"Honey, Don't Forget to Feed the American"

Very strange day yesterday:

I was at the local travel agency in Santander booking a trip to Paris (!) with Danielle and Monica. The travel agent asked me for my passport number. Like an idiot, I left both my passport and my copy of my passport back in my Santander apartment. Nice. So I proceeded to call, well, everyone. Mom, Dad, Jordan, Lauren who might know where they were. Nada. So I stopped because I didn't want to run up a huge phone bill. I called my host family. I started to think
about where exactly my passport was... in the dresser to the right of the bed with the lamp on top, first drawer, all the way in the back left-hand corner underneath the zip-lock bag of receipts. Simple enough, right?

This is what I think, more or less, came out of my mouth:

"Hello? Hello Padre. I'm Jennifer. I'm at an office for traveling and I need a lot my number of the passport from America. Could you look for me? In the bedroom with the little table on the right is my passport with a light, uh.. lamp. Yes, in the wood thing to hold things. The one close from top. The first one. Beside the bag of plastic and papers. To the left. It is blue and has a name on it that is mine and a picture on first page. It has a number that is mine. Dos cuatro what?... Ok. Now I have it. Muchisimas Gracias!"


Needless to say, I was the entertainment of the day for the ladies in the travel agency, and for my friends.

Anyway, Madrid this weekend, Barcelona the next, then Paris the next after that!!


Note: When I got home, my family was taking a nap, and forgot to set their alarm to cook dinner. So dinner came a little late, like 11:30 ish. But really it's ok. I just wanted to put it as the title of this blog because I saw a tv show that mentioned the title (The Simpsons? not sure). No more misleading titles after this blog, I promise. I just wanted a reason to share it with someone.

Blood Pudding, Excursions, and Some Random Spanish...

We found a Mexican restaurant in Santander! The food wasn't as spicy as at Tex-Mex places in Texas but it was still totally awesome to order a tortilla and guacamole. And it turns out there is another Mexican restaurant in a town about 40 minutes away, so we are so going to plan a day trip. Spain has an interesting take on the whole idea of Tex-Mex. There aren't really any foods in Spain that are spicy so Tex-Mex food on the whole is very bland. Estancos (tobacco shops) sell Tex-Mex Doritos that I expected to be super spicy, but it's really just nacho cheese.

The Spanish equivalent of the Tooth Fairy is a rat. Spanish children anxiously await the morning after they have lost a baby tooth to find out if Ratoncito Peréz has visited during the night. Just thought that was cute.

If you ask a Spanish kid to draw a picture of a cat and write what kind of sound it makes, the cat would have a little bubble next to its mouth that says: “miau!” Even the cats speak Spanish.

Spaniards celebrate alot of festivals (according to the patron saint of their city) which include bullfights, fireworks, concerts, and bars open all night. Santander's Santiago Festival was held this weekend, and I got to go to a bullfight. It was a very interesting experience, but definitely not for weak stomachs, because the bulls always die in a horribly, unfair gladiator match sort of way. But I'm glad I went.

Last weekend was the excursion to Bilbao and San Sebastian. We visited the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and I thought that was the most interesting part of the trip because there just happened to be a guest exhibit about Surrealism that featured some of Salvador Dalí’s work. S. Sebastian is a beautiful little tourist city famous for its beach and relatively cheap food. I enjoyed both for a little while, though the beach was super crowded.

I just got back from León, Salamanca, and Valladolid and it was amazing. My favorite of the three is Salamanca. It has the oldest university in Spain and the most beautiful architecture. It would be so cool to study there. Plus it has one of the most amazing plazas in the world. (Ever seen Vantage Point? Salamanca’s Plaza Mayor is featured in that movie.) We took tours of all three cities, including their old gothic cathedrals, the castle in León, and important artwork.

On our way back from Valladolid today, we ate in a bodega, which is a winery that is built underground (this one was in a cave) to keep the wine cool. I tried lamb chops today, which are actually pretty good, until I started thinking about that show (… I forgot what it’s called…) with that cute little lamb that sings “The Song That Never Ends.” Then I couldn’t get it out of my head and it was kind of disturbing so I stopped eating it all together. There was another dish called morcilla that I dared not try. At first, when a waiter brought it to the table, I thought it was really burnt sausage. Then somebody explained that it was “Blood Pudding:” entrails from a pig covered in blood that blackens whenever it’s cooked. Yum.

A Lesson in Biology

Did you know (according to wikipedia) that our eyes contain thousands of tiny vessels that pump blood and allow light and other information to pass through for our brain to process? Millions of microscopic Rods and Cones separate that information into colors, and other nerves pass along information about space and depth down a mind-blowing maze of organized blood streams that eventually connect to the rest of the body.

