My skills, that is.
I learned how to use a bow and arrow on our recent trip to Burgos/Atapuerca.
At the end, it looks like the arrow I shot was the one in the fake animal's eye. As much as I'd like to say it WAS my arrow, that was the demonstrator's arrow. Mine is very close to the animal, on the right, in the ground, which I think is just as impressive.
Check out this awesomeness:
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Allow me to translate.
Okay, so a short time ago I posted a little thing in Euskara, or Basque. Now I have time to translate.
The assignment was to write a jounral of monday and tuesday, as well as a future journal of what we were doing that weekend. I will translate line by line.
Astelehena= Monday
Gaur goizean ni jaiki naiz eta ni jantzi naiz. =This morning I woke up and got dressed.
Nik sukaldeon kafesnea edan dut.= In the kitchen, I had some coffee with milk.
Ni klasera joan naiz eta nik klasean aditzak ikasi ditut. =I then went to class, where we learned new verbs.
Ni etxera joan naiz eta nik pelikula ikusi dut. =I went home and watched a movie.
Nik gurasoak deitu ditut. = I called my parents at home.
Nik nire argazkik organizatu ditut. =I organized my photo album.
Guk sendi baterakin afaldu dugu. = As a family, we ate dinner together.
Nik ataza egin dut.=I did my homework.
Ni nekatu naiz eta nik lo egin dut. = I became tired and then went to sleep.
Asteartea= tuesday
Gaur goizean ni jaiki naiz. = This morning I woke up.
Ni dutxatu naiz eta ni jantzi naiz. = I took a shower and I got dressed.
Nik olo prestatu dut eta nik gosaldu dut. = I made oatmeal and ate breakfast.
Nik posta elektronikoa irakurri dut. = I checked my email
Ni klasera autobusean igo naiz. = I went to school on the bus
Nik aldizkaria irakurri dut. = I read a maagazine.
Nik klasean olerkia irakurri dut eta nik klasean kanta entzun dut. = We read poems in class and we listened to a song.
Nik balzkaldu dut eta nik patata frijituak jan ditut. = I ate lunch and had some french fries.
Ni parte zaharrara joan naiz eta nik ikurriña erosi dut.= I went to Parte Vieja and I bought an ikurriña (basque flag).
Ni etxera joan naiz eta nik klaseak matrikulatu ditut. = I went home and signed up for classes.
Nik ataza egin dut.= I did my homework.
Guk sendi baterakin afaldu dugu. = My family and I together ate dinner.
Nik lo egin dut. = I went to bed.
Asteburua= Weekend
Gu Burgosera joango gara. = We're going to Burgos.
Ostiral goizean gu aterako gara eta gu autobusera igoko gare.= Friday morning we leave and we get on a bus to go to Burgos.
Guk Katedral ikusiko dugu eta guk arkeologia-aztarnategia ikusiko dugu, ere bai.= We will see a Cathedral and an archeological digs site, too.
Gu bidean ibiliko gara.= Together we'll go on a hike.
Igandean guk “Skins” ikusiko dugu eta nik gailetak prestatuko ditut.= My friends and I are going to watch the show "SKINS" and make cookies.
See, not so hard to understand, now was it?
The assignment was to write a jounral of monday and tuesday, as well as a future journal of what we were doing that weekend. I will translate line by line.
Astelehena= Monday
Gaur goizean ni jaiki naiz eta ni jantzi naiz. =This morning I woke up and got dressed.
Nik sukaldeon kafesnea edan dut.= In the kitchen, I had some coffee with milk.
Ni klasera joan naiz eta nik klasean aditzak ikasi ditut. =I then went to class, where we learned new verbs.
Ni etxera joan naiz eta nik pelikula ikusi dut. =I went home and watched a movie.
Nik gurasoak deitu ditut. = I called my parents at home.
Nik nire argazkik organizatu ditut. =I organized my photo album.
Guk sendi baterakin afaldu dugu. = As a family, we ate dinner together.
Nik ataza egin dut.=I did my homework.
Ni nekatu naiz eta nik lo egin dut. = I became tired and then went to sleep.
Asteartea= tuesday
Gaur goizean ni jaiki naiz. = This morning I woke up.
Ni dutxatu naiz eta ni jantzi naiz. = I took a shower and I got dressed.
Nik olo prestatu dut eta nik gosaldu dut. = I made oatmeal and ate breakfast.
Nik posta elektronikoa irakurri dut. = I checked my email
Ni klasera autobusean igo naiz. = I went to school on the bus
Nik aldizkaria irakurri dut. = I read a maagazine.
Nik klasean olerkia irakurri dut eta nik klasean kanta entzun dut. = We read poems in class and we listened to a song.
Nik balzkaldu dut eta nik patata frijituak jan ditut. = I ate lunch and had some french fries.
Ni parte zaharrara joan naiz eta nik ikurriña erosi dut.= I went to Parte Vieja and I bought an ikurriña (basque flag).
Ni etxera joan naiz eta nik klaseak matrikulatu ditut. = I went home and signed up for classes.
Nik ataza egin dut.= I did my homework.
Guk sendi baterakin afaldu dugu. = My family and I together ate dinner.
Nik lo egin dut. = I went to bed.
Asteburua= Weekend
Gu Burgosera joango gara. = We're going to Burgos.
Ostiral goizean gu aterako gara eta gu autobusera igoko gare.= Friday morning we leave and we get on a bus to go to Burgos.
Guk Katedral ikusiko dugu eta guk arkeologia-aztarnategia ikusiko dugu, ere bai.= We will see a Cathedral and an archeological digs site, too.
Gu bidean ibiliko gara.= Together we'll go on a hike.
Igandean guk “Skins” ikusiko dugu eta nik gailetak prestatuko ditut.= My friends and I are going to watch the show "SKINS" and make cookies.
See, not so hard to understand, now was it?
Burgos Video
By embedding the video directly onto Blogger, all problems were avoided. YAY!
You may recognize some familiar faces from my Barcelona video, like Ana and Natalia.
In order of appearance:
Ana (always creepin)
Maria (Girl next to Ana in opening scene, and one who speaks Norwegian at the end)
Sonia (girl asking how to do the handprint to the guide)
Jenny (leather jacket handprint girl)
Natalie (Trying to smell Maria's hand?)
Mary Kate (sneaking into the shot with Maria and Natalie)
May (making prehistoric tools out of rock)
Mary Kate, Dixon, May and Luke (throwing Javelins, one after another)
Cassi (playing Orlando Bloom with the bow and arrow, as well as 'translating' Maria at the end of the video)
Carter (making fire with the guide)
Natalia (The one who is 'not cool' according to Ana)
Jenny (appearing once again, fetching a ball that rolled under an SUV)
Alex Ireland (The girl who's just trying to figure out who this Jesus guy is. Have you heard of him? He's pretty famous, I guess.)
Megan (warning Dixon of moldy candy)
Annette (the Becky blamer)
Becky (The Annette blamer)
Angela (the one dancing on the bus, and who has to 'piss like a racehorse')
Peter (the one slowly creeping up to the camera with a suspicious look)
Lindsey (The one in the pink scarf, who claims she needed to sit in the back row of the bus b/c then she could have BRAIDED)
Lindsey (in the leather coat and hood, who mocks the fact that they could have braided.)
So here's what went down on the trip:
We got on a bus at 8:30am and drove off to Burgos. On the way we stopped in Atapuerca, where archeologists have found the oldest human fossils in Europe, belonging to the homo antecessor species. When they found them, they were able to identify this species, since they had not discovered it prior to finding the fossils. This chart explains a lot.
We went to a site where a friendly guide showed us the typical evolution poster, of a monkey converting into a human. Then, we went on a "tour" of history, as he introduced us to evolving inventions and ideas along the way. It felt a bit like a caveman version of Donley's Wild West Town, where I go with campers every summer.
Along the way, he told us about early tools made of rock, and that three "entry points" or breaks in the rock, show that it was intentionally broken to be used as something, as opposed to a regular broken rock, which would have one or two "entry points."
He told us about cave paintings, about early homes, burial rituals, making fire, hunting tools like javelins and bows and arrows, and other things.
