Spring Break in the Canary Islands!

I just got back from one of the most AMAZING vacations of my life! I went to the Canary Islands off the west coast of Africa for 5 days.

We left Caceres at 1:45am Monday morning. It was me and two other girls, and Steph went on a later flight. We took the 4 hour bus to Madrid, then the 2 and 1/2 hour flight to Gran Canaria. It's the most popular island of the Canaries, especially for vacations.

Our hotel was absolutely awesome. It was huge. We actually had an apartment, so there was a living room with couches and a tv, a kitchenette with a fridge and toaster and sink, two bedrooms with two beds in each, a big bathroom, and a balcony that wrapped around two sides (our apartment was on the corner of the hotel on the third floor). The living room had huge windows that overlooked the ocean, it was a great view.

The hotel also had a big pool, a garden, a pool side bar, an outdoor theatre with shows every night, and a huge dining room where we ate meals. We had breakfast and dinner buffets included in our price.

Our week was really chill. Every morning we would wake up, eat an awesome breakfast, then head to the beach. It was about a 40 second walk to the beach, you could see it from the parking lot of the hotel. There was also a store right next door to the hotel where we bought sunscreen, pop, and fruit to take with us to the beach.

Tuesday was perfect, we spent the whole day at the beach laying out on our towels and swimming in the ocean. Wednesday was really windy though. We started out on the beach, but we were all caked with sand, so we ended up going to the pool for the rest of the afternoon.

Thursday I was already very very sunburnt, so I used my common sense and stayed out of the sun and went shopping instead. All along the beach was a market place with souvenir shops, cafes, ice cream shops, bars. The stores had a lot of cute jewelry, sundresses, shot glasses. It was fun to walk around and shop all day.

Every night we would shower and try to get all the sand off. I'm pretty sure we brought half the beach with us into our bathroom, our bathtub was so filthy. We had dinner at the hotel, which was the best food ever! It was cool, because there were so many tourists there from all over the world, so they had food from every country. There was a salad bar, a hot food bar, soup, different kinds of bread and cheese, plus a dessert table. It was sooo good!

Some nights we walked around the beach area and went shopping. But it got kind of chilly at night, plus we were all tired and sunburnt from the beach, so we stayed in our apartment too. I had brought Phase 10 (the best game in the world) so we played that and other card games and ate snacks we bought at the store. The last night we bought M&M's and I taught the girls how to play poker using the different colored M&M's as poker chips.

Friday was our last full day. It was kind of cloudy in the morning, so we stayed by the pool. For lunch we actually went out to eat. We ate at Hooters, which was awesome to have real American food. We spent the afternoon at the beach. Steph and I were the last of the group to go back to the hotel, we didn't leave until after 6:00pm. I didn't want to go! I love playing in the ocean, I was sooo sad... We had dinner at the hotel and hung out by the pool that night, then packed and went to bed early.

Saturday morning we had to wake up at 3:45am because the airport transport picked us up at 4:30. We went to the airport and our flight left at 7ish. It was so sad to leave, I could have stayed there another month!! Our bus from Madrid didn't leave until 5:30pm, so we got back to Caceres after 10. It was a long day of taveling and it was good to finally be home.

Today is Easter, so Steph and I went to mass this morning, then watched the prosession. Ok I should explain these prosessions. They are very very popular in every city in Spain during Holy Week. We got to see a few before we left for the Canary Islands. It's basically a parade. All the people line up in the streets to watch them. It's usually led by priests and alter children, and they are all dressed up in robes that look like the Ku Klux Klan. Seriously. The robes are black or white, and have the long cone-shaped headdress with only eye holes. I was kind of scared the first time I saw it.

After the KKK-looking people, there is the main attraction of the prosessions: statues on top of platforms that people carry. Usually the statue is of Jesus or Mary. Some of them are scenes, like Jesus entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, or Jesus on the cross. They are different for each Holy day. It takes a lot of men to carry them, and they walk really slowly carrying it on their shoulders because it's so heavy. Sometimes they set the platform down and rest, sometimes there are more men who substitute in for those who are tired.

