Word of the Year

I've never really been one for New Years Resolutions but this year, I'm feeling the resolutions.  I've been thinking about what I want to do differently this year for a few days now and still have no set resolutions.  However, I found this word of the year idea and I immediately knew what my word will be.  My word for 2013 will be try.  I chose this word for a couple of different reasons. 

 

1) I've noticed this past year that when I come across something new, I'll say something like "I don't think that's for me" or "I doubt that works" or "That sounds like something I wouldn't like."  I've also realized that if I never try something new,  I will never know whether it works for me or not.  I've never tried oil pulling so how do I know it won't cure headaches, bronchitis, tooth pain and every other ailment oilpulling.com says it cures.  I've never eaten tongue, so how do I know that I won't like it.  I don't! So in 2013,  when I catch myself saying that something won't work or sounds awful, I'm going to try it ...as long as it's safe.

 

2) This past semester, I took an Environmental Science class and I realized that there are a lot of  Global issues that bother me like the destruction of our environment and World hunger and gun violence and child labor.  But I tend to think that I'm just one person and that there is nothing I can do to make a difference so I don't do anything.  How stupid is that!?!? In 2013 I am going to try to make a difference.  I still don't really believe that just my actions will make a difference but I will no longer use that as an excuse not to try.

 

 

What's your word of the year?

The Journey Never Ends

Hi!! I hope everyone has had a good six months since the last time I blogged.  I guess the main reason I haven't blogged in awhile is that I just thought my life was so boring that I didn't even want to write about it so why on earth would anyone want to read about it.  But then, someone kindly pointed out to me that my life is not nearly as boring as it may seem and I had to step back and say "Whoa, you're right!!" So here is whats been going on in my life since the last time I blogged:

 

I started my first semester of my junior year at University of Kentucky

 

I finished my first semester of my junior year (with some pretty good grades!)

 

I got a job at Target

 

I quit my job at Target

 

I got hired as an International Studies Abroad Global Ambassador

 

I decided to get a minor in Italian

 

I decided to study abroad in Italy

 

I've started volunteering at Kentucky Refugee Ministries as an ESL tutor

 

and of course there as been lots of knitting and spinning.

 

See, I'm not that boring!  I'll go into more details about some of the more exciting things in my life in future blog posts.  I don't want to promise you all that I'll blog more but I will promise that I will try to be more consistent.

 

 

 

 

Hasta luego!!!

 

 

Photo of the day: August 11th

Purple!

Suprisingly, even though purple is one of my favorite colors,  I only have 2 different purple colors of nail polish.  The darker purple is Sally Hansen Lacguer Shine in the Flair color and the light purple doesn't have a color name on it but I'm pretty sure I got it from a OPI sample pack for the summer 2010 line.

Today's photo is suppose to be of a spoon but I just haven't had a good opportunity for a picture of a spoon.  

Photo a day Challenge

Yes, I'm going to attempt this whole Photo a day Challenge again.  This time it should be a little easier for me because I do have a new fancy smart phone, with the instagram app so I have no excuse for not being able to take pictures.

So here's the list for this month:

So here is my picture for the 10th of August:

These are my birdy rings that I got from the H&M in Spain



Un camino nuevo - A new Journey

So I guess I should start of by thanking everyone who is still actually checking this blog. Some of you might be thinking "How come she doesn't just get rid of this stupid page?" Well, here's the deal... I couldn't remember my password and I was too lazy to just reset the password so I couldn't get into Blogger to delete the page.  And thankfully I didn't, because in the two month span of complete laziness I have decide that I am just not ready to give up on this blog.  So here's what's going to happen,  I am going to start blogging again!!!!Yay!!!! Now don't be alarmed if the subject matter changes a bit. Instead of talking about really cool things happening in Spain, I will be talking about things I consider potentially interesting happening in Kentucky.  My main topics will be knitting, books I'm reading, classes and cooking (mainly because I want to prove to my mom that I can and will cook), so if that sounds interesting to you, great! If it doesn't sound interesting to you,  that's too bad. 

