Dublín, Mérida y Trujillo

In a radical attempt to not do my homework I'll let you all know about my long weekend in Ireland and a small day trip I had with my professors from Kalamazoo.

Dublin

A couple of weekends ago, Mauro and I went to Ireland to visit Maggie my cousin. She is studying abroad in a small city outside of Dublin called Maynooth where we stayed with her in her flat. On Thursday we flew out of Lisbon and after many delays and long taxi rides we made it to her place and talked for another 3 hours. It was good, and really weird, hearing so much English spoken around me even if it was in an Irish accent.

The following day we all took a train to another small city called Howthe that's on the other side of Dublin. We hiked all through this small peninsula and saw a bit of those beautiful Irish cliffs. On top of that we were able to talk with a bunch of local townies and they were extremely friendly much like the people in Cáceres, but I could actually understand everything they were saying for once. We had lunch at this pub in the middle of the trails and had this amazing chowder, aptly named Howthe Chowder. It may have been because we had been hiking for a while or that I was still tired from sleeping, but that chowder was phenomenal. It had two or three different types of fish and other seafood in there and then with a big pint of milk...couldn't ask for something better.

 That night, Maggie took us into downtown Dublin to the Temple Bar district with one of her flatmates. The Temple Bar district was exactly what I had imagined drinking at pub in Ireland to be like. It was where I had a my first true Guinness among other things. The whole district was packed, which added to the fun. Towards the end of the night we stopped by and got some taco chips (stellar french fries) and headed back on the 40-minute-long bus ride to Maynooth.

The next day Mauro and I woke up relatively early and made our way back into Dublin to tour the Guinness Storehouse, and boy did it deliver. There were seven stories talking about how it's made and all of the advertising over the years. One of my favorite parts were in the taste testing room where we got a mini pint and were told what to look for when drinking Guinness. It was really cool because they had this fog machines that had a concentrated version of the esters, hops, malts and other things that are evident in their beer. It helped pick out some different tastes, but the thing is, Guinness just tastes different in Ireland. It's so strange. It's just smoother and, well, tastes better. After looking through all of the other artifacts they had, Mauro and I received a free pint to continue 'taste testing.' It was amazing obviously and I thought it was just an awesome experience. Also on the way back we talked to a bunch of teenage Irish kids who wanted to know anything and everything about the States. They were in that funny age where they want to be super cool but are still really cute with how excited they are to meet foreigners haha.

The Black Stuff

We had a pretty chill time, just watching Christmas movies and making some enchiladas before we headed out. Lisbon was a trainwreck again getting back, partially because the Portuguese refuse to speak Spanish. Imagine that! We got back to Cáceres fine but I wish I could've stayed for longer. 

Mérida y Trujillo

This past week we had twelve or so professors from K come to Cáceres and eat at our houses and go to our cultural project sites. I never had any of them for class, but I have talked to the two chemistry profs before so I was able to meet a ton of awesome people. Everyone that came was very excited to be there and see some of us that they knew.

Their last day we went to two towns that are very close: Mérida (the capital of Extremadura, the "state" I live in) and Trujillo (a small town somewhere around here). Mérida is very rich in Roman history with many of their structures still standing and it reminded me a lot of Rome. No matter where you dig in the city there are Roman ruins and a lot of the city is under constant excavation due to that. We visited the amphitheater, the theatre, and an old Roman bridge. Up until recently, cars were still driven over the bridge but they stopped doing that to try and preserve it. After an exquisite three course lunch of paella, pork and chips, and a homemade cake we made our way to Trujillo for an hour and half.

Trujillo appeared to me to be much more interesting for some reason. It was very foggy and damn near nighttime but we toured a bit of the old city. The thing that I found to be the coolest part was that this city was the birthplace of Francisco Pizarro and Francisco de Orellana. For those of you who can't remember history of the Americas, they were two of the fiercest conquistadors who conquered the Incas and traversed the Amazon River, respectively. We saw what they're wealth was able to build with them and how there lives were beforehand. For example, Pizarro went from living in a small home in the old city to constructing a massive palace on the Plaza Mayor because why not? Our guide told us that these guys were basically insane, but I have to imagine you had to conquer a people over an ocean away that you didn't even know existed 20 years before. I just love being in cities where there's history even semi-related to the us and I thought it was surreal walking through the same streets as these men.

