Finances.

Over the past month or so, I've heard people express curiosity about my financial costs. On the whole, I've been reluctant to talk about that because I'm not very organized when it comes to finances. Maybe that'll be more helpful though, at least for other unorganized people.

This is solely based on my perceptions and experiences. I'm pretty good at saving my money and making sure I don't spend too much, but I don't make budgets. Maybe I should. Perhaps when I actually have a real job and pay taxes and bills. Bleh. Don't want to think about that right now.

Anyway, to begin, my parents gave me 200 euros as a birthday present/aid to help get started here so I wouldn't have to worry about transferring money right when I got here. So that's what I started with, essentially. I was kind of shocked how fast that got spent. You see, in the efforts to pack light, I did not pack things like shampoo and the rest of the products I use for my hair, certain other toiletries, and just some things that I ended up needing when I got here. For instance, I did bring an umbrella, but with the amount that it rains here I decided to buy a pair of rain boots.

To pay my rent, my parents and I decided it would be best to open a Spanish bank account. I have a Spanish bank account right now with enough money to pay my rent as well as some extra spending money my parents were kind enough to give me. I try not to use that money for several reasons. 1) I don't want to spend too much that I can't pay my rent and 2) I'm saving that for trips when the weather is better. My plan for this is to see how much I have left and then I can do whatever I want later on. So many of the other exchange students have been going on trips every weekend and more, but I decided early on to save my money for later in the semester when the weather is better for travelling. I think I'll be glad of this later. Plus, I've already gone on a few awesome trips anyway! It's not like I'm lacking anything.

Furthermore, I don't have food costs and I don't have to pay for things like sheets, toilet paper, etc (I know some people who had to go buy those things). Because of this, I really don't spend that much money. Most of my money spent on a weekly basis goes to coffee and paying for the bus, when I decide to take it. Occasionally, I'll have to restock on toiletries, but overall I really don't spend much on a regular week.

Now, trips are a different story. I try to save as much as I can, when I can, so I can splurge on certain areas. I withdrew 200 euros for my Paris trip as spending/just in case money and only spent about 50. That doesn't include the hotel and plane and bus tickets, which was probably around 180 euros (I got some good deals!). My Portugal trip cost a lot more. I probably spent around 200 euros, including my hostel and part of my train ticket. I ordered my train tickets online, but while I was on the way home I paid 25 euros to upgrade my seat to a bed.

Why did my Portugal trip cost so much? Well I'll go into more detail when I finish my blog post about the trip, but I'll touch on it now. Basically, I blame the professors' and their expensive tastes. I'm kidding, of course (sort of), but we definitely did a lot of things I wouldn't have normally done if I had been planning the trip. We went to several museums, which we had to pay for on Saturday, and then we went to this really pricey dinner Saturday night. It was a dinner with Fado music as entertainment, a Fado dinner if you will. Fado is a type of music typical to the Portuguese and it's characterized by "coming from the soul." A lot of the songs are sad, but others are more upbeat. It just depends. The food was really good and the music was excellent, but it cost 60 euros! I was told it would cost 49, but it ended up costing 60 because they didn't know that 49 didn't include the drinks. These costs were included in the price that the other students who went on the trip had already paid, so they didn't really realize how much it was. Ah well, it was a great cultural experience. As my mom told me, the money I saved by going to a hostel was able to be used for the dinner.

If you're going abroad or are abroad, here are a couple tips that I've learned in regards to money saving.

• Getting a library card. I'm am avid reader and movie watcher. I go into bookstores all the time and see books that I want to attempt to read in Spanish. Same for movies. Instead of buying them, I got a library card. I rent at least one movie to watch per week in Spanish and have one or two books every month. Granted, I don't always read said books because I also have a Kindle and read books on that.
• Trips. Pick and choose. I get bombarded every week with trip opportunities. I want to go on all of them, but then I have to remind myself it is just not feasible. Pick the ones that really excite you and spend the other weekends experiencing where you're living. If you're going on trips everywhere every weekend, you haven't gotten to know you're host city, which is a shame. 
• Transportation. In Pamplona, you save money for riding the bus if you get a bus card. I think it was free, if not, it was really cheap. Normally it costs something like 1.35 euros to ride the bus, but if you have a card it's only 65 cents. You recharge you're card at certain shops whenever you're running low. It's really easy and saves a ton of money. So wherever you are, figure out what's the best way to save money. Sometimes it's a metro card instead of a bus card. 
• Texting/Phones. I happened upon an after Christmas sale for my phone, which was incredibly lucky. I managed to get a basic flip phone for 9 euros including a 5 euro time card. Now, the phones here are normally pre-pay phones so each text message costs money. I brought my iPhone from the states with me and I use it for iMessaging and the apps. A lot of people use an app called "WhatsApp" which is a free texting app. I bought it ($1.99) and put my Spanish number on the app. People with "WhatsApp" can text me and I don't have to pay the texting rate.  Very handy. 
• Food. Even though I don't have to buy food, I've picked up from the other students that you ought to limit how much you eat out. We have a delicious cafeteria at the University and it's so easy to eat there every day. However, it all really adds up, so it's a good idea to eat most meals at home and eat out every once and a while. This is true for back home too, of course, but I think the temptation to eat out more is higher in a foreign country. 

