Soon

So I'll leave for the Y in about two weeks. I'm really excited, I just hate waiting because there's nothing for me to do until I leave so I'm just sitting around. I actually, for a summer job thingy, was a "teacher guide" to some Chinese students. What a fiasco that was. When I first got into it I thought they were Japanese and figured they'd be around my age, or at least 16. Then I got the applications of the students....They were Chinese and 12 and 13. I only ended up finding about 5 homes and I had 11 students, so one house had three and all the others had 2 and I had to give up my bed so that two students could use my room. Well the students were nice enough, I guess, but I had to teach an English class and that didn't go so well. All the kids just pretty much figured they were here on vacation and didn't pay much attention and it was frustrating. Then, all the activities I took them on they didn't like and were always wanting to go back to their host home. Anyway, so now they're finally gone and I'm just waiting for school to come.

Time Flies

Well, it has been quite a while since I've written on here. I am back in the U.S., and have been for about a month now. The flight back was long, just like the flight there, and life just settled back to normal pretty much. I only had two classes at school, Seminary and Ap Spanish, and now that I've taken the Spanish test I don't go to that anymore. So I have one class at school. I got a job and don't have a job already. I was hired for a seasonal position at the Utah State Tax Commision just for data entry. It was probably the most boring job I've had, which says a lot becuse WaMu was pretty boring too, but at least I interacted with people there. At least at the Tax Commision you could listen to music, and I think that was the only thing that made me stay there for about a month. I just went to my last day of work today becuase the tax rush is over so all the seasonal employees are going, unless you want to work early hours. I guess I could work early hours, but I signed up with a temp agency and I kind of want to be open to whatever they give me. Seminary graduation is this Sunday and then graduation graduation is on May 30, which reminds me that I really do need to get announcements sent out. I have them ready to go pretty much, its just addressing them and getting them mailed. Mom somehow lost the photos we ordered from Jostens for me to put in the letters and to give out on yearbook day, so we had to print some off of the computer. I don't really care too much, it's just kind of annoying. Nothing really exciting has been happening, just life as normal. I'll try to get back to writing in here more normally and getting some home pictures up too. I love you all!!

Too Soon......

Well, here we are, in April already! I realized that this is my last weekend with the family, because next weekend I'm going to Bilbao to visit Monica, and the 18th I'm at home! Some time went slow, but mostly it has flown and I've become attached. I won't have a little brother I can bug and get away with it at home. As much as I miss home, it does get easier to stay away. Sure, there are pangs, but you develop other relationships too. Well, enough of that. Last weekend we went to the beach, a small town near Cadiz called Roche. There were the most beautiful beaches! We started out by just sticking in our feet, but ended up with wet legs, except Dani, who ended up just going swimming with his clothes on. I should have gone swimming that day, but I didn't. I got a couple other opportunities to go to the beach, but one day it rained, and the other, right after rain, the water would have been too cold. I stuck my feet in, but that's all. I stayed at the "country home" with my representative while the family stayed in a beachside hotel nearby. It was kind of nice because it was secluded, but it was certainly cold at night. I had two comforters and slept with socks and a jacket on. We stopped on the way there in Sevilla and on the way back in Córdoba and I have many pictures, but too many to put up and I haven't transferred them, so you may just have to wait until either I can get them up or until I get home. Tomorrow we don't have school and then it's a normal week until Friday when I leave pretty early on a 5 hour bus ride to Bilbao. I'll come back Sunday and then I'll have Monday here, and I don't know if its true, but because the flight home on the 18th is early people said that we spend a night in a hotel (all the exchange students that is) and then go home, and if that's the case I'll see the last of my family on the 17th. That sounds so horrible! We had a goodbye kind of dinner today with Teresa's brother's family and then watched a movie together. I realized that I really didn't have any pictures of the family so I took some today and have got to start snapping like mad! Also, when I come back that just means more responsibilities, I have to get on with life. I've got to go back to actual school for a little bit and find somewhere to work to save up money for college. Moving on is kind of depressing. Maybe just because I'm a worry wart about the future. It scares me. Well, not to end on a depressing note, the family has figured out that I'm not ticklish and Oscar decided that he'd try to find some but he hasn't tried very hard. I hope you're all well, and I'll see you soon enough. (I was about to write too soon, because I kind of want to stay longer, but then I realized that sounds like I don't want to see people, which isn't true. ) Anyway, cheerio!