Well after these cool little cities we went to tapas with the profs and got to know one another even more over some drinks. Although I didn't know these people that well beforehand I hope that I can get into some of their classes if I have free time in my last year. 

All in all, I'm doing well and excited to see my fam that's coming next week. Miss everyone and if you still want a postcard, let me know! 

La Capital: Madrid y Turkey Day en España

So I decided that after about two weeks since being there that I should right a bit about my weekend in Madrid. We started out with a 3 hour "scavenger hunt" of sorts where we had to go around the central part of the city and find random bits about everything and anything. We went down to the Prado Museum (just the outside...) and el Parque Retiro for a bit that same day and it was all very pretty. I was completely surprised to see how enormous the park was. I also wished that I could've been there a bit earlier in the year to see the leaves change because it would've been soooo beautiful, but hey you can only do so much in six months, right?

After going on this scavenger hunt we finished in the Plaza Mayor and waited for a our director for about an hour which wasn't exactly cool considering it was close to freezing out. The minor annoyance subsided pretty quickly when all of our Spanish friends from years' past along with our Kalamazoo friends that were studying in Madrid showed up. We caught up for a bit before our director came and then went for some awesome tapas at El Tigre. It was nice to catch up with all those hooligans. We all went back to the hotel and got ready for a night on the town, and let me tell you it was something. We went to this seven-story...yes, seven-story discoteca and had a great time. I have never seen such a big club in my life but that may because I've really been out to them in Cáceres and Bahía isn't much to brag about.

The next day we got a absolutely delicious brunch (I guess that's what you could call it?) at this place called Miranda on la Calle de Huertas. In fact, I'm sure if you ever ask Mauro what his favorite part of Madrid was, the honey mustard pork we had has to be in the top three. We went through the Prado museum which was pretty neat, but it was more like a race to see as many painting by Goya and Velázquez as was humanely possible in 2 hours. All of that on a long day of walking the day before and going to bed early in the morning didn't exactly make it easier, but there was some very impressive things to see. Unfortunately, we weren't able to see the other huge museums around the corner because we ran out of time which is a bit said considering they contain some very important Picasso paintings.

Finally, we went through the Royal Palace and my Lord is that something. We didn't have a guide per se, but our director did a pretty good job of explaining everything along with the little plaques that were in every room haha. We only saw about 10% of the entire thing, but I'm pretty sure that everyone of the little 25 square meter rooms could've been valued pretty close to a million dollars. There was a room with 5 violins and cellos made specifically for the Spanish royalty by Antonio Stradivari. If you're not exactly sure who he is, he made string instruments in the 1600's which are still regarded as THE best in the world and every instrument he made is priceless. Then the fact that they're custom made for the king and queen makes them even crazier!

I enjoyed my time in Madrid, but I still don't know how to describe it. There weren't any cultural sites like in Granada or Salamanca but everything still felt impressive in some way. Obviously it is the capital city so it is special, it just didn't feel like the Spain I had been accustomed to in Cáceres I suppose. I'm planning on exploring it some more, but as of right now I would say that there are other places you need to go to first before you go to Madrid.

This weekend I'm going to Dublin to meet up with Maggie and I'm getting pumped! I haven't seen that chick forever and I finally get to go see the land of some of my ancestors. I'll let you know how that is after this weekend so be on the lookout for another post.

So I had Thanksgiving here, obviously, and it was very...different. I can't say that I've ever had duck patê at any of my dinners back in the US (Rowley and Schultz families feel free to back me up) nor only one plate of turkey. Needless to say, it was absolutely delicious and I still was able to get ahold of both sides of my family during their respective dinners. It was kinda hard to not be around a ton of family for the huge holiday but my friends and professors made it a worthwhile and memorable experience.

