Valencia!!!

On Thursday Susana and I drove into Valencia to meet up with our friend Xamu. We walked around the old part of downtown to see all of the historical buildings and plazas.

Me and Xamu in front of the town hall.

In the center of one of the plazas there are glass tiles through which you can see ruins of the Roman city that is underneath Valencia. Xamu's grandfather was actually born in a house that used to be on top of this area until they discovered the ruins underneath. It is so interesting because the current city and it's structure date back to the 12th century but that was all built on top of the original Roman city that was built in the 2nd century BC so it is not uncommon to uncover really old ruins underneath existing structures.

In Spain and in Europe in general, there is such an abundance of old, beautiful buildings. I have seen a lot of them but I still am always amazed to be in the center of a huge city surrounded by the mixture of modern technologies and structures that are 600 years old. After walking around for a couple of hours we went to grab a drink and chat for a bit. It was a fun evening and especially great to see Xamu.

Fideau en Toga!

Tuesday, August 18th

Sus and I left Javea on Monday and drove about an hour or so back North to Valencia. She actually lives in a town called Sagunto that is about 20 minutes north of Valencia. Sagunto is an ancient town that was established during the 5th century BC so it is pretty cool.

We arrived and had lunch with her mom. It was the first of many incredible meals. Really, I can't talk enough about how good of a cook both Susana and her mom are. Susana is for sure, without a doubt the best cook I have ever met who is my age. Actually she is the best cook I have ever met of any age with the exception of my grandmother. She turns cooking into an art creating her own inventions of food, using anything, improvising anything, all with the same result: blissfully divine food. I would rather eat something cooked by Susana than go to a restaurant any day. I could write the rest of this blog about every meal we have but I'll spare you all. I'll just sum it up to say that after a week of starving and eating crackers in Madrid, I am eating well. And learning a lot. I actually excited to go back to my apartment in Madrid to try out all the things I have learned to make with Spanish food (I'm sure Jordan will also be very excited for my newly acquired Spanish cooking knowledge).

On Wednesday we met up with Susana's group of college friends to go to a town name Toga that is about an hour up in the mountains. It was such an amazing little town because it is extremely old and remote and tiny. The majority of the city streets were so narrow that you couldn't drive a car down them and all of the people in the town seemed to be right out of an old Spanish movie. I had a great time, especially because her friends were particularly friendly and welcoming. I felt so comfortable with them and within the first hour I felt as if I had been part of their group forever which was a blast. We at some delicious food cooked by one of the guys and then walked down to the river. It was the clearest river I had ever seen and was so refreshingly cool.

Sus and I with the road signs on the walk back from the river.

There were many colorful bottles hanging as decoration in the streets because the city had been celebrating some holidays.

The delicious Fideau that Pascual made. It had noodles and spices and all kinds of fresh seafood. It was soooo good! One of the best things I have eaten here (which I will probably say a lot because I have eaten all kinds of great food but really it was amazing)!

A few of us in the river.

We've spent the past few days mostly relaxing at Susana's house and taking it easy because I have been sick with allergies and a cold (I always seem to have health complications when I travel). Its been nice to be able to relax in such a comforting house. Today is Susana's mom's birthday so we have been cooking and preparing things all day. Last night, I made a cheeseball with my favorite recipe which my mom gave me and I tell you it is not such a simple thing that you can prepare in 15 minutes here. For example, you cannot find finely chopped pecans in a bag. No, I spent 30 minutes peeling them and chopping them myself. The same goes with crushed pineapple. I chopped it, crushed it and drained it rather than just opening that simple little 8.5 ounce can of crushed pineapple (and converting everything to grams was fun to, haha). And seasoned salt? Well that most certainly does not exist in Spain so I looked up a recipe to make it from scratch using 7 other ingredients. 2 hours later, at 4 a.m., I had my final cheeseball product. And the final taste is delicious. I'm very proud that I made it all from scratch but man does it make me appreciate the cooking luxuries I have at home. When I return in December I know exactly what my suitcases will be packed with...food.

