O-H-I-O

My life is now complete.  Today I was walking back from class and saw a girl wearing an Ohio State shirt,  so I immediately call out (not super loud, but not quiet either) "O-H" and without missing a beat, because she was clearly a true fan, responds "I-O".  So bottom line, I did the o-h-i-o thing in Spain, it was awesome!

That's all for now.  I just bought "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" for my iPod touch, so I'm sure my head will be buried in that for the next few days.

Things I miss about USA / Things I love about España

So by in large, I love Spain and am having a great time.  That being said, there are a lot of things I miss about the states and Harrisonburg.  I'm gonna go down and make a list, not in any order of importance, just what comes to mind right now

1.  Girlfriend and family - pretty self explanatory
2.  Buddies and movie nights with the roomies - good times guys
3.  Jimmy John's - they have bocadillos, which are kinda like subs but they only have meat on them, no other toppings.  NOT like Jimmy Johns
4.  English
5.  Understanding everything that is said to me
6.  Dollar menu/value menu...McDonalds is NOT cheap, and not as good here
7.  Gatorade - apparently it's foreign concept here
8.  Milk (people don't drink milk just to drink it here, it makes no sense to me)
9.  UREC - basketball games here are good but the court is outdoor and a 20 minute walk each way, and uphill on the way back
10.  Golf and my golf clubs
11.  The Dollar.   For every Euro I spend, I spend $1.30 american dollars...it's getting better, but still the exchange rate sucks
12.  Budweiser / American Beer
13.  NFL and American football...we can watch two games on Sundays, but with the time difference we don't get to see any of the prime time games or monday night football because it starts at like 2AM here, and it is hard enough to get a bar to put on NFL football.  Luckily we have this place where we go on Sunday nights that stays open until the 4:15 games are over...which is about 1:30am here
14.  College Football, watching JMU and Ohio State play...college football over here is non-existent.  Thank God I'll be back in the states for bowl season and the NFL playoffs.
15.  Having internet in my house.  I don't have it at home here, it really sucks.
16.  ESPN and Sportscenter Top 10

I think that is a sufficient list of things I miss, now for some things I love about Spain, such as...

1.  It is acceptable/ expected that you take a nap after lunch.
2.  The ridiculous abundance of food that our madre cooks.
3.  Having my laundry done once a week, Carmen is the bomb.com
4.  Spanish - although it is difficult, I love learning the language and culture.
5.  Everyone being obsessed with fútbol.  Watching soccer games here when Real Madrid or Barcelona play is a blast, everyone gets really into it.
6.  Having 3 meals a day made for me
7.  The teachers are much nicer and more accommodating - not that teachers at JMU aren't accommodating or nice, but the teacher-student ratio here is ALOT smaller, so you get more 1 on 1 attention
8.  The food here is awesome, and as much as I miss American food, it's cool to taste a totally new flavor every day.
9.  It is completely legal to walk through the streets with a beer, no bike cops here!
10.  There is always something to do, every night of the week.

I hope you all liked the comparisons on what I miss from home and what I love about here, and hopefully got some laughs too!  I may blog about classes sometime soon, but I don't think that would be all that interesting.  More to come later on in the week!

Valverde Horse Riding!

So firstly, peyton hillis is not playing today because he has the flu..not a happy camper.  Anywho, on Saturday we went out into the countryside and rode horses!  It was alot of fun, these horses were pretty freakin big too.  All 30 of us or so had our own horse, we all mounted, and off we went.

These horses were pretty much on auto-pilot, we didn't have to do much.

The sun was out, not a cloud in the sky, as is usual in Salamanca.  We literally have had one day of mediocre weather, and every other day has been blue skies and between 70-80 degrees.  The countryside was nice, nothing to really freak out about, but just a nice leisurely horseback ride on a Saturday afternoon.

Nothing special, just nice and relaxing

My horse's name was Augustine, and he was a bit temperamental to start, but he eased up and was pretty mellow, and even trotted a few times when I kicked him in the side a bit.

"Augus" was his nickname

I hadn't ever ridden a horse as an adult up until now, but I would definitely do it again and I can totally see how people fall in love with horses, because they are cool creatures.  Classes are going well, the workload isn't killing me, going to watch some football after dinner tonight!