NOS VAMOS A LA PLAYA

Well, I thought I'd just write a little update. Not much has happened lately, just life as usual. Last weekend, on a kind of last minute decision, we went to El Escorial, which, though I'd never heard of it, is actually quite famous, at least in Europe. It is pretty much THE renaissance work in Spain. Phillip II was a quiet king, devoted to the church, and decided to have this monastery/palace built for him. It was built by Herrera, the nickname of the spanish style of the era is Herriano, and when it was being built, the king sent for artists from around the world to come decorate it for him. I believe most of the frescoes and artwork was realized by Italian artists. When Phillip made the palace, he placed it so that his bedroom opened pretty much right into the cathedral, so that when he got old and couldn't get out of bed, he was able to hear the sermons through his door. Well, I took a few pictures, we were kind of in a hurry because we had some other things to do that day, which is too bad, but I'll get them up when I have time. I'm sure you can check it out online if you're really interested. Other than that school goes on as normal. Today was the last day before semana santa, their equivalent to spring break. Clara is leaving early tomorrow morning to fly with her "scout" group to France and the Alps, and on Saturday the rest of us are going down to Cadiz, which everyone says is beautiful and I'm sure it is. It is pretty much on the southern tip of Spain, near the Strait of Gibralter, I think, so the weather will be nice. I think at least three times a day for the past few Oscar has been saying the title of this entry, nos vamos a la playa, which means we're going to the beach. I don't think he's excited in the least to get away from his work for a while. Pretty much the whole world stops here for semana santa, at least everyone has it off work or school. I hope everything will go well, and if it doesn't, I can always read. I started one of the books mom sent me three days ago, Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, which is about 800 pages, and I'm about halfway through. I think I might have a serious problem. Just ask Lena. Well, until I get back, I don't know if I'll have time to tell you about my trip, so until then listen to conference this weekend. I'll be trying to get it in Cadiz, who knows what my family will say about it, but I think they'll understand seeing as this is quite a religious time for them as well. I don't know exactly when spring break is back at home, but I hope you all take this weekend to rest and spend some time with family. I love you all!

About two months

Isi and I
(sorry it's now rotated) "The Fallen Angel" aka Satan

One of the mosaics from the roman ruins we went to see.
Other tile patterning, all mosaic.
The one really standing part of the ruins, which was part of a basilica, which was used as a civil building for the romans.
Inside the Palacio Real of Madrid (royal palace).
My favorite fountain here, Neptune.

Well, I can't really say that I did much this weekend except get sick, and then try and get better. Yesterday was Dani's birthday, so we went out to eat for dinner, and I went to the grocery store nearby to buy him just some chocolates because I didn't know what else to get for him. Well, when I tried to pay all 9 dollars of it, in US dollars, my card wouldn't go through, so I asked them where an ATM was, and all they could tell me was go up....VERY helpful. Well I started looking around when dad calls me and tells me that WAMU called him about suspicious transactions on my card, even though I had already told them that I'd be in Spain for the next three months. So dad told them it was ok and I went back to the store to have them run my card again but the shift manager or whoever it was, was very insistent that they couldn't try it again. Well I asked again if they could be more specific as to where I might find an ATM and they were like, ask someone else. So I asked this guy outside the store and it turns out that it wasn't so close. Well it was my first time really out of bed since I was sick, so I was really tired, and hot, and blah, but I ended up getting Dani his chocolate. Thats the only story I have, but dad insists that I put up pictures so here are some. Or rather, they got put at the front when I uploaded them, so there they are!

Time passes...

