Disaster Day

Don't ever miss your flight. EVER! ugh it was horrible. So we got to stay in Spain an extra day because we missed our flight :( It was so hectic and stressful. Definitely one of those days you so wish you could live over. The guy from US airways was so helpful though and helped us schedule a new flight and get a hotel to stay in because US airways only has one flight to the US a day.

We took a cab from the airport to our hotel and tried to get a little sleep to pass the time. After that we got some food then watched The Wire for the rest of the night. Woke up at 5:45 am to be sure we would not miss the flight again. Long day but thank goodness we made it back home!

Ultima dia en Espana

It's finally time. After 4 weeks of being in another county and experiencing everything that comes with that, I get to go home! After class we had to go take our Spanish final which was fairly easy. Then we walked on over to La Rambla, Barcelona's tourists center, and I bought some much needed souvenirs for my family and me. A Barcelona University shirt for me, a Spanish flag for my dad, two Barcelona hand fans for my sister and mom, and a picture frame for me again. I put off buying souvenirs from Spain for a long time and I wish I would have gotten more but being there so long makes you not want to buy too much incase you see something better. What I got was good though so it worked out. After La Rambla we went to my apartment and I started to get ready for my big trip home! Before we went home though we had to see our good ol' friends at Beer Jungle :)

Me, Ismael, Jeremy, and Lyudmyla

Isham, Me, Ismael, and Jeremy

Me and Jeremy

3 more days

Flashback: Last Weekend in Madrid

The trip was fun but I felt like we could have done more. First thing we did was check out the amazing hotel! Being stuck in that small apartment finally hit home when I saw the comparison of living in luxury. I loved that hotel. The shower and beds were made for kings. And there was a dominos right across from us and a theater down the street. We saw Harry Potter in the first showing in Madrid we could get. It was better than expected. Even with the Spanish subtitles over the parcel tongue. I hadn't seen a theater like that in a while. They have assigned seatings so you are directed where to sit when you get there. Pretty old school.

I can't say Madrid was much different from Barcelona. Granted I didn't see much of it because of my awesome hotel. The streets seemed smaller and more village like. We got lost walking around but hey that's just another day in Spain. Even though Madrid is bigger than Barcelona it had a small feeling to some of its parts. I did enjoy everything being in Spanish and not Catalan.

Also, they don't have coke machines in their hotels! Shameful. I had to go down to the bar to ask for a ~$3 glass of coke.


1:10 pm Sick in class

I got sick in Madrid. I blame the air conditioning. My body was no longer used to it and now I have a runny nose and sore throat. I coughed all night and have gone through an entire roll of toilet paper blowing my nose. I want some vix vapor. These teachers mean business. It makes me realize how good I had it two weeks ago. No me gustan ellas. Only one more day of class and a final tomorrow. So close to going home and doing what I do best. Nothing :)

Clase

10:30 - Sleep deprived and in my first class

Classes in Spain are quite different. They are more formal than class in the US. You can't leave class till the end or when we have a break no matter the reason. Our new teacher has also instituted a no food policy which means I'll have to eat breakfast before I get here. We have two teachers a day. One in the morning and another in the afternoon with a 30 min break in-between classes. The teacher also makes us only speak in Spanish which makes me frustrated when I have a good point to make. We also have our teachers for only 2 weeks so that means the teachers I have this week are new and will be here for two weeks even though I'll only be here for one week more.

12:15 Lunch over and in my second class

My second teacher seems weird and hyper. She's wearing her pony tail on top of her head and a bright flowery skirt. I got a fifteen minute lunch break and the shop owner didn't have change for a 20 :/ I did manage to get some kind of chicken sandwich though. The bread was hard and an odd shape to eat but I was hungry so it worked. Ready to go home and watch a movie and take a nap!

Spain in Pictures

That's Spain so far. We are in Madrid currently and it's been a long 3 weeks. I've enjoyed it all a lot but I'm definately ready to go home and see my friends and family :)

Tapas

Spanish food has been hard to get used to and these pictures should let you know why. As a part of the CEA we attended a tapas taste testing dinner. There were a lot of different tapas we tasted and I actually liked some of them but others were so weird. The first tapa we had was a plate of different meats like the jamon they serve everywhere and some other types of reddish meat. None of the meats were hot or cold and they weren't cooked really. It's somewhere between cold cuts and beef jerky. Tastes gross.

This is also another common food they serve in Spain. It's bread with tomato on top and doesn't taste too bad if you like the taste of tomato.

This is sort of like an egg omelet. It has pieces of potato inside and is really mushy as well. 

These are like french fries with two sauces. The red one is a salsa like flavor and the white one is like a garlic butter. 

These are jalapenos that taste like green beans because they have been cooked. Some of them are hot but it's random on which one you will get. 