Well, that's all I have for now. Again, feel free to leave comments, including any questions you might have!

"Top secret wifi"

Getting wifi here when traveling is such a struggle. You'd think a train station would have public wifi. Nope! You have to pay and make an account. I don't want that hassle.

I'm currently in route to Lisbon to meet up with a spring break trip my college is taking. I took a bus to San Sebastián and from there I'm a night train to Lisbon. My friend Mary Catherine is going on this trip and she's been my contact person for meeting up with them.

Therefore, when I was in San Sebastián waiting for my train to Lisbon, I found a café nearby and asked the bartender for the code. At first when I asked, he said they didn't have it. When I asked him if he knew where I could find somewhere with wifi, he turned around and started writing something. I thought it was directions; however, it ended up being the code. He gave it to me and said "top secret." So I ordered a coffee and was able to use the wifi to check in and make sure Mary Catherine hadn't sent me anything. So much work!

This trip has been very last minute. I saw a Facebook status that Mary Catherine posted about being excited to go to Portugal. I messaged her and asked her to send me an itinerary of the trip. This was Wednesday. On Thursday (yesterday) I found really cheap train tickets from San Sebastián to Lisbon and it all fell into place after that. I can't stay in the hotel with them, so I'm getting a hostel for one night--which I'm excited and apprehensive about because I've never done one before. The other two nights, I'm sleeping on the train.

So far, the trip has gone by very smoothly. I was afraid there would be a ton of problems, because I didn't plan my trip until yesterday. But so far so good! I'm very excited about it.

Also on Wednesday, I went to this Q&A session about the Pope. I learned more about the Catholic tradition that I didn't really know, such as about the Conclave of cardinals, how the bishops work, and that the Pope is also the Bishop of Rome.

I also heard a new argument about why women can't be priests. It has to do with the idea that priests are the physical representations of Jesus and for whatever reason, Jesus was a man. The priest who said this said that maybe if Jesus was a woman that the priests would be women. I hadn't thought about it that way before. I can't say that I necessarily agree, but I understand now.

Well, this is a hurriedly written blog update for you until I write about Lisbon! I've got a train to catch.

#buildabarricade

I have just gotten back from my much-anticipated trip to Paris! This is post going to be really long. Sorry. You asked for it!

Okay, to begin, I left Pamplona at the crack of dawn on Friday. I had bought the earliest bus ticket to Bilbao so I could spend the morning looking around. I bought the tickets before I knew that I was going the weekend before. However, I was planning on going to the Basque Museum to learn about the Basque people a little more since I didn't do that the last night. Sadly, this did not work out. Carmen told me that I should go straight to the Bilbao airport because of Iberia's strikes. Now, my flight was with Air France, but she had heard that people had to change their flights to other airlines so she told me to go ahead and check-in to ensure my seat. This precaution was actually unnecessary because I actually had checked in the day before.

You see, I had told Air France to e-mail me my boarding pass to my phone. It's a new way of boarding the planes. The airline sends you a QR code to your phone and then they scan it at security and when you're about to board. Therefore, I was completely checked in the night before my flight. Crazy, huh? The problem with this was that I couldn't do anything to change my flight. Since I got to the airport so early, I asked if I could have an earlier flight. They couldn't change my ticket because I was already checked in, which is the downside to the QR pass. It was really cool though, to just have them scan my phone screen. It's easier to keep track of a phone than a phone and the boarding passes.

Anyway, I got to the airport about 10:00am and my flight didn't leave until 3:20pm. I had tried to switch to one for 1:00pm, but as I said, I couldn't. So I went over to a cafe and tried to get onto the Wi-Fi; however, it wouldn't let me. I wasn't special enough. The Wi-Fi was only for elite business people or people who worked there. The airports in Europe are very weird about Wi-Fi, in my opinion. Even the Paris airport Charles du Gaule (CDH), only let you have 15 minutes of free Wi-Fi and then you have to pay. One thing I really miss about America is the availability of free Wi-Fi. Good thing I brought my Kindle and had had the forethought of adding books on it. I had started to read The Perks of Being a Wallflower on the bus ride over and ended up finishing it 10 minutes before my flight left. I read an entire book in one morning. It's crazy the things you can accomplish when you don't have Internet.