Ok, so it's been a while since I've written something here. I guess that's just because there's been a lot going on lately. Well, Isabel has come and gone. She got here on Wednesday, the 21 I think, and that day I just kind of showed her how to get around, and took her to her first hostel, which, unfortunately, was on a kind of bad street in Madrid. The place was only ok, and everyone was glad when she went to her other hostel, which was more expensive, but thus much nicer and most importantly in a better neighborhood. So then, on Thursday we went to the Palacio Real, aka Royal Palace, and walked around inside, which was pretty awesome. I do have a lot of pictures, its just that since I'm using another computer that doesn't have a wireless card and only one USB port, it takes a lot more time to transfer and upload and all that. Well, tha palace is huge and we did a lot of walking, so our feet were tired. On friday, we decided to go to Toledo, which is a smaller Romanesque city about an hour outside of Madrid. We met at the bus station, and took a bus there, and then to whole rest of the day was walking. We thought our feet were tired the day before! Well, this city was ridiculously hard to navigate through because the streets had no pattern whatsoever. We got lost a couple of times, but evetually found our way around. Unfortunately, lots of the cities attractions were closed, like the castle and the house of the famous painter El Greco. We did spend about 2 hours or so inside the cathedral there admiring the general splendor. We also went to a monastery there, but we didn't get to see the beautiful façade because they were restoring it. Well, I'll just say that by the time we got back to the bus station to leave we were certainly ready to go and slept most of the way home. On Saturday we went to this old nunnery called Descalzos Reales, which means royal barefoot nuns. Well, we went on a tour of it, it was lovely, but the narration was in Spanish and I asked the guide if he could go and talk a little slower becuase I had to translate and he like went into some tizzy about how we had to go in complete silence and translating is absolutely forbidden. Well, when we were in the monastery everyone was talking anyway and I got to sneak the most important information to Isi. Then we spent the rest of the day at the Prado, which was awesome, but not necessatily the best idea when your feet are about to fall off from the past few days. It was awesome to be able to see in person some of the most famous works of art and things that I have studied here in my Art History class. So then came Sunday and we wne to the famous Rastro market, which is just like an open air flea market kind of a thing. Oscar told us to be careful with our purses so I was, but apparently I didn't keep enough watch over my pockets because my lovely telephone was stolen. That kind of ruined the day, which was sad because Isi had to go later that day. Well, we enjoyed our time together at home because I didn't really feel like walking around anymore. So I had to call vodafone, which is the carrier I have here, and cancel my card, and then go to a store and get a duplicate made. Right now I am using an old phone they had here, and old Nokia, those ones that everyone had a couple years ago. I'm fine with that, it works, and it has snake on it, which is a major plus :) but its definately not as nice as my razr. Well I'll just have to wait until I find a good deal on a phone to get one, seeing as I don't really have money right now.
After Isi left, I've been pretty much doing nothing, relaxing at home. I do get bored, so I decided to check out what classes the cultural center has. They have painting and ballroom dancing which I would like to do, but I just have to figure out if they cost anything and if I need supplies. Well, I don't have school for the next two days (exam time for the real school people) so I'll give them a call. I hope everything with you all in SLC is fine. I hear you've been having snow, which is a pity because the weather here for the past few days has just been gorgeous. Well, enjoy yourselves and life. Much love to everyone.

