Sun. June 27th
I got to sleep in again today (Yay for 2 days in a row!). I had made plans with my friends to go the beach at Illetes, but then 2 of my friends decided to spend the day with their padres, which was fine. So it was just my friend Lentner and me at the beach. We took a bus and got there around 1:15 PM. It was pretty crowded since it was an insanely hot day. We found a place to sit and set up camp. Since there were only 2 of us, we decided that it would be safest if only one of us went swimming at a time while the other hung back and guarded all of our stuff and valuables. (We recently had 2 cases of pick pocketing wallets and 1 stolen phone in our Arcadia group, so everyone was being extra cautious and alert).
Our buddy system worked out very well and I was able to go swimming and dunk my head about 4 times throughout the day. I read my book, took a siesta, talked, and hung out. We decided to leave around 5:30 PM since we both had to get back and study for our final exam that was tomorrow.
After I got back and showered, I went on my computer for a bit and was able to Skype with my parents who just returned from a one-week cruise to Bermuda and ports in the U.S. It was nice seeing their faces/hearing their voices again and we compared tans and got caught up on stories from the past week. :) After that, I reviewed my notes and studied for my final exam in my Spanish language class. There wasn’t too much I could do to study and I feel that I’ve been immersed in the language for the past four weeks, so I’m sure I’ve retained most of it. My other project for the evening was writing a letter to my host parents, Loli and Jaime. I wrote them a letter first in English (to have for my own records) and then wrote it in Spanish. I thanked them for all that they’ve done for me, for being the best host parents that I could ever imagine, and gave them my contact information so we can keep in touch. I really hope to be able to visit Mallorca and visit them again sometime soon!
Mon. June 28th
Wow, my final Monday here. At 11 AM, I met at a bookstore called “La Biblioteca de Babel” which named after a story we had to read today by Jorge Luis Borges. The funny/confusing part is that “biblioteca” means library in Spanish, not a bookstore. We had our literature class there today and got to talk about the story in a relaxed atmosphere while surrounded by books. While we were there, my Lit professor told us that she had calculated our final grades. I was very excited to learn that I received a 9.05 on a scale of 10 which translates on the American scale to a solid A! Woo hoo! :D
We had class for 2 hours and then we were allowed to leave to continue studying for our last final in our language class. But first I had a little adventure of my own to complete. A couple of days ago, I asked Loli a series of random questions to attempt to figure out what types of flowers she likes because I wanted to buy her a bouquet as a thank you present. She told me she likes white flowers, especially Jasmine, and likes ones that smell good. I went to a flower shop behind my store and asked the woman if she had a bouquet of Jasmine flowers. She told me that Jasmine is actually a plant, but she showed me another beautiful white flower that she called “Star” in English, because it has 5 pointed petals. She also said they smell amazing when they fully blossom. I decided to buy a bouquet of those and she decorated it and tied it up to make it look very pretty. She also took a small clothespin and attached the letter I had written on the inside of the bouquet.
I returned home about 5 minutes later carrying the bouquet behind my back and then presented it to Loli. She was very surprised and told me how pretty they looked! I then showed her the note and she began to read it. I know that she’s very emotional and thought that she might tear up at the end of the letter. Well she started tearing up after reading the first paragraph, and it was a 2 page letter written in Spanish. I kept asking her if she was okay and she assured me she was. She told me that it was beautifully written and my grammar was very good too and she gave me a biiiig hug. She kept saying “gracias, gracias” and I thanked her again too, for everything. She told me she’d go find a tall vase so she could proudly display them.
After lunch, I continued to study for my final a little bit more. At 4:15 PM, I left my house and walked to my university, for the last time. The exam wasn’t too bad but there were certain vocab words that I had never seen before in my life. When I asked my professor if she could explain them to me, she said that I should know them because they were in our textbook (which I’m certain they weren’t). They were also some weird verbs that had very irregular conjugations that I didn’t quite remember. Other than that, the test wasn’t too bad. We also had to pay for our 2 textbooks today and they cost 40 E. (We were kind of hoping our professors had forgotten that we had never paid at the beginning of the month, but no such luck).
After our final exam, we headed downstairs to enjoy a reception/party with all the other students and our families too. Some parents couldn’t come because they were working, but there was still a big turnout. It was really fun to meet the padres of my friends and I kind of wished that we had had a similar party at the beginning of the program so we could have gotten to know them for a longer time. Alice planned the entire party and brought lots of yummy sandwiches, pastries, delicious chocolate cake, and champagne. We all enjoyed the food and mingled with the other students and their parents. Loli came with me and we had a lot of fun. She got to meet my two professors who said very nice things about me, and she also got to meet another madre who lives right on her street.
Around 8:30 PM we walked back home together. I Skyped and talked with people for a little bit and then we ate dinner around 9:45 PM (a little bit later than usual). Loli and I were pretty full from the appetizers we ate at the party, so she just made me 2 hamburger patties with a side of bread, which was quite yummy. After dinner I got all caught up on my blog writings (since I haven’t had a chance to write these past four days) and I started working on a couple of other projects I need to complete before I leave.
I’m kind of in shock/denial that I only have 2 full days left in Palma before I board a plane to start my long journey home. I know that saying goodbye to my extended family is going to be hard and saying goodbye to Loli and Jaime is going to be even more difficult. It’s funny how I’ve only known them for 4 weeks but it feels like they’ve been a part of my life for much longer than that. Yet on the other hand, I know my American family and friends are very much looking forward to my arrival.
Hopefully I’ll be able to update my blog 1 last time before I leave and if not, I’ll finish it when I return back home. Hasta luego to my Spanish friends, and see you soon to my American friends!
Monday, June 28, 2010
June 25-26 – Alcúdia and a Swimming Pool
Apologies in advance for not posting this sooner. I'm going to post back-to-back entries from the past 4 days so make sure to read them all! :)
Fri. June 25th
On our last Friday together, our group decided to go to Alcúdia for the day. Alcúdia is located in northern Mallorca and is one of the peninsulas of the island. We got the 11 AM bus and the bus ride was about an hour long. We didn’t know too much about the city, so we talked to a woman in Spanglish at the information desk. She told us that if we wanted to go to the beach or catch a bus to Formentor (the other peninsula), we would have to walk to the Porto de Alúdia (the Port). So we walked about 15 minutes to get to the port.
After we got there, we realized that the next bus to Formentor wasn’t until 2:45 PM, so we decided to go the beach for about an hour. The beach was gorgeous. The water was very clear. The water closest to the shore was a turquoise blue color and further away it was a dark blue color. We saw people parasailing, wind surfing, and using paddle boats that had slides on the back of them. I went in the water for a bit and then read my book and relaxed on the beach. Around 2:20, we headed back to where the bus stop was to go to Formentor. Some of our friends from the program have previously been with their padres and they said that there’s an amazing look-out point off of one of the cliffs, so we were excited to see that. We then realized that the bus ride was going to be 40 minutes long and the next bus wouldn’t return back to Alcúdia until 5:30 PM. We were starting to hesitate about whether we wanted to do this or not, but then our decision was made for us when the bus never showed.
Most of our group decided to head back to the beach, but my friend Ashley really wanted to see the Roman ruins that were in Alcúdia so I headed back to the town with her. Unfortunately for us, we found out that the ruins and the museum closed at 2 PM for the day. (Wish the information desk lady had thought to pass that info along when we asked about the ruins…). However, we found a small fence and wall and were able to walk around the perimeter and catch glimpses of the ruins. It wasn’t the same as seeing them close up, but it was better than nothing. Afterwards, we walked around for a bit and explored the city. We came around some ancient castles/fortresses and one had a staircase that led to a path the circled the fortress above the ground. So pretty much we were able to walk around this pathway and look down on the houses and roofs and get a pretty awesome view of the city. It was really cool and I took some pictures.
We returned back around 5:30 PM to catch the bus home and met up with the rest of the group. Most of us slept or listened to music on the ride home since the sun really tires you out. After I got back, I hung out with my padres for a little bit and then ate dinner and watched the fútbol game. My friends and I were pretty tired so we decided to rest up and save our energy to go to the discoteca the following evening since it would be our last Saturday night in Palma.
Sat. June 26th
I got to sleep in until 11:30 AM today and it was pretty awesome. I definitely needed to catch up on sleep after my mini finals week. I had made plans with my family to go to Toni’s mother’s house because she has a swimming pool. Sira, the granddaughter, slept over our house the night before so I played with her for a while before it was time to go.
Toni’s mother wasn’t there so it was just the regular crew: Loli, Jaime, and Paca; Eva, Toni, and Sira; Mame, Virginia, Jaime, and Miguel; and me. This would be the first time I was in a pool all summer and I was excited to experience chlorine water after all of the salt water in the Mediterranean Sea. The pool water was pretty cold, but all of the grandkids were fearless. We all swam around together, they would jump and their moms would catch them, and we tossed around a ball too. After about an hour of swimming, everyone got out and dried off and got ready for lunch. I had chicken, tortilla de patata (a round cake-like object that tastes like eggs and potatoes that I actually really like), and eggplant meat (which I first had shortly after I came here). It was all very yummy.
I sunbathed by the pool for a bit and then the grandkids wanted to go in again. This time I got to be one of the “catchers” and Jaime would jump into the water with a big splash and then latch onto my arms. The kids had a lot of fun and I did too. After we toweled off again, Jaime presented me with a piece of paper that had a drawing on it. On the top was his complete name (he has 4 last names). The drawing was of a sun and a swimming pool and in the pool he had drawn little people and had labeled them Lauren, Sira, Eva, Toni, Mama, Papa, Jaime, Miguel, y Abuela. It was the cutest thing ever! I asked if I could take a picture of it and then he told me that I could keep it. I gave him a big hug and thanked him for this awesome present.
We returned back home and I showered and then went on my computer for a little while. After dinner, I had made plans with my friends to meet up that night. We first went to the place where there are beer taps on every table and you can serve yourself beer. We also had the biggest group ever going out that night: there were 13 of us from the Arcadia program and then there were also 2 friends that were visiting so all together there were 15! Afterwards, we watched down along the port to get to our favorite disco: Abraxas. We definitely made the most of our last Saturday night together and danced the night away! We returned very late/early in the morning and I shortly went to bed after I got home.
Fri. June 25th
On our last Friday together, our group decided to go to Alcúdia for the day. Alcúdia is located in northern Mallorca and is one of the peninsulas of the island. We got the 11 AM bus and the bus ride was about an hour long. We didn’t know too much about the city, so we talked to a woman in Spanglish at the information desk. She told us that if we wanted to go to the beach or catch a bus to Formentor (the other peninsula), we would have to walk to the Porto de Alúdia (the Port). So we walked about 15 minutes to get to the port.
After we got there, we realized that the next bus to Formentor wasn’t until 2:45 PM, so we decided to go the beach for about an hour. The beach was gorgeous. The water was very clear. The water closest to the shore was a turquoise blue color and further away it was a dark blue color. We saw people parasailing, wind surfing, and using paddle boats that had slides on the back of them. I went in the water for a bit and then read my book and relaxed on the beach. Around 2:20, we headed back to where the bus stop was to go to Formentor. Some of our friends from the program have previously been with their padres and they said that there’s an amazing look-out point off of one of the cliffs, so we were excited to see that. We then realized that the bus ride was going to be 40 minutes long and the next bus wouldn’t return back to Alcúdia until 5:30 PM. We were starting to hesitate about whether we wanted to do this or not, but then our decision was made for us when the bus never showed.
Most of our group decided to head back to the beach, but my friend Ashley really wanted to see the Roman ruins that were in Alcúdia so I headed back to the town with her. Unfortunately for us, we found out that the ruins and the museum closed at 2 PM for the day. (Wish the information desk lady had thought to pass that info along when we asked about the ruins…). However, we found a small fence and wall and were able to walk around the perimeter and catch glimpses of the ruins. It wasn’t the same as seeing them close up, but it was better than nothing. Afterwards, we walked around for a bit and explored the city. We came around some ancient castles/fortresses and one had a staircase that led to a path the circled the fortress above the ground. So pretty much we were able to walk around this pathway and look down on the houses and roofs and get a pretty awesome view of the city. It was really cool and I took some pictures.
We returned back around 5:30 PM to catch the bus home and met up with the rest of the group. Most of us slept or listened to music on the ride home since the sun really tires you out. After I got back, I hung out with my padres for a little bit and then ate dinner and watched the fútbol game. My friends and I were pretty tired so we decided to rest up and save our energy to go to the discoteca the following evening since it would be our last Saturday night in Palma.
Sat. June 26th
I got to sleep in until 11:30 AM today and it was pretty awesome. I definitely needed to catch up on sleep after my mini finals week. I had made plans with my family to go to Toni’s mother’s house because she has a swimming pool. Sira, the granddaughter, slept over our house the night before so I played with her for a while before it was time to go.
Toni’s mother wasn’t there so it was just the regular crew: Loli, Jaime, and Paca; Eva, Toni, and Sira; Mame, Virginia, Jaime, and Miguel; and me. This would be the first time I was in a pool all summer and I was excited to experience chlorine water after all of the salt water in the Mediterranean Sea. The pool water was pretty cold, but all of the grandkids were fearless. We all swam around together, they would jump and their moms would catch them, and we tossed around a ball too. After about an hour of swimming, everyone got out and dried off and got ready for lunch. I had chicken, tortilla de patata (a round cake-like object that tastes like eggs and potatoes that I actually really like), and eggplant meat (which I first had shortly after I came here). It was all very yummy.
I sunbathed by the pool for a bit and then the grandkids wanted to go in again. This time I got to be one of the “catchers” and Jaime would jump into the water with a big splash and then latch onto my arms. The kids had a lot of fun and I did too. After we toweled off again, Jaime presented me with a piece of paper that had a drawing on it. On the top was his complete name (he has 4 last names). The drawing was of a sun and a swimming pool and in the pool he had drawn little people and had labeled them Lauren, Sira, Eva, Toni, Mama, Papa, Jaime, Miguel, y Abuela. It was the cutest thing ever! I asked if I could take a picture of it and then he told me that I could keep it. I gave him a big hug and thanked him for this awesome present.
We returned back home and I showered and then went on my computer for a little while. After dinner, I had made plans with my friends to meet up that night. We first went to the place where there are beer taps on every table and you can serve yourself beer. We also had the biggest group ever going out that night: there were 13 of us from the Arcadia program and then there were also 2 friends that were visiting so all together there were 15! Afterwards, we watched down along the port to get to our favorite disco: Abraxas. We definitely made the most of our last Saturday night together and danced the night away! We returned very late/early in the morning and I shortly went to bed after I got home.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
June 23-24 – 3 Final Exams, Organic Farm, and San Juan Festival
Wed. June 23rd
Today we had our oral exam presentation in Literature class. Ashley and I presented our 2 poems first and our presentation lasted about 45 minutes. Our professor said we did a good job so hopefully that will equate to a good grade. We had made plans the day before to be picked up in front of my house by Alice, who was going to take us to her organic farm. She’s not the owner of the farm but she owns a section of the land. We also went with her 2 daughters, Carmen and María.