Cantabria! (North of Spain)

What an unbelievable country.  Last week was pretty much a blur, we had our Spanish 400 exam on Thursday, which culminated our intensive, 8 day, 4 hour per day class to get us accustomed to speaking Spanish 24/7.  The exam could have probably gone better, but it definitely could have gone worse, we had almost 200 vocab words to retain in 8 days!  It was A LOT of work, I just choose not to write about it, because it’s not all that exciting.  Tuesday and Wed of last week we had a cooking class, which was pretty neat.  Funny enough, we went to the University of Salamanca dorm cafeteria, and the same company that cooked for JMU, Aramark, cooked for Unirsidad de Salamanca as well!  So we went back into the kitchen and watched/helped the chef prepare traditional dishes such as Gaspacho, Tortialla de Patatas, and Paella.  

We all looked dashing

My favorite was learning how to cook the Paella, which I will definitely do, but it is a very work intensive dish, you have to be paying attention and know what you’re doing to cook it well.  The tortilla de patatas is a great snack too – it’s sautéed potatoes and onions, mixed in with beat eggs and you fry it up like a omelet pizza almost, it’s a very common dish in Spain, I would liken it to a club sub in the states.

Our trip to the Cantabria region, in the north of Spain, was pretty unreal.  We left at 6:45 AM, ehhh it was quite early.  Passed out on the bus until we stopped for breakfast at this little place off the highway, got a doughnut and a glass of fresh squeezed OJ (everywhere has those machines where you put in the oranges and it juices them right in front of you, they rock).  The first stop was at the Prehistoric caves of Altimira in Castillo de Puente Viesgo.  Talk about old, these caves were as old as old gets, Neanderthals lived there!  We had a nice tour guide, but it was the first time any Spaniard has ever spoken too slow, he was speaking slower than grandma’s grandma.  He had some interesting stuff to say, and there were some really neat paintings of horses, bulls, and other animals in the caves done by using coal (black) and another mineral that they crushed up so as to form a red pigment.  Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures, because the flashes and whatever else happens when you take a picture wear on the prehistoric markings.  After hangin out with the Neanderthals, we got back onto the bus and headed to our hotel. 

Good thing we drove through the set for Lord of the Rings.  

The picture doesn't do it justice because some glare, but it was pretty sweet.

Our drive from Altimira to where our hotel was, was out of this world!  There were sheer rock faces like I had never seen.  I have seen the rockies, been out west and up north, even into Canada and these mountain faces were mesmerizing.  The pictures don’t even do it justice, there were lights glaring off of the glass and my camera is not the nicest.  On a side note, the bus rides are always actually pretty fun, either everyone is sleeping or just hangin out and talking, laughing and reminiscing on the previous nights antics.  For one reason or the other our conversation often turns to the culinary world, we love talking about food (preface).  Everyone was missing American food, and we started talking about steak, and everyone got soo hungry and wanted a steak!

So we arrive at our hotel in Santillana Del Mar, around 5pm, do some hiking, take a nap and head down to dinner.  PS – our hotel was nestled in between sheer rock faces in the European peaks, and it was SUPER nice.   

Casual hotel in the mountains, sorry this picture is crooked

The hotel we stayed in is called a Parador, which is a hotel run by the state. We were tired from hiking and caving, so we took our nap and got to dinner, with some nice bread and appetizers waiting for us.  Apparently God had been listening in on our conversation about food earlier, because for our main course, out comes a behemoth of a sirloin steak with sautéed potatoes on the side.  We had a party of 30, and there were 30 steaks cooked perfectly medium rare, just like Pops does it.  

I was so excited/ starving that I forgot to take a picture until I had already eaten half of it...whoops

Holy sweet lord, it was like having buffalo mash, rotisserie chicken, and grilled cheese Thursday all in one meal, but better.  From dinner we bought a few bottles of wine and everyone ended up in one hotel room just hanging out – one of my favorite nights yet.

Our weather for the weekend was pretty crappy, it rained every day and was overcast, but nothing could put a damper on what we did Saturday morning.  Right next to our hotel was a Gondola, which rode us up through the clouds to a peak.  

All of us thought we wouldn’t be able to see everything since it was overcast and nasty out, but little did we know it was sunny without a cloud in the sky when we got to the top.  The views are damn near impossible to put into words, it was like nothing I have ever seen.  