I'm really excited to start this new blogging phase

Hasta Pronto!!!! (See you soon)

Back Home

As many of you know, I am home now. I've actually been home for a couple of weeks but I've had some issues with my laptop and I just haven't gotten around to posting anything.  So, what's life been like since I've been home?  Well, life is definitely a lot quiter in the States.  So far my summer has consisted of going to the gym, knitting, spinning and a brief, unsucessful job hunt.  What are my plans for the rest of the summer? More knitting, more spinning and definitely more going to the gym.  I would be very happy if a summer job happens to pop up but I'm not really expecting that and now that I know I'm not going to have to buy a new laptop I am a lot less worried about making money this summer. Now for the blog, I haven't quite decided whether or not I want to keep going with this blog now that I'm home.  I've got to tell you, my life really is not that exciting, especially during the summer, and I really don't know if I will have a single thing worth writing about.  But also, my life really is not that exciting and I'm thinking I might just keep blogging here so I can have something to do.  So that means I'm going to keep thinking about it and in the next couple of weeks you are going to notive either 1) I've deleted the blog or 2) I start posting again.  We'll see what happens.

Hace Calor

Because of the nice summer like weather in Granada I thought I would repost a video from last semester.

Hace Calor

Hurray it's May!

Holy molly it's May already!  I can't believe how fast this year has gone by. This month is going to packed full of all sorts of thing.  This week there are holidays galore in Spain. Then I have two weeks left of classes, two weeks full of projects and papers and book reading.  Three weeks from now is the middle of finals week.  And finally, exactly three weeks from tomorrow night, I will be getting on a bus to go to the Madrid airport and leaving Spain and going home.  Just thinking about all the things I have to do before I leave is a little overwhelming, but I am sure I'll have no problem getting it all done in time. 

Barcelona

Barcelona was probably my favorite city of the whole trip.  It might have been because I could actually speak to people but really, it's just a beautiful place.  The first day we were there we basically went on a Antoni Gaudi tour.  We started off on a tour of Casa Mila. It was definitely worth the wait to go in.  My favorite part was the terrace with the Star Wars like chimneys. After that we took a nice walk to the Sagrada Familia, the most famous building of Gaudi.  It is still unfinished and is projected to be done in 2026. Last time I was in Barcelona, I was with a friend and since neither one of us wanted to spend that much money to go into the church so we just looked at it from outside. Well, this time, since I was with my parents I got to go in.  If I could do my first trip to Barcelona again, I would have paid the money to go in.  I honestly think it is much prettier on the inside than it is on the outside.  We also got to go into a chapel attached to the main church and that is where Gaudi is buried.  It will be really interesting to see it when it's done.  Maybe I'll have to make another trip to Barcelona in about 20 years.  Our last stop of the day was the Picasso Museum.  I had already been there but I liked it so much the first time that I thought it was something my parents should see. I love the way the museum is organized.  It's all in chronological order so it starts out with his painting as a child, when he had a really good, realistic style and you can see how his technique slowly gets weirder and weirder through out his life.

The next day, we spent pretty much the whole day outside, starting in Mont Juic where we walked to the Olympic Stadium.  In December, the stadium was closed so we had to peek through gates to see anything inside.  This time it was open!!! Being at the stadium got me really excited for the London Olympics this year. We also took a sky lift up to a castle on top of the hill.  I personally think the coolest part of the castle is the view of the city and the sea.  After that, we had lunch on the beach and then went to Park Guell, another Gaudi creation.  I was a little disappointed with how overcrowded the park was.  I think I probably overheard at least ten different people saying that Gaudi most likely wouldn't be too happy if he knew his park was this overcrowded. 

And that was the end of my trip.  The next day, we went back to Granada and I had to go back to school.  I had a great time traveling with my parents, but I was glad to be back in my town.