We got to see all of the organic products in the Farm Shop, look at Alice’s crops, and watch her 2 daughters cut some lettuce and tomatoes to take back home. I also experienced a milestone event: I ate my first real fruit/vegetable. Alice offered us some of the baby tomatoes and when I told her I had never had one before, she and Ashley peer pressured me into eating it. It wasn’t that bad, but I definitely prefer ketchup and tomato sauce. :) We had a picnic lunch that Alice had made. She made a sandwich that had an omelet with tomatoes inside. It was definitely a new food to me. Afterward we played the game Mancala. María showed me her way of playing the game and I showed her mine. Afterwards, I got the opportunity to relive my childhood. There were 2 playgrounds on the farm. One was a tree house and the other one had a seesaw, tire swings, and regular swings. It was a lot of fun!
Our Spanish language class was at 5 PM that day instead of 4:30 and Alice dropped us off directly at the University since it was about 4:55 PM by the time we got back. She also gave us vegetables from her farm to give to our host parents. It was definitely a long day because I never had the opportunity to return to my house during my normal break. After I ate dinner, I had to decide whether I should stay in and study for my Lit final exam the next day, or go out because it was the Festival of San Juan, which is a huge giant party on the beach and in front of the Cathedral. I decided to go check it out since my class is only a pass/fail class and I didn’t want to miss out on this cultural experience!
Ashley and I headed down to the Cathedral around 11 PM and the party was already in full swing! There was fire everywhere: bonfires, people twirling fire on sticks, fire crackers, fireworks, and flame throwers. You’ll have to see my pictures on Facebook in order to see the visual proof of what I’m talking about. I took 2 videos and I’m going to attempt to upload them on Facebook too. I also had the interesting experience of being chased by demon men holding fire. They would literally run into the crowd with fire in their hands and chase the people. All I can say is the Spaniards sure know how to throw a good party! We also saw the opening songs of the Mallorquin rock band that played around midnight.
As I was walking home, I saw a woman that had the same color bag and capris pants as my madre Loli was wearing. She decided to go check out the parties on the beach and was then going to come home. I called out “Loli?” and the woman turned around and it was her! We started screaming, hugging, and laughing about what a funny “Casualidad” it was to meet up randomly on the street. I was extremely happy because now I didn’t have to walk all the way home alone because there were a lot of creeps and weirdos out that night, and everyone had been drinking at the party. I got back home around 1 AM, continued studying for my Lit final exam for a few hours, and then finally went to bed.
Thurs. June 24th
Today was the day of the written final exam in my Literature class. I had studied all of the different periods, knew the characteristics and authors, and thought I was pretty well prepared. And then I looked at the test. There were only 4 questions and it was out of 10 points (because that’s how the Spanish grading scale works). So the first question was worth 2.5, the second one was 3.5, the third question was 2.5, and the final question was 1.5. I knew a majority of the answers but got tripped up on the last one because the wording was very unclear. I had no clue so I made up my own answers…and they were wrong. After the test my professor said, “Don’t worry! It’s over and done with!” but I was still concerned about it.
In order to revive our spirits, Ashley and I went to the café near the school and got some yummy chocolate pastries, because chocolate makes everything better. :) I then went back home and had a glorious 2 hour nap. I very much needed that siesta! Then I had lunch, watched a TV show on my laptop, and began uploading pictures from my camera to my computer from the previous week. And soon it was time for Spanish language class.
Today in our language class, we had our oral final exam. We were shown a piece of paper with pictures on it and needed to answer the questions that appeared on the page. My randomly selected sheet happened to be about food and trying new foods. So I pretty much used my entire Mallorcan experience and, with the help of my blog, was able to say all of the Spanish names of the foods I have tried so far here. I explained to my professor that most of the foods that were new to met were “normal” foods to the rest of the world. I also had to answer the question of “What do you think of people who eat whale, dolphins, kangaroos, and dogs?” Gut reaction/personal opinion? “Eww, gross! People eat dolphins?” How I answered the question in Spanish? “I think it depends on a person’s cultural background which determines what they eat. What is strange in one culture might be quite normal in another.” And my final question was “Do you believe it’s better to be a vegetarian?” I answered that personally, I wouldn’t survive as a vegetarian because I don’t eat vegetables and I looove meat. But yes, it’s probably more healthy and you aren’t consuming as many dangerous chemicals and aren’t at risk of getting Mad Cow Disease, haha.
After we were done our oral exam, we were allowed to leave so I got home an hour earlier than I normally do. The rest of the evening I got caught up on my blog entries, uploaded 213 pictures to Facebook (check them out!), and hung out with my padres. It was a very relaxing evening at the end of an insanely, hectic week.
Today also marks the beginning of my final week in Mallorca / 1 week until I’m back home in the U.S.A. I still have mixed feelings about leaving. Some of my friends on the program wish they were already home while others are staying on for a little longer or wish they could permanently relocate here. I’m definitely going to miss this place and the excitement of my daily life here but when the time comes, I’m sure I’ll be insanely happy when reunited with my friends and family.
Hasta luego, loyal readers!
Today we had our oral exam presentation in Literature class. Ashley and I presented our 2 poems first and our presentation lasted about 45 minutes. Our professor said we did a good job so hopefully that will equate to a good grade. We had made plans the day before to be picked up in front of my house by Alice, who was going to take us to her organic farm. She’s not the owner of the farm but she owns a section of the land. We also went with her 2 daughters, Carmen and María.
We got to see all of the organic products in the Farm Shop, look at Alice’s crops, and watch her 2 daughters cut some lettuce and tomatoes to take back home. I also experienced a milestone event: I ate my first real fruit/vegetable. Alice offered us some of the baby tomatoes and when I told her I had never had one before, she and Ashley peer pressured me into eating it. It wasn’t that bad, but I definitely prefer ketchup and tomato sauce. :) We had a picnic lunch that Alice had made. She made a sandwich that had an omelet with tomatoes inside. It was definitely a new food to me. Afterward we played the game Mancala. María showed me her way of playing the game and I showed her mine. Afterwards, I got the opportunity to relive my childhood. There were 2 playgrounds on the farm. One was a tree house and the other one had a seesaw, tire swings, and regular swings. It was a lot of fun!
Our Spanish language class was at 5 PM that day instead of 4:30 and Alice dropped us off directly at the University since it was about 4:55 PM by the time we got back. She also gave us vegetables from her farm to give to our host parents. It was definitely a long day because I never had the opportunity to return to my house during my normal break. After I ate dinner, I had to decide whether I should stay in and study for my Lit final exam the next day, or go out because it was the Festival of San Juan, which is a huge giant party on the beach and in front of the Cathedral. I decided to go check it out since my class is only a pass/fail class and I didn’t want to miss out on this cultural experience!
Ashley and I headed down to the Cathedral around 11 PM and the party was already in full swing! There was fire everywhere: bonfires, people twirling fire on sticks, fire crackers, fireworks, and flame throwers. You’ll have to see my pictures on Facebook in order to see the visual proof of what I’m talking about. I took 2 videos and I’m going to attempt to upload them on Facebook too. I also had the interesting experience of being chased by demon men holding fire. They would literally run into the crowd with fire in their hands and chase the people. All I can say is the Spaniards sure know how to throw a good party! We also saw the opening songs of the Mallorquin rock band that played around midnight.
As I was walking home, I saw a woman that had the same color bag and capris pants as my madre Loli was wearing. She decided to go check out the parties on the beach and was then going to come home. I called out “Loli?” and the woman turned around and it was her! We started screaming, hugging, and laughing about what a funny “Casualidad” it was to meet up randomly on the street. I was extremely happy because now I didn’t have to walk all the way home alone because there were a lot of creeps and weirdos out that night, and everyone had been drinking at the party. I got back home around 1 AM, continued studying for my Lit final exam for a few hours, and then finally went to bed.
Thurs. June 24th
Today was the day of the written final exam in my Literature class. I had studied all of the different periods, knew the characteristics and authors, and thought I was pretty well prepared. And then I looked at the test. There were only 4 questions and it was out of 10 points (because that’s how the Spanish grading scale works). So the first question was worth 2.5, the second one was 3.5, the third question was 2.5, and the final question was 1.5. I knew a majority of the answers but got tripped up on the last one because the wording was very unclear. I had no clue so I made up my own answers…and they were wrong. After the test my professor said, “Don’t worry! It’s over and done with!” but I was still concerned about it.
In order to revive our spirits, Ashley and I went to the café near the school and got some yummy chocolate pastries, because chocolate makes everything better. :) I then went back home and had a glorious 2 hour nap. I very much needed that siesta! Then I had lunch, watched a TV show on my laptop, and began uploading pictures from my camera to my computer from the previous week. And soon it was time for Spanish language class.
Today in our language class, we had our oral final exam. We were shown a piece of paper with pictures on it and needed to answer the questions that appeared on the page. My randomly selected sheet happened to be about food and trying new foods. So I pretty much used my entire Mallorcan experience and, with the help of my blog, was able to say all of the Spanish names of the foods I have tried so far here. I explained to my professor that most of the foods that were new to met were “normal” foods to the rest of the world. I also had to answer the question of “What do you think of people who eat whale, dolphins, kangaroos, and dogs?” Gut reaction/personal opinion? “Eww, gross! People eat dolphins?” How I answered the question in Spanish? “I think it depends on a person’s cultural background which determines what they eat. What is strange in one culture might be quite normal in another.” And my final question was “Do you believe it’s better to be a vegetarian?” I answered that personally, I wouldn’t survive as a vegetarian because I don’t eat vegetables and I looove meat. But yes, it’s probably more healthy and you aren’t consuming as many dangerous chemicals and aren’t at risk of getting Mad Cow Disease, haha.
After we were done our oral exam, we were allowed to leave so I got home an hour earlier than I normally do. The rest of the evening I got caught up on my blog entries, uploaded 213 pictures to Facebook (check them out!), and hung out with my padres. It was a very relaxing evening at the end of an insanely, hectic week.
Today also marks the beginning of my final week in Mallorca / 1 week until I’m back home in the U.S.A. I still have mixed feelings about leaving. Some of my friends on the program wish they were already home while others are staying on for a little longer or wish they could permanently relocate here. I’m definitely going to miss this place and the excitement of my daily life here but when the time comes, I’m sure I’ll be insanely happy when reunited with my friends and family.
Hasta luego, loyal readers!
June 21-22 – Women Museum & Package from PA
I’d first like to apologize for the delay of this blog entry. I’ve had 2 oral exams and a final exam over the past 2 days, and haven’t had any spare time to type up my entries for the past few days. But now you can read all about them!
Mon. June 21st
Today in my Literature class, my professor told us that since the other U.S. program from Loyola University concluded last week, she doesn’t have to teach a class right after ours. So she asked us if we would like to change our class time from 8:45 – 10:45 AM to 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM. The answer was a resounding YES! Even though this is the last week of class and we only had 3 more classes at this point, I knew that I would definitely appreciate getting an extra hour of sleep each night.
After class, my friend Ashley and I wandered around the city. We went back to this cool underground mall place that we’ve been to once before and I went souvenir shopping for myself and my family. I bought some pretty cool things and I’m excited to give my family their gifts after I return. :) After we were done shopping, we went to this really cool museum that had an exhibit called “Women: Mirror of Cultures.” It was a museum dedicated solely to women that had artifacts and art work from 7 different cultures around the world. There was information about each of the universal themes share by women all around the world (ex. family, society, divinity) and I was able to comprehend all of the signs that were in Spanish. It was a really cool exhibit, but we weren’t allowed to take any pictures of it. So I only took mental pictures. ;)
For lunch that day, Loli made me my very first hot dog in Spain. It was really yummy! When I returned from my Spanish language class, I noticed a piece of paper on top of the mailboxes in the lobby and it said that Loli had received a package. I knew that it was the package my mom had sent Loli’s grandchildren, but I kept it a secret and didn’t say anything. Loli said she’d have to go to the post office the following day to pick it up and she had no idea who it was from.
After our Spanish language class, all 15 people in our program went over our friend Kaitlyn’s house for Taco Night! Kaitlyn went to the store and bought all the necessary things in order to have a taco buffet. It was really fun! Afterwards, all 15 of us went to the plaza behind my house to watch the fútbol game because España was playing. Spain won 2-0 and everyone was going crazy after the win. It was definitely worth it to experience the excitement of watching Spaniards watch fútbol.
That night was Fany’s last night with us. Her flight back home was at 7 AM the next morning and she had to wake up at 5:30 AM. We hung out and talked for a while and had fun. I’m really glad that I got to meet her and that it worked out that she was here in Palma for one of the four weeks that I’m here. And I also have her to thank for introducing me to the song “Pam Pam Americano”!
Tues. June 22nd
Today was our last normal Literature class before finals begin. Our professor went into more detail today about what our oral exam presentation had to include. We were paired up into 2 pairs (since there’s only 4 kids in my class), and were assigned 2 poems to read. We had to research the biography of the author, a bibliography of the author’s works, the literary characteristics, our interpretation of the poem, and the elements that both poems have in common. And oh yeah: this oral presentation was to last between 30 minutes to 1 hour! I actually really liked the poem I was assigned and was also a fan that it was rather short.
During our break between classes, I brought my lap top over to Ashley’s house so we could work on our oral exam project together. She introduced me to Google Documents which is really the coolest thing ever! It allows you to open a new Word Document, PowerPoint, Excel spreadsheet, etc. and then you can share that link with another person. Then both you and the other person can edit, make changes, and work on the document directly online and see the other person’s changes as you work. We decided to make a PowerPoint presentation. We worked on the elements in common and decided to do the rest of the project by ourselves later that night since it was due tomorrow. We went out to a café and shared a pasta dish for lunch, and then I returned back home.
When I got home, I casually asked Loli if she had gone to retrieve the package. She said that it wasn’t there when she sent and she’d have to wait another two days. Then, I went to my Spanish language class. I asked my professor (for the 2nd time), if she had corrected and emailed me back an essay that I had written over a week and a half ago and she answered “No…I wasn’t able to open it because I have a Mac computer. Can you send it to me again?” I told her I’d save it as a different file format but realized that if I hadn’t bugged her again about returning it to me, I probably never would have known that she wasn’t able to open it and would have received a 0 on it. You just got to love when teachers are like that.
I returned home from school and when I walked in the door; Loli turned to me and said, “You know something, don’t you?” I assured her that I didn’t know what she was talking about, and she led me into the kitchen and showed me a huge package sitting on the table. She said, “I checked the address and it’s your address so it must be from your parents!” I told her that it was and that I had kept this secret/surprise from her. Fortunately for us, Sira happened to be over the house that day and was there when we opened the package.
Loli cut the package open and she and Sira started to remove all of the presents. I ran to get my camera to take pictures because Sira’s face lit up like it was Christmas! My mom had sent her 6 Disney princesses books in English so that she can learn the language better and it came with a CD that reads the stories to you. There was also 2 Disney Classic Storybooks (1 for Sira and 1 for Jaime and Miguel). There was another Disney princess book that came with a little music player that plays songs without lyrics and you can listen to it without headphones. There were 2 racecars for the grandsons and a book from the Pixar movie Cars that came with crayons and paint to paint-by-number. There were some really cool necklaces from my brother’s Bar Mitzvah that have flashing lights and a cool reflective surface. But the gift Sira was most obsessed with was a rainbow Slinky. I showed her how to hold it and how you can make it go from side to side. I also taught her how to put it over her arm like a bracelet and then we went into the hallway to make it go down the stairs. The stairs were too far apart so Loli got out a step ladder and we made the Slinky go down the 4 steps on the back patio outside. Sira’s face was awesome and she totally loved it! Then Jaime came home and Loli showed him all of the goodies that had arrived all the way from “Pennsilvania”!