Anniversary

Well, here we are, one month in and none the worse. It has gone by rather fast looking back on it, though it didn't seem to at the time. Well, this weekend we didn't do too much, on Friday we went to their grandparent's other apartment to have dinner with them, which was pretty boring for me, but what can you do...and on Saturday we went to a little restaurant in the "mountains" that was pretty nice, and as I was eating my fish, I mused that it's a good things none of my other siblings are here because I don't think they would eat too much. At least once a week we have some fish dish. On Sunday, after church, of course, I went with my representative, thinking my family was coming with me, but I guess not, to her apartment for lunch. One thing about her is that she never stops talking. Now, this can be a good thing because then you don't have to say much in return, but it can also give you a headache from trying to pay attention to her. It was nice, overall, and I met another girl who took a trip to London for 3 weeks in the summer. We got back to the apartment at about 6 and by that time I was pretty much tired of listening, especially to Spanish, so I kind of hid in my room and then got in the shower. Tomorrow some members of my class and I are heading off to some old roman ruins, or ruins of some kind, that are being excavated not far from here. Not only is that interesting, but we don't have to go to school either! On Wednesday Isabel comes, and I cannot wait! Also on Wednesday I'm helping to teach an English class about Valentines day. I don't know why the teacher chose to ask for my help on this specific lesson, as if I am an aficionado, but I'll gladly give it. She is kind of stubborn in her way of thinking, and if I say something is written incorrectly she usually takes the excuse that British english and American english are different. Rather than fight with her about it, which I did once, to no avail, I just nod my head and smile, and on my paper write it correctly. I don't know what exactly I'm going to be doing with Isi, but anything with her will be great, and we can explore downtown together. I'll let you know how that goes.
The parents here read my blog...I was kind of nervous, not that I say anything bad, but, well, I don't know. They just laughed and said it was funny, and that someone wrote a comment that they were barbarians for not having cookies. They also said I was a very good writer and took great picutres, but I can't vouch for that. You'll have to decide for yourselves. That's about it for today. Nothing too exciting happens here, at least during the week, so I'll write again on the weekend. Much love!

Segovia

This is the retablo inside the Parral monastery
This is a picture of the Alcazar castle

The Aquaduct
The Cathedral
Me and my friend I met in the Alcazar castle
Vera Cruz church
Unfinished work on the front of the Parral monastery

So this weekend we ran off to Segovia, a beautiful little town about an hour out of Madrid. The first thing we saw when we got there, which is like the gateway to old Segovia, was the Roman Aquaduct. This aquaduct was built, and is still standing today, without any sort of binding agent such as cement. Isn´t that amazing! I thought it was. Then we walked on and eventually the cathedral came into the picture. I stopped to take a few pictures of the outside, but Dani was complaining like only a 12 year old boy can that he was hungry and grumping around so we tried to find somewhere to eat. After that we started out at the Alcazar, which is an old castle that was used when Isabella was the queen, and some time before her. It was awesome just to see all the beautiful craftwork, things that you never see today, nonetheless in Utah, or even the United States. After touring the main part of the castle we decided to climb up to the tower. Bad idea! Oscar counted and it was 152 steps or something like that up to the top, and they weren´t even normal steps, they were like two steps in one. By the time I reached the top, I was out of breath and sore, and it smelled like cow pucky, but the view was beautiful and only obscured by a mob of asians trying to take a picture with 30 cameras. Luckily we decided to leave before they tried to make their way down becuase the staircase is quite small. Then we went to the cathedral, which I can only tell you was marvelous because they didn´t let us take pictures inside. There are around 30 apses, each with their own gold plated retablo(thats in Spanish and I´m too lazy to look it up, but its like a wall that is decorated and carved) and other interesting artifacts. I probably could have spent a long time there if it hadn´t been so cold, having only a few windows and being completely made of stone. Then we headed of to a church called Vera Cruz, or True Cross, because years ago it recieved what was believed to be a part of the cross, and the name stuck. This church was built by the knights templar....interesting, and has twelve sides. The structure is meant to copy that of the jerusalem temple I believe, but it is mostly like one church inside of the other. When you go inside there is a corridor al the way around and then in the middle there is a two level smaller structure. It was really interesting, and I kind of felt like I should be in a Dan Brown novel or something and be trying to find an old treasure there, but I don´t think there is one...too bad. Then we went to an old monastery called Parral, which was beautiful. We had an old munk with horrible teeth show us around, but I didn´t really pay attention to what he was saying most of the time because I couldn´t understand too well and I wanted to take pictures because we could in here. What a beautiful old building! I guess it wasn´t ever really finished, at least the church part, as you can see by the front, because at a point in time the monarchy felt the church was a threat and closed down all monasteries and such, so that it was abandoned for 90 years. The monk said that when he got there it was almost falling apart and they had to de a whole bunch of cleanup and repairs. That was pretty much it. I have a lot of pictures, but I´m only going to include a few here now. Lots of them aren´t very good because of the lack of lighting in the old places, I´m guessing to help preserve artifacts and such. Well, I hope you enjoy them, and you can also find information about them online if you look up Segovia I´m sure. Love you all!