Then we hopped on a bus to the Atapuerca dig site, which was about 8 minutes away, which is seen in the video as us wearing hard hats. We wore them and looked at some high stone walls with lots of cards with numbers and letters on them where we are told fossils were found. It wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be. But I DID get to hold a real human skull, not just a reproduction of one. But it's not on my camera, so when Peter posts it, I will be able to show it to you.
We then ate at a restaurant (USAC paid for it), which had good lentil soup and flavorless, tepid fish. I didn't try the fish b/c it got to the other side of the table first and my friends described it as...well, flavorless and cold, so I wasn't really sold on the idea. But the prepackaged ice cream cups we got were good!
We went to Burgos and went to the Cathedral. It was just like the other bajillion cathedrals I've been to since being here in Europe, but still there were some interesting parts. Apparently whenever there was any sort of damage in the church, Spaniards like to blame it on Napolean. Usually, they are right. But sometimes it's just old and crumbly. One thing he told us was that there is a stained glass window from the 1200's, and the rest are from much later, since Napolean and his gang tried to blow the place up and consequently broke all the original windows, except for the one. And then they replaced the broken ones.
Also, in the chapel part of the church, there was a Jesus statue, where the head was "articulated" (as you can see in the video by the guide bobbling his head around at the beginning). It had real human hair and other human things which I can't remember. It sounds a bit gross.
Also in this Cathedral there was an original DaVinci, which is seen behind the guide in one clip of the video as well.
After that, we got to the hotel and settled in. Of course, being college students, all of my friends went straight back out to the grocery store to buy vodka, boxed wine, and coca cola (Kalimotxos, which are wine and coke mixed together, are super popular in the Basque country).
I didn't want to be left out of this pre-party bonanza, so I bought myself some pineapple juice and oreos.
We went back to the hotel and "raged." And by raged, I mean "tryed tossing gummi candy into peoples' mouths," "got ready to go out," as well as "drank my juice and ate cookies."
Many hours passed, then I went out with the Lindseys, Jenny, and Tara to eat tapas as dinner. I just ordered a platter of Croquetas for myself. They taste like a mozzarella sticks, but instead of cheese inside, they taste like mashed potatoes and cheese and there's ham in the very center. I am not even sure if that's what they are made of. They just taste that way. And I like to keep thinking that, or it may ruin one of my only favorite foods here in Spain.
We ran into people like Dixon, Megan, Angela, Luke, Dave, and Cassi along the way to the bar area when we left, as well as friends I made on the Madrid tour from Bilbao (the overnight trip was for the SS program and the Bilbao program...we stayed in the same hotel and went to everything together), like Adam and Brett. It was great to see Adam and Brett (who you might recognize from my trip to Barcelona...they are in that video!). I haven't seen them since my trip to Barcelona at the beginning of the semester!
After a long night out, we went back to the hotel. My roommate was drunk and puking, and our hall neighbor (a USAC student) was trying to get into her room without a key by banging on the door hoping her sleeping roomie would awaken. (Note: We later found out no one was in the room, hence why no one answered.) My other friend was "sexiled" momentarily (exiled from their room b/c the roommate was having sex), until he was let back in about 20 minutes later.
So yeah, they partied PRETTY hard.
Oh, did I mention that there was an 8am 3hour hike the next morning? Yeah, well it was fortunately optional...only about 30 or 40% of the entire SS/Bilbao group went on the hike. 99% of those people were extremely hungover. Especially since people came home around 3am.
After the hike on the path to Santiago de Compostela (a famous pilgrim hike that allowed a free ticket to heaven if you did it from the start, literally. There are many entrances to the hike, since it can start from as far as Germany or France. I am not sure what the whole rules for that heaven deal was, but I do know that back then, no matter where you started from, you could get to the church and get a free meal and shelter for the night), which was a foggy, cold, wet experience, we got to a bar where we warmed up a bit before heading back to the hotel. Then we had a bit of time before our 3pm lunch at the hotel (a grand feast of spaghetti with red sauce, roast chicken and french fries, salad, and natillas[a delicious pudding type dessert]). I used the time before lunch to go shopping for souvenirs and then playing spoons in the hotel lobby with Luke, Dave, Natalia, Ana, Angela, and Katie.
After lunch, we hopped out, saying goodbyes to our Bilbao friends (probably for...forever, sadly).
And you might wonder how nice the hotel was. It was very nice. How nice, you ask? Well, when I asked for the oh-so necessary match box for our family collection at the front desk, they instead handed me a LIGHTER with the hotel name, number and address on it. CLASSY!
Oh, and on the way home we stopped at Dolmen de Aizkomendi (Egilaz) which is basically very similar to Stonehenge. It is a rock formation that dates back to way back when, when there wasn't the machinery to construct such a heavy, large thing. It was pretty small, but still cool.
Oh, and on the way out of the narrow path that lead us here, our bus had some MAJOR issues doing a three point turn. It turned into about a 213-point turn, most of which just wedged us more and more into a perpendicular position to the road, with a tree in front of the windshield and a deep ditch behind the back tires. We had to evacuate the bus so the driver could get us out of the rut. Literally.
He also may have wanted us to leave so he could get his bearings since everyone was fearing that we would fall into the ditch and then have no way back home.
And I know what you are thinking: YES, there is video footage of all of this going down. I will post the "failed 3 point turn" video as soon as I am done editing it, which should be soon.
Work for nothing
So I just spent about two hours editing a video last night about my trip to Burgos and finished it sucessfully. I uploaded it to YouTube so I could easily embed it here. The video was only about 4 minutes long, edited to the song "Love is Free" by Sheryl Crow.
I went online this morning to get the link to post on here, and received a message that says I have committed copyright infringement by using that song in my video without written permission from the artist. Therefore, YouTube muted the entire video.
Without audio, it's completely pointless, so I took it down. And it sucks because I edited the whole thing to that song, and some of the visuals match the audio, so I can't really replace the song.
So as for now, just know that I DID make a video, but conditions not under my control are preventing me from showing it to you.
Thanks, EMG Music Group, for making those two hours completely wasted.
I went online this morning to get the link to post on here, and received a message that says I have committed copyright infringement by using that song in my video without written permission from the artist. Therefore, YouTube muted the entire video.
Without audio, it's completely pointless, so I took it down. And it sucks because I edited the whole thing to that song, and some of the visuals match the audio, so I can't really replace the song.
So as for now, just know that I DID make a video, but conditions not under my control are preventing me from showing it to you.
Thanks, EMG Music Group, for making those two hours completely wasted.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Try THIS, all you non-Euskaldunak!
Here is some homework I had for my basque class last week. We had to write a journal of what we did on Monday and Tuesday, then what we planned to do on the weekend.
Here it is:
Astelehena
Gaur goizean ni jaiki naiz eta ni jantzi naiz. Nik sukaldeon kafesnea edan dut. Ni klasera joan naiz eta nik klasean aditzak ikasi ditut. Ni etxera joan naiz eta nik pelikula ikusi dut. Nik gurasoak deitu ditut. Nik nire argazkik organizatu ditut. Guk sendi baterakin afaldu dugu. Nik ataza egin dut. Ni nekatu naiz eta nik lo egin dut.
Asteartea
Gaur goizean ni jaiki naiz. Ni dutxatu naiz eta ni jantzi naiz. Nik olo prestatu dut eta nik gosaldu dut. Nik posta elektronikoa irakurri dut. Ni klasera autobusean igo naiz. Nik aldizkaria irakurri dut. Nik klasean olerkia irakurri dut eta nik klasean kanta entzun dut. Nik balzkaldu dut eta nik patata frijituak jan ditut. Ni parte zaharrara joan naiz eta nik ikurriña erosi dut. Ni etxera joan naiz eta nik klaseak matrikulatu ditut. Nik ataza egin dut. Guk isendi baterakin afaldu dugu. Nik lo egin dut.