The following day I had to teach at my elementary school which is called Licenciados Reunidos. It's a semi-private (I don't understand it either so don't ask haha), bilingual school were I teach English, History, Biology and basically anything else the teachers don't feel like teaching on Fridays. My mom sent me some photos from some of the Thanksgiving dinners and I was able to make a Powerpoint and teach a bunch of classes about our cool holiday. All of the kids (and professors) were astounded by the amount of food that they had made and eaten during the day. That same day I got a history lesson about Spain's conquest of the Americas and also interviewed in Spanish about American stereotypes. We really need to stop making movies where cheerleaders and football players are the most popular students in school because that's what Spanish middle-schoolers think that high school is like haha. They also think it's weird how we always sing the National Anthem at sporting events and fly flags everywhere because they have so many protests that more flags are burned in the country than are ever put on a flagpole. The only time that many European countries seem to be proud of their country and national anthems seem to be during international sporting events, so the World Cup basically. We talked about a ton of other stuff as well, but feel free to ask me about that because at this point I feel like I've written more than anyone would want to read. Hope everyone is doing well Stateside and there's still time to get postcards if you want one! Love all y'all.

¡Hasta luego tíos y tías!

Granada y Schtuff

This weekend a few of us organized a trip to go to the city of the Granada. I know that I’ve said this for every place that we’ve gone so far, but I honestly think it may be my favorite city in Spain. The feeling of the city is just so laid back and it has its own air about it unlike Salamanca, Sevilla, or Lisbon. 

Granada is located in the Autonomous Community (basically their version of states) of Andalusia about three hours due east of Sevilla. Since it is in Andalusia there is just an overflowing amount of Arabic culture still present in the city and is even more amplified here being that it was the capital of the Arabic nation back in the day. The layout of the city is very different because it is extremely disorganized which is common with Muslim cities of the time we’ve learned. That being said I never once felt lost. Also there’s no Plaza Mayor which I didn’t realize until the end of the trip.

What makes up for it’s lack of organization and main squares is the massive Alhambra castle. It is an old Arabic castle that held the Sultan of Al-Andaluz and all of his best buds back in the fifteenth century. We toured through all of the gardens, palaces and squares that were contained in this absolutely massive castle. The palaces were very restored due to the fact that it was uninhabited for about 200 years but there are still amazing ornate rooms in every corner. The craftsmen created plaster molds and were able to fill every palace inside the walls with complex geometric patterns, while expert carpenters crafted wood ceilings that were so perfect that they never needed nails or anything to stay together. All this being said, I still think that it’s tough to choose the amazing palaces over the amazing royal gardens they had. The gardens were more than a pretty sight; every shrub and flower had a fragrance that together made your nose just as interested as your eyes. What more is that Granada is filled with pomegranates (granada is actually the Spanish word for pomegranate) and almonds, which add that other dimension of taste to the garden as well. There was definitely a reason that the Queen Isabel wanted to be buried in La Alhambra after her death.

Later that day we went on a free tour through our hostel to Las Cuevas de Sacromonte***. Our guide was an absolutely hilarious English writer that lived in Granada and taught us a ton about these caves. Essentially there are caves all over Granada because it’s a legend that all of the Jews buried their gold in the mountains before they left during the Inquisition. Hundreds of years ago people would dig all over the mountains to no avail and leave these caves that squatters would then inhabit. So all of these caves are just free housing that homeless people or just poor travelers will live in for extended periods of time. We were able to walk through some of the caves and they are very impressive to be honest. It’s definitely a cool and sustainable subculture that grow most of their own food, cook and live without any modern amenities. This would be a good point to say that there are TON of hippies in Granada that live in or around these caves. Note I said hippies, not hipsters. As you get farther into the valley most of these dwellings have been gentrified by the homeowners so they can get electricity, gas, etc. but also to prevent their houses from caving in…which happens. Although the last one happened over twenty years ago. Super cool stuff going in Granada people I tell ya.

Then on Friday Mauro and I went on another tour to walk through the city and get some more history from this awesome guide about the Albaycín, which is a huge Arabic section of the city. There were a ton of cool things about this neighborhood, from defense mechanisms of narrow streets and uneven steps to secret gardens and tapas bars. Throughout the entire city there are these waters taps that bring fresh water from the mountains via aqueducts that were made in the 9^th century by the Muslims. It reminded me a lot of Rome in that I just needed to buy a small fifty cent bottle of water and then could fill it up with crystal clear water as many times as I wanted for free.