Rome

Unlike Paris, where I never really wanted to go and ended up really liking it,  Rome is a place that I was expecting so much out of it and was a little let down. I have been wanting to go to Rome since the Lizzie McGuire movie came out when I was like 10 or 11.  It was still pretty awesome and I would definitely go again.  The only real problem I had with Rome is that it was way over crowded, everywhere.  Our hotel was in a great spot, right down the street from the Colosseum and the Forum.  My favorite part about Rome is that the city is built around the ruins.  I feel like if the United States was where ancient Rome was, but we had the same government that we currently have,  they would be like "This really old building is falling apart and no one can live or work here, it's just taking up space," and they would destroy it so a thousand condos can be built. Wednesday we went to the Vatican.  We ended up getting there right as they were settting up for the Popes weekly talk.  One of my biggest hopes for this whole trip was to see the Pope...and we saw him!!!! The Vatican muesums were very interesting, but probably the most uncomfortable part of the whole trip just due to how many people were standing in not very large spaces. 

Italian food was exactly what I was expecting.  I don't think a day went by when we didn't eat pasta.  I think my favorite was the Carbonara.  We also got our fill of tiramisu.  A little fun fact I learned in my Italian class: "tiramisu" literally translates to "you lift me up".  It is called that because it lifts your mood.

Paris

A few weeks ago I had a whole week of school to celebrate Holy Week.   I started of my vacation meeting my parents in Paris.  I have to say,  except for maybe when I was really young, Paris was always one of those cities that I wouldn't say no to, but never really considered a must see city.  Well, after actually going to Paris, I think I've changed my mind.   I would probably say, it is one of my favorite cities that I've visited.  Now, what exactly I liked so much about it, I can't really tell you, it definitely wasn't the food.  The first day, we didn't do much because we were all tired.  We went to see the Hunger Games (in English) and then went to see the Eiffel Tower all lit up.  The next day we went to the Louvre.  I was actually kind of disappointed with the Mona Lisa.  It was probably because there were so many tourist, standing right in front of the painting and never moving, so that my little 5'2" self never saw more than the top half of the painting.  Other than that I really did enjoy the museum.  I think my favorite thing was the Venus de Milo.  Now for the food.  The most interesting meal, probably of the whole trip, was lunch after the Louvre.  The place we ate was beautiful, but they did not have an English menu and seeing as no one in my family speaks French, we had no idea what we were ordering.  We ended up with a lot of raw meat.  I had raw salmon which was basically just like eating sushi. My dads plate of raw beef was a little weirder.  Once I got past the "ew it's raw" feeling, it was actually quite tasty.  Dinner that night was  really good.  My mom and I both had French onion soup (tasted even better than Julia Child's) some sort of mushroom dish and escargot.  I was a little worried about the snails at first but really, what's the difference between a snail and an oyster? 

I'm alive!

Hi guys.  I just wanted to share that I am in fact alive and back in Granada.  I had a great time traveling with my parents the past couple of weeks and getting back into the schedule of school as been a little difficult for me this week.  I don't really have time to say more right now, I've kind of overstayed my welcome at this cafe, but I'll post more about my trip in the next week or so. 

Time Off

In Spain, Spring Break is more commonly known has Holy Week Break.  The week leading up to Easter is a big deal here with all the schools closed and most stores closed or being open for less time.  Apparently there are parades at all hours of the day, every day.  I however will not be in Spain for most of the Holy Week.  Tomorrow afternoon I am leaving to meet my parents in Paris where we will spend a few days and from there visit Rome and Barcelona.  Then on Easter we'll be coming back to Granada so I can go class on Monday.  I'm really excited to see my parents and excited to visit a few new cities and see just how much Italian I've learned in the past six months. Because of traveling, I will either blog a lot in the next week or so (due to wifi in hotels) or not blog at all (due to having so much fun). So no one freak out if you don't hear from me for a week or so.  I can't wait to share all my travel experiences with you!


I am actually getting a full day head start on my Spring Break due to a general strike that is going on in Spain today.  It was up to teachers to decide to if they wanted to have class or not and all my teachers decided to participate in the strike.  I haven't done a lot of research into the new labor reforms or anything but I can tell you, the people of Spain are really mad about something. The first half the year, protest weren't really that huge of a deal.  Maybe once a month I would here about one on the news, but even then, they were rarely violent.  Starting pretty much after the election in November, protests started being more common and more often are becoming violent.  My host mom seems to think that these people are just idiots that want to cause trouble, but when every single one of my teachers is cancelling class to participate in a strike, it makes me wonder if there really is something to be angry about.  I'll need to check into that.