Asteburua
Gu Burgosera joango gara. Ostiral goizean gu aterako gara eta gu autobusera igoko gare. Guk Katedral ikusiko dugu eta guk arkeologia-aztarnategia ikusiko dugu, ere bai. Gu bidean ibiliko gara. Igandean guk “Skins” ikusiko dugu eta nik gailetak prestatuko ditut.
Oh, wait, you don't speak basque, do you? I shall translate next time. At least you know I'm learning something!
Here it is:
Astelehena
Gaur goizean ni jaiki naiz eta ni jantzi naiz. Nik sukaldeon kafesnea edan dut. Ni klasera joan naiz eta nik klasean aditzak ikasi ditut. Ni etxera joan naiz eta nik pelikula ikusi dut. Nik gurasoak deitu ditut. Nik nire argazkik organizatu ditut. Guk sendi baterakin afaldu dugu. Nik ataza egin dut. Ni nekatu naiz eta nik lo egin dut.
Asteartea
Gaur goizean ni jaiki naiz. Ni dutxatu naiz eta ni jantzi naiz. Nik olo prestatu dut eta nik gosaldu dut. Nik posta elektronikoa irakurri dut. Ni klasera autobusean igo naiz. Nik aldizkaria irakurri dut. Nik klasean olerkia irakurri dut eta nik klasean kanta entzun dut. Nik balzkaldu dut eta nik patata frijituak jan ditut. Ni parte zaharrara joan naiz eta nik ikurriña erosi dut. Ni etxera joan naiz eta nik klaseak matrikulatu ditut. Nik ataza egin dut. Guk isendi baterakin afaldu dugu. Nik lo egin dut.
Asteburua
Gu Burgosera joango gara. Ostiral goizean gu aterako gara eta gu autobusera igoko gare. Guk Katedral ikusiko dugu eta guk arkeologia-aztarnategia ikusiko dugu, ere bai. Gu bidean ibiliko gara. Igandean guk “Skins” ikusiko dugu eta nik gailetak prestatuko ditut.
Oh, wait, you don't speak basque, do you? I shall translate next time. At least you know I'm learning something!
Monday, April 27, 2009
Okay, who left the brown shoes?
In the USAC program, once you sign up for travelling abroad, it also entitles you to the two trips arranged by USAC in the semester, for no extra charge. The first trip was a day trip (left in the morning, returned late afternoon) to some place nearby with a Basque farmhouse. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend since USAC arranged it on a certain day, then told us they needed to change the day and during this confusion my friends and I booked our Barcelona trip. Of course, right afterwards, we find that the trip was scheduled on the same weekend.
But this time, the trip was overnight, and it was to Burgos and Atapuerca, which is southwest of San Sebastian in Castilla y Leon.
I don't have much time to go into detail now (I know, I know, I also haven't updated on my Spring Break either...but I will get to it eventually), but we did get this email today from the USAC office.
But before I show you the email, let me tell you a couple things as background info. We had to each pay a 20 euro deposit before the trip in case of hotel damages. We also made this trip with students in the Bilbao USAC program, some of which I already knew from the Madrid tour before the semester began.
When we got on the bus to head home on Saturday, Patricia said, "Guys, I have to say, the hotel was extremely upset this morning, telling us that there were many noise complaints and some damage to the rooms. However, we believe this is the Bilbao students' who did the damage, and therefore we will look into it further to get the specifics and pinpoint which rooms are to blame. Therefore, you will not be able to get your deposits back until we sort this out. But I will send you an email this week once we know more."
We got the email, and it is as follows:
______________________
Enviado el: lunes, 27 de abril de 2009 14:08
Para: us
Asunto: excursion deposit/brown shoes
Dear Students,
I am very happy to tell you that we will be able to return the deposit to all the students on the San Sebastian program. We have just heard from the hotel and have been able to determine exactly where the problems originated. Thank you very much for all of your cooperation. We certainly wanted everyone to have fun and were convinced that this is entirely possible without disturbing the other guests at the hotel. I am satisfied and grateful for the way things turned out, at least as far as our group is concerned.
Muchas gracias a todos. Espero que lo hayáis pasado muy bien. Podéis pasar por la oficina con el recibo para recoger el depósito.
Saludos, Patricia
P.D.
Alguien ha dejado un par de zapatos(¿zapatillas?)marrones en el autobus. Los tenemos en la oficina.
_______________
The first Spanish part says "Thanks to everyone. I hope you had a good time. You can stop by the office with the reciept to get your deposit back."
And that little PS part says "Someone left a pair of brown shoes/sandals on the bus. We have them in the office."
So in conclusion of the trip, we partied, but not hard enough to have to pay, and someone lost a pair of shoes.
But this time, the trip was overnight, and it was to Burgos and Atapuerca, which is southwest of San Sebastian in Castilla y Leon.
I don't have much time to go into detail now (I know, I know, I also haven't updated on my Spring Break either...but I will get to it eventually), but we did get this email today from the USAC office.
But before I show you the email, let me tell you a couple things as background info. We had to each pay a 20 euro deposit before the trip in case of hotel damages. We also made this trip with students in the Bilbao USAC program, some of which I already knew from the Madrid tour before the semester began.
When we got on the bus to head home on Saturday, Patricia said, "Guys, I have to say, the hotel was extremely upset this morning, telling us that there were many noise complaints and some damage to the rooms. However, we believe this is the Bilbao students' who did the damage, and therefore we will look into it further to get the specifics and pinpoint which rooms are to blame. Therefore, you will not be able to get your deposits back until we sort this out. But I will send you an email this week once we know more."
We got the email, and it is as follows:
______________________
Enviado el: lunes, 27 de abril de 2009 14:08
Para: us
Asunto: excursion deposit/brown shoes
Dear Students,
I am very happy to tell you that we will be able to return the deposit to all the students on the San Sebastian program. We have just heard from the hotel and have been able to determine exactly where the problems originated. Thank you very much for all of your cooperation. We certainly wanted everyone to have fun and were convinced that this is entirely possible without disturbing the other guests at the hotel. I am satisfied and grateful for the way things turned out, at least as far as our group is concerned.
Muchas gracias a todos. Espero que lo hayáis pasado muy bien. Podéis pasar por la oficina con el recibo para recoger el depósito.
Saludos, Patricia
P.D.
Alguien ha dejado un par de zapatos(¿zapatillas?)marrones en el autobus. Los tenemos en la oficina.
_______________
The first Spanish part says "Thanks to everyone. I hope you had a good time. You can stop by the office with the reciept to get your deposit back."
And that little PS part says "Someone left a pair of brown shoes/sandals on the bus. We have them in the office."
So in conclusion of the trip, we partied, but not hard enough to have to pay, and someone lost a pair of shoes.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
I don't get you, Spain.
A brief commentary...
Two things that are currently on my mind...
1. "batido" here is the word for milkshake. Yet batido does not always signify something with ice cream. Or milk. Or any dairy, for that matter. I think it basically is anything that's blended in a blender. Therefore, smoothies are also batidos. I find this greatly disappointing.
2. In Spain, Tuesday the 13th is the big scary day. Not friday the 13th. Tuesday. Tell me, Spain, what is so scary about a run-of-the-mill mid-week day? Lame.
That is all, for now.
More on my vacation later.
Two things that are currently on my mind...
1. "batido" here is the word for milkshake. Yet batido does not always signify something with ice cream. Or milk. Or any dairy, for that matter. I think it basically is anything that's blended in a blender. Therefore, smoothies are also batidos. I find this greatly disappointing.
2. In Spain, Tuesday the 13th is the big scary day. Not friday the 13th. Tuesday. Tell me, Spain, what is so scary about a run-of-the-mill mid-week day? Lame.
That is all, for now.
More on my vacation later.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Nightmare?
again, portuguese keyboard. deal.
Let me lay down a play by play of my portugal/southern spain trip so far.
It was NOT going well for QUITE A WHILE.
We began in SS, where we hopped on a bus at 12.40pm to bilbao. We arrived in bilbao at about 2pm. Our next bus from Bilbao to Madrid was at 3, so we chilled in Bilbao for a bit. OH, but did I mention that on the way to Bilbao that May realized she hadnºt bought her ticket to portugal yet? Well, we had to deal with that in Bilbao. There was no room on our bus, but luckily for us there was another bus leaving at the exact same time. But, for some odd reason, the ticket lady moved Cassi to Mayºs bus, I guess b-c she was helping her out at the window and assumed they wanted to be together?
