Scotish Christmas- it's BALTIC here

I arrived on the 22nd of December to Edinburgh, Scotland where I was picked up by my friend's brother and uncle and taken to Glasgow. The normally 45 minute drive took 4 hours because of a blizzard that had traffic at a stand-still. I was greeted after the long day of flying and driving by my friend Tina's parents with a warm meal of vegetable soup, steak pie and wine. It was amazing to eat food that was really close to the food that I'm used to- meat and potatoes and vegetables> after months of ham and bread and olive oil, it was a welcome change. I spent the night talking to the family and just enjoying myself. The next morning I got up to have a huge breakfast of 4 different types of sausages, eggs, toast and tea. Wow- I go on about the food, but it was so great to have incredible home-cooked food. I just spent that day with Tina's mother in the mall: I had to buy gloves. That night I went out with my friends Tina and Kieran to eat and have a few drinks before catching the bus to Edinburgh with Kieran to spend the night. The meal that I had was Haggis, turnips and potatoes- AWESOME! After some ginger beer and cider, Kieran and I caught the bus to Edinburgh.

I woke up this morning to a blizzard! The snow is everywhere, and I'm excited about being out in it at least for a little bit. The plans for today are to go to the castle and just do a little site-seeing. Tonight, I catch the bus back to Glasgow in order to be there for Christmas day with Tina's family.
Edinburgh seems to be just an incredibly beautiful old city with great architecture. Glasgow is more of the big city with tall building and the bustling crowd.

The plans for my stay are to see the dungeons in Edinburgh and maybe do a ghost tour of some of the local places. New years eve I will be on the streets of Edinburgh. I have to catch the train at 9.20 am to catch my 2 o'clock pm flight from Glasgow to Barcelona. Now I am seriously considering changing my flight to the 2nd in order to just sleep in on the first. We will see how much that change costs and if it's a prudent decision.


Oh yeah! I feel like a moron because I constantly have to ask people to repeat what they say: the accent is still really REALLY difficult for me to understand. If they aren't talking directly to me, I am usually REALLY lost, but usually it's OK if they're speaking to me. Usually I just miss a sentence or two- USALLY. I expect it will just take a few days to get used to the accent- the word differences are a different story.

28 December 2009

Still haven't done a lot of site seeing just walking around and doing a small bit of Christmas shopping. Tomorrow morning we're getting up to visit the castle before I have to go back to Glasgow. Tonight I tried to talk Kieran and Tina into going for the Terror Tour of Edinburgh at 22.00, but only Daryl, Kieran's brother and I wanted to go. Tuesday or Wednesday I WILL DO THAT TOUR!
Today was just spent relaxing around Edinburgh, with the evening spent in Kieran's flat just talking. It's so different for me because most of my previous travelling had been done solely focused on doing the touristy stuff, but a lot of my travels abroad are just doing normal stuff. It's great to spend regular days in Edinburgh.

ACCENT UPDATE: I think I've got the accent under control, but then again I haven't been around anyone except people my age lately, and it's the older generation that gives me problems it seems.
Cheers!

Quiero aprender de ti- I want to learn from you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8XzR_McpCQ

Hoy quiero aprender a recorrer vuestra noción desnuda.

Today I want to learn to pour over our naked notion.

Hoy quiero aprender eso que nunca permito en la vida.

Today I want to learn that which I never allow in my life.

Y quiero aprender y liberar de dentro esa ternura.
No lo dejaré, hoy lo haré.


And I want to learn and liberate from within that tenderness.
I won´t leave it alone, today I will do it.

Hoy quiero aprender y escucharé todo lo que me digas.

Today I want to learn and I will listen to whatever all you tell me.


Y deben saber que en vuestra voz existe la cordura.


And they should know that sanity exists in your voice.

Esa que hace ver que falta tanto en esta linda vida.

Your voice which shows that so much is lacking in this beautiful life.

Y voy a aprender, hoy lo haré.

And I´m going to learn, today I will do it.

Y cuando nadie para un rato y mira a su alrededor,
no se deja afectar.

And when no one stops for a little bit and looks around them,
it doesnt affect them.

Y es que este mundo gira tan deprisa,
sólo se llega a pensar locura de los demás y nunca miro la mía.

And it´s just that this world spins so fast,
the only thing that is thought about is the craziness of everyone else and I never look at my craziness.

Y hoy voy a entender y lo pequeño que soy en la vida.

And today I´m going to learn just how small I am in this life.

Y hoy voy a aprender que lo pequeño es grande día a día.

And today I´m going to learn that the small things are the big things from day to day.

Y hoy voy a saber y recoger toda vuestra caricia,
que llega a la piel y hará bien.