The cheeseball was a big hit at the dinner and everyone kept asking me what it was called. I said "Well, we just call it a cheeseball" and they all decided to just call it "la comida americana" (the american food). So they would say, pass me the american food please, haha. I got several recipe requests so I am happy with my labors.

Cliff Diving

Sunday, August 16th

On Sunday our wonderful friend Susana drove down to Javea to join us for the day. We went to a cove that was about 30 minutes away because it has great cliffs to jump off of. When we arrived we also discovered that is also a popular nudist beach :) Interesting. Especially considering that the majority of the people who decide to go nude are over the age of 70. And overweight. Nonetheless, the cove was gorgeous and it was so fun to be there with our friends. It is so strange to be with them in Spain instead of Norman. I have to keep reminding myself of where we are.

Koke, Jordan, and I decided to jump off the cliffs, while Gloria and Sus hung out on the beach. The climb alone was exciting and quite challenging. We reached the highest cliff which we all intended to jump off of and oh wow, was it high!!! It was about 40 feet which may not sound like that much but it is incredibly high, especially looking straight down off of the cliff into the deep blue ocean. We tried to work up the courage to jump for awhile but the longer we stood up there discussing it, the more difficult it became. My heart was racing and my hands were shaking. We all want to jump but we decided we needed at least one person who was fearless to say "this is easy" and then jump so that we could quickly follow. But it just got scarier the longer we waited so we decided to climb down a few rocks and jump from about half the height which was no problem. So we jumped and then we realized that the scary part was no the jump but was the fact that we were in the middle of the ocean. Near a shore where I had just seen an octopus wash up on and that we knew was frequently full of jellyfish. So we swam quickly. And after getting our courage up we were ready to take on the big cliff. Rather than going all the way back to shore we decided to climb up out of the sea onto some rocks. It didn't seem difficult at the time but Jordan and I both realized later that we cut our shins climbing out of the ocean because the rocks were really rough. So we were bleeding. Shark bait for sure. We got back to the top of the 40 foot cliff and sure enough it was just as high as we remember. Finally Koke got up enough nerve to jump after Jordan and I assured him that we would come right after him. So then Jordan jumped and the intensity of their screams did not help my courage. So I stood at the edge and wanted to go so badly and I just couldn't. My body was shaking so much that I thought my legs were going to give out (like my dad says, its just not natural for our body to be okay with jumping off a perfectly good cliff). Koke threatened to leave me and started swimming away thinking that would help me go but that just made me more scared because even if I did jump I would be all alone in the ocean. So I couldn't go. And couldn't go. And finally Jordan said the magic words..."Kayla...Shakira would jump!! Come on, be a loba!!!!" And that was it. I knew with those words there was no turning back. Because Shakira would go. So I began to sing the lyrics of the chorus of loba to myself and there is a part where you hear a wolf howling and that is when I jumped. And it was the perfect duration of the time I spent in the air (which seemed to be about 10 seconds but in reality I think was about 2.5). It was an amazing rush. One of the scariest things I have ever done (that and mountain climbing and repelling in Mexico). The landing though was quite painful (even though I was wearing tennis shoes) and I am still suffering some repercussions from it. But it was awesome. Such a fun day! After we rewarded ourselves with some ice cream and then drove to some scenic points to check out the views.

This is the cove we went to (I don't think you can see any nudity in this picture. That was mostly contained in the back area near the mountain). You can't make out the specific cliff we jumped from but its on the mountain that is in the back of the picture.

With Gloria and Susana...I LOVE these girls and am sooo happy to be with them in Spain!!!

The five of us after the day at the beach.

Jordan and me at one of the many scenic points we stopped at.

Beautiful sunset.

Beach Time!!

