...Guay!!!

Less than a month to go. The closer we get to leaving, the more Spain seems to grow on me. And yet I know that when it comes time to leave, I will be ready. I like it here, and I like it at home; it's a win-win situation. It will be bittersweet to leave, but we've met some awesome people here that we get to stay in touch with, and experiences that have changed us and have added color to our lives. Thank you, God, for the gift of memory and modern technology.

This past weekend was AMAZING. Ávila and Segovia, two more sweet Spanish cities. Segovia has definitely made it to my top three favorite cities we've visited. Also in the running for #1 are probably Granada and Toledo, but it's a tough call because each city is unique. Anyway, in less than three days I filled up the photo space on my camera. Before we left, I checked the weather forecast and it was calling for cold, wet yuck all weekend. I am very pleased to say that this could not have been much further from the truth. It was gorgeous.

In Ávila we walked along an awesome Roman wall. I took so many pictures of that wall. I thoroughly enjoyed that wall.




I'm short of time, so I'll leave you with a few pictures and a couple random thoughts...


Segovia...!!


I love cathedrals!!!


Castle!


and view from said castle:


Roman Aqueduct!!!


We also found an awesome BOOK! It's a book you're supposed to “read, register, and release.” When you find it, you read it, sign your name and where you found it, and then leave it somewhere else. And it's a contemporary art book in Spanish!!! Very excited.

Some of my favorite conversations are the random ones we have with people on the street or while waiting in line for the bathroom. We meet some totally random and fun people. I also really enjoy talking with the international students in my grammar class. It's so interesting to talk with someone whose second (or third or fourth) language is also Spanish.

Hasta luego!
♥Tracy

...Loca.

I'm surprised it's the first time I've thought of using that title. It's a good thing though. This week needs that description.

Here is a picture of people grabbing stuff from the carrozas that Tracy mentioned:

The next day's parade had lots of floats with flowers:

The people on the floats handed them out to people who went up to get them, and they threw some in the crowd too. We didn't get any, but we enjoyed watching.

After the parade we stood in a line where they were handing out free "pasteles de carne" - meat pies. They are a Murcian specialty. We each got too! And usually waiting in line is terribly boring, but we met some cool people, including a guy who spoke English and the parents of one of our friend's from church (by the way - and this really shouldn't be in parenthesis cuz it is very important, but here it is - we watched both the first two parades with out friends from church, and we spent some time with them afterwards as well. It was awesome cuz I started to feel like we are really friends - like there is a real bond, not just nice Spanish people being really welcoming to us but not having much to talk about. It was probably just me being slow... but I really think something is different now!). Anyway, at the end of the line:

After this, we set out to find "paparajotes." They are another Spanish food, a specialty of the week of Spring festivals. One of our teachers had told us we should try them. Basically, they are lemon leaves covered in fried dough, and they are delicious:

Oh, and I tried blood sausage that we got from the first parade. Mostly out of boredom. It tasted good, but ew. There is plenty of other food that tastes good and doesn't have blood in it :-)

So don't think we have been going to parades all week. It's just that that's more exciting to write about that doing homework, reading, running, cooking, and the other activities of the week, which have been excellent and very relaxing.

Ok the last parade was last night. It was in preparation for "Entierro de la sardina," which is kind of like a falla. It's a sardine one down by the river. Only, we didn't actually stay to watch it burn because the streets were a frightening place to be... We watched the parade from a friend's balcony. It was pretty much perfect! A lot of times we joke about how a certain situation could be perfect. Rachael and I were saying... "I'll bet Haley lives in one of these apartments with a balcony, and we can just go up and watch the parade from there." Vuala!! She did, and that's exactly what happened.

It was different seeing the parade from seven floors up. I had the feeling that we were scientists observing a community of ants. The people looked funny cuz they were so small, and they were grabbing for the stuff that was being thrown from the floats. We went down at the end and caught some stuff. Rachael got a bright orange shirt. I got a deck of cards, which are cool... except they don't have the right suites, just weird pictures. Tracy got a bunch of stuff, including a soccer ball that will be fun to bring to the beach! Murcia is quiet again.

This afternoon we went out on the roof and read for awhile. It is really really nice up there! Haha, not so much the actual roof, but being up there... and the sky:


We are going back to class tomorrow. Six more weeks. Yesterday we were all looking at who was going to be in our classes at Roberts next semester. Haha that was fun.

I am really not a fan of day light savings. Like right now, it is 7:45 and completely light out. I like it when it gets dark early because I am better at going to bed sooner. This is silly, but I have trouble going to sleep unless I feel really accomplished. I should go to bed when I'm tired!

So as not to end this with a random complaint... avacados are delicious. Did you know? If you think they are just good for guacalmole, think again. Get one (I know they are expensive. This is a shame. We should all move to California where we can grow avacado trees in our backyards!), cut it in half, and eat it with a spoon. Repeat as often as desired.

