BEST Dinner of my Life

Wow. That was so interesting and delicious at the same time. We had some Bulgarian "postre" thing and I couldn't even tell you what it was but it was fluffy and amazing. That's not why dinner was so good though. It is a traditional Bulgarian dish that they usually eat on New Year's Eve, but we had it tonight. It's for good luck.. Hidden inside were these little notes almost like fortunes from fortune cookies and they were wrapped in thin tin foil to protect them. The notes were written in Bulgarian, but on the back there was a word in Spanish that summed up the Bulgarian writing that I obviously would not understand. Whatever you find is supposed to be what you're going to experience I guess in the new year. For this reason, it's important that you pick out your own piece to be cut. I found two in my first piece, one was a little note with "salud" written on the back. Salud is health so in this new year I'll have good health! Yay! The next one I found in that piece was a 2 Euro coin, the only one in the postre. Que suerte! (How lucky) In my next piece, I found two more notes. The first said "nueva casa" and the next said "el dinero." Guess this means I'm getting a new house sometime this year and as for the dinero? I'm either getting a job or winning the lottery. I'm banking on the latter of the two.... It was absolutely hilarious because Aleks got three. What did hers say? Well the first was amor, the next was bebe, and the last one? This is when we all lost it with laughter.. Una boda. A wedding!! Aleks's new year will include love, a baby and a wedding. How funny is that? Wow. Seriously such an entertaining night. I really do love it here. Un abrazo y un beso para todos vosotros!! Os echo de menos!

Officially the Longest I've Been Away from Home

Last time I was away from home for an extended period of time, I was at Villanova for a camp over the summer. I was gone for 10 days, but think about it. Villanova? Not too far from my house. I also saw my mom and sister once halfway through because they brought me clothes and food. So today is officially the longest period of time that I've been away from home. Anyway.. Today! We didn't do much, but around 1:30/2, we went to a park that was kind of between mountains? Not sure how to describe it, but I got to spend 3 hours taking pictures. I got to clear my mind and just focus on that which was so nice. The pictures I got were also good.. Well I think so. This picture was actually the highlight of my day...

Un caballo!!! We were petting it.. There was another one and it was brown with a white spot on its forehead. They were friendly. There was also this huge tree that resembled the Whomping Willow (all you Harry Potter fans out there..) and there was this hole going through it's trunk way high up. Aleks climbed up and I decided to follow. We looked good up there, right?

I'm standing in the hole thing.. Kind of complicated. It was a really fun day though. I can't believe I only have two weeks left here.. Not thinking about it! However, with my camera in my hand I did think about other things on my two/three hour "exploration." Photography was on my mind and I have a few people to thank for this hobby. The first people I have to thank would be my parents. You guys have always encouraged me to do what makes me happy and done so much to advocate my success. That would include gifting me my Canon (my best friend) last Christmas. You always inspire me to do my best and work really hard at what I do, thank you! I also would like to thank my photography teacher. Mr. Smull you rock! You're always really helpful when it comes to me understanding what I do wrong or what I could work on to improve my pictures. It's never bad advice! So thanks for all the encouragement, everyone. It's much appreciated :) Time for dinner.. Hasta luego, lectores! (Until later, readers).

PS. Hope you're learning a little bit of Spanish as you read.

Misión Imposible

Today was the feast of Los Reyes Magos.. You go three kings! My family gave me a pair of slippers. Ironically enough, they're black with some orange and pink, two of my favorite colors. They didn't know my favorite colors... They loved the gifts I gave them! That was a relief. I was slightly worried before. After that it was a pretty normal day. We didn't do much. I got school work done!! Minimal, but still. I did it. Tonight we went to see Misión Imposible con Tom Cruise. It kills me how they do these movies. It's the English version but with random Spanish people talking over the original actors. The mouths and the words don't match up and you also lose the actors voice with it. Kind of a bummer.. What I thought was entertaining though was the fact that Tom's impossible mission seemed to be much less impossible than my mission of translating the whole thing. I understood the general plot but let's be honest, other than a few phrases here and there, there wasn't much I understood. I'm working on it. I swear mom and dad, my Spanish will be better by the time I get home. There's a reason you sent me here!! In fact, last night I started a list of Spanish words that Aleks has taught me. When I randomly want to know a word, I ask her and then "la pongo en la lista" (I put it in the list). I really am enjoying myself here. Three cheers for the weekend, America!

A Post You Will ALL Be Interested In

This post is about what you all know is my favorite thing in the world (no, science department.. not you guys)... FOOD! I'm sure you're all pretty interested, especially my parents because you know what a picky eater I am. Anyway... Well I'll start out by saying I no longer ask. I've given up. I don't want to know what I'm eating. I will also add that my family may or may not think that soy una americana gorda. Fine with me... I love the food here. I eat a lot of bread and they've noticed.. Can't help myself, I'm Italian! (Gracias, padre.) I eat whatever is put in front of me essentially. Oh well. So far I've eaten a lot of things that I don't eat back at home. Here's a list: some random kind of fish, tomatoes, Spanish cheeses, peas and mushrooms. It's all really good here. Don't know what you're doing to our food at home, mom, but it tastes better here!! ;) OH! Today I had paella. Now that was amazing. It was so good. Hmmm what else.. Parker and Mason, they drink so much Fanta here. They have Fanta de limón which I must tell you is fantastic. We eat a lot of chicken and vegetables and the three times I've had dessert it was something healthy. Wait.. I've had dessert four times. Once it was ice cream (vanilla). I also tried the flan de limón that Aleks had ordered when we were out one day for lunch and that was really good. Of course, so far my favorite is the churros y chocolate. Muuuuuy ricos. Considering getting some tomorrow. Well I hope all of you are having fun with your American food! I'm going to savor the flavor of this trip (literally).

