I don't think we're in Kansas anymore Todo

Here in Spain I have had one wonderful visitor so far. Her name is Julia and she is amazing. For those of you who don't know Julia is a friend from Drexel. She is studying in England (Northampton) until Dec. 18th. She arrived on November 3rd and we proceeded to have a whirlwind of adventures which she wonderfully described in her mass email. Therefore I am going to post a part of it because I can't describe it any better:
"she [me] doesn't have to work on weekends, so we planned a weekend rendezvous to Valencia, Spain (a 3 hour train ride). when i got into the train station at Reus and met sarah, we cut our time a little close, as she wanted me to meet a few of her friends, Marta and Eleni. We stopped briefly at a nearby cafe for cafes con leches, but had to rush back to the train station, only to discover we missed the train to Valencia. No biggie, we'll just take the next one, we thought.. so we go up to buy our tickets and lo and behold, there is only ONE ticket left. ONE. not two. ONE. we contemplated sneaking on, but decided the consequence of getting caught and thrown off in some random spanish town or severely fined just wasn't worth it.. so sarah goes, where else do you want to go? haha, me, knowing little about local, feasible spanish cities/towns, blurts out... "lets go to madrid!" she gives me a weird, are-you-kidding look, and then says.. ok! let's do it! haha, ahhhh.. yeah, i had no idea that madrid was 7 hours away on the train. we snagged our night-train tickets fast, but the only ones that were left were seats in a 6-person cubby. NICE. oh well, it's experience, right? we didn't care! we had to wait in the station 3 hours before the train arrived, but it was no sweat cause we had so much catching up to do! Finally, we caught the train and got our seats- we were in a car with three south americans- one columbian, one argentinian, and one woman who snored really loud and gave us mean looks... the other two were really nice, and they were all going to madrid for a jazz festival. the other girl was actually from the o.c. HA... HA. yeah, she totally looked like it, too.... she was studying in barcelona and was taking the train to meet her boyfriend and his parents in madrid. she was fake tan, and had bleach blonde hair, and had bright barbie pink toenails, and kept on complaining about her fake eyelashes... but when telling us a story about staying at a dingy hostel in dublin, she blurts out, "what did they think, i'm some sort of priss?" lol.. sarah and i just looked at each other, and tried not to laugh in her face. amazing. so, we barely slept, and when we did, it was in extremely awkward positions, and arrived sweaty, nasty and greasy in madrid at 7:30 a.m. but that didn't stop us from loving that on a whim, we ended up in madrid! how crazy! so we then bought our return tickets, spoiling ourselves with a 'gran clase' room on a night train coming back to reus on sunday night/monday morning. then we found a cheap hotel (we weren't in the hostel mood) and checked on in! the hotel, for 80 euros, was pretty damn nice. we showered, took a little nap, and headed on out in the town to explore madrid! note, i was extremely happy that i was off of the stupid pound, and now was getting 75% more for my money! amazing... in madrid we walked around a lot, visited lots of plazas, took lots of touristy pictures and didn't give a damn, visited the plaza del toros, the bull fighting arena (i was sad we couldn't see a real bull fight... not that i really expected to be able to, since it's november), ate lots of AMAZING food, went to the Reina Sofia art museum, where i stood in front of Picasso's Guernica and gawked for like... at least 10 minutes in awe, and reminiscing about loren's and my amazing performance art piece that made lydia hunn cry, we danced in the rain with our umbrellas, only to be stopped by a creepy old spanish man who wanted to take us out for a beer, rummaged through an old antique store, hunted down non-chain restaurants, met a cute belgian waiter in a belgian bar/tavern and had 'spanish tapas' with our belgian beer, that weren't really spanish at all..... lol (we should have known, and i think we did, we just didn't care that much). [I have to add that our Belgian waiter was absolutely terrible but really funny. I