My mom had also written a note to Jaime and Loli in Spanish (with a little bit of help from me) that thanked them for their hospitality and for being awesome host parents. Loli told me to tell my parents Thank You x a million for all of the presents for their grandkids!
After dinner, it was time to get working on my oral exam PowerPoint. I had a really hard time getting the Wi-Fi to work and was getting nervous that I wouldn’t be able to connect to the Internet. Thankfully I finally got on and was able to finish up everything. I stayed up pretty late and would have to wake up early the next morning to handwrite my notes that I would say during the presentation.
Ok now you’re all caught up! Next blog entry will be posted later today. :)
Mon. June 21st
Today in my Literature class, my professor told us that since the other U.S. program from Loyola University concluded last week, she doesn’t have to teach a class right after ours. So she asked us if we would like to change our class time from 8:45 – 10:45 AM to 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM. The answer was a resounding YES! Even though this is the last week of class and we only had 3 more classes at this point, I knew that I would definitely appreciate getting an extra hour of sleep each night.
After class, my friend Ashley and I wandered around the city. We went back to this cool underground mall place that we’ve been to once before and I went souvenir shopping for myself and my family. I bought some pretty cool things and I’m excited to give my family their gifts after I return. :) After we were done shopping, we went to this really cool museum that had an exhibit called “Women: Mirror of Cultures.” It was a museum dedicated solely to women that had artifacts and art work from 7 different cultures around the world. There was information about each of the universal themes share by women all around the world (ex. family, society, divinity) and I was able to comprehend all of the signs that were in Spanish. It was a really cool exhibit, but we weren’t allowed to take any pictures of it. So I only took mental pictures. ;)
For lunch that day, Loli made me my very first hot dog in Spain. It was really yummy! When I returned from my Spanish language class, I noticed a piece of paper on top of the mailboxes in the lobby and it said that Loli had received a package. I knew that it was the package my mom had sent Loli’s grandchildren, but I kept it a secret and didn’t say anything. Loli said she’d have to go to the post office the following day to pick it up and she had no idea who it was from.
After our Spanish language class, all 15 people in our program went over our friend Kaitlyn’s house for Taco Night! Kaitlyn went to the store and bought all the necessary things in order to have a taco buffet. It was really fun! Afterwards, all 15 of us went to the plaza behind my house to watch the fútbol game because España was playing. Spain won 2-0 and everyone was going crazy after the win. It was definitely worth it to experience the excitement of watching Spaniards watch fútbol.
That night was Fany’s last night with us. Her flight back home was at 7 AM the next morning and she had to wake up at 5:30 AM. We hung out and talked for a while and had fun. I’m really glad that I got to meet her and that it worked out that she was here in Palma for one of the four weeks that I’m here. And I also have her to thank for introducing me to the song “Pam Pam Americano”!
Tues. June 22nd
Today was our last normal Literature class before finals begin. Our professor went into more detail today about what our oral exam presentation had to include. We were paired up into 2 pairs (since there’s only 4 kids in my class), and were assigned 2 poems to read. We had to research the biography of the author, a bibliography of the author’s works, the literary characteristics, our interpretation of the poem, and the elements that both poems have in common. And oh yeah: this oral presentation was to last between 30 minutes to 1 hour! I actually really liked the poem I was assigned and was also a fan that it was rather short.
During our break between classes, I brought my lap top over to Ashley’s house so we could work on our oral exam project together. She introduced me to Google Documents which is really the coolest thing ever! It allows you to open a new Word Document, PowerPoint, Excel spreadsheet, etc. and then you can share that link with another person. Then both you and the other person can edit, make changes, and work on the document directly online and see the other person’s changes as you work. We decided to make a PowerPoint presentation. We worked on the elements in common and decided to do the rest of the project by ourselves later that night since it was due tomorrow. We went out to a café and shared a pasta dish for lunch, and then I returned back home.
When I got home, I casually asked Loli if she had gone to retrieve the package. She said that it wasn’t there when she sent and she’d have to wait another two days. Then, I went to my Spanish language class. I asked my professor (for the 2nd time), if she had corrected and emailed me back an essay that I had written over a week and a half ago and she answered “No…I wasn’t able to open it because I have a Mac computer. Can you send it to me again?” I told her I’d save it as a different file format but realized that if I hadn’t bugged her again about returning it to me, I probably never would have known that she wasn’t able to open it and would have received a 0 on it. You just got to love when teachers are like that.
I returned home from school and when I walked in the door; Loli turned to me and said, “You know something, don’t you?” I assured her that I didn’t know what she was talking about, and she led me into the kitchen and showed me a huge package sitting on the table. She said, “I checked the address and it’s your address so it must be from your parents!” I told her that it was and that I had kept this secret/surprise from her. Fortunately for us, Sira happened to be over the house that day and was there when we opened the package.
Loli cut the package open and she and Sira started to remove all of the presents. I ran to get my camera to take pictures because Sira’s face lit up like it was Christmas! My mom had sent her 6 Disney princesses books in English so that she can learn the language better and it came with a CD that reads the stories to you. There was also 2 Disney Classic Storybooks (1 for Sira and 1 for Jaime and Miguel). There was another Disney princess book that came with a little music player that plays songs without lyrics and you can listen to it without headphones. There were 2 racecars for the grandsons and a book from the Pixar movie Cars that came with crayons and paint to paint-by-number. There were some really cool necklaces from my brother’s Bar Mitzvah that have flashing lights and a cool reflective surface. But the gift Sira was most obsessed with was a rainbow Slinky. I showed her how to hold it and how you can make it go from side to side. I also taught her how to put it over her arm like a bracelet and then we went into the hallway to make it go down the stairs. The stairs were too far apart so Loli got out a step ladder and we made the Slinky go down the 4 steps on the back patio outside. Sira’s face was awesome and she totally loved it! Then Jaime came home and Loli showed him all of the goodies that had arrived all the way from “Pennsilvania”!
My mom had also written a note to Jaime and Loli in Spanish (with a little bit of help from me) that thanked them for their hospitality and for being awesome host parents. Loli told me to tell my parents Thank You x a million for all of the presents for their grandkids!
After dinner, it was time to get working on my oral exam PowerPoint. I had a really hard time getting the Wi-Fi to work and was getting nervous that I wouldn’t be able to connect to the Internet. Thankfully I finally got on and was able to finish up everything. I stayed up pretty late and would have to wake up early the next morning to handwrite my notes that I would say during the presentation.
Ok now you’re all caught up! Next blog entry will be posted later today. :)
Sunday, June 20, 2010
June 19-20 – Cuevas del Drach & Paella with the Family
Sat. June 19th
Today, our group organized our own excursion to the Cuevas del Drach in Portocristo. We took a coach bus at 11:10 AM from Palma to Portocristo and it was about an hour and a half bus ride. We got there a little bit before 1 PM, but had to wait to go on the next tour at 2 PM. We explored around a little bit and walked along a trail that lead us to the sea. The sky was really cloudy and it looked like it was going to storm any minute. Luckily it didn’t rain but we heard a ton of thunder.
At 2 PM, we lined up to enter the caves (“cuevas” = caves by the way). There was a long ramp going through the caves and we got to see all the stalagmites and everything. When we bought our tickets, we noticed that there was a little picture of a camera with an X through it, but we weren’t sure how severely they were going to enforce not taking pictures. Turns out there were guards stationed every few feet and when they saw us with our cameras out they quickly said “No cameras por favor….No cameras please!” I only got about 3 decent pictures and then stopped but other group members were able to be pretty sneaky and snapped a few more. They promised to put them on Facebook and share with the rest of us.
After walking a little further, we found an area that had bleachers to sit on. We were told to take a seat and this is where the concert was going to be. We also learned some background/history of the caves. Las Cuevas del Drach extend for almost 2,400 m (7,900 ft) and includes internal heights of 25 m (82 ft) above the cave floor. The caves were discovered in 1896. There are also a series of lights placed inside the cave and this was carefully designed by an engineer to further enhance the beauty of the caves.
The concert was really cool: they turned off all the lights where we were sitting and then a boat with little fairy lights on the sides began to slowly glide over the lake in the middle of the caves. There were 3 boats and each boat had a rower. There was a small orchestra sitting on the boat playing classical music. It was quite an experience! After the concert, we were told that we could board a boat in order to get back to the exit of the cave. We managed to fit all 12 of our Arcadian group members on a single boat. We thought the boat ride was going to be much longer than it was, so that was a small disappointment. After exiting the caves, we quickly realized that the reason why you aren’t allowed to take pictures has nothing to do with the fragility of the cave; they simply want you to buy giant souvenir pictures and DVD videos. Ah well, I guess mental pictures will have to suffice.
After we left the caves, we walked down to the center of Portocristo where there was a beach. Two other girls and I opted to go to the beach while the rest of the group decided to explore some of the city. (My feet were still sore from the previous day of hiking 4 hours in flip flops so I was very content to sit on the beach and relax). We got some Burger King for lunch and ate it on the beach. An hour later, we met up with the rest of our group and took a bus home. Most of us were pretty exhausted and fell asleep on the way back.
Later that night, my friends and I went out to see our program director, Jaume, and his band play at a Jazz Club. It was pretty cool seeing him up on stage and he gave the “Arcadia Kids” a shout out. Afterwards, I went to a discotecca with my friends and we danced the night away! This place placed a lot of American music (Black Eyed Peas, Kei$ha, etc.) which was pretty cool since we all knew the lyrics. We had a lot of fun.
Sun. June 20th
I got the opportunity to sleep in today and slept till 11:30 AM, which was good because the last 2 days of excursions really tired me out. The family was originally planning on going to the beach for a few hours, but it was rainy and cold in the morning. I hung out around the house with my padres and Fany.
At 1:30 PM, the entire family came over for lunch. There were 12 of us in total: Loli, Jaime, Paca, me, Fany, Eva, Toni, Sira, Mame, Virginia, Jaime, and Miguel. It was definitely a full house! Loli prepared “paella” for lunch, which is a very popular Spanish dish. The paella included yellow rice, chicken, and gamba (shrimp). I opted not to have shrimp in mine which was okay because the grandkids devoured the extra shrimp. :) I actually really liked it. For dessert, we had ice cream and cake. After lunch, I got to play with the grandkids for a little while. We did puzzles, played with marbles, and played with other toys. It was really nice having the whole family together over at Loli and Jaime (and my) house.
The rest of the day I did some homework, surfed the web, and was able to start watching a new TV show online. Loli came into my room around 7:30 PM and asked me if I wanted to go to her church with her to check it out. I said, “Sure, that sounds like fun!” I wasn’t positive if I was just getting a tour of the church or actually going to services, but it turns out that we purposefully went at 8 PM right after a service had let out. Loli showed me around and explained some of the religious symbols. I asked her if they eat bread and drink wine symbolizing Jesus’ body and blood and she told me that they do. We walked up to the altar and I got to see a Virgin Mary statue and the other religious artwork and paintings. It was a pretty cool experience to see the inside of a typical Catholic church.
After dinner, Loli pulled out 3 photo albums from each of her 3 kids’ first communion. She explained that the first communion happens when you’re about 8 or 9 years old. (And I taught her about the bar/bat mitzvah service that happens in the Jewish religion at age 12 or 13). It was really fun looking at old pictures and seeing how similar her children look then and now. The other cool thing was being able to see some of the same features of the grandkids in their parents’ faces. Fany came in while we were looking at her first communion photo album and we shared the pictures with her.
_____________________________________________________
I can’t believe that I’ve already been here for 3 weeks! This month literally just flew by, which everyone promised us in the beginning it would. This upcoming week is my last full week in Mallorca and my last full week of classes. I know I’m going to be really sad when I leave because I’m leaving behind this gorgeous place and the amazing host family that has welcomed me with open arms into their home and lives. I’m so, so lucky to have been paired with Loli and Jaime’s family. Nevertheless, I’m really excited to see my boyfriend, friends, and family back home, who I’ve really missed over the past 3 weeks. I’m definitely going to make the most of my remaining 10 days here in my island paradise! ¡Adios!
Today, our group organized our own excursion to the Cuevas del Drach in Portocristo. We took a coach bus at 11:10 AM from Palma to Portocristo and it was about an hour and a half bus ride. We got there a little bit before 1 PM, but had to wait to go on the next tour at 2 PM. We explored around a little bit and walked along a trail that lead us to the sea. The sky was really cloudy and it looked like it was going to storm any minute. Luckily it didn’t rain but we heard a ton of thunder.
At 2 PM, we lined up to enter the caves (“cuevas” = caves by the way). There was a long ramp going through the caves and we got to see all the stalagmites and everything. When we bought our tickets, we noticed that there was a little picture of a camera with an X through it, but we weren’t sure how severely they were going to enforce not taking pictures. Turns out there were guards stationed every few feet and when they saw us with our cameras out they quickly said “No cameras por favor….No cameras please!” I only got about 3 decent pictures and then stopped but other group members were able to be pretty sneaky and snapped a few more. They promised to put them on Facebook and share with the rest of us.
After walking a little further, we found an area that had bleachers to sit on. We were told to take a seat and this is where the concert was going to be. We also learned some background/history of the caves. Las Cuevas del Drach extend for almost 2,400 m (7,900 ft) and includes internal heights of 25 m (82 ft) above the cave floor. The caves were discovered in 1896. There are also a series of lights placed inside the cave and this was carefully designed by an engineer to further enhance the beauty of the caves.
The concert was really cool: they turned off all the lights where we were sitting and then a boat with little fairy lights on the sides began to slowly glide over the lake in the middle of the caves. There were 3 boats and each boat had a rower. There was a small orchestra sitting on the boat playing classical music. It was quite an experience! After the concert, we were told that we could board a boat in order to get back to the exit of the cave. We managed to fit all 12 of our Arcadian group members on a single boat. We thought the boat ride was going to be much longer than it was, so that was a small disappointment. After exiting the caves, we quickly realized that the reason why you aren’t allowed to take pictures has nothing to do with the fragility of the cave; they simply want you to buy giant souvenir pictures and DVD videos. Ah well, I guess mental pictures will have to suffice.
After we left the caves, we walked down to the center of Portocristo where there was a beach. Two other girls and I opted to go to the beach while the rest of the group decided to explore some of the city. (My feet were still sore from the previous day of hiking 4 hours in flip flops so I was very content to sit on the beach and relax). We got some Burger King for lunch and ate it on the beach. An hour later, we met up with the rest of our group and took a bus home. Most of us were pretty exhausted and fell asleep on the way back.
Later that night, my friends and I went out to see our program director, Jaume, and his band play at a Jazz Club. It was pretty cool seeing him up on stage and he gave the “Arcadia Kids” a shout out. Afterwards, I went to a discotecca with my friends and we danced the night away! This place placed a lot of American music (Black Eyed Peas, Kei$ha, etc.) which was pretty cool since we all knew the lyrics. We had a lot of fun.