Now, imagine that wonderful system 10,000 times smaller, sliding down the back of your throat, contracting down through your esophagus, and finally being consumed by stomach acids.

Whenever my Senora said what we were having for lunch today, all I heard was "arroz con something-something," and I said to myself, "arroz... hey that's rice. I like rice." Well apparently the something-something I missed was some type of shell fish typical of this region of Spain. The dish mixed rice and peppers and shell fish (which were still in their shells), and looked up at me as I continued to force myself to try at least one. Let's just say it didn't really agree with me.

Un Paseo and Ugly Babies

I don't know any words in English or Spanish to describe the insanity of the Running of the Bulls Festival in Pamplona. Really, it's ridiculous how much people can trash out an entire city in one night.

But it was alot of fun. Danielle, Melissa, and I walked around the whole night looking at landmarks and pretty buildings. We saw the Paseo de Hemingway and his statue put up in rememberance of his book The Sun Also Rises. All that can be said more about Pamplona can be better understood in my pictures which I have yet to post so I will try and get a faster internet connection soon.

Melissa, Monica, and I took a stroll along the beach and climbed a mountain on Monday (literally) and experienced some of the most amazing views I've seen of Spain so far. I think we must have walked at least 3 miles from the beach all the way a mountain where a lighthouse is on top, and then back down. Summer is definitely the season for Northern Spain. Everything is so green, and the whole town, it seems, shows up at the beaches along the Bay. In Spanish, "to take a walk" is "dar un paseo," and Spaniards always manage to squeeze un paseo into their schedule somehow, and now I know why. In Northern Spain, the sun doesn't start setting until about 10PM or so, so they have plenty of time in the cooler hours to take walks along the bay until what we might call a late hour.

There are no ugly babies in Spain. Another girl who was in the first summer program in June suggested this to me and at first I didn't believe her. But I've looked everywhere and so far I can find not even one. When you ask a little kid to write what sound a cat makes, he or she will write "miau." The other day my host father pronounced "Alabama" as "Ah-le-va-ba," and it took me forever to figure out what he was saying. We don't eat lunch until about 2pm and dinner around 9:30pm. I've heard men taking walks along the bay suddenly burst out in song with no inhibitions.

Anyway, we're going to Bilbao and San Sabastian this weekend, so more later, and may be pictures :)

Sorry so short, and scattered. I have a limited time on the internet.

"Excuse me, to where is the shops to sell cards for calling international America?"

And you can guess what kind of response I had to that question. My Spanish comprehension skills are slowy inching up to a first grade level.


Anyway, I love Spain so far. I found people in the Santander program in the plane to Santander because it was such a small flight. So we found our luggage together and shared a cab to the hotel we were staying at. As soon as we arrived we checked in, dropped off our luggage in our rooms and went out in search of international calling cards. When we found them, we wanted to try and get rid of our jet-lag so we spend 13 Euros on a bus tour of Santander. Summer is an awesome season for Northern Spain. Everything is so green and humid but cool during the day.


Today I met my host family, and got in several hours practicing Spanish, because I showed them pictures and talked alot. It was kind of frustrating for all of us sometimes because I ruined some of the punch lines of Curro's jokes because I didn't understand. He pretty munch had to say them over again at least twice and sometimes we played a little pictionary to try and understand each other. But all in all I think it was pretty productive. They live in a very small apartment about a mile from the university, and have hosted for like 7 or 8 foreign exchange students before me. They are very nice, and so is mostly everyone else I've met in Spain so far.

Tomorrow I'm going to Pamplona with some of my friends I met on the plane :). We're taking a bus tomorrow evening. Before we leave tomorrow though we are going shopping to a store downtown where another student in the program said he found a white shirt and red scarf to wear to the Running of the Bulls. Apparently this is the proper attire for the Running of the Bulls because every picture I have seen everyone is wearing that. I guess, if I didn't, it would be like wearing a maroon shirt to a UT football game.

Waiting

I leave for Spain in less than 16 hours.

I've been doing a lot of waiting lately, specifically for this trip: for the bank to get my ordered Euros in the mail, for the school to post what hotel I'm supposed to go to when I get in Spain, for my textbooks to get in at the campus bookstore, yada yada. But now there's no more waiting left for me to do.

I've weighed my baggage, made copies of my passport, shoved all liquid carry-ons into a quart-sized baggie, brushed up on some spanish, read the guidebooks, bought a book for the plane...

Now I guess all that's left is leaving :)