After the platforms, there are more children carrying candles, or more priests dressed regularly, or nuns or sometimes important-looking people in suits and ties. I don't really know for sure who they are. Behind them is a band with drums and trumpets. The men carrying the platforms walk and sway to the beat of the drums, so it looks like the statues of Jesus are moving. The trumpets sometimes play a song, but sometimes they just make a wailing noise that is really sad and kind of creepy.

So many people come to watch them. The streets are packed. During some of the prosessions, everyone is completely silent as they pass. My host moms told me that a lot of people are moved to tears during the prosessions. I wish I could have been in Caceres during more of the Holy Week to see the prosessions of Good Friday and Holy Thursday.

This morning the prosession was happy. One statue was of Jesus risen, he was standing on a cloud. The other was of Mary. The prosession came from two different directions in the old part of the city, and Jesus and Mary met in the middle of the plaza. When they finally met, the people carrying the platforms lifted them off their shoulders into the air and everyone clapped and cheered. It was cool.

We went to one of our host mom's family for a huge and delicious meal. It was fun. Tonight we're having some sort of really popular Easter dessert for dinner. We have school off tomorrow, which is good because I still haven't recovered from our vacations. :)

Pictures of el Campo :)

The first town we went to. This is from where we had to park our car, so I'm standing outside the town. As you can see, it's very small but it was soo cute.
Narrow streets, balconies, wooden ledges by the windows to put food in the winter.

This was a really pretty waterfall. The water is straight from the mountain, and our moms said it's the best water ever.

Gorgeous view!

This was in the next town. These are the walls of the castle. The plaque above says it is from the 11th-13th centuries.

The plaza of the bulls. We're standing on the wall where people sit to watch it. The doors to the left are where the bulls enter.

Walking on the outside wall of the castle.

Castle in the background.

This flower is called Camelia. The grandparents of Lorena grow this flower on their balcony, and her grandpa gave me one as a gift. It's sooo pretty.

El Campo

Today Steph and I went with our host moms, Lorena and Esther, to visit Lorena's family. They live in a tiny town out in the country, about an hour and a half from Caceres.

On the way there we passed through a city named Coria. It's a little smaller than Caceres. Our moms told us that every June 24th, for the holiday they let a bull out in the streets. Just let him wander around the city. And no one knows where the bull is. I guess people have gotten hurt, and once the bull went into a house and up to the second floor where the family was sleeping. But they still do it every year. Spain has such weird traditions...

The country is beautiful. We were in the northwest corner of Spain, very close to Portugal. We drove up into the mountains, and there were vineyards and olive trees everywhere. There are lots of tiny little clusters of towns scattered around the countryside, and we visited 4 of them.

The first one we went to Lorena and Esther said is the prettiest of all of them. It is apparently a very typical old Spanish town. Cars can't pass through the actual towns, so we parked outside and walked through the narrow cobblestone streets.

The buildings are all brick, but a different kind of brick. They called it pizarra, which is what chalkboards are made of. On the street level, the buildings are just for animals, and the people live above them. All the buildings are connected across the streets with arches. By all the windows, there are wooden perches where our moms said the people put food during the winter to keep cold. The doors are really small, to keep the house warmer and also because the people who live in the country are tiny. The city was absolutely ADORABLE. I loooved it!

We went into a tiny tavern and got coffee. Our moms said that the tavern was very typical. The people who live in the country don't do much. They work hard farming, and play cards in the tavern at night.

We left that city and went to Lorena's parents' house in the country. It had the most amazing view of all the mountains and trees, and they had horses and chickens and pigs there too. We ate with her whole family.

Ok so I know I keep saying in each post that the last meal I ate was the biggest meal I've ever had, but today really was the biggest meal of them all. Seriously. We had the first course of a thick noodle soup, second course of cabbage and garbanzo beans, and finally the third course of meat. I say meat because I know I ate pork, chicken, beef, sausages, and who knows what all else. Then we had fruit, then coffee and the BEST pastries I've ever had. It was kind of like a combination of donut and funnel cake. Amazing. Probably clogging my arteries, but amazing. After the meal was over I was sooo full. These Spanish people really don't know when to stop.

