Growing Up and Pretending to be German

Hello again!

I have to admit I’ve been procrastinating writing this post because I thought I had nothing to write about, but have no fear I will talk your ear off for the next couple minutes!

After many weekends travelling, I decided to spend a quiet weekend here in Pamplona to rest and refresh before starting my second month of classes! I also decided it was time to grow up a bit, I have been pretty much living on pasta and sandwiches (with fruits and veggies too) since I’ve been here. I’ve eaten almost 2 full jars of Nutella. It’s been bad! And it’s not that I don’t like cooking, I just have been stumped with how to start (see Grocery Shopping), but I was feeling a little adventurous and a little homesick so I asked for the amazing recipe my parents use for Risotto. Mushrooms, cheese, vegetable broth, and rice, how could you go wrong?

Well the whole process took 2 hours of cooking and another hour of shopping  –  trying my best to find all of the ingredient Spanish, in the right amounts in metric units. The onion had me sobbing, and my pan was much too small but I ended up with 6 amazing servings of risotto. I read online that risotto freezes well so I left out the mushrooms and cheese on about 2/3s of it and stuck it in the freezer. I will let you know how that tastes when I get to it!

The next stage in my growing up involved not letting food go to waste. I bought a bag of apples last week, but if yall know me you know I can’t stand food with bad textures, apples included. These apples were mealy if I’ve ever had a mealy apple, but I had a whole bag! So naturally, I made applesauce! Apples, brown sugar, cinnamon, and apple juice (granted not very healthy, but incredibly delicious!) it was super easy and I ate it all over 2 days.

This may not seem like growing up to most of you, but for someone who had 4 foods in their fridge, this was a big step for me. This week I may have reverted to PB&J..maybe.

In addition to my cooking escapade, Saturday also involved going to the city center for San Fermin Txikito which is like a smaller version of the Running of the Bulls festival (minus the bulls). I went with Dylan and Amapola and we met up with some friends once we were there (and then lost them there were SO many people in the streets). Some drinks, dancing, a selfie with the moon, and Burger King later we sleepily made our way home.

Sunday brought a delicious and fun meal at my friend’s apartment to celebrate Oktoberfest! Since a good portion of our group are German or Austrian, they decided to do some Oktoberfest like activities while it was going on. There were German sausages, potato salad, pretzels, and some German beer! It was all delicious and fun and a perfect relaxing afternoon!

I will hopefully be posting in a couple days, but life is busy! Have a good and safe weekend everyone! As always, thank you for reading!

Love Always,

A

Parlez-vous Inglés?

Bonjour!

I tried to keep this short but it didn’t work, good luck!

First I must introduce my travel buddy for this weekend – This is the beautiful and amazing Rebecca.

We became friends our freshman year after I allegedly blew her off following my knowledge of us being born on the same day. Since then I’m not sure we’ve gone a day without talking. She is my rock and I love her to death. To celebrate our birthday this year we decided to take a trip to Paris as we wouldn’t be together on the actual day and we missed living together!

Thursday evening I left straight from Spanish class to go to the Pamplona airport. I thought I was cutting it close, only leaving myself 1.5 hours to get to the airport, checked in, and through security, but that wasn’t taking into account how tiny PNA is. We weren’t even allowed to go through security until 15 minutes before our flight took off because there is virtually no waiting area at the gate. We went through security and straight onto our plane. I then landed in Madrid and immediately boarded my flight to Paris! Once I finally found Rebecca in the airport, we got into a taxi to our hostel.

That first night we were both exhausted from travelling so we spent some time catching up and then went to bed! The next morning we had our included breakfast at the hostel (a baguette with butter and jelly, OJ, coffee, and a Madeline!).

We left with no plan, no sense of direction, and a map! We wanted to see the Louvre but did not want to try to figure out the Metro with our lack of French so we decided to walk. If it had not been for a nice American who heard us being lost on the middle of the road we may not have ever made it to the river, but eventually we got going in the right direction and had an incredible walk along the Seine.

Although our feet were aching by the end of the day I’m so glad we walked, we came across one of the love lock bridges, a cool boat tour that we ended up taking the next day, a lot of souvenir shops, and a few more attractions all just by chance! Eventually we made it to the Louvre and after spending 45 minutes in line we got inside. That place is huge!! I think we only did one complete floor, and although it was awesome, if you don’t know much about art it is a little less intriguing:) Nonetheless, it was certainly a fun thing for us to do, and a must see if you are in Paris!