Culinary Delights

I have come to feel that my purpose here is not so much of the learning kind as of the teaching kind. Disclaimer:If you are faint of stomach or just in general, you may stop reading here. Viewer discretion is advised. I have lately learned that, not only has this family not had pancakes, but Teresa, let alone the others, who is around moms age, has NEVER MADE COOKIES!!!!! I don´t know what evil spirit has been residing in this apartment before I came, but it was soon banished with a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Although they were not, to my cuilinaily experienced cookie tasting abilities, very good, the family enjoyed them with the saying Muy Rico! being heard all around. I will try again next week because Dani has a kind of fundraiser bake sale thing, and we´ll see if they don´t turn out a little better than the last ones. I also have a commitment to make pancakes and banana bread.
Other than that, life has been normal here. This week I struck out on my own for the first time. I took the metro, through three lines, to find the temple, and upon doing so inquired as to when might be the best time to come for baptizms. I was shocked to learn that they only have one planned session a week! I was thinking like one a day, but, well, I guess there aren´t as many active youth as I thought. I was going to go see another building, but by the time I got off at the stop it was alreay getting dark, and I didn´t want to go wandering off in unknown territory by myself at night. So I got back on the metro. At one stop two performers came on and sang to us. It was quite entertaining and made me laugh. When I got on the line to come home, a strange black man kept staring at me the whole time. We ended up getting off at the same time and he came over to try to talk to me, but I had my headphones in and just pretended that I couldn´t hear him and kept walking. I´ll have to keep my player nearby for future uses. Today, I believe, we are going to a region called Segovia, which I hear is very beautiful. It has an old Roman aquaduct and old buildings as well as ruins of a castle I believe. I have been reading a lot lately, though that is hardly something new, to pass the time and have found it quite enjoyable, except for the fact that it is in English, and invariably if someone tries to talk to me while I´m reading I end up replying in English. Everyone at school tells me I should be reading in Spanish. I guess I might, but I don´t like to be reading more than one book at the same time, so we´ll have to wait until tomorrow to start another. wink wink Lena. Well I hope I find you all well, and thank for the comments, keep them coming. It gives me something to look forward to when I get home form school. Much love to all friends and family reading from home!

Excitement!!

I have reached the apex of my life, and can now only regress. The other day, I actually finished ye olde rubik´s cube, after three days of trying and looking up hints. I have included the following picture, just for proof.

And no, I didn´t just do these three sides and turn them to the camera. Other than that, life here in Spain goes on as normal. This weekend, we didn´t really do much. We went to see a movie Saturday night, which was kind of wierd. I understood almost everything, but mostly because it was accompanied my a picture. One thing that irks me is that the movies are dubbed in Spanish, so their mouths don´t match the words. I don´t know why, but when the sound doesn´t match what I see it is very irritating. On Sunday, after church, we went to Oscar´s parents house in a little town outside of Toledo, about a half hour from here. They were very nice and we played mus, pronounced moose, a popular card game with grandpa. Today, it was back to the old daily grind. Today was very boring because I have Art History twice and the teacher was sick, as well as Philosophy, in which I went to the English class for a second time because I don´t go. Speaking of English, I have been correcting a few of the essays, more like short answers, that the students turn in. They are overall, pretty good, but sometimes you get some good things. One that particularly tickled my funny bone was at the end of the persons paper, wanting to say to sum up, wrote to shump up. I was laughing about that one for a while. Writing it makes me giggle. She asked me what shump meant, becuase I was laughing really hard, and I told her nothing. I think she thought it was the wrong context or something like that. I hope soon to start my adventures after school. Today I got a map of the merto lines with prominent architecture you might find at each stop. There are other things I want to see, but we can start with that, and then you can see some of the splendor here.

