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Sorry I haven´t updated in a while.

Alright...well the Thanksgiving dinner we had went really well, although my pie wasn´t exactly the success we were all hoping it would be. Maybe it just didn´t have the right look. Well, you be the judge. Here´s the final product. Mmmm, and here´s me barbarically ripping into a slice.

What else? It´s been a while since I´ve updated...I´m just trying to think about what all´s happened.

Let me just try and recall the week. Ok, I´ll start with the dinner on Thursday. We all brought something. At first, I didn´t think there was going to be enough food, but as it turned out, I ate until I was full, as did everyone who wanted to. We ate at this restaurant/bar that was entirely too small. The desserts alone took up nearly the entire table space we had available for ALL the food. We had to move them into another room just to fit the dinner foods.

The Friday after was spent being gloriously lazy. I hung out all weekend in Santander with my American crew and ended up saying goodbye for what will probably be the last time to a lot of locals I´ve met. It´s a little sad saying goodbyes. I guess it always will be, especially since there´s a 99% chance I won´t see these people ever again in my life.

Also, I´ve finally had a decent amount of homework this week. A paper was due, along with studying for final exams. Still, it´s pretty mild compared to everything I´ve ever done back home. But there´s not too much left here for me...2 easy finals. After that, I´m outta here. Thursday night will be my last day here in Santander. Sad, but I´m ready to come home. Now, understand something, when I leave here, I´m not going straight home. No, no, no. I´m leaving for Ireland on Friday, where I will actually arrive on Saturday (I´m flying to Stansted in London, and from there, after a long airport wait, it´s off to Dublin). So, when you wake up on Saturday, know this...I´ll be in Dublin.

Now my plans in Ireland are as follows:
I´m going to Dublin for 4 days, Galway for 3, and Cork for 2, more or less. I am super super SUPER excited about this. The downside is that I´m traveling alone. I´ll actually have the chance to meet up for one day with a guy I´ve met here in Santander, but other than that, I´m going to have to rely on my ability to spark conversation to meet random strangers. But that just might be the fun of it. How strange will that be though that I´ll be in Ireland, knowing that I know no one in the entire nation. Lonely thought.

Well, after that, I´m actually flying back into the Santander airport, just to fly out again the same day to Frankfurt...and the next day, fly into Vienna, Austria to spend a week there with Justin Eckley and Nolan Roberts, two guys I´ve lived with for 2 years at the Antioch house. Then it´s back home...for good. There´s no studying abroad in France for me this year. No money for it. But I´m confident I´ll get to go there one of these days.

So that´s about it. Oh! They´ve turned the city´s Christmas light decorations on finally! They do a pretty good job, but I miss the front lawns with 80 lit up raindeer and the icicle lights that hang from gutters. I also miss all those crazy houses that have no color scheme whatsoever where any and every christmas light that can be found has been strung up...like our house. Yep, I miss that too. Here´s some pictures of the big tree they have lit up right outside where I live.

Plaza Tree 1
Plaza Tree 2

Last night, I took a break from writing an essay and played a hour of soccer with some guys at the university. It was fun. Cold, but fun. I´m realizing now that all the stairs I´ve been walking to and from school every day do not equate into being in running shape, which I am not currently in. Plus, I´m not to good with a soccer ball. Oh well, it was fun though. Got a few shots of us too.

Alex, Manuele (my Italian friend) and I
Me, Juan Carlos, Marco and Coki

Final thought...with December upon us, I invested some euros in a warm jacket. Good thing too, cause it just got COLD over here. From what I´ve been told, the Willamette Valley´s not so warm at the moment either.

K, I miss you all. 21 days until I´m home. See you then!

The time is drawing near

Well, I only have 8 days left in Santander. Tonight, I´m trying my hand at baking an apple pie for our Thanksgiving Dinner our group has planned. It promises to be a huge disaster, but luckily I´ve enlisted the help of a kitchen savvy girl to give me a hand. I hear we´re going to be at a restaurant and have it all to ourselves. I also heard that they´re going to put a football game on for us...broadcasted all the way from America. We´ll see. But after these next 8 days...DUBLIN! For those of you who know I have an Irish penny whistle, and for those of you who have heard me play it, know this...I´ve got it with me here in Spain, and it´s going to Ireland with me. Picture it now, me, me sitting on the Blarney Stone, whistling away to Danny Boy or some other Irish classic. Everyone will be dancing a jig, and the Leprechauns will all come out to whip up some magical feast. It will be just like I´ve always imagined it.

