Time is winding down here in Spain...today was our last sunday with the ward (because next Sunday is General Conference) and we had our last group trip this last week. It's crazy how fast time has gone! Since I last wrote, I've traveled to a lot of awesome places. I went to Portugal, Galicia, Valencia, and Barcelona.
In Portugal we spent most of our time in Lisbon which has been one of my favorite places so far. It's very similar to San Francisco because it has a bridge almost exactly like the Golden Gate, and it has trolley cars and hills everywhere, just like San Francisco. It's a beautiful city too! I loved it.
Galicia was a great trip because of the Spanish people in that part of Spain. I really think they have some of the nicest people in the world in that corner of Spain! We had such fun experiences talking with the locals there, and making new friends. One place we went was the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, where many people make a pilgrimage to. We met some pilgrims from parts of Spain and Italy and one from Boston. Most of them had been walking for 3 months to get there!
During Semana Santa, we took a day trip to Valencia to see Las Fallas. The streets are filled with these huge, elaborate floats that look like something that came out of Toon Town in disney land. Some of them were really cool looking, really colorful and animated... Then through out the day, people just walk around the streets looking at all these floats. Every once in awhile they would have a big firework show(in the middle of the day). We tried to get close enough to see one, tons of people were there for the show and it was so packed that we couldn't even move from where we were standing. It was really loud though! The ground shook under us and the glass on the buildings were shaking and rattling, haha. All day it sounded like a war zone from all the firecrackers people set off and all the other firework shows. That night, around 1 in the morning, they burned all the floats. We stood for four hours to get a front row seat to one of them, and it was well worth the wait! It was really cool being that close to see it!
We just got back from Barcelona yesterday, and it was such a great trip! Barcelona had so much to see, but there was so little time to see it! I loved all the Gaudi stuff Barcelona has...La Sagrada Familia, Parque Guell, La Pedrera (or Casa Mila), Casa Botllo...it was all so crazy! His art is very interesting and unique, but I really liked it. I had to give the tour at La Sagrada Familia, so I had read a little about him and studied some stuff before we went. That helped to understand it all a little more and it probably helped me to like it more as well. Before we went to the Parque Guell, I bought a cheap soccer ball so we could play around at the park. It was so fun becuase all day we had this soccer ball, and we'd carry it or kick it through the streets and juggle with it. At the end of the day, we were waiting for the bus to take us back to our hotel. We were waiting in Las Ramblas, a really busy part of town, so we thought it would be funny to stick a hat out as if we were street performers and then juggle the ball to see if we could get any money. We only made 6 cents, haha, but this kid played with us for about 20 minutes. The next day, a small group of us had just left from the Olympic musuem and the Olympic stadium (which was so awesome) and the professor's 14 year old son fell and sprained his ankle really badly. He couldn't really walk anywhere, so we called the Professor so they could come pick him up and take him back to the hotel. We had to wait there for about an hour and a half for them to pick him up, so we started having fun again street performing...this time singing! It started out this one girl singing by herself, and we were all dying laughing. But then we thought we might actually make some money if we did it seriously...so we started singing hymns, since that's something we all know how to sing. It was incredible how many people stopped and listened, took pictures or video...and then how many people gave us money! We felt bad getting money for it, so we stopped doing that, and put out pass-a-long cards. It was so cool to see so many people stop and listen! We ended up giving away 3 cards while doing this! It was actually a lot of fun, and I never would have thought I would have the guts to stand up and sing in public like that...anyway, another cool part of this story is that the same kid who stopped to play soccer with us the night before passed us while we were singing too, haha. He recognized me and said hi. I'm sure he thought I was pretty weird...playing soccer trying to get money one night, the next day singing!
I only have two more weeks here in Spain, and then two weeks traveling around other parts of Europe! I hope I can keep this somewhat updated, but if not, I'll see a lot of you really soon! Love you!
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
The MaMoose!
Hey everyone! These last few weeks have been so great here, let me catch you up on a few things.
