from Madrid, was amazing. Our tour guide was the cutest old man, and he was so funny. Everyone is so touchy feely here, the tour guide grabs our arms, guides us where we need to go, everyone greets one another with a kiss on each cheek; personal space is not considered important, or really existent for that matter. I kind of like it, surprisingly. El Escorial is a centuries old monastery that is still in use today. It's massive, with something like 11 miles worth of corridors and 10 acres in size or some gargantuan size like that. I have a wild imagination, so I was definitely traveling back in time to when the 16th century monks spent their entire days walking the halls of the monastery, spending their days in silence, praying. Quite cool. However, I can't help but to admit that I keep thinking about the Da Vinci Code and how some of these European historical landmarks were the locales for some creepy happenings, even if they were holy. Historically correct, I know, right!?

Honestly, the nightlife in Madrid is amazing. We got into 3 clubs for free and got all free drinks simply because we're females. Oh, the societal standards we live in! We only went to the clubs one night, the other nights we went out for sangria with the entire API group or out for “churros y chocolate.” Delicioso! Club numero uno: Free, and a free “sex on the beach” drink. Very smoky, and the three of us got the stink eye from a young Spaniard woman who apparently didn't want any American girls there. We kind of received the stare down everywhere we went, though. Think about it. We have Shannon—tall, freckles, strawberry blonde hair, very pale. Courtney—beautiful, African American with a cute little figure and a sassy attitude, and me, tall and all curly blonde haired and big eyed, not to mention that I smile at everyone, girls apparently don't really do that here. We stick out, our little trio. By the way, lots of the Spaniards call me “rubia” here, meaning blonde, which is strange because at home I'm just the boring dirty blonde! Anyways, here we meet Freddie, Oscar, and another whose name escapes my memory. Freddie seemed to be infatuated with me, and explained that in Spain “we kiss” and called me mi amor countless times as we left and made our way to a new locale...bar hopping, we couldn't stay long in one place!

Club numero dos: kinda sketch, lots of older people, and the music was pretty unfamiliar, but fun in a Spanish salsa sort of way. We headed to the dance floor, and we soon discovered we were being tracked by a few gentlemen. This reinforced our conclusion that we can't really enter a Spanish club unnoticed. Awesome! Here...not so much. :) Drunk man grabs Shannon and starts tango-ing or something with her, and then 6'6” 135 pound disco man starts dancing with Courtney. And over to me comes the prize of the group, and I'm actually not even being sarcastic. A tallish guy, sort of Spanish/Middle Eastern looking comes up and we dance a little, chat a little, I start in Spanish then discover that he's British (awesome, I know right!). He seems to take a liking to me, and asks if I'd like to have a drink with him. Upon my saying yes, he wheels toward the bar to grab something. Thinking like a truly responsible 19 year old young lady, I follow him, because nobody is giving me a drink that I don't see leave the bartender's hand! :) Ha....so my friends were a bit weirded out by disco man and drunkie, and it was apparent that they were itching to leave. So after chatting with Sonny (el British cute man) about school, soccer, and a variety of other random topics, I say it was wonderful to meet him but I have to leave. He promptly requests my phone number. I don't even know my phone number here! I'm in a foreign country. I will only be in Madrid for two more days. This guy is 5 years older than me (not a big deal, but ya know). I've never even had a guy ask for my number, much less a foreign guy who I literally just met and I don't even know how expensive the phone bill would be to talk to him. These were the many things going through my mind, some of which I explained, some of which I didn't. So, I said no, much to his disappointment. He sent me off with a peck on the forehead, saying, “Well, here's to the first and last time we meet, MacKenzie.” …..and I left with a wave and a smile. I kind of regret not getting his number.

And club numero tres: Ladies Night: Free entry, free drinks. My kind of place, I like bargains. Oh, and lots of muchachos. We were first humored by the completely serious bartender who did not show one ounce of emotion, and although he was fairly attractive, it was apparent that the bar was the last place in the world he wanted to be. Oh, by the way-mixed drinks in España=half alcohol, half mixer. Not so tasty. Here we encountered some very humorous young guys that were a lot of fun to practice Spanish with, dance, and laugh and take pictures. Courtney meets Javier, and their potential love is now long in the works, because she wasn't a baby and got his number when he suggested. Overall, such a fun night of clubbing, a taste of the nightlife in Madrid, and we were exhausted the next morning with four hours of sleep but can't wait to do some more dancing here...

