I think that you all will just have to get used to the fact that all of my entries will be extremely long. I pretty much tell you about every detail of anything that happens.
I made it through my first whole week of classes! I’m ¼ of the way through. Apparently the first week is the hardest. I hope that’s true because overall, it really wasn’t that hard. I only have to study for my one class (the Latin one). Latin Latin Latin. I’ve been making note cards each day, so today will be a day of studying those.
Yesterday we went on an excursion to the outskirts on Valladolid. First we went to a Monastery in Valbuena. It was neat. Then we went to a castle overlooking this cute little town called Peñafiel. It was also a wine museum inside. The outskirts of Valladolid are famous for their wine. We had 2 hours of free time in Peñafiel. It’s a tiny town and we were there during siesta time, so mostly all of the stores were closed. We found a restaurant that was open called Doner Kebab. It’s a chain out here, and it’s pretty good. There was only one guy working and he was sooooooo slow. There were about 8 of us, and he took 2 orders, made the food, took 2 more orders, made the food, etc. At a different Doner Kebab in Madrid there was only 1 guy too, but he took all 6 of our orders and pretty much made everything at the same time. Oh well, we had tons of time to spare. We sat and talked for a long time, then we went to a park by the river until it was time to meet. The conversations were great. They consisted mostly of diarrhea and constipation in foreign countries. Ok, there were other topics too, but that just shows how comfortable everybody is with each other now.
After we met up, we found out that we still had to do a tour of the town. We didn’t want to since we were already there for over 2 hours. But it ended up being alright. We went to this huge open plaza where they have a huge festival each August and have a bull-fight thing. I will post the pictures.
As we were about to leave, one girl that we had eaten with started getting rashes all over her body and they itched like crazy. Apparently she has severe allergies to any type of melon, but she hadn’t eaten any. We went through what was in her wrap from Doner Kebab and figured out that instead of lettuce in there, it was cabbage, which she also has an allergy to. She found a store and bought some kind of Benadryl since she didn’t have her little shot thing with her. That didn’t work. Her face was really starting to swell up. The bus stopped at a little ER place where she was able to get a shot that worked. I felt sorry for her, but in the end everything was fine.
Our last stop was at a vineyard called Bodegas Arzuaga, where we got a tour of the barrel room and where they press and bottle the wine. It was interesting. Then we got a little taste of one of their wines. It was actually very good. You could only buy them in boxes of three though, so nobody bought any.
When we got back, everybody was so tired, but a few of us agreed to meet up to do something later on. We met around 10 and got some ice cream (I had hazelnut ice cream and it was ridiculously good). We walked around, watched some tango dancing in a plaza, then went to “the beach”. It’s a river, and there is some sand in front of it. Anyway, we were all really really tired by 12:20, so we decided to go to our homes. The night was just starting for most people. The streets were filled. I guess I’m just getting too old.
I didn’t go to Pamplona by the way for the bull-running. My roommate did though. She may not actually get to see the action unfortunately. She has to catch a train back here 50 mins. after the running. I don’t regret not going. I wouldn’t have wanted to pay $50+ to stay up all night jammed in on the street with a bunch of crazy drunk people only to watch bulls running after people for 5 mins.
Another observation about Spain (and I assume most of Europe): EVERYBODY smokes. It’s so disgusting. I feel lucky to have a host mom who doesn’t smoke, because I think that it’s pretty rare to find a human being here who doesn’t. Ugh…do these people realize what they’re doing to themselves? I’m probably going to come home with lung cancer from 2nd hand smoke. I don’t think anybody in our group smokes either, which is good. But so far every single buy driver we’ve had smokes. Every time we’d get back on the bus, you could smell it, and we would all complain. In elementary they must be taught that smoking is healthy for you. Then again, in the USA we’re taught about how bad it is for you, yet there are a whole pile of idiots who still start to smoke after hearing all of that. I will never understand.
In other news, I just found out that Lexie’s (our dog) brother, Baxter died. It happened like a week and a half ago. I am extremely saddened by this. Baxter made me laugh. He was a big clown. Whenever he would run, it looked like he was bouncing, and he looked a little clumsy…..ahhhh so cute! Lexie will probably be really sad too. Any time you said, “You wanna go see Baxter?” she would run to the front door, ready to go outside to play with him. They were so cute together. I’m going to miss coming home and taking Lexie over there. He was the only dog she got along with. Rest in peace buddy.
2 comments:
Nice tribute to Baxter, Julee. Yes, Lexie was sad the first time I took her over to Denny's. She kept sniffing in all of the areas that Baxter would usually be, but couldn't find him. She gave up. You'll have to see the card Dorothy got from the vet. Yup, I cried...
FIrst of all, I'm glad you're having conversations about diarrhea and such...you must feel right at home. Secondly, that would suck to have such severe allergies especially when traveling in another country...I give that woman a lot of credit. And finally...I'm really sad about Baxter too. I had a talk with Lexie tonight about his death and it was sad. Talk to me tomorrow on Skype...I should be on in the afternoon.
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