A little busy

Hello all,

Let me start off by saying I had a wonderful weekend on the Loyola retreat - I hope I will have time to blog about it before my parents get here.  I am going to try to do it tomorrow morning, if I can get out of bed at 8am - I have been running on about 6 or 7 hours of sleep every night for the longest time! It is all good though.

Tonight I went to dinner with Elizabeth and her friend from home, Steven, and my friend from SLU, Dan.  Dan is studying in Italy for the summer about 2 or 3 hours away from Rome.  We well to this cute little 50's American diner about 25 minutes from my house.  I was a lot of fun and it was nice to have some American food.  Haha. Oh and I came home and told Gloria I wasn't going to be at dinner and she was making soy hamburgers!! I was a little mad I was not going to be at dinner, but she said I can have it for lunch tomorrow so that is a good thing!

My four best friends from high school are all on Spring Break this week and I got to Skype all of them together tonight after I got home from dinner!  It was great to see all of them and I miss them sooo much.  It was hard being on Skype and not being able to physically be there with them, but I will be home in two months and then I will be able to see them all!! :)  I love you girls!!

Well I am going finishing uploading pictures to Facebook and then finish a little reading and then call it a night.  I want to be in bed by 1:30 - let's hope it happens.  Tomorrow I think I am going to hang out with Megan - another friend from SLU in St. Louis! I hope everything works out!! I cannot wait to see that girl!! :)

Paz y Amor.  God Bless.

Thirsty Thursday?

Today was not a thirsty Thursday.  Instead of going to get sangria today after class I decided to go for a run at the track.  It was a gorgeous day out - the sun was shining and it was warm!! Classes were not too bad today as well.  My friend Zack asked me to go to Corte Ingles - a huge department store - it even has a grocery store.  Anyways Zack's watch broke so we went to try to get it fixed - he speaks barely any Spanish so he wanted me to be the translator - haha what a joke.  Well we successfully got his watch fixed with a little bit of an adventure.

Tomorrow I am leaving for a retreat in the Northern part of Spain - Loyola.  And yes Mom and Dad I have learned to say Loyola with no problem - I legit practiced in my room so I could actually tell people where I was going this weekend - I know I am pretty lame.  Well this is going to be short blog - I don't really have anymore to say.  Just good luck to all the MCB kids tomorrow on their test - especially Scott, Kelsey, Megan, and Michael!! I know you guys will do great.  Also good luck on any of the other midterms you have! I will be praying for you this weekend :) ONE WEEK until Mom and Dad are here!!

That is all for tonight. I have to pack and finish some homework.  Goodnight.

Paz y Amor.  God Bless.

Ash Wednesday

Well I am Catholic so today starts the great journey to the Easter Season.  We only have 40 days until Jesus saved us people - it is time to prepare ourselves.  I went to Mass today - it was a lot different than the SLU mass or even my parish mass - there was no singing and it seemed very rushed - I wasn't the biggest fan.  There is not a church on campus like at SLU so we had mass in a classroom.  I mean it was better than nothing.  Something that I really liked about the mass was it was in English and in Spanish - I really like how they tried to bring the two together.  Another part of the mass I really enjoyed was the homily.  The priest talked about how people always give up chocolate or chips or try to exercise and he suggested that we should do something different.  Maybe volunteer or give money to an organization or talk to a neighbor that you haven't talked to in a while - basically do something you normally wouldn't do it lent - I really like this idea and I hope people take it to heart.  It is hard to find something that you believe you will be able to accomplish yet still be a little bit of a struggle to remember the true meaning of lent.  I think that people have taken the real meaning of lent and turned it into something Jesus and the Catholic faith did not intend it to be - I am included in this.  It is hard to remember the true meaning of lent instead of just going through the motions of giving a couple things up and not eating meat on Fridays - I want to make an effort this lent to make it something more.  I know this is going to be a challenge for me especially with studying abroad, but I am going to make an honest effort to remember lent instead of going through the emotions.  This might be a little selfish, but I need to take some time for myself this lenten season - I want to focus on staying positive! I don't want the little things to get to me and not plan as much! I need to relax and just enjoy the time I have left here in Madrid. :)

Tonight I got the random chance to skype with Steph Hagan tonight :) I miss that girl so much! We were roommates last semester - we had some rough patches as roommates but she is truly one of my best friends and I am very sad that she had to transfer to Madison.  She was always there for me whenever I needed anything and I know she will always be there for me.  She has a heart of gold and some of the best morals ever.  We had so many great talks last semester when we both didn't want to do our homework or study for an exam.  Also, we had some great laughing attacks as well - APO family event - she will know what I am talking about! I love you Steph and miss you bunches!!

Well I think that is all for tonight! I have to get some homework done I believe.  Mom and Dad come next Thursday and Dad's birthday is next Friday!! Nothing too excited happened today - just church.  Sorry that my day's haven't been that interesting lately!  I leave for the retreat on Friday morning and will return Sunday night.  Megan McNichols is coming to Madrid on Sunday! I am really excited to see her - she is a friend from SLU - hopefully we will get a chance to hang out! Oh, my camera was not fixed by the rice... bummer. But good thing Mom is bringing a new one :)  I can't wait to see you guys!

