sorry its been a while guys, things get busy.

Okay, so.
since last post, i went to morrocco. It was fantastic. i rode a camel, and drank really good tea and wandered around bazaars in the evenings and just generally enjoyed myself, especially since i was with kirstie and jessica, who are wonderful travel buddies. We were just in the north of morrocco (cueta [which is actually spanish] tetuan, tangier, and a little mountain city called chef chaouen, which was my favorite. all the buildings were painted blue.) and i'm sad i didnt get to hang out in the Sahara dessert, but the Sahara isnt going anywhere, so i'm sure ill visit it another time.

I've also been preparing myself to leave, which is much more difficult than i act like it is. I feel really at home in cordoba, and its not like my actually home in california that i can go back to for breaks. when am i ever going to come to cordoba again? im not worried about the friends i've made here, because im pretty confident we can be friends for life if we make an effort, but im going to miss the actual place quite a bit. it's a very beautiful city, but also unassuming and comfortable. My plan right now is to come back for ferria, which is a huge celebration in may (conveniently after school is over) but even though i could stay with my spanish madre for freesies, a plane ticket accross the atlantic is quite the financial commitment for a broke ass college student like myself. especially after i've spent all my money galavanting about europe for a semester. but anyways. Hay que aprovechar while im here. (have to take advantage of, have to enjoy. its what my spanish madre says when i go out on weekends and sleep late the next day) And i have been enjoying these last few days with my friends. we went to the arab baths here in cordoba and sat in hot water for 2 hours, with a 15 minute massage, and that was fabulous, and i've been taking lots of walks to take fotos, and eating lots of churros. so thats that.

next on my agenda, after leaving cordoba, im spending the night in cordoba saying goodbye to my preshco friends, and then its off to paris for 4 days with kirstie, which will be fantastic. then back in madrid for a day and a bit, then home for the navidad on the 23rd. and i'll be home until january 5th. lots of plane flights.

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=4550426007025299507
I spent thanksgiving with old (old like from the past, not old like age; there are different words for this in spanish) friends in Madrid, and it was lovely and I'd love to talk more about it but I have approximately 5000million pages to write and class to go to and trips to plan and budgeting to do etc etc so I'll just leave you with a photo of all of us prepies in a chocolateria en madrid. Its Kirstie, Claire, Me, the bf Austin and Jessica. (Austin doesn't like having his photo out there on the internet so please pretend you can't see him) Kinda crazy that we always talked about traveling the world and meeting up in crazy places when we were awkward developing middle schoolers and we've actually done it now that we are self-actualized motivated real people. I am thankful for growing up into someone that i like to be.

I'll be done with my program in spain in less than a month : ( :( :(

I have pretty complex feelings on this, but mostly I'm just sad.

hello again :)

Our program went to Granada last weekend, and for some reason I had my grumpy pants on. I guess I just needed a bit more time to myself than traveling by bus and sharing a hotel with 34 other people allows. Eventually I got over myself by having the following dialogue.

GrumpyPants: grumblegrumble loud noises

Sara: um, hello, you're in spain and your life is awesome

GP: but...i'm sleepy and people are using bad grammar/laughing obnoxiously/playing music so loudly i can hear it even though they have headphones in.

Sara: Where are you?

GP: In spain.

Sara: and?

GP: and my life is pretty much the most awesome thing in the history of the world.

Sara: exactly.

this conversation works for lots of other assorted bouts of annoyance too. Like when the internet connection is weak, or i can't find boots that i like, or i'm having trouble understanding my homework. doesn't matter. my life is so awesome that these small things do not diminish the awesome in the slightest. its like pennies of annoyance compared to 100000bazillion dollars. I'm like 5 dollars worth annoyed because my trip to Morocco for this weekend fell through, but i'm hoping I can go after thanksgiving so it's probably okay.

anyways, granada. beautiful, a bit chilly. Lots of muslim architecture, which is always super ornate and decorative with lots of text and flowers (because muslims can't draw people or animals because it's considered to be likening yourself to Allah, with the power of creation and all) Oh, and Isabel and Ferdinand are buried there and the famous work Deposition by Roger Van der Weyden is there because Isabel collected Flemish art, among her other hobbies (expelling the jews/muslims from spain, financing columbus's journey, insisting that her chapel be built gothic style even though the renaissance was happening, attending mass every day