We then went to the next pueblo to visit Lorena's grandparents. This pueblo was cool. It was directly on top of the mountain, so the view was awesome. Her grandparents were so cute, her grandma was waist high compared to me, and I'm pretty short.

In this town we walked around and saw the tiny church and the castle. The castle was really neat. It was built sometime before the 11th century, and we could climb the walls surrounding it and go all around the castle. There are tiny doors in the inside wall of the castle, and our moms told us that they used to be houses. I was thinking a long time ago, but they said people lived in them up until 50 years ago. I guess the whole area is kind of poor.

We also saw the plaza of the bulls. Every August they have bull fights in them. It was cool, you could see the doors where they let the bulls in the plaza, the walls where the men can go behind and the bulls can't reach them, and the bleachers high up on the walls where people sit and look down on it.

Finally we went to the town of Lorena's other grandparents, on her father's side. We didn't stay there long because it was already getting late and we were tired. We went back to her parents' house to say goodbye and get some food to bring back with us, then we left and drove the hour and a half back home.

Pictures of Salamanca

Can you find the hidden lucky frog?

Shells are kind of a symbol of Salamanca. This is a public library, and the entire outside is covered with shell. There's a story that underneath one of these shells is a very expensive gold piece.

Plaza Mayor.

Outside the new Cathedral.

Inside the Cathedral. This is the front of the church, when you first walk in.

Salamanca

Wednesday all of us ISU students went on another school trip, this time to Salamanca. Salamanca is north of Caceres, it was about a 3 hour bus trip. When we arrived, it was raining. And cold. And windy. But the city was still really cool and we still did the whole day as planned, even though we weren't the happiest students to be there.

The first place we went to was the university there. It's the oldest university in Spain, built in the early 1200's. A lot of very famous Spanish people have studied or taught tere. That was really neat, and the buildings and library were very pretty. In the courtyard of the university there is a huge facade that has lots of different statues and sculptures on it. There is a hidden frog somewhere on the facade, and the story is that if you find it, you'll have good luck. I found it, but this was after I stared at the wall for 13 mintues, asked someone to show me where it was, still couldn't find it, asked someone else and then finally saw where it was hidden. So after all that, I don't think I'll get much good luck out of it.

We went to the Plaza Mayor of Salamanca. It was one of the coolest plazas I've seen in Spain. It was in the shape of a square, completely enclosed. I guess they used to have bull fights there. All around it were arches that lead to restaurants, cafes, and shops.

We also saw the Cathedral. There are actually two cathedrals, an old one and a new one. Our tour guide said that the old one wasn't good enough, so they had to build a better one. But the two are both connected. The inside was cool, but really dark. The alter was the most simple and plain alter I have ever seen. Usually the alters have huge gold statues and stain glass behind them, but this one had nothing. It was weird to see that.

We had free time to eat and go shopping. We left around 6:30 or so and made the trip back to Caceres. Good time. :)

More life in Spain...

So I haven't updated this in awhile... Spain is still amazing. The weather is getting warmer, and it finally stopped raining every day. The temperature is in the 60's now, it's so nice.

Steph has traveled the past couple weekends, so I’ve been in Caceres by myself. It’s been fun though, I’ve gotten to know the city a lot better, and I’ve spent a lot of time with my host moms. On the weekends they don’t work, so they make me lots of different typical Spanish food for breakfast. One morning they made migas, which is basically fried breadcrumbs, with dried red peppers and pieces of bacon. It was so good! Another morning they had some of their friends over and we all ate churros and chocolate. Last weekend we had a very typical Spanish breakfast of toasted baguette slices with onion and vinegar. Very yummy.

Steph’s mom and sister came to visit her this past weekend. They arrived in Caceres on Saturday. Our host moms took us all out on a tour of the city. I learned so much! I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know about the place I’ve lived in the past couple months. Our moms told us a lot about the history of the city, but also about the traditions. For example, there is a statue outside the cathedral that if you kiss his foot, you’ll find love. There is also a small very old church, where tradition says that if you take a friend there, she will get married. I told my host moms NOT to take me there any time soon haha.