Well, to give everyone an update...I won´t be going back to France anymore. I just don´t have the money. I´m going back to OSU for the next two terms and I´ll be working a lot. Hopefully I can save enough money to go to France sometime during the next school year. It´s going to happen, just not now. So, this blog might die down after December. Nope...guarenteed it will.

K, that´s it. Thanks everyone who leaves comments! I love reading them. Laters.

LONDON!

Alright, here´s the post that should have happened yesterday.

Well, I took off From Santander by bus on Thursday evening with 5 girls from my program. We arrived a little more than an hour later in the city of Bilbao, where we headed to the airport and got on our plane. Here´s a picture out the window midflight. That bright ball isn´t the sun, that´s the moon above the wing.

Flying over big cities at night is unlike anything I´ve ever seen. You can see every road lined with street lights, you can see every city block intersection. If the cars were big enough, you could see their headlights rolling along too. The most amazing part is that you can see NOTHING else. There´s just these puddles of golden light spackled across a black landscape. And from so high up, they look like forest fires burning and spreading. But these cities are NOT small. It´s deceptive. When we finally made our way over London, the puddle of golden fire turning into a burning ocean. It was MASSIVE! From so high up, I felt like it was all a miniature model of something real, but the scale of it was too big for me to really wrap my mind around. All I can say is that is was beautiful. Sorry the pictures are a bit blurry.

When we landed we got off the plane to something like -3º Celsuis. I don´t know the exact tempurature that is, but 0º C is 32º F. It was below freezing. We´ll just put it that way. Fortunately I had a hoodie, a windbreaker, and a beany. I was wearing my basketball shorts and flip flops on my lower half though. Just kidding. Good old Pumas and Jeans. I had a really nice flight. It was only a 2 hour trip. The rest was a 45 minute train ride to downtown London to the Liverpool Street Station. Once there, I said goodbye to the girls and headed off to the entrance to the tube (subway), which was mere feet away. I grabbed the right line and headed off toward Uxbridge, the small town just outside of London where my good friend Theo (a British guy who studied abroad in Eugene with us during our senior year of high school at North Eugene) was studying to get his Masters. It was super late, and hardly any one was riding the subway. I kept reading these signs that said the subway closed at 12:45 AM, and I was getting worried, cause I was about 40 minutes away still, and it was already 12:30. I really thought I was going to have to get off and take a taxi the rest of the way. Fortunately, I have little understanding of how subways work, so when 1:00 AM finally rolled around and we were still headed to Uxbridge, I figured I´d get there without getting kicked off. Apparantly they stop letting you into the subway at that time. But wow, it was an empty subway line. And when I stepped off, and was outside again...it was COLD! London is a cold place this time of year.

At this point, I was in Uxbridge, and had a vague idea of where my friend Theo was staying. He lives in the dorms at Brunel University. I had seen a town map on the computer before I left, so I knew which direction to go, but I wanted to be sure. So, I asked a night shift construction worker guy (I have no idea what he actually does) where Brunel was, and he didn´t understand was I was saying at first, then a light bulb clicked on in his head, and he shouted up at his buddy in this super thick cockney accent that almost made me laugh outloud where the university was, then the guy responded in the same flawless inner London accent. It was a beautiful sound. They pointed me in the right direction, so off I went, down a street in downtown Uxbridge at 1:30 AM.

I wasn´t that cold, seeing as how I was walking at a good pace, keeping myself pretty warm. When I got to Brunel, I ran into a bit of a problem. Theo had told me to look for a pond, then a big building behind it, then the phone booths to the left of that building and to call him from there, where he would then come out and get me, but the sad thing was, I couldn´t find a pond. I looked for a solid half an hour and still...nothing. I was thinking that maybe I was on the wrong side of campus, so I started walking to get to the other side, when I ran into some people coming back from the bars or something. I asked them where the building called Wilfred Brown was and they weren´t responding to me, like I was a bum or something, and I think I scared some of the poor girls that were walking cause they cringed away from me (refer back to the Bilbao picture to see what they saw) but one of them pointed back to where I had been looking so I was feeling stupid that I had missed it. So I turned around and kept looking for another 15 minutes and still, nothing. I was tired of looking by that point, and it was getting awefully cold, so I decided I´d try once more to find the other side of campus and I ran into somebody in the same spot again, and asked this guy, and he told me to keep walking the way I was, and I´d find everything I was looking for. I was on the wrong side of campus. That dumb girl lied to me outright. I must have really scared her or something. People will point anywhere when they´re scared, you know.