After I arrived in Paris, I used my 15 minutes of free Wi-Fi to check in and tell my mom that I arrive safely and whatnot. Then, I took out an e-mail that I printed the day before with instructions Tyler that had sent me for navigating the metro. Her instructions were great and I figured out how to get to the hotel with relative ease. I would be lying if it were seamless, but I didn't get on the wrong train or anything--I just had to stop and read the maps in the station a lot.

When I arrived to my final stop, I got off the train and was really confused. Tyler had figured out a route for me using Google Maps, but the actual metro stop was on a different road than it appeared on the map. I was really confused and wanted to ask someone for help, but I can't speak French. I also had the wrong idea of where Montmartre (which is where we stayed) is in Paris so when I looked at the map I couldn't find where I was. I ended up going back in the metro station and found a blown up map and found my way to the correct road pretty easily. I was settled in the hotel around 8:30 or so. Tyler wasn't supposed to arrive until 11:00 so I had around 3 hours to kill.

I wasn't sure what to do, so I ended up walking around the neighborhood for a little. I went to the supermarket and bought some fruit to eat throughout the weekend. I tried to order coffee in French and that didn't really work. At CDG, I copied some French travel phrases and tried to use those. I couldn't figure out how to pronounce certain things. Luckily, most people who work at stores and restaurants know the English necessary to do business.

I felt weird walking around at night because I wasn't really trying to get anywhere so I just pretended like I knew where I was going. I ended up going back to the hotel for a while and watched some French TV. I watched this reality show where French celebrities compete in diving contests. It was really entertaining. I think if that show were to air in America it could be called, "Diving with the Stars."

I feel asleep and when I woke up it was 11:20, so I ran downstairs to see if Tyler was there. She wasn't, so I sat down in the lobby and waited. She came in about 5 minutes later very frazzled. She had been lost for an hour and a half with all of her luggage. Eventually, a French guy had helped her find the hotel. We got her stuff upstairs and caught up. We had a Sigma family Skype session with Sarah and then went to bed.

Side note: Tyler is my sorority big sister. We're in Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority. Tyler is also Sarah's big sister, which makes Sarah my "twin." Since Tyler and I were both together, we thought it would be a perfect time to Skype Sarah because it's so hard to coordinate all of our schedules.

We kind of had a bumpy morning. We tried to buy metro tickets, but the metro station we went to didn't sell tickets. We spent a while trying to figure out what to do. Eventually, Tyler asked an elderly couple if they knew where we could buy tickets and the woman gave us two temporary passes! It was so nice. We went to a market and shopped for a little bit. We then went back to the metro and bought day passes. After that, we tried to find a Starbucks, which are everywhere, and couldn't for a long time. When we did, the power was out. In the next one we went to, the power was also out. Some kind of weird grid thing, I guess. We gave up on that and tried to find a Turkish/doner kebab place, which are everywhere, and couldn't. We ended up eating at a really bad Chinese restaurant.

Luckily, things went uphill from there. We found an operational Starbucks! That cheered us up considerably. It was freezing cold outside and the Starbucks warmed us for a good while.

We also went to the Moulin Rouge. We took a couple pictures outside (Tyler has all of the pictures of the both of us as she had an actual camera and I used my phone) and checked out the area that the public can see. If you want to watch a cabaret at the Moulin Rouge, you have to pay about 150 euros, which neither of us had. Maybe when I win the lottery or write a best-seller.

Tyler had a guide book that outlined a walk through Montmartre. We started out in a cool looking cemetery. Apparently, the original cemetery had to be destroyed, so they took the graves and compiled them into this one part. It looked like a city of tombs to me. The only person in the cemetery that we had sort of heard of was the inventor of the saxophone. It was too cold to try and find it, but it was cool that Mr. Sax was there. I wish we had stumbled upon it.

After the cemetery, we continued along the walk. The next stop was Van Gogh's apartment. It wasn't as cool as it sounded, but nonetheless, it was really neat to be outside of his apartment. To clarify, all they had was a plaque saying that Van Gogh lived here. So it wasn't a huge tourist attraction or anything. We actually saw people coming in and out of it. I think it would be really cool to live in that building.

I also found the Vandoren office building! If you play a reed instrument or you have children who do, you know what I'm talking about. Vandoren is a popular type of reeds that the band directors always make you get. I thought it was cool to stumble upon the reed people.

It was obvious that there were some other people on the same tour as us because they kept stopping at the same places. It was kind of funny.

We walked through a garden dedicated to a WWII heroine which was cool. It also had this headless saint which was a little strange, but hey, it was cool.

We then went to Renoir's apartment. It was very non-descript and hard to find. The only reason we found it was because we found some American tourists with a Rick Steves' Paris guidebook and they told us where it was. The one Tyler had wasn't as clear, I guess. It was basically a regular wall. We decided to be creepy and we climbed on the half wall across from it to see over the big wall. It was a nice little garden area.