Another Awkward Moment..

So last night I finally realized something. First of all, in my room there are a bunch of books that appeared to be written in Greek or a language similar. Same with the channels on their TV and some labels on food containers. I also noticed that I never really understand Aleks's dad when he talks and I thought it was because he speaks in a mumble-y, quiet kind of voice. When I asked Aleks about the TV, she said the language was Bulgarian which explained the books and the labels as well. Then it hit me.. There's a reason I never can hear or understand Aleks's dad. He's speaking an entirely different language! Aleks and her mom can speak it too. So half the time when I don't understand them it's okay because they're speaking Bulgarian. Just makes this trip that much more of an adventure.. Dios ayude me. Por favor!

One Week!

So I've officially been in Spain for a week. Wow. Doesn't seem like its been that long at all! Time's flying by and I feel like before I know it, it's going to be January 21. I'm not thinking about that though. Today we went into Madrid and for lunch went to a Spanish tavern. They had a menu of the day and we were therefore served an appetizer (soup) and our main course without even ordering. I'm not going to explain this meal, mainly because if I could that would mean I had known what the meal consisted of and I have absolutely no idea. To be honest, I've stopped asking. I just eat. I don't think I'd eat the food if I knew what it was exactly. I don't mind. All that matters is that it tastes good! We went into the center of Madrid after lunch and it was absolutely crazy. Packed with people. Would you like to know why? Ok great!! On Friday is this huge holiday here. The feast of "Los Reyes Magos;" otherwise known as the three kings. We in America tend to forget about the three men who visited Jesus bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, but the Spanish don't! This holiday is more revered than Christmas from what I have gathered. Anyway... This whole week prior to the feast is the equivalent to our black Friday. All of the stores have sales. Not just sales, but prices are marked down between 30-75% (usually 50%). Awesome, right? So yes because of that, Madrid is un poco crazy right now. For dinner we had ravioli. Yum. Seeing the American girls tomorrow. So excited! Hope everyone is well and enjoying school and headin back to work. Miss all of you!

Que aburrido!

We didn't do much today. It was actually really nice. Finally had churros con chocolate for breakfast. It was too good. I could have that everyday for breakfast. We just relaxed and later went out with Aleks's friends. One of them was this girl named Julia (pronounced who-lee-uh) and she is from the US, but did an exchange program at the school for 6 months, then moved to Brazil. She's trilingual.. English, Spanish and Portuguese. Talented, right? Well anyway.. she involved me a lot and kept talking to me in English while I also tried participating in Spanish. For dinner we had vegetables. Not even kidding. We had a plate of random vegetables (thank god I couldn't translate the names of Spanish vegetables into Englih words, otherwise I probably wouldn't have eaten it) and then this salad thing. Oh and a tried Spanish cheese which wasn't too bad. Interesting day. I do believe we're headed into Madrid tomorrow. Yay! Time for bed though. Buenas noches, amores.

Yesterday...

Hm. Where to even begin. Well we went to Toledo which was a beautiful place. I can honestly say I'd probably be content staying there for the rest of my time here. We saw another cathedral and also a "museum." It's in quotes because it was barely a museum. Then we went to lunch and guess what we found.. frozen yogurt!! It was actually frozen yogurt though. It was as sweet as real yogurt. Didn't taste like ice cream at all. We finally found the gold jewelry we had been looking for but I didn't buy any. Got something for my sister though!! (Don't worry mom. Didn't forget about you.) After Toledo, Aleks and I got dropped off to go see a movie with her friends because it was her one friend's birthday. We saw a scary movie and big shocker here.. I understood it!!! That was exciting. The girl whose birthday it was, Raquel, and this other girl, Aleksia, were trying hard to include me and talk to me in English. When we did get back, however, I didn't have Internet. FIGURES. So all day yesterday I couldn't talk to my family or any of my friends back home. That is also the reason I didn't blog. it made yesterday kind of tough. Today's a new day though and I'm hoping it's much better. How was the winter classic game everyone? Wish I could have watched it. Anyway, have a nice day today, and teachers, have fun in school!!

Officially 1/1/2012

Que guay! I woke up recently.. around 1230 and Aleks said she'd wake me up if she was up before me and I said I'd wake her up.. I woke up on my own but I'm not sure where she is. I think we're having (drum roll please...) churros y chocolate for breakfast!! Homemade. Don't worry Mason, I promise to let you know how they are :) I'm excited. I think we're eating breakfast and relaxing today. Most of the stores are closed and I'm not sure if that's because it's the first day of the New Year or because it's Sunday.. Oh well. Oh! We are meeting up with Grace and Spanish Sarah around 4. Sarah has a friend who's German (or Swedish, I don't know. You'll understand why I'm confused.) and Sarah is going to Sweden for 5 days and when she's there she's getting her German friend. See? It's confusing! So poor Grace is going to be with her family for 5 days, alone! We always hang out with them though (every day so far.. thank god) so I'm hoping I can still see Grace because that'd probably make it a bit better for, well.. the both of us. Anyway, I'm going to see if Aleks is up. Feliz Año, readers!! Have a great day!

FELIZ AÑO NUEVO!!!