We're 'fans' of Sevilla

So, the last few days have been…interesting. On Monday, we were told that we just had to go in at 9 in the morning for our placement tests. However, that was definitely not the case. After said test, we ended up having class until 2 pm. So, basically, right now we have class from 9-210 every single day for 9 days, which totals up to 45 hours (or 3 credits). It is SUPER boring! Basically, our “Intensive Spanish Language” is just a review of stuff we learned way back in the first month of seventh grade Intro to Spanish. Luckily, we only have to keep doing this class until next week on Thursday, then we will be done and ready to get on to our classes at the University of Sevilla.

While that part kinda sucked, we have been doing some very awesome things too! On Tuesday (yesterday), we took a tour of the Cathedral. What an amazing sight! It is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, and the third largest Catholic Cathedral after the Vatican and Saint Paul. Just walking through the gardens are amazing, with all the intricate artwork carved into the stones and the sculptures. But then you walk inside, and its over 100 feet tall, and basically amazing! My favorite part was one of two things: first, we got to see the tomb of Christopher Columbus. (see pic below) His tomb is being held up by four kings, and its basically an awesome sight to see, thinking about his importance. There is a rumor, however, that all/part of his body is still in the Dominican Republic, but his son is also buried in the Cathedral, and after DNA test they determined that the bones in the tomb are his. The other really cool part was the tower. No building in Sevilla is allowed to be higher than the tower, so when you walk up to the top of it (which is quite a feat) you get to look down on a spectacular view.

Yesterday was also particularly awesome because Emily and I finally figured out how to use the train system. So, now, instead of walking all across town to get to class in the morning, we can just hope on the train (yay for lazy Americans!). Today, however, we couldn’t use it on the way home from shopping because it was shut down. Why? Because there was a protest in the middle of town! This is the second one that we have seen since we’ve got here, and its only Wednesday! What made me the maddest is that after we got closer to home, the train started moving again, but we decided that it was no longer worth the 66 cents to get on it…

As I just alluded at, Emily and I went shopping this evening after siesta. The shops here are so cool. Some are a bit expensive, but its nice to have small shops that specialize in one or two things instead of big department stores (which they do have on the other side of town, but we didn’t want to go over there). Anyways, after 3 hours of shopping, we walked home, and realized that all we had bought on that trip was 7 fans (4 for me, and 3 for Emily). They are “presents” for when we get back home, but I’m pretty sure that I am just going to want to keep them all! Basically, we’re definitely going to have to go shopping more when it comes time to head home…

My new home?

Yesterday, we finally arrived in Sevilla, after a grueling 7.5 hour bus ride (including our stop for lunch). The drive honestly reminded me of driving through south eastern Washington, with its dry weather and tumble weeds. Needless to say, by the time we got into city limits, the nervousness on the bus spiked tenfold. Everyone seemed excited to be looking out at our new home, but we were also on the lookout for where our bus would end up stopping. When we did stop, a large group of people were standing around waiting for us to get off the bus. And you could definitely tell that no one wanted to be first. Finally, we started to get off, and finding our luggage proved to be fairly difficult considering there was only about 32 of us.

Anyways, then we had to stand around until our name was called, and then we learned who our host parents would be. I’m not sure how Emily, my roommate, felt, but I was definitely apprehensive to raise my hand just cause I was so nervous. Our host mom’s name is Maria, and she is about 55 years old. After we shoved all our bags into her car (which almost didn’t fit), we did what we were taught as kids never to do: go home with a complete stranger. Man oh man was it a long ride. And I don’t mean distance wise cause it was actually pretty close to where we had been dropped off. Our mom just started going off in Spanish, wanting to know how our trip was, if we actually spoke Spanish, and a ton of other information. Thankfully, between Emily and I, I think we got it down.

At our house, we also have a grandma. We have yet to be told her actual name, but she’s a sweet 81 year old lady who likes to water her plants on the patio and watch Spanish soaps on the TV. I can’t tell if she is deaf, or just doesn’t understand our Spanish, but communicating with her is kind of difficult, especially because she talks way too fast for the two of us. Our host mom also has three children. One lives in Madrid but is apparently on a business trip in Japan. Another lives in New York. And then the third lives here, but is currently working (?) in Germany. It’s pretty cool because her oldest son is so smart and had such good grades that when he graduated with his Industrial Engineering degree, the King of Spain himself gave him a certificate of merit. I wish I could do something like that.