Last, but certainly not least was the food in this city. Wow. Tapas are the absolute bomb here with an awesome fusion of the typical Mediterranean diet of Spain and the Shawarma taste of Arabia. We got some delish kebabs the first day we were there with hummus and tzaziki sauce with rice. But the best is our last night when we just went to two different tapa bars. You get a €2 (~$2.75) beer, wine or tinto de verano and get free delicious food with it. The first place we went made amazing sandwiches with fresh bread, goat cheese, onion and jamón then Argentinian empanadas and Mexican flautas…all for five bucks a person. After that we went a to an Arabic place and got some delicious falafel, shawarma beef, cauliflower, and potatoes for another 2.50. Let me say this much: a two beers with two great small portioned meals for $2.50 kicks the ass of any dollar menu or five dollar footlong any day of the week. If I ever have a restaurant/brewpub/make food for myself this is what I’ll be doing.

So basically Granada was amazing and I never felt the need to go out to any clubs because of the awesome tapa bars and friends to accompany them. I don’t know if it was the amount of hippies present or if it was because I was getting over the flu, but Granada just was such a calming and relaxing city that I hope to go to again. My phone is acting up once again so I don't have any photos of this wonderful city, but that's all the reason to come back. If you want to actually see what we did you should check out some people's Facebook pages that I came with. Hope all's well on the homefront!

Salamanca y Sevilla

Whoa, it's been close to a month since I've been on this. That seems to be a trend that I won't be breaking anytime soon. I've had a couple awesome trips so far so I'll try to catch up on those as much as possible. Also I have pictures so that will help quite a bit with what I want to talk about!

Salamanca

Two weeks ago I went to Salamanca for three days with our group. It was such a beautiful city and I really have a hard time putting it into words. I feel like I say that a lot but as a pretty awesome quote I saw spray-painted there said "All language is nothing but a poor translation" and trying to describe all of these different cities I've visited with words would be nothing except an injustice. That being said, I'll attempt to explain Salamanca the best I can, haha. First of all, the city is made for college students with half the population only being in town during the school year. La Universidad de Salamanca is actually the fourth oldest university in Europe if you can believe because I know I didn't. After Bologna, Paris, and Oxford the university there is next in line. There are a ton of bars and the night life is much more lively coming from such a town such as Cáceres.

Casual panorama of the Plaza Mayor at night.

 The facade to the University of Salamanca from the 17th Century.

We toured through the old school and were able to see some of the original classrooms. The original students weren't able to keep any notes because of the price of paper and instead would listen to their teacher lecture and have to memorize it. After all this they would be placed in a room of all of their peers and professors and be bombarded with question after question to determine if they were done with school. Mind you this was all in Latin, which they had to learn before they could even attend the university.

Sitting before the firing squad in La Capilla de Santa Barbara

Also we toured two extremely old cathedrals, cleverly named The New Cathedral and The Old Cathedral. The New Cathedral is only 250 years young and is the epitome of gothic style. Both the exterior and interiors are ornately engraved with the live of Jesus and saints that are important to the city and Spain in general. Oddly enough, many of these statues that were placed on the facade no longer exist because they fell from the aftershock of the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755. The cathedral is actually crooked with a large crack in sections due to this, which is pretty ridiculous. Also another nice little tidbit is that is the only cathedral to have the Four Fathers of both the Occidental and Orthodox Church behind the altar in the entire world. Chew on that.

The Old Cathedral is bit older, naturally, clocking in at about 800 years old and is of Roman construction. It is right up against the side of the New Cathedral and is also a very interesting church to go through, with many ancient frescos on the walls. 

We were able to meet up with my host sister Ana and her boyfriend Roberto while we were there and had a pretty awesome time with them. Unfortunately, my other host sister, Ester, was very sick and wasn't able to hang out with us. Being that half of the city is students the prices for clubs and bars were much cheaper and were tailored towards students. I would go back here in a heartbeat, but we'll see how the ol' wallet feels towards the end of my trip haha.

Sevilla

Sevilla really is something special. Many of you may not now that most of Spain was actually conquered and inhabited by Muslims for the better part of 800 years. Sevilla was the capital of their state and you have to imagine that they imparted a bit of their culture on the region. Well you would have imagined correctly. At times I had to remind myself that I was still in Spain and wasn't studying abroad in Saudi Arabia.

