Pescaditos

Yesterday we went to the Palacio Real again hoping to go inside. Unfortunately it was closed due to preparations for a ceremony of sorts. We did get some lovely pictures with a surprisingly beautiful gray sky.



Today we took a stroll down the paseo del prado, which is the street that the Prado museum is on. Aren't the trees fabulous?

I saw this across the street, which is why this picture isn't great...but it's a shout out to my dad who seemed interested in hearing about the Spaniard's love of ham after watching a special on the food in Spain. If you look closely at the "ham museum" you can see a series of pig legs similar to the one currently sitting on our counter.

Here I am, just excited to be in Spain.

Now for a funny story, that I most unfortunately do not have pictures of. For dinner tonight we were served a pile of small fish (looked a lot like minnows) that were coated in something and fried whole. I was a little uncertain about them from the start, but after popping one into my mouth I quickly discovered that I in fact WAS chewing an entire fish...skeleton, head, tail, and all. Our padre, Paco, was really enjoying them, popping them into his mouth like popcorn without a second thought. Ana, our madre, liked to pull out the skeletons first, but neither Kiley or I could figure out how to do that so we had to continue with Paco's route.

Pig legs y rebajas

Yesterday while everyone else was in class, I headed over to a Monday market in Alcala. It was awesome, but I didn't want to take my camera out and look like a tourist (or be targeted for pick-pocketing). There was a street lined with carts on both sides selling everything from clothes to food to shoes to jewelry. I perused the carts all the way down the street and as I made my way back I bought two movies: Madagascar 2 and High School Musical 3...both in Spanish. I was really hoping that the songs in HSM3 would be translated too, but unfortunately they are not. It's still fun though, and Kiley and I plan on watching them as Spanish practice one night. We think we will be able to understand most of it.

Another surprise as I turned into the kitchen...an entire pig's leg set up on the counter. What's even funnier is that they have this whole pig-leg-holder type contraption thing set up as if it is perfectly normal. We are just waiting till we walk in and find a whole animal laid out on the counter...maybe even still alive.

Right as we walked in, our madre asked us if we wanted some ham. Of course we said yes, because we say yes to all the food they offer us, and low and behold, she walks over to the leg and slices us off some pieces. Well at least we know it's fresh.

After a cold day of classes today, Kiley and I hopped on a bus and got off by the train station. We started walking around aimlessly going in random shops. This is us after we checked out a sweet supermarket (in which we found many hanging pig legs amongst other things). We were excited by the delicious European cookies we got, though they didn't quite make it into the picture.

We stopped into one random shop that was having ultra rebajas (sales). Kiley got some jeans and I got a sweet little dress/long shirt type thing with awesome cats on it, or something like that. It is quite cool. It's the kind of thing that when I wear it, people will ask where I got it, and I can say, oh, just Spain.

Camarones...con ojos

Imagine rounding the corner into the kitchen only to be greeted by a plate piled high with shrimp. Sounds nice huh? Not if they are staring back at you.


Last night for dinner we had shrimp that looked similar to this (beady little eyes and all). It actually was quite delicious, you just had to get past the whole ripping of its head while it looks at you part.

Nieve?

It's true, for the first time in about 4 years, it snowed in Alcala de Henares. My host family seems to think we brought it with us from Utah. What's funny is that if you turn on the news here in Spain, the only thing they talk about is the snow. They show people sledding and waiting for buses and just talk about how cold it is.

Yesterday we went as a group to la plaza mayor. It's supposed to be a pleasant place to hang out, but not so much in the snow.


Something humorous: so I guess that High School Musical was a big hit not just in the United States. I just may have to get tickets to this performance of the first movie on stage and in Spanish. Take note of the similarities between the Spanish characters and the American. Sharpay seems to be Ashley Tisdale's twin, and Ryan...the blonde looks oh so natural.

After some time in Madrid, we headed back to Alcala. This is la plaza de Cervantes:

And here's a close up on those awesome trees:

Today I went to el Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, which is an art museum in Madrid. It was packed full of wonderful and famous works of art, at the height of which is Picasso's Guernica:

I was slightly concerned before I saw it that it would be a disappointment in real life. I found it to be quite the contrary though. It was HUGE! If I stood next to it, my head would probably hit a little over halfway up. Though it's in black and white, the different grays stand out much better in person. The museum also had many other works by Picasso including Mujer en Azul. There were also paintings by Salvador Dali, Diego Rivera, Alexander Calder, Francis Bacon, and many many others.

The building itself was really cool. It was a rectangle with a courtyard in the middle, but the coolest part of the building were the two glass elevators on the front. Thi picture is taken from within one elevator of the other one:

Basically, it's an all around awesome museum with an outstanding permanent collection.

el comienzo

I am currently living in Alcala de Henares and taking classes at la universidad de Alcala. Something interesting to note about Alcala is that it is the birthplace of Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote. They love him here in Alcala. They name everything after him: streets, plazas, stores. This is of course all fine and good, but also funny because Cervantes only lived in Alcala till he was 3 years old, meaning he achieved nothing particularly famous while living in Alcala. Here I am sitting with none other than Don Quixote (I wasn't sure at the time, but looking at this photo it appears he may have been making a move on me).

