B-Day

Friday (the 18th) we celebrated the day of my birth. I am now 20 years old, I find that to be too old for my liking...But I have a whole year to get used to it.

We spent the day in Madrid, you couldn't ask for more perfect weather!
I was surprised with delicious napolitanas. No, I didn't eat all of these my self, we ate them as a group.

Don't ask what this face was...assume it's an "These napolitanas are mine/I love napolitanas" face.

After that, we enjoyed the sun by renting boats in Retiro Park.


Then hit up Hard Rock Cafe for birthday dinner.


For my real birthday (the 19th) I spent it with millions of people in Valencia. Details on Valencia to come...


Then on the 20th, I celebrated it with my wonderful host parents, their son, daughter in law, and their kids.


Thank you friends, mom and dad, and host family! I had a wonderful 20th birthday!

Lib

She gets an entire post because she came to visit Spain! We picked her up at the airport on Sunday to stay for a total of 3 days. Although it was way short it was GREAT to catch up with her and see her beautiful face again.



We showed her around Alcala on Monday, showing her the plaza, market, treats, and everything. Then that afternoon our mom excused us from religion class (if we missed one we couldn't get an A so it was so nice of her to do that for Kailie and I) and we went to Madrid. Showing Olivia the pastries, market, landmarks, and shopping.

Then on Tuesday afternoon we went to the temple with our little group. It was an amazing experience for all of us.



Sadly she is now gone and trekking back to BYU, her presence will be missed.

Thanks Olivia for visiting!

Mixed

I mentioned in my first Paris post I would talk about my feelings...Well pictures, with captions are going to explain things perfectly

Picture #1: Make a face of how you feel about the hotel.



So Michael-Ann, Laura, and I went to the hotel to check in, because Luisa and David had to wait for Kailie who arrived a couple hours later. Well we took a taxi there (for the record I said we should take the train) and all 3 of us were cringing as we saw the price go up every 10 cents. We finally got to the hotel and walked up to the door in the pouring rain; all three of us were distraught (to say the least) to see what we were going to be staying in...But as you can see in the picture Laura didn't like it, Michael-Ann didn't mind it, and I was leery about it.

Story Time: Our plan was to sneak Kailie and Luisa in because we only told them 4 of us were going to be staying there (a room for Laura and David and then the 4 of us would low-two it all night). But Kailie and Luisa didn't arrived until 1 AM and the creepy front desk man closed the door and we had to ring the doorbell to get back in. Well he didn't let all 6 of us come in at once so Luisa and Kailie had to find their own place to stay. So Luisa, Kailie, and David (the big brother that he is) went looking for a place and ended up staying in a hostel, which was about as good as our hotel. So Luisa and Kailie stayed there all 3 nights, Michael-Ann and I were roomies, and Laura and David were roomies.

Picture #2: The majority of Paris guys are creepy...



Michael-Ann, Laura, and I went to go get crepes while waiting for the other 3 the first night. We asked the man if we can come in and eat them cause it was rainy and freezing. He said yes, only if we go to a party with him when he closes. Well we said maybe and came in to sit down...Pheobe (Michael-Ann), Rachel (Laura), and I (Monica, we gave him fake names, FRIENDS characters) sat down and this creepy man was there with us the whole time. We quickly ate our crepes and left, not going to any parties with him at all.

Paris men are creepy...

Pictures #3 and 4: "Everyone show your feelings of the morning"



This was taken our first morning there. David was taking his frustration out on Michael-Ann, I was excited to go see the Eiffel Tower, and Michael-Ann was just ready to have fun the whole time. Laura was excited cause she was going to see her friend in Paris, Kailie and Luisa were tired and frustrated from a long night in the hostel.

Picture #5: Crepes



My new found food love is crepes. A banana and nutella crepe always hit the spot. But I don't have as much of love as Michael-Ann, she ate a total of 15 crepes in 3 days. She rarely branched out from nutella and enjoyed everyone of them.

Paris has left a lot of mixed feelings in my mind. I thought it was a beautiful city, filled with crepes, the Eiffel Tower, museums and so on. But my first experience wasn't that great, terrible hotel, rainy the whole time, everything on a budget, and lack of sleep.