And today I´m going to know and hold on to all of your caress
that comes to my skin and it´ll do good.

Y cuando nadie para un rato y mira a su alrededor,
no se deja afectar.

And when no one stops for a little bit and looks around them,
it doesn´t affect them.

Y es que este mundo gira tan deprisa,
sólo se llega a pensar locura de los demás y nunca miro la mía.
Y que existe y que sé que ahí está.

And it´s just that this world spins so fast,
the only thing that is thought about is the craziness of everyone else and I never look at my craziness and it exists and I know it´s there.

Y cuando nadie para un rato y mira a su alrededor,
no se deja afectar.

And when no one stops for a little bit and looks around them,
it doesn´t affect them

Y es que este mundo gira tan deprisa,
sólo se llega a pensar locura de los demás y nunca miro la mia.
Y que existe y que se que ahí está.

And it´s just that this world spins so fast,
the only thing that is thought about is the craziness of everyone else and I never look at my craziness and it exists and I know it´s there.

21 Christmaseeeees, all the same except 1

My first Christmas being about 4.000 miles away from my family, and it´s really not how I expected- granted I have some days until actual Christmas, but by this time in the States I´m already at home on the coast and spending time (arguably TOO much time) with my family- and I miss it.
I guess I´m not as....cozy, we´ll say... with the idea of being away from my friends and family for the holidays, but I´m certainly glad I have the opportunity to spend it in an English-speaking country with great food (I´m sure).
Long story short- I´ll be thinking about you all during this Christmas-

Miss you all!

Lisbon, Portugal Nov. 3-6, 2009

The weekend right after Marrakesh, I went with some people to Lisbon, Portugal. The price for the flight to Portugal wasn´t as cheap as the flight to Marrakesh, but it still is cheap compared to flights in the US.
The weather in Lisbon wasn´t the best- the entire peninsula seemed to have pretty cloudy and rainy weather, but this didn´t detract from the trip as a whole. We all had a blast. We did a lot of walking and seeing as things, but we had a good mix of down-time as well which is necessary when traveling.
Portugal for me really has a Latin American taste to it because of the bright colored buildings and the food and such: all-in-all a really lively place filled with really warm people.

It was a lot of fun to speak Spanish to the Portuguese people and listen to them reply in Portuguese and THEN have to think about what that KIND of sounds like in Spanish and hopefully make the right decision on what they were saying- seriously I loved it. It´s a TON easier to read the language than to understand what they are saying, but they understand Spanish, and that made it really easy to get around.

Hostels are incredible. This hostel we stayed in was an actual real-deal hostel: filled with students traveling, many alone, and wanting to hang out and make friends. One night we didn´t go out, we just stayed in the hostel, cooked, and hung out with the other visitors in the living area. That´s what it´s all about. It´s so interesting to meet people that are basically doing the same thing are you are- it really is easy to talk to people when you are more-or-less in the same boat.

Easyjet is NOT incredible. We were delayed on the flight to and from Lisbon and not just by minutes. The thing about Easyjet is that they don´t really tell you you will be delayed. It just is something that slowly dawns on everyone. "ohhhh..ohhhh I think we´re going to be delayed." After everyone has that thought, and after the plane should have taken off for 20 minutes, then workers for Easyjet show up and change the monitor in the waiting area to "delayed." I´ll probably fly Easyjet again because they´re cheap :)