Eminent in my life is the arrival of my boyfriend and my best friend in Spain, a super sweet thanksgiving in Madrid, and various and sundry adventurous in Cordoba. I also have to write a 10 page paper in Spanish in a week and 3 days, but I'm in Spain and my life is awesome so no te preocupes por mi.

hello dear readers,

I'm back in Cordoba after a fantabulous trip to Italy with 3 of my Preschita friends.
We started in Firenze(florence) climbed up the dome of the famous duemo there, walked all over the place, saw the replica of michealangelo's david (because it's literally exactly the same as the real one, except its free to visit), and climbed up the hill to san miniato al monte (famous church) to see the excellent view of the whole city, as you can see above, and we went to the famous art museum there (uffizi) We also met some mexican's and columbians in the hostel there, and they speak Spanish sooo much clearer than andalusians. It's amazing. They didn't pronounce z's like th's, and they didn't leave the s's of their words and i understood everything they were saying. Next time i decide to immerse myself in the spanish language, i'll be going to latin america. Also in florence, we visited my wheaton friend who's studying there and had dinner with her. It's always super guay (cool) to meet up with people you know from normal life in extravagently exciting places.

After Florence, we took the train to Venice and spent two nights there. sort of. we really were staying outside of venice in a campground sort of thing in a small trailer with an outside kitchen, and taking the bus into venice. no biggie. Venice was, of course, super super beautiful and I really really want to go back when i have some more time to walk around and get hopelessly lost on all the tiny little streets and maybe ride in an outlandishly expensive gondola.

Then we took the train back to Pisa (the only day it rained was the day were we were in a train for 5 hours, so that was lucky), checked into our hostel, played with the resident kitten, and made pasta by repeatedly pouring boiling water over pasta in glasses, since there wasn't a kitchen. The next day, we visited the leaning tower, which was really quite pretty, and then traveled back home to cordoba. All in all an excellent (and surprisingly affordable) trip.

Tomorrow, our program goes to Granada, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to Morrocco the weekend after that, and then austin/claire visit, then zomg not very much time left at all. (then i go to Paris with kirstie before I fly home) So the only place on my wishlist I'm missing is Portugal, and I'll definitely be okay with that because I'm 100% certain that sometime in my fabulous, wonderful life I'll have another chance to go to Portugal (and maybe to the north of spain because I'm kinda sad I haven't seen the Guggenheim too)

I'm enjoying this semester very much and it makes me feel like there's no reason the rest of my life can't be this fabulous, so I'm very excited to keep living. It's a good feeling.

things i miss about the us (in no particular order)

non-gendered language
's
hamburgers made with cow, instead of pork
cream cheese and bagels
i sort of little miss autumn leaves. but i also appreciate 80 weather here
chlorine pools (instead of the bromine one i have here that is messing with my skin)
classes that arent' 2 hours long
house
mad men
watching house and antm and project runway with people
getting to go to fiestas gratis, instead of paying to get into discotecas
my car
not getting propositioned on the street/assulted in discotecas
the phrase wife, or spouse, or partner, instead of "mi mujer" (my woman) which doesnt really cae bien conmigo
peanut butter
captain crunch


and a few other things, but thats what i have right now.

This viernes, our program went to Sevilla. It's a very beautiful city. I was a bit exhausted from a very spanish night out the noche antes, so i might of missed some cool stuff, but we saw the plaza de espana, and the 3rd largest catedral del mundo. and we climbed a torre, which is becoming a theme of all my trips (next up torre inclinade de piso!)

I only have two months left here, so I'm stepping up my level of immersion. I'm writing words that i learn on the wall, and conjugating them, im talking in spanish when im not talking to you, queridos lectores, (or my madre, or my novio) I'm trying to go out more so i meet more spanish people (i talked to the lg and one of the aerobic instructors at the gimnasio today, and it was mas o menos successful) I'm actually reading all my homework. I'm watching a spanish tv miniseries drama thing that is three hours long each week and super dramatic. I think that I can reach some level of fluidez if i do this. Provided I can find enough spanish people to talk to. so thats my goal. Este es mi meta.

this is all going by so fast! wish me luck!