I kid you not, those are all pictures from the Real Alcázar in Sevilla. I didn't take a trip to Saudi Arabia or something for these pictures...I was in Spain the whole time.The palace was enormous and right across the street from the third biggest cathedral in the world after St. Peter's (Vatican City) and St. Paul's (London). These pictures really don't do justice the intricate geometric tile work that these people put into this building. Outside of the buildings were at least 5 acres of expertly-kept gardens all smack dab in the middle of one of the biggest cities in Spain. The craziest part is that this isn't a Muslim palace, it was actually built with catholic intentions in mind with many figures of the Virgin Mary and Jesus throughout. Oh, and also this is where the Catholic Kings, Fernando and Isabel, were married. 

Finally, we saw The Cathedral of Sevilla which I said earlier is the third largest Catholic church in the world. It was very cool to see in comparison to St. Peter's but it was a bit of a disappointment with the amount of renovations that were going on. That being said we still saw about 250 grams of where Christopher Columbus may or may not be kept. His body is separated all over the world so they're pretty sure it's him, but they're not positive.

I guess it could be him, seems like someone important at least.

One thing is for sure though and that is that both of his sons are buried in the church and that there is a small chapel where all of the sailors prayed before sailing into the unknown of the New World. Pretty cool stuff if you ask me. 

We also saw some Flamenco, which is a pretty big part of Andalucian culture. It's a dance which is extremely difficult to learn, a style of singing which is extremely difficult to sing, and a style of guitar which is damn near impossible to play. Just by listening to it you can tell there is some Arabic influence and if I knew much about dancing I'm sure you could see that as well. There is so much passion in the song and dance that it absolutely mesmerized me the entire time. I couldn't keep my eyes off the dancer nor focus on anything but the beautiful runs of the singer's voice. If I can find time, I'm going to try to sing like this because it just digs so deep into a person's soul and just emits raw passion to the audience. It seemed like the singer lost himself in the song a few times and sang as if he was on his own. It was easily one of the coolest things I've seen since being here. I'll try to put my video up on Facebook, it's totally rad.

Finally, I've started my project while being here which is teaching in a school. I've only been there for five hours at this point but boy is it some work. I teach 11-14 year olds in all sorts of classes like history, geography and English, sporadically switching between Spanish and English. I would be rushed to talk about the 4th of July right after explaining the layers of the Earth and then shoved into a classroom to talk about the importance of teenagers volunteering outside of school. I start up again tomorrow and, although I'm nervous because I have no plans going into it, I can't wait to talk to all of these kids about my culture because I get to feel special being the only American! Anyways, sorry for the delay on sending any postcards, I'm just awful at it. I'll get them out as soon as possible and as soon as I refind everyone's address haha. Love and miss everyone!

¡Hasta la próxima vez!

Queso, Vanguardista, y Portugal

I may have forgotten that I had a blog for the last few weeks but I'll chalk that up to being pretty busy. In any fashion, this will be my third post and it will also not contain very many pictures. I hate seeing a big block of text as much as anyone else but the sad reality is that my precious iPhone may have some water damage after an excellent weekend in Lisbon. At this point I'm praying that the power of dry rice, a Ziploc bag, and a week's worth of time can work some magic and get my only convenient mode of picture taking and going on Facebook contacting my loving family to function properly once again.

Two weeks ago I went to a cheese factory that makes one of the most famous cheeses in all the world: torta de casar. It is regarded as a Spanish delicacy and has apparently been made since a farmer way back when wanted to preserve his goat milk in the ol' Iberian Peninsula. The factory/museum smelled uh...I suppose pungent would be the best word to use. We got off the bus and could instantly smell this reeking farm which was a cross between protein powder, dirty gym socks and manure. So in that case I guess it just smelled like the men's locker room during football two-a-days. Anyway, we sat through a presentation that was difficult to understand and then finally got to see the massive amounts of cheese that they make. I'm sure you've seen my pictures on Facebook thus far, but I've never seen so much beautiful wheels as I did that day and they smelled absolutely delicious. There was different hard cheeses, torta de casar and this fantastic herbed hard cheese that I still get shivers down my spine when I think about our tasting afterwards. 

Torta de Casar: sooo creeeamy

If you couldn't tell, I loved this factory and wish that I could've bought a wheel to bring back to the States.