Sun. June 20th
I got the opportunity to sleep in today and slept till 11:30 AM, which was good because the last 2 days of excursions really tired me out. The family was originally planning on going to the beach for a few hours, but it was rainy and cold in the morning. I hung out around the house with my padres and Fany.
At 1:30 PM, the entire family came over for lunch. There were 12 of us in total: Loli, Jaime, Paca, me, Fany, Eva, Toni, Sira, Mame, Virginia, Jaime, and Miguel. It was definitely a full house! Loli prepared “paella” for lunch, which is a very popular Spanish dish. The paella included yellow rice, chicken, and gamba (shrimp). I opted not to have shrimp in mine which was okay because the grandkids devoured the extra shrimp. :) I actually really liked it. For dessert, we had ice cream and cake. After lunch, I got to play with the grandkids for a little while. We did puzzles, played with marbles, and played with other toys. It was really nice having the whole family together over at Loli and Jaime (and my) house.
The rest of the day I did some homework, surfed the web, and was able to start watching a new TV show online. Loli came into my room around 7:30 PM and asked me if I wanted to go to her church with her to check it out. I said, “Sure, that sounds like fun!” I wasn’t positive if I was just getting a tour of the church or actually going to services, but it turns out that we purposefully went at 8 PM right after a service had let out. Loli showed me around and explained some of the religious symbols. I asked her if they eat bread and drink wine symbolizing Jesus’ body and blood and she told me that they do. We walked up to the altar and I got to see a Virgin Mary statue and the other religious artwork and paintings. It was a pretty cool experience to see the inside of a typical Catholic church.
After dinner, Loli pulled out 3 photo albums from each of her 3 kids’ first communion. She explained that the first communion happens when you’re about 8 or 9 years old. (And I taught her about the bar/bat mitzvah service that happens in the Jewish religion at age 12 or 13). It was really fun looking at old pictures and seeing how similar her children look then and now. The other cool thing was being able to see some of the same features of the grandkids in their parents’ faces. Fany came in while we were looking at her first communion photo album and we shared the pictures with her.
_____________________________________________________
I can’t believe that I’ve already been here for 3 weeks! This month literally just flew by, which everyone promised us in the beginning it would. This upcoming week is my last full week in Mallorca and my last full week of classes. I know I’m going to be really sad when I leave because I’m leaving behind this gorgeous place and the amazing host family that has welcomed me with open arms into their home and lives. I’m so, so lucky to have been paired with Loli and Jaime’s family. Nevertheless, I’m really excited to see my boyfriend, friends, and family back home, who I’ve really missed over the past 3 weeks. I’m definitely going to make the most of my remaining 10 days here in my island paradise! ¡Adios!
Saturday, June 19, 2010
June 17-18 – Sa Dragonera Excursion
Thurs. June 17th
My classmates and I have discovered a new awesome game in our Lit class: start talking about something random, get our professor on a tangent, and then speak about this topic for as long as possible. Not that we don’t love discussing Spanish poetry or learning about different eras, but it’s more fun to talk about a topic we’re interested in. For example, our professor was talking about the concept of eternal love so I asked her if she had ever read the book or seen the movie of “The Notebook” or “El Cuaderno” in Spanish. She said no so I gave her a quick summary of it and told her the ending and how it was similar to the poem we just read. Then we started discussing Nicholas Sparks’ other books. Our teacher was really intrigued by them so I opted to go to the front of the classroom and write as many book titles as we could remember on the whiteboard. My prof said that I could teach the class now and sat down in one of the seats and asked, “Do you want to be a professor some day?” And I answered “No, I’m going to be an accountant. But I don’t mind speaking/writing in front of a class.” :) It was a pretty fun class.
During my break today, I came home and chilled out. I also decided it would be a good time to upload pictures to Facebook from the previous weekend. Facebook has a new photo uploader tool that makes it so much easier and I was able to upload, caption, and tag 244 new pictures. (Go check them out if you haven’t already!)
That night, I ate dinner with my padres in the family room because the Mexico vs. France fútbol game was on. I asked Jaime if he preferred France because it was closer or Mexico because they speak the same language (lol). He answered Mexico. We watched them win 2-0 which was pretty exciting. That night I went out to a dance club with my friends and had a really good time. :)
Friday June 18th
Today, I went on an excursion to Sa Dragonera with our whole group and our program director Jaume, who had recently returned from Barcelona. We met up at the university at 9:45 AM. We were instructed to bring 1.5 liters of water and pack a lunch because there weren’t any stores/restaurants on the island and it was going to be very hot. We took a coach bus to where we needed to go. The first thing we noticed after we got off the bus was the *gorgeous* blue water everywhere. I took many photos but the pictures can’t do it justice. Just trust me that it was completely gorgeous.
We then took a ferry boat to get to the island. The island is called Dragonera because “dragonera” means lizard in Spanish. And the island has thousands and thousands of lizards. It’s a natural park so we were told that we were simply visitors in the lizards’ home. There were a couple of girls in my group who weren’t a fan of the lizards being on the trails and everywhere and a couple of guys enjoyed tormenting one girl by making her believe that lizards were on her. (Boys will be boys…) Also, the only thing we were really told about the excursion is that they would be lizards and it’s a beach. So naturally we wore a bathing suit under our clothes, packed a towel, and about half of us wore flip flops. Well, it turned out that the island doesn’t have what I consider a beach (ex. sand and water) and it’s really a hiking place filled with trails. And the real kicker? The trails are all rocky terrain with big pointy sharp rocks. I now have 2 red blisters thanks to my flip flop straps on my feet (but I did survive).
There was a map showing all of the trails in different colors and it said about how long it’d take to walk it one way. We started out on a 30 minute trail to see a lighthouse. The walk was pretty flat and the view of the water, mountains, and cliffs was breathtaking. We then walked 30 minutes back to where we started and went down to a little cove of water. We put our feet in but we had to leave our shoes on because there were jellyfish, sea urchins, and glass in the water. Luckily, the water was very transparent so you could see everything. Suddenly someone from our group called out that they saw an octopus in the water! We all gathered around and saw this pink octopus swimming on its back with its 8 tentacles. It was so cool! Our program director Jaume told us that they’re attracted to the color white, so one of the guys in our group took off his white t-shirt and dangled it in front of the octopus’s eyes. He actually started to follow the shirt, and we were table to take better pictures once the octopus got closer.
We then set out on a trail that was supposed to take 3 hours but we needed to be back at the dock in 3 hours so we only hiked halfway. This trail also had rocky terrain but it was walking uphill the side of a mountain. I was hot, tired, and my feet were killing me…but I trekked on. We walked an hour up and then an hour back down. (So if you’re keeping track, that’s 4 hours of hiking).
We took the last ferry boat of the day back to the mainland. Then we finally got to go to the beach nearby. We literally put our stuff down, stripped off our clothes, and waded into the water. The water was freezing but it felt sooo good. Then the majority of the group, including myself, took a siesta on the beach for about an hour since we were so wiped out. We took the bus back and went our separate ways.
When I got back to my house, Eva, Sira, and Fany were there and had also just returned from the beach. We had a random dance party and I got to see Fany and Sira’s awesome dance moves! ;) Then I ate dinner, Skyped, and went to bed.
My classmates and I have discovered a new awesome game in our Lit class: start talking about something random, get our professor on a tangent, and then speak about this topic for as long as possible. Not that we don’t love discussing Spanish poetry or learning about different eras, but it’s more fun to talk about a topic we’re interested in. For example, our professor was talking about the concept of eternal love so I asked her if she had ever read the book or seen the movie of “The Notebook” or “El Cuaderno” in Spanish. She said no so I gave her a quick summary of it and told her the ending and how it was similar to the poem we just read. Then we started discussing Nicholas Sparks’ other books. Our teacher was really intrigued by them so I opted to go to the front of the classroom and write as many book titles as we could remember on the whiteboard. My prof said that I could teach the class now and sat down in one of the seats and asked, “Do you want to be a professor some day?” And I answered “No, I’m going to be an accountant. But I don’t mind speaking/writing in front of a class.” :) It was a pretty fun class.
During my break today, I came home and chilled out. I also decided it would be a good time to upload pictures to Facebook from the previous weekend. Facebook has a new photo uploader tool that makes it so much easier and I was able to upload, caption, and tag 244 new pictures. (Go check them out if you haven’t already!)
That night, I ate dinner with my padres in the family room because the Mexico vs. France fútbol game was on. I asked Jaime if he preferred France because it was closer or Mexico because they speak the same language (lol). He answered Mexico. We watched them win 2-0 which was pretty exciting. That night I went out to a dance club with my friends and had a really good time. :)
Friday June 18th
Today, I went on an excursion to Sa Dragonera with our whole group and our program director Jaume, who had recently returned from Barcelona. We met up at the university at 9:45 AM. We were instructed to bring 1.5 liters of water and pack a lunch because there weren’t any stores/restaurants on the island and it was going to be very hot. We took a coach bus to where we needed to go. The first thing we noticed after we got off the bus was the *gorgeous* blue water everywhere. I took many photos but the pictures can’t do it justice. Just trust me that it was completely gorgeous.
We then took a ferry boat to get to the island. The island is called Dragonera because “dragonera” means lizard in Spanish. And the island has thousands and thousands of lizards. It’s a natural park so we were told that we were simply visitors in the lizards’ home. There were a couple of girls in my group who weren’t a fan of the lizards being on the trails and everywhere and a couple of guys enjoyed tormenting one girl by making her believe that lizards were on her. (Boys will be boys…) Also, the only thing we were really told about the excursion is that they would be lizards and it’s a beach. So naturally we wore a bathing suit under our clothes, packed a towel, and about half of us wore flip flops. Well, it turned out that the island doesn’t have what I consider a beach (ex. sand and water) and it’s really a hiking place filled with trails. And the real kicker? The trails are all rocky terrain with big pointy sharp rocks. I now have 2 red blisters thanks to my flip flop straps on my feet (but I did survive).
There was a map showing all of the trails in different colors and it said about how long it’d take to walk it one way. We started out on a 30 minute trail to see a lighthouse. The walk was pretty flat and the view of the water, mountains, and cliffs was breathtaking. We then walked 30 minutes back to where we started and went down to a little cove of water. We put our feet in but we had to leave our shoes on because there were jellyfish, sea urchins, and glass in the water. Luckily, the water was very transparent so you could see everything. Suddenly someone from our group called out that they saw an octopus in the water! We all gathered around and saw this pink octopus swimming on its back with its 8 tentacles. It was so cool! Our program director Jaume told us that they’re attracted to the color white, so one of the guys in our group took off his white t-shirt and dangled it in front of the octopus’s eyes. He actually started to follow the shirt, and we were table to take better pictures once the octopus got closer.
We then set out on a trail that was supposed to take 3 hours but we needed to be back at the dock in 3 hours so we only hiked halfway. This trail also had rocky terrain but it was walking uphill the side of a mountain. I was hot, tired, and my feet were killing me…but I trekked on. We walked an hour up and then an hour back down. (So if you’re keeping track, that’s 4 hours of hiking).
We took the last ferry boat of the day back to the mainland. Then we finally got to go to the beach nearby. We literally put our stuff down, stripped off our clothes, and waded into the water. The water was freezing but it felt sooo good. Then the majority of the group, including myself, took a siesta on the beach for about an hour since we were so wiped out. We took the bus back and went our separate ways.
When I got back to my house, Eva, Sira, and Fany were there and had also just returned from the beach. We had a random dance party and I got to see Fany and Sira’s awesome dance moves! ;) Then I ate dinner, Skyped, and went to bed.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
June 15-16 – Fany’s Surprise Arrival, Lots of Rain, and First Exam
Tues. June 15th
After my Literature class today, our housing & safety director, Alice, invited the 4 members of my class to go to a café with her. We all got different types of pastries and mine had chocolate in the middle, which was yummy. We hung out and talked for a while and filled her in on what we did that past weekend and how our homestays were going. It had also poured the night before and was drizzling a bit during the day. I thought my beautiful island was protected against the rain but sadly it’s not always sunny in Palma.
During my break, I started working on my essay for my literature class about Don Quijote de la Mancha that’s due on Thursday. I also had to study for my first exam in my language class that was tomorrow, Wednesday. We originally thought the exam was going to be just on grammar but then in class, our professor said it was going to be on everything that we had covered from the first day of class up until today.
For dinner that night, Loli told me that we were going to eat in the family room so that Jaime and the rest of us would be able to watch the fútbol game on TV. I learned some more vocab words (after desperately trying to describe “the man that stands in the net where the ball goes” a.k.a. goalie or “portero”). At 10 PM, I decided to return to my studying.
About 5 minutes after I went back to my bedroom to continue studying, I heard someone walk through the door, which was weird because everyone that lives in my house was there and accounted for. Then I heard shouting, laughing, crying, and more shouting. Curiously, I walked through the hallway and I first saw Eva and Sira. Then I saw someone I hadn’t met yet and through the process of elimination realized that it was Loli and Jaime’s third child: Fany. Fany lives in Malaga and planned a surprise visit to see her parents! Loli was completely shocked and kept hugging and kissing her daughter. It was a really precious moment. Fany and I were introduced to each other and then I heard the story about how she hadn’t contacted her mom in 2 days and how only Toni and Eva knew about her surprise visit. She’s going to be staying with us for 1 week. While she was talking with us all, everyone kept telling her to speak more slowly because I wasn’t able to keep up. I told them that it was ok and it reminded me how my mom is always telling me to slow down when I talk fast in English, especially when my Nana can’t understand what I’m saying. Some things are universal. : )
After the initial excitement died down and Eva and Sira left, I unfortunately had to return to my bedroom and continue studying for my exam.
Wed. June 16th
Today in my literature class all of us were actually able to stay awake because we talked about random stuff instead of analyzing poetry for 2 hours. We talked about the different disasters that happen in different parts of the U.S. (specifically PA, CA, and AL), and got to talk about random stuff like what the dress codes at our school are and what are we most afraid of. It was a pretty fun class.
After class, I went straight home so that I’d have the maximum amount of time to continue studying for my exam and to write my essay (yes it’s occasionally hard to turn off the devoted student in me…even for a pass/fail course). I was very successful: I napped for a little bit, studied, wrote a page of my paper, and studied again.
All 3 classes had an exam today so they decided to put us all in the same classroom. I was definitely not a fan of the exam: all of the grammar sections were really confusing and didn’t clearly explain if they were looking for present or past tense verbs. There were also 2 random vocab phrases that we had never learned before. And there was 1 section where there could be more than 1 possible answer. I talked to my friends after and the reaction was mixed. While we were taking our exam, our professor was watching the España fútbol game on her computer. She promised she’d tell us if/when Spain scored a goal. After students started finishing up, they joined her in the front of the room. I got to watch the last 13 minutes of the game and watched Spain unfortunately lose 0-1 to Switzerland. Our professor was using very colorful language to describe her reaction to the game, which was interesting.
After the game was over, our professor had previously promised us she would take us out for churros. Six people from our class went and after walking pretty far, we found out that the churros restaurant is closed until June 20th. So then she told us there’s another pretty good dessert place and we walked over there instead. I got chocolate ice cream and ate a piece of my friend’s Ensaymada, which is a typical dish from Mallorca. Afterwards, I returned back home.