This weekend, I went to Cádiz, which is a Spanish city on the Atlantic ocean, with 5 other Preshquitas. It was a great city to visit because it was pretty small (it has to be, since its basically an island; it's connected to mainland spain by only a 4 lane road and a train track) so it was easy to walk everywhere. We stayed in a very cute hostal, and went to the beach and climbed some torres. (towers) One torre was an old watch tower, and one was part of the catedral nueva. The watch torre had a camera obscura on the lower level (not sure what exactly that translates to in english), you know, a camera where light is let in through a periscope sort of thing, and filtered through lenses, and reflected by a mirror onto a giant white disc and you can focus on things closer or far away by raising or lowering the disc. Well, anyways, it was really cool, because you could see the movement of the ocean, and the birds flying and laundry blowing on the terraces of all the roofs. The torre worker described all the important edificios (buildings) to us, so it was like getting a tour of the whole city without having to walk all over the place. I highly recommend visiting this torre if you're ever in Cádiz.

Cádiz is possibly the oldest city on the iberian peninsula, so there were some cool phonecian ruins, under roman ruins, under medival ruins that we saw too. And an old roman theater. and the playa (beach) reminded me of beaches at home because they're man made and wide. It was nice to hang out in the ocean and be sandy and warm. and we climbed the giant ficcus tree from south america too.

Next weekend our program is going to Sevilla, and then two weekends after that, I'm going to Italy!!! We're going to see the tower of Pisa, then hang out in Florence for two days (and visit with Rebecca from Wheaton) (maybe we'll side trip down to sienna to see Marina too) and then go to Venice for two days.

The weekend after Italy, our program goes to Granada for two days, then there's one weekend, then austin/claire arrive in spain that week, so ill be spending some time in Madrid, then two free weekends, then my program is over and i go to Paris with Kristie. O man. so much adventuring. And I still want to go to Portugal/Morocco.

I feel like I'm running out of time to learn Spanish. Better start reading more articles on elpais.es, and hanging out with more Spanish people.

• 

Things I have done since my last blog post:

• Joined a gym with a 2o meter pool, and gone swimming (twice!) (in two days!)

• planned a trip to Italy

• planned a trip to Paris after the program ends, right around christmas time (squeee, so excited!!!)

• Decided to plan trips to Portugal and Morrocco sometime in the near future.

• gone to class. meh. There's one class I really can't understand. It was marked as an Art History class, so I thought I'd like it, but in reality it is a Philosophy class. We haven't looked at a single work of art yet. Plus, the room it's in is really echoey and I have a hard time understanding the Spanish students anyways so its pretty much 2 hours of being lost.

• Started taking Sevillana dance classes. I like it alot.

I guess that's about it.
oh, i also visited the ruins of an old Muslim city the caliph built for a member of his harem named zahra (pronounced sara), and went to the alcazar de los reyes cristianos, where cristobal colon asked permission to sail his boats west. The picture was taken from the top of the alcazar, and the tower is the belltower of the Great Mosque of Cordoba.

yours in adventuring,
Sara

somehow, i stored up enough karma points to be rewarded by the universe this weekend. Not only did i go to Ireland, i went to Ireland for Arthur Guinness's 250th birthday. You can imagine how much of a party that was. So much of a party, that some irish man pulled out some of his belly hair, and tried to give it to me. oh yeah. And then! on top of that, the next night was "culture night" where everything was open late and free! So Kirstie, Jessica and I went to the Guiness brewery and had free pints of Guiness (definitely very cultural), and then we went to Christ's Church to look at the cat and rat that got mummified in the pipe organ a long time ago, and then we went to the Viking museum(!) and took lots of campy pictures with all the recreations. beause that's how we role. We definitely lucked out, because we didn't know about this before hand, so we got to save a lot of money while we were in Dublin.

On Saturday, we woke up early to take the bus to Galway, and we hung out in Galway a bit, and had crepes for dinner. Then on Sunday, we took a bus tour to the Cliffs of Mohar, and to fairy rings, and castles and prehistoric portal tombs. awesome.