have decided that he is my equivalent of "Bill your waiter"...he broke over 10 glasses all at once and didn't care, it was really hilarious though, even as i write this i can't stop laughing]food. FOOD. we went to a cute family-owned paella restaurant on sat. night. paella mixto. amazing! i love paella so much... mmMMMMMM! i also had gazpacho and we ordered a bottle of wine and ate lots of bread, which we probably shouldn't have, but you all know, if bread's there, you eat it. so, sarah and i had dressed up a bit and were planning to hit the bars after dinner (our dinne reservation was at 10:30... nice. quite the contrast to the brits who eat at 5 pm, if they decide to eat at all inbetween their many many many beers/drinks) anyhow, we both were so full that we couldn't even bare to finish the wine... but we still wanted to drink it! we didn't know if it was customary, or rude to ask to take the bottle of wine with you, so sarah and i argued a bit over who should ask. regardless of who asked, they had to ask in spanish. obviously sarah's spanish is much MUCH better than mine.. mine is like, ridiculous broken spanish... sarah refuses, and from somewhere deep inside of me i muster up the courage to ask, and procede to verbalize (if you can call iti that) to the waiter, "perdona, es posible vamos el vino?" for those of you who know spanish, you must be rolling with laughter.... for those of you who don't, it means, "excuse me, is possible we go the wine?" NICE... NIIIIIIIICE. hey at least i did it, sarah..... after we had our kicks and giggles about that, we went home and crashed.woke up around 10/11 the next morning to catch up on sleep, and went to a cute little cafe for brunch/lunch. i had tortilla espanola, which was, mmmMMMM. it's like a thick, deep omelet[I would actually describe it as more like a quiche], and mine was probably about 3 inches deep. it has potatoes and onions thrown in between eggs and there's lots of flavor in it.. it's round like a pie, and you get a slice of it. wowza. yummy! while exploring madrid (and spain in general for me), we discovered many other wonderful, traditionally spanish foods. chorizo, jamon, cafe con leche (a double shot of espresso with a bit of silky frothed milk poured in), chocolato con churros (thick, melted, rich hot dark chocolate in a cup, with a side of about...20 churros- fried dough sticks...), huesos (very rich pastries- a glazed outside with a rich potato-like sugary filling- which neither nate nor alex nor sarah really enjoyed, but i did, even though a little one (about the size of a cocktail weenie) was like a brick in your stomach. hmm.. what else? i can't recall right now, but that was certainly plenty for both of us for the weekend! we arrived back in reus, spain (pronounced ray-oos) around 5 am on monday morning, took a little walk around the outskirts of reus, and then went back to sarah's host family's house to rest for a few hours until sarah had to start running errands. in the morning around 8, we showed up at sarah's friends', Eleni and Xioni (pronounced chow-knee). i immediately crashed on their couch for a few hours, then got up and explored Reus. Reus is definitely the baby capital of the world. it's crazy! i was dodging babies, strollers, and pregnant mothers left and right. but it was beautiful- old modernist architecture, small restaurants/cafes, shops of all sorts, plazas and statues, etc. One of the best parts of being in Reus was seeing Sarah, but also meeting all of her friends. Eleni and Xioni were two of the sweetest girls I'd ever met in my life. Eleni is greek and Xioni is chinese, and they were both sooo international and spoke various languages.. so impressive and amazing. and best of all- they spoke perfect english! :-) the rest of the time, my spanish skills were being put to the test, sometimes even in dialogue with some of sarah's other friends.... it was quite an experience. i'm actually thinking about picking spanish back up- i could feel my spanish improving just in the few days i was there, so i'm not sure, but it's always a possibility. so sarah and i went to the market, took the kids to school, hung out, and overall just had a great time...sarah and i had such a great time in spain that we decided to meet up again, this time in dublin, ireland for the first weekend of december!"

