Last Saturday, Andrea, Amy, and I took a trip to Córdoba, a city farther south than Toledo. The weather was fantastic and everything was beautiful. I was on an earlier train than the girls, so before they got there I visited the diputación, which is a converted (and gorgeous) monastery as well as I went to an archaeological site where and old Roman palace had been unearthed. The ruins were quite awesome, and the lady was really nice at the small museum. It was weird to travel out of the Castilla region to Andalucia, because they have a different accent down there. Certain letters, such as s and r, are cut off at the end of words and they say cosina instead of cothina. It was quite fun.
Once the girls got there, we tucked into some lunch (fried squid and shrimp tortilla! YUM! I love it!). We then attempted to go see the Mezquita, but it happened to be closed. It was fine though because I was able to take plenty of pictures from the outside. We then found the Calle de las flores and a very beautiful Patio cordobese which are just gorgeous! After that we took a horse and carriage tour of the city, which was very beautiful and allowed us to see a bunch of sights very efficiently (which was good, as my feet had not completely healed from a long day a few weeks prior). After that, I headed back to Madrid and ultimately got back to Toledo at 2:30 am...and immediately passed out in my bed.
Monday was also a very interesting day, mainly because it was my 21st birthday. Now, in the US we know what a 21st birthday means, but in Spain I was legal to drink from the moment I walked off the plane. Due to this there was no pressure to have to drink, which I was actually happy about. Instead, a few close friends and I had a small party at the local Döner Kebab and got some helado. Andrea and Amy surprised me with a bunch of presents (I love my friends!) including the Spanish version of 20 Questions, the small electronic game where the ball guesses what you are thinking of in 20 questions. It is addicting, and my Spanish mother is in love with it as much as me.
Another fun thing has been that I have been getting closer to my older host brother. Why suddenly, you may ask? Because he just bought a new computer, and I tend to be a bit computer savvy, and he is not so much (they were not as plentiful when he was in colegio). The last few days I have been helping him set up everything, teaching how to do things, and even setting-up his Wi-Fi printer (which they pronounce wee-fee, and now so do I out of habit). It's been really cool getting to talk more with Ricardo when doing this, and I think he sees more of my personality now because at first I was too worried about communicating that my personality couldn't show. Now that I am more comfortable with my language and my surroundings things are getting a lot better. Too bad there is only 1 month left!
In other news, when I return to Ripon, I will be an RA! This is what I love so much about Ripon College. Although I am half a world away, I am not left out of the loop. I was able to apply to be an RA from here (the phone interview was so fun because I got to hear so many familiar voices from home all at once!) and not once did I feel like I had an extra burden put on me because everyone worked with me. It has been the same for registration, which really impressed me, since I had a minor change to what I originally planned (then again, I feel like I'm slightly more tranquil about some things since coming to Spain). I also liked that Ripon sent me a giant packet, including all of the College Days thus far, a bunch of brochures of happenings on campus, and ... PRESSED LEAVES! That was the most exciting part, because fall doesn't look like fall here...I kind of miss Door County for that.
Also, I never thought of this, but Spain doesn't have Thanksgiving, which means after All Saints' Day, the next holiday Christmas. Today, while walking to the Fund, I noticed Zara, the clothing store, has a Christmas tree up and a city worker was hanging up Christmas lights around Zocodover. So exciting! I love Christmas. Even my host family was talking about it!
This weekend we're going to Segovia, so I'll get to write about that soon. Until next time!
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Ripon sent me leaves too! Isn't it great? Florence did have some fall, but it didn't really happen until the very end of November.
We didn't have Thanksgiving either. However, since we didn't go to a Uni, two of our professors were US transports who married Italian men and the one was a chef. So they rented out some commie meeting hall and cooked a Thanksgiving dinner for us.
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