Betty

...Festiva!

So much has happened within the past 10 days! It was super exciting to spend time with my family and Betty in France (and to see Notre Dame and the LOUVRE!!!!). Way too much to summarize in a simple blog, but I'll see what I can do. Admittedly, Betty and I were quite excited to go back to a country where they spoke Spanish (a.k.a. Spain). The day we arrived in Madrid we went to the Prado for free in the evening, which was awesome! We saw so much art last week, and it's too bad we didn't have more time to soak it up, but it's better than not going at all. The next day we went to the Reina Sofía (home of Picasso's "Guernica") and explored the city.


There was a cool terrace area on the third floor of the Reina Sofía:


Cool Egyptian ruins up on one of the hills:


We met some interesting people at our hostel and the next day we went to Toledo!!! Definitely one of my favorite places we've visited so far.




There was so much to see! The architecture throughout the city was spectacular. It was a gorgeous day and we saw the cathedral, monasteries, convents, churches, a basilica...We also tried "judías con perdiz," a traditional Toledo bean soup with partridge. We spent the afternoon walking along a path by the river, which involved some fun stops along the way.








It's tempting to put up 20 more pictures, but I'll move on. We arrived back in Madrid that day in time for the Good Friday procession, pointy hats and all.


We took the midnight bus back to Murcia. Our week-long adventure abroad was wonderful, but it was very good to be back in Murcia. Remarkable how much a place can grow on you the longer you spend time there. And it didn't hurt that upon our return the trees were bursting into blossom. :)


Easter was a fun day. We got up to see the sunrise before heading out to church (and stopping for churros con chocolate on the way). Betty had also hid chocolates in our apartment for Rachael and I to find, and we did a small gift exchange. There was lunch after the service and then we headed back to get dinner ready before one of our friends came over. Good times. :)

Yesterday was Bando de la Huerta! The Murcians dress up in traditional costume and go out to celebrate the spring. It was a fun sight. We met up with some friends and went to the parade. There were a lot of fun things to see there.








The craziest and most exciting part was the "carrozas." Over 20 trucks came by with people throwing/handing out a bunch of stuff - teacups, chorizo (sausage, which I ate more than enough of), candy, wine, lemons, bubbles...people came running into the street to grab things. It was nuts.

Until next time,
♥Tracy

...Extranjera.

Before I get to our wild and crazy travels, here are a few interesting things we did March 25th and 26th.

The 25th was our last day of class before break! That night Tracy and I went to a youth orchestra concert across the city that our music teacher had given us tickets for. We got there a little late, but the first song they played was from Pirates of the Caribbean, which was pretty awesome. The concert was good, but what made it really cool is that for some of the later songs the musicians got up and danced while they played. They also did a lot of swaying and used some cool indigenous South American instruments. It looked like they were having so much fun :-)

The next day was my birthday and we went to the beach with Laura and Beth. We had been wanting to go for ages, so it was perfect! And it was warm enough to swim for a little while! We were a little cold sitting on the beach, but it was March, so whatever. We feasted on kiwis, garlic bread, sweet tea, and Principe (well, store brand) cookies. It was excellent. And we watched Pirates that night after having been inspired by the concert.


So the travels were intense. Like camping. But everything worked out amazing well... except for this first bit...

In order to get to the airport in Alicante we took a bus from Murcia. Our friend Kathleen was on it, so that was unexpected and cool. Anyway we went through security at the airport and then waited to board the plane. But they wouldn't let us on cuz we hadn't gotten our boarding passes stamped... something about being from the US. They basically just said, "You can't pass. You need the stamp. You have ten minutes." So... I thought we weren't going to make it, but thankfully it's not a huge airport, and the lady was nice and still stamped the passes, and we were rude and cut in front of people at security, and I sprinted back to the gate, and we made it. We looked just like the idiots we were, but very thankful idiots. So you probably didn't want to know that, but I couldn't leave it out!

We survived Ryanair... the cheap airline, even though they kept trying to sell us stuff and there was not even water for free. Tracy got some really good pictures from the flight!

The Paris airport was about an hour from the city, so we had to take a bus in. We met up with the Newton's at the bus station and they took us to the hotel, which was very snazzy. And it had free coffee every morning!

Sunday morning we went to Palm Sunday mass at Notre Dame! We don't know any French... but we could sort of follow cuz everthing was written in the bulletin and we know the story. And they had one reading in English, which was cool. We got some lunch after that and then met up with Hannah! We ate ice cream with her and then she took us to the Eiffel tower.

Monday we went to the Louvre! We walked around it a lot... and we still didn't see everything. Every now and then I had to stop and look at something in detail. There is so much there. I didn't know Hammarabi's code was there. That was pretty sweet. We got some dinner after that, which involved delicious crepes!