Finally, Theo, who had fallen asleep waiting for me, came out to get me, and we went back to his dorm, and we talked for a few minutes. We were so tired though, that we decided to save 4 years of catching up that we had to do for the morning. So I laid down on the hard floor and slept.

The next morning began my first official day in England. The feeling was so strange. After having been in Spain for 2 months, I was used the idea that foreign countries have different languages, both in speach, and wherever there are words to be read. But being in Uxbridge felt like home, but what a twisted joke that was. I was still as far away from Oregon as ever before. I couldn´t quite get over it. Well, Theo and I took off to go to grab some food on campus, and then hit downtown Uxbridge. We ended up going to go see the new Harry Potter movie. Afterwards, we walked around the malls and such, and I took the classic picture in front of their red telephone booths. We stopped at the grocery store on the way out of town, and picked up a few items to last the weekend. The sun was setting as we walked back, and the cold was returning fast. We cooked ourselves some mini pizzas and dined like kings.

At night, we headed out to the...get this...on campus bar. We grabbed some pints and enjoyed the company of a few of Theo´s friends and some horrible karaoke. There was apparantly some live music in the...get this one too...on campus club. So, Theo and I paid an entrance fee, and headed in to dance it up to the underground sounds of British hip hop and some drum and bass techno stuff. The speakers were ripping my insides to smitherines, but the live DJ´s and free style rapper were pretty awesome. I couldn´t hear a thing when we finally left. We headed back to his place and I crashed with a bang onto the floor and slept again.

This is a long one, I know.

The next day, we ate a small breakfast, and headed out to Theo´s basketball game, near central London. From there, we took the tube into the heart of downtown, and this is where the true sightseeing began. Before, everything I had experienced was a local, small town English atmoshpere. I hung out with college students my age and took part in the local hang out. Now though, this was the city, and my camera came out in full swing (more to come on that, and how my camera´s swing had a dead battery midway through).

DOWNTOWN LONDON...

This place was BIG! The frist thing we went to when we got off the subway was St. Paul´s Cathedral. The dome of it looked exactly like our capitol building in D.C. I couldn´t believe how big this thing was. It was too late to go inside, but the outside was good enough.

St. Paul´s 1

St. Paul´s 2

St. Paul´s 3

That last shot's from on the Millenium Bridge. Notice the couple kissing in the foreground. I´m pretty much a professional photographer by now...I mean, just look at that shot! Anyways, I was pretty much in awe of what I was seeing as I stood on the bridge that stretched across the River Thames. It was amazing...especially at night with the moon hanging low over the city. Theo and I continued on, but I had to get one hard core photo of us and the cathedral before moving on. The Tate Modern Art Museum was looming in front of us, but I didn´t really want to go in. It would have been nice to go see a DaVinci or two, but I didn´t have that many pounds to spare. So we took off walking along the river, and I was about to take another picture when...GASP!...my camera battery died. I hadn´t even gotten to Big Ben yet! We were in the middle of this beautiful tree-lined path, lit up with blue and white Christmas lights, and a guitarist was plucking away to the tune of My Funny Valentine, while this girl was singing it with such a beautiful jazzy voice, that I nearly wept not being able to take any pictures.

We moved on though. I was extremely distraught, but we had a plan. We were just going to go find a café and sit down to a cup of tea and a battery charge, provided we could sit next to an outlet. But this plan was going no where fast, as all the cafés were closing. So, we walked around looking for a suitable place for a charge (while simultaneously searching for a fish and chips restaurant, which we never found). Finally, I looked into this arcade, and thought to myself, "Hmmm, there´s got to be a spare plug-in in there somewhere." So we walk in, and I didn´t have to look very hard, because right there near the entrance was my golden outlet. I then proceed to take out all the equipment for charging my carmera...British plug adaptor, power converter, battery charger, camera battery...and I assembled them like some kind of James Bond assembling his sniper rifle from different parts of his 3 piece suit. My outfit was a little less glamourous, though (notice my British spelling). Anyways, we stood there for about 20 minutes worth of charging with our mouths dropped wide open, watching these British dudes play Dance Dance Revolution (DDR for short. Note to older generation: That´s the game where you use your feet and the rhythm of the song to tap the right footpad when prompted to by the game). The kid playing it in that picture was so good, he stopped looking after a while and just turned his back on the screen, while still hitting every beat. He was out of control. I felt sorry that his level of nerdiness and lack of a life had gone to such extremes. We got a good laugh out of the situation though. Plus my battery charged for the next pictures.

