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.

Loco

So I've been slacking major on el blog this past week so here we go...

Thursday (I'm starting here cause it was exciting):

We (David, Laura, Micheal-Ann, Luisa, Kailie, and I) went to the soccer game, Atletico Madrid vs. Real Madrid. I'm going to make this really long night short and in chronological order cause that's logical:

1. Got to the game too early and we're surrounded by crazy Atletico Madrid fans
2. David got spat on for wearing a Ronaldo jersey, so we made Micheal-Ann keep her coat on to cover her's up so she wouldn't get harmed.
3. Finally got into the stadium and excitement started to overcome the fear of being fans for the visiting team.



4. The seats started to fill up with loco fans



It's like nothing in the US. There was one whole section of crazy fans that were standing the entire time cheering for Atletico Madrid. People had made a huge banner that covered the entire section before the game of a car running over a Real Madrid player. Everyone around us was cussing at the Real Madrid team as they warmed up and while playing.

Friday

5. We left the game and stadium unharmed and headed for the bus that runs all night to head back to Alcala.
6. We got to the bus stop at 1:05 am and it only comes on the hour. We waited for the next bus for an hour and filled our time waiting in the nasty Metro station to stay warm.
7. Made it back to Alcala and were safely tucked in bed by 3:18 am.
8. We had to wake up at 7 to be ready for a 9 am trip to Segovia.
9. Went to Segovia and it was hard to enjoy because we were freezing cold and tired



Skipping a few days...

Tuesday: El loco day of this week

1. We found out we were going to have to move...again.
The house we were staying in, the one I blogged about in this post had 3 Brazilian boys and we shared a bathroom with one of them. That equals not okay. So we moved, but our new family's mom didn't have a working car so we had to ride the bus with our huge bags, get off at another stop and ride a new bus to our new house...

We weren't too heart broken about leaving our second house cause the food was gross, there wasn't much hot water ever, and we couldn't get to know the new family because they had 4 other exchange students. But mainly we're glad to not see the food from our second fake mom's cooking ever again.

BUT, our new house is awesome! It's an older couple, who are Mormon, with a huge house, located a block from the Church, with WiFi, hot water, and delicious food (well we've only had one meal and it was good).

Awkward

So today Kailie and I moved from this:





A nice bedroom, nice desk, and nice closet. With a family that smokes and was super nice...to this:



Why you may ask... Well I'll tell you.

So we moved in a week ago to the top pictures and it was way awesome, the only complaints we had were there was no internet and our family smoked. Well it's BYU's policy that the family can't smoke so they moved us.

Our new house now has internet (so we'll be blogging a little more frequently, get excited) and there's no smoking. The family is just a husband and wife it seems like and there are a bunch of students that live here as well, besides us. It was only a 5 minute walk from the other house.

However, it was way awkward to leave...
The university said they had told our old family that we were moving out, only when we were packing our stuff they had no clue we were leaving. The dad seemed kind of offended and we had to just explain that we were being moved and we that they were super nice and thanks for everything. The most awkward was when we were leaving their front door with all our stuff and we just left and walked on our way.

But here we are in our new house! We're excited and ready to start the semester...again.

Madrid

We finally made into Madrid and have been visiting ever since.



La Plaza de Mayor



El Museo Del Traje



Real Madrid Stadium

Fun times!

First

On Wednesday we had our first day of school:

We got all ready and headed off on the bus:



Today it was funny, we saw the bus by the round-about right before the bus stop and had to run and wave him down and then he stopped for us, instead of having to wait for the next one. It was awesome.