Tuesday was Versailles. There were really long lines, which was unfortunate, but Tracy and I got in both there and at the Louvre for free because we are studying in Europe! We got audioguides at Versailles which were really interesting. Here's a picture of a really neat globe that was in one of the rooms:

It was raining, so we didn't walk around the gardens very much. We were also really tired and hungry, so we went back into the city to get some food. Oh, one thing this trip taught us (besides the fact that you shouldn't drink too much coffee... even when it's free) is that the Metro is amazing. It's so simple, but it looks complicated, so it makes you feel smart :-)

Well... I really didn't write that much considering... maybe these details are of interest: there was a thunderstorm, I wrote some postcards, French people practically all speak English and it is really hard to tell if they are making fun of you or not, Tracy and I found some really good bread at the grocery store that we ate for breakfast every morning and we went through a whole jar of jam in four days...

Tracy is going to take over now and write about Madrid and Toledo, but I'll put in a few more pictures.

An eye for an eye.

Green room!

Betty

...Explosiva.

Las Fallas....how do I describe Las Fallas....so many people, so many weird sculptures, so many explosions, so many churros, so much noise, so much madness! All wrapped up in one awesome day in the city of Valencia. You should check it out sometime. :)

This is the first falla we came across. We would later return to see it go up in flames...



There were too many fallas to count, but here's another that we got to see from up in a cool castle thing. (By the way, we drove past at least five castles on the way to Valencia; awesome!)



...Ok, here's the cool castle thing.



This one was probably my favorite.



There were A LOT of people there. No joke. I don't think I've ever seen such a crowd. (What you see in the bottom left corner is a churro stand. There was about one every 15 feet.)



Perhaps this photo better portrays it. :) It was a cozy. We came to this plaza because we heard something was going to explode. Lots and lots of fireworks! And LOTS of smoke afterward.



Later we went to a parade. The first half was nice, with lots of people dressed up in medieval costume and carrying lanterns, and the sun setting...The second half got a bit frightening, as you might conjecture from the photo below. Lots and lots and lots and lots of bizarre demon dudes running around with fire....never seen anything like it. I asked the woman standing next to me why there were so many demons. She shrugged and said, "Meh, it's a tradition."
No further comments at the moment.



And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...
This was a smaller one that they burned around 10pm. One of our friends got to keep a piece of it.



And here's the giant one we saw earlier. And no, those are not stars, they are big hunks of burning ash (which, fortunately, cooled off before falling on us). We got a good spot. It required getting there about an hour and a half early, and listening to the crowd chant, "Fuego! Fuego!" ("Fire! Fire!") while we waited, but it was worth it.



...And here are the firemen ("bombers") putting out the falla.
It was at about this time that someone let off a firecracker that went zipping around our feet, which got some people really mad, and we decided to get out of there.



We took the 2am bus (avoiding the hostel, thank you), and got back around 6am, to find my sister sleeping in my bed! Yes, I spent the rest of the weekend with my family, who happened to be in town. Good times.

Oh, and here's a glimpse of last week's delicious taco salad dinner up on our "terraza" (terrace/roof/upper exterior surface of our apartment).



Off to grammar class!
♥Tracy

...Rápida.

Today is our halfway point.

Yesterday there was a half marathon in Murcia. Rachael ran it! and I did the 10.3K, which was half of it. (In miles those are 13.1 and 6.4, respectively.) It was awesome (and I promise, I thought that for most of the race too, not just afterwards). Here is a picture of some random runners that Tracy took when she and our friend Ashley came to watch. It does a good job of showing what the race was like.

So the race started over on the other side of the river. We got up and walked to the start, picked up our race stuff, and then searched for somewhere to leave our water bottles and jackets. Sadly, there wasn't anywhere official, so we stared looking for someplace to hide them. We went upstairs because it totally looked like other people were... but when we got up there we were the only ones, and a security guy saw us and started yelling. That was a good time to pretend (or... more like excentuate the fact) that we are stupid foreigners. Anyway, we started talking to this other girl who looked like she was trying to find a place for her stuff. She spoke English; I don't think she spoke Spanish though. She was from Kenya. She was really nice. We suspected that she was going to win the women's race, and she did! So I just think it was funny that we ran into her beforehand and talked to her and that even though she didn't speak Spanish she dominated their race.