This same day our group went to 'El Museo de Vostell' who was part of the vanguard movement in art, or what I always thought of as "that strange, modern art that doesn't mean anything." I have to let you know, I no longer am under the same assumption after my time at the museum. Wolf Vostell was a German artist who fell in love with Spain, and in particular a Spanish woman, and decided to stay here and make art. 

¿Por qué el proceso entre Pilato y Jesús duró solo dos minutos? (Translation: Why did the procesion between Pontius Pilot and Jesus only last two minutes?

Fiebre del Automóvil (Translation: Automobile Fever)

Having a guide made this trip so much more insightful into the meanings of these works. Granted, they're still kind of out there and I had no clue what the guide said about the airplane one up there. What I did learn is that Vostell was a genius and at times appeared to be able to see the future. I'm sure that sounds crazy, but the reasoning for some of his eclectic art made sense and often times would be made years before an event would happen. For example, he made a piece that told the sad story that students would one day be hooked to radios and televisions and would just be products of mass media. While our generation isn't necessarily hooked to TV's or radio, it's hard to find someone that doesn't have their phone literally attached to their hip. Social media can be a scary thing and although it brings it closer it can block out people's true personality by claiming it to be stupid, weird, or uncool.

To end on a better note, my favorite part by far was the exterior of the building where there was a beautiful lake and other gorgeous scenery. Unfortunately, we didn't have the time to walk around the lake but this is another reason Vostell is awesome. He said that nature is it's own piece of art and bought up all this land to preserve it so people can take it all in. What a guy!

Finally, my trip to Lisbon. Because I don't have many pictures to put up because my phone is still wet I'm not going to talk to much about Lisbon. What I will say is that it was spectacular city even if it rained most of the time we were there. The culture is similar to Spain, but the language is gorgeous (and super confusing and sounds like Russian Spanish) and the fact that it was the capital city on the ocean was a huge contrast to being in Cáceres that barely has enough water to function. If you ever are able to go to Lisbon make sure you eat the seafood, and the bacalao (cod)  in particular 

Bacalhau a bráz (Bacalao Dorado or Golden Cod)

It's basically just olives, cod and potatoes, but it's fantastic. I wish I could spend more time in Lisbon, but I have a feeling my wish to see other places and lack of time abroad won't afford me to do so. 

Other quick updates: 1) I went a neighborhood cookout and it was awesome and met a ton of cool neighbors, 2) I've bought a ton of postcards from different places thus far and want to send them to people so let me know your address if you want one! 3) I'm going to Salamanca next weekend so keep a lookout for new (and shorter) post, and finally 4) sorry for the long post! I miss back home but the constant adventure here makes me want to stay here forever so if I don't come back you know why. Also since my phone is messed up, send email's or Facebook message me until further notice. Love you all and keep in touch!

¡Adiós!

Gitanos, Hakuna Matata, y la Caca de las Palomas

So, I'm gonna warn you all in advance that this will probably be a veeeery long post, but trust me...it will be worth it.

This week has been one of the longest weeks I have ever had in my life: I was sick, I was jetlagged, I had some difficulties with the language and I learned how hard Spaniards go at the discotecas. And let me tell you, I wouldn't change it for anything. I have learned so much Spanish and culture in week that I really can't believe it. But anyway, enough with this mushy, "woe is me" post I'm just gonna write what you all want to read. So the way that I'm going to try to write this post is put some Spanish words that I've learned or are significant to something that I did in the week and expand on them a bit. If it works well for me I'll keep it going haha.

GITANOS, n., (hee-tah-nos): translation: gypsy 

On Wednesday we continued our orientation and went to mercadilla, which is just an flea market. There are super cheap clothes, a ton of food and a ton of people. The only thing that I bought was licorice because I was nervous that if I bought any of the fresh food my mom would be, not necessarily upset, but along the lines of "I could've bought that for you."Anyway, I came back and told mi familia española (Spanish family, if you will) that I went to this market and they asked me if I saw all the gitanos. I hadn't really ever heard this word so they had to describe them which was a lot of talking slow and acting out which didn't help. But I ate lunch with all of them and they continued to explain this to no avail. So later that night I was talking with my sister Ester when she brought it up again. She got her computer and then all of these people started showing up in the family room like Ana, Javi, Ana's boyfriend Roberto (which has gotten confusing because my family calls me Robert) and a friend of the girls that was over because they heard what we were talking about. I realized that they're just gypsies, but my whole family was ragging on them because of their accents, culture and lack of jobs. Basically all the gypsies in Spain, according to my family, make money by stealing, selling drugs, or working at the mercadilla. But a lot of them actually have a ton of money and spend on it on huge parties and weddings. At any rate they should me this show La Palabra de Gitanos which apparently is also a show in the US called Gypsy Weddings(?). They were trying to point out how weird of an accent they have, and let me tell you, they have a very strange culture. They dance all the time, as in I'm pretty sure the entire wedding was just a big dance that the pastor sang and they all clapped and danced haha. If you want a good laugh you should look it up and check them out.