So, Emily and myself are in a room that is probably eight feet by twelve feet. It consists of two win beds (which are smaller than back home), a small round table with two chairs (where I am currently residing), a wardrobe, and a chest of drawers with shelves on top. And then we each had to find room to shove our two suitcases a piece into, which was really difficult. I just hope I get a chance to buy more hangers because that would make my life SO much easier. As it is right now, we only have like 7 each, so we had to fold most of our stuff and put them in the little amount of drawer space that we were left with.

Today, we got a tour of the ISA office and the building that we will be doing our studies in for the next two weeks. We also walked to where our actual studies will be once the semester starts. Once our planned tour was over, a bunch of us girls ended up walking down to the river. It is really pretty, but the water was really green, and definitely not like the water at home. My favorite part of the day was definitely going to take a quick look at the Plaza de España. It was used in Star Wars for the government building of Planet Naboo, which I find completely awesome. It is also full of amazing hand painted tiles that adorn much of the inside and quite a bit of the railing along the moat. I just can’t wait until we have more time to go back and properly explore it later, but we had to come home in time for lunch instead.

Some things never change...

Which can be a good thing, or a bad thing. In the last few days, it seems we have had a little bit of both. As mentioned in my last post, some people never left the bar at all on the first day. I must say, I was surprised to see them up and ready to go to El Prado yesterday, but they were there on time just like the rest of us. As soon as free time came about again, however, they went right back to drinking. In fact, the majority of them went clubbing and didn’t even come back to the hotel until 530 am (and we had to leave Madrid at 9).

But first, El Prado. Talk about an amazing experience, even though it was much too short.  We got to see great works by Goya, El Greco, Reuben, and more. But, the building is huge, so there was literally no way for us to see them all. Plus, our tour guides were mostly just trying to get us through everything as quick as possible because we also had a walking tour of Madrid afterwards. So, you only got a few seconds to see some of the paintings, but they were worth it. My favorite had to have been El Greco. His works were absolutely amazing! It was even really fun to see the progression of his work as you moved through the different halls of his paintings.

After El Prado, we ended up on a walking tour. It was super pretty, but also an extremely long and hot walk. It was also scary at one point because a blind man ran into one of the girls and then started yelling at her for nothing. During the tour, we got to see where Don Miguel de Cervantes lived (but it was torn down) and also where he was buried (before they moved his bones and forgot where they put them). For those of you who don’t know who this man is, he wrote Don Quixote de La Mancha, the third most translated book in the world after the Bible and Quran. Anywho, as a literary nerd, it was pretty awesome (not quite seeing the café were JK Rowling started writing Harry Potter awesome, but a very, very close second). We also got to watch a robbery, which was pretty fun. A guy ran out of the store, and all the security guards from that shop and all the other buildings around them started pouring out to chase after him. Then, a few seconds later, here they all come with him in tow. Sad that us four girls were so excited by it, but what can I say…we like cheap entertainment.

And back to the things that never change. The best part of this whole story has to be the girl that sleepwalks when she’s drunk. Apparently, she walked up and down our floor banging on doors trying to find hers, but was unsuccessful. My roommate found her near the elevators and decided it would just be easier to have her sleep in our room. Mind you, our beds were two twin beds, but they were side by side touching. So, around 4 am or so, I end up getting kicked out of bed by someone that I didn’t even now was there, let alone who they were (although I did figure it was someone from our group). After a couple of times, she finally moved back to my roommates bed, and I did get a bit of sleep. When our wakeup call came, she had no idea where she was. All day, people keep asking me how she ended up in our room, and I have no idea cause I am smart enough to wear ear plugs. And, not surprisingly, she had no idea how she ended up out of her room either. One would think that her roommate would be worried, but apparently not…And this morning, some guy was so hung over that he slept through his alarm and through his roommate trying to wake him up, so we ended up leaving almost a half hour later just because no one could find him and he wasn’t packed to leave Madrid yet.