Four of our American friends from school also ran: three did the 10.3K and one the half marathon. And four (including Tracy!) came to watch. (In case you were wondering if we ever found somewhere to put our stuff... they held it for us.) Let's see. The start of the race was exciting, and it was funny to think about where we were... Usually it's like, "I'm in Spain. Wow." This was, "I'm in Spain... plus I'm doing a race. Weird, but awesome." It was a very flat race. No complaints there. There were some people cheering when we ran along the river. A good portion of the race was two way, so I enjoyed watching the leaders run by. Rachael and I saw each other a few times! There were four or five big packs of guys in green and black. They were sort of obnoxious because they were yelling for most of the race (really I'm just jealous that they can run further and faster than me while yelling...), but Rachael asked them where they were from, and they said they were from Murcia and that they were in the airborne division of the army. So they were one example of the many interesting people in this race. There was also a guy with maracas...

We were all happy with our times. Rachael's was 1:45, and mine was 55 min. (Remember :-) she ran twice as far.) No one died. It was good. We got free stuff at the end, which is totally one of the most exciting things about a race. And they gave us each a huge water bottle - 1.5 L.

Ok here's a bit about school. History class is awesome. It is everyone's (I think) favorite. Probably because we have an awesome teacher - Jóse. I don't really know how to describe him. Well, he's Spanish... haha. He is just a good teacher because he knows what he's talking about and isn't boring and is funny, especially when he does impressions of French people or of little girls showing off or pretends to speak elvish.

Last Thursday night we went over to Claudia's apartment for tapas. She is a friend from church. We learned a new card game called Nerviosa, which just means Nervous. It is worth teaching when we get back. After we ate she played the guitar for a bit and we sang. It reminded me of a Roberts party... haha. The next night, (this is going to seem really random) we went with her and some other friends to get Swedish meatballs at the place where she used to work. They had a good sale! What can I say. After that we went to youth group, and it was a very good night for that. Tracy played the drums for a bit, and it looked like she really enjoyed that.

In two weeks we have Easter break for two weeks! Tracy and I are going to Paris for the first few days. Her family is going to be visiting Paris then too. Hopefully I will get to see my friend Hannah who is going to be studying in Paris... We are also going to Madrid and Toledo during the break! Rachael is going to Barcelona with our friend Anna. And for the second half of break we will be here in Murcia for all the Easter festivities... probably, unless we find a cheap ticket to London... The three of us (with two of our friends) are going to Dublin April 15th!!! Yep. That's the most exciting thing in the world :-)

This is a really random blog, so I guess it makes sense to end with this... We made bagels on Saturday. They don't have them here, so we really wanted to try it. They take just as long to chew as bagels normally do, so I think they were a success!
The end. - Betty

...Pintaresca.

This past weekend was SEVILLA!

Starting off, we saw the third-biggest Catedral in Europe:


There were lots of orange trees in the inside area. They use them to make marmalade.


Inside...


We got to climb up the Giralda, which was awesome!!


The view was quite spectacular


This was followed by a trip to Los Reales Alcálzares, a palace-fortress of Al Ramán III.


Horses...


The river, and El Torre de Oro


La Plaza de España! There were also some beautiful gardens in this part of the city. We found some fun playgrounds, too. :)

(They filmed some Star Wars scenes here.)

We finally got to see flamenco! We were in a bar stuffed with probably 200 people, and we had FRONT ROW seats! I literally couldn't have gotten any closer. She came close to kicking me a few times, and when she bowed at the end she almost hit me in the face with her hair. There was also a flute player, singer, and guitarist. They were intense. It was amazing.


We got two heaping plates of paella on Saturday, and we also got to go aboard a replica of an old Andalusian ship. Sunday we went to mass ("misa") at the Catedral. The Catedral was right across from the hostal. We got to climb out of Rachael's window on the sixth floor onto a terrace that overlooked it! But perhaps the most gorgeous sight we saw all weekend was on the bus ride back, when the moon looked enormous as it rose above the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas. No photo, but it wouldn't have done it justice anyway.
Good times.

So yesterday I did something unheard of in Spain...
...I wore flip-flops. In February. Big no-no. But you see, I didn't care, because my sneakers were still soaked from the previous night due to another rare bout of rain. Fortunately our wet trek was well worth it; we went to a friend's apartment for a delicious dinner of cheeseburgers, fries, salad, and chocolate chip peanut-butter cookies. And then we got to snuggle up in our warm, dry pajamas when we came back. Anyway, wearing flip-flops in Spain in February is something you just don't do. There's an unwritten rule that you don't wear summer clothes until June, even though it's gorgeous out today. It has nothing to do with the temperature, just the month. Some of our teachers will admit that it's silly, but it's just the way it is. The word here for foreigner/tourist is "guiri." Sometimes when we walk past people we hear them say that word. Or they'll just come right out and make fun of us. I was the essence of guiri yesterday. And I'm okay with that. It was kinda nice to have people stare at my feet instead of my face. What a funny culture. I still like it here. :)

Today we had our first music class, and it was awesome! Our teacher is hilarious. And he brought in a guitar and played for us a lot.

¡Hasta la próxima!
♥Tracy