Wednesday, August 12th

We left Madrid to head to the east coast of Spain where our two of our friends (Gloria and Koke) have beach houses. We arrived in the beautiful resort town of Javea, where we spent the next few days relaxing on the beach.

Gloria and me in one of the many Mediterranean coves we went to.

The view from Gloria's house...a pretty nice place to spend a few days :)

Gloria's precious nephew Jorge who spent a few days with us.

Koke, Gloria, Jordan and me getting ready to go out and dance until 8 in the morning.

The great group of girls that I hung out with every day and night.

I have finally become used to the Spanish schedule which is dramatically different from what I am used to in the U.S. You eat breakfast whenever you wake up and then lunch is around 3 or 3:30 and dinner is around 10:30. And that is the same regardless of whether you are eating with a family or just younger people. It took my stomach some time to adjust but finally I have gotten used to it. Going out at night is also very different. I am used to living in a place where bars and clubs close at 2:00 a.m. so you therefore go out around 10:00p.m. Well in Spain you finish eating dinner at midnight, go to a friends house to hang out and socialize with a group until 3 a.m. or so and then go to a club or whatever you final destination is around 4:00 a.m., where you stay until 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning. I initially had trouble staying up all night but have finally become a bit more "Spanish". The good thing about coming home at that time is the opportunity to see the sunrise over the Mediterranean which I would probably never wake up to see otherwise.

El Escorial

I left Madrid a week ago to travel around Spain and visit some friends so I therefore have not had internet access. So I have several past entries to post now that I am connected to the virtual world again so I'm just going to post them with the original date on the top.

Tuesday, August 11^th

Jordan and I took a train to Las Rosas which is a suburb of Madrid and where Jordan will be teaching this year. It is also where our friend Carlos lives so we met up with him and Bee and went to visit El Escorial. El Escorial is an important Spanish royal sight that is about 28 miles outside of Madrid and was built in the 1570s. Since then it has been the historical residence of the king of Spain and the burial sight of the Spanish kings and royal families of the last five centuries. It is an impressively huge complex. It functions as a monastery, royal palace, museum, Basilica, and school. We spent about 3 hours touring it (until our stomachs demanded that we could do no more without eating) and only managed to see about 1/3 of it. It was really magnificent and beautiful (as most royal sights are).

Jordan and I waiting in line in one of the courtyards.

A sign we found to be very appropriate for me (for those of you who don't know, I took a very bad tumble down some marble stairs in Central Park and had some serious physical repercussions...and I now experience extreme anxiety every time I go down stairs).

One of the many beautifully painted ceilings.

Bee and I in the courtyard of the Pantheon of Kings.

Saying goodbye to Bee at the train station of Las Rozas. She is heading back to Oklahoma to finish her Masters. We met in Oklahoma but she is my beautiful Colombian friend I mentioned earlier who is from Barranquilla (Shakira's city...in case you haven't learned by now). It was so great to get to hang out with her in Spain. I'll miss you love!

After we left El Escorial, we went to a restaurant called VIPS (pronounced here as 'beeps' which for some reason I find to be very funny) and ate some delicious Mexican found which is already the food I am missing most from Oklahoma.

Loba

I love Madrid!!! I'm currently sitting on my balcony (which besides being my favorite place to hang out is also where I'm able to pick up our neighbors WIFI) and I just heard a car drive by blasting "Loba" which is Shakira's new song. I yelled "Jordan, listen!" and he ran out and then we soaked up the Shakira-rific moment together on our adjacent balconies. Life is good :)

Jordan's Blog

For all of you who are really interested in reading about our Spanish lives (which I know probably won't be many people other than my mom and grandma), here is the link to Jordan's blog. Although we experience pretty much everything together, we definitely write from different perspectives and cover different events. And Jordan is definitely a better writer. So while my blog is kind of like a scientific summary his is more of a eloquent story that will make you laugh. So I just thought I'd share it with you. Here it is:

http://justasmalltownkid.blogspot.com/

On our way to becoming Madrileños...

