A few weeks ago we had an IES day trip to Toledo, a city about 3 and a half hours away from here. It is an absolutely beautiful city (the pictures give a little bit of a preview) & lots of history.
It's a city where the three major monotheistic religions coexisted back in the day: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. As a result, there are various beautiful religious buildings in the city, including churches, synagogues and mosques.
We also tried mazapan (marzipan) which is apparently typical of the area. Katie and I shared a sample of them...a nice sweet but not my absolute favorite (tough to beat Mom's peanut butter pie...which reminds me of the fact that I still haven't found any chocolate with PB here. PB alone is a rarity but to find it with chocolate is (as far as I know) unheard of. Oh the wonders of the world!).
Just wanted to add this in because I took it in Toledo outside of the McDonald's...their ability to mold to the traditional foods of each country is what keeps them in business! (Spaniards love their jamón Ibérica, which is a "Special" type of ham)
This past weekend I traveled to Porto, Portugal with 4 other girls. 2 are from IES but I invited my friend Laura who is from Colombia who I met through an intercambio a few months ago. She later invited her friend from Mexico so it was a great mix of people with native Spanish speakers too! Unfortunately it rained almost all weekend...we arrived around 6 in the morning with no map and no idea how to arrive at our hostel (this may sound familiar, but I promise I'm not too disorganized...it makes it more of an adventure!). It was pouring rain and we had our suitcases & all. Luckily one of my friends has a good sense of direction so we made our way to the hostel eventually after looking at bus maps and the like. This was my first experience staying at a hostel & it was a great one! I've been told that the hostels of Portugal are the best, though, so perhaps I was a bit spoiled. I met a few people there from various places, including Brazil, Valencia (Spain) and Germany. Regardless of the rain, we took advantage of every moment we had to explore the city:
museums (art, war, photography-including cameras from Kodak in Rochester! etc)
parks
markets
churches/pretty buildings
wine cellars of typical Port wine with a tour that ended in a free sample!
the riverfront
beach on Atlantic Ocean! We ventured there regardless of getting caught in a ridiculous torrential downpour/wind storm. In the end, all we could do was laugh because we were so drenched but it was so worth it to see the ocean.
Something that I found interesting was that everyone preferred to speak English over Spanish. I would have preferred to practice my Spanish with the locals, but I suppose it's more logical for them to learn English as a universal language even though they are located super close to Spain.
A few weeks ago I experienced my first Spanish fútbol game. I went with Katie & Mondo, a friend from En Vivo. It wasn't exactly Real Madrid...it was a lower level team of Salamanca but nonetheless it was Spanish soccer! Almost the whole crowd was men and many many smokers throughout the whole game, which I'm getting used to, but still not a fan.
Another quick note of happiness: last week at En Vivo, we made smores!! Marshmallows actually don't exist in Spain but a girl from the US got a bag sent over to her just so we could make smores and teach our non American friends what this rarity is. Most of them had already seen it in movies but found it funny that we actually do have campfires in the summertime and roast marshmallows. Unfortunately it's a pretty bad quality picture, but here is a group of us enjoying our smores at En Vivo!
Last week we had a "paella cena" with IES. We all ventured out to a small restaurant and took the public bus as a group of 36 of us. We had the whole place to ourselves and the owner gave us a brief history & such of the food. For me, the best part of the meal was the postre (dessert) because it was crema de cataluña - essencially creme brulee. Indeed we got to light up the sugar on each of our own desserts. Very delicious and fun!
La abuela (the mother of my señora) is still not doing so well. She was just transfered today to a "residencia," which from what I gather is essentially a nursing home. I know this is really hard on Teresa because she would rather be the one to care for her mom and it's been very tiring for her to spend countless nights and long days at the hospital so that her mom always has someone visiting her. It's been a bit difficult to know how to express my condolences and such to her, especially when she confides in me with tears & words of fear for her mother's death. It's a time that really is drawing us closer - I'm even getting to know Isidro (her husband) much better because he's always around now and we've spent more time together since Teresa has been gone more often. Looking for the blessings in times of trouble is a struggle, but I think it helps and so I'm tryin!!
Un abrazo a todos!
PS I'm off to Madrid Friday with a few friends and my family arrives this Sunday & I can HARDLY wait! Until then...
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