Today, however, good things never changed. Things like Toledo, the first capital of Spain and the most beautiful town in the world. The town was first constructed by the Romans on a hill that has a river running around it on three sides (and thus is easily protected). Lots of the current buildings were built in the 1300s and 1400s. Our first stop was the church that Isabella and Ferdinand built in 1476 to hold their tombs (which actually ended up somewhere else). It has amazing architecture and even a garden with fruit trees in the middle. Next, we got to see the cathedral here Toledo. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to go inside, but the outside is very pretty. Even just walking around town and looking at all of the shops is fun because they have so many little trinket stores here. Toledo is also known for their swords, and I’m pretty sure that Uncle Todd would be in heaven here with all the different kinds he could look at.

 

In short, Toledo is definitely my new home…until I go to Sevilla that is. But, I could definitely live there no problem at all and love every second of it! As you can see from the picture above, the views of the old part of town are wonderful!

And now, to meet my new host family.

And then we ate with the roaches

That’s right folks, the cockroaches. But, like always, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. After an interesting day (see previous blog post about horrible flight), I landed at Madrid-Barajas airport and had no idea what I was doing. I ended up going upstairs and getting all backwards, but finally after about an hour I found people from ISA! Then, we waited for two more hours on the hard floor. By the time we left, my butt and my feet were all asleep.

The bus ride to the hotel was kinda fun because you got to see how different/similar Madrid is to other places. Honestly, aside from the older buildings here or there, I honestly felt as though I could have been back in America somewhere like New York or LA. Thankfully, the closer you get to the hotel the older stuff gets! So, we have fountains on both ends of our street, and the state botanical gardens are directly across the street (although it costs to get in, so I’m probably not going to actually see them)!

After getting my bags dropped off, a group of us wandered around in search of food, and ended up at a tapas bar eating little sandwiches (note: this is not the roaches incident). And, of course, all those kids who aren’t old enough to drink at home were right there on the cervezas. And the sangrias. And more cerveza, and more sangria, and more and more and more. I swear, some of the people I have only seen leave the bar during our required meeting…

During our meeting, I got a new (as in 1990) Nokia cellphone to use while I’m here. I have to relearn how to text, but hey, at least I have 300 minutes a month to call home with! After our meeting, my roommate and I decided to wander around and find some dinner, and came across another group of ISA students, so we just ate with them. And this would be were the roaches came crawling on the walls! It was gross, but the food was amazing, so it was worth it. The service, however, wasn’t quite so amazing because I’m pretty sure that man wanted nothing to do with serving a bunch of Americans, even though we were paying just like everyone else.

Now tomorrow, we get an awesome tour of El Prado museum, then we’re taking a walking tour of downtown, then free time! I will try and post lots of pictures tomorrow, but for now, it is bedtime.

When Easy Jet screws you over

*Disclaimer: I only got 4 hours of sleep last night, so I’m very crabby, hence a very rant-y blog post for today J

Boy, when Easy Jet wants to screw you over, they do one hell of a good job! Before I get to that, how about I start from my last blog post. Yesterday, Tuesday, Zoe, her dad, and myself drove the 4.5 hours from Wigan to London. Her dad had to work today in Carby, which I am told is near here, and he was nice enough to drop me off at my hotel before Zoe and him went to their hotel and to work this morning. I stayed at the Best Western, which was nothing special, just like any Best Western that you would find in the United States.

This morning is where everything turned to hell. First, my 4:45 am wake-up call conveniently didn’t come until 4:52. This meant that I missed the 5:05 bus to the airport. By the time I got on the 5:20 shuttle, the driver started off the second I got in the door, so I had loads of trouble trying to get my bags into the holders cause of the way he was driving and they kept rolling away. And it sure didn’t help that all the English people on the shuttle just looked at me and not a single one of the men offered to so much as roll my bag back to me.