After dinner, Loli and I started talking about random things. She told me some stories about Fany and I revealed my embarrassing story that I didn’t know who she was originally, which made Loli crack up. Then we started talking about love and boyfriends so I told her the story of how Josh and I met and she told me how she and Jaime first met. We talked for about 45 minutes and it was really easy to make conversation with her. We also talked about how glad we were that we got paired together and how I’m an example of a successful home stay story. She joked that if she has a future home stay student, they’ll have to compete with my experience because I set the bar pretty high. And I joked that when I return back home, my parents will have to strive to reach Loli and Jaime’s level (just a joke, mis padres reales).
I then decided to finish up the conclusion to my essay and just as I was about to email it to my professor, my internet connection to the Wi-Fi network died. I tried going to the front of the house, and then the spare bedroom, and then the back patio and nothing was working. I started getting nervous because I knew my teacher wanted us to email it to her tonight. Finally, after 40 minutes of struggling, I got a connection and sent the email off 5 seconds later. Success!
Tomorrow is the end of the school week (yay!) and I don’t have any more exams/essays until the following week. And Friday is our last group excursion and we’re going to Sa Dragonera for the entire day. ¡Hasta luego!
After my Literature class today, our housing & safety director, Alice, invited the 4 members of my class to go to a café with her. We all got different types of pastries and mine had chocolate in the middle, which was yummy. We hung out and talked for a while and filled her in on what we did that past weekend and how our homestays were going. It had also poured the night before and was drizzling a bit during the day. I thought my beautiful island was protected against the rain but sadly it’s not always sunny in Palma.
During my break, I started working on my essay for my literature class about Don Quijote de la Mancha that’s due on Thursday. I also had to study for my first exam in my language class that was tomorrow, Wednesday. We originally thought the exam was going to be just on grammar but then in class, our professor said it was going to be on everything that we had covered from the first day of class up until today.
For dinner that night, Loli told me that we were going to eat in the family room so that Jaime and the rest of us would be able to watch the fútbol game on TV. I learned some more vocab words (after desperately trying to describe “the man that stands in the net where the ball goes” a.k.a. goalie or “portero”). At 10 PM, I decided to return to my studying.
About 5 minutes after I went back to my bedroom to continue studying, I heard someone walk through the door, which was weird because everyone that lives in my house was there and accounted for. Then I heard shouting, laughing, crying, and more shouting. Curiously, I walked through the hallway and I first saw Eva and Sira. Then I saw someone I hadn’t met yet and through the process of elimination realized that it was Loli and Jaime’s third child: Fany. Fany lives in Malaga and planned a surprise visit to see her parents! Loli was completely shocked and kept hugging and kissing her daughter. It was a really precious moment. Fany and I were introduced to each other and then I heard the story about how she hadn’t contacted her mom in 2 days and how only Toni and Eva knew about her surprise visit. She’s going to be staying with us for 1 week. While she was talking with us all, everyone kept telling her to speak more slowly because I wasn’t able to keep up. I told them that it was ok and it reminded me how my mom is always telling me to slow down when I talk fast in English, especially when my Nana can’t understand what I’m saying. Some things are universal. : )
After the initial excitement died down and Eva and Sira left, I unfortunately had to return to my bedroom and continue studying for my exam.
Wed. June 16th
Today in my literature class all of us were actually able to stay awake because we talked about random stuff instead of analyzing poetry for 2 hours. We talked about the different disasters that happen in different parts of the U.S. (specifically PA, CA, and AL), and got to talk about random stuff like what the dress codes at our school are and what are we most afraid of. It was a pretty fun class.
After class, I went straight home so that I’d have the maximum amount of time to continue studying for my exam and to write my essay (yes it’s occasionally hard to turn off the devoted student in me…even for a pass/fail course). I was very successful: I napped for a little bit, studied, wrote a page of my paper, and studied again.
All 3 classes had an exam today so they decided to put us all in the same classroom. I was definitely not a fan of the exam: all of the grammar sections were really confusing and didn’t clearly explain if they were looking for present or past tense verbs. There were also 2 random vocab phrases that we had never learned before. And there was 1 section where there could be more than 1 possible answer. I talked to my friends after and the reaction was mixed. While we were taking our exam, our professor was watching the España fútbol game on her computer. She promised she’d tell us if/when Spain scored a goal. After students started finishing up, they joined her in the front of the room. I got to watch the last 13 minutes of the game and watched Spain unfortunately lose 0-1 to Switzerland. Our professor was using very colorful language to describe her reaction to the game, which was interesting.
After the game was over, our professor had previously promised us she would take us out for churros. Six people from our class went and after walking pretty far, we found out that the churros restaurant is closed until June 20th. So then she told us there’s another pretty good dessert place and we walked over there instead. I got chocolate ice cream and ate a piece of my friend’s Ensaymada, which is a typical dish from Mallorca. Afterwards, I returned back home.
After dinner, Loli and I started talking about random things. She told me some stories about Fany and I revealed my embarrassing story that I didn’t know who she was originally, which made Loli crack up. Then we started talking about love and boyfriends so I told her the story of how Josh and I met and she told me how she and Jaime first met. We talked for about 45 minutes and it was really easy to make conversation with her. We also talked about how glad we were that we got paired together and how I’m an example of a successful home stay story. She joked that if she has a future home stay student, they’ll have to compete with my experience because I set the bar pretty high. And I joked that when I return back home, my parents will have to strive to reach Loli and Jaime’s level (just a joke, mis padres reales).
I then decided to finish up the conclusion to my essay and just as I was about to email it to my professor, my internet connection to the Wi-Fi network died. I tried going to the front of the house, and then the spare bedroom, and then the back patio and nothing was working. I started getting nervous because I knew my teacher wanted us to email it to her tonight. Finally, after 40 minutes of struggling, I got a connection and sent the email off 5 seconds later. Success!
Tomorrow is the end of the school week (yay!) and I don’t have any more exams/essays until the following week. And Friday is our last group excursion and we’re going to Sa Dragonera for the entire day. ¡Hasta luego!
Monday, June 14, 2010
June 13-14 – Jaime’s Birthday Party & Art Museum
Sun. June 13th
Today, I got to sleep in late (by my standards)! I slept till 11:30 AM and it was wonderful. At 1 PM, I went in the car with Loli, Jaime, and Paca and we travelled to an ancient castle in Palma. The name of the castle is Castillo de Bellver. It was really pretty and the architecture was pretty awesome. The inside reminded me a little bit of the Collosseum. I took a lot of pictures and Loli climbed all of the steps to reach the top with me.
Afterwards, we headed to Mame and Virginia’s house for the birthday party of their son, Jaime. He turned 6 years old on Wednesday and had a party with his friends and today was the party with his family. Since Mame is the son of Loli and Jaime, I got to meet Virginia’s family. Her parents’ names are Louisa and Javier, she has a brother named Carlos, and a grandmother named Carmen. They were all very nice and I was excited to meet them. There were 15 of us (counting the grandkids) at the party. The kids are their lunch first and then the adults ate. The first course was a type of cold soup that had tomatoes and some other stuff in it. Everyone was teasing me that there was merluza and gamba (hake fish and shrimp) inside of the soup because they knew I had recently tried both of them and didn’t know what they were at first. But I have a good sense of humor and just replied with “Haha, very funny.” The main course was lasagna, which I’m definitely a fan of. Loli also brought the bottle of wine that I got at the bodega (winery) and told everyone that it was from me. It was very good and everyone enjoyed it. For dessert, we had chocolate birthday cake (deliciosa!), vanilla ice cream, and another type of crumb cake.
After lunch, Jaime opened his birthday presents and everyone played with some of them. He got a horseshoes game, a water balloon game, lots of books, a puzzle game, and a game that helps you learn English. I was very excited since I knew all the words in the English game and helped to translate some of them. I played soccer, tennis, and horseshoes with Jaime, Miguel, and Sira. It was a very fun birthday party!
Mon. June 14th
In my literature class, we watched the ancient version of the movie: Don Quijote de La Mancha. Unfortunately for us students, there are no subtitles in either English or Spanish so it was pretty difficult to understand. After class, I wandered around the city and found this free art museum named Museu Fundación Juan March. It was free to the public and had a lot of different styles of art. There were some paintings by Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, and other Mallorcan and Spanish painters. We were allowed to take pictures without the flash so I took pictures of some of the paintings and sculptures.
Last night I found out from my padre Jaime that the big España soccer game is on Wednesday at 4 PM. Unfortunately, I have my Spanish language class from 4:30-6:30 PM. We asked our professor if there was any way we could reschedule class or watch the game in class as a “learning experience” since fútbol is so important here, and our prof replied back that we have our first grammar test on Wednesday. Great.
Sira was over the house when I returned back from class and I got to give her another bath, which was really fun. I learned some additional vocab for the parts of the body in class today and showed my new knowledge of the words elbow, ankle, heel, and waist. Sira hung out with me in my bedroom for a little while and I showed her the pictures I have taken of her so far that are on my computer. I’d ask her ¿Quién es? which means “Who’s that?” and she’s look at the picture and say “Sira y Lauren” or “Sira y Mama.” She’s always so cute .:)
The rest of the night was pretty uneventful: watched some TV shows on my laptop, ate dinner, and then did my copious amounts of homework. And soon bed. ¡Buenas noches!
Today, I got to sleep in late (by my standards)! I slept till 11:30 AM and it was wonderful. At 1 PM, I went in the car with Loli, Jaime, and Paca and we travelled to an ancient castle in Palma. The name of the castle is Castillo de Bellver. It was really pretty and the architecture was pretty awesome. The inside reminded me a little bit of the Collosseum. I took a lot of pictures and Loli climbed all of the steps to reach the top with me.
Afterwards, we headed to Mame and Virginia’s house for the birthday party of their son, Jaime. He turned 6 years old on Wednesday and had a party with his friends and today was the party with his family. Since Mame is the son of Loli and Jaime, I got to meet Virginia’s family. Her parents’ names are Louisa and Javier, she has a brother named Carlos, and a grandmother named Carmen. They were all very nice and I was excited to meet them. There were 15 of us (counting the grandkids) at the party. The kids are their lunch first and then the adults ate. The first course was a type of cold soup that had tomatoes and some other stuff in it. Everyone was teasing me that there was merluza and gamba (hake fish and shrimp) inside of the soup because they knew I had recently tried both of them and didn’t know what they were at first. But I have a good sense of humor and just replied with “Haha, very funny.” The main course was lasagna, which I’m definitely a fan of. Loli also brought the bottle of wine that I got at the bodega (winery) and told everyone that it was from me. It was very good and everyone enjoyed it. For dessert, we had chocolate birthday cake (deliciosa!), vanilla ice cream, and another type of crumb cake.
After lunch, Jaime opened his birthday presents and everyone played with some of them. He got a horseshoes game, a water balloon game, lots of books, a puzzle game, and a game that helps you learn English. I was very excited since I knew all the words in the English game and helped to translate some of them. I played soccer, tennis, and horseshoes with Jaime, Miguel, and Sira. It was a very fun birthday party!
Mon. June 14th
In my literature class, we watched the ancient version of the movie: Don Quijote de La Mancha. Unfortunately for us students, there are no subtitles in either English or Spanish so it was pretty difficult to understand. After class, I wandered around the city and found this free art museum named Museu Fundación Juan March. It was free to the public and had a lot of different styles of art. There were some paintings by Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, and other Mallorcan and Spanish painters. We were allowed to take pictures without the flash so I took pictures of some of the paintings and sculptures.
Last night I found out from my padre Jaime that the big España soccer game is on Wednesday at 4 PM. Unfortunately, I have my Spanish language class from 4:30-6:30 PM. We asked our professor if there was any way we could reschedule class or watch the game in class as a “learning experience” since fútbol is so important here, and our prof replied back that we have our first grammar test on Wednesday. Great.
Sira was over the house when I returned back from class and I got to give her another bath, which was really fun. I learned some additional vocab for the parts of the body in class today and showed my new knowledge of the words elbow, ankle, heel, and waist. Sira hung out with me in my bedroom for a little while and I showed her the pictures I have taken of her so far that are on my computer. I’d ask her ¿Quién es? which means “Who’s that?” and she’s look at the picture and say “Sira y Lauren” or “Sira y Mama.” She’s always so cute .:)
The rest of the night was pretty uneventful: watched some TV shows on my laptop, ate dinner, and then did my copious amounts of homework. And soon bed. ¡Buenas noches!
Sunday, June 13, 2010
June 11-12 – La Granja, La Cucaracha, y La Playa
Disclaimer: This is going to be a pretty long journal entry since a lot happened over the past 2 days. But I promise that all the stories are good and are must-reads! Disfrute! (Enjoy!)
Fri. June 11th
My friend Ashley and I were given the opportunity to go on an excursion with the other U.S. program that is currently here. They are all from Loyola University in Chicago. We went to a place called La Granja (The Farm) in a town called Esporles. When I first heard the word “farm” I figured we’d be seeing some animals, crops, and typical farm stuff. This was not so. It turned out that there were some farm animals but it was also a giant house that was filled with history about how people used to live in the olden days. (It reminded me a little bit of Amish country).
I should also mention that this was the very first time that in rained in Mallorca since I’ve been here. Before I left my house at 9:30 AM, I was going to bring a sweater/jacket or an umbrella but didn’t think it would actually rain and that the clouds would turn into sun. Boy was I wrong. It rained a little while we were first waiting for our bus and then it would downpour while we were touring the farm. Only 2 girls in the other program were smart enough to bring an umbrella and raincoat. Ok, back to the story:
Outside in pens we got to see horses, burros, peacocks, roosters, chickens, turkeys, birds, and a few other animals. Inside the house we saw bedrooms, a toy room, bathroom, kitchen, dining room, sewing room, wine cellar, and even a torture room! I took a lot of pictures of all the interesting artifacts.
After La Granja, we went to a town called Valldemossa. I had already been there with Loli, Eva, and Sira, but I got to see a few more things this time with our excursion. We went to a small café and had the choice of ordering café con leche (coffee with milk) or chocolate caliente (hot chocolate). I chose the latter option and it was sooo good! It was literally like drinking cocoa powder because it was so chocolatey. We also got some more of the bread I had when I was last in Valldemossa. The famous musician Chopin lived in Valldemossa for a year and there were so many exhibits and a museum dedicated to him. We got to see a piano concert and then later toured a museum that had many artifacts like Chopin’s piano, sheet music, and various paintings. We got back to Palma shortly after 4 PM. It had been a long, but very fun, excursion.
After I got back, Loli told me that she was heading over to her husband’s clothing store to go shopping and invited me to come with. I got to see the store for the first time and Loli shopped for clothing for herself and for Paca (the abuela). After that, we went over to Eva and Sira’s house for a little bit. I played with Sira in her bedroom and she showed me how to play a game she made up.