Naturally we had to take a selfie with Mona

By this time we were tired and hungry so we wandered into a small cafe and got ourselves some delicious crepes! It’s much easier to be a vegetarian in Paris than Pamplona!! When we left the cafe it decided to start pouring so we needed to come up with an indoor activity for the afternoon. We had seen a brochure for a chocolate museum in our hostel and thought it would be a funny and unique thing to do. It also forced us to learn the Metro system! We got there and took the tour, learned a lot about chocolate, saw a demonstration, and then got to drink the best hot chocolate  we’ve ever had. It felt like a movie, we sat inside drinking our hot coco while it was cold and rainy outside:)

That evening we wanted to eat but the restaurant we picked was super backed up so we went to a pub near our hostel, got bar food and cocktails, and watched Rugby! We finished our perfect evening with a Nutella crepe off of a street vendor (they have crepe carts open really late at night how cool is that?!?!)!

Saturday we had a bit more of a plan, we wanted to take the tour boat (it’s hop on, hop off so you can stop at the sights you want to see) so we headed down to the river. Another long walk to the first stop but we bought our tickets and then got some souvenirs before going to look at Notre Dame (and almost getting pick-pocketed!) and then finally getting on the boat. We had stopped by the grocery store and picked up some supplies for a picnic once we got to the Eiffel Tower. The weather was a little cloudy but for the most part beautiful as we ate in front of the tower!

View from the boat. Notre Dame!

Picnic food and spot!

After we digested we bought our tickets and headed up! Quick Tip: if you are going to do the tower, and you are able, climb the stairs. The lines are shorter, its cheaper, and elevators are scary. It was about 700 stairs all the way to the second floor and then you have to take a lift to the very top. Once again, the views were incredible, it was so hard to sort through my pictures because they were all so beautiful but here are a few of my favorites!!

By the time we were heading down I’m not sure we have ever been more exhausted. We did a lot of walking for 2 days, so we were happy to sit on the boat for awhile. We put our names down at the restaurant from the night before and then relaxed for a bit until our (very European) dining time of 9:45. A delicious pizza, amazing salad, and a couple cocktails later, we were full and happy and ready for our dessert crepe and bed:)

I could have spent a week there and still felt like we missed things to see, but for 2 days I think we did pretty well! Also, I’m not sure my body could have handled any more days of bread and cheese being my only food groups! It was a perfect (though expensive) trip, and I feel so lucky to have been able to travel with such an amazing girl. We are already planning our next trip!

Until next time, all my love and thanks for sticking through this long one!

A

Mi Cumpleaños!

Hey Everyone!

Quick update before I leave for Paris later tonight!

First I need to thank everyone who took the time to wish me a Happy Birthday on Monday! I read every text and wall post, and I adored every Snapchat! It means the world to me to have so many incredible friends!

Second, even more so, I need to thank the 13 people who came out to celebrate with me Monday night. We represented 11 different countries, how cool is that?!?! It was probably the most calm 21st birthday an American has had, but I wouldn’t have changed a thing. We met in Old Town (a part of Pamplona) and wandered around to find a bar that was open and could handle all of us. Cati and Alex spent the morning making me cupcake/muffin things that were delicious –

(for the record I only ate 2, not the whole bowl!)

We laughed and talked and I was presented with a Frisbee (purple of course to match my hair) that they all had signed, and a bottle of wine (cause what 21 year old doesn’t get alcohol for their birthday?).

In just 3 weeks here I was lucky enough to make some of the best friends I have ever had, and I am so thankful for them every day.

Finally, I need to especially thank Cati for everything she did to make this day so special and for being by my side since day 1 (okay more like day 5 but close enough). It would have been so easy to become homesick and upset being so far away from home and school on my birthday, but Cati didn’t let that happen! I’ll make it up to you, promise!!

So with that, I’m headed off to Paris for the weekend! Can’t wait to tell you all about it!!

Love Always,

A

Desert, Dessert, and Wine! Oh My!

If you couldn’t guess by the title, I slept well last night no doubt about it! A perfect 3 day weekend comes to a close with another day spent in bed catching up with pictures, blogging, and maybe a little school work!