Anyways. We got on the bus from Bilbao to Madrid and said ciao to May and Cassi. I went to sit down but there was a lady in my seat and she asked if I could move to hers in the back. I obliged. I fell asleep on this bus, then about an hour into the journey, I woke up and realized the driver pulled over and there were national guards all up in the cargo with some kind of sniffing dog. Drug-sniffing? Bomb-sniffing? I donºt know. All I know is that there was a female guard staring at my window the whole time, holding a machine gun at her waist.
Also, Spain has a law where bus drivers cannot drive for more than 4 hours straight, which means they stop after less than that, which means they stopped about every 3.25 hours. We took our first stop around 7.30 and had to hang out there for about a half hour until the bus left. Apparently when the dogs sniffed the cargo, Cassie woke up May and asked her if she had any drugs in her bag and she was so sleepy and confused when Cassi woke her that she responded by talking about the Advil and Mydol she packed.
Then when we got on the bus, i coaxed the woman next to natalie to move to my seat b-c it was a window seat and it had more legroom, and she happily traded. I now was seated by natalie and alex and jordan were in front of us. They played Ocean~´s 13 on the ride, but i had no headphones and therefore stared at the silent screen until the movie was over. Around that time we were in Madrid.
We got to the Madrid bus station and got off and that was the end of that end of our journey. We got in aroun 9pm and our next bus was at 10pm from the same station, which would then take us to Porto, Portugal. We hung out, got some dried fruits and nuts at some place at the station, everyone but me took a sleeping pill, then we grabbed our stuff and got on the bus.
It was pretty dead since we knew we would make some stops along the way to pick up more people. But, to our surprise, we were only 10 minutes on the bus when we stopped at a different station and they were telling us in spanish to get off the bus and that they werenºt leaving until 11pm. We were so confused that we just took our ´´carry on´´ luggage (the stuff not in the under-bus cargo), and walked to the main station. The driver was like ´´you can leave your stuff behind if you want!´´ but we were so confused as to what was going on, and angry that we were being kicked off and forced to wait. We wandered around a bit, and Cassi was frustrated because the sleeping pill had already kicked in for about an hour by now, and she was groggy and angry. The rest of the group left the station to get burger king across the street. Cassi and I opted to stay, and I grabbed a turkey and grilled onion sammy from the station. We went back to the bus right around 10.50 and saw the rest of our group there. Natalie, french fries hanging out of her mouth, was told that she couldnºt eat on the bus. Therefore, she stood outside and scarfed everything down while Cassi and I got on and returned to our seats. May somehow got on with her BK bag of food, and Cassi told her that Natalie got yelled at. We were feeling the wrath of the driver, so we suggested May eat it off the bus. She went to get up and leave, and they wouldnºt let her off the bus, so she was like ´´okay, then deal with the fact that I am totally eating this right here.´´
Finally we all got on the bus, a few more passengers than there were when we arrived at this station, but it was still only 30% full. THEN, out of nowhere, the bus driver was telling us we needed to get off and that we were on the wrong bus. But really that wasnºt the case. THEY overbooked the bus and just decided to kick off some random people in the front...and guess who they were? ´´Ýou need to get off, ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR´´ the lady shouted as she counted off me, cassi, natalie and may. She frustratingly was like ´´do you have luggage?´´ uh, YEAH, we DO. Why are YOU so mad? We were the ones kicked off our bus 10 minutes in, told to wait 50 minutes, then told to get on a completely different bus and separate from our friends on a journey to a foreign country!!! We got our luggage, put it on the cargo part of the other bus, said farewell to Alex, Jordan and MaryKate, then went onto the other bus.
All four of us were as pissed as one could be. We are in a freaking train station in Madrid, being yelled at in Spanish to get on a bus that we didnºt buy tickets for, being told that weºd get to the same place as our friends. We get on the bus and HELLO we are in Portuguese town. We are the whitest people on the bus, everyone else looks like they are south american and of course, everyone is staring. Every woman had some kind of cotton scarf wrapped around her hair and the men were all wearing denim farm wear and work boots. There were some empty seats, which some younger guys were conspicuously spreading out on so we wouldnºt sit there. I sit by a stranger, then Cassi gets offered two seats together because a married couple told their son to move. So we sit together and by this point Cassi is unsuccessfully trying to hold in her tears of frustration and hopelessness of the situation. Meanwhile, creepy seat-hogger guys are just staring at us. And they are in the other row of seats, about 4 rows in front of us. So yes, itºs EXTREMELY obvious that they are staring. They keep staring at Cassi, while she tries to hide her face as best she can by staring out the window. Natalie and May are at the front of the bus looking at seats before they sit, then when I was looking down, I looked back up and couldnºt see them so I thought of the possibility that they somehow got back on the other bus. I honestly had no idea where they were. Meanwhile, still, the guy is staring. We give up and ignore him and I fall asleep, clutching my purse, scared for the creepy guys and I put my ´´carry on´´ between my feet on the floor. Also, when the bus was boarding, a woman came on with a baby. Cassi and I were seated about 3 rows from the very back, and as she walked by us, I think a couple people groaned or commented that they didnºt want to sit near a baby. She told them, in Spanish, not to worry because her baby wonºt cry.
I woke up about an hour into the trip because I felt movement by my feet. Thinking someone was trying to steal my bag, I quickly woke up and looked down. The busº interior lights were off because it was a night trip, and I thought I saw a sweater on the ground. As my eyes became a bit more adjusted I realized there was a man laying down on the aisle floor trying to sleep. The movement I had felt was his elbow brushing against my shoe. I looked down the aisle to see if anyone else was amazed by this...only to find about 3 more men sleeping on the aisle floor. Also, that baby was crying. And crying. And crying...I somehow managed to fall asleep to the sound of a baby crying and a man snoring by my feet.
At the first rest stop, I got off and went to the bathroom and got on the bus via the front door and finally confirmed, after 3 hours of paranoia, that May and Natalie are in fact on this bus, and they are sleeping in two separate seats towards the front. I also looked around the rest stop for the other bus, but it was nowhere in sight. Finally, after the bus driver started up the engines to head out, the other bus pulled into the stop and I saw Mary-Kate get off.
Our bus rode off once again, and in the next few hours I tried a variety of sleeping positions: leaning my head against the seat in front of me, scooting my butt low on the seat to have my knees lean on the seat in front of me, and try leaning back. The latter was the most unsuccessful, because what kind of crazy person would think to sleep by reclining the chair and resting their head where the headrest is?!
Once we entered Portugal, a national guard guy got on the bus to check our passports. He went through the bus reading them, and he took some people~s passports away, telling them he~d return them in a minute. To one Portuguese lady, he said that her passport was bad and she needed to fix it. Nevertheless, he gave it back and let her continue on her journey. That~s cool...
I also faintly remember there being a part where Cassi told me to lean my head on her shoulder. When I woke up my head was on her shoulder and her head was on my head, and she told me that she had earlier found me leaning diagonally forward in her direction, and she knew that wasnºt comfortable so she re-adjusted my head position.
Finally we arrived in Porto. But whatºs this? Oh, not an actual bus station! Instead we were dropped off in the middle of some business district. Also, our bus arrived early! We were actually unsure of that last part, since our watches were still on Spain time and the bus clock was somewhat off. I am still pretty sure we were at our ´´destination´´ at about 5:30am. So here we were, Natalie, May, Cassi and me, shivering in the darkness of some public park place of some sort, with a taxi stand nearby. However, due to my observation at the rest stop (that their bus arrived as we left), I knew they were at least a half hour behind us. We had to call them to give them the hostel address and number, so we tried doing that for a while, since Cassiºs hands were so cold and she was so nervous that she literally couldnºt aim her fingers on the keys on the phone.