Soon enough it was time for dinner. I was told that we were having “merluza” which is a type of fish. I told Loli and Jaime that this was the very first time that I was going to try fish and they said “But your last name is Fisher!” I explained an inside joke that I don’t eat my own kind, and they laughed. The fish was interesting and I ate it, but I’m definitely still a carnivore. After I was finished eating, Loli showed me the head of the fish that still had its eyes and everything intact. I replied with “Ewww.” She then wrote out the word “merluza” so I would be able to translate it on my computer to find out what type of fish it was. It turned out to be hake fish, which I’ve never heard of. We looked at some images on Google of hake and I told Loli that it’s a good thing I ate it first and then researched it after, otherwise I might not have eaten it all, haha.
And now for the most interesting thing that happened that day. I was getting ready to take a shower and everyone else in the house was already asleep. I walked into the bathroom and all of a sudden I heard a little chittering noise coming from the wall inside the shower. I looked up, curious to see if anything was there, and saw a cockroach bigger than the size of my hand!!! I managed not to scream aloud and knew that I had 3 options. Option #1: Close the bathroom door, run back to the sanctuary of my bedroom, and shower the next morning. Option #2: Attempt to shower and avoid the cockroach at all costs. Option #3: Go into my padres room and ask them for assistance.
Since I was slightly freaking out, I decided to go with Option #3. I tiptoed into Loli and Jaime’s room and whispered “Loli.” She’s apparently a very light sleeper and said “Díme” which means “Tell me.” I replied, “¡Hay una cucaracha grande en el baño!” (There’s a big cockroach in the bathroom!) She got out of bed, grabbed a giant can of bug spray, and proceeded into the bathroom. She sprayed all over the bathroom wall and opened the bathroom door a few minutes later. She told me that it was dead, but she lost visual contact and didn’t know where it had fallen. We both decided it’d be a better idea for me to shower the next day since the bathroom smelled of bug spray. I apologized for waking her up and she assured me that it was ok. We said goodnight and I went to bed. And that’s the story of La Cucaracha.
Sat. June 12th
I went to the beach at Arenal with my friend Erica for the day. When we first left, it was a little bit cloudy but it turned out to be very sunny and a great beach day! We were there for about 7 hours and had a lot of fun. We also met up with a friend she had met while in a hostel before the program started. And I’m happy to report that I only suffered minor sun burn after my day at the beach. I got burned on my upper thighs and the back of my legs, but nowhere else! (And the sunburn has already subsided and is turning into a nice tan color, which I’m very excited about).
After dinner, Jaime was watching the U.S.A. vs. England Fútbol (soccer) game on TV. La Copa Mundial (The World Cup) is huge here and it’s pretty cool because Spain is in the same time zone as South Africa. Jaime gave me a vocab lesson about some of the key words in soccer (like tie, referee, throw, kick, penalty, etc). He would spell out the words in Spanish (per my suggestion) and then I would show him what they meant in English. He explained the origins of the word “fútbol” and how it comes from foot + ball. He just laughed at the word “soccer.” The final score was 1-1, a tie (“empate”).
Fri. June 11th
My friend Ashley and I were given the opportunity to go on an excursion with the other U.S. program that is currently here. They are all from Loyola University in Chicago. We went to a place called La Granja (The Farm) in a town called Esporles. When I first heard the word “farm” I figured we’d be seeing some animals, crops, and typical farm stuff. This was not so. It turned out that there were some farm animals but it was also a giant house that was filled with history about how people used to live in the olden days. (It reminded me a little bit of Amish country).
I should also mention that this was the very first time that in rained in Mallorca since I’ve been here. Before I left my house at 9:30 AM, I was going to bring a sweater/jacket or an umbrella but didn’t think it would actually rain and that the clouds would turn into sun. Boy was I wrong. It rained a little while we were first waiting for our bus and then it would downpour while we were touring the farm. Only 2 girls in the other program were smart enough to bring an umbrella and raincoat. Ok, back to the story:
Outside in pens we got to see horses, burros, peacocks, roosters, chickens, turkeys, birds, and a few other animals. Inside the house we saw bedrooms, a toy room, bathroom, kitchen, dining room, sewing room, wine cellar, and even a torture room! I took a lot of pictures of all the interesting artifacts.
After La Granja, we went to a town called Valldemossa. I had already been there with Loli, Eva, and Sira, but I got to see a few more things this time with our excursion. We went to a small café and had the choice of ordering café con leche (coffee with milk) or chocolate caliente (hot chocolate). I chose the latter option and it was sooo good! It was literally like drinking cocoa powder because it was so chocolatey. We also got some more of the bread I had when I was last in Valldemossa. The famous musician Chopin lived in Valldemossa for a year and there were so many exhibits and a museum dedicated to him. We got to see a piano concert and then later toured a museum that had many artifacts like Chopin’s piano, sheet music, and various paintings. We got back to Palma shortly after 4 PM. It had been a long, but very fun, excursion.
After I got back, Loli told me that she was heading over to her husband’s clothing store to go shopping and invited me to come with. I got to see the store for the first time and Loli shopped for clothing for herself and for Paca (the abuela). After that, we went over to Eva and Sira’s house for a little bit. I played with Sira in her bedroom and she showed me how to play a game she made up.
Soon enough it was time for dinner. I was told that we were having “merluza” which is a type of fish. I told Loli and Jaime that this was the very first time that I was going to try fish and they said “But your last name is Fisher!” I explained an inside joke that I don’t eat my own kind, and they laughed. The fish was interesting and I ate it, but I’m definitely still a carnivore. After I was finished eating, Loli showed me the head of the fish that still had its eyes and everything intact. I replied with “Ewww.” She then wrote out the word “merluza” so I would be able to translate it on my computer to find out what type of fish it was. It turned out to be hake fish, which I’ve never heard of. We looked at some images on Google of hake and I told Loli that it’s a good thing I ate it first and then researched it after, otherwise I might not have eaten it all, haha.
And now for the most interesting thing that happened that day. I was getting ready to take a shower and everyone else in the house was already asleep. I walked into the bathroom and all of a sudden I heard a little chittering noise coming from the wall inside the shower. I looked up, curious to see if anything was there, and saw a cockroach bigger than the size of my hand!!! I managed not to scream aloud and knew that I had 3 options. Option #1: Close the bathroom door, run back to the sanctuary of my bedroom, and shower the next morning. Option #2: Attempt to shower and avoid the cockroach at all costs. Option #3: Go into my padres room and ask them for assistance.
Since I was slightly freaking out, I decided to go with Option #3. I tiptoed into Loli and Jaime’s room and whispered “Loli.” She’s apparently a very light sleeper and said “Díme” which means “Tell me.” I replied, “¡Hay una cucaracha grande en el baño!” (There’s a big cockroach in the bathroom!) She got out of bed, grabbed a giant can of bug spray, and proceeded into the bathroom. She sprayed all over the bathroom wall and opened the bathroom door a few minutes later. She told me that it was dead, but she lost visual contact and didn’t know where it had fallen. We both decided it’d be a better idea for me to shower the next day since the bathroom smelled of bug spray. I apologized for waking her up and she assured me that it was ok. We said goodnight and I went to bed. And that’s the story of La Cucaracha.
Sat. June 12th
I went to the beach at Arenal with my friend Erica for the day. When we first left, it was a little bit cloudy but it turned out to be very sunny and a great beach day! We were there for about 7 hours and had a lot of fun. We also met up with a friend she had met while in a hostel before the program started. And I’m happy to report that I only suffered minor sun burn after my day at the beach. I got burned on my upper thighs and the back of my legs, but nowhere else! (And the sunburn has already subsided and is turning into a nice tan color, which I’m very excited about).
After dinner, Jaime was watching the U.S.A. vs. England Fútbol (soccer) game on TV. La Copa Mundial (The World Cup) is huge here and it’s pretty cool because Spain is in the same time zone as South Africa. Jaime gave me a vocab lesson about some of the key words in soccer (like tie, referee, throw, kick, penalty, etc). He would spell out the words in Spanish (per my suggestion) and then I would show him what they meant in English. He explained the origins of the word “fútbol” and how it comes from foot + ball. He just laughed at the word “soccer.” The final score was 1-1, a tie (“empate”).
Friday, June 11, 2010
June 9-10 – Beaches and Beer Taps
Before I begin, I wanted to give the website links to the 2 photo albums I have on Facebook so far, just in case any of my blog readers aren’t Facebook users, they can use these links to look at my photos.
Here’s album #1: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=178996&id=658871528&l=0bba85ccb1
Here’s album #2 (so far): http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=180711&id=658871528&l=f794ed17ed
Wed. June 9th
During my long break between classes today, my friend Ashley and I decided to go to the beach. We made our plans before we realized that it was going to be a cloudy and overcast day, but we decided to go anyway. This was the very first non-sunny day since I got here! We took a bus and went to a beach called Playa de Illetas. It was a medium size beach and there weren’t too many people there (since it was a Wednesday and was cloudy). I took a siesta on the beach, read my book, and put only my toes in the water since it was pretty cold. We spent about 2 hours there and then decided to head back home.
After my language class, I headed back home and Sira was over. She had just come back from her cousin’s birthday party and had a bag of small balloons with her. Loli starting blowing them up for her and make it look so easy but when I tried, I failed miserably. She showed me a trick of how to stretch the very tiny balloon and they were all very proud of me once I finally blew one up! Sira had fun popping them outside with a pen, but after the 5th or 6th one, she got scared and stopped. My padre Jaime taught me a pretty cool trick with a pen that I was able to master and I’m sworn to secrecy to never reveal how it’s done to my “Americano” friends and family. ;)
Thurs. June 10th
We had our second overcast day in a row. I guess the beautiful, sunny weather couldn’t last forever. In my literature class, we began watching Don Quijote de La Mancha (after our professor had many technical difficulties). Only additional problem is that there’s no subtitles in either Spanish or English so it’s lucky that I watched the movie and read the book in 11th grade and retained the key points of the story.
During my break, I explored some different parts of the city. My friend and I ended up at Burger King for lunch because we were both craving hamburgers. The hamburgers are pretty much the same as in the U.S. One thing that’s different though is that BK has an item on the menu called a “Sandy.” Since this is my mother’s name, I was definitely interested in what it was and learned from the picture and description that it’s a type of ice cream with fudge topping (a.k.a. a Sundae). No clue why they call it a Sandy but I ordered one, ate it, and loved it!
That night, I made plans with my friends to go this bar where you can tap your own beer right at the table. We met up around 11 PM and there were 8 of us. I had my very first non-Natty Ice beer and it was pretty good (though I still prefer wine over beer). We played a fun drinking game called “Never Have I Ever” where one person says something they’ve never done (PG example: Never have I ever been to Barcelona) and if the others have been to Barcelona, they drink. The bar closed at midnight (for some strange reason), and the others wanted to go to another bar across town but my friend Erica and I decided to walk back to our houses instead. It was a pretty fun night and I’m glad I went out.
Here’s album #1: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=178996&id=658871528&l=0bba85ccb1
Here’s album #2 (so far): http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=180711&id=658871528&l=f794ed17ed
Wed. June 9th
During my long break between classes today, my friend Ashley and I decided to go to the beach. We made our plans before we realized that it was going to be a cloudy and overcast day, but we decided to go anyway. This was the very first non-sunny day since I got here! We took a bus and went to a beach called Playa de Illetas. It was a medium size beach and there weren’t too many people there (since it was a Wednesday and was cloudy). I took a siesta on the beach, read my book, and put only my toes in the water since it was pretty cold. We spent about 2 hours there and then decided to head back home.
After my language class, I headed back home and Sira was over. She had just come back from her cousin’s birthday party and had a bag of small balloons with her. Loli starting blowing them up for her and make it look so easy but when I tried, I failed miserably. She showed me a trick of how to stretch the very tiny balloon and they were all very proud of me once I finally blew one up! Sira had fun popping them outside with a pen, but after the 5th or 6th one, she got scared and stopped. My padre Jaime taught me a pretty cool trick with a pen that I was able to master and I’m sworn to secrecy to never reveal how it’s done to my “Americano” friends and family. ;)
Thurs. June 10th
We had our second overcast day in a row. I guess the beautiful, sunny weather couldn’t last forever. In my literature class, we began watching Don Quijote de La Mancha (after our professor had many technical difficulties). Only additional problem is that there’s no subtitles in either Spanish or English so it’s lucky that I watched the movie and read the book in 11th grade and retained the key points of the story.
During my break, I explored some different parts of the city. My friend and I ended up at Burger King for lunch because we were both craving hamburgers. The hamburgers are pretty much the same as in the U.S. One thing that’s different though is that BK has an item on the menu called a “Sandy.” Since this is my mother’s name, I was definitely interested in what it was and learned from the picture and description that it’s a type of ice cream with fudge topping (a.k.a. a Sundae). No clue why they call it a Sandy but I ordered one, ate it, and loved it!
That night, I made plans with my friends to go this bar where you can tap your own beer right at the table. We met up around 11 PM and there were 8 of us. I had my very first non-Natty Ice beer and it was pretty good (though I still prefer wine over beer). We played a fun drinking game called “Never Have I Ever” where one person says something they’ve never done (PG example: Never have I ever been to Barcelona) and if the others have been to Barcelona, they drink. The bar closed at midnight (for some strange reason), and the others wanted to go to another bar across town but my friend Erica and I decided to walk back to our houses instead. It was a pretty fun night and I’m glad I went out.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
June 7-8 – Visit to a Winery and Wine Tasting
Mon. June 7th
• Had my Literature class in the morning and my Language class in the afternoon. One of my friends transferred out of our class so now there are only 3 students. It’s kind of nice because we really get one-on-one attention. For example, in class we read a passage and really worked on our pronunciation and tried to sound less like “Americanos” and more like “Españolas.” We focused on the short “oh” sound and learned that words that have “ci” and “ce” sometimes sound like “th” (which is really interesting since “th” doesn’t exist in Spanish!) It was pretty cool and definitely beneficial when conversing with our host families.
• For lunch, I decided to see if American restaurants taste the same in Spain and went to KFC. They didn’t have my fave food of potato wedges, which was disappointing, so I got Crispy Strips and French fries instead. And I’m happy to report they pretty much taste the same.
• When I returned home from school at the end of the day, I found Sira in the bathroom covered head to toe in dirt because she had been playing on the terrace barefoot. She was about to take a bath and I asked if I could help. I ended up being the one who bathed her and it was a lot of fun! She played with this collection of marbles (which she called “bolas” in Spanish) and enjoyed flinging them in the tub. In all my years of babysitting, this was actually the first time that I had ever given a bath to a young child. Then I helped to brush and blow dry her hair. Loli took pictures of our bathing adventure.
• For dinner, Loli made a hamburger and French fries from scratch which was really cool and yummy! After dinner, I wrote an essay for my Spanish class. Definitely not a fan of this whole daily homework during the summer thing, but it’s all good.
Tues. June 8th
• Today during my break between classes, I wandered around the city with my friend in search of interesting and cheap postcards. We literally walked over, went down a random street and ended up where we started, and then took a bus to the Cathedral. I got some cute postcards and stamps for them (the postcards were 20 cents each and the stamps were 1 Euro each).
• While wandering, we got hungry and went to a bakery and had some delicious chocolate pastries. One had chocolate on the top and was made of doughy bread and the other resembled a small croissant and had chocolate on the inside. Sooo good!