"And your very flesh shall be a great poem."
Walt Whitman

Marrakesh, Morocco: Nov. 26-29 2009

After hearing the great news that my final paper for Current Spain is not due until after Christmas, I am taking the time to fully update my blog- mainly with trips that I´ve been on.
Tina, a friend from Scotland is addicted to finding cheap plane tickets, so we were so fortunate as to find round-trip tickets to Marrakesh, Morocco for 17,50€! We spent three nights in this city in central Morocco in the North of Africa, and it was incredible.
The appearance of the city in regards to the buildings and such is supposed to be close to that in the south of Spain, but I don´t know first-hand. All I can try my best to do is describe the different world that we flew into.
First of all, it was incredibly dry- not really surprising there- but I´m not kidding, my entire body felt as if it were shriveling up. That plus the fact that you couldn´t drink the water made for a very interesting experience.
The first day that we arrived in Marrakesh we spent walking around the city and seeing what we could. It´s incredible to just wander through the incredibly small streets filled with people and mopeds. The streets are filled with vendors selling anything and everything for an extreme profit (you must bargain: offer less than half and take half price). The streets are filled with the smells of spices and food- overpowering and incredible. The main square was not far from our hostel and there you could find tons of fruits and nuts as well as people shining shoes, charming snakes, and allowing people to take pictures with their monkeys. *I was convinced that the monkeys were going to steal my money* All-in- all the general appearance was a lot like Aladdin for me (sounds ridiculous, but seriously- that´s what I thought).
Being as the country is Muslim, you can always hear the Muzim from the Minarets calling for the people to stop and pray- this occurred, obviously, five times a day. It was really quite eerie especially during the night. What´s more is that on the second day when we took an excursion out of the city to the Atlas Mountains, and we weren´t around any big cities, Muzims could always be heard doing the prayer call: the resonance in the mountains of the Salat(the 5 prayer calls) was awe inspiring.
The second day, as I just mentioned, we paid 45€ and got in a bus with a group of 7 people from the US Air Force and went for an excursion that included the following: tour of a Berber house (Berbers are an indigenous people from that region) and breakfast there, a camel ride, a hike up the Atlas Mountains to a small Waterfall, finalized by lunch in a restaurant situated in the mountains- it was an incredible day. The Berber house was one of the less interesting events of the day because it was full of tourists, but the breakfast was great. The camel ride was exactly what I hoped it would be- a ton of fun (we won´t go into the fact that camel riding in the Moroccan sun should not be done without long pants). The hike was a blast. The waterfall was interesting, but not comparable to the view from those heights. We had to go slower on the way down because of our members gets bad vertigo, and we were high up. The day was filled with people crossing things off their list of things to do in a lifetime.
The third day everything was closed because that day there was the Festival of the Sacrifice: every family previously bought a sheep and on this day the families got together, sacrificed, and ate the sheep. The entire old city was filled with the smoke of burning sheep heads and legs. In order to get out of the smog of burning sheep we took a walk to the new part of Marrakesh which is literally the polar opposite of the old part. The new city is what you would expect from any large city in the world. We did a lot of walking and just looking around that day. The day was topped off with a handsome cab ride back to the Mosque and from there, we walked to the hostal.
This was one of the more influential trips I´ve been on simply because I felt like I accomplished so much in this trip: I´d seen and done things I´ve never seen or done before- the trip was unforgettable.

"Realize that from the start, every activity that comprises the journey has value and the ability to teach you something."
Bill Toomey

First things first

I've done quite a bit of traveling in the past 2 weeks, but I will have to write about the trips to Marrakesh, Morocco and Lisbon, Portugal later because they are worth writing about, at least a little, in depth. For now I'll just give an update on what's going on here in Spain.

Life outside of school:
Everything is going incredibly well outside of school. Like I said, I've done a good bit of travel and a lot of hanging out. Christmas is coming up soon- I will be flying to Scotland on the 22nd of December until the 1st of January, and I am thinking about taking the bus from Glasgow to Manchester, England to visit some friends there; but we will see how that works out.
After having a bank account here in Spain for almost 4 months, the account was blocked because my bank Santander, which is normally great, lacked my documentation, namely my Residency Card- that kind of bothered me, but mostly because it makes no sense that they discover that they lacked documentation for me after MONTHS of having used the card. So, I presented my documentation only to be told that it would take 15 days to get everything in the computer and have it unblocked. I would probably be more perturbed by not being able to deposit or withdraw money and being literally without money to spend, but I'm getting used to this sort of thing now, and besides- what good does it do? So I'm depending on my friends and the little money that is left over from my paycheck after paying my first months rent in my new house- which brings me to my next topic: my new house.

I will pay my first months rent and receive the keys to my new house this Wednesday. The house is really big and really nice- I haven't seen my room yet, but it doesn't matter because the house is great, and the people that live there are as well. The rent is cheap and includes everything, and the house is a couple of minutes from the Plaza de Cervantes. I'm really excited, but I still have to tell the family I live with now that I am moving out.

The family I live with now are really nice, but after living with people my age for 3 years now any family (including my actual family at times) gets old really fast. I'm constantly being watched out for- Elliott, wear warm clothes because it's cold- Elliott, eat food because you're sick and need to get better- Elliott, don't go out the door with that jacket put on another one-- I'm seriously going a little crazy because of them, but I realize they're not used to having someone my age in their family.

School:

After not having done much during the semester, I am scrambling to write essays and finish projects before the 15th of December. My finals aren't until the end of January and the beginning of February, but the projects are due soon. I have a small essay for my Current Spain class, a project for Spanish Geography, and I have to translate Spanish to English and vice versa for my Translation class; but it all is coming along slowly but surely. Today is a fiesta day, so I´m trying to spend it wisely.

We´ll see how my grades look at the end of this semester, but the truth-be-told, studying in a foreign university isn´t too easy.

"We are either progressing or retrograding all the while; there is no such thing as remaining stationary in this life."
James Freeman Clarke