I have been up in the Rockies out west, up north to Vermont and into Canada all in the mountains, but these huge rock faces were absolutely unbelievable.  360 degree views that you could sit and look at literally all day long, we only had an our and a half and that time flew by.  We saw a mountain goat, and tanner, glenn, and I even walked through a little cave where it lived (thank God it wasn’t in there!)  Every different spot we hiked to brought out a new angle and different view, and it just never got old. 

After hiking we hopped on the bus and drove for a ways to this small town, where we stopped and got lunch – it was a dam good lunch!  We got a 30 € stipend for two lunches, so a few of us ventured off into town and spent 15 € for an appetizer, entre, dessert, bread, and glass of wine.  I got a shellfish soup to start, then went for the Lechazo, which is a baby lamb and finished off with Tarta de Abuela (grandma’s cake).  

Sopa de Mariscos.  I wash hoping for more shellfish, but the flavor was nice, nothing super special.

Super special baby lamb, it was bursting with hearty flavor.  Had to use my hands at the end, sorry Spain.

Grandma's cake! yum.

I’m glad we ventured into town a bit, when I’m looking for somewhere to eat, I usually just walk around until I find a place where it’s all locals, and this place didn’t disappoint, everything was delish.

After lunch, we hit the second cave of the day, there was a replica cave of the one which was discovered in the 1970s, the first cave dating to BC ever discovered.  It was pretty interesting, but the fact that it was a replica took away from it a little.  They have closed the real cave to the general public and reserved it for academia only, because of the huge amount of visitors that came in the 80s and 90s.  All the traffic raised the humidity and temperature of the cave, causing erosion of the rock and the invaluable paintings and markings on the walls.  There was an interactive museum right next to it where you could listen and watch all of these different tidbits about how these people before Christ lived.   Very interesting.  Once again, we were not allowed to take pictures, so sorry I don't have any to show!  The history nerd inside of me came out big time, I could have stayed in that interactive museum for a long time, but we only had like half an hour.  

When we got to our new, beachfront hotel in Santander, it was already like 8:00, so we ran out and found a grocery store and got some wine, showered, and headed to another awesome dinner.  We had this really good appetizer, which I’m still not sure what all was in it, some sort of fish encrusted in a flakey croissant type thing – whatever it was, it was freakin good.  Then we got our main course of pot roast, it was very rich and hardy, and it came with a bunch of veggies too – Jesús gets an A+ for the meals this past weekend.  

Awesome Appetizer, anyone's guess as to what it was, but it was on point

After dinner some people went out, but me and a few others just walked down to the beach and sat on the beach with pants and a sweatshirt on and drank some wine, it was very relaxing.

beach crew

  Sunday was nothing to write home about, another crappy day of weather so the beach got rained out, and we just headed back to Salamanca a little early after stopping for lunch in this little city called Burgos, nothing special there.

Lisboa, Portugal

Holy Portugal!  What an interesting and cool country.  First and foremost the people Could not have been nicer, more welcoming, or happier.  It seemed as if everyone was always in a good mood.  The bus ride was just a wee bit Langer (sarcasm) than we though…it took us 6 AND A HALF hours, ouch.  The bus ride there and back were actually not too bad, everyone was excited and talking the whole time on the way there and we were all passed out most of the way back.  When we got there we walked into our hotel, the Holiday Inn Continental – not your standard Holiday Inn.  It was really nice, with an awesome breakfast, they had lox which are my favorite.  We didn’t get there until past 9 on Friday, so we got situated, met up and went out to this area called Barrio Alto.  IT WAS CRAZY.  Not that I know the bar scene in the States, but I know it is nothing like how it was in Lisboa.

the street was jam packed!!

One of the little bars we went into, there was a DJ mixing live music in pretty much every one.

We took the metro down there, and met a Group of girls from Holland and Hungary who were traveling all around and one of them complimented me on my American Accent, which was definitely a first!  Funny to think that I have an Accent to other people, but sure enough we all do.  Anyways, we get out of the cab and there are just hoards of people everywhere.  The bars were not all that big but there were just so many of them!  Beer was super cheap, 1.50 Euro for a big 35 oz beer, so we would get a beer and just walk around in the streets and then move onto the next bar, and do it all over again.  Everyone was cool and the vast majority spoke english or spanish, so we made our way around.  Marijuana has been decriminalized in Portugal, and that was pretty rampant in the streets, there were people smoking joints like they were cigarettes, just outsider the bar, which was interesting. We were approached on a regular basis and asked if we wanted a various array of drugs…No thanks creepy guy. 