• Instead of my language class today, we had an excursion! We went to visit a winery called Bodegas Can Majoral, which is in the town of Algaida. We went on a tour of the factory and learned the process of how wine is made. We got to see the machines, the cellar, the barrels, and a bottle-labeling machine. And after was the best part: the wine tasting! The bodega had 3 types of wine: white (blanca), rose (rosa), and red (tinta). We were given about half a glass of both the white and the red. I preferred the white, but both were very good and very sweet. They didn’t have cheese to go with it, but instead we had chips, bread biscuits, and pretzel sticks.
• After, we were given the opportunity to go to the gift shop and buy bottles of wine to give to our host families or bring back to the U.S. Most students did a combo but I talked to my host parents at dinner the previous night and they requested a bottle of vino tinto (red wine). I bought a bottle and they wrapped it up in a safe box for me.
• So while at the winery, I was wearing one of my favorite pairs of black sandals that are good for walking because they had arch support. However during the field trip today, I suddenly felt the left shoe break and the 2 pieces holding it together separated. I was very sad and used a makeshift solution so I could continue walking in it. When I got back home, I showed both the broken one and the good sandal to Loli and she said that she would look at it and see if she could fix it. Just a few minutes later, she came into my room and told me that it was all fixed! It seriously looks good as new and I told her that she is my magical helper and was very grateful!
Tomorrow I’m planning on going to the beach with a friend during our 6 hour break in-between classes so that should be fun. And I’m very happy to report that all of my sunburns have now faded into a tan (yay!) and only the tops of my feet are still a little red (but they thankfully don’t hurt anymore). Hope everyone back home is enjoying their summer so far! Adios!
• Had my Literature class in the morning and my Language class in the afternoon. One of my friends transferred out of our class so now there are only 3 students. It’s kind of nice because we really get one-on-one attention. For example, in class we read a passage and really worked on our pronunciation and tried to sound less like “Americanos” and more like “Españolas.” We focused on the short “oh” sound and learned that words that have “ci” and “ce” sometimes sound like “th” (which is really interesting since “th” doesn’t exist in Spanish!) It was pretty cool and definitely beneficial when conversing with our host families.
• For lunch, I decided to see if American restaurants taste the same in Spain and went to KFC. They didn’t have my fave food of potato wedges, which was disappointing, so I got Crispy Strips and French fries instead. And I’m happy to report they pretty much taste the same.
• When I returned home from school at the end of the day, I found Sira in the bathroom covered head to toe in dirt because she had been playing on the terrace barefoot. She was about to take a bath and I asked if I could help. I ended up being the one who bathed her and it was a lot of fun! She played with this collection of marbles (which she called “bolas” in Spanish) and enjoyed flinging them in the tub. In all my years of babysitting, this was actually the first time that I had ever given a bath to a young child. Then I helped to brush and blow dry her hair. Loli took pictures of our bathing adventure.
• For dinner, Loli made a hamburger and French fries from scratch which was really cool and yummy! After dinner, I wrote an essay for my Spanish class. Definitely not a fan of this whole daily homework during the summer thing, but it’s all good.
Tues. June 8th
• Today during my break between classes, I wandered around the city with my friend in search of interesting and cheap postcards. We literally walked over, went down a random street and ended up where we started, and then took a bus to the Cathedral. I got some cute postcards and stamps for them (the postcards were 20 cents each and the stamps were 1 Euro each).
• While wandering, we got hungry and went to a bakery and had some delicious chocolate pastries. One had chocolate on the top and was made of doughy bread and the other resembled a small croissant and had chocolate on the inside. Sooo good!
• Instead of my language class today, we had an excursion! We went to visit a winery called Bodegas Can Majoral, which is in the town of Algaida. We went on a tour of the factory and learned the process of how wine is made. We got to see the machines, the cellar, the barrels, and a bottle-labeling machine. And after was the best part: the wine tasting! The bodega had 3 types of wine: white (blanca), rose (rosa), and red (tinta). We were given about half a glass of both the white and the red. I preferred the white, but both were very good and very sweet. They didn’t have cheese to go with it, but instead we had chips, bread biscuits, and pretzel sticks.
• After, we were given the opportunity to go to the gift shop and buy bottles of wine to give to our host families or bring back to the U.S. Most students did a combo but I talked to my host parents at dinner the previous night and they requested a bottle of vino tinto (red wine). I bought a bottle and they wrapped it up in a safe box for me.
• So while at the winery, I was wearing one of my favorite pairs of black sandals that are good for walking because they had arch support. However during the field trip today, I suddenly felt the left shoe break and the 2 pieces holding it together separated. I was very sad and used a makeshift solution so I could continue walking in it. When I got back home, I showed both the broken one and the good sandal to Loli and she said that she would look at it and see if she could fix it. Just a few minutes later, she came into my room and told me that it was all fixed! It seriously looks good as new and I told her that she is my magical helper and was very grateful!
Tomorrow I’m planning on going to the beach with a friend during our 6 hour break in-between classes so that should be fun. And I’m very happy to report that all of my sunburns have now faded into a tan (yay!) and only the tops of my feet are still a little red (but they thankfully don’t hurt anymore). Hope everyone back home is enjoying their summer so far! Adios!
Monday, June 7, 2010
June 5-6 - Tour of the Cathedral & Beach with the Family
Sat. June 5th
• Woke up early because I had to meet my group in front of the Catedral (Cathedral) at 9:30 AM. We took a guided tour and it was really interesting. There are these 2 gorgeous stained glass windows that reflect the light and create rainbow prisms everywhere. There is an altar, different artifacts, and even some tombs of Jaime I and Jaime II, kings of España. A really cool fact about the Cathedral is that it’s the only cathedral in Europe that is reflected on the water
• After the tour, I ate lunch with a friend in an outdoor café in the Plaza de Cort. Because it was the weekend, there were lots of street entertainment and we watched this African musical group playing instruments while other men did flips and stuff on the ground. It was pretty cool. As we were walking back home, we stumbled upon another festival in the Plaza de España. There were floats made out of recycled products and there was a live band playing (which I took a video of)
• I then went back home and hung out for a while. I was able to upload tons of new pictures on Facebook, so feel free to check those out if you haven’t already. My host mother Loli told me that Eva and Sira were coming by at 6 PM and we were all going to go to the town of Valldemossa.
• Valldemossa is this quaint little town where famous artists, writers, and painters live and create masterpieces. We walked up and down the streets and walked through a pretty garden of flowers. After, we got ice cream and this type of sweetened bread with sugar on top. I got Menta Chocolate (Mint Chocolate Chip) ice cream which was delicious!
• We came back home for dinner. When I first saw my plate, it looked like some type of meat with tomato sauce on top. However, I learned that it was a type of eggplant with meat inside. I tried it and it was pretty good. I hung out with my padres for a little bit and watched movies in Spanish and then went to bed.
Sun. June 6th
• I got to sleep in for the very first time today! I slept until 10 AM which was quite lovely. Around 11 AM, Eva, Toni, and Sira came to my house to take me to the beach with them. We also stopped at Mami, Virginia, Jaime, and Miguel’s house to drop food off and then followed them to the beach.
• The beach was really nice and wasn’t a tourist beach. The water was a beautiful blue color and there were sailboats past the buoys. All 3 of the grandkids pretty much know how to swim and weren’t afraid of the water at all. Their favorite game is to jump over the waves and they would take my hand or their parents and we would jump together. Sira is an awesome swimmer and bravely put her face in the water and kicked with her feet.
• Afterward, I sat on the sand with them and dug a hole until we reached water below. We built a wall around our hole to keep the incoming waves out. I also played with their sand toys and built different types of sandcastles with them. Their parents called me an au pair and jokingly said that I was hired to spend the rest of the summer in Mallorca and look after their kids. I was very flattered : )
• We spent about 2 hours at the beach and then packed up to go back to Mami and Virginia’s house. We changed our clothes and ate a big lunch outside in their backyard. I tried a pasta salad that was made of pasta, cheese, tomato, and some other ingredients. There was also chicken tenders (my favorite), tortilla that resembled an omelet, and bread with tomato sauce on top. It was all very delicious!
• The family very generously offered me use of their laptop since they know I don’t have a solid internet connection at home. I was able to check my email and Facebook and talk to my parents and Josh for a little bit through email. While I was on the computer, the adults were watching the tennis championship with Rafael Nadal. It was so funny watching them and hearing them cheer “¡Vamanos Rafaaa!” I watched the last set with them and watched Rafa win and become the #1 tennis player in the world!! It was very exciting!
• Toni and Eva dropped me back off at my house and it was now time for homework. We were assigned a lot of homework in my Spanish language class and luckily I was able to access the Internet while doing most of it. I had penne and tomato sauce with bacon bits for dinner and I’m always a fan of penne. After dinner, I finished up my homework and went to bed.
Tomorrow is our 3rd excursion to a winery called Bodega Mayoral. I’m very excited for the wine tasting! Ciao!
P.S. I changed the settings on my blog and now anyone should be able to comment. So if you're reading this and wish to leave me a comment, please do so and I'll be able to see if it works! Muchas gracias :D
• Woke up early because I had to meet my group in front of the Catedral (Cathedral) at 9:30 AM. We took a guided tour and it was really interesting. There are these 2 gorgeous stained glass windows that reflect the light and create rainbow prisms everywhere. There is an altar, different artifacts, and even some tombs of Jaime I and Jaime II, kings of España. A really cool fact about the Cathedral is that it’s the only cathedral in Europe that is reflected on the water
• After the tour, I ate lunch with a friend in an outdoor café in the Plaza de Cort. Because it was the weekend, there were lots of street entertainment and we watched this African musical group playing instruments while other men did flips and stuff on the ground. It was pretty cool. As we were walking back home, we stumbled upon another festival in the Plaza de España. There were floats made out of recycled products and there was a live band playing (which I took a video of)
• I then went back home and hung out for a while. I was able to upload tons of new pictures on Facebook, so feel free to check those out if you haven’t already. My host mother Loli told me that Eva and Sira were coming by at 6 PM and we were all going to go to the town of Valldemossa.
• Valldemossa is this quaint little town where famous artists, writers, and painters live and create masterpieces. We walked up and down the streets and walked through a pretty garden of flowers. After, we got ice cream and this type of sweetened bread with sugar on top. I got Menta Chocolate (Mint Chocolate Chip) ice cream which was delicious!
• We came back home for dinner. When I first saw my plate, it looked like some type of meat with tomato sauce on top. However, I learned that it was a type of eggplant with meat inside. I tried it and it was pretty good. I hung out with my padres for a little bit and watched movies in Spanish and then went to bed.
Sun. June 6th
• I got to sleep in for the very first time today! I slept until 10 AM which was quite lovely. Around 11 AM, Eva, Toni, and Sira came to my house to take me to the beach with them. We also stopped at Mami, Virginia, Jaime, and Miguel’s house to drop food off and then followed them to the beach.
• The beach was really nice and wasn’t a tourist beach. The water was a beautiful blue color and there were sailboats past the buoys. All 3 of the grandkids pretty much know how to swim and weren’t afraid of the water at all. Their favorite game is to jump over the waves and they would take my hand or their parents and we would jump together. Sira is an awesome swimmer and bravely put her face in the water and kicked with her feet.
• Afterward, I sat on the sand with them and dug a hole until we reached water below. We built a wall around our hole to keep the incoming waves out. I also played with their sand toys and built different types of sandcastles with them. Their parents called me an au pair and jokingly said that I was hired to spend the rest of the summer in Mallorca and look after their kids. I was very flattered : )
• We spent about 2 hours at the beach and then packed up to go back to Mami and Virginia’s house. We changed our clothes and ate a big lunch outside in their backyard. I tried a pasta salad that was made of pasta, cheese, tomato, and some other ingredients. There was also chicken tenders (my favorite), tortilla that resembled an omelet, and bread with tomato sauce on top. It was all very delicious!
• The family very generously offered me use of their laptop since they know I don’t have a solid internet connection at home. I was able to check my email and Facebook and talk to my parents and Josh for a little bit through email. While I was on the computer, the adults were watching the tennis championship with Rafael Nadal. It was so funny watching them and hearing them cheer “¡Vamanos Rafaaa!” I watched the last set with them and watched Rafa win and become the #1 tennis player in the world!! It was very exciting!
• Toni and Eva dropped me back off at my house and it was now time for homework. We were assigned a lot of homework in my Spanish language class and luckily I was able to access the Internet while doing most of it. I had penne and tomato sauce with bacon bits for dinner and I’m always a fan of penne. After dinner, I finished up my homework and went to bed.
Tomorrow is our 3rd excursion to a winery called Bodega Mayoral. I’m very excited for the wine tasting! Ciao!
P.S. I changed the settings on my blog and now anyone should be able to comment. So if you're reading this and wish to leave me a comment, please do so and I'll be able to see if it works! Muchas gracias :D
Saturday, June 5, 2010
June 3-4: Excursions and Sóller
Hola faithful blog readers! I’ve had a few requests to write shorter entries so I’ve decided that this entry will attempt to be a Cliffnotes / Sparknotes version of my past 2 days.
Thurs. June 3rd
• Found out that my Spanish class/professor was changed and my new professor’s name is Maria Jose. She’s a little more strict than my previous one, but I really like the other 3 girls in my class so I’m sure it’ll be fine
• Went on our first excursion as a group. It was a walking tour with my professor, Maria, and a tour guide who spoke English. We toured the Plaza de Cort, the famous Cathedral, and learned about the history of Spain and Mallorca. Took loooots of pictures
• 13 of us took a bus and went to the German section of the island near the beach we had previously gone to. Some of the students bought or mixed drinks together and we hung out near the beach and talked. (I had sips of other people’s wine/drinks and tried Sangria for the first time). We attempted to find a cheap Discoteca but didn’t have too much luck with that.
• Around 2:30 AM, most of us were tired and wanted to go home so I shared a taxi home with 3 girls that live near me. Got home just before 3 AM and actually ran into my host mother Loli because her granddaughter had woken up at that exact moment during the middle of the night
Fri. June 4th
• Woke up early to go to Sóller with all 15 members of the group. We took this rustic train that had a gorgeous view of the mountains and countryside. We all took lots of pictures of the pretty scenery. The train was about an hour long and then we arrived in the center of Sóller. We had the option of taking a tram to the port/beach or walking and when we asked the policeman, he said it was only a 15-20 min walk. So we walked
• 20 minutes into our walk, there was no beach to be found. 2 of our friends caught up with us and said that it was going to be a 45 minute walk and an insane amount of km! Keep in mind we were all in our beach gear and wearing flip flops, with little to none arch support. We trekked on and were so happy when we finally got a glimpse of the sea
• Set up camp at the first beach we found. The sand was blazing hot but the water was nice and cool. Went swimming for a little bit, napped on the beach, and read a book. It was a lot of fun!
• However, even though I applied suntan lotion 3 times during the day, I managed to get just about every single part of me burned. The tops of both of my feet (even though I specifically applied lotion there!!), my shoulders/chest/neck area, my thighs near my bikini line, my stomach where my tankini was, and even more arms and hands. Needless to say, I’m currently in a lot of pain (and yes Mom, I’ve applied the Aloe Vera and will continue to do so lol).
• We took a bus back to Palma that got in around 7 PM and we all went our separate ways. I showered and waited for dinner to be ready. After dinner, I watched this singing competition show with my madre y padre called Cántame (Sing for Me), which was similar to American Idol/America’s Got Talent and it was the live finale. I sang along to the songs that were in English and my host parents sang the ones in Spanish. It was really funny.