After that, we stopped at the Moulin de la Galette, where a famous painting by Renoir was done. It was precious. Apparently, there used to be 11 windmills and now there is only one.

We continued along the walk until we reached a touristy section. We had made it to the Sacre-Coeur cathedral. The view from the cathedral is the highest part of Paris and you can see the entire skyline. Unfortunately, it was extremely foggy and couldn't see a whole lot. Nonetheless, it was beautiful.

However, I'm getting ahead of myself. Before going to the cathedral, we looked around at the gift shops. There were all these "artists" doing caricatures around the streets. Tyler and I had a miscommunication about whether we actually wanted one. I thought it might be cool to have one together. Two people started doing one of each of us and I didn't know what to do. I think we both thought the other one wanted one done. Tyler was jabbering away in French with her guy, so I just let the other one draw me. He talked to me in Spanglish since I don't speak French and I told him that I speak Spanish. When he was done, it looked absolutely nothing like me. He then told me that they normally cost 50 euros but that he was knocking it down to 30 for me. I told him I didn't have that. Tyler came over and just told me to walk away and we both told him we don't have that. He kept going down until he got to five euros and I ended up giving him 3. I felt kind of bad, but I didn't want the caricature anyway and Tyler didn't pay any for hers. We ended up throwing them away because they looked nothing like us. My brother and I got really good caricatures in Paris when we visited several years ago, but these were just bad because they weren't us. It was like the artists made up people to draw.

I already told you about the view from the cathedral, so I'll jump to the inside. There was a person standing in the doorway telling everyone not to take pictures and to put their cameras away. Which I thought was kind of weird, but whatever. We walked through the cathedral. There was interesting signage on the symbols in the cathedral, which always interest me.

What really struck me as odd and bothered me, was that they sold souvenirs inside the cathedral. Notre-Dame did this as well. They both had gift shops and stands selling souvenirs INSIDE the cathedral! I thought that was crazy and half expected Jesus to show up and knock over some tables. Tyler and I talked about this, it's one thing to ask for donations but another to make a church into a business. Or at least take it out of the sanctuary. It just didn't feel right to have that going on inside a church. After all, that's the only time we see Jesus get mad in the Bible.

After the Sacre-Coeur, we hopped on a metro and headed over to the Concierge. This is a building that has been in France since the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of it (Tyler has them), but I can tell you that the gates in front of it reminded me of Buckingham Palace. The Concierge has been used for many things over time. It once was a castle for the kings and queens. During the French Revolution, it was used for keeping prisoners. Now it's museum.

The first part of the Concierge was an exhibit on the the changes in perception of castles over time. It was very interesting. The part about the middle ages referenced Arthurian legends a lot and featured a copy of a book about Gawain and a painting of a quest Lancelot went on. My inner Arthurian nerd geeked out.

Continuing on with the nerdiness, the last part of the exhibit was about how castles are viewed today. There were replicas of Disney castles and such. The coolest thing was this giant Lego Hogwarts. Tyler and I fangirlled over that thing for quite some time--all composure forgotten. The castle had such detail. It had scenes from all of the books. For the Harry Potter fans, it had Platform 9 3/4, the Chamber of Secrets complete with a basilisk, the Durmstrang ship, the great hall with students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, a Hungarian Horntail on the castle (which is a movie thing and not from the book, but still cool), dementors on the roof, Sirius escaping from Buckbeak, Dumbledore's office complete with a bed, McGonagall enchanting the statues in the castle, and the graveyard scene with a dead Cedric next to the Triwizard Cup. It was AWESOME.

Ahem. So after that, we moved on to the exhibit about the Concierge as a prison. We kind of rushed through it because it was about to close and Tyler really wanted to see Marie Antoinette's cell. She got to see it, but I glanced at it and thought it was a chapel and didn't go far back enough to see the reconstructed version--the people shooed us out before I could go over and see it. Ah well.

The Concierge is right by Notre Dame. We decided to grab some dinner before going to see that. We found a Doner Kebab place and ate some delicious kebabs. I had really missed doners from when we lived in Germany. After that, we picked up some pastries for the next day's breakfast and I got scrumptious Nutella and banana crepe.

On the way to Notre Dame, we stopped by Shakespeare and Co., which is a famous bookstore. We were so cold that we ended up going upstairs and reading children's stories for a while just to dethaw somewhat. We found some good ones! We found this one called Bilbo's Song or something like that about Bilbo Baggins. We also read a couple of tales from Tales of Beedle the Bard and Philip Pullman's retelling of Rumplestiltskin.

When we ventured over to the Notre Dame, we actually walked into a sort of dedication service. Apparently, they're getting some new bells for the tower and they had them all lined up in the aisle. So that was neat.

