(no subject)
I feel rather inspired to do a detailed, count-by-count replay of my entire trip. That will, however, take time, which I haven't currently got. I've got to go pick up my pictures from the trip and probably some jelly beans too, because I miss American junk food which is much more empty calorie filled than the typical European snack of... Bread... Fruit occasionally, but I really think that half of what I ate while I was there was hard bread rolls. Anyway, this will be fantastic when I get around to it, I promise. First, though, that quick trip to Meijers and then LOTS OF MAKE UP HOMEWORK AND STUDYING FOR MAKE UP TESTS AND I HATE SCHOOL X_X
First installment should be tomorrow night, so look forward to it.
Here are some little teasers for you -- answers to the couple questions asked on my last post:
From Caitlin:
What did you do,
I spoke Spanish with the natives (haha I kept calling them that), I also spoke a bit of French here and there just because I could, I met all kinds of fascinating people from all over Europe, I also got to know a few people from our school that I'd probably never have gotten to know otherwise, I sat on planes and tour busses for more hours than you can believe, I bought a sword in Toledo, I stood in the Mediterranean Sea in the middle of the night and watched the stars... It's impossible to summarize, really, hence my decision to tell it all in detail, but those are a few things that come to mind right away.
what did you see,
More mountains and shorelines than you can imagine, the hanging houses of Cuenca, a master sword-crafter at work in Toledo, the Prado museum in Madrid, ancient Roman ruins in Tarragona which was the first Roman city outside of Italy in the entire world, blooming orange trees in Valencia that smelled SO GOOD, whole freaking pig legs dried and hanging in butcher shop windows, graffiti everywhere which was rather sad, and a million cathedrals and castles, and soo much history, it was amazing <33
what new foods did you try besides Lemon Fanta?
I learned to detest seafood on a whole new level, there's a lot of seafood over there. I had an especially bad experience with seafood paella, but that story will come. They eat a lot of bread over there, but theirs is really hard and almost impossible to bite through on the outside and really soft and amazing on the inside and in little rolls instead of getting big, soft, sliced loaves like we have here. It took some getting used to because they didn't even give you butter or anything to put on it or anything, but eventually I got so used to having it at every meal that I miss it MUCHO now already. I was surprised to learn that they have french fries there... I mean not just they exist in the country, but we had them with dinner almost every night. Lots of fruit, a fair amount of chicken and pork and pasta and soup. Lunch was almost always a sandwich, but they're really plain sandwiches made of the hard rolls with some sort of meat and about half the time there's cheese, and that's it, no condiments or vegitables, it's not like I was having Subway every day. Tortilla espanola was common, it's basically a potato omelette but you usually put it on bread and then it's a sandwich. I tried a lot of new foods but mostly they were just variations of stuff we have here, really. I don't think I had anything super outrageous that would make you cringe to think about it.
From Ben:
What was the most exciting part?
The walking tour of Madrid on the first day, actually walking the streets of Spain and getting my first glimpses of all of the buildings and all the things that instantly registered as being really simular or different from here, and just that feeling of, 'Oh my God, I'm actually here!'
Most inspiring?
Hmm... I'm not sure really. There was this instant feeling of, 'This is amazing... I'm definitely going to live here for some portion of my life.' That was a constant, though. I guess if you mean the art and stuff, the Prado was the first and by far the best museum we went to, I really loved it.
Most boring?
The periods of time when we had some free time and the group just stood around failing to decide what to do with it, it was really frustrating and it happened like every other day, but it never lasted as long as it felt like lol it's not like we just stood around staring blankly at each other the entire trip.
First installment should be tomorrow night, so look forward to it.
Here are some little teasers for you -- answers to the couple questions asked on my last post:
From Caitlin:
What did you do,
I spoke Spanish with the natives (haha I kept calling them that), I also spoke a bit of French here and there just because I could, I met all kinds of fascinating people from all over Europe, I also got to know a few people from our school that I'd probably never have gotten to know otherwise, I sat on planes and tour busses for more hours than you can believe, I bought a sword in Toledo, I stood in the Mediterranean Sea in the middle of the night and watched the stars... It's impossible to summarize, really, hence my decision to tell it all in detail, but those are a few things that come to mind right away.
what did you see,
More mountains and shorelines than you can imagine, the hanging houses of Cuenca, a master sword-crafter at work in Toledo, the Prado museum in Madrid, ancient Roman ruins in Tarragona which was the first Roman city outside of Italy in the entire world, blooming orange trees in Valencia that smelled SO GOOD, whole freaking pig legs dried and hanging in butcher shop windows, graffiti everywhere which was rather sad, and a million cathedrals and castles, and soo much history, it was amazing <33
what new foods did you try besides Lemon Fanta?
I learned to detest seafood on a whole new level, there's a lot of seafood over there. I had an especially bad experience with seafood paella, but that story will come. They eat a lot of bread over there, but theirs is really hard and almost impossible to bite through on the outside and really soft and amazing on the inside and in little rolls instead of getting big, soft, sliced loaves like we have here. It took some getting used to because they didn't even give you butter or anything to put on it or anything, but eventually I got so used to having it at every meal that I miss it MUCHO now already. I was surprised to learn that they have french fries there... I mean not just they exist in the country, but we had them with dinner almost every night. Lots of fruit, a fair amount of chicken and pork and pasta and soup. Lunch was almost always a sandwich, but they're really plain sandwiches made of the hard rolls with some sort of meat and about half the time there's cheese, and that's it, no condiments or vegitables, it's not like I was having Subway every day. Tortilla espanola was common, it's basically a potato omelette but you usually put it on bread and then it's a sandwich. I tried a lot of new foods but mostly they were just variations of stuff we have here, really. I don't think I had anything super outrageous that would make you cringe to think about it.
From Ben:
What was the most exciting part?
The walking tour of Madrid on the first day, actually walking the streets of Spain and getting my first glimpses of all of the buildings and all the things that instantly registered as being really simular or different from here, and just that feeling of, 'Oh my God, I'm actually here!'
Most inspiring?
Hmm... I'm not sure really. There was this instant feeling of, 'This is amazing... I'm definitely going to live here for some portion of my life.' That was a constant, though. I guess if you mean the art and stuff, the Prado was the first and by far the best museum we went to, I really loved it.
Most boring?
The periods of time when we had some free time and the group just stood around failing to decide what to do with it, it was really frustrating and it happened like every other day, but it never lasted as long as it felt like lol it's not like we just stood around staring blankly at each other the entire trip.