Tell me this man isn't wearing the most ridiculous thing that you've ever seen. Oh and they bride's like 16...so there's that. Also I guess the bride is pretty ridiculous as well haha. 

So a couple of times when we're at the club, I'll tell Ester, Ana, Roberto and their friend Concha to dance like the gypsies and we all start clapping and dancing and laughing because it's so ridiculous. But to be honest, I have no idea if I saw any gypsies and cannot tell the difference between theirs or any other accent in Spanish because they speak so damn fast. 

HAKUNA MATATA, n., (hah-koo-nah mah-tah-tah) translation: a problem-free philosophy created by Timon and Pumba of Lion King fame.

So the only reason I really put this in here is so that I can talk about my family and how much of a delight they are. They is so much dancing and singing in this house that sometimes it's too much. When we were eating dinner the other day, I was trying to figure out how to say peach in Spanish because we eat fruit for dessert every meal and its a tough word to say (melocotón). After I got the hang of it my sisters asked me how to say it in English, and this all happens very often in my house. But then they started reminiscing about how they used to watch James y el melocotón gigante (James and the Giant Peach) and wanted to learn how to say it in English. One thing lead to another and all of a sudden we were talking about the Lion King and all of the girls in my family broke out in to the Spanish version of Hakuna Matata haha. My brother also loves reggaeton and will frequently start playing it in the kitchen or on the patio and start dancing and often Ester will join with him, dancing the bachata. There are so many little quirks to these guys and it's funny to see how our cultures are different!

So in Cáceres at least, people only party on Thursdays and Saturdays, which sounds strange but it makes sense when you see how they do it. Basically when you go out the night starts at 2:30AM or later and goes until the sun comes up so you can get some coffee, churros and head back for some sleep. I didn't stay up that late on Thursday because we had class but I had an awesome time bar hopping and dancing at the discotheques. Mauro and I hung out with Ana's boyfriend, Roberot, for the most part and taught him English slang. So far he's got 'swag', 'swerve' and arguably the most important 'YOLO' down. He's an awesome guy and we all had so much while he went out with us both nights. He went to my university my has recently taken his equivalent of boards for nursing school which is why he was here for the week. His boards basically consist of sitting in front of a board of registered nurses and doctors and another audience, getting peppered with question after question for 10 minutes and they decide whether he did adequately. He rocked it out and got a 9 out of 10 on it, so he can now start working! But he had to leave yesterday unfortunately and was very sad to do so. I'm hoping we can both make it up to Salamanca to visit Ana and Ester and hang out again.

LA CACA DE LAS PALOMAS, n., (la ka-ka day lahs pah-loe-mahs) translation: pigeon poop

We got a tour from one of our history teachers around la Ciudad Antigua (Old Cáceres) which is gorgeous. It reminded me a lot of when Charlie and I went to Rome, just condensed. I wasn't aware of the rich history of Spain and the number of times different parts were inhabited by different religions and tribes. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to uploading pictures, but I'm sure you can see some more on Facebook from other people at K or if they tagged me in them. While we were walking back throught the Old City, I was talking to my professor when I heard something splat on the ground next to me and low and behold...'twas shit. A bird pooped on my shoes and part of my ankles, but I found myself lucky. My professor had it in his hair and down the back of his shirt. At first I was not happy, but like the cacereño way I chilled out and laughed it off because in a disgusting kinda way, it was hilarious. This drunk guy that we started talking to offered to help me clean it, which I declined but looking back on it, the whole situation was pretty funny. Anyway, the day after I had painful stomach virus for about 24 hours (I'm fine now though!) and I couldn't figure out what it was from. Being sick in a foreign country is difficult, because 1) I don't know any words to express that I'm sick other than "I feel bad here" 2) you can't really focus on conversation even when you're feeling better because you're not 100% on top of jetlag and 3) you don't want to go to the hospital just because you don't know what to expect. But like I said, I got better by drinking some light lemonade and very salty soups so it's no big deal. It could've been the poop on my feet or other poop in that just floats around in the air that I picked up, one will never know.