 

Saturday was most definitely the best day of the trip, and the highlight of Europe thus far.  We originally planned to go to the beach all day, but it was raining so we decided to go Sintra, Portugal (about a half hour outside of Lisboa).  Best decision ever!  In Sintra, we went to this Castle called Castello de los Muerros, where the Royal Spanish Family lived in the 15^th, 16^th, and 17^th centuries.  It was like nothing I have ever seen before, the architecture was incredible – extremely intricate with no detail spared.  The sheer size of this Castle was intimidating, and oh by the way it was built on a mountain at about 1,000 feet elevation, with 50 foot sheer drops off of the walls.  I can’t even imagine how they built the foundation for it or went about creating this outrageously big structure.

We hiked up to the highest point we could in the park where this castle was, this is a great pic of how ridiculously big the castle was.

picture from outside the castle

Now for the inside.  Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take pictures on the inside for one reason or the other, but they were NOT messing around about pictures.  They had security guards with coat and tie on, radios, and poker faces, the whole bit.  They also had cameras in each room with motion and heat detectors: there is some serious history and extremely valuable stuff in this mansion.  There was a room for every conceivable purpose!  Study, sitting room, drawing room, dressing room, tons of bedrooms, two chapels, a HUGE kitchen, a paper machete (not kidding) room…the list goes on and on.  It was probably the coolest thing I have ever seen, I did manage to sneak a few pictures, but not very good ones because the flash gave you away bigtime.  The view off the walls was the best part, it was really foggy when we got there, but right as we walked outside to walk the walls, the fog lifted and it was a gorgeous day with awesome views and tons of pictures!

little guest dining room, this was the least lavish thing there, security stepped up as rooms got nicer and nicer.

The castle was built on the side of a mountain, it's crazy how they built this so long ago in such a tough place.

Amazing view, this picture doesn't do it justice.

Saturday night we went to the best little Portuguese place for dinner.  We took a cab down to the restaurant district and walked around until we found this place, what a gem.  The owner, Juan, accommodated 8 of us outside with 2 folding tables, but it was probably 70 degrees with clear skies, a perfect night to eat outside.  He brought out loafs of bread on the house, and for dinner I had a chorizo appetizer, which is a smoked sausage that was teeming with flavor – so rich and hardy it was awesome

restaurant sign! total mom and pop place

chorizo appetizer, talk about some serious flavor.  All my boys back home yall would love this, dad this would be right up your alley.

Awesome white wine and bread!

For the main course I had Sea Bass, and Portugal did not disappoint on its famous fish.  It was so fresh and cooked perfectly, they served it just like you caught it, except it was cooked!  I had never eaten a fish like that before, and it was a neat way to do it, but that was awesome, as was the house white wine.

Oh, hey, whatsup dinner?

Seabass that was on point

For how good it was, it was very cheap – 85 euro for 8 entrees (5 were fish, big fish too), 2 appetizers, and 3 jugs of white wine.  Pretty damn good!  Sunday we did some sight seeing of monuments, I'll do another small blog about that later on this week.  Cooking class this afternoon, gonna be awesome!  Hasta luego

Fiesta de Salamanca y Madre

Intensivo, our intens four hour a day class, has been interesting, our professor Javier is a really cool guy, probably in his mid 40s and is pretty freakin funny too.  It’s a very practical class, bare bones essentials that you need to know if you are living in Spain.  We talked for a while about the huge difference in interaction between men and women here in comparison with the states…if a girl so much as smiles at you, she is basically giving you an invitation to do whatever you please with her.  Not knowing that, the girls had been smiling at guys and were getting creeped on big time, it’s just SO different.  In the clubs Spaniards dance in little gender circles, unlike in the states where everybody dances with each other, if you are dancing with a Spanish girl it means you are going to go home with her that night.  Also we learned some spanish customs: like if you are invited to a birthday party, you always always always bring a gift.  Also if you are invited to a wedding you are expected to bring a gift valued between 150 – 200 Euros.  However, for a funeral, you NEVER bring anything for the family, no flowers, no food, no donations of money.  Also, something I knew before I came but is still interesting, Spanish people never go barefoot in the house, never ever.  I miss walking around in my boxers barefoot in my apartment, but I don’t miss daa ridge (much love for 1342 J Hunters Ridge though).