I think my family here might think I´m aneorexic or something because they are always saying that I don´t eat enough. I eat what I normally do in the US. I just don´t like the idea of eating at 10 or 11, becuase I just go to bed after that, and when you don´t use the food you just ate, you ladies know where it goes. The toilet! Just kidding. I told Teresa that, but she didn´t really say anything, so I don´t know what she thinks. She pretty much makes me drink milk every morning, though I heap on the chocolate milk mix. I think that´s all I have to say for now.

Aside: Lena! If you are reading this, as I believe you will be, check your email. I sent you an email but it´s been a while and you haven´t written back. I´d like to hear from you, you bumoli! I miss you!

Yes, I did finally get a picture up of my family. From left to right it´s Oscar, Teresa, Clara, and Dani(el). Aren´t they just cute? Well everything is going pretty well here. We haven´t had school for the past couple days so that was nice, but then I had to walk to school by myself today. It was ok, just a little scary being out in a city not really knowing exactly where I am. So this weekend was pretty good. On Saturday I went with Clara to her friends house, Violeta, in Somos Aguas, aka we are waters, which is the "rich" part of town. Their apartment was more like a condo, but a really nice one with wood floor and luxurious furniture and painting, and all that jazz. They had a pool table, though I didn´t play any because I was too busy with this game called Singstar, which is like karaoke and DDR put together. You sing into a microphone and you are judged on pitch, length of notes, etc. It can´t tell if you´re really singing the words though.

I decided I love English. Dani, Rosmeri(the maid/nanny person) and I went to a park kind of place to play soccer and when I asked Dani what the word for to kick was, he told me tirar, which is the same verb for to throw, to pull, among other things. I can´t imagine not having a specific word for kick. If I told you I threw the ball, you would assume that I meant with my hand, not my foot. There are such intricacies and subtlties of words, and that´s what I love about it. I was correcting papers today that students turned in about what they think the future would be like. It was funny most of the time. Most people got tenses mixed up and they put a lot of thes in front of words like the life in the future. That reminds me of another thing Pluralizing nouns like life to lives as well as double consonants as in disappearing. In spanish you don´t really have double consonants, you only use one.

Well enough of that, you are probably bored already. My spanish teacher here told me that I don´t have to do what they are doing in class if I don´t want to, I can just write my opinions and impressions of Spain because she is " really interested in hearing them." Works for me. I just have to write some things like I write in here, but in Spanish and I´m home free!

I was talking with Oscat a little bit the other day and he said if I liked, we could make some plans for things for me to see after school. Well of course there are the museums, but there is also great architecture and many other things that I´m sure I would like to see. I also might take a week off and go to Bilbao to visit Monica, if things turn out right. Isabel said she´ll be here from the 21 to the 27, so I´m way excited for that. I haven´t seen my sister in 2 years, or at least one...Well, I think that´s pretty much all I have to say for today. I´ve been writing emails and thus have run out of things to say. I´ll try to get some more pictures and things up soon. Miss you and love you all!

School, I hate it

So I go to school here in España...I hate it, just like I hated school in Utah. At least here I have people to talk to. At west, I didn´t really have classes with people I knew. So, school...one thing I can definately say is that I´ve never seen more mullets in my life! I guess it´s an acceptable style here because there are at least 20 people who have a mullet in my class. There are also more attractive boys....with a school so small, you wouldn´t expect too many. At west, there aren´t as many, and it´s quite the bigger school. The classes....they´re ok, I like art history and music history because, well, I like them. I also like geography just because it´s pretty easy. Their english class is kind of funny. The teacher pretty much wants me to be the teacher. She says things in Spanish and I say things in English. She asked me today if I would like to help teach the younger kids. I don´t mind especially because it probably means less homework for me because I would have to drop at least one of the classes I have now. I understand pretty much everything that the teachers say, unless I don´t know some words. My peers are a little bit harder to understand because they talk so fast, but they are really nice and repeat things for me if I didn´t understand the first time. Most of the people in my classes are really friendly and willing to help. I think they like me, but I don´t know if they´re really just interested in "the American girl". Either way, it´s nice for me....Tomorrow I think there is a party at a classmates house that´s not really FOR me, but Clara and I are going so that I can meet people and get to know people better. Dani, my brother, also wants to go on a bike ride this weekend. I don´t really know. I kind of want to go shopping this weekend because there are still the winter sales so everything will be at least a little cheaper. Their big store here is calls La Corte Inglés, like english court, I don´t know why. It gets a little better every day, though in classes during the morning I have a hard time keeping my eyes open unless I am writing or doing something other than just listening. People probably think that I don´t sleep at night or something. I want to put up a picture of the family, but during the week we´re hardly all here together, the parents don´t usually get home until about 8 or 9, sometimes later. Then we eat and go to bed pretty much. I´ll try to get one this weekend, as well as some of the apartment and whatever else I did. I hope you all are having fun, or at least are well. Love you all!