So yay for writing my first short and bullet point entry! Tomorrow there’s another planned excursion to tour the Cathedral. Quick side note: I have not slept back 9 AM since getting here exactly 1 week ago! : ( Although siestas are great, I really miss having the opportunity to sleep until 11AM – 1 PM ish each morning. Oh and not having a solid Internet connection is still very frustrating. Adios amigos!
Thurs. June 3rd
• Found out that my Spanish class/professor was changed and my new professor’s name is Maria Jose. She’s a little more strict than my previous one, but I really like the other 3 girls in my class so I’m sure it’ll be fine
• Went on our first excursion as a group. It was a walking tour with my professor, Maria, and a tour guide who spoke English. We toured the Plaza de Cort, the famous Cathedral, and learned about the history of Spain and Mallorca. Took loooots of pictures
• 13 of us took a bus and went to the German section of the island near the beach we had previously gone to. Some of the students bought or mixed drinks together and we hung out near the beach and talked. (I had sips of other people’s wine/drinks and tried Sangria for the first time). We attempted to find a cheap Discoteca but didn’t have too much luck with that.
• Around 2:30 AM, most of us were tired and wanted to go home so I shared a taxi home with 3 girls that live near me. Got home just before 3 AM and actually ran into my host mother Loli because her granddaughter had woken up at that exact moment during the middle of the night
Fri. June 4th
• Woke up early to go to Sóller with all 15 members of the group. We took this rustic train that had a gorgeous view of the mountains and countryside. We all took lots of pictures of the pretty scenery. The train was about an hour long and then we arrived in the center of Sóller. We had the option of taking a tram to the port/beach or walking and when we asked the policeman, he said it was only a 15-20 min walk. So we walked
• 20 minutes into our walk, there was no beach to be found. 2 of our friends caught up with us and said that it was going to be a 45 minute walk and an insane amount of km! Keep in mind we were all in our beach gear and wearing flip flops, with little to none arch support. We trekked on and were so happy when we finally got a glimpse of the sea
• Set up camp at the first beach we found. The sand was blazing hot but the water was nice and cool. Went swimming for a little bit, napped on the beach, and read a book. It was a lot of fun!
• However, even though I applied suntan lotion 3 times during the day, I managed to get just about every single part of me burned. The tops of both of my feet (even though I specifically applied lotion there!!), my shoulders/chest/neck area, my thighs near my bikini line, my stomach where my tankini was, and even more arms and hands. Needless to say, I’m currently in a lot of pain (and yes Mom, I’ve applied the Aloe Vera and will continue to do so lol).
• We took a bus back to Palma that got in around 7 PM and we all went our separate ways. I showered and waited for dinner to be ready. After dinner, I watched this singing competition show with my madre y padre called Cántame (Sing for Me), which was similar to American Idol/America’s Got Talent and it was the live finale. I sang along to the songs that were in English and my host parents sang the ones in Spanish. It was really funny.
So yay for writing my first short and bullet point entry! Tomorrow there’s another planned excursion to tour the Cathedral. Quick side note: I have not slept back 9 AM since getting here exactly 1 week ago! : ( Although siestas are great, I really miss having the opportunity to sleep until 11AM – 1 PM ish each morning. Oh and not having a solid Internet connection is still very frustrating. Adios amigos!
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
June 1-2 – First 2 Days of Classes
On Tuesday, June 1st, I woke up at 7:30 AM for my first day of classes. I was definitely not a fan of how early I was awake, especially since it was only 1:30 AM back home and most of my friends and my parents are/were probably still awake! I got dressed, ate Frosties and drank café, and walked to the University.
My first class of the day is Literature, taught in Spanish, and it goes from 8:45 – 10:45 AM. The professor’s name is Rosa and she was really nice. We answered some questions about ourselves such as what do we know about Spain’s history, how does the culture and customs in Mallorca differ from the U.S., what other countries we’ve been to, and why we chose to study abroad in Mallorca. We didn’t start actual work on the first day, which was nice. She also told us that we wouldn’t have to buy a book because she had photocopies of everything. After class, I had a break from 10:45 AM – 4:30 PM. I decided that today would be errand day. The first thing I did was go back to the bus pass place and get my official bus pass. It has my name and university on it and I can use it to get on and off of buses in Mallorca. The second place I went to was a store called Vodaphone in order to buy a Spanish cell phone. A got a red Samsung phone and it only cost 19 Euros. It comes prepaid with minutes for calls and for texts. The U.S. (a.k.a. my parents) can call and text me and it’s free for me, but they pay.
After that, I returned home for lunch with my family. Josh and I had arranged to have our very first Skype date at 8 AM his time before he left for work and 2 PM my time. The Internet cooperated with me and I was finally able to see his face and celebrate our 35 months anniversary together (1 more month until the big 3 years anniversary!!). After I took a ½ hour siesta (because I wasn’t really used to waking up so early) and soon it was time for my 2nd class.
My second class of the day is Spanish Language and Grammar and it’s from 4:30 – 6:30 PM. When I went to the school in the morning, our program director had the results of our placement exam and distributed a list of which students were in which level. I am happy to report that I got into the Advanced Level, which is Level 3 of 3! My professor’s name is Miriam and she is a chatterbox, pregnant, and really fun. She gave us 2 books and didn’t say anything about paying for them so we’re not sure if they’re free or not. We talked a lot about the differences between Mallorca and the United States and she told us the stereotypes she had about Americans, which was pretty fun.
After class, I returned back home and left shortly afterward with my host mother Loli and the abuela, Paca, and we went to Loli’s daughter, Eva’s, house. We were supposed to go out with them to some town but there wasn’t enough time so we only went for a visit. I got to play with the daughter/granddaughter Sira and was given a tour of their house. I took pictures with everyone (which you can find on Facebook). The third floor of their house leads to their roof and there’s an amazing view of the landscape and countryside below. I took photos and it was a lot of fun!
We drove back home and soon it was time for dinner. Dinner time has become either grammar lessons or current events time with my host father Jaime and me. Sometimes he’ll help to correct my grammar or conjugations which I appreciate because it’ll help me to improve my Spanish. And other times we talk about stuff going on in the world like the Israelis, the royal family of Spain, or Rafeal Nadal, the Mallorcan tennis player. I’m also proud to report that I can add another new food to my list: “guambo.” There was some confusion of what it is exactly but I was told that it’s a “crustacean from the sea” and I correctly guessed that it was shrimp. It was served with some spaghetti noodles and some other things. I tried a few pieces, but wasn’t a big fan. After dinner, I struggled with the non-existent Wi-Fi and attempted to Skype with Josh and my parents. And then came bed.
The next day (Wednesday the 3rd) started out the same way. Woke up at 7:30 and went to class at 8:45 AM. Today in Literature class, we discussed the 3 types of literature: novels, the theater, and poetry. And we discussed ancient works of literature like Oedipus, Hamlet, The Illiad, and The Odyssey. I was proud of myself for remembering a lot about Oedipus and The Odyssey, which I read in high school. I gave a summary of them in Spanish in class. After Lit. class, my friend Ashley and I decided to explore the city. We first paid 18 Euros to get an unlimited bus pass for 1 month. Now we can get on and off any bus and we don’t have to pay each time. We went to the Plaza de España and walked around and took pictures. We started a collection of taking pictures of restaurants and things that we have back home and we came up with Dunkin Coffee (Dunkin Donuts), Burger King, McDonalds, Subway, KFC, and a sign with Winnie the Pooh that said Hawaii. We had lunch at an outdoor café and ran into Alice, the housing officer from our program. She took us with her to the bookstore and then the Mercado (supermarket), which was a fun adventure. She also gave us some suggestions of what we can do during our long break in-between classes.
At 4:30 PM, I went to my Spanish language class. There’s been a lot of confusion because some kids that were placed in Beginner Spanish feel that they should be in a higher level so they’ve switched their classes around. But because of this, the Beginner 1 teacher now has 0 students in her class. So they decided to split my Advanced class of 8 students into 4 and 4, all at the same level, to give us a smaller class size (and so the other professor has someone to teach). I really like my old professor and didn’t want to change classes, but I’m not sure yet if I’m going to remain or change professors.
After I got home from class, Loli told me that her husband, Jaime, was going to drive me to the mall to see the store that their daughter Eva works in. The mall has these really cool things that look like moving sidewalks (from airports) but they slope either up or down so they serve as escalators without steps. Eva works in a young children’s’ clothing store, which is pretty convenient since she can buy clothes for her 3 year old daughter there. The place was very colorful and the store was really big. She showed me around and we talked for a bit when she didn’t have customers. We also recently added each other as friends on Facebook so I was showing her different things on my profile and the pictures I had recently uploaded of her and her family.
By the time we got back, it was close to 9 PM which meant dinnertime. I finally encountered my first meal I had to say “no gracias” to: tuna and mixed vegetables. Luckily for me, there was also steak that tasted like chicken and I ate some fried potatoes too. I didn’t offend my host parents and they just thought it was funny that I don’t eat fruits or vegetables. My host father Jaime also says “Ohhh los Americanos!” but he also says this about the Españolas y other groups of people. I commented on this at dinner that he makes fun of his own kin and both he and Loli laughed. After dinner, I attempted to connect to the Internet for over an hour to Skype back home, but it didn’t work. It’s very frustrating not having Internet in my house when almost all of the other students do. Ah well. Hasta luego!
My first class of the day is Literature, taught in Spanish, and it goes from 8:45 – 10:45 AM. The professor’s name is Rosa and she was really nice. We answered some questions about ourselves such as what do we know about Spain’s history, how does the culture and customs in Mallorca differ from the U.S., what other countries we’ve been to, and why we chose to study abroad in Mallorca. We didn’t start actual work on the first day, which was nice. She also told us that we wouldn’t have to buy a book because she had photocopies of everything. After class, I had a break from 10:45 AM – 4:30 PM. I decided that today would be errand day. The first thing I did was go back to the bus pass place and get my official bus pass. It has my name and university on it and I can use it to get on and off of buses in Mallorca. The second place I went to was a store called Vodaphone in order to buy a Spanish cell phone. A got a red Samsung phone and it only cost 19 Euros. It comes prepaid with minutes for calls and for texts. The U.S. (a.k.a. my parents) can call and text me and it’s free for me, but they pay.
After that, I returned home for lunch with my family. Josh and I had arranged to have our very first Skype date at 8 AM his time before he left for work and 2 PM my time. The Internet cooperated with me and I was finally able to see his face and celebrate our 35 months anniversary together (1 more month until the big 3 years anniversary!!). After I took a ½ hour siesta (because I wasn’t really used to waking up so early) and soon it was time for my 2nd class.
My second class of the day is Spanish Language and Grammar and it’s from 4:30 – 6:30 PM. When I went to the school in the morning, our program director had the results of our placement exam and distributed a list of which students were in which level. I am happy to report that I got into the Advanced Level, which is Level 3 of 3! My professor’s name is Miriam and she is a chatterbox, pregnant, and really fun. She gave us 2 books and didn’t say anything about paying for them so we’re not sure if they’re free or not. We talked a lot about the differences between Mallorca and the United States and she told us the stereotypes she had about Americans, which was pretty fun.
After class, I returned back home and left shortly afterward with my host mother Loli and the abuela, Paca, and we went to Loli’s daughter, Eva’s, house. We were supposed to go out with them to some town but there wasn’t enough time so we only went for a visit. I got to play with the daughter/granddaughter Sira and was given a tour of their house. I took pictures with everyone (which you can find on Facebook). The third floor of their house leads to their roof and there’s an amazing view of the landscape and countryside below. I took photos and it was a lot of fun!
We drove back home and soon it was time for dinner. Dinner time has become either grammar lessons or current events time with my host father Jaime and me. Sometimes he’ll help to correct my grammar or conjugations which I appreciate because it’ll help me to improve my Spanish. And other times we talk about stuff going on in the world like the Israelis, the royal family of Spain, or Rafeal Nadal, the Mallorcan tennis player. I’m also proud to report that I can add another new food to my list: “guambo.” There was some confusion of what it is exactly but I was told that it’s a “crustacean from the sea” and I correctly guessed that it was shrimp. It was served with some spaghetti noodles and some other things. I tried a few pieces, but wasn’t a big fan. After dinner, I struggled with the non-existent Wi-Fi and attempted to Skype with Josh and my parents. And then came bed.
The next day (Wednesday the 3rd) started out the same way. Woke up at 7:30 and went to class at 8:45 AM. Today in Literature class, we discussed the 3 types of literature: novels, the theater, and poetry. And we discussed ancient works of literature like Oedipus, Hamlet, The Illiad, and The Odyssey. I was proud of myself for remembering a lot about Oedipus and The Odyssey, which I read in high school. I gave a summary of them in Spanish in class. After Lit. class, my friend Ashley and I decided to explore the city. We first paid 18 Euros to get an unlimited bus pass for 1 month. Now we can get on and off any bus and we don’t have to pay each time. We went to the Plaza de España and walked around and took pictures. We started a collection of taking pictures of restaurants and things that we have back home and we came up with Dunkin Coffee (Dunkin Donuts), Burger King, McDonalds, Subway, KFC, and a sign with Winnie the Pooh that said Hawaii. We had lunch at an outdoor café and ran into Alice, the housing officer from our program. She took us with her to the bookstore and then the Mercado (supermarket), which was a fun adventure. She also gave us some suggestions of what we can do during our long break in-between classes.
At 4:30 PM, I went to my Spanish language class. There’s been a lot of confusion because some kids that were placed in Beginner Spanish feel that they should be in a higher level so they’ve switched their classes around. But because of this, the Beginner 1 teacher now has 0 students in her class. So they decided to split my Advanced class of 8 students into 4 and 4, all at the same level, to give us a smaller class size (and so the other professor has someone to teach). I really like my old professor and didn’t want to change classes, but I’m not sure yet if I’m going to remain or change professors.
After I got home from class, Loli told me that her husband, Jaime, was going to drive me to the mall to see the store that their daughter Eva works in. The mall has these really cool things that look like moving sidewalks (from airports) but they slope either up or down so they serve as escalators without steps. Eva works in a young children’s’ clothing store, which is pretty convenient since she can buy clothes for her 3 year old daughter there. The place was very colorful and the store was really big. She showed me around and we talked for a bit when she didn’t have customers. We also recently added each other as friends on Facebook so I was showing her different things on my profile and the pictures I had recently uploaded of her and her family.
By the time we got back, it was close to 9 PM which meant dinnertime. I finally encountered my first meal I had to say “no gracias” to: tuna and mixed vegetables. Luckily for me, there was also steak that tasted like chicken and I ate some fried potatoes too. I didn’t offend my host parents and they just thought it was funny that I don’t eat fruits or vegetables. My host father Jaime also says “Ohhh los Americanos!” but he also says this about the Españolas y other groups of people. I commented on this at dinner that he makes fun of his own kin and both he and Loli laughed. After dinner, I attempted to connect to the Internet for over an hour to Skype back home, but it didn’t work. It’s very frustrating not having Internet in my house when almost all of the other students do. Ah well. Hasta luego!
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