The food has been impeccable, but we do have some similarities, like the other night we had pizza and on Sunday for breakfast we had alphabet soup, which was funny.  For dinner on Tuesday we started off with soft-boiled eggs stuffed with tuna, YUM.  To go along with those, she made this tomato pure: sweet baby Jesus. The combo of those two was insane.  BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE.  Next came the main course of “Horneros” which was this tasty sandwich with fresh sausage and chorizo.  The way you make it is you take this cake size piece of circular bread and put the sausage and chorizo in it, then put another piece of circular bread on top and somehow seal it – then put it in the oven!  The Horneros with the tomato pure (which apparently they don’t do as my madre told me it was weird haha) was sinfully good.

Horneros and tomato pure

The Hornero!

Fiesta de Salamanca!!

This was the Lama with caramelized onions and a caña, killer!

Here is what a typical caseta looks like

Sweet Lord, Fiesta de Salamanca is amazing!  It's the cities annual celebration, and it's simply a week long party! The streets are jam packed with people just hanging out, socializing, and going from caseta to caseta ordering cañas (little 10oz cups of beer).  With every caña you order you also get pincho or tapa, which have ranged from beef stew (better than your grandma’s) to lama con cebello carmalizado (lamb with carmelized onions) – it is usually 1.80 euro (about $2.40) for the 10oz caña and pincho, not a bad price. 

They also had a classical procession with tons of flowers and everyone dressed up in traditional Spanish garb, it went all throughout the city and was really cool to see.  They had little children dressed up too, it was a grand celebration of culture and heritage, and everyone was lovin it.

 Cute little Spanish kids, this little dude was not having it, but the girl was making him stay put

Thursday we had no class, for the start of the Fiesta.  That night we started around 8 going around to the different casetas, and then at 10 there were fireworks.  Holy shit.  Absolutely unbelievable.  It made the best 4^th of July or New Year’s Eve fireworks display in the states, like the one on the Hudson every year, look like a crappy sparkler.  They went on for HALF AN HOUR.  Straight, no breaks longer than 10 or 15 seconds, it was out of this world.  For a city as small as Salamanca to put on a multi million-dollar display of fireworks blew my mind.  

Insane Fireworks

Video.  Watch it.  This wasn't even the finale!

Madre!

So here is our madre, Carmen, who is absolutely hilarious.

She has such a dry sense of humor which is kinda tough to decipher sometimes because of the language barrier, but when she is being sarcastic she usually finishes off the joke with the phrase “no pasa nada” which isn’t a phrase that can be directly translated, but the way she uses it, it means “don’t worry” or “no worries.”  So recently she has been giving us shit for coming back super late at night, so any time we tell her we will be back early, she goes “so what, like 5 or 6AM this time?” She is soo funny!  Last night at dinner she went on a 20 minute rant about how she hates Chinese people and how bad Chinese food is bad…it went on for a while and tim, tanner, and I were all hysterically laughing.  She continued to give me grief because apparently (my family will definitely sympathize with her on this one) I do not have the ability to be quiet around the house.  I guess I shut doors a little loudly and just walk loudly, which she loves to point out, but tonight at dinner I laughed harder than I have laughed in a long time, it was really neat to have that fun back-and-forth type funny conversation with her.  Off to Lisben, Portugal this weekend!  Blog to come sometime early next week.

Great first weekend!

I am officially in love with Spain.  The vast majority of the people are very welcoming and will speak a bit slower when they realize that we are American, but my ear is already getting better at picking up what they are saying when they speak at warp speed.  Apparently we sound the same when we talk in English, although I don’t feel like I talk all that fast, but to them it’s extremely fast.  Our madre is an AMAZING cook, almost as good as my real mom, who I miss dearly (love you mom!)  We have had some really really good meals, our first lunch was paella, a standard Spanish dish that has rice, olives, peppers, soft boiled eggs, and any kind of meat or shellfish that you want to put it in it.  I wanted to make it a bit spicier, but we couldn’t figure out how to say hot sauce in Spanish!  Those little words and phrases that we take for granted in English are the toughest to translate to Spanish.  She also made this potato pure with croutons that was delicious, and perfect after a night of bar hopping.

She also grows all of her own vegetables: potatoes, onions, melons...all really fresh and delish.  The meat here is lamb, it was breaded with something but wasn't bad.