We went out to this HUGE ferris wheel type thing called the London Eye, and from there, I could finally see Big Ben. I´d been waiting for that moment for a long time.

Big Ben 1

Big Ben 2

Big Ben 3

Big Ben and I

Big Ben and Theo

The background´s still pretty dark in those last 2 photos...sorry. But wow! I was there! I didn´t have too much else to see on my sightseeing shopping list, so we headed over to Oxford Street to see some Christmas lights. I finally snapped a shot of a double decker bus while we were there, too. What´s London without a picture of red telephone booths and a double decker bus? Well, we were starving, so we stepped into a grocery store to get a snack, and lo and behold...A Krispy Kreme donut section. I was simultaneously overjoyed and horrified. I disagree with Krispy Kremes going global, but I was glad to see them. After the quick bite to eat, we grabbed a bus (sat on the top section of the double decker) and took off to go meet Theo´s brother, Ben, at a bar. His brother´s girlfriend, his brother, Theo and I, all took off after a while, and we stayed at Theo´s brother´s flat, as they call them, and ended up getting a nice cup of British tea, and a another free place to stay at night for me.

The next morning, we got up early, because I had to get to the Liverpool Street Station to take the train back to the airport for my Flight back to Santander. It was as cold as it ever was that morning, but the foggy park we walked through at dawn was amazing...absolutely brilliant, as Theo would say. The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful...just a trip back to my home, which will actually only be my home here in Spain for 10 mores days as of right now. I got a couple good shots over England while we were flying away (this time in the daylight). I´m not sure, but I might have capture a shot of the White Cliffs of Dover, too.

Over England 1

Over England 2

Over England 3

Over England 4

The flight back into Santander was an easy one. We hopped on a bus, headed back into downtown (I had met back up with the girls at Stansted airport in London), and went back to our houses from there. I have to say, the weekend trip to see Theo and London has been a major highlight of this whole studying abroad experience. I was so in awe that I was actually in England. It was everything I saw that was so amazing...the way they drive on the other side, the way the steering wheel is on the other side of the car, the way the words are the same, but some things have different names, the way they all have some form of British accent or another, the double decker buses, the telephone booths...everthing! It was an experience from every movie scene I´ve ever watched that had to do with London. What a treat! I missed you all so much while I was there. I´m glad I had Theo to help guide me around town, and just to hang out with, but I´m ready to see you all again. Like I said, I have 10 more days here in Spain, then it´s off to Dublin for about 9 days, and then Vienna, Austria for about a week more. After that, you'll all see me again...in the flesh! Well, that´s my trip. Comments? Questions? This has been the longest blog entry of all time...K, Laters!

Oh, and Amanda Carter, I miss you a ton!

Back from London!

Well, this will be brief. I have loads of pictures, but no time to post them all. Some of the things that happened with my friend Theo and I were hilarious. I´ll be sure...tomorrow...to update you all. Sorry that this is all you get. Here, have a teaser picture...the is the trailer building the hype. Check it out!!!

BIG BEN!!!

K, more tomorrow! Until then, I miss you all!

Ok...sorry I disappeared

Actually, when I last wrote that my next big adventure was to London...I was wrong. I forgot about a 3 day field trip my class and I were slated to take. We went to Burgos, Segovia, and Toledo. I have a TON of pictures.

We left from Santander at about 8 in the morning. I can´t remember how long we drove because I slept for most of it. I think it was something like 3 or 4 hours. When we arrived in Burgos, the weather was nice, but really, really cold. As soon as we got off, we walked over to the cathedral.
Here it is:
Burgos Cathedral 1
Burgos Cathedral 2
Burgos Cathedral 3
Burgos Cathedral 4

It was a pretty cool place. We had to hurry out of there towards the end though, because we were schedueled to hit up a local monastery, where we would be served a lunch cooked by the monks. It was tasty, to say the least, and we got to sample the wine they made right there in the monastery.