Moving on. I shouldn't go into as much detail as that because it takes forever but the first Spanish clubbing night was too memorable to not document. We're now in Granada. Courtney and I are living with our host family, Marí Carmen and her husband Pepi. They are in their 40's or 50's and speak absolutely no English, not even hello! They are so funny and they like to go out and party a bit themselves! We have our own bedrooms which I have just purchased a fan for, as there is no AC and it's like 95 degrees all the time. The food is...interesting. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day here, and our lunches that Marí Carmen makes us have been getting progressively better. We eat bread for breakfast every day, and for dinner it's usually a sort of hodge podge of fruit, cheese, bread, and usually some strange thing that we aren't sure what it is but we still eat it anyways. They don't eat much meat here. It's pretty much lots of carbs: bread, potatoes, fruit, etc. We have been practicing our Spanish as much as possible. I mostly hang out with Shannon and Courtney, because we like to be away from the big group. API is great for a starter but it's definitely harder to meet locals when you're in a group of 10 Americans than if you're with only 3. We have discovered a cheap bar for drinks and tapas, a Chinese place that is small and not filled with Americans.

Today I took my intensive language placement test and I placed into the high intermediate class for the month of September. I will have 4 months of intensive language so by the time December rolls around, I should have completed the high intermediate, advanced, high advanced, and superior language classes. And next semester I will be more than prepared to take the Hispanic Studies program, because my Spanish should be so much better by then. School starts on Thursday and I seriously can't wait, as dorky as that sounds. I just can't wait to learn more in class and get more comfortable with speaking so that I can utilize it more in my everyday life here. I'll be going to class from 9-1 Monday-Friday. Good schedule except for the fact that many students party until 6 am, even on school nights.

Today Shannon, Courtney and I made a pact to speak in Spanish for our walk back from the CLM (Centre de Lenguas Modernas) and we ended up speaking Spanish straight through for probably an hour and a half. It's tough, trust me. We went and hung out at Shannon's house (her mamá allows her to have guests, ours doesn't) and there we met an 18 year old guy named Tomás and got some practice speaking with him. He was fixing the shower in their bathroom, and we're hoping to get his number so that we can hang out with him and practice Spanish some more! I really can hardly believe how much my confidence in speaking and listening have both improved over only a week, I can only imagine what the progress will be like after an entire semester here with school!

Well, that is all for now I guess, I am off to the internet cafe to post this, (I'm writing in mi casa, but we don't have internet here), and then we're going to the bars tonight to celebrate our scores on the placement exam! Till next time, hope I didn't bore you too much with my stories! :)

Hasta luego, MacKenzie

So Surreal.

2009-08-26T06:26:00.000-07:00

This cannot possibly be real. I am just hanging out in Madrid. I'm not going to Western in the fall. I have the opportunity to learn a beautiful language and go out for drinks and tapas all the time. I can't help but notice the plethora of stunning, jaw droppingly beautiful Spanish men that seem to just be meandering through the streets here. Excellent.

The goodbyes were tough. Saying goodbye to Lena was a tearjerker Monday night, and when my mom was hugging me I couldn't help but imagine how hard it would be to say goodbye to her without someone to comfort me afterwards. Walking away from my mom, Jordan, and Patty at the airport this morning...or...yesterday morning? I'm not sure...just may have been one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life. But I did it, and I think the hardest part is over.

Except for the exhaustion. ;) I slept here and there on the plane, nothing consistent. We have a meeting in about 3 hours to talk about our Madrid excursion then we'll go to an API dinner tonight. I may take a short nap otherwise I don't know if I'll make it without falling asleep in my dinner.

Meeting people has been good thus far, my roommate Courtney and I recognized each other from facebook & hugged right away! She's real sweet, and she's from Tennessee so she says ya'll!! I anticipate that this will bring constant joy to my life. The food...expensive, simple, and I'm just not sure what to order. Spent about $7 on a very small sandwich thing and a sprite. This will be interesting to observe while I'm here, seeing as currently, the Euro completely obliterates the dollar in value.

OK, I really want to take a nap but probably shouldn't...who knows. Till next time, maybe by then I'll have a better grasp on reality. I'm in Spain!

Tomorrow!!

2009-08-24T16:13:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm making my final preparations to leave. I feel like I'm taking WAY too much, but don't really know what to cut back on. I can't believe I'm finally leaving tomorrow, I have essentially no time left and it's crazy. I am going to miss my family and friends here in the US so much. Hopefully this blog will be an opportunity to keep up with everyone back home and still experience Spain to the fullest. I'm so scared!! But I'm actually starting to get pretty excited, which is obviously good. I have no idea when classes start, what exact classes I'm taking, what books I need, anything. Scary. But I just have to go with the flow! :)