A Final Post

These last seventy-two hours have been quite the ride. Moments of elation followed by moments of deep sadness. It's a terrible thing-- saying goodbye to people who I've grown so close to in such a short period of time, and promising we'll keep in touch and see each other again, but knowing that will probably only be true with maybe a handful of people. But life continues onward, and I'm fortunate to have so many good things and people waiting for me back in the United States. So in commemoration of everything that has happened, and expectation of all the goods things that are yet to happen, here is my list of my top 15 things I'll miss about Spain, and my top 15 things I'm looking forward to back home, in no particular order.

Things from Spain I'll Miss:

-My host family

-My new friends here

-Speaking Spanish

-Tortillas con Patatas

-Hormiguero 3.0 (an awesome Spanish talk show where they make the guests do crazy things)

-Easy travel to other countries

-Day trips to Madrid

-The old Spanish men who walk with their hands clasped behind their backs in their cute old man hats

-Super Sonic and La Media Pinta (my favorite Madrid bar and my favorite Alcalá bar)

-The constant adventure

-Reliable public transportation (the regular trains to and from Madrid)

-Being with people who I still don't know much about

-Having Fridays off from class

-The simplification that comes with no volunteer positions, no job, and a light school schedule

-Living in a town where I am still figuring things out

Things I'm excited for in the U.S.:

-My family

-My friends

-My boyfriend, Jared

-Eureka my hedgehog (as long as she doesn't bite me)

-Mexican food (mainly guacamole and nachos)

-My independence (doing my own laundry, driving myself around, making my own food)

-Christmas and snow

-The awesome local restaurants in Fort Collins

-Hosting my radio show

-Brunch (just big breakfasts in general)

-The feeling of home

-Being with people I have a past with

-Not living with a 13-year-old boy

-Going to Old Firehouse Books and "working" with all my friends (it's hard for me to call spending my day in a bookstore work)

-Living in a town I could navigate blindfolded

This will probably be my last post to this blog, since (obviously) the theme of this one no longer applies. I've enjoyed blogging, though (despite my infrequent posts) and might continue again at a new site. If this is the case, I'll be sure to post once more here just to let you if you want to continue following my life adventures. Thanks for reading, I can't wait to see you all again!

Love,

Kelsey

Cooking with Pepi

Less than two weeks left to go and I'm cramming in as much Spanish culture as I can. This means cooking lessons, something I've managed to avoid even in the United States throughout most of my life, but I figured I'd need something to prove I'd been here (and thank the parents for their financial help) and a good traditional Spanish dish seemed right! Not to mention, of all the food I'll miss in Spain, I'll miss the "Tortilla con Patatas" most. (Note: not the ham.)

As you can probably tell from the picture above, the Spanish tortilla is almost nothing like Mexican tortilla we are all so familiar with, except that they're both flat and round. The Spanish tortilla is much more similar to an omelette, the ingredients I learned to use include potatoes, eggs, olive oil and salt. That's seriously it. I'm sure there are other variations out there, but with my less-than-advanced level of cooking skills, the easier the better. The process essentially involves mixing all of the ingredients together in a big bowl, and then frying it. Easy enough, yet I still managed to break the first one when trying to flip it over. This dish in my house is always accompanied by a tomato salad which is somehow even easier than the tortilla. All the salad include is tomatoes, salt, vinegar, and olive oil. (Spaniards love olive oil almost as much as they love ham.) I don't know if I'll ever be able to live up to the cooking styles of my host-mom, Pepi, but I'll sure by trying when I get back to Colorado! If you're interested in sampling some, just show up with some potatoes and I'll show you how to make this delicious, simple, cheap dish. Or you can check out this website below which includes onions in the recipe, so it's a little too fancy for me, but I have confidence in you to figure it out!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/tortillaspanishomele_67957

Huelgas

Since arriving in Spain, one of the many things that has struck me as so different from the United States is the amount of "huelgas" (or strikes) they have here. This year, for example, the Spanish government needed to cut federal spending, and they decided the best place to take the money from would be the school system. Three thousand teachers lost their jobs as a result, and the schools have been huelga-ing ever since. My host-sister Irene rarely goes two weeks without missing a day at her university because of either a teacher or student huelga, and even my 13-year-old host brother Raúl has been part of quite a few huelgas. This has been pretty impressive, considering that in Colorado, cutting school funding is part of the norm. I've never heard of any strikes happening there, despite the consistent budget-slashing of school districts across the state. Spain, on the other hand, is not afraid to let the system know when they're unhappy.

Apparently, the same can be said for Portugal, my would-be destination for the upcoming weekend. Plans have changed though, because-- you guessed it-- the air traffic controllers are having a huelga of their own. The airline didn't bother to inform me until yesterday, and considering we were supposed to leave tomorrow this has been pretty stressful. Right after class today, we called the airline to see what we could do. While they do have a lot of huelgas in Spain (and Portugal), they usually never last more than a day, but those days occur frequently. That being the case, we were hoping to maybe fly out Friday instead, but those flights were already booked completely. It made no sense to fly out Saturday, since we have to leave Sunday to be back in time for classes, so I guess Portugal will just have to wait.