Paz y Amor. God Bless.

Things on my mind

Well there has been a lot of things on my mind lately and since I haven't shared a lot of personal insight recently I thought I would try to accomplish some of it tonight.  I am not really sure where to start so this blog might be unorganized so please bare with me.

Morals.  Everyone has morals and everyone's morals are different in some sort of way.  People's morals come from a variety of places as well.  For me most of my morals have come from my family especially my parents and my religious upbringing.  I would have to say for most of my life my Catholic faith has helped me shape the person I am today with the help of my family.  When I meet people with different morals it is hard for me to find a deep connection with people when our morals differ a lot.  I try to understand where everyone is coming from, but when I believe in something strongly it is hard to see the other point as correct.  What I more important than thinking someone is correct or incorrect is again understanding.  It is okay not to agree with a person in my opinion but that doesn't mean you can't be friends or treat them with respect.  I don't agree with the choices people make and it is hard for me to understand why in the world they would do something like that, but I need to remember to respect them, even if I don't believe and approve of what they are doing.  Too many people my age are too quick to judge.

We all need to be happy for what we are given and what we have, but we also need to know what is important in life.  Is money so important that we should go to graduate school just to make more money?  Should we complain about having kids because it is going to be painful for the female body?  Should we not give back to our community because we are too busy in our own lives?  Should we try to act like someone else just to impress someone else?  I hope you all know where I am going with this... the answer to all those questions is no.  Over the past couple of weeks I have witnessed people doing those exact things.  It literally kills me inside - and to be honest I don't know why it does.  I guess I have come to realize I need to grateful for all that I am given - I will never be able to thank the people enough for all they have given me.  Every person I have met throughout my life has changed me in a certain way even if you don't think you have.  Even if our friendship didn't end the best you have made me a stronger person and shape who I am today.  There is so much I want to say to so many people on how you have changed me it is crazy and I would have no idea where to start.  If you are really interested you can ask me and I will let you know - this blog would be forever long if I tried to do it here.  But I want you all to think about the people you have met in your life and how they have changed you.  Anyways, money is important I understand that, but you are going to hate your job or going to school for a longer amount of time is it really worth it?  I really don't believe so, but that is just my personal opinion.  So what if child birth is painful!? Do you think it wasn't painful for Jesus to die on the cross for me and you... ehh no!? So suck it up and be happy you have bring another human being into the work - it is a miracle for goodnessakes! If you can not find an hour out of every week to give back to the community I think you need to rethink your life, buddy.  Sorry if that is blunt, but really one hour our of every week shouldn't be that much of a time commitment.  And please just be yourself - people will love you for the way you are not for being a fake person.

I am traveling the world at 20 years old.  Yes, I can't even believe it myself.  I am traveling the world at 20 years old - I just had to say it again.  That is such a crazy thought.  The opporturnity that I have been given by my parents, God, and everyone else who has helped is unbelievable.  Just about every weekend I am traveling to a new and exciting place, seeing different parts of the world, and bonding with different people on the trips.  At some points I really take the opportunity for granite - sometimes I don't realize how lucky I am to be studying in Madrid and have the funds to travel so many places while I am here.  I love having my blog where I get to share all the adventures I am having with everyone and it is great for me to express how I am feeling.  At first I was a little nervous about sharing my feelings so openly, but to be honest it doesn't really feel like I am because I am not talking directly to a person, but I know a lot of people read the blog.  However, everyone is really respectful and takes to heart when I "spill my guts" in way so thank you for that.

Today I had a wonderful day! I wore sandals which Gloria freaked out about a little bit because she doesn't want me to get sick, however, the day was gorgeous!! I was glad I wore sandals! I also went to the soup kitchen with Jackie today.  We did not serve food instead we were in the kitchen watching the dishes, but we still had a great time and all the people that came into the soup kitchen would smile and us and were just really friendly - that always happens though - I am blonde and American. But it is all good.  As we say in Spain "no pasa nada" :)  Otherwise my life has been pretty great.  Mom and Dad come in about a week and a half!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Can you see my excitement!?  It is going to be a great time!! To be honest Gloria has really turned into my second mom, even with the language barrier and everything.  This morning I had to ask Gloria for some rice to see if that would help my camera work - it was interesting to try to explain why I needed rice.  I always have an interesting time when I am talking Spanish - I am sure everyone would get a kick out of it - Gloria always has a good laugh.  I really do love her!! Well I think that is about all for tonight.  For some reason I couldn't think of everything I wanted to say, I am sure it will come to me at a later time and I will be more than willing to share it with you all :)

Paz y Amor.  God Bless.

Oh P.S. I really miss volunteering at Almost Home - the homeless shelter close to SLU in Saint Louis.  My friend Audrie went with me last semester and is still going and she sent me a picture of one of the kids today - it made me miss them even more :)

Christopher - so cute. I miss him!