After that, we took off for Segovia. When we got there it was night, but you could still see the castle and the aqueduct all lit up. I´ll get to those later. But we crashed there for the night after walking around town for a while. It was super cold there too. I´m glad I brought my beany, but I´m realizing now that I´m not quite prepared for how cold it´s going to get here (sorry mom, you were right...I shoulda packed more warm stuff).

Anyways, the next day, we woke up bright and early, but not to the hotel´s phone call, cause it never came. Good thing I set my watch. Oh yeah, I had shaved the night before, after having gone a week or so without doing so. That might make some of you happier now...Amy. So, we hopped on the bus after a decent breakfast of cereal and hot chocolate, and we took off for Todelo. Now, when we got there, this tour guide jumped on the bus with us. He was awesome. He was a very hip Spaniard who spoke super good English, but had that definately Spanish accent. He was hilarious. It suprised me how many American pop culture references he made.

This city is appartly more than 2,000 years old, but nobody´s sure exactly how old. There was the cathedral, and the castle, and oh...if you´re big into art, we went and saw works by El Greco. For instance...this painting. I didn´t take that photo...I found it online. They don´t let you take photos of stuff like that. But yeah, it was a huge painting. Covered a whole wall.

Anyways, we went to the amazing spot where we took some pictures of the city:
Toledo 1
Toledo 2
Toledo 3
Toledo 4
Toledo 5

That last one is the picture of the corner building where we had lunch that day. Café Real I think it was called.

After that, we kinda walked around a bit. We saw other small things, but there´s more to tell, so I´ll jump ahead just a little.

The rain started as we were leaving, so we were glad to jump back on the bus. We watched movies on the bus to kill time, but I can never get into them. By the time we got home (I think it was a 5 hour bus ride or something like that. Again, I sleep too much to know for reals.) we were all a pretty tired and cranky.

It was dark when we got back to our hotel in Segovia. By the way, this was the view out my window. We were all hanging out in one of the rooms, watching the Spanish national soccer team play Slovakia or somebody, when Alex looks out the window and says, "Hey dudes, it´s snowing." No body said anything, cause we either didn´t hear him, or didn´t believe him. But he told us again, and I jumped over to the window and saw the flakes for myself. It was snowing in Segovia.

We took off to go find some trouble to make in the streets. I caught a picture of a builing I thought you all should see...the cathedral.

The day after, went out on a walking tour of the city. The scene was amazing. Snow had fallen all night and stuck. So here are some of the pretty pictures of my trip so far.

Snowy church
Snowy Cathedral

This is amazing. This is Sydney, me, and Nellie in front of a nearly 2,000 year old aqueduct. This thing is incredible. There was no mortar used in its construction. It´s simply stone on perfectly placed/cut stone...well, as simple as that can get anyways. Its own weight is what keeps all the stones in place. WOW! Amazing.

We stopped there for a long time but moved on to the castle after a few minutes of snow ball fights and pictures. Oh, I have to stop here and tell you how fun it was to be throwing snowballs at one another. I hit girls with snowballs. That was fun. They were all whining about it, so I figured I had to knock the whine out of them with some more snow balls. I recruited several other willing young men to help me, and soon, we knock that whine right out of them. They finally got mad enough at us to grab some snow balls themselves and participate in our war. Mission Accomplished.

Ok, moving on to the castle (the snowball fights lasted all the way til we got there. It was great.). This castle...I don´t have much to say about it, you should just look at some pictures, and let them speak for me. We climbed the tower in front and got some amazing pictures of the rest of the town.

From the Tower 1
From the Tower 2
From the Tower 3
From the Tower 4
From the Tower 5
Group picture from the Tower

So that´s just about that. We headed back to Santander later that evening...driving across snow covered Spanish fields. I played in the snow in Spain. I think I´ll have that memory for a long time. Sorry to all you who were dying for an update. There´s a big one. Right out of the blue. So I´m leaving for London on Thursday night. Wish me luck. Til then, hasta luego.

Just another Tuesday

I was going to play soccer with some local guys today...you know, the street ball style pick up game...but they schedueled it during when we had class. Man! Would have been great. Would have been awesome. But...my shoes stink as it is. I don´t need to be playing soccer in them.