So it was absolutely amazing and we had a great time! There's just not much else to say except pictures are coming soon...

and here are the pictures: http://drexel.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037492&l=f7fbb&id=10500847

La Castanyada

In other parts of the world October 31st is a holiday involving candy, costumes, children, and a little superstition, here in Spain, the day after is a holiday...but people typically celebrate the night before since no one has to work the next day. I started preparing for the holiday on Monday because you typically make panellettes (almond kind of pastries). But you have to make the dough early because it must sit over night. So i made the dough monday night and the kids made them into panellettes and baked them with Glòria on tuesday and we had some of their friends over for dinner. Wednesday I went hiking with Meritxell and Sergi in search of mushrooms, specifically Rovellones. But we didn't find any...instead we ended up with cama grocs (yellow legs). Which we took home cooked and had for lunch. Then we played scrabble twice, once in English and once in Catalàn/Spanish. Sergi won when we played in english, and he is the worst at english!! he just had good tactics and luck, he got to put "ozone" on the triple word score...Meritxell won when we played in Catalàn/Spanish...I was in the middle both times..not sure what that says, oh well. Here are some pictures: http://drexel.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037023&l=1592f&id=10500847 yay for my shortest entry yet!

I am determined to finish catching up today....

So the rest of the weekend. Anikó and I decided to go to Lleida. A small city a couple hours away from Reus by train, towards the center of spain....by which I mean farther away from the coast (this specification will become clear in a moment). We managed to get to Lleida around 10 in the morning with no real plan except to see the different cathedrals and old buildings there. As the train moved closer and closer to our destination...it kept getting foggier and foggier...this did not bode well. It turned out that we really weren't prepared for the weather because we didn't think about the fact that it would be much colder farther from the coast. hm....so we got off the train in our skirts and stepped out into the cold and thought maybe it would be a short day in Lleida and we would leave soon...ofcourse this is far from what happened.
As we were making our way to the Seu Vella, a large cathedral that turned out to be very beautiful, we passed a banner for a wine festival...that started at 11 that day! What luck!! So we visited the cathedral...where were able to climb to the very top of the tallest tower, over 200 steps and wander around a very beautiful and amazing courtyard. (My pictures are now on facebook because I ran out of space on photosite without paying and everyone has access to facebook now...here is the url: http://drexel.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2036997&l=f2a60&id=10500847) So after the cathedral we headed to the wine festival. Luckily for us the day had warmed up a little, not much, we still had all our layers on...but we figured the wine would help. We had only to pay 6 € and we got plates with toast, sausage, cheese, booklets about all the vineyards, wine glasses, a little bag, and great wine! there were about 8-10 tables with 3 or 4 different types of wine at each one! During all the festivity we ended up meeting a group of people from Slovakia (who could actually speak slovakian, hungarian, spanish, and a pinch of english) which was great becase in case i haven't mentioned or you haven't been following or keeping track of everyone, I was travelling with Anikó and she is hungarian. So it was really fun for her to have people to talk to. After we had all had enough wine we went to a little coffee shop and talked and exchanged info and had a great time. Afterward one of they guys, Milan (yes, like the Italian city), hung out with Anikó and I and showed us a little bit more around, but there wasn't much else to see.
At this point Anikó and I had decided to stay an hour later...leaving at 6 instead of 5...it was a cheaper train and we had someone to hang out with, so why not? Little did we imagine the troubles in store for us. For one reason or another, which i don't recall, we managed to get the train station and buy out tickets with absolutely no time to spare. Once we got our tickets Anikó and I literally ran all the way to the train, which was leaving in less than 3 minutes...haha! but we made it. Turns out there was a reason it was cheaper. We weren't going straight to Reus, we would have to change trains partway through journey, oh well, no big deal we thought. But we were both really exhausted and the sun had gone down, so about an hour later when we jumped off the train into the dark seemingly abandoned train station we were more than ready to be on the next train. After waiting 30 minutes in the cold...we started to get worried, especially since it was supposed to have arrived at 7 and the other train dropped us of 5 minutes after 7. But we thought, no, it would have to wait for us...Renfe (the train company) couldn't just drop us off in the middle of nowhere without another train. But we got really worried when one guy started saying, "this happened last week, the train never showed up"...but no one else looked that worried and no one was going any where, so we kept waiting. I think one guy called the train station, but i am not sure...as it was late and i was tired and this was all taking place in spanish. at one point i asked someone if there was a bus station in town where we could get a bus to tarragona or reus, no they responded, there is nothing here...great we thought. anyway, the train eventually came, travelling in the wrong direction, but we got on anyway hoping it would go back the way it came and if not, it would be better than waiting where were. Luckily for us it went in the right direction and we made it home.
When we got back to Reus we celebrated with freshly roasted chestnuts over an open fire. November 1st here is a holiday, the castanyada, and people set up fires in metal trashcans and roast chestnuts and sell them on the street, they were excellent!!

AyayayaaaaaaaaaAdventures!!!!!!!!