After we got in touch with a zonked-out Mary-Kate, we got in a taxi. Oh, but of course he doesnºt speak English or Spanish. Only French. Thatºs not even one of their top 3 languages spoken here. We took the cab to their hostel and the guy reluctantly opened the doors, let them lock their luggage in the luggage room, then kicked them out, saying checkin was at 3pm.
We called my hostel and found my check in was at 1pm, but I still had all my luggage. We wandered only a block until we found an open cafe. By now it was about 6.30am or so. We hung out there for about an hour and a half, then we found out the rest of our group was nearby. We met up with them and found out that their bus WAS a half hour behind, plus they were dropped off way further away than we were: we paid a 7 euro fare, and they paid a 12 euro fare.
We then loitered in that cafe until about 9am, then we decided to move on. It was about 50 degrees outside and drizzling! Of course, the weather said itºd be above seventy the whole time on our trip, so we were wearing our warmest clothes, which consisted of jeans, short sleeves and a hoodie.
I needed to find my hostel and we knew it was nearby so I used my friendsº hostelºs internet service and they donºt have flash, so google maps was basically useless. I had to use HTML mode which showed the map at about the size of half a playing card.
We knew it was somewhere northwest, and decided to get in that direction by walking along the river. We stumbled upon a street market with about a bajillion people selling stuff. I ended up getting a gift here for Eric.
We finally found my hostel, dropped off my stuff, then ate food next door. Alex and Mary Kate were feeling ultra queasy and throwing up every once in a while due to either the sleeping pills, the Burger King, or a combo of both.
We then went to this church that has a museum and catacombs which was cool. After we went to a place for lunch. We wandered some more until it was time for us all to check in and we parted ways to go to our hostels.
By this time it was about 2.45 pm. The ongoing joke was that we never wanted to look at a watch because time was passing so SLOWLY. We were already in the city for about 10 hours, for Godºs sakes!
We met up again at 8pm, where I found out that the other group took a solid 4 and a half hour nap while I had meanwhile just been hanging out at my hostel.
We went to an internet place to buy tickets to the Alhambra in Granada (um, episode 3 from star wars was filmed there...it also looks like Aladdinºs palace!). We wandered some more, ate at a restaurant along the river, then went home at 10.45 to just sleep.
So let me give you a run through of how much sleep I´ve gotten. Wednesday night i got 7 hours or so. No biggie. then Thurs night, b-c i was packing and then had to wake up early for the teaching thing, i went to bed around 3...and woke up at 6.20. so thatºs about 3 hours.
Then, on the bus i got 1 hour increments of sleep, and only about 5 of them, none of which were quality. Finally I got about 9 hours of sleep Friday night.
Let me lay down a play by play of my portugal/southern spain trip so far.
It was NOT going well for QUITE A WHILE.
We began in SS, where we hopped on a bus at 12.40pm to bilbao. We arrived in bilbao at about 2pm. Our next bus from Bilbao to Madrid was at 3, so we chilled in Bilbao for a bit. OH, but did I mention that on the way to Bilbao that May realized she hadnºt bought her ticket to portugal yet? Well, we had to deal with that in Bilbao. There was no room on our bus, but luckily for us there was another bus leaving at the exact same time. But, for some odd reason, the ticket lady moved Cassi to Mayºs bus, I guess b-c she was helping her out at the window and assumed they wanted to be together?
Anyways. We got on the bus from Bilbao to Madrid and said ciao to May and Cassi. I went to sit down but there was a lady in my seat and she asked if I could move to hers in the back. I obliged. I fell asleep on this bus, then about an hour into the journey, I woke up and realized the driver pulled over and there were national guards all up in the cargo with some kind of sniffing dog. Drug-sniffing? Bomb-sniffing? I donºt know. All I know is that there was a female guard staring at my window the whole time, holding a machine gun at her waist.
Also, Spain has a law where bus drivers cannot drive for more than 4 hours straight, which means they stop after less than that, which means they stopped about every 3.25 hours. We took our first stop around 7.30 and had to hang out there for about a half hour until the bus left. Apparently when the dogs sniffed the cargo, Cassie woke up May and asked her if she had any drugs in her bag and she was so sleepy and confused when Cassi woke her that she responded by talking about the Advil and Mydol she packed.
Then when we got on the bus, i coaxed the woman next to natalie to move to my seat b-c it was a window seat and it had more legroom, and she happily traded. I now was seated by natalie and alex and jordan were in front of us. They played Ocean~´s 13 on the ride, but i had no headphones and therefore stared at the silent screen until the movie was over. Around that time we were in Madrid.
We got to the Madrid bus station and got off and that was the end of that end of our journey. We got in aroun 9pm and our next bus was at 10pm from the same station, which would then take us to Porto, Portugal. We hung out, got some dried fruits and nuts at some place at the station, everyone but me took a sleeping pill, then we grabbed our stuff and got on the bus.
It was pretty dead since we knew we would make some stops along the way to pick up more people. But, to our surprise, we were only 10 minutes on the bus when we stopped at a different station and they were telling us in spanish to get off the bus and that they werenºt leaving until 11pm. We were so confused that we just took our ´´carry on´´ luggage (the stuff not in the under-bus cargo), and walked to the main station. The driver was like ´´you can leave your stuff behind if you want!´´ but we were so confused as to what was going on, and angry that we were being kicked off and forced to wait. We wandered around a bit, and Cassi was frustrated because the sleeping pill had already kicked in for about an hour by now, and she was groggy and angry. The rest of the group left the station to get burger king across the street. Cassi and I opted to stay, and I grabbed a turkey and grilled onion sammy from the station. We went back to the bus right around 10.50 and saw the rest of our group there. Natalie, french fries hanging out of her mouth, was told that she couldnºt eat on the bus. Therefore, she stood outside and scarfed everything down while Cassi and I got on and returned to our seats. May somehow got on with her BK bag of food, and Cassi told her that Natalie got yelled at. We were feeling the wrath of the driver, so we suggested May eat it off the bus. She went to get up and leave, and they wouldnºt let her off the bus, so she was like ´´okay, then deal with the fact that I am totally eating this right here.´´
Finally we all got on the bus, a few more passengers than there were when we arrived at this station, but it was still only 30% full. THEN, out of nowhere, the bus driver was telling us we needed to get off and that we were on the wrong bus. But really that wasnºt the case. THEY overbooked the bus and just decided to kick off some random people in the front...and guess who they were? ´´Ýou need to get off, ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR´´ the lady shouted as she counted off me, cassi, natalie and may. She frustratingly was like ´´do you have luggage?´´ uh, YEAH, we DO. Why are YOU so mad? We were the ones kicked off our bus 10 minutes in, told to wait 50 minutes, then told to get on a completely different bus and separate from our friends on a journey to a foreign country!!! We got our luggage, put it on the cargo part of the other bus, said farewell to Alex, Jordan and MaryKate, then went onto the other bus.
All four of us were as pissed as one could be. We are in a freaking train station in Madrid, being yelled at in Spanish to get on a bus that we didnºt buy tickets for, being told that weºd get to the same place as our friends. We get on the bus and HELLO we are in Portuguese town. We are the whitest people on the bus, everyone else looks like they are south american and of course, everyone is staring. Every woman had some kind of cotton scarf wrapped around her hair and the men were all wearing denim farm wear and work boots. There were some empty seats, which some younger guys were conspicuously spreading out on so we wouldnºt sit there. I sit by a stranger, then Cassi gets offered two seats together because a married couple told their son to move. So we sit together and by this point Cassi is unsuccessfully trying to hold in her tears of frustration and hopelessness of the situation. Meanwhile, creepy seat-hogger guys are just staring at us. And they are in the other row of seats, about 4 rows in front of us. So yes, itºs EXTREMELY obvious that they are staring. They keep staring at Cassi, while she tries to hide her face as best she can by staring out the window. Natalie and May are at the front of the bus looking at seats before they sit, then when I was looking down, I looked back up and couldnºt see them so I thought of the possibility that they somehow got back on the other bus. I honestly had no idea where they were. Meanwhile, still, the guy is staring. We give up and ignore him and I fall asleep, clutching my purse, scared for the creepy guys and I put my ´´carry on´´ between my feet on the floor. Also, when the bus was boarding, a woman came on with a baby. Cassi and I were seated about 3 rows from the very back, and as she walked by us, I think a couple people groaned or commented that they didnºt want to sit near a baby. She told them, in Spanish, not to worry because her baby wonºt cry.