Well, last night I had a long discussion about religion with my host mom. It was actually about how I consider lust a sin, and she does not. She has a "whatever feels right" type attidute. She wont read the Bible 'cause she doubts its validity and thinks she wouldn´t understand it anyways. I have a hard time convincing her that the Bible is valid. She always wants me to read between its lines. Not gonna do it. She´s lost in something Catholic that has nothing to do with Jesus. Sad day. I´ll be praying for her. Join me in that task if you´re up for it. I know she needs all the prayers she can get.

Well, not much else to say. My next big adventure isn´t for nine more days, when I take off for London. Yikes! If anyone reading this knows Theo Blossom, I´ll be staying with him for 3 days. I thought that might interest some of you. Oh you know what...I might be going to a city called Segovia this weekend with my American group. Yeah, I think I am. That actually might be something I want to find out for sure.

In other news...I learned that to really have a good accent, you have to say words like hablado, or cerrado like this...hablao, cerrao. Basically, you drop the d. Only in Spain though. Mexico...no. Never there! Don´t do it there anybody...no don´t! So basically, if you have a hard time reading Spanish, the word hablado (ah-BLAH-doe) becomes ah-BLAH-oh. And cerrado (thay-RAH-doe) becomes thay-RAH-oh. It´s like 'little' is pronounced more like 'liddle' when spoken in normal everyday speach. That bored everyone.

Trip to some smaller cities

Holy Smokes.
Ok, first of all, look at this picture I took walking back from class the other day. It´s been really windy lately, and the temperature is sure dropping, but hey, this sky was a little angry.

Alright, so we took off last Thursday afternoon for several hours on a field trip to some small cities east of Santander. They were important because of some old buildings you could find there. So, the first town (with which I fell in love) was called Comillas. This little town looked new enough to be nice, and old enough to be the perfect picture of the Spanish pueblo you could imaging. It was a beautiful cross between new developement and classic look and feel of Spain. It kind of reminded me of San Clemente, California for some reason. It was somewhere I definately want to return to. It was even a pretty ugly day out. That didn´t matter though. When driving about to leave the city, we were driving past this amazing, but small, cemetary when all of a sudden, on our right the hills disappeared, and the raging ocean popped into view, splashing massive waves against a sheer cliff face. Then, a second later, the coolest beach came into view that look like it was something out of a movie. Cookie cutter Spanish scene is what it was. Someone told us this place was packed with people during the summer months. Aparently everyone else sees the beauty in Comillas. But anyways, here was the palace we visited. It wasn´t too big, but it was pretty. It was built like 100 years ago by a guy who got rich off the slave trade and decided he needed to build a people´s college (located behind me in that shot of the palace) in order to undo his wrongs done through the slave trading. Classic example of how lost most of the Catholics are. It´s all about works for them. At least the college got built. One girl I know here said it´s been her favorite builging she´s gone in here in Spain. We didn´t get to go in though...sad.

Also, just next door to this palace, we got the chance to look at another Gaudi building. This one´s called "El Capricho". It´s pretty cool what all this guy did.

After we left Comillas, the weather really went south. We hit the city of Santillana del Mar next. It turned out that I left my windbreaker at home...along with my sweater, so it was just me and the cold rain. Actually it wasn´t that cold, and I missed the rain. It made me feel like I was in Oregon, minus the cobblestone streets from the Middle Ages, and the Roman Cathedral. This next city we visited was ok, but nothing like my new little favorite...Comillas. But the cathedral there was pretty cool I suppose. It was a classic example of Roman cathedral architecture, if that´s interesting to anybody. I just like the adjacent cloister. Here´s a couple shots of it after dark. Cloister 1. Cloister 2. Here´s a picture also of my history of Spanish art teacher. Her name´s Ana Belén. She´s super super nice. The lucky lady remembered her umbrella.

Well, after the small cathedral there in town, we all went and got some warm drinks in a little café bar nearby. I got some really really REALLY thick hot chocolate stuff. It was no Swiss Miss though. I´ll tell you that much. Some things we do better in the US. Hot chocolate is one of them. Really old buildings is not. But here´s some fun pictures from the Bar. This one´s of Danica and myself. This next one´s me, Laura and Lisel. Lisel, by the way is doing a very extravagent pose...she´s normally the nicest, most easy going and laughing person you could meet. She´s not the glamour snob she looks like in this photo. Haha, not a chance. This last one´s just a look at the interior of the bar, as we were all stepping up to the plate to order our drinks.