The weather kept getting colder and colder, but we wanted to stop by the Eifel Tower and get some pictures before we turned in for the night. So we hopped on the metro and hung out by the Eifel Tower as long as we could stand it. We even got to see it glitter (no sun needed), which it does every hour so we hit it at the right time.

It was absolutely freezing so we decided to head back and watch the new episode of Vampire Diaries (a show we both watch) and catch up back home, but the Wi-Fi was out. Maybe that was a blessing in disguise because we probably went to bed earlier than we would have otherwise.

We both had flights at 10:20, so we got up at 5:30am to head to the airport to make sure we had enough time and so Tyler checked in for her international flight early enough. We made it to the the airport about 7:30. I was getting stressed because I needed Wi-Fi to get my boarding pass and the airport's 15 min of free Wi-Fi wasn't working. Finally it worked and I felt much better. Of course, I could have talked to the air france people but then I wouldn't have had as much time to spend with Tyler.

Alas it was time to go, so we said good-bye. I flew back to Bilbao and took the bus to the old part of the city. I wanted to find the Basque Museum but by the time I got there it was one o'clock and the museum closed at two and I didn't know exactly where the museum was.

It was really nasty weather; cold, rainy, and foggy--perfect for dementors. So I decided I'd stop in on a mass. I found that I understood a lot more than I normally so. Either the priest was easier to understand or I'm understanding the way a mass works more/my Spanish is better. Then I wandered around looking for a decent and inexpensive place to buy pintxos (pinchos) but most places were closed. I went somewhere, but they weren't very good. But I was so hungry that it didn't really matter.

I ended up paying a couple euros to get an earlier bus back because I was exhausted, cold, and wet and had nothing to do since everything closes on Sundays. I happened upon a statue of John Adams before I left, which was neat. He apparently helped Biblao at one point in a matter of diplomacy.

For some reason, the bus I was on had Wi-Fi and the airports don't. That's how I got the blog post done so quickly--I outlined it on my phone while I was riding the bus. It's just a bit odd to me, I don't understand.

When I got home, Carmen greeted me warmly and had made me some hot chocolate served with bread to dip into it. I can't remember if I've written about hot chocolate in my blog, but hot chocolate here is different than in the U.S. In Spain, when you order hot chocolate you usually ask for "Cola-Cao" (Cola-Cow), which is hot milk served with a packet of mix that turns your milk into hot chocolate milk. I don't like it because I don't like chocolate milk. Then you have "chocolate caliente" which is made with a type of chocolate bar that you mix with hot milk to make this really rich and chocolately beverage. It's very delicious. Needless to say, I was touched and it definitely hit the spot because I was still freezing cold. Coming back home was the first time since Friday that I've actually been warm.

Well, that's my basically trip! If you're wondering about the name of the title, Tyler and I had a joke going on about building a barricade if something went wrong. We made a lot of Les Mis references at the end of the day.

I hope you enjoyed my novella of a blog post. If I haven't scared you off, tune in next time for...

Bilbo...Baggins?

As promised, here's an account of my trip to Bilbao.
I always thought that Bilbao kind of sounded like Bilbo, which then naturally made me think of Bilbo Baggins. As it turns out, Biblo is the Basque name for Bilbao. Bilbao is in the País Vasco, aka the Basque Country, which is actually a region in Spain. Navarra has a lot of Basque people, but Navarra is it's own region and not a part of the País Vasco. Anyway, I really wanted to find a T-shirt or something touristy that had something to do with Bilbo Baggins. Maybe that's too much of an English thing.

I went to Bilbao with some of the people I met on the San Sebastian trip. We took the 9 o'clock bus out of Pamplona and arrived in Bilbao around 11. We spent the rest of the day sightseeing and touring the Guggenheim Museum.




When we arrived in Bilbao, we were all pretty hungry, so the rest of my group bought breakfast and I got some to-go coffee and we found a park to picnic in.  To clarify, Carmen had made me two sandwiches and gave me an apple to take for the day. So I ate a sandwich and drank my coffee.  This definitely saved me some money on the trip.

 To get to the Guggenheim, we walked through the park after we ate and then along a river. There were several awesome saxophone playing street musicians. I love saxophones because my brother and some of friends play it. I also enjoy playing the saxophone when the clarinet is too quiet. I kind of wanted to take the person's soprano sax and play it myself, but of course that would have been rude.

You've probably heard of the Guggenheim Museum, even if you don't know exactly what it is. Before visiting the one in Bilbao, I knew that it was a famous art museum. Aside from that, I didn't really know anything else about it. Well, know I know that it is specifically a modern art museum. There are only a few in the world. We have one in New York city. The others are in Venice, Berlin, and Abu Dhabi.