After hanging out in Alcala for the morning and returning home for lunch during ciesta time (when everything closes down so that people can go home to eat lunch and take a nap, from around 2-6 or so) my roommate kiley and I hopped on the #7 bus to meet some people at the train station and head into Madrid. (This is a good time to add that riding a bus in Alcala is much like what I imagine riding the night bus in Harry Potter would be like...somehow the buses can fit through the tiniest gaps and around the sharpest corners).

About an hour or so later we were in Madrid. The city is amazing. The streets are beautiful and lined with fantastic shops and tapas and cafes. We started in la plaza del sol and wandered aimlessly through the streets stopping in at various shops.

We eventually found la plaza mayor, where we saw this humorous sight in a window. Who wouldn't feel enticed to stop in this restaurant? (i wonder if it still wears the sunglasses and cell phone when it is served)

La plaza mayor:


We also checked out la palacio real, which was lovely.

Basically, despite the freezingness of Spain currently (we're talking sub zero), it is probably the coolest place ever.

Yay Spain!

SPAIN

I MADE IT! After two delayed flights and a taxi ride, i have finally made it to my house in Alcala. The family seems lovely, though I already see about the difference in personal space. I ate some lovely seafood for dinner...including rice with clams cooked into it (shells and all).

Get excited for some good updates from here on out...but as for now, this world traveler is going to bed.

A New York Minute

After Christmas the fam headed up to New York City for some good times. Here is the classic Megan and Jessie picture in NYC. You may recognize the restaurant Roxy from MK and A's movie New York Minute.

Here we are in front of the NYC temple.

We stopped in at a cafe for some delicious sandwiches.

We traveled via subway like the true new yorkers we are.

Even though it was absolutely frigid outside, we couldn't resist having Jamba for breakfast. (I recommend the mango peach topper)

Megan and I tried to scout out Dan Radcliffe, but we couldn't find him even outside his theater.

We went to Magnolia's for some wonderful cupcakes. The german chocolate cupcake is the best.

Me and the baby at Magnolia's.

We ate delicious caesar salad and legit New York pizza at Bella Vita.

It was a lovely trip overall. Yay family!

Feliz Navidad

Christmas festivities began at the Livingston house with the decorating of the tree.

Max helped out by dressing up as Santa (just like Max from "how the grinch stole christmas").

The tree turned out positively smashing. The best tree on the block, if not the state of Virginia.

We opened up our one present on Christmas Eve and were completely surprised to find pajamas once again. This year we matched, which is always exciting.

Christmas morning brought many excited squeals. Emily got her first American Girl doll, which was super exciting. She got Molly because they look alike and Megan and I already have most of the others.

This year's best present given goes to Emily, who gave me this fabulous poster of Joe Jonas looking oh so sexy.

All in all it was an excellent Christmas.

Chili's

In order to celebrate the end of the semester and in the spirit of Christmas, the roomies headed out for a delightful outing to Chili's. The evening began of course with a serenading of "Lovebug" on the way to the restaurant. The song has become a theme song of sorts for our apartment because it's just so darned cute. Upon arriving at Chili's, we were seated and ordered and then commenced with the Christmas festivities.

Each of us had brought a gift for someone else...only we didn't know who. Rather than drawing names we thought it would be fun to read a story and pass a present to the left with the word "a" and to the right with the word "the." I began reading the story (which we had printed off at the last minute and had not read before...turned out it was about a witch attacking a town in Japan and a Samari saving the day) and things seemed to be going according to plan.

Then we hit a glitch. When the story finished, we were each holding the present we had brought, so we decided to read the first paragraph again. Low and behold, when we finished that paragraph we were once again holding our own gifts. Finally after reading another paragraph we were each holding someone else's gift.

All of the gifts were fabulous and unique. I gave Maggie some beautiful plastic clips for her hair and a toy FBI set.
She found them quite useful.

I got a Jamba Juice gift certificate from Lyndi, which I was of course THRILLED about.

Lyndi got a strippling warrior and a book about love from Maren.

Maren got some super awesome chapstick from Danae.

Danae got some toy animals and a sticky hand from Maggie.

Basically the food was delicious, the gifts fantastic, and the company even better.

Finals

I have spent everyday since last Wednesday dedicating my life to these things we call finals. Lucky for me, all my finals were scheduled for the first half of the week so I am almost finished. I now only have one test left: ELANG 223, more commonly known as intro to editing. The midterm for this class was a breeze, so I am not too concerned...except that I forgot to do the readings as we went, so i now have about 23 readings to do from this lovely book pictured below.


Who knew linguistics could be so frightening! (but it actually can, so far I have read 3 articles on plane crashes that could have been prevented if the pilots or air-traffic control people had a more in depth understanding of linguistics)