And now comes Easy Jet. First, even at 5:35 in the morning, the lines are about 100 miles long. When I get up to the front, I find out that you can only have one carry on, which doesn’t help with the fact that I had my backpack and my giant purse both full. After lots of struggles cramming everything into either my backpack or one of my suitcases, I finally made it up to the teller, where I had to pay £10 for every kilogram over the weight limit (which, I would like to point is only 20 kg, aka 40 pounds, per customer, no matter how many bags you are carrying). Needless to say, when all is said and done I will have ended up paying almost 300 USD for a flight that was originally supposed to only cost me $62. Gotta love the exchange rates these days…

To make things even more pleasant, by the time our gate number showed up on the screen, we only had 18 minutes until it said the gate was closing, and you had to cross the entire terminal to get to our gate. When we got there, the line probably had 100+ people waiting, and we got delayed almost 45 minutes. But, you don’t sit down to wait for your plane in this country, so you are just stuck waiting in a really long line with your feet wanting to fall off. Eventually, we found out that a crew member was sick and had to be taken off by the paramedics, which is what was causing the delay. While this part doesn’t bother me cause it couldn’t exactly be avoided, what does bother me is the fact that they were waiting until the end of time to tell us why our flight was being delayed and why we were all just standing around.

The nice thing about this flight is that even though it was “full booked,” I still ended up with the only open seat in the whole plane is right next to me. And, with Easy Jet you can pick your own seat, so I got what I feel like is a fairly decent seat. Now, one more way to squeeze money off of passengers on this flight is through the drink cart. Unlike any other flight I have ever been on, you can’t even get ice water for free. No, water costs you £1.5, which today is about $2.50, and a can of pop, just the small 8 oz ones, costs you £2. I paid £1.79 for a 20 oz bottle inside the airport and thought that was super expensive considering you can get it for 80p (the English version of cents) at most stores.

By the time that this is posted, I will finally be in Madrid, meeting my new roommate and officially kicking off my study abroad adventure. Now, our itinerary is looking pretty full for the next few days, with lots of museums and things to look at. I don’t actually get to Sevilla and meet my host family until Saturday, but I will keep you all updated on the fun and excitement over here in España!

Life around the 'ster!

I was informed that I wasn’t blogging quite enough, so here’s another update on what I have been up to. So, we got back from Scotland on Thursday, and didn’t really do anything fun and exciting. Friday, on the other hand, was a totally different story! Zoe, her friend Lauren, and myself drove up to Lancaster (about 40 minutes) to look around the town that Zoe and Lauren went to university at, and also to take a tour of the castle. Lancaster Castle is owned by the Duke of Lancaster, who is also known as the Queen of England. Until last year, it was used mostly as a prison and a courthouse. In the first part of the tour, we got to see all of the Coat of Arms of the sheriffs of Lancashire, which are specially made every year for the new sheriff if they don’t have a coat of arms of their own. I find this really cool because then your family has an official coat of arms for the rest of eternity.

After this part, we got to go down to the prison, which was awesome! In the first part, we got to see lots of the old torture devices and other prison tools, and even try some of them on. We then got to be locked up with 12 other people in an 8x12 cell with all the lights turned off so we could feel like an 18^th century prisoner. Definitely not fun, especially since I’m pretty sure that I ended up in the corner that was used as a toilet, judging by the state of the floor compared to everywhere else… After this, we got to go back upstairs and look at the criminal courtroom, which is still used today (luckily we were there on the last day of summer holiday so we still got a chance to see it without interrupting any proceedings).

The next part of the tour got really creepy, as it was all about the execution of prisoners. You walk into this room that has a giant table in the middle, surrounded by some chairs. Back in the day, this is the table that a coffin would be placed on, and the prisoner would have to walk by his/her own coffin on the way out to the gallows. Then we saw all the different aspects (short of the gallows) to how the prisoners were hung, and how they were carried through the trap doors so the dead bodies didn’t have to be dragged through the masses of people that would gather around for hanging day.

My favorite part of the tour was probably the next bit, which brought us into a room that the old nobility used to meet in. In it, there are a ton of chairs that date back to such an old age, and are so unique that they are worth over one million pounds for the collection! The cool part, however, was the chair in the corner, which just so happened to be a throne built especially for Queen Victoria in the 1800s. Granted, she only sat in the chair for two minutes, but I still got to touch something that a Queen sat on! Needless to say (given my obsession with royalty) my day was made!