We all split up in the museum and planned to meet back in an hour in a half. I had one of those audio tour things you hold up to your ear. I walked through the museum and if something looked interesting to me, I'd punch in the number and hear the explanation of the artwork. I must say, I don't really understand modern art. I feel like with most of that stuff, the artist just threw something together and came up with a philosophical reason behind it. I guess I just don't understand. Nonetheless, it was very interesting. The building in itself is art. I included pictures of it from all angles.

 After the Guggenheim, we walked down to the Casco Viejo of Bilbao (the old part of the city). It was very cool looking. We went to a bakery and got some sweets as a late afternoon snack. I got a stracciatella gelato and everybody else got pastries. I feel like I'll get plenty of pastries when I go to Paris this coming weekend and I was feeling the ice cream.

Apparently there's a medieval part, but we didn't go there. I'll probably go find that when I go this coming weekend. I do love medieval stuff.

Now that I've been to Bilbao, I know my way around a little, I have a map, and I kind of have an idea of what else I'd like to do. For instance, go to the medieval part and there's a Basque museum that sounds intriguing. Maybe some of the mysteriousness of the Basques will be cleared up for me.

 After touring the old part, we decided to slowly make our way back to the bus station. We stopped for drinks at a little pub and then went to a restaurant once we were close. All in all, it was a fun trip and I'm really glad I went! Thanks to Carmen, it was also very economical. Maybe next time I'll happen upon the barrio "Shire" and meet Mr. Baggins (barrios are like zones of the city).

This coming up week looks like it'll be pretty chill. Then I'm going to PARIS!!! I can't want to see my really good friend and sorority big sister, Tyler. We're going to have a blast.

Until next time!

Ash Wednesday, Valentine's Day, and a Protest

I'm doing another bus ride post. The blogger app has come quite in handy.

Let me pick up where I left off. On Wednesday, I went to an Ash Wednesday service. It was very good. It was interesting to see how similar it was to the ones back home. I noticed that this church said a version of "and also with you" in response to a variation of "God be with you," which made me excited because we always say that in the Presbyterian Church. We even did a passing of the peace! One difference I didn't expect was how they did the ashes. They made the cross on the top of my head, not my forehead. So that was different. All in all, however, it was very similar.

Thursday, of course, was Valentine's Day. It's only a big deal here for young lovers, so there really wasn't too much going during the day. My mom had sent me se Brave Valentine cards, so I brought them to class and shared them with my classmates, elementary school style. Everyone really liked them. I had to explain the concept to my teacher and some of my friends from other countries, but all in all they were a hit. I'm disappointed that they don't do post-Valentine candy sales. I really wanted to buy some. Oh well.

I had an extremely difficult grammar exam on Friday. The problem with my Spanish grammar is that I haven't learned new grammar since high school. Now I'm in a class where we're learning ALL the types of past tense (there are four), all the subjunctive tenses, the future tenses, and the conditional tenses along with what words you can use with certain expressions and trying to distinguish when to use the two different verbs for "to be." It hasn't been clicking for me until a few days ago when I realized the problem. Almost my entire class are not native English speakers. They're from all over the world. Therefore, the professor is teaching us Spanish grammar and explaining it I'm Spanish. My brain is just a little too set in English to learn grammar that way. So I went to learnspanish.com and taught myself the grammar, since they teach it for English people trying to learn Spanish. It magically made sense! So hopefully I did well on the exam.

The rest of Friday was pretty low key. I went on a long walk with Carmen and then relaxed for the rest of the evening. I got a notice for a package that my mom sent me and I tried to get it, but they told me I had to come back tomorrow to get it. The mail system is so strange. Why would they send you a package notification if they won't let you pick it up on the same day? Oh well. So I got it the next day.

Saturday, I went shopping with Carmen in the morning for a new bag. We didn't find one so I went out by myself after lunch. I went to a store that sold purses for 10€. I bought two and a wallet for 22€ in total. A bargain. Hopefully they hold up. Also, I bought ibuprofen (or ibuprofeno) for TWO EUROS!! It's a pack of 40 pills that are 600mg. So I bought a pack of prescription strength Advil for 2€. Crazy!

If you were wondering why I'd need ibuprofen, my bad hip has been acting up on me. I guess it's probably a combination of the uneven streets and the ice or something.

While I was downtown, I saw a protest going on. Spain has a really bad economy at the moment. A lot of protests happen, but this one was bigger. I'm including a couple pictures. They started in the city center, then moved to the giant traffic circle, blocking traffic and the buses. Lots of horns were honking. On the other hand, a lot random people started clapping. I watched it for a little while and then left because it was getting dark.