A week ago the whole group went to El Escorial, which I'm not even exactly sure which city it's in, but it's the palace and basilica that Philip II built. It was really big and it was built in a grid formation to symbolize the grill that somebody was martyred on...can't remember who. I liked it, but since some of it is still in use we didn't get to see a lot of it. We also went to Valle de Los Caidos that day. This was a basilica that Franco built during his rule to commemorate those who had "fallen for God, and for Spain" during the Spanish civil war. The only thing is all the republics who had lost the war lost thousands of lives doing labor to built that exact building for Franco...and then Franco himself is buried right in the Cathedral behind the altar and Christ on the cross. It all was so interesting and different, so I liked it, but at the same time I really didn't like it because it just had a different feel to it. It's such a controversial issue in Spain...before going, my Padre told me to turn my back to Franco's grave and not show him any respect. The location of the building is really neat; it's built into a mountain that looks out on this beautiful valley filled with green forestry. On top of it there's a cross that's around 300 feet, and there's a statue of Christ that they say is so big you'd be able to sit in his hand. It all looks really neat, and the inside is filled with granite and marble. It just had a weird feel to it...
This last weekend a small group of us went to San Sebastian and Bilbao. We took a 6 hour train ride to Bilbao, and that actually wasn't too bad. haha, I kept thinking, just add three more hours and I could go back to the states for a visit(my flight over was 9 hours). The four of us, Dani, Emily, Brock, and I all got to know each other really well!
Our first day in San Sebastian was so great! We spent the day hiking all over the place to gorgeous views of the beach and the ocean. We spent some time playing in the sand and water a little bit as well, and made friends with a fisherman there named Alberto. He was a funny old man, and wanted us to take a picture with him, and then send it to him. He was telling us all the good places to go, and made sure to tell us not to go see any of the modern art sculptures there, because it's definitely not art. He also gave us a small geology lesson on how the rocks were formed there from the ocean over time...haha. For lunch we tried some tasty tapas, or mini sandwich things that usually have a type of meat and cheese, or something delicious on it. I had one with raw salmon and some kind of sauce, then a baked cod one, and then one with ham and mango! It was a tasty lunch, and to top it off we found a pastry shop for a little dessert. We were so lucky to have great weather too! It was beautiful all day!
Our next day in Bilbao was also a good one. We spent the morning going through the fish and meat market and found things such as pig heads, whole piglets, cow snouts, lamb heads w/ eyeballs still intact, octopus, squid, eel...and many other great things! We took a nice long walk through this huge park, and then took a funicular, or tram, up to the top of this mountain to look at the view of the entire city. We hiked back down after, and you'd think going down would be pretty easy, but the path we took ended up going up and down a few times, and it was a pretty intense hike! The views were all really good of the city along the river below us. We could see the Guggenheim art museum really well, and it looked awesome! After getting to the bottom, we spent the next three hours in the Guggenheim museum looking at all the crazy modern art. I liked a lot of it...but some of it was too crazy for me...and after three hours I think we had all had enough of modern art.
We topped the day of with some kebobs, and we asked for la salsa picante, because that's the best way to do it...so we thought. We were expecting some sauce similar to what we had had before on other kebobs, but this sauce really was HOT! my lips, my mouth, and my throat were all on fire, and I’m pretty sure my body temperature raised a few degrees, haha. I think the restaurant guy had a good laugh watching us try to eat the kebobs and then down our glasses of water. Needless to say, they were still delicious!
We headed to the airport for our flight home, and that was the end of our trip... and it was so fun! We all had so much fun laughing and making jokes with each other. It was a fun group to spend a weekend with. San Sebastian and Bilbao were amazing too, so I really had a lot of fun all weekend. It was the "MaMoose"... or in other words... really really awesome, maybe even the best.
Tomorrow morning, we all start another trip to Salamanca, Santiago de Compostela, and Leon. It's great, there's almost no time for school! haha, anyway, I miss you all! Have a great day!