Today was spent shopping at the Trafford Center, which is a giant mall in Manchester. They’re malls are amazing because every single department store seems to also have a café or mini grocery store in it. My favorite store, however, was Hotel Chocolat. Needless to say, the entire store was all different kinds of chocolates, and even chocolate covered cheesecake. I decided that it was definitely worth buying £10 worth, which isn’t a whole lot, but it will definitely be worth it in the long run! The mall also as Legoland, which we didn’t actually go into, but I did get to meet Harry Potter (or the Lego version of him anyways).

The most interesting store, however, had to have been the one that was part Sushi bar, part candy store, part bakery, and finally, part clothing store. What I loved, however, was that the majority of the food section was ‘specialty’ foods from America. This includes Lucky Charms, Reese’s, Pop Tarts, and Jiffy Puff marshmallow mix. Definitely not specialty in the United States, but definitely had a specialty price here in the United Kingdom. I guess it would have been more than worth it to bring an extra suitcase of all that stuff and make some extra money!

I think I am ready for the next Royal wedding with my new fascinator!

From the United Kingdom, with Love!

Here I sit on the train, heading back to Wigan from Edinburgh. What a week it has been here in England (and it hasn’t even been a full week yet)! I suppose I should start at the beginning. When I got to Manchester, it was 8 am here, midnight back in Idaho. Needless to say, I was just a bit tired cause sleeping on the second plane was virtually useless, even though that was exactly what everyone else was doing (although I did get to watch The Lucky One and Hunger Games on the little T.V. in the back of the chair in front of me, so it wasn’t to boring). Basically, I spent almost all of Saturday sleeping on and off cause I was way to exhausted to do anything else.

Even though I was still super tired, on Sunday I did venture out a bit to the mall so Zoe could get her glasses. The shops here are humongous, and it seems like all of the department stores here have both a café and like a mini grocery store. Its weird cause even the expensive stores are like that, which is not something you would really find back home. After shopping, it finally quit raining, which turned out to be the perfect time to take a nice long nap.

Monday was a Bank Holiday. I would describe a Bank Holiday as the governments excuse to not have to go to work for the day. They have six of these every year, and just about every shop in the country is open except government shops and banks. So, it pretty much just gives everyone a chance to go out and get all their shopping done, and of course not have to go to work. This was also the day that I got introduced to ASDA, the wanna-be Wal-Mart that just so happens to be owned by Wal-Mart International. It is probably six times bigger than the Moscow Wal-Mart, and you can even buy major appliances in it. By the end of the trip,

Tuesday was amazing! This is the day Zoe and I took the train to Edinburgh. Talk about a beautiful ride. I was like a kid looking n the window of a candy shop, and kept on annoying Zoe with my “Ooo, look at that” and “That is such an awesome view.” The countryside is just what I imagined, and more. We got to Edinburgh around 230 and spent most of the day roaming around town, looking at all of the shops (and stocking up on McLean Clan gear). I even convinced Zoe to walk up the Scottish Monument with me. For £3, you get to walk up a single, tiny stair case to four different levels. Mind you, there is one stair case in and out, so you either have to squeeze by other people or try and move up and down the levels with people coming from all directions. But, by the time you get to the top, you get an amazing view of the city. Definitely worth the money to go up!

Wednesday was the best day by far, however. This is because we went to see Edinburgh Castle. It was a bit expensive to get in, £16, but it was definitely worth the price. You get to see so many buildings from the 16^th century forward, and see the best views of the city. You also get to stand within two feet of the Scottish Crown Jewels (but you don’t get to take pictures of them, which kinda sucked…).  We also saw the American prison from the Revolution, which I thought was kinda cool, especially when you read about how after the Revolution, they let all the prisoners of war that had foreign nationalities other than American free, but they kept the Americans for years because they didn’t want them to go home and fight more.

Wednesday was also an exciting day because Jamie got to buy her very first kilt! Basically, a girl’s kilt just looks like a mini skirt with tartan colors, and isn’t anywhere near as cool looking as male kilts, but I was still excited. The only problem I had was that no one stocked McLean tartan, so if I wanted a kilts in my clan colors, I had to get it special ordered. In the end, I just got the Pride of Scotland tartan, which is a cool mix of black and purple.

And today, we did absolutely nothing except lay in bed and watch T.V. until it was time to check out of our room and get our train. Quite a nice, relaxing day, which is good cause I still feel slightly jet lagged, although that could be all the running around and climbing hundreds of stairs talking. And now, its naptime yet again, as we still have over an hour left on our train ride!

