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.