I woke up about an hour into the trip because I felt movement by my feet. Thinking someone was trying to steal my bag, I quickly woke up and looked down. The busº interior lights were off because it was a night trip, and I thought I saw a sweater on the ground. As my eyes became a bit more adjusted I realized there was a man laying down on the aisle floor trying to sleep. The movement I had felt was his elbow brushing against my shoe. I looked down the aisle to see if anyone else was amazed by this...only to find about 3 more men sleeping on the aisle floor. Also, that baby was crying. And crying. And crying...I somehow managed to fall asleep to the sound of a baby crying and a man snoring by my feet.
At the first rest stop, I got off and went to the bathroom and got on the bus via the front door and finally confirmed, after 3 hours of paranoia, that May and Natalie are in fact on this bus, and they are sleeping in two separate seats towards the front. I also looked around the rest stop for the other bus, but it was nowhere in sight. Finally, after the bus driver started up the engines to head out, the other bus pulled into the stop and I saw Mary-Kate get off.
Our bus rode off once again, and in the next few hours I tried a variety of sleeping positions: leaning my head against the seat in front of me, scooting my butt low on the seat to have my knees lean on the seat in front of me, and try leaning back. The latter was the most unsuccessful, because what kind of crazy person would think to sleep by reclining the chair and resting their head where the headrest is?!
Once we entered Portugal, a national guard guy got on the bus to check our passports. He went through the bus reading them, and he took some people~s passports away, telling them he~d return them in a minute. To one Portuguese lady, he said that her passport was bad and she needed to fix it. Nevertheless, he gave it back and let her continue on her journey. That~s cool...
I also faintly remember there being a part where Cassi told me to lean my head on her shoulder. When I woke up my head was on her shoulder and her head was on my head, and she told me that she had earlier found me leaning diagonally forward in her direction, and she knew that wasnºt comfortable so she re-adjusted my head position.
Finally we arrived in Porto. But whatºs this? Oh, not an actual bus station! Instead we were dropped off in the middle of some business district. Also, our bus arrived early! We were actually unsure of that last part, since our watches were still on Spain time and the bus clock was somewhat off. I am still pretty sure we were at our ´´destination´´ at about 5:30am. So here we were, Natalie, May, Cassi and me, shivering in the darkness of some public park place of some sort, with a taxi stand nearby. However, due to my observation at the rest stop (that their bus arrived as we left), I knew they were at least a half hour behind us. We had to call them to give them the hostel address and number, so we tried doing that for a while, since Cassiºs hands were so cold and she was so nervous that she literally couldnºt aim her fingers on the keys on the phone.
After we got in touch with a zonked-out Mary-Kate, we got in a taxi. Oh, but of course he doesnºt speak English or Spanish. Only French. Thatºs not even one of their top 3 languages spoken here. We took the cab to their hostel and the guy reluctantly opened the doors, let them lock their luggage in the luggage room, then kicked them out, saying checkin was at 3pm.
We called my hostel and found my check in was at 1pm, but I still had all my luggage. We wandered only a block until we found an open cafe. By now it was about 6.30am or so. We hung out there for about an hour and a half, then we found out the rest of our group was nearby. We met up with them and found out that their bus WAS a half hour behind, plus they were dropped off way further away than we were: we paid a 7 euro fare, and they paid a 12 euro fare.
We then loitered in that cafe until about 9am, then we decided to move on. It was about 50 degrees outside and drizzling! Of course, the weather said itºd be above seventy the whole time on our trip, so we were wearing our warmest clothes, which consisted of jeans, short sleeves and a hoodie.
I needed to find my hostel and we knew it was nearby so I used my friendsº hostelºs internet service and they donºt have flash, so google maps was basically useless. I had to use HTML mode which showed the map at about the size of half a playing card.
We knew it was somewhere northwest, and decided to get in that direction by walking along the river. We stumbled upon a street market with about a bajillion people selling stuff. I ended up getting a gift here for Eric.
We finally found my hostel, dropped off my stuff, then ate food next door. Alex and Mary Kate were feeling ultra queasy and throwing up every once in a while due to either the sleeping pills, the Burger King, or a combo of both.
We then went to this church that has a museum and catacombs which was cool. After we went to a place for lunch. We wandered some more until it was time for us all to check in and we parted ways to go to our hostels.
By this time it was about 2.45 pm. The ongoing joke was that we never wanted to look at a watch because time was passing so SLOWLY. We were already in the city for about 10 hours, for Godºs sakes!
We met up again at 8pm, where I found out that the other group took a solid 4 and a half hour nap while I had meanwhile just been hanging out at my hostel.
We went to an internet place to buy tickets to the Alhambra in Granada (um, episode 3 from star wars was filmed there...it also looks like Aladdinºs palace!). We wandered some more, ate at a restaurant along the river, then went home at 10.45 to just sleep.
So let me give you a run through of how much sleep I´ve gotten. Wednesday night i got 7 hours or so. No biggie. then Thurs night, b-c i was packing and then had to wake up early for the teaching thing, i went to bed around 3...and woke up at 6.20. so thatºs about 3 hours.
Then, on the bus i got 1 hour increments of sleep, and only about 5 of them, none of which were quality. Finally I got about 9 hours of sleep Friday night.
Toki Alai
Donºt to mind the odd characters...I am having issues with this portuguese keyboard....so bear with me.
also, SS is code for San Sebastian from now on.
So for a volunteer project for USAC, I went with three other students, Michelle, Diamond and Jason to a high school in SS´s neighboring Irun, where we taught English. It was fun to prepare a lesson on literally whatever we wanted. We were split into twos to do the teaching, and I was paired with Jason. We decided to teach a class about music, in English.
This was all planned for Friday morning (since i donºt have class on fridays). Jason was upset because the previous week when he did this activity, the other three usac students were 45 minutes late to meet him at the SS train station and they were therefore 15 or 20 minutes late to the teaching thing, which was just embarrassing. To fix this, he wanted to meet up at the SS station at 6.45am to get on the 7 or 7.15 train, which takes about 30 mins, then take a taxi to the school, as planned, since the taxi takes about 10 mins. That way weºd have plenty of time to settle in and get organized, as well as have a cushion in case there were issues.
Well, i wake up at 6.20 and eat and such and strap on my rollerblades to go to the station. I get there at about 6.50 and only diamond is there...michelle is 4 mins away via bus, and jason is supposedly going to be there 15 minutes from then.
When we all arrived, we hopped on the train and went to irun. Mind you, it is pitch black this early in the morning. We got to Irun just as cafes were opening and grabbed a croissant as we walked in a general direction where we thouht the taxi stand was located. We wandered until we found one, then of course there werenºt taxis there. We called the number on the sign, then waited, then some man was like ´need a taxi, come this way!´´ then we walked a block or two then saw our taxi pass us so we ran back to catch up with it. We hopped in and got to the school just in time.
We then split up and were led to the classrooms. The first class was pretty rowdy, but once they settled in, we began.
We began with an activity where Jason and I write 4 items about us on the board, then the class has to ask questions about them to figure out what they were.
For example, I wrote: Eric, August, Kate Nash, and Anna Levon.
The class then would ask ´´ís anna levon the name of your mother´´ or ´´ís kate nash your best friend´´ until they got it right.
Then, they had homework before we arrived to come up with a list of questions to ask us. It was fun to answer them, and many were repetitive. Some questions included, ´´what do you think of basque food´´ or ´´how long are you in spain´´ and of course, being from the USA, ´´have you met any famous people?´´ of course, when I said i met John Goodman at the LAX airport, they had no idea who that was. Nor did they know Shia LeBouf until I was like, ´´hmm, Transformers?´´Then they all nodded in acknowlegement, then oohed and ahhed.
We then moved onto our activity. We first had them list as many typed of music they could think of, like Rock, pop, flamenco, reggae, rap, country, etc.