I'm Leaving, on a Jet Plane!

Here I am on my first plane ride of the day: Portland, Oregon to the Big Apple. I must admit, even though I am sitting here on a plane to Manchester, I still find it hard to believe that first of all, I am heading  to a foreign country (finally!) and second of all that I am going to be studying abroad for the next four months. It just has yet to fully sink in I suppose. I am sure, however, that it will hit about the time I start flying over the Atlantic Ocean. But then again, maybe it won’t…

This week has definitely been interesting. It seems like I spent quite a bit of time this week at Spirit Mountain Casino. Not that that is a bad thing, cause I like gambling a bit more than I probably should. Then again, there were probably a zillion more productive things that I could have actually done with my time, but that is beside the point. That was still time that I got to spend with my grandparents, which was nice. Plus, I am going to be casino-less until January, so I had to get as much in this week as I possibly could.

Other than that, I spent most of the week taking care of my great-grandma. She now has a fairly clean house, new light bulbs in three of her lights, her spare beds are made, groceries in her fridge and I got rid of the algae infestation in her fish tank. All in all, a pretty busy week. And then, I had to leave her behind and go to my grandparents’ house so they could take me to the airport at 330 this morning. Talk about difficult, for the both of us. But, after lots of hugging and tears, I made it out of there okay. And I think she was okay too, at least until she called me last night to tell me good night. Then the tears started again.

This week, I also became an expert cribbage player, if I do say so myself. One game, I was almost 30 points ahead of my grandma and my aunt. I even succeeded in beating Grandpa Giddings in two games. I won’t say how many games I lost to him though… I just have to get a bit of practice in while I’m abroad so I can really kick his but when I get back to the states. I just wish that I could count as fast as him and Aunt Toni. I swear, they just glance at the cards and can name all their points. I, on the other hand, have to go the long way of “15-2, 15-4, and a pair is 6.” One day!

Leaving at the airport was pretty hard too. Grandpa started crying, which did not help me in the slightest. I did make some new friends in the security line though. Grandma asked me if I had enough money for my trip, and I of course said “No, but you have my account number.” The people behind me just loved it, and kept talking about it almost the entire way up to the front of security.

Well, the next time I blog it will be from foreign soil, so be prepared for the start of lots of pictures, and of course the start to blogs that have a bit more adventure in them J

Hasta Europa (Until Europe)!!!!

A week for the history books!

Last Friday, I left home and started my journey to Spain with a quick 2-week pit stop in Oregon to visit with my family. And boy has it been a busy, busy week. First, Dad made me get up at 3 am in order to drive down here to Portland to visit my grandparents. We even got here before lunch time, which is way different than any other time we ever come down here.

Saturday was….interesting. I went garage sale-ing around Oregon City with my dad and his little brother, Todd. It was like taking two 3 year olds to a candy shop. I couldn’t even get my seatbelt off before they were already across the street at the sale. Not only that, but they even left me behind at a couple of garage sales that were in walking distance of each other, and next thing I know, they are two blocks away and completely clueless at the fact that I’m not standing right next to them (surprise, right?).

Best part about Sunday? Going to Grandma Reed’s house, where I get to enjoy air conditioning. Its been in the high 90s/low 100s all week, so its really nice to enjoy some cool air at her house. On Monday we went to the reservation and I got my eyes checked out (and yes, I am blind). And now I have to get glasses for reading/driving/working on computers (which pretty much means all day long). While there, we went to the casino and met up with my great aunt for lunch, which was really fun.

Yesterday and today are so relaxing! I am playing babysitter to my great-grandma, who had to get fluid taken out of her knee and a bunch of shots yesterday. I think she likes having someone here to wait on her hand and foot. But, what 87 year old wouldn’t? Today, though, my mom flew down to Portland to spend one last weekend with me before I leave, so Grandma is going to have to take care of herself for a few hours while I go meet up with her at my grandparents house.

Besides all of this, I have spent quite a bit of my time down here in Oregon expanding on my family tree that Grandpa Lockie and I have been working on for a while. I have gotten a TON of stuff, especially on my Grandma Reed's side of the family. I'm excited to get to internet so I can do research beyond whats in the bibles and other books that I have found.