Friday – Bardenas Reales

Bardenas Reales is a desert (not dessert) about 80km away from Pamplona. Our ever motivated and amazing friend Cati decided Thursday that we should put our class-free Fridays to good use by going on a trip! Though it took us awhile to get there (Buy a bus pass, get lunch foods to bring, walk to bus stop, take bus to car rental place, rent a car, drive to desert, don’t get lost), we arrived in the park around noon. The funny part about driving to Bardenas Reales is that it is still in the mountains like the rest of our area, so until you are basically in the desert itself you cannot see it. Once you are inside it looks like it goes on forever, but until then it never seems like you will come to a desert among the greenery of the mountains.

Like every other place I have been to so far, the views were incredible. I took over 400 pictures but I’ve narrowed it down to less than 50!! Here are a few

(Dessert in the Desert)

We hiked a couple hills and had lunch on top of one. The weather was absolutely perfect, pretty warm but windy enough to keep us cool! The only thing to disrupt this perfectly peaceful place was the military base in the middle of the park that had jets constantly taking off over us. We saw tons of fighter jets circling through the air, large cargo planes flying pretty low, and even a flare go off! All things that would have been really cool if we weren’t trying to appreciate the nature around us 🙂

We made it home around 9 after returning our (white) rental car as dust free as possible. A much needed shower later and then a casual evening with some Spanish speaking friends was a lovely conclusion to the day. Even better, it was only Friday! We had 2 more days off from classes!!

Saturday – Olite

In the same direction as Bardenas Reales lies Olite. Olite is a tiny town less than 30km from us. The whole town basically consists of a 1600s palace, a winery, and less than 4,000 residents. Our bus started with a tour of the castle. While most of it has been remade (30 years of renovations!), it was awesome to experience how these Kings once lived (this area was once an independent monarchy). I felt like a little kid climbing up all of the towers and finding all of the hallways we could walk around. Big shocker here – the view was incredible. Even more shocking, I took a ton of pictures!

  

This egg shaped structure is like a refrigerator that was a deep well filled with snow to keep things cool during the time the royals actually lived in the castle.

After the castle we found a cute place for lunch. Ate another sandwich (Lettuce Tomato Mayo Hard Boiled Egg, apparently all that vegetarians can eat in this country!) with Alex who is my partner in vegetarian crime:) Then settled in a grassy area for a short siesta before heading off the the Winery.

Took some time during my Siesta to build a Cairn that the boys kept throwing rocks at!

We got a private tour of the Bodegas Marco Real. Getting to see the barrels and stainless steel buckets that the wine is aged in was absolutely riveting! This property had two wineries. One that made young wine and one that  made older reds. I loved to hear the process behind the wine, and getting to taste a couple afterwards wasn’t bad either 😉

The two wines we tasted and Jonathan and I learning how to properly smell before going into our tasting!

Two thoughts to leave you with –

• On the 14th anniversary of one of the greatest tragedies to befall our country I sat in Spain with 4 people from 4 different countries and discussed WWII where our families fought for opposing sides. Pretty amazing how far we have come and yet how much still could be done.
• Second and much lighter – My school arranged the trip to Olite, can you imagine a US school arranging a wine tasting for its students? Yea me neither. 🙂

Besides a small problem with our door causing us to be unable to lock it for a couple days (fixed now), this was a picture perfect weekend! Thank you all for continuing to read (especially my fellow Navarra classmates, you all are amazing!) and follow along with my journey! I’m enjoying my last day being 20 and look forward to whatever this next week brings!

Much Love,

A

p.s. Happy Saints Gameday! Who Dat!

Food and Stuff

I’m backkkk! Sorry it has been so long since my last post, nothing major has happened and did not want to bore you all with my daily activities (class, sleep, repeat). Instead I will share a couple of general things I have noticed/done in my time here!

Food Shopping – First let me tell you what I am used to. Every Saturday morning my mom would print out a list specially made for our grocery store and circle all of the things we needed that week. This included all the ingredients needed to make any of the 5-7 meals she had also planned out by day based on what each person had to do that night (play racquetball, go to book club, choir practice). Then she would go to the store (sometimes with me, though certainly more often alone) and buy all of those things. Writing that up I realized I have a supermom, so a huge thank you to her for all of that and everything else she does:) In short, I was accustomed to going grocery shopping once a week, at that time buying things for a whole week of meals, and that is it. Here, things are very different for a number of reasons.