Then we had them think of specific artists. Then, they each had to come up with a sentence to describe the sound of one of the artists they listed. We gave them a bunch of examples on the worksheet, and by far my favorite was ´´I donºt like Pinkºs music because it sounds like crying babies!´´
Then, the best part was when we gave them a list of adjectives to describe music, then we played a few songs on Jasonºs iPod. Radiohead, for example, was not well recieved by the first class who thought it was loud, repetive and annoying. The second class, however, thought it was catchy and cool.
Then we moved on to the next class, where we did the same thing and got some different responses. We called on one kid who was shy and asked him a question (of course, in english) and he stared and was like ´´mmm...no entiendo.´´ The kids in the room laughed and were like ´´Heºs...how do you say...short?´´ Then Jason was like ´´óhh, you mean SLOW.´´ It was funny.
Then we had a 20 min break, as well as the students. We all met up again, with Michelle and Diamond and had some coffee. We then went to the last classroom where we were told the kids had a very low level of english and that some would have to be spoken to in Spanish. One girl stood out as seeming very knowledgable about English, outshining most of the students. I only stayed for a short period in this class because I had to leave early to catch my 12.40 train to Bilbao from SS.
I left and got in a taxi that the teacher called for me. She also handed me a gift as a thank you, which i wasnºt expecting. It included cookies, sausage, cheese, and 2 cans of paté. I took the cab and realized that i only had 8.50 euros left, and i knew the train costed 1.50. I took the taxi as far as about 6 euros got me, then hopped out. The driver insisted the station was a bit further but i avoided explaining the sitch and told him iºd be fine right there. I walked a few more blocks and got to the station at about 11.05. I got on the train, strapped on my rollerblades and went home, where I got my luggage and headed off to the SS bus station...
also, SS is code for San Sebastian from now on.
So for a volunteer project for USAC, I went with three other students, Michelle, Diamond and Jason to a high school in SS´s neighboring Irun, where we taught English. It was fun to prepare a lesson on literally whatever we wanted. We were split into twos to do the teaching, and I was paired with Jason. We decided to teach a class about music, in English.
This was all planned for Friday morning (since i donºt have class on fridays). Jason was upset because the previous week when he did this activity, the other three usac students were 45 minutes late to meet him at the SS train station and they were therefore 15 or 20 minutes late to the teaching thing, which was just embarrassing. To fix this, he wanted to meet up at the SS station at 6.45am to get on the 7 or 7.15 train, which takes about 30 mins, then take a taxi to the school, as planned, since the taxi takes about 10 mins. That way weºd have plenty of time to settle in and get organized, as well as have a cushion in case there were issues.
Well, i wake up at 6.20 and eat and such and strap on my rollerblades to go to the station. I get there at about 6.50 and only diamond is there...michelle is 4 mins away via bus, and jason is supposedly going to be there 15 minutes from then.
When we all arrived, we hopped on the train and went to irun. Mind you, it is pitch black this early in the morning. We got to Irun just as cafes were opening and grabbed a croissant as we walked in a general direction where we thouht the taxi stand was located. We wandered until we found one, then of course there werenºt taxis there. We called the number on the sign, then waited, then some man was like ´need a taxi, come this way!´´ then we walked a block or two then saw our taxi pass us so we ran back to catch up with it. We hopped in and got to the school just in time.
We then split up and were led to the classrooms. The first class was pretty rowdy, but once they settled in, we began.
We began with an activity where Jason and I write 4 items about us on the board, then the class has to ask questions about them to figure out what they were.
For example, I wrote: Eric, August, Kate Nash, and Anna Levon.
The class then would ask ´´ís anna levon the name of your mother´´ or ´´ís kate nash your best friend´´ until they got it right.
Then, they had homework before we arrived to come up with a list of questions to ask us. It was fun to answer them, and many were repetitive. Some questions included, ´´what do you think of basque food´´ or ´´how long are you in spain´´ and of course, being from the USA, ´´have you met any famous people?´´ of course, when I said i met John Goodman at the LAX airport, they had no idea who that was. Nor did they know Shia LeBouf until I was like, ´´hmm, Transformers?´´Then they all nodded in acknowlegement, then oohed and ahhed.
We then moved onto our activity. We first had them list as many typed of music they could think of, like Rock, pop, flamenco, reggae, rap, country, etc.
Then we had them think of specific artists. Then, they each had to come up with a sentence to describe the sound of one of the artists they listed. We gave them a bunch of examples on the worksheet, and by far my favorite was ´´I donºt like Pinkºs music because it sounds like crying babies!´´
Then, the best part was when we gave them a list of adjectives to describe music, then we played a few songs on Jasonºs iPod. Radiohead, for example, was not well recieved by the first class who thought it was loud, repetive and annoying. The second class, however, thought it was catchy and cool.
Then we moved on to the next class, where we did the same thing and got some different responses. We called on one kid who was shy and asked him a question (of course, in english) and he stared and was like ´´mmm...no entiendo.´´ The kids in the room laughed and were like ´´Heºs...how do you say...short?´´ Then Jason was like ´´óhh, you mean SLOW.´´ It was funny.
Then we had a 20 min break, as well as the students. We all met up again, with Michelle and Diamond and had some coffee. We then went to the last classroom where we were told the kids had a very low level of english and that some would have to be spoken to in Spanish. One girl stood out as seeming very knowledgable about English, outshining most of the students. I only stayed for a short period in this class because I had to leave early to catch my 12.40 train to Bilbao from SS.
I left and got in a taxi that the teacher called for me. She also handed me a gift as a thank you, which i wasnºt expecting. It included cookies, sausage, cheese, and 2 cans of paté. I took the cab and realized that i only had 8.50 euros left, and i knew the train costed 1.50. I took the taxi as far as about 6 euros got me, then hopped out. The driver insisted the station was a bit further but i avoided explaining the sitch and told him iºd be fine right there. I walked a few more blocks and got to the station at about 11.05. I got on the train, strapped on my rollerblades and went home, where I got my luggage and headed off to the SS bus station...
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Quick!
Tomorrow I am getting on a bus to Bilbao where I am getting on a bus to Portugal!
I am going with Cassi, Alex Ireland, Mary-Kate, Natalie and May to Porto, Lisboa and Lagos in Portugal, then Sevilla and Granada in southern Spain.
I have 2 weeks of spring break here, so I will be gone for basically the whole 17 days.
I will update you all on more details when I get back!
I am going with Cassi, Alex Ireland, Mary-Kate, Natalie and May to Porto, Lisboa and Lagos in Portugal, then Sevilla and Granada in southern Spain.
I have 2 weeks of spring break here, so I will be gone for basically the whole 17 days.
I will update you all on more details when I get back!
Tortilla de Patatas
Okay, so I will be honest and say that I am not putting full effort in this b/c it is 1:48 AM and I have to wake up early tomorrow. You'll have to deal.
Okay, so last week was my last cooking class. We had normal class on Tuesday, which is when the class normally is held, but then we met again Thursday to take our final.
First, we showed up and instead of meeting in the kitchen as usual, we met upstairs in the second dining room, where we were given the test. We previously received a copy of the test so we could study, but the copy we had received had way more questions on it than the actual test.
This fake test we got also had tons of errors. All of the questions were in Spanish, and one question asked something along the lines of "What ingredient is indispensable in ajorriero" or something like that. Ajorriero, or so I think it's called, is made with ajo, or garlic, as well as about 2 pounds of cod. There are other things too. The answer options were: garlic, cod, onions, and cream. Obviously, if something is made with 2 pounds of cod and that is the main part of the dish, other than the garlic of course, wouldn't you think that was also indispensable? Anywho, I asked Patricia before the test and she said that it was in fact an error, since obviously you couldn't make a dish without the garlic or the bacalao. She told me not to worry since it wasn't on the test, though.
We got the test. The question was the first question on this test.
I called over Patricia and told her, and she laughed and said I could put A and B since they were both technically right.