I am currently on my way to Bilbo, I mean Bilbao. It's a city to the east of Pamplona and has tons of cool stuff. There's a Guggenheim museum, which we might go to. If not, I'll go next weekend. I'm flying to Paris out of Bilbao, so I built some time into my trip to look around Bilbao. I'm glad my friends invited me to go this weekend because I'll be able to find my way around next weekend easier. I'm going to go ahead and figure out how to get to the airport and all that.

I will post soon about my day trip! I'll take some pictures as well.

Cultural Activities

Hello, readers!

If you'd like me to ever write about anything specific, let me know! If you see something I mention or was really vague about and want to know more, just leave a comment asking me to elaborate. Or if you just have a question about something and would like a blog post about it. Again, I love your feedback!

This weekend was, again, very relaxed. I'm getting to know Pamplona more and more. I can't believe I've been here over a month now! Crazy!!

On Friday, I went to a creative writing workshop, which was very cool. I took a class called Creative Writing Workshop last semester and found that a lot of things were very similar. This one was a bit more informal because it wasn't actually a class (as far as I could tell). I was actually under the impression that it was a session on creative writing and we would be doing writing exercises or hearing a lecture. In reality, it was actually more of the format of the class I took, where people submit stories and have them criticized by the rest of the group.

In this session, four people's stories were being reviewed. The person would go to the front, read their story, and then hear the feedback from the rest of the group. I could actually understand the feedback more often than I could understand the story. I think my favorite story was one about the French Revolution. 1) I could sort of understand it and 2) I just like the French Revolution as a theme.

On Saturday, Carmen and I went shopping to look for a new bag. I want kind of a bag that can carry a few books, but also serve as a purse when I don't want to carry all of that. So kind of like a messenger bag, but a little smaller. I've seen them everywhere except for in the stores. I didn't buy anything, but Carmen got a new purse and a new duvet cover for her bed. Ah well, maybe I'll be successful next time. Now I know where I can buy purses anyway.

I didn't really do very much on Sunday. Carmen and I went on a walk, but it started raining, so I mostly stayed inside and read. I needed to finish Robinson Crusoe for a book club meeting that was on Monday. While we were walking, however, we bumped into some friends of Carmen. It was a family with two young people around my age (I really couldn't tell how old they were). They kept trying to get their son to talk to me in English, but he turned really red and said he was too embarrassed because his English isn't that good. I told him that he didn't have to. It reminded me a lot of when I used to go to Mexican restaurants with my parents and they would always try to get me to talk in Spanish with them. I definitely would now, but then I thought I'd embarrass myself.

I actually tried to go see The Ugly Duckling (El patito feo), but I got completely lost. The website and pamphlet I had said that it would be in the science building. I checked the campus map and it said it was in one location. I wandered around for an hour trying to find the building to no success. I could just hear Master Yoda saying in my head, "Lost a building, have you?" I was exactly where the map said it should be and yet there was no building. I think it's part of another building, but everything was locked up tight. As it turns out, the play was in the Medicine building. They should have just said that. I would have known where it was if they had said something related to medicine. That's a completely different part of the campus. Ah, well. You live and learn.

Last night I got to go to my first book club meeting! It was very exciting to meet other Spanish students and listen to them discuss Robinson Crusoe. Although I didn't talk, I'm glad I read the book because I could follow their topics of discussion. It was also fascinating to hear them discuss an English book. They all read it in Spanish and so it was funny hearing some of the names translated. There's a character named "Friday" and they called him "Viernes." They didn't talk too much about the English perception of the Spaniards as much as I would have liked, but maybe that's because I was there. At some point in the future, I'll definitely participate in the discussion, but it was really loud in there and I don't like trying to talk loud in English, much less Spanish. They normally meet in a different pub, but we had to meet in a smaller one because we met on Monday. So in the future it shouldn't be as loud.

When Robinson Crusoe escapes his island, he travels through Pamplona, except he calls it Pampeluna. I thought I'd include the excerpt for your enjoyment:

When we came to Madrid, we, being all of us strangers to Spain, were willing to stay some time to see the court of Spain, and what was worth observing; but it being the latter part of the summer, we hastened away, and set out from Madrid about the middle of October; but when we came to the edge of Navarre, we were alarmed, at several towns on the way, with an account that so much snow was falling on the French side of the mountains, that several travellers were obliged to come back to Pampeluna, after having attempted at an extreme hazard to pass on.

When we came to Pampeluna itself, we found it so indeed; and to me, that had been always used to a hot climate, and to countries where I could scarce bear any clothes on, the cold was insufferable; nor, indeed, was it more painful than surprising to come but ten days before out of Old Castile, where the weather was not only warm but very hot, and immediately to feel a wind from the Pyrenean Mountains so very keen, so severely cold, as to be intolerable and to endanger benumbing and perishing of our fingers and toes.