Our mommies then took us to a really good tapas restaurant. It used to be a palace, but now it’s a very upscale restaurant with only tapas. The inside is really cool, the ceilings are arched and the walls are brick. There were no chairs, everyone just gathered around high tables and shared tapas. Steph, her sister, and I all got coke, our moms got wine, and we ordered tapas. This was the best food I’ve had in Europe so far. We had potatoes with some sort of sweet sauce, migas with fried eggs, and meatballs dipped in a thick orange sauce. It was soo good. I think Steph’s mom and sister really liked it too.

After that we all went up the mountain outside the city. Most people walk up there, but our moms drove us. On top of the mountain is a statue of the Virgin Mary. The story is that she appeared on that spot to a shepherd, so they built a church and the huge statue that overlooks the city. The view was amazing. We could see all of Caceres, all the old buildings, the church, the palm trees in the streets. It was awesome.

Monday was Steph's birthday. Our host moms made a special lunch for us to celebrate: paella, which is a very typical meal here in Spain. It took them awhile to make, we didn't start eating until 4:30pm. They brought it out in a huge pan. It took up basically the whole table. Paella is rice with a mixture of seafood: calamari, mussels, clams, shrimp. There was more stuff in there, but that’s all that I recognized. It was interesting to eat. It was actually a lot of work, because we had to pull apart the shrimp and clam shells and everything. When we got done, our plates were filled with empty shells from the assortment of sea creatures. It was delicious though.

They also made tiramisu for Steph’s birthday, and we had apple champagne that is made in the Caceres. It was really good. I was so full after that meal I could barely breathe. Steph and I said we're going to have to wear sweatpants for my birthday lunch…

School is good. In one of my classes we had to write 6 sentences, three of them true and three of them false. Then we had to read each sentence to our classmates, and we had to guess which were the truths and which were the lies. That was fun. In another class we play tabu once a week in Spanish. It gets pretty competitive… This week we each have to teach a 4 minute class about our major to the rest of our classmates. So somehow I have to teach everyone about journalism and do learning activities… in Spanish… that should be interesting, I’m absolutely not looking forward to that.

This week I’ve been busy watching NCAA March Madness. I was hoping the Spanish ESPN would show some of the games, but so far all I’ve seen on the channel is soccer and the World Handball Tournament. Really Spain?? So I’ve been following basketball on CBS.com. I tried to explain the whole bracket competition to my host moms, but I think they now believe I have a gambling problem. They couldn’t believe that I was betting on 32 games all in two days! I tried to say it wasn’t for money, but I don’t think I did a good job explaining it… Oh well.

One more week and I go to the Canary Islands for spring break! I’m very excited. I’m hoping to get a tan, although that won’t help with people still mistaking me for Spanish. Last week I was walking home from school with all the obvious American signs: I was wearing my sorority letter t-shirt, tennis shoes, I was listening to my ipod, and I had a backpack. All things that you would never see on a Spanish girl. But I still got stopped by a chaperone of a group of Spanish students asking me where the museum was. I can't win...

I'll have more stories to tell later this week, we're going on another school trip to Salamanca on Wednesday. Hasta luego! :)

Pictures of Paris

On the plane heading to Paris!

Our hostal room. It was hard to fit the whole room into one picture because it was SO BIG but I did what I could... :)

The view from our hostal room window.

The Lourve!

Venus de Milo

Mona Lisa. It's smaller in person...

More from inside the Lourve.

Statue of Julius Ceasar.

Outside the Lourve.

Notre Dame.

Inside Notre Dame.

Luxembourg Park.

Legit French crepes!

Outside the Opera.

Moulin Rouge.

We look soo French.

The Basilica.

Outside the Basilica on top of Montmartre.

The view from the steps of the Basilica.

Painters' square.

The Arc of Triumph.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Eiffel Tower!

Waiting in line to go up the tower.

View from on top. Paris is unbelievable at night.

Amazing. :) Best trip ever.