We finished the test fairly quickly. One kid in our class (Alec) didn't answer the entire back side of the exam and instead wrote: "Touching squid in the kitchen last week was MY 'A'"
They graded the tests and informed us that we the class was pass/fail and we had to get a 15/25 to pass. Two people failed. The aforementioned kid was one of them. As well as another girl. All of which was announced to the class. Then, the chef guy continued to read every single person's name and grade they got on the test. I got a 21, so of course I passed. I thought it was completely rude, though, that he read out loud everyone's grades. The girl who failed (Annette), for example, is only in Track 2 Spanish, which is like the equivalent of the Spanish level I had in high school about 5 years ago. Therefore, a class completely taught in Spanish about Basque culture would be quite hard for her to follow. Then telling the entire class she failed is just over the top. She didn't even understand him when he said she failed. Because it was in Spanish. But still, her face turned completely red when she found out and I felt angry for everyone that didn't want their grade announced, however good or bad it was.
Anyways, we moved on downstairs, where we had put our Tortillas de patatas. We had to do this in groups of three or so, where we got together and made tortilla de patatas, which is basically a type of egg omelet with potatoes. We had to just do it for a grade, and then, for fun, they had a competition to see whose was best. We were told ahead of time if we didn't follow the basic recipe (eggs, olive oil, onions, and potatoes) then we wouldn't qualify for the competition, but we'd still get a grade on it. The one I made with Cassi and Alex Ireland contained the traditional stuff as well as green peppers and chorizo. We made an extra one for ourselves to eat before class and it was DELICIOUS. So we got to taste everyone elses and some were good, some bad. One group, with a student (Alex Plotkin) who is ambitious to be a chef, put caviar and other stuff on top.
After we tasted those, we sat down for our formal dinner of some veggie stew, duck(?) and salad. In our end of the table, someone found the bladder of the duck on the platter and we all decided to be "daring" and each eat a chunk of it. It was dry and mushy.
We finished the dinner with some kind of flaming dessert that they finished off before us, where they lit some liquid on fire and poured it on top. It was very...foamy. There was fruit as well as some ice cream, but the ice cream was similar in color and texture to the foam, so it was hard to pick that out (b/c the flavor was of course different, the ice cream being WAY better). Ryan commented that the foam part was like jacuzzi foam. The flavor and texture was dead on, which was quite gross.
After coffee, our chef-teacher dude as well as another cook from the kitchen and some dude we'd never seen before came out in the dining room wearing some funny beret-like hats and gowns. They then called our names in threes and each gave us a certificate of accomplishment. Then they announced the winners of the tortilla competition. Apparently the rules of the "traditional" tortilla didn't apply since a lot of people changed the recipe to their liking. He announced third, which was Alex Plotkin's group, then second, then first. Cassi, Alex Ireland and I won first place! Cassi was so excited, you'd think she won $500. We went up and they gave us these blue aprons to wear and we posed for pictures. Then they told us it's traditional in something like this that the winners sing a Bertso, or a freestyle Basque poem. Of course we couldn't do that since we can't speak basque, nor freesyle poetry, so instead we sang the only song we knew in Basque, the Basque numbers song. The chef and them knew the lyrics too, since for them it's like some children's song like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." We sang, everyone sang along, they clapped, and we got to keep the aprons.
That's right, people, a BASQUE GASTRONOMIC SOCIETY said that our tortilla WAS THE BEST.
And if you wanted to know what song it was, I happened to make this great video for you to enjoy.
And here's the link to our Cooking class's photo album...where they have not yet posted pics of our "graduation," but still you can enjoy.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35262595@N02/sets/72157613605054986/
Okay, so last week was my last cooking class. We had normal class on Tuesday, which is when the class normally is held, but then we met again Thursday to take our final.
First, we showed up and instead of meeting in the kitchen as usual, we met upstairs in the second dining room, where we were given the test. We previously received a copy of the test so we could study, but the copy we had received had way more questions on it than the actual test.
This fake test we got also had tons of errors. All of the questions were in Spanish, and one question asked something along the lines of "What ingredient is indispensable in ajorriero" or something like that. Ajorriero, or so I think it's called, is made with ajo, or garlic, as well as about 2 pounds of cod. There are other things too. The answer options were: garlic, cod, onions, and cream. Obviously, if something is made with 2 pounds of cod and that is the main part of the dish, other than the garlic of course, wouldn't you think that was also indispensable? Anywho, I asked Patricia before the test and she said that it was in fact an error, since obviously you couldn't make a dish without the garlic or the bacalao. She told me not to worry since it wasn't on the test, though.
We got the test. The question was the first question on this test.
I called over Patricia and told her, and she laughed and said I could put A and B since they were both technically right.
We finished the test fairly quickly. One kid in our class (Alec) didn't answer the entire back side of the exam and instead wrote: "Touching squid in the kitchen last week was MY 'A'"
They graded the tests and informed us that we the class was pass/fail and we had to get a 15/25 to pass. Two people failed. The aforementioned kid was one of them. As well as another girl. All of which was announced to the class. Then, the chef guy continued to read every single person's name and grade they got on the test. I got a 21, so of course I passed. I thought it was completely rude, though, that he read out loud everyone's grades. The girl who failed (Annette), for example, is only in Track 2 Spanish, which is like the equivalent of the Spanish level I had in high school about 5 years ago. Therefore, a class completely taught in Spanish about Basque culture would be quite hard for her to follow. Then telling the entire class she failed is just over the top. She didn't even understand him when he said she failed. Because it was in Spanish. But still, her face turned completely red when she found out and I felt angry for everyone that didn't want their grade announced, however good or bad it was.
Anyways, we moved on downstairs, where we had put our Tortillas de patatas. We had to do this in groups of three or so, where we got together and made tortilla de patatas, which is basically a type of egg omelet with potatoes. We had to just do it for a grade, and then, for fun, they had a competition to see whose was best. We were told ahead of time if we didn't follow the basic recipe (eggs, olive oil, onions, and potatoes) then we wouldn't qualify for the competition, but we'd still get a grade on it. The one I made with Cassi and Alex Ireland contained the traditional stuff as well as green peppers and chorizo. We made an extra one for ourselves to eat before class and it was DELICIOUS. So we got to taste everyone elses and some were good, some bad. One group, with a student (Alex Plotkin) who is ambitious to be a chef, put caviar and other stuff on top.
After we tasted those, we sat down for our formal dinner of some veggie stew, duck(?) and salad. In our end of the table, someone found the bladder of the duck on the platter and we all decided to be "daring" and each eat a chunk of it. It was dry and mushy.
We finished the dinner with some kind of flaming dessert that they finished off before us, where they lit some liquid on fire and poured it on top. It was very...foamy. There was fruit as well as some ice cream, but the ice cream was similar in color and texture to the foam, so it was hard to pick that out (b/c the flavor was of course different, the ice cream being WAY better). Ryan commented that the foam part was like jacuzzi foam. The flavor and texture was dead on, which was quite gross.
After coffee, our chef-teacher dude as well as another cook from the kitchen and some dude we'd never seen before came out in the dining room wearing some funny beret-like hats and gowns. They then called our names in threes and each gave us a certificate of accomplishment. Then they announced the winners of the tortilla competition. Apparently the rules of the "traditional" tortilla didn't apply since a lot of people changed the recipe to their liking. He announced third, which was Alex Plotkin's group, then second, then first. Cassi, Alex Ireland and I won first place! Cassi was so excited, you'd think she won $500. We went up and they gave us these blue aprons to wear and we posed for pictures. Then they told us it's traditional in something like this that the winners sing a Bertso, or a freestyle Basque poem. Of course we couldn't do that since we can't speak basque, nor freesyle poetry, so instead we sang the only song we knew in Basque, the Basque numbers song. The chef and them knew the lyrics too, since for them it's like some children's song like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." We sang, everyone sang along, they clapped, and we got to keep the aprons.
That's right, people, a BASQUE GASTRONOMIC SOCIETY said that our tortilla WAS THE BEST.
And if you wanted to know what song it was, I happened to make this great video for you to enjoy.
And here's the link to our Cooking class's photo album...where they have not yet posted pics of our "graduation," but still you can enjoy.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35262595@N02/sets/72157613605054986/
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