We spent most of Thursday getting everything unpacked and settled in to our apartment and then went to buy several things we needed for the apartment. And let me tell you, whether you love it or hate it, Wal-Mart sure does make life easier and more affordable. We spent a great deal of time going to different places in the city trying to buy pretty basic stuff. And when we finally found it I couldn't help but think how much cheaper it would have been at Wal-Mart, haha. But now we have everything we absolutely need (although many wants remain unfulfilled) and our apartment is beginning to feel more and more like home everyday.

Since our program doesn't begin until September and we already have our apartment set up, we have had lots of free time the last few days to just wander around and get to know the city which has been great. I already feel like I know the entire central region of the city pretty well so we will be professional tour guides by the time anyone comes to visit. We basically just set off in a general direction and spend hours each day walking around and stopping in any random plaza, church, store, or palace we find (and Madrid has plenty of all those things).

Friday we met up with a couple of our friends that we met at OU. Carlos, who lives in Madrid, and Bielenis who is visiting from Colombia (she is my friend who lives in the same city as Shakira - Barranquilla - and she loves her ALMOST as much as me...so yes it is a friendship made in heaven). We met up with them and then went to the courtyard of the palace to have coffee and then toured the palace which was beautiful!!

Saturday we got our first taste of nightlife in Madrid because our roommate took us out with him. As is typical here, we arrived at the club around 2 a.m. and stayed until 6:30! And we only left then because I was exhausted...NOT because the club was closing. It was a really cool place and I got to dance for 5 hours AND they played Shakira!! I love Madrid. Guillermo says when we can make to 8 am and end the night with churros y chocolate in a local churro place then we will officially be Madrileños. Almost...

Sunday we woke up pretty late as I'm sure you could imagine and then went to Mass at the Cathedral. Luckily everything is slower and later in the Spanish culture so a common Mass time is 8:00 pm. It is a pretty Cathedral but I definitely do not plan on going to Mass there again because the constant influx of tourists coming in and out is quite distracting. Especially the group of ladies who decided to sit down behind us and eat their dinner during Mass. Whatever it was it came in a wrapper that was extremely loud to open (breathe Carson...as much as I was freaking out I can't even imagine what you would have done). Luckily there is a church on almost every block in Spain and they are all beautiful and historical so I have plently of options. I actually plan to go to a different church every Sunday so I can see them all.

Today (Monday) I woke up at a decent hour so I think I finally gotten over the jet-lag. Although I never had problems before I had the hardest time getting adjusted to the 7 hour time difference and we found ourselves not being able to fall asleep until 4am and then getting up at 2pm. We spent more time walking around and finding random plazas and parks to hang out in. We went to Park Retiro again (which is kind of like Madrid's version of Central Park) and checked out the Crystal Palace there and sat down for some quality people watching. It is one of the best places to do so and our favorite game is to guess where people are from which is pretty easy to do based on various styles of fashion. It is at least very easy to differentiate Europeans from Americans. Jordan and I have decided that there are a few clothing purchases we need to make in order to blend in a bit better. For me it is gladiator style sandals and for Jordan it is either Manpris (Capris for men) or really short shorts (probably shorter than I would be comfortable wearing in public). I think for that reason he is going to go with the Manpris.

We leave Wednesday to go to Valencia to meet up with all of our friends who live there. There is a group of students who were exchange students at OU last year and they all live in Valencia. I became very good friends with alot of them so I'm really excited to be reunited!! Plus an added bonus is we are going to spend the first few days at my friend Gloria's beach house which is in a town called Javea (about an hour south of Valencia). So we are off to the beach at last!!! I can't wait!

Pictures of our Apartment

Here are the first few pics of our apartment so you all can see where I'm living.