1. I am only one person, I only have to cook for myself. This has proven to be dangerous because pasta is very easy and no one seems to care that I eat it every day :p
2. I can only buy what I can carry. There are no giant shopping carts, only little baskets because they know everyone here is walking to the grocery store. Additionally, they charge you 0.05 for every plastic bag (this city is very green, I love it!) so people often bring their own bags with them. I do not have to walk far to the grocery store, but 10 minutes with anything heavy is not the most fun.
3. Off of my last one, I have to walk there! Within my neighborhood there are a plethora of well priced grocery stores, but all of them are quite small and it is tough to find everything you need. If I want to go to the big ones I have to walk a mile or so. This is nothing on the way there, but once you have your hands full it is not so easy.
4. Food does not last as long here. Dairy products and Produce have virtually no preservatives compared to what we are used to, so you cannot buy them expecting them to sit for a week.
   1. Side note on the produce, I bought some grapes the other day and upon further inspection realized they were labelled “cotton candy grapes” I thought that this was referring to their shape or something but they actually taste like cotton candy. They are the worst thing ever, and I know they are also sold in the US so be careful.
5. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this in previous posts, but everything is closed on Sundays. Unfortunately I never plan ahead for this so I am often very short on food those days. Oh well!

All of these factors have led me to shopping every couple of days and just buying a few things each time. This drives me crazy I cannot stand it. I went shopping on Tuesday, it is now Thursday, but I cannot really eat until I go back to the store because I all have to my name is some pasta sauce, a carton of eggs, and some yogurt. A lot of great starts to meals, but certainly missing some key ingredients.

And finally for the 100th time in the 3 weeks I have been here I wished I ate meat. Eating meat makes every meal easier. It’s easy to go out to get food with my friends, it is easy to make something healthy that fills you up, and it is easy to only have to buy a couple things and have a meal. For me, if I have pasta for dinner I get close to zero protein, I have to add another element that does not go easily into pasta like meat does. Plus, I have a small inkling that it tastes really good as well. That being said, I never plan to eat meat again and really do not regret it that much, just makes things a little bit harder. I love a good challenge:)

Finally, a little funny note that happened to me this week. I stopped into a bookstore to buy a book in Spanish hoping that it would help my comprehension (It’s not working so far, but maybe I should try reading at it instead of leaving it on my desk..). When I went to check out the man asked me a question that I did not understand. My normal response when this happens is to randomly answer “si” or “no”. That day I answered “si” confidently, and so the man took my book, whited out the price, and then proceeded to wrap it in beautiful purple and green wrapping paper. I immediately understood the question but out of fear of looking stupid and admitting that I did not know Spanish, I let this man gift wrap the book I intended to read for myself. At first I felt bad and thought about actually giving it to someone as a present, but that’s ridiculous, so I have decided it was a birthday present to myself!

I got Paper Towns by John Green because it was once my favorite book, so I figured that would help me understand it in Spanish.

My week has been pretty normal, I have finally been to all of my classes and although I have a weird schedule I haven’t gotten much work to do and I’m pretty happy! Tonight is Juevinxos where all of the Pinxos are very cheap because it is Thursday (Jueves + Pinxos) and then Saturday we are going to Olite for a castle tour and a wine tasting! I will be sure to update you about all of that on Sunday!

As always, thank you for reading this! Love you all!

A

Zaragoza!

Hi Again!

Hope your weekends have been as good as mine! I’m going to keep this post short and include a lot of pictures, because they can say more about my trip than I can!

Friday morning Alex, Thomas, Bernhard, Fredrik, Jorge, Dylan, Cati and I set off for Zaragoza for a couple days. This is some of us on the bus

Alex was our hero and arranged all of our bus tickets and found our hostel for us. We arrived 2 hours later and checked into our 8 bed room.

Next of course was lunch and wandering around the city!

Hard to find a place that was open during Siesta but this place was cute and good!!

An awesome castle we toured

Adorable colorful parks lined the city and this one even had ping-pong tables!

  

We went inside this beautiful cathedral but couldn’t take pictures inside. I can’t imagine worshiping in such an incredible building, I would be so distracted! All built in the 1500s and it was so intricate I couldn’t stop staring!

Finally it was time for dinner, our amazing hostel had a kitchen so we bought some ingredients and these lovelies cooked amazing fajitas which we enjoyed with some great wine!

Our hostel also had a bar with live music where we hung out for the night!