A little bit of everything

Hello my long lost readers,

Sorry I have been slacking on my mad blogging skills lately - things have been a little hectic around the Madrid area lately.  Midterms ended and I am trying to get back into the so called "normal" swing of things.  I have been traveling just about every weekend lately - all since Morocco so it has been a little difficult to keep up with the blog, but this week I should have a little more time to update everyone on the things that have been going on in my life.  Tonight though I will just give the details of the past couple of days along with some pictures :)

Thursday was a pretty normal except for one thing – we were all hanging out in the lounge and Adam comes in and starts talking about a Real Madrid soccer game.  It was really weird because I had just told Elizabeth that I really didn’t want to go to the game on March 16^th because it was really expensive.  We over hear Adam talking to the other people and he is saying that the tickets for Thursday’s game were only 20 Euros – it sounded perfect all expect for one thing: my bus for Malaga was leaving at 7:30 in the morning on Friday and I was going to have to leave my house at 6:15am!!! Well after talking with my mom and brother and some other people I decided it was worth going to because it was the cheapest game I was going to find and it is a culture thing.  Well the game started at 10 and since we had to meet outside the stadium to pick up our tickets we didn’t get to see the start of the game because two of the people in our group were 45 minutes late to our meeting time – kind of a little upsetting but I guess it happens.  Anyways our seats for the soccer game were really far up, but the game was still amazing! Everyone gets into the soccer game sooo much! It was really cool to see.  Real Madrid played Malaga (kind of ironic since I was going to Malaga the next morning).  Malaga really never had a chance against Real Madrid.  To be honest I don’t really know much about the Real Madrid or soccer for that matter so I can’t really give you much detail to the game – all I know is Real Madrid kicked Malaga’s butt 7-0 and the atmosphere was great!!

Pictures from the game! :)

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLL!!!!!!!!!!

Real Madrid kicking Malaga's butt!

Me, Kyle, and Kara at the Real Madrid soccer game :)

 This weekend I traveled to Malaga with Colin, Lisa, and Kara.  We all wanted a really chill weekend and we thought the best place to do that would be a beach of course.  We traveled by bus about six hours to southern Spain.  To be honest there isn’t really much to tell about what we did all weekend because we didn’t do that much.  On Friday we arrived around 2 and got to our hostel – which was on the beach – at about 3:30.  We were all really hungry so we went to find a super market.  We asked at the hostel and the guy told us to walk about 10-15 minutes down this road and we would come across SuperSol.  Well we were walking and talking and we walked from about 20 minutes and found no SuperSol but we did find and OpenCor so we went there and bought some snacks for the beach.  We had a little picnic on the beach and just sat there – it was wonderful.  :)  After we got too cold we came back the hostel and on the way we found the SuperSol it was about a 3 minute walk from the hostel – we have no idea where the guy thought it would take 10 to 15 minutes to walk there – unless he thought Americans walk really really slow.  We went out to a nice Italian dinner on Friday night complete with a glass of red wine.  I had cheese ravioli – it was real cheese and amazing :) that is about all we did on Friday.

Saturday morning we had breakfast and then went to the beach my 9:30am – it was pretty windy but sunny. We just hung out on the beach for a couple of hours and then I got cold so we went back to the hostel and were blocked from the nasty wind but still had sunshine.  It was still a little cold so I went and got a blanket from our room and then proceeded to take a nap in the sun – it was just what I needed.  The afternoon was cloudy in Malaga so we walked around the town and saw a cathedral and a castle.  However, my camera broke (kind of – it takes really burly pictures – good thing mom and dad are coming soon to bring me a new one) so I don’t have any pictures of the town – Sorry!! After we walked around town we stopped at the SuperSol by our hostel and got pasta and strawberries to have for dinner!  I also bought a bar of chocolate because I was in need of some chocolate!  It made me in a better mood right away.  Again we had a really chill night – just made dinner, played cards, and talked.  It was really nice.

Today it was cloudy and rainy for most of the morning so Lisa and I stayed inside and had a good like chat or heart to heart as we called it.  We went on the beach for one last time and then walked about an hour to the bus station – we didn’t feel like taking or paying for the city buses.  It is weird how walking an hour to the bus stop is not that big of deal here. Where back in the States I am sure I would have been complaining a lot of walking that fair just to get to a bus.  Well that was the play by play of my weekend.  Tomorrow I want to do more of a reflective blog since I haven’t done that in a while – I have a lot to say, but tonight is not that night for it.

There was snow in the mountains on the way to Malaga.

Hello Mediterranean Sea :)

:)

Rocks and water - it doesn't get much better than that.

The last three pictures are me trying to be artsy.

Well I believe that is all for tonight.  It was a short blog with not much insight into my personal feelings about everything that has been going on lately, but I have to be in the mood to do that.  I am tired and it midnight and I have to finish up some homework yet.  But I hope everyone had a good and safe Mardi Gras and that the Orgo test went well and the Orgo lab test goes well tomorrow (Kelsey stop reading this and study!!).  Ash Wednesday is this Wednesday as a reminder to anyone :)  Have a great Sunday.  Mom and Dad come in  11 days!!! So excited!!

Paz y Amor.  God Bless.

Tuesday

Today was an overall good day.  It was sunny which is always a plus.  I went to Art History and got my midterm back and I did alright on it.  Then I went to have lunch with