This has been a disappointment, to say the least. I had been looking forward to that trip for a while now, and have wanted to visit Portugal long before I even got here. We move onward, though, and quickly made plans today for another weekend trip to start Thursday. So tomorrow we leave early in the morning to catch a bus for the six-hour ride to Sevilla, a reportedly beautiful city in southern Spain. It would've been nice to visit another country before I return to the states, but I'll take what I can get.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Wish I could be there to share some turkey with you, but as it is I'll be in Sevilla instead. Not a bad trade off. Take care!

Blurbs

So I was thinking back earlier today to the first blog that I posted here, before I'd even left for Spain. That feels like such a long, long time ago already. In it, I'm pretty sure I promised I'd try to update this thing at least once a week. Oh, what a fool I was. I probably should've known better, but life moves on and I'm posting now so I hope you can forgive me. It's just that things get going, and there is so much to tell you about, but then I sit down in front of a computer and get overwhelmed by all there is to say! So here are just a few blurbs about a few things going on:

The Madrid Zoo- The weekend after Barcelona we didn't have any travel plans, so we paid a visit to the zoo in Madrid, made famous by the birth of two baby pandas a few years back! While the pandas were very cute, they were true to their panda-nature and weren't the most active of the creatures there. The biggest difference I saw between American zoos and the zoo here was that in Madrid, they don't discourage you from feeding the animals. This doesn't just mean throwing a piece of bread to the ducks-- it means almost every single animal there. One of my friends even threw the leftover apple from here lunch to a brown bear! While I definitely have some qualms with this morally, it certainly made the animals more active. (The pandas are one of the few animals you can't feed, hence why they were so calm.) All of the other animals, though, came right up to the edge of their habitat and waited for you to throw a treat to them. Below, my friend April and I stand in front of some rhinos.

Santander/Bilbao- I suppose the biggest occurrence since I last posted would have to be my trip to Santander and Bilbao last weekend. For those of you who aren't experts in Spain's geography, they're both located in northern Spain, right by the Atlantic Ocean. The best part of the trip was our first day there, which we spent in Santander. We spent the whole day walking along the coast, where most the city's tourist attractions are, culminating in a visit to a lighthouse. After hiking for an hour or so along the cliff, it began to softly rain as we reached a valley of the softest, brightest green grass made only more brilliant by the contrast of the dark sky. The ocean was completely visible to our right, leaving plenty of room to see the complete and bright rainbow that had begun to form. The lighthouse itself was just across the valley, and since we arrived at dusk the light turned on just as we reached the pinnacle of the hill. Just as I thought I might cry from how beautiful it was, I turned around and saw a white horse grazing freely in the valley. I wouldn't have been surprised to see a leprechaun, that's how surreally beautiful this place was.

Concerts- I think I mentioned before that I went to see the band Explosions in the Sky in concert, which was an amazing experience. The only thing that threw me off was trying to figure out how Spanish concerts work. I've got it down in the U.S.- if the flier says 8pm, they start at nine; if it says 9pm, they start at ten; and so on. In Spain it's different. Usually, the Spaniards are much more laid-back when it comes to time, but the concert began approximately when they said it would, and was over before 11:30pm! In the United States this is blasphemy, and I have to admit I was pretty disappointed, but the band played well and sounded awesome so I can forgive it. Tomorrow Jenn and I are going to see the British pop-rock band The Subways, and I'll make sure to be there on time.

Halloween and Barcelona

October has passed and with it, my first Halloween away from home. I can't tell how missing this holiday will compare to missing Thanksgiving (they're my two favorites), but despite my wonderful surroundings I was sad to miss the holiday. They do celebrate here in Spain, it's just a little half-baked. For example, a lot of people dress up, but for the most part they limit themselves to "scary costumes." This eliminates a lot of the creativity since almost everyone is a witch, zombie, or (like) a vampire. And then if you're not something scary, you and all of your friends wear the exact same costume, like the gang of teenagers I saw all wearing the same mask of Woody from Toy Story. Ironically, the latter costume is far more terrifying. I had fun, though, and the best part was that November 1st is Día de los Santos; it was nice to have a day to *ahem* rest after the Halloween festivities.

The perfect distraction from the Halloween parties back home was Barcelona. By the afternoon of the first day I was already in love with the city. I think what really captured my heart is that Barcelona is a city of artists. All of the metros play short films created all over the world, the street performers are incredibly talented and dedicated to their uniqu

e performances, statues of all varieties can be found in every plaza, and best of all the architecture cannot be found anywhere else in the world. The most famous architect of Barcelona was Antoni Gaudí, an artist with an incredibly creativ

e mind, but very little motivation to actually finish his projects. Our first morning their we visited his cathedral La Sagrada Familia (or The Sacred Family)

The picture on the left is what La Sagrada Familia looks

like now (it's impossible to get a full picture if you're not in a helicopter.) The design is incredibly intricate and detailed, after all Gaudí is how we got the word "gaudy." They expect the entire project to be finished sometime in the next 25 years. Keep in mind that constructed began in 1882. The picture on the right is what the cathedral is expected to look like upon completion and Jenn, Parker, Jessica and I already made a pact to return when we're all in our fifties to see the final result.