This morning I woke up to a big crowd of people outside of my apartment shouting "Huelga general" or general strike.  They were on their way to a large department store down the street, to try and keep the store from opening.  According to my host mom, people also shoved plastic in the key holes of banks to keep them from opening the doors and spray painted over the screens of ATMS to keep people from taking out money.  My roommate decide to walk into the city center to see what those protests were like and she said "it was pretty crazy".  I decided I would rather stay home and start packing for my trip than to go stand in the middle of a bunch of angry people. I don't know if this strike or the protest will actually change anything, but people are certainly trying to change something.

My little break

This semester I am taking a class in Spanish Literature of the 20th century. Being in a higher level of Spanish, there is a lot more required of me than there was in my literature class last semester, when most of the reading was done in class.  This semester I have to read 4 books outside of class (yes Mom, in Spanish).   After getting through two of the books, I decided that I needed a break from reading all that Spanish.  So I started reading the Hunger Game trilogy.  If you haven't read the book, stop what you're doing and read them now!  I started the first book on Wednesday night and just finished the last book about an hour ago. I'm telling you, it's not a happy subject at all and the whole time I was just thinking "Oh God, this is horrible!" but I just got so sucked in that I had to keep reading because I had to make sure that everyone was all right.  I took a couple hours after finishing the second book before starting the third and I was biting my nails from nervousness because I was so worried about whether or not Peeta was ok.  Seriously, go read the books

One thing that has really helped me with reading all the Spanish books, is being able to read them on my Kindle.  I found all of them, but one in the Kindle store and I also downloaded a Spanish Dictionary.  Having the dictionary, when I see a word I don't know all I have to do is move the curser to the word and the definition will show up at the top of the screen.  It makes reading a lot faster when I don't have to look up every single word I don't know.

Changing Seasons!

So tomorrow is the offical first day of Spring!!!!  This past weekend there was a little festival in Spain called Las Fallas.  This festival only really takes place in Valencia but Granada sure has it's own way of celebrating.  About a block away from my house there is a place called the "Botellon".  It's basically a parking lot were a bunch of people go to "hacer botellon" which means "drink in the streets".  The Botellon is the only place in Granada where it is legal to drink in the streets.  Anyway, once a year, people (mostly college students) come from all over Spain to stand in this parking lot and drink for 24 hours straight.  To me, that sounds like a good way to insure that you will suffer liver failure by the time your 40 so needless to say, I did not participate in that. Instead, my friends and I decided to celebrate spring by hiking up a mountain and having a cook out.  We had hot dogs and chicken and just spent the day enjoying each others company.

Photos!!!

March 4th- Bedside

March 5th- A Smile

March 6th - 5 pm

March 7th - Something I wore

March 8th - Window

March 9th - Red

March 10th - Loud

March 11th- Someone you talked to



International Womens Day

Before I forget, let me mention that from now on I will only be posting on days that I don't have school, so for the most part, on Saturdays.  I've been going to the gym after school so I have to take my workout stuff with me to class and there just isn't a lot of room left for a computer. I will be posting at least once a week.  I just want to let everyone know so they don't feel like they have to check the blog everyday.

Did you know that Thursday was International Women's Day?  I had no idea until my History of Music teacher told us.  We just happen to be at the point in the class where we are talking about the opera and i castrati.  I castrati are men that were castrated as little boys so that they could play the women roles in the operas when they were older. Most died before they ever got to be in an opera and even if they lived that had health problems the rest of their lives.  And they were put through all of this just because women weren't allowed to be the operas.  In this particular situation I feel more sorry for the men who had to be castrated than for the women who couldn't be opera singers but the point is that just about 300 years ago the world was going to extreme measures just because women weren't allowed to be in operas or plays or really do anything but have babies. 

Women's Day is big in Spain.  Spain has a huge problem with domestic violence and apparently the Labor Reforms of the new government pose some pretty serious threats to the rights of women ( I don't really know, I haven't looked in to exactly what the reform says,  but that's what I have been told).  So this day is a huge day for women to come together and fight for their rights and their protection. I was walking home from class on Thursday and as soon as I got to the city center, I ran into a pretty large parade in honor of Women's Day.