Day 2 we spent a lot of time at the 2008 Expo site which was on the river! Then we had a picnic of bread cheese and fruit! A perfect final couple hours!

Plot twist, this wasn’t a bridge but I’m still not sure what it was!

We may have been the wrong size for this park..

But this one was made for adults, full of “exercise” equipment. The sign even says you must be 18 or older to use it!

Overall it was a lovely trip, though by the end of it we were all quite tired!

I cannot wait to see where Spain takes me next, but a huge shout-out to my friends for making me experience all of this! I have so many more pictures and thoughts to share, but I do not want to overwhelm this blog post, if you’d like to see more please let me know! For now I am getting ready for my first full week of classes starting with Marketing at 8am tomorrow!

Love you all,

A

p.s. As my fathers daughter I had to include these last two pictures. I spent a lot of time in the old buildings trying to decide what parts were original and which were remade, looking at the architecture of these cathedrals and especially the architecture behind all of the incredible bridges the Zaragoza contained. Finally, the amount of renewable energy sources we passed on the bus ride to the city was mind blowing. I can’t wait to talk about all of these things with you, Dad!

A Week of Firsts

Hello Again!

The last time we talked I was recovering from a trip to San Sebastian on Saturday!! Since then the weather has cooled off significantly, but not before I spent all day Sunday in bed wishing it wasn’t so hot!

Monday we went to a specific session just for Economics students where we were supposed to learn our schedules and our emails and passwords. The system here is so unorganized, we all left feeling more confused than we were when we started! I still do not have access to my official schedule so this week I just went to the classes I pre-registered for, assuming that those were the classes I was placed in. Fortunately, our final schedules do not have to be put in until the end of next week so I have some time to figure it all. For now, this is my schedule

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
8:00	Marketing I
9:00	Marketing I
10:00	Marketing I		Business Com
11:00	Marketing I		Business Com
12:00
13:00	International Trade
14:00				Spanish B
15:00		International Trade		Spanish B
16:00		International Trade
17:00
18:00
19:00		Business Com	Spanish B
20:00		Business Com	Spanish B
21:00

It’s a little bit more spread out than I would like, but I don’t have Friday classes, and I’m only taking 4 classes so I cannot complain! I hope it will be an easy semester!

Since my Business Communication class doesn’t start until next week, and we didn’t have Monday classes this week, I have only been to Spanish and International Trade so far. They both seem pretty straightforward though they continue to be disorganized and although International Trade is taught in English, I may understand him better if he were speaking Spanish! Because of the limited number of courses taught in English and because most of my friends are Econ students as well, I think I know at least one person in all of my classes which is nice!

After our information session on Monday we went over to the sports complex for 4 hours of activities! We learned the basics of Padel (kinda like Ping-Pong played on a Tennis court), Tennis, Archery, Martial Arts, Badminton, and Volleyball. It was a ton of fun (but exhausting!) though I do not think I found my sport!! I am thinking of joining the hiking club, as well as definitely taking part in weekly games of Ultimate Frisbee with some other students. It’s awesome that we have so many facilities on campus, and it was even cooler that they took the time to teach so many of them to us even though we will only be here for a semester!

I was feeling a little sick Tuesday, so I did not stay late at our First Day of Class celebration, but last night we got drinks and then headed over to a popular club here in Pamplona for a Welcome Back party for all of the students. It’s amazing how late people can party here! When we left around 2:30, we were “leaving so early” and there were a ton of people just arriving! Even though I didn’t have class until 2pm today, I don’t think I would’ve survived that much partying!

I’m all ready for a quiet night here tonight, doing laundry and making sure I am all set for the semester! I always have Fridays off, but the whole University is off tomorrow so my friends and I are trying to plan a trip to somewhere in Spain for the weekend! It is hard trying to make plans with so many people, but they seem to know a lot more about Spain than I do, so I’m just gonna tag along to whatever they decide! Hopefully Monday I can blog about our adventures!

I would leave you with some of my observations but the place feels a lot like home and I don’t have any for today, instead you’ll get some pictures from this week:)

Only went to one class, but had to take a First Day of School picture on Tuesday!

Doing some sort of Martial Arts. I was in a group of 3 guys and was shown up miserably by them constantly!

Volleyball and Badminton selfies “for my blog”

100 Montaditos during the storm last night

That’s all for today! Love Always,

A

p.s. Hi Cati:)