out and about

well, i should be prepping for a presentation, but i'll get to it... i'm giving a little speel on pablo neruda's "verbo" - i don't think it's one of his best, but it was preselected, and i wanted to do neruda. i'm going to the alpujarras for the 2nd time this weekend- a smaller mountain range that leads into the sierra nevada. hiking will be fun, and afterward i'm going to a bullfight for the first time. thought i would check one out- to see the world-renowned spectacle and the customs surrounding it, but i'm not sure if i will stay long. it will be disturbing. i have to take a language proficiency exam called the "DELE", similar to the TOEFL in the US, but of course in spanish. not so sure if i will pass, it would be nice though. the test is comprised of oral, listening, written, and bubble filling sections and is about 3 hours long. i have a practice tomorrow and the actual test is may 11th. we have the 30th of april and the 1st of may off from school, so i decided to go to ireland with a friend. we found decently priced airline tickets and jumped the bandwagon. i heard it's absolutely beautiful there. nothing much else is going on on my end except running into some creepy guys on the streets. you would think there would be an age limit on pursuers, but no. i'm trying to put together some travels for when i finish school. in the cards- italy, portugal, england, scotland, serbia/bosnia, greece and germany. i'll probably end up going to 2 or 3 places. my return flight from madrid is the 15th of june and i finish school may 24th. i've mostly been taking sm. side trips in spain or exploring granada. morocco was the first time out of the country. i have a lot of friends that travel during the weekends, but it's only 3 days and to spend the money for transportation- might as well stay there for longer and really experience wherever it is you are traveling to. i repeatedly am being told that greece is the most beautiful place- however, i might have to wait for that one and make a separate trip. plane tickets are ridiculous, but once you are there it's reasonable. we'll see... well, cheers! wish me luck on my presentation and exam studying- i'm definately lacking on the studying bit...

welcome back to spain!

well, i came back from burt's and jack's wedding, and low and behold, shitty food once more. i had a potato bocadillo for lunch the next day, disgusting! i felt like i lived in luxury while in san diego: space!, amazing, healthy food, nice hot showers, talking and seeing family and friends and ahhh, just home! the states really aren't that bad, once you looked past the fucking political arena. why the exchange rate of the US dollar to the euro is so horrible... thank you bush administration for the pathetically large, incomprehensible national debt we have accrued, and our entanglement in a foreign war with poor foresight of how to shift the responsibility of running an entire country to its own people. we can't even afford to educate our own citizens, how does the administration expect to render a sustainable infrastructure of a government, educational system and economy in another? not to say we shouldn't have gotten involved, but it was brought about in the wrong way. i totally just went off, but studying latin american history and being in europe makes me realize how pathetic and purely stupid our government can be and has been. anyway, the wedding was amazing for the 4 days i was in the states. 48 hours of travel sucked royally, but was completely worth it! being a bridesmaid was so much fun, i did feel way fancified with nails, hairdo and dress. jack looked gorgous, just a natural beauty which i'm sure burt realizes. it was pretty spectucular to hear jack say before the wedding that she never thought she would get married and how burt was pretty amazing. okay, soulmates. i feel like that trip was over after one breath- so quick! before leaving for san diego, i went to morocco, my first time outside of spain. kind of shocking! i feel like i haven't had much time at all to travel and plus, there's so much to do within spain. spain is really diverse, each region has its own personality, culture, architecture, weather, sometimes language- just different. i was only in morocco for one night and 2 days, but it was a good first time trip to africa! although it didn't seem like africa. i went with a program called studytravel-spain, usu. comprised of students studying in spain. it was good, because i didn't get sick- all our meals, travel and hotel stays were included. we left from malaga, spain, took the bus to algeciras, further south of spain, and then took the ferry from algeciras to ceuta, morocco. ceuta and one other city in morocco are still colonized by spain interestingly. from ceuta, we went to tanger, tetuan and chef chouan. the first 2 were big cities, and the third a town. in the majority of moroccan cities/ towns there are "medinas", historic parts which were the cities beforehand. in the case of chef chouan, the entire town is a medina. within the medina, you can see how homes were typically constructed in the past, how markets and small plazas were situated, and how confusing it could be to find your way through small winding, narrow streets/ pathways. while in an alley, walls are on each side- the homes. there are no clear separations from which home is which besides the different doorways and a sm. window next to the door. they put all their effort into beautifying the inside... ok, i'll write more later, gtg, but i'm working on putting pictures on winkflash, hopefully that will be done soon, and i can invite everyone to see my albums. later!