This is the first street view from our balcony. Although the picture doesn't do it much justice, it is a great view. It leads down to Calle Montera which connects Gran Via with Plaza del Sol, two very important and famous places where there is always a lot going on. You can also see the Telefonica tower above it which was at one time the tallest tower in Europe (long ago, haha) but currently serves as a great clocktower for us and even lights up at night so we always know what time it is.

These are some of the 5 wonderful sets of stairs we get to climb several times a day. You can tell that it is a pretty old building by the worn stairs.

Here is our kitchen which came fully stocked with everything we need and more (3 refrigerators).

Here is our living room with the 5 couches I mentioned. Oh and 2 tvs because one has a really good picture but not good sound and the other has no picture but great sound. So you just put them on the same channel and then you have a perfect tv watching experience. Haha

This is the view from the other end of my living room. The first set of doors go to my room (I will post pictures of that later once I get everything unpacked and settled) and the second set of doors go to Jordan's room.

Both of our rooms have balconies facing the street. It is definitely my favorite part. It is a great place to sit and read, relax, or just take in all the great people on the street. Plus it is a great source of ventilation which is key since nothing in Spain has air conditioning.

This is the view from the balcony towards the right. You can see all the beautiful architecture of the old building and if you look close you can see the black and gold dome of the Metropolis building that connect Gran Via with Calle de Alcala.

So that is a mini-tour of our apartment. We love it, it is so Spanish and full of character! I'm looking forward to spending the next year here!

The first few days

I arrived in Madrid on Tuesday afternoon after an amazing flight (anytime you can fly British Airways, I definitely recommend it. We got lucky with it being the cheapest option).

I will be living in Madrid for one year doing a pretty cool Masters program through which I will study “Spanish Language, Literature, and Culture” and also do a teaching internship as part of the program. I’m so excited to be here at last as I have been preparing for this for quite awhile and it has been difficult getting all of the necessary preparation and paperwork done. Since I have the privilege of having a U.S. Passport, I never before realized how difficult it was to get a visa for another country (since in most countries we usually don’t need one for short, touristic stays of 3 months or less), but trust me it is awfully exhausting and frustrating. At one point I almost surrendered but after dozens of trips to the capital and the Consulate in Houston, here we are (I am lucky to be accompanied by my very good friend Jordan who is also doing the same program. I’m sure his name will be mentioned a lot in the future).

We spent two chaotic days running around Madrid meeting with landlords and scheduling appointments to see apartments and at last we have found the most amazing apartment which we signed the contract for almost immediately after seeing it and discovering that it is remarkably affordable apartment and is in the absolute most perfect location. It is right smack dab in the center of Madrid. For those of you who are familiar with Madrid it is on Gran Via. It is basically 5 minutes walking from everywhere we would want to go: incredible restaurants, stores, bars, clubs, museums, the palace, the cathedral, and many of the main plazas. Basically Jordan and I are so happy to have found this place. We currently have two Spanish roommates, Guillermo and Maete. They are the same age as us and are really cool. We are excited to have locals to hang out with. Another great thing about this apartment is that it has 5 couches and 2 extra mattresses so it is PERFECT for having visitors (i.e. everyone come visit me in Spain!!!! Did I mention it is a perfect location in an incredible city?!?!)

The only downfall to this apartment is it is one the 5^th floor and there is no elevator which means we will be in pretty good shape simply from coming and going everyday. Now the 5^th floor doesn’t sound too bad until you thinking about bringing 6 suitcases upstairs (two of which were mine and weighed 80 pounds a piece!! Yikes! But hey, I’m going to be here for a year. Try to fit 4 seasons worth of stuff in 2 bags…its difficult). Luckily between the two of us we were able to lug them up the stairs and get settled in at last, celebrating with of course, Spanish Sangria.

Hola!!!

Hey everyone!! Since I'm going to be living in Spain for the next year and out of touch through most normal means, I have created this blog to post updates and pictures in order to keep everyone who is interested updated on my life in Spain!!!! Que viva Espana!!