Poor Friday was really frightened when he saw the mountains all covered with snow, and felt cold weather, which he had never seen or felt before in his life.   To mend the matter, when we came to Pampeluna it continued snowing with so much violence and so long, that the people said winter was come before its time; and the roads, which were difficult before, were now quite impassable; for, in a word, the snow lay in some places too thick for us to travel, and being not hard frozen, as is the case in the northern countries, there was no going without being in danger of being buried alive every step.   We stayed no less than twenty days at Pampeluna; when (seeing the winter coming on, and no likelihood of its being better, for it was the severest winter all over Europe that had been known in the memory of man) I proposed that we should go away to Fontarabia, and there take shipping for Bordeaux, which was a very little voyage.

It is extremely cold here, but at least it's not the coldest in the history of humans, eh?

Everyone was so nice! It's really hard to get to know Spanish people here, because they aren't as open (it's actually a stereotype for northern Spain), but once you do, they are great people and will do anything for you.

Today I'm going to a party for Fat Tuesday at a classmate's apartment and tomorrow Carmen is taking me to an Ash Wednesday service. It's going to be fun to see Lent because Catholicism is much more widely practiced. Protestants kind of do Lent as they feel like it, but all practicing Catholics observe Lent. In the Presbyterian church, we definitely do Ash Wednesday and enter a Lenten season. I'm excited to compare. That's my Christian Education major showing. Not going to lie, I try to change prayers I hear into inclusive language (challenge accepted).

Hopefully the weather will stabilize. It's been cold, pleasant, freezing, raining, snowing, rain-snowing, cloudy, and partially sunny just this week. As my mom reminds me, Europe is winter is a bit crazy, but then the springs are heavenly.

¡Saludos y hasta pronto!

Basque Basics

I can't say that I've learned all there is to know about the Basques, but after a month of being here I think I know enough to write a general blog post. 

The Basques are a group of people who have lived in this area of Europe for centuries and centuries. To make an analogy, the Celtic and Gaelic people are to the United Kingdom as the Basque people are to Northern Spain and Southern France. 

They still speak their language, Euskera, which is completely foreign to me and other Latin-influenced Europeans. It's very gutteral and the sentence structure is totally different. In a few entries previously, I said that I picked up the Euskera version of the Hunger Games. Looking at that version, the words are extremely long.

This is a paragraph from The Hunger Games summary in Euskera:
"'Kapitolio' aren aginpide tiranikoaren pean bizi dira herritarrak, miseriarik handienean eta norbere barrutitik irteteko askatasunik gabe. Pertsona bat baino ez da ausartuko arauak haustera eta bere familiarentzat zer jana ekartzera: Katniss da, hamasei urteko neska bat."

They have the root words and then add suffixes and prefixes to add different meanings. That's why words are so long.

When Spain started to form together as a nation, the Basque people were one of the last to be conquered. When they were, they were largely left alone to do their own thing. Even now, there is a "Basque Country" which consists of 7 provinces in Spain and France. Even though Navarra is not technically a part of the Basque Country (they want it to be), Euskera is everywhere. In the United States we often have Spanish or French in our stores and on our products. Here it's Euskera and maybe Catalan or Portugese. I can always pick out Castellano (Spanish), of course, but when distinguishing the other languages, Euskera uses a lot of z's and k's, which Latin based languages really don't. 

Speaking of Catalan, the province of Catalonia is actively seeking their independence from Spain. As you probably know, Europe originally consisted of hundreds of smaller kingdoms that eventually combined into the countries that are here today. Most are content, but the regions of Catalonia, Galacia, and Vasconia (Basque Country) all want their independence. Cataluña's independence movement currently has the most force. If Spain where to lose Cataluña, they would lose all the tourist revenue earned from Barcelona. 

The Basque independent movement used to have much more power; however, they have gone through a leadership change recently and have lost a lot of the force. The independent movement was mostly comprised of Eta, which is a Basque terrorist organization. It's actually quite like a mafia. 

Eta is the reason that the University of Navarra has such strict security. There have been several bombings here. There was one in the 80's and a couple several years ago. My professor who told us this doesn't think there is any current danger because of the leadership change, but that little tidbit is certainly not advertised on the prospective student leaflets.

I've yet to actually meet a Basque person. Well, I probably have, but I haven't met a solidly Basque person. Carmen's mother was Basque. One of my professors has a Basque last name. However, I haven't met someone who has spoken the language in front of me and who is really passionate about their heritage. I really want to meet one (or more!) before I leave. I think their history is extremely interesting and I'd love to know more about it. There's this shroud of mystery around them for me still. 

I'm sure my professors and other more knowledgable people who read my blog are cringing at all the historical mistakes I probably made. Sorry! This is just what I've come to understand over my month here. I hope that the majority of it was correct and you found this informative.