March On!

I can't believe it's March already.  A few more weeks and I'll be meeting my parents in Paris.  A few more months and I'll be home.  Despite the complete failure of the February Photo a day challenge, I have started the challenge for March.

March 1st - Up

This is my first toe up sock

March 2nd - Fruit

March 3rd - My Neighborhood

Harry Potter Workout

I recently joined a gym here in Spain.  I love how I feel after working out and usually I’m pretty good about fitting in exercise, but every so often, I just don’t feel like doing anything but knitting and watching movies.  Well I think I found the answer to this.  The Harry Potter Workout.  I found this through Pintrest and I think it is awesome.  It is a list of things that happen throughout each of the Harry Potter movies like they cast a spell or Ron says “Bloody Hell” and each of these things is matched up with a particular exercise.  So the way it works is you watch the Harry Potter movie of your choice and each time something on the list happens, you do the corresponding exercise, so every time they cast a spell you do 10 sit-ups and every time Ron says Bloody Hell you do 30 jumping jacks.  I love this because it convinces me to get in a work out when working out is the last thing I want to do.   I think I’m going to have to try and find a Twilight work out too.  If there isn’t one, maybe I should just make up my own.  Every time Jacob doesn’t have a shirt on do 10 crunches…you’ll be doing crunches the whole movie.

No Tengo Ganas - I don't feel like it

So my Final Grade for the photo challenge is a big fat F.  I am so far behind at this point that I'm just not even going to try to catch up.  You know why?  Because I don't want to.  I just haven't felt like doing much more than the necessary things for school.  Some people might say I've been lazy....I prefer to call it relaxed.  I think that too often, people push themselves to do things they don't want to do (like take a bunch of pictures of stupid things like buttons) and that jus makes them not happy people.  This challenge hasn't been all bad.  I have taken some pretty cool pictures that I haven't posted yet and I'll put them at the end.  If this woman has another challenge in March, I might try again....maybe.

A que estoy escuchando

Ai  Su Eu Te Pego - Michel Telo

This song is actually Portuguese.  I think it sounds kind of like a love song, like a nice, sweet, "be mine" sort of song.  Well, it's not.  It's all about what he wants to do to her when he gets his hands on her (I won't tell you what he wants to do).  This song isn't just my favorite song right now, it is all of Europe's favorite song.  My Spanish friends love it, my Italian friends love it, apparently it's really popular in France.  And it is popular among people between the ages of 2 and 70.  There is even a Alvin and the Chipmucks version on Youtube.

Challenge failure

So I am way behind on this photo challenge.  I plan on catching up this weekend on all the photos I haven't taken.

In other news, my birthday was on Tuesday!  I had a lot of fun.  Obviously I had class but after that I met a group of other year long students for a glass of wine at one of my favorite jazz bars.  Then for dinner Carmen made fried pork and for dessert we had strawberry cheesecake ice cream and Carmen and Greta sang to me.  It was more like Carmen sang and Greta mumbled to try to cover up the fact that she doesn't really know the words to the song in Spanish.  After that, Greta and I just hung out and watched the movie Valentines Day.  It was a very calm birthday but a very good birthday.

For those of you who are interested, I have started a little knitting blog.  I know it won't be interesting to everybody but if you would like to see what I'm doing with just about all my free time the blog is called Knitorious.

Catching Up

Today, I'm just catching up with my photo challenge.

 Day six was the day I was suppose to post about dinner but I posted about the sun instead.  Well I took a picture of lunch instead because my lunch is usually so much cooler than my dinner.

Yesterday's picture was buttons.  I had to try really hard to take a good picture of buttons without it looking dumb.

Spanish Friend and Spanish Class

I made friends....or my room mate made them for me. She met these people and then introduced them to me.  We have already been out with them a couple of times and we are going over to their apartment tonight because their Italian room mate is going to make us authentic Italian carbonara.

My classes started on Monday and so far everything is going great.  I only have 4 classes for this week until Italian starts next Monday.  All my teachers are great.  I actually have two classes with my room mate this semester so that will be pretty nice when we need to study.