Not much else to tell really. Actually, something big. Man! This is actually huge. So I´m still planning on going to Angers, France to study for 5 months after Spain, but as of right now, I´m several thousand dollars short. This means that I either get a big loan from the bank, or I don´t go this year, which would bring me right back to OSU to finish out these next two terms while I get a job and work really hard to stay on top financially. So that´s something serious I would invite you all to pray for me about. Ok, well that´s it for now. Hit me back with some tasty comments!

Ok, more on Barcelona

So I think I left off with the first day. The second day I took off into the city on my own. I ended up seeing an huge cathdral. You wouldn´t believe how big this sucker was. I wandered around on narrow little gothic style streets for a couple of hours. Before I ran into some amigos, and we headed over the the Picasso Museum. I took a photo of one the paintings. It wasn´t allowed, but I snuke one. Punch me in the arm for it if you remember to when I get back. But hey, it wasn´t even a good picture anyways. But Picasso did in fact paint it. We grabbed a bite to eat in a restaurant downtown afterwards. Eh, the food was ok. I had some Sangria, which is a very tasty wine juice concoction. The two other guys in the picture are David and Jamie. Oh shoot! Before I met up with the rest of the group, I went down and strolled the beach of the Mediterranean Sea for a little while. Here´s proof. We also saw a cool traditional Spanish dance in a square outside another cathedral. The were dancing to the music being played by a band nearby. Not too much else happened that day. I went back to the hostel later on and met some international people, and we ended up hanging out. One of them was Bart, and he´s from the Netherlands. The girl in the photo is Andrea. She´s a fellow beaver. Her and a girl named Sara from our group got the hostel together.

The next day, Sunday, I went with Bart to the FC Barcelona soccer game. Apparently, the stadium is one of the top 2 or 3 biggest in the WORLD!!! Here are some pictures:

Game 1
Game 2
Game 3
Game 4

That pretty much comprised an entire day. It cost me 46€ to get in. Yikes...that´s about $50 or so. But it was so worth it. Barcelona won 5 to zero. Incredible.

Well, I went into the Sagrada Familia on Monday, and finally glimpsed the word of Barcelona from it´s spires. Here´s a couple. It was so cool to be inside that thing.

Sagrada 1
Sagrada 2

I´m just about caught up to the present. I just took more pictures today from an excursion we went on. I´ll get those up soon! For now, sorry my written details are so low, I´m pressed for time. I´ll up the blog detail later on...hopefully.

Back in Santander

The trip to Barcelona turned out to be horrible.


Just kidding.
I had an amazing time. So much was seen and experienced that I might have to spread this out over a couple entries. I have some amazing pictures though. Can´t wait for you all to see them. One of the big highlights of the weekend was going to a soccer game for the best pro team in Spain at the biggest staduim ever (F.C. Barcelona versus Real Sociedad). It was AMAZING! But there´s so much more to tell. And I don´t think I can tell it all today. But...I will space it out over the next few days. For now, I´ll get a few up.

Me in My Hostel
Out the window of my hostel
Sagrada Familia 1
The Sagrada Familia is AMAZING. There´s no good way to describe it. You´ll hopefully be able to see what I mean from the pictures I took of it.
Around Town 1

Sagrada Familia 2

Me and the Sagrada Familia 1

McDonald´s in Spain
Yeah...this is my first fast food in a while. I was nice...not gonna lie.

Sagrada Familia 3
Intricate detail of the Sagrada Familia
Me and the Sagrada Familia 2
Me and the Sagrada Familia 3

Parc Güell 1
This Park (and the Sagrada Familia) was designed by Antonio Gaudi, a super talented architect. So much of his stuff was here in Barcelona
Parc Güell 2
Parc Güell 3
Barcelona in the background 1
These were the best views I got of the city, they were from inside Parc Güell, which was on a good sized hill.
Barcelona in the background 2
Parc Güell 4

On the Lion
Here´s a lion that was in front of the Christopher Columbus monument. I´d like to see this one used in a poster for the upcoming Narnia film...The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Ok, there´s a lot right there, but that´s just the tip of the iceburg.
I have a ton of written details and mini stories just waiting to be told, but at a latter time. I gotta get going. Laters.