Between Barcelona and the little bit of Halloween I got here, I'd have to say that October went out with a bang. Next weekend I'm seeing Explosions in the Sky (an American instrumental band) in Madrid and the weekend after that is Santander with a possible day trip to Bilbao! I'll let you know more once they plans are all in action!

Diving Into Spain

My apologies for the lack of posts recently. Spain has sucked me in head first and finally I've gotten a bit of time to breath.

Jared left last Monday and his trip went really well. We had an awesome time exploring Madrid together, spent an afternoon in El Parque del Buen Retiro, and went out to the bars together at night. It was great to see him; it made me miss home quite a bit, but I feel like now that I've gotten some refreshment from him I'm ready to forge ahead with my time here in Spain! Below is a picture of us at Círculo de Bellas Artes (Circle of Fine Arts) where you can pay two euros to go to the top of the building and catch an awesome view of Spain. This picture doesn't do the beauty of the city much justice, but Jared and I are lookin' pretty good.

This week we had midterms which were beastly and I'm still reeling a bit from the last one. The worst of all was Spanish Culture and Civilization. It covered 300 years of Spanish history and when we asked our teacher what, specifically, the 5-question test would cover, he said "todo" (or everything.) Of course five questions did not nearly cover everything in 300 years of Spanish history, but I did my best and we'll see what comes of it next week.

Until then, I'm going to enjoy myself. Tonight Jenn, Parker, Jessica (a girl from CSU) and I head to Barcelona for the weekend. We're staying at HostelOne Sants, which has very good reviews on hostelworld.com so I have high hopes for this one. I'm really hoping to check out Ingenio while we're there. It's a sort-of mask shop that makes giant heads of celebrities, politcal figures and weird looking creatures. You can check it out here: http://www.el-ingenio.com/ Click on Catálogo to see what they have to offer. I doubt I'll come back with a giant head as a souvenir, but you never know...

Marrakech, Morocco: The City of Fabulous Mayhem

Twelve hours ago I left Marrakech, Morocco and my head is still spinning. Granted, that could just be my extreme exhaustion. It turns out Jared and I had the wrong time throughout the entire weekend. A very friendly Moroccan Spanish man who sat by us on the plane ride there said that Marrakech was only one hour behind Madrid, when it is in fact two hours behind. This didn't matter much at all Thursday, Friday, or Saturday since I didn't see another clock the entire time, so I never doubted it. Then this morning, when Jared and I had to be up to catch our taxi at 6am, we sat in the lobby an hour early before one of the hostel's few employees came out and pointed out our mistake. Without enough time to go back to sleep, we spent the hour writing postcards and listening to the first day's prayer which was being broadcast from all of the mosques throughout the city.

There is so much to say about our visit to Marrakech that I feel overwhelmed when even considering where to start in this post. I suppose the best place to begin is with the most basic fact about our trip: Visiting Morocco was absolutely one of the best things I have ever done in my entire life. Despite the brevity of our visit, it was everything I could want out of a trip. This is not to say that it was always comfortable, relaxing, or easy. It's actually quite the opposite. Marrakech is an incredibly vivid and overwhelming place. Our hostel was located a two-minute walk away from the center square, which is the center of this giant market. At every corner, there was someone trying to pull us into their shop to buy their trinkets. Every time we even glanced in the general direction of a street vendor, he'd try to rope us in with his limited English vocabulary.

Our first afternoon there we met a particularly friendly local named Abdul who gave us an impromptu tour of the old market. Jared warned him that we didn't have much money to give up at the beginning, but Abdul insisted he did it only to practice his English. While our host was a bit too aggressive for my taste, (that seemed to be a common characteristic of Moroccan men), he did show us a part of the city we wouldn't have found on our own. He showed us where all of the little trinkets and shoes and purses are made to be sold in the market-- the tanneries, the giant vats of dye, the artisans workshops. We walked with him for an hour or so before deciding to turn back, at which point he seemed to forget how much he only wanted to practice English and asked for a "little gift" in exchange for his time.

Before embarking for Morocco, we had been warned that food poisoning was basically inevitable. This warning had come only twenty-four hours before we took off and left me feeling pretty freaked out. Somehow, our intestines survived, though, and neither of us got sick despite drinking the tap water (don't worry-- we checked online and with our concierge first) and eating a wide variety of rich Moroccan food. The smells and flavors of the kebabs, tangine dishes, and exotic fruits and vegetables were intoxicating. There was one restaurant in particular we visited every day, mainly for their awesome juices. We sampled every one they had to offer, but my favorites were definitely the banana and the avocado.

The in-flight magazine I read on the way to Marrakech described the city as a place of "fabulous mayhem" and I don't think any other description could be more accurate. Every street provided a new set of sights, sounds, smells, and characters I know I'll never forget.