The first day!

Well, where do I start? I woke up and kind of laid in bed a little because I was just getting used to being somewhere else when I wake up. Then was breakfast. I had an apple while Clara made some fresh orange juice, and boy was it fresh, she didn´t add any sugar or anything so it was pretty sour. I also tried some milk......interesting. There are two kinds of milk they have. One kind of like skim, and another they call ´fat milk´ which I figure is kind of like whole milk. Well I REALLY don´t like skim milk at home, so I decided to have some of the other kind. It was pretty much cream it was so thick, and it didn´t taste ANYTHING like milk. It was pretty disgusting, but I don´t have to drink it. Then, Teresa, the mom, and I went to a farmers market and bought some fruit and then looked around because there were a lot of clothes booths and other things. They have this market every saturday morning so I was just looking but I saw a few things that I liked, so maybe I´ll buy them later. Then we came back and I was just doing nothing for a while and then my bags came. I think I probably brought way too many clothes, but well, I can´t do anything about that now. We started going through the Salt Lake City book I brought with my trying to explain things in my broken Spanish, I´m surprised they even understood what I was trying to say, but they´re very kind about trying to understand me. Then they took me out to see the city. I haven´t really been in other big cities, so I can´t really compare it to an American city, but I assume it´s like New York or Chicago. Most of the streets are just random, and even if I could I wouldn´t want to drive here because I would be very lost. I´m used to a good ol´ grid system. And the drivers are crazy. You can drive pretty much anywhere there isn´t a car and most of the time where there already is. Most people just nose their way in when they want to change lanes so you have to slam on the brakes a lot. There aren´t really many left hand turns, mostly you turn right and then there is a semicircle for you to stop in to go to the other street. Most of the people here, well all really, live in apartments, and below these apartments are stores. There are so many little stores that it would take forever to go to them all, but a lot of them are kind of dirty looking. In the actual city there are so many beautiful buildings. Every other street has a plaza and in the center, like downtonw, the plaza has a beautiful sculpted fountain. There is one of Neptune that I like a lot, but I wasn´t able to get a picture today. We drove around the city a lot and then we got out of the car and walked into this place called the plaza mayor, like the biggest plaza. There was this guy there who was playing what looked like a harpsichord like (wow I´m already loosing my grip on english) like those things you hit with mallets, you know what I mean. I took a video of it and I´ll try to put it up here. Well mostly we just walked around, but we did stop in a shop and had their version of hot chocolate, which really is melted chocolate. I didn´t really drink that much. We walked around more and then we left for the birthday dinner for Teresa´s mom. We ate at a Columbian restaurant and I got SO full.

This is a picture of the city from a satellite I assume.

This is km 0, like mile 0.

I didn´t flip this but this is the cupola, or dome, of the royal cathedral, which is right next to the palace. The architecture and ornamentation on this building is just beautiful.

This is one of the statues that they have in the plazas. This is Fillipe the Fourth I believe.

Well that´s all I have to say for today, plus I´m pretty tired seeing as it is 1:44 here. It´s funny because the digital clocks, when it´s 12:01 just say 0:01, it´s literally one......I love you all and thank you for your comments! Feel free to send me emails too, at kelcy.molyneux@gmail.com. Love you!