 In English I say, “I’ll try to…” a lot, and there is just no way to translate that to Spanish.  Aside from that I am doing OK with speaking and understanding it, it’s getting easier by the minute.  In a week or so I think I’ll be pretty used to listening to it and will be able to understand it very well.  Speaking will take more time.

There is another set of students living in our building, Kelsey Whittleton and Meghan, and Kelsey is conveniently from Richmond and was a friend before Spain.  They live on the first floor with their madre and a younger married couple, Pepe and Jitmal.  Pepe is 26, I believe, and from Sevilla and Jitmal is 24 and from Jordan, and they are THE BOMB.  Last night Tim and I went down there and smoked hookah with all of them before we went out, and Jitmal and Pepe showed us the ropes, they knew where to go and what places will be good each night of the week.

Pepe and Jitam!  Pepe studied history too, so we talked for a while about that, got our nerd on.

Paulaner!  SO good, it's sweet and hoppy with a great flavor.  Unfortunately my taste is expensive usually 3.50 eruo, but I am already thinking of how to get some of this back in the states.

We started at two Irish Pubs, just to hangout and talk, then at 2, we went to La Chupiteria for 1 euro shots!  It was PACKED.  There were people from every part of the world in the bar, and I talked to a local for a while who was a nice dude.  The euro shots saved me, because beers were either 3.50 or 4 euro, very expensive.  The exchange rate right now is $1.40 = 1 euro.  Yikes.

This is La Chupiteria, which was pretty much a shot bar.  It's the place to go take shots and then move on to the club.From La Chupiteria, we went to Camelot, a Discoteca club that was also packed and a lot of fun, thanks to Jitam and Pepe we were at the place to be!  It’s very peculiar though, in all of the bars they play American music more often than Spanish music, which I found interesting, but it’s the same way at pretty much every bar.  The same popular songs and late night club classics.

Changing subjects a little, the plaza mayor is the main plaza of the city, right in the center.  There are a bunch of restaurants on the inside where you can sit outside, and the bars and clubs are all pretty centered around la plaza mayor, there's a picture of it below.  It's pretty darn cool.

This is what the typical street heading into plaza mayor looks like, restaurants all have chairs that they put outside where you can sit and have a tapa or a tosta and a cerveza.  There are a million little shops and stores that have everything from clothes to little trinkets and gifts and whatnot.  It's a really cool city! I'll blog more midweek about classes and other goings on!  

What a day!! After almost a full 24 hours worth of traveling, we have finally arrived.  The trip over was relatively easy, I sat next to this 26 year old named John on the plane, who was originally from Philly but now lives in and teaches English in Madrid.  He had some great advice, and was very helpful and encouraging about our semester abroad.  We got to watch the sun come up as we were flying, which was SO COOL...check it out

  It was a bit of a rocky start, we had to wait for 2 hours on the bus because two students' had some flight delays, but everybody pretty much passed out on the 2 and a half hour bus ride from the Barajas airport in Madrid to Salamanca.  We got off the bus, got our bags, and Señor Tkac (aka Tkac) called out names, and there were our madres!  Carmen, our madre is the epitome of what you would think of as a Spanish mom.  Our apartment is very quaint, with gorgeous faux-marble flooring, a nice little kitchen, and TV room.  We all have our own rooms, which was a pleasant surprise.  Out of my window is a great view of Salamanca, or at least I think so, it works for me!  

My Bedroom!  I somehow scored a nice big bed, not sure how but I'm ok with it.

Awesome view from my window, the sunrise this morning was beautiful

This is the small kitchen, pictures of our INCREDIBLY DELICIOUS paella from lunch to come.

This is the only bathroom, and I stood in the corner to try to get a picture of everything but that's the shower, there is also a washer dryer (she does laundry once a week, score)

We Walked around a bit on our first night here, and ended up at a small bar right next to our apartment and drank a few beers, called "Mahu" and they were pretty dam good.

We had orientation today, and it was alot to digest in a day, but we just learned all about our classes, schedule, and what to expect.  It was alot like freshman year of high school.  Capital One decided to be annoying and decline my card at an ATM, despite the fact I notified them that I was studying in Spain, very annoying.  I'm going to figure that out shortly after I post this blog.  We have dinner with the group tonight, and our first real night out! should be fun!  Hasta Luego