I would go there again with these conditions:
1. I stay in a Marriott or Disney Hotel
2. I have enough money to eat where I want
3. It's the summer time, no rain but beautiful sunshine
4. I visit EuroDisney

But I love Spain so much more :):)

Infamous

My bus buddy this week was David. I didn't have room to sprawl out on the bus to sleep so this is how I slept:


(Laugh all you want)

Mouth open and everything. However, this picture broke Michael-Ann's camera...

Michael-Ann thought this was hilarious and had to take a picture of it, she LOVES taking pics. Correction: she LOVES taking pics with the flash. Well the flash woke up David and he was mad that she took a picture of him sleeping. So he "attacked" her, trying to take her camera and broke it. The whole time this silent attack was happening I was asleep, I didn't wake up until David sat back down.

So that's the infamous picture and story to go along with it.

Paris

Here's my trip to Paris in pictures:

We went to the Eiffel Tower the first day. It was beautiful and I was so happy to see it. Checked that off my bucket list.



Went on the Ferris Wheel



While on the Ferris Wheel we saw the Eiffel Tower sparkle



The next day we went to Versailles and saw the palace there.



After the tour we ate lunch in the huge gardens outside.



That night we went to the Louvre.



And saw the Mona Lisa and Delcroix's paintings, among others.



Then the last day we went climbed up the stairs to the Eiffel Tower.



This is my first post of the trip, I'll post another one with other pictures and feelings about everything...

Concierto

On Saturday we went to the Neon Trees concert. A guy in our group heard about it on myspace; it was a secret concert sponsored by a cell phone company out here and they did it for free in some club in Madrid.



I only knew/know one of their songs, Animal, but that wasn't the point. I had fun rocking out with Luisa and Laura up in the front.



Then Michael-Ann decided to join us for Animal (but then she, Kailie and David left...).



It was a fun, spontaneous, time and I'd do it again in a heart beat.

Seventh

Do you remember this post?

Well here's seven:



This was at stake conference, it gives you a good view of the temple, just picture angel Moroni on the top of it and you're good.

This past Thursday, the entire group went to the Temple to do baptisms. It was a great experience, as all temple experiences are. The temple workers did the ordinances in Spanish and I had David practice his Spanish as he did ordinances as well. It was great to have the opportunity to do temple work, across the ocean, in another country.


The Madrid, Spain Temple
(From the left: Laura, Luisa, Me, Kailie, and Michael-Ann)

Camera

For Christmas I got a DSLR to use in my photography class and all over Spain. It is tons of fun and I'm learning so much and getting great pictures of this beautiful country. Check them out:


Playing with aperture



Playing with the Panoramic setting on my camera


Playing with shutter speed (this one's my favorite)

I love my new camera!

Portugal

Well Luisa, Michael-Ann, Kailie, and I went to Portugal this weekend...No big deal, just an hour plane ride.


We arrived and had some real American food at Hard Rock. Best meal ever, it was so satisfying.


We fit 4 into a king size bed, low two-ing all night.


We had breakfast. Kailie and Luisa ordered apple juice and got this...Mashed up apple in a glass.


Went to a little town known as Sintra.


Ate Spanish Tortilla and PB&J at the cutest little restaurant ever.



Met some Brazilian boys while touring the Moorish Castle.

Story time: We invited these guys that we met to go to the Hard Rock Cafe with us on our second night (they were having a DJ there and we thought it would be fun) and look there were 4 and 4 :):). So we get back to the hotel at 10 and want to take a nap so we can stay up late. Our alarm goes off at 11:30 and we have no motivation to get up. Luisa finally wakes up at 12:30 and asks if we want to go and no one responds. So we just fall back asleep, in our clothes, and stood up these quite cute, Brazilian boys.


The next (and last day) enjoyed the beach!



It was a fun filled weekend. And I do indeed love Portugal!

Excited

We are so excited to go to Portugal this weekend!
From the left, Luisa, Kailie, and Michael-Ann
(All of which are going this weekend)
I was taking the picture, but I'm excited as well.