Now I'm back in spain, ready to speak some more spanish. woo spanish!!!!

My next trip will probably be to Italy, around October 8th. because that week I have thursday, friday, saturday, sunday, monday, and tuesday free. Yes, you read that correctly. I have a 6 day weekend in October.

Guys, I am so ready (estoy tan lista) for classes to start here. We've literally had a whole week to sit around in our houses with our madres and watch american shows and made for tv movies (the simpsons, two and a half men, the secret life of the american teenager, etc) that are dubbed over in spanish. And walk around Cordoba. And have a few meetings here and there. And be formally welcomed by the alcade (mayor) of Cordoba (and by mayor, I actually mean the representative of the mayor) for approximately 4 hours of my life that I will never get back. It may sound like alot, but trust me, I've had more thatn enough tiempo libre. I am ready to do something productive.

So I guess I am experiencing a bit of culture shock, in that we (Nina y yo) fuimos a our Madre's piso in Malaga, on the coast of spain, for the weekend. and for all of Saturday, from 10 am to 1 am, we walked from cafe to cafe, and ate and sat, and then sat and ate, and then ate, and then walked maybe a block, and then sat and ate, and talked with relatives and omg by the end of it I was about ready to die of bordom. And it doesn't help that Malaga, being on the coast, is big into mariscos (seafood) and I am not really and aficionada of whole fried squid, or whole raw anchovies, or mussels. I'm not really a fan of wilted lettace covered in mayonaise either. Or whole fried baby birds, which my Madre ordered for lunch today. So fun times.

Yay clases start manana!!!

o, and I'm going to Ireland with Kirstie and Jessica this weekend. nbd. (yayayayayay!!!!!)

if you'd like to see my photos from the 10 day tour around spain, you can browse through the over 200 (organized by city) pictures here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024464&id=1041870089&l=2a21902498

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024760&id=1041870089&l=90fb0a9601

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024913&id=1041870089&l=f200982576

i found it! If you want to send me mail or something (and it would be really cool if you did) you can send it here:

Sara Hollar
Preshco office
Universidad de Córdoba
Plaza Cardenal Salazar, 3
14003 Córdoba, España

buenas noticias!

no estoy la estudiante peor at spanish!
I'm not the worst ever at spanish. I mean, i don't entirely understand the professors all the time, but who does, really? also, i've been doing pretty well at talking in spanish vientecuatro horas del dia, so i am certain it will only mejorarse. also, im really good at present tense, "ir a hacer" type sentances, and the "have done" sort of thing. for ejemplo: he hablado en espanol por todo el dia.
I have spoken in spanish all day.

y no he tomado mi siesta ya.
I have not taken my siesta yet.

Time to fix that!
hasta luego
-Sara

pues, entonces.

funny story.
So yesterday, while exhausted, and a bit overwelmed with the amount of spanish there is in the world, our host mother starts talking about the rest of the preshquitos and where they all live. We tell here that lisa lives very close and jackie lives far, all in pretty basic sentance structure. We tell her that we are a group of 35, but there's only one boy (somos trienta y cinco, y solo hay un chico) and she says, that she knows because one of her friends is kyle's host mom, and they were talking on the phone while we were sleeping. She also says kyle and one of the girls in the group were going out. That was news to Nina and I, so we filed it away to investigate. It seemed a bit early for a relationship, but maybe they were being subtle about it, we thought.

Then, anoche (last night) Nina and I were wandering around the commercial part of Cordoba and we ran into some more Preshquitos, including Kyle. And Kyle said that one of the first things his host mom had asked him was who his girlfriend was. And he was confused, because he does not have a novia, least of all un chica de prescho. It turns out Maribel, the lady that works for prescho and sets up the houses and stuff had been telling mentiras, chistes, etc to all the host moms. So now Kyle has to find Maribel and ask her exactly who it is he's going out with, because its news to him.

Maybe not that funny, but interesting none the less. It's good to know that the host mothers and prescho office people are all huge, well-intentioned, well-connected gossips.