A week ago the whole group went to El Escorial, which I'm not even exactly sure which city it's in, but it's the palace and basilica that Philip II built. It was really big and it was built in a grid formation to symbolize the grill that somebody was martyred on...can't remember who. I liked it, but since some of it is still in use we didn't get to see a lot of it. We also went to Valle de Los Caidos that day. This was a basilica that Franco built during his rule to commemorate those who had "fallen for God, and for Spain" during the Spanish civil war. The only thing is all the republics who had lost the war lost thousands of lives doing labor to built that exact building for Franco...and then Franco himself is buried right in the Cathedral behind the altar and Christ on the cross. It all was so interesting and different, so I liked it, but at the same time I really didn't like it because it just had a different feel to it. It's such a controversial issue in Spain...before going, my Padre told me to turn my back to Franco's grave and not show him any respect. The location of the building is really neat; it's built into a mountain that looks out on this beautiful valley filled with green forestry. On top of it there's a cross that's around 300 feet, and there's a statue of Christ that they say is so big you'd be able to sit in his hand. It all looks really neat, and the inside is filled with granite and marble. It just had a weird feel to it...
This last weekend a small group of us went to San Sebastian and Bilbao. We took a 6 hour train ride to Bilbao, and that actually wasn't too bad. haha, I kept thinking, just add three more hours and I could go back to the states for a visit(my flight over was 9 hours). The four of us, Dani, Emily, Brock, and I all got to know each other really well!
Our first day in San Sebastian was so great! We spent the day hiking all over the place to gorgeous views of the beach and the ocean. We spent some time playing in the sand and water a little bit as well, and made friends with a fisherman there named Alberto. He was a funny old man, and wanted us to take a picture with him, and then send it to him. He was telling us all the good places to go, and made sure to tell us not to go see any of the modern art sculptures there, because it's definitely not art. He also gave us a small geology lesson on how the rocks were formed there from the ocean over time...haha. For lunch we tried some tasty tapas, or mini sandwich things that usually have a type of meat and cheese, or something delicious on it. I had one with raw salmon and some kind of sauce, then a baked cod one, and then one with ham and mango! It was a tasty lunch, and to top it off we found a pastry shop for a little dessert. We were so lucky to have great weather too! It was beautiful all day!
Our next day in Bilbao was also a good one. We spent the morning going through the fish and meat market and found things such as pig heads, whole piglets, cow snouts, lamb heads w/ eyeballs still intact, octopus, squid, eel...and many other great things! We took a nice long walk through this huge park, and then took a funicular, or tram, up to the top of this mountain to look at the view of the entire city. We hiked back down after, and you'd think going down would be pretty easy, but the path we took ended up going up and down a few times, and it was a pretty intense hike! The views were all really good of the city along the river below us. We could see the Guggenheim art museum really well, and it looked awesome! After getting to the bottom, we spent the next three hours in the Guggenheim museum looking at all the crazy modern art. I liked a lot of it...but some of it was too crazy for me...and after three hours I think we had all had enough of modern art.
We topped the day of with some kebobs, and we asked for la salsa picante, because that's the best way to do it...so we thought. We were expecting some sauce similar to what we had had before on other kebobs, but this sauce really was HOT! my lips, my mouth, and my throat were all on fire, and I’m pretty sure my body temperature raised a few degrees, haha. I think the restaurant guy had a good laugh watching us try to eat the kebobs and then down our glasses of water. Needless to say, they were still delicious!
We headed to the airport for our flight home, and that was the end of our trip... and it was so fun! We all had so much fun laughing and making jokes with each other. It was a fun group to spend a weekend with. San Sebastian and Bilbao were amazing too, so I really had a lot of fun all weekend. It was the "MaMoose"... or in other words... really really awesome, maybe even the best.
Tomorrow morning, we all start another trip to Salamanca, Santiago de Compostela, and Leon. It's great, there's almost no time for school! haha, anyway, I miss you all! Have a great day!
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