We thought these were like little smokies but inside the sausage like thing is a chorizo tasting meat. 

I didn't actually taste these but I imagine if you like mushrooms they would be good. 

Spanish food is still too weird for me but I will try a few more times to get some good meals in. 

Pamplona Bull Run

Last weekend we went to Pamplona for the annual Festival de San Fermin where the famous running of the bulls takes place. It lasts from July 6th - July 14th, which means were were there on it's 4th night. The first thing you notice when you drive up is that every single person there is wearing the traditional festival outfit (white shirt & pants, red scarf & sash.) They let us off the bus and at first we didn't know what to do so we decided to go buy the outfit as well. They were selling it in quite a few shops for fairly cheap. After we were dressed we got some really bad hot dogs and went to explore. 

The town was absolutely covered in people. Jeremy and I estimated around 250, 000 people at least. They were mostly young and drunk. The further we walked into the town the worst it got. People were peeing everywhere and being drunk and belligerent. What they were drinking was weird too. They had liters of coca-cola and boxes of wine which they were mixing together to make this drink, which I later learned is called, Calimocho. If they weren't drinking that they were drinking sangria and a few were even drinking beer. As Jeremy and I were getting accustomed to the town we discovered there was a carnival in the back.

The carnival was pretty cool. There were these weird rides that I had never seen before and they were all in Spanish. One was this bull ring thing where you tried to stay on the bull while the operators kept swinging the ring back and forth to get you to fall off similar to the electronic bulls they have at some bars but this one had 4 bulls and up to 4 people can get on each bull. The picture below is the background for the ride. Not really a kid's environment. 

The night was rough. Around 2am we decided to try and get some sleep before the bull run but we didn't exactly have anything to do that with so we tried to find a place selling a blanket but no one was so we opted for the next best thing, a towel. We finally found a place that was selling them for 8.50 euro a piece :/ but it had to do. With our towels in hand we found a "nice" secluded place to sleep and get away from the crazy drunk people. We sat against a building and were ok for a while but couldn't really sleep because we were to paranoid about the drunk people walking by so we tried to find somewhere else. We went to a park and tried finding a place that didn't smell like straight urine so we could rest. We found a place under a tree and slept there for a while then Jeremy woke me up around 5am so we could find where he needed to be for the start of the bull run. Walking around at 5am you would think people would be done partying but no. Pictured above are people coming out of clubs and still drinking and some even still drunk. There were tons of people asleep in random parts of the city and trash absolutely everywhere.

Around 6am we found where Jeremy needed to be so I parted with him and made my way to the Bull Ring. Getting there was insane. There were so many people all trying to get there and we were all fighting against the street cleaners who had their huge trucks going right through the streets we were trying to walk up. The streets were dirty with alcohol, trash, and urine so I am glad they cleaned it for the runners but sad that I was the one who had to walk through the dirty water cleaning it all up. After I made it through that hell I some how found how to get into the bull ring and paid 6 euro for a ticket and got a pretty good seat since I was 2 hours early. 

Waiting for the Bull Run to start was like waiting for a football game at OU. The crowd was pumped up. They were yelling, singing chants, and doing the wave several times. They had a band in the middle of the ring and someone also brought a huge drum and was doing beats in between the band's songs. 

Before the bull run started they were showing clips on the big screen of the bulls and how much they weighed as well as clips from previous bull runs. At 7:45am the guys running sang the chant to San Fermin and they lit a candle at his little statue, then exactly at 8am they shot off a rocket and the bull ran began. The 6 bulls run a course measuring about a mile and a half followed by 6 steer who keep them on track. The runners get a choice to start wherever on the course they want with the intention of making it to the bull ring and running along side the bulls at some point in between. It was so intense. They showed us the bull run on the big screen and everyone would cheer when someone got hit by a bull or when people got trampled. It all happened so fast and  2 minutes and 29 seconds later the bulls entered the ring. 

So the bulls enter the bull fighting ring and the crowd goes wild. All the remaining runners enter the ring and I thought for the most part it was over now. However, they actually let the bulls back into the ring with ALL the guys who ran the course. 

The bull runs around for a while and the guys taunt it so it will run towards them. Some guys get hit or trampled but I don't think anyone got seriously injured. This was the worst part for me. The guys were being so mean to the bulls, pulling it tail or hitting its rear all to get a reaction out of it. After watching this I don't think I could actually sit through an entire bull fight without feeling horrible.

Once the bull has had enough they bring a huge steer in to bring the bull back.

Here is a video of what happens inside the ring.

And of course after the bull run comes a bull fight where all 6 bulls that ran the course that morning will get killed at 8pm that evening. We didn't stay for that because our bus was leaving at 9:30am but I'm glad we didn't. We were so exhausted and felt gross. We got ready to leave I slept all the way back on our 6 hour bus ride to Barcelona.