Here in Spain you can choose to go to a small little pueblo or village by train and you are bound to find a nice cathedral, church, or other religious edifice to go marvel at...surprise, surprise. But the architecture is always very beautiful. Since that baby was born I have been getting on a train and going somewhere everyweekend...except this weekend, I am going by car. Due to the fact that when I travel I am not here to get on the computer and during the week I don't have time to sit down and write, I realize it has been just about month since I last updated. I think the only way to rectify this situation is to organize the next few entries into descriptions of my weekend adventures with any highlights from the previous week if there was anything terribly exciting (which of course there always is but not everything merits mention...especially since I have a tendency to create novels for entries...)
So the week after the baby was born was ofcourse different since Ferran took a couple days off and was home. But honestly, I don't remember that much about it. I still went to class and all was well. That weekend, well, I've lost what I did Saturday to the unkown parts of the universe (I imagine the memory is hanging out with all the favorite socks I've lost, even though I hate socks) but it must have been something good since I didn't have time to update...
But I remember Sunday and it was definitely an adventure. oh wait, saturday is coming back to me...ah yes!! There was a mime festival here that week. It was absolutely wonderful! Thursday night I went to a show with Meritxell, Sergi, and Javi at one of the nicer theatre's here, actually it was a silent movie, after Absenta instead of going to dance class. It was hilarious. Unfortunately I can't remember the name but it had 3 main characters in it and it was about a man and wife living in the country (oh andthey had a daughter and a nanny too) and woman who comes from the city. The man starts having an affair with the woman from the city and she decides he should kill his wife and move to the city with her. This was ofcourse depicted through terrible acting, strange facial expressions, and short speech screens, my favorite of which went something like: "Couldn't she just get drowned?" - woman from the city. (The speech screens were in english and the characters really didn't have names)...anyway to make a long story short when the man goes to kill is wife he can't do it and they end up floating to the shore and taking a train to the city, where they preceed to have the most ridiculous and hilarious fun. While they were in the city it was one slapstick routine after another and by the end the husband and wife were back in love and the city woman went back to the city lonely and sad.
ok, so for the weekend, because now i have just about run out of time. oh no. so then friday night i went to a show for kids with Meritxell that was in Catalàn. It was really fun and very cute. After that I saw a show with her brother (who met up with after the kids show) and Anikó, who met us in Plaça Prim that was very artistic and good. For any of you who have seen Sha Sha Higy's work, it reminded me a lot of that. The costumes weren't quite as intricate and there were two people. It was very excellent and wonderful. Although sometimes it is hard for me to completely understand really artsy things, this show left me with the feeling that it had shared a message...basically that we put to much emphasis and belief into the media...because the media tends to tell rather negative messages, which then effect us and how we feel, or something along those lines. After that, not wanting to miss anything I decided to go to another show (by this point it was about 9 pm, Meritxell's brother went to go have dinner and Anikó had to go home) which was about Don Quiote, but involved many different cultures and languages (the few times they spoke). It was even more difficult for me to follow than the previous show and after about 15 minutes I promptly continued my tradition of falling asleep during just about anything...oh well. Saturday night I met up with Anikó and we managed to get two shows in. First we sawe a kids show by two guys from the states. It was a play acted out like a silent movie. It was very funny and cute. Reus is such a small world that when we sat dow to watch that show, I realized we were sitting next to "Alfred" (well, the guy who played him in the kids show the night before) and that I had been sitting next to one of the actors on stage now the night before during the show that was similar to Sha Sha Higby's. Next we saw an absolutely amazing and excellent French trio depict a story about three friends (two guys and a girl) who had been friends since they were kids. It told the story not on a linear timeline but jumping from when they were kids to adults through movement, music, and the few props they had. It was a story of love, friendship, promises, and the fact the things change and when they do it is sometimes hard to keep the promises and pacts we made...it was amazing and so inspiring! I think this one might have been my favorite. The great thing about all this was all these shows were free (except the silent movie, which I think was a whole 3 €) and at least an hour long! After the shows Anikó and I decided to grab a coffee and figure out our plan for Sunday...which i will have to write about later because i really must run!
i hope somebody is still reading this and that it hasn't been forgotten since i haven't written in so long...
best wishes,
sarah