For the photo challenge yesterday, I was suppose to take a picture of dinner, but I didn't read that.  I read what was on the list for the 8th.  So I'm going to switch it up a little.  For yesterday, I have pictures of the sun.



10 am

I woke up in time!!!  I actually set my alarm for 9:57, got up, took a couple pictures and went straight back to bed.

Yep, that's what I look like when I just get out of bed.  No make up or anything.   I feel pretty brave putting a picture of me without make up on the internet



A stranger???

So the challenge photo of the day is to take a picture of the day is a stranger.  This challenge clearly does not know me  at all. I would never go take a picture of a stranger, so what am I going to do.  I am going to post an older picture of a street performer.

This is actually from my trip to Barcelona.  I might be able to get a picture of a stranger tonight, but I'll post this for now, even though it is kind of cheating. 

Tomorrow's picture might be just as hard to get.  I am suppose to take a picture of something at 10am.  Well, today I woke up at 12:30pm and I very well could be going out tonight so the likelihood of me being awake at 10....well, we'll see.

I'm Back!!

I'm back in Granada!!!  I landed in Granada right around 1 yesterday afternoon (I didn't actually look at the time when I landed, that might not be right)  and I got on a bus and then another bus and got home just as Greta and Carmen were sitting down to lunch.  I should have taken a siesta seeing as I had been awake for 20 something hours now, but I unpacked instead.

As you can see, that process is very similar to the packing process.

Yesterdays challenge was hands...

Welcome to Miami, Bienvenidos a Miami

Just landed in Miami and in just 7 hours I will be boarding a plane to take me to Spain.  Being in Miama, I am hearing a lot of Spanish.  It's really good for me because it is helping my brain get use to thinking in Spanish again. 

I have to say, it's pretty cool to be in a place where you are hearing multiple languages and be able to understand what everyone is saying.

For my photo a day challenge, today's photo is suppose to be of words.   The picture I have as of now is not that great but I am seeing this word a lot today.

Yeah, that's pretty bad.  I'll probably get another word sometime but it most likely won't be posted today.

Next time I write, I'll be in Spain!!

Packing Complete

Today, I finally got off my butt and packed.  I really had no other option seeing as I have to be at the airport tomorrow at 6 in the morning.

So here is my packing technique.  I turn on some music and throw everything I want to take with me on my bed.  Then I go through all that stuff and get rid of everything that really just not necessary or that I don't really care about that much.  And finally I organize what's left by what bag I want it in and pack it up.  So what starts out like this....

turns into this.

   

In other news, I have decided that I am going to participate in a February Photo a Day Challenge.  I probably won't post a photo ever day on my blog just because I probably won't have Internet access ever day,  but I will take at least one picture for every day in February and I will post them all at some point during the month. I found this challenge through Pintrest.  It is from a blog call Fat Mum Slim. 

Today's picture is suppose to be My View so here it is.

What an ugly day!

Round Two

Sorry for the month long hiatus.  I have been home in the States for break and honestly didn't feel like writing about anything.  So I've had a great time at home.  I had a great Christmas with my family, I learned to spin wool on a spinning wheel and most recently I took a weekend trip to Iowa to visit my friends from high school.  Now that I'm back home from that, I have three days before I had back to Spain for the spring semester.

Last semester, I was packed and ready to go three days before I left.  This semester, I have not even thought about packing yet. I plan to get working on that tomorrow, but who knows.  I'll probably get distracted by knitting or something like that.

I am really excited for this next semester.  It seems like there are a lot of really cool thing happening in the spring like :

1. My 20th Birthday - It will be on a Tuesday but we'll find a good way to celebrate.

2.  My Parent's coming - I'll be traveling to Paris, Rome and Barcelona with them.

3 A Baby!!! - My host mom's daughter is expecting her second daughter in the beginning of May.  I'm already knitting stuff for that girl.

I am leaving for round two of my year abroad early morning on Thursday and (after spending some quality time with the Miami airport) will be getting into Granada early afternoon on Friday, I might even be in time for lunch.