In a nutshell, I'm still doing awesome and trying to get used to how this country lives. It's weird that the whole house stays up until 1:30 AM on any given night, but I'm getting used to it. Oh and on Saturday night we stayed up until 8:00 AM at the clubs and then went and got coffee and churros, so that we pretty sweet. I love it here, and I miss most ALL of you so please let me know how you're doing every once and while! 

Chau!

El primer día

Hey Everyone!

I just wanted to write a quick blog  post since there's nothing up quite yet, but basically all of my website are in Spanish so I want to get something down before they kick me off for no reason. I don't know if that happens, but I don't think my padres would know how to fix it if did.

So while I'm here in this magnificent little Mediterranean country, there are a few ways you can get ahold of me/stalk me/whatever have you. First and foremost is on this blog, Facebook (which is why I'm sure you've heard of the blog in the first place), Whatsapp (a texting app on iPhone and other mobile devices), by email at Robert.Schultz11@kzoo.edu and of course Skype where my username is frendlylemonade12. I want to know what every and all of you are up to so please get ahold of me and I'm sure we can make it work, but just keep in mind that I'm six hours ahead of the eastern time zone.

Sooo, after about 12 hours of layovers, flights, and one 4 hour bus ride later, I'M IN CÁCERES! I haven't been able to explore the town much since I've moved in, but I will for the rest of the week with the rest of the K group. Seeing as I got into town at 8:30AM I still had a full first day and regardless of how jetlagged I was, I stayed up until about midnight just talking and interacting with my family. We live in a beautiful four story home in the city with a huge patio, a patio, and most importantly...a pool.

I have a madre, Ana, a padre, Emiliano, and three siblings Ana, Ester, and Javi. Trust me, there is no shortage of conversation in the household. The madre Ana knows absolutely know English and at times I feel awful because for some reason I can't understand what she's saying for me. So her daughters will give me a VERY rough translation in English and I can try to respond accordingly. Ana and Ester are both students at the University of Salamanca which is in another town in the state, but they're still home for at least another week. Ana is 22, Ester is 20, and Javi is 10 and they all speak English to varying degrees and always want to know how to say different things or pronounce different words. I was kind of bummed initially that there was so much English in the house, but they try to use it sparingly so that I can learn Spanish as well. Javi is such a cute little guy and we played pool games for about an hour yesterday. He's not exactly the most athletic type so I had to take it easy on him unlike something I would ever do for say...Charlie or Pete. He is very good at English for his age and apparently he's this crazy chess player and loves to bike in competitions so I'm hoping he can kick my tail if we ever get the chance to do some of those activities.

Both meals so far have been absolutely delicious, although my stomach was pretty sour from the first day from some chicken I had on the plane. We had cerdo barbacoa (barbecued pig) and gazpacho con queso for lunch and they were absolutely delicious and I can see right away why Europeans are not as obese as Americans. They cook the meat without a ton of spices (i.e. salt and preservatives), and our dessert was fresh fruit. After we ate, we talked about how colleges are set up in the US and other things that I honestly just can't remember because we talked so much.

I think the last thing I really want to say is that I brought them some gifts from Heilman's Chocolate shop and they were so excited. Emiliano brought out some small liquor glasses with his favorite liquor made from these nuts that are native to the region. We gathered around trying the chocolate truffles, caramel popcorn, and dried fruit and if they didn't like them, they lied extremely well. All of the kids attempted to read my mom's note that was an extended way to say thanks for taking me in and some of the other English pamphlets that came with the chocolate and it was hilarious. My family is great and I can't wait to get to know them as the rest of this journey unfolds. Emiliano also said after the full day that I am officially the fourth son of their family because of how much they like talking to me and the fact that I brought them gifts. I guess it just goes to show that some great chocolate can make people say some crazy things!