Today’s countdown puts me at 10 more days until I get to Manchester, and 21 days until my study abroad program starts.

My word for the day is actually multiple words: Alemania, Suecia, Suiza. These are just three countries in Europe that I am trying to memorize to try to make sure that I can talk about other countries correctly.

A Final Week in Idaho

What a final week in Idaho it has been! To start off with, I got a super awesome surprise birthday present: my sister and brother-in-law came to visit. It was quite the week! And on top of that, the rest of my grandparents also came from Oregon to help celebrate, so our house was pretty packed, which meant Jamie got to sleep in the camper (for one night at least, but it got way too cold and I wimped out for the rest of the week). On my birthday, I had a party at my grandparents’ house. It was a lot of fun, especially since we spent the majority of the day outside playing yard games. I must admit, I really sucked at the majority of them, but was getting better by the end. Still, I think I only won one of the zillion games that I played. But, such is life, I suppose.

Since Sam and Joe were here, I spent the majority of the week with them. We did lots of shopping in Lewiston with Megan (Bud’s girlfriend), took lunch to Mom at work, and spent plenty of time at the casino (where I did fairly decent). I also got to learn how to play disc golf. I must admit, I did a very horrible job since it was my first time playing. It doesn’t help that Joe is like a disc golf master. I also was able to tie Sam at one hole, but that still was not enough to put me anywhere close to them overall. Maybe I’ll have a bit more time to practice before they come back.

The hardest part of this week was saying goodbye to all of my Idaho friends and family. On Wednesday, I worked my final day at Wal-Mart (until January at least). It was bittersweet. I won’t miss babysitting, or all those customers that are convinced that they are always correct and I am always wrong. I will however miss Adam, Justin, Sam, Brianne, Obsidian, and Vin, my electronics buddies. And I will even miss my manager Liesha, even if she is crazy about 99.9% of the time! And, of course, all my non-electronics friends!

Today, I had to say goodbye to my sister, brother-in-law, and Grandma and Grandpa Lockie. It is definitely hard to have to say goodbye to everyone. But, this is all part of growing up, right? I have to grow up and get out of my comfort zone in order to succeed in life, so this is just the beginning of that.

And a few short hours from now, I will say goodbye to Idaho, the place that I have called home for 20 years. No more clean, crisp air. No more sound of the cedar mill late into the night. No more listening to the neighbors dog howl every five minutes all night long. And no more living in a place that only has 800 people in it (in case you weren’t aware, Sevilla had well over a million!).

In my head, all I can think now is a theme song: “I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toy’s-R-Us kid!” Don’t ask me why, but I do think the beginning of theme song definitely fits how I’m feeling at the moment.

5: the number of days until my 23^rd birthday. Or, as I keep telling people at work, until I have one foot in the grave I’ll be so old. I fully realize that being 23 means that I should be all adult like, but right now, I am starting to feel like I would do just about anything to go back to grade school and start over. Mom and Dad made all your decisions back then, and you never had to go out into the real world. But, that is most definitely what I will be doing during this 23^rd year, so hopefully I can come back from Spain as a full-fledged adult! (or something close to it). Unfortunately, what I wanted most for my birthday was to visit my sister in Georgia, but after trying to work our schedules closer (and keeping in account my Spain budget) it just didn’t work out. Oh well, there’s always next year, right? Here is a cute picture I found of us, though, from when we were little.

6: the number of shifts I have at Wal-Mart. For now anyways. It’s kind of a bittersweet temporary goodbye. I did end up getting my Leave of Absence approved, but am not guaranteed a position back in Electronics. But, I’m not too worried about that because I know that we are losing a couple of people between November and February so I think I might be coming back to a perfect opening. Either way, it will be weird not to be working. And I suppose I’ll admit to the fact that I will probably miss being the only girl in my department besides my department manager. Sam won’t have anyone to shoot rubber bands at anymore. Adam won’t have anyone to tease. Two unnamed others won’t have anyone to babysit them anymore. Nope, instead Brianne will be all by her lonesome with a bunch of boys!