I

today, llegamos en Cordoba, on an overnight train. being on the train with the compact bathroom and the pulldown beds was kind of romantic feeling, like being in another era of travel. It was also pretty much impossible to sleep. whatevesies. The worst part of the train was that a mosquito got into our cabin somehow, and now i have 6 bites on my hands and neck, since those were basically the only exposed parts mientras i was sleeping.

Then we met our familia. Nina, my companera de casa, and I are living with Josefa Elias, or, "Mama Pepi." Mama Pepi is really nice and obviously wants us to feel welcome. she said that this is our house (our meaning hers, nina's and mine) and that we are a family of three now. She showed us how to turn on the gas water heater, and how to flush the toliet (the tank is in the ceiling, and you have to pull a cord) and she took our dirty clothes to wash. Mama Pepi also has an active social life. Her gentleman friend was here this morning to help carry nuestra maletas, and tonight despues de la cena, she went out with some of her amigas. apparently today is some sort of saint's day here. I'm convinced Nina and I have the best familia, because we live really really close to the faculdad de filosophia y letras, where we'll be taking classes, and really close to the mesquita (famous great mosque of cordoba) we live on Calle Doctor Fleming, 6-2-4. you can google earth it if you want, and see how close we are to the mosque

I'm doing okay with understanding her, even though she talks really fast. i get the general gist most of the time, but i know im missing a lot of individual words.

after mama pepi left for her fiesta, Nina and i roamed the streets of old cordoba and ran into some more preshquitas (students that are doing the Prescho program with me) and we hung out and talked about how mentally exhausted we were from speaking spanish, and assured ourselves it will get better. and ahora, esta en casa, and im going to sleep for at least 9 hours.

well, first i'll give you my contact information if you need it:
address of my casa en espana
c/ Doctor Fleming
6-2-4
14004 Cordoba

email:
saretonin@hotmail.com

telefono en espana:
649-020-998 (if you're calling from the US, you'll have to put Spain's country code in front, which i think is 34)

telefono solo para emergancias:
610-70-00-35

tomorrow, ill put up the address where it would be better to send mail (directly to the prescho office) but i don't have that address with me right now and I'm to lazy to find it :)

hasta luego!

reminder:
if you're going to go out of the country, call your bank first.

also, if you're going to a country where the exchange rate is terrible, and los bancos charge a ridiculous fee to take out euros from an atm, ask them to raise the daily limit to something higher than 200 euros. this trip is muy caro.

okay, so.
vale, pues.

I LOVE BARCELONA.

i love gaudi, i love the parque guaii (sp?)
i love the beach, and the venders, and the octagonal shaped blocks, and the people with good posture riding vespas and the super wide streets. i love the climate, i love the mountains, i love the olympic stadium. i like the air conditioned metro and the buses that run every five minutes
It might be el mejor cuidad del todo el mundo.
except, like everything in spain, its very very expensive. and, like all tourist spots in spain, there are carreteras (sp?) (pickpockets)
I definitely want to return here during some part of the semester. and when im rich, i want to vacation here, like the rest of the girls in my program vacation on cape cod or the hamptons. or, at least i want to come here when im a grown up and have tons of money and time.

in spain

today, i've been in spain for a week already. i've been to avila, salamanca, el escorial, segovia madrid, toledo, zaragova y hoy llegamos en barcelona (or, as they say phonetically en espanol, barthelona) ive seen a lot of cathedrals, castles, monestaries and cobblestone streets. manana voy a visitar la buildings moderno de gaudi
i feel like i've known these girls (and the only guy in the program, kyle) for a lot longer than that ya, which is really nice.
The spanish have the second highest life expectancy in the world, smoke like chimneys, get almost the least amount of sleep of any country, with the average being about 6 hours a night, and dress impecabbly all the time. They also have great posture, even when riding vespas.
I am averaging about 5 hours a night, have terrible back pain, my clothes all smell like smoke, and didn't have my luggage for 2 days in salamonca, but i am still having a fantastic time.
everyday, i say im going to go to bed at midnight, but then dinner isn't usually until 9, and then we go out, even if we only stay out for an hour, its 11 ya, and then we have to talk about our days and what spanish words or customs we learned, and then its 3 suddenly. and then some days, we stay out to 5, so then its 6 when we go to sleep.
today, i am definitely getting to bed. ahora misma. mas o menos.