11: the number of days left in Idaho. The number just keeps getting smaller and smaller. In this eleven days, I will still probably end up repacking at least two more times (once before my grandparents get here, and then I will probably take everything out of my bags and ask their opinion on the stuff that I am taking). But it seems like time these days is moving so much faster than it was at the beginning of the summer. Now, all of a sudden the days are gone, and I’m freaking out because I’m not entirely sure I’m ready. I also wont be able to see my baby brother again after I leave Idaho because he isn't able to take off work to come down to Oregon with everyone else. He probably thinks that 11 is the number of days until he can drive my car without me telling him no, but that is definitely not the case! I will take my keys to Spain if I have to!

25: the number of days left in the United State of America. Also kind of bittersweet. This will be the first time out of the United States, and honestly one of the first times I’ve been away from family except for the weekends spent at NACURH conferences. Luckily, since I am going to Zoe’s house before Sevilla, she will be there to help ease me into life away from mommy and daddy (and by ‘luckily’ I mean lucky for me, but probably not for her J ).

1: one last time to do everything. It is definitely weird to be doing stuff and thinking “this is the last time you will get to do this for a while.” Last week, I had one last outing with Grandma Lockie to Lewiston. Technically, Grandpa was there too, but his hearing aids were dead until we made it to Costco so that was like ¾ of the trip that he probably was not really there. Yesterday, I had one last casino run with just my mom and me. Granted, I will probably go to the casino with my grandparents this weekend, but Mom and I like to go by ourselves every once in a while. As the days get shorter, however, there will plenty more of these “one-lasts”, which is what is making this so difficult.

Spanish word of the day: seta-mushroom. (I’m practicing how to tell my host mom what I don’t like to eat!)

Sixteen days and counting!

The countdown has officially begun. In only sixteen short days, I leave Idaho to begin the greatest and most nerve-racking journey of my life: studying abroad over 5200 miles from home in Sevilla, Spain. After month of filling out paperwork, booking flights, getting my passport/visa, and generally going nuts, the time to leave is finally almost here. This is where I am at right now and what my current plans are for the next month:

For the past two weeks, I have been packing, repacking, and repacking, and repacking, and repacking my suitcases. Everyone keeps telling me to not take a lot of stuff with me, which does make perfect sense. But then when I tell them that I am only taking two bags, they look at me like I am crazy for not taking more. I’m positive that in the next two weeks, I will probably be repacking numerous more times. I keep feeling like I am forgetting something important, or that maybe I want to change the clothes that I am bringing.

Because my parents are trying to fix up/sell their house, I also have to make sure that my room is completely packed. This is on top of helping my mom paint and cleans my sister and brother’s old rooms. Needless to say, this is just one more thing to add on top of a very long list that needs to get done in the next few weeks.

On August 10^th, I am driving with my dad all the way to Portland in his Bronco. It should be a very long, interesting journey since its going to be the first time it’s gone more than to Moscow and back since he finished rebuilding it (here’s to hoping that we make it!).  Then, I get to stay at either my great-grandma’s house or my grandparent’s house on my mom’s side for the next 2 weeks. I’m excited cause we are going to drive over to the beach for the day and eat at Mo’s (who makes the world’s best clam chowder). I’ll also get to spend some quality time with them before I leave.

Then, on the 24^th of August, Grandma and Grandpa Giddings will take me to the airport and I will be on my way to Manchester, United Kingdom (with an extremely long layover in Newark, New Jersey). For ten days, I get to visit Miss Zoe Watts and see Scotland and London and buildings that were built before the 1800s and castles and, if I get my way, I might even get to see a royal or two.  I even told Zoe that I was perfectly fine spending every second of every day camped in front of Buckingham Palace, but she didn’t seem to think that was as good of an idea as I did.

Finally, on September 4^th, I will start my study abroad program with our five day orientation in Madrid, Spain before heading to my final destination, Sevilla. (For those of you who don’t know where Sevilla is, I have enclosed a map.)

I know this was a long post, but I wanted to catch everyone up on all of the happenings in my world. I will be posting occasionally so that people can hear about all the awesomeness of my travels.

Every day, I am trying to learn/re-learn a new word in Spanish. Today’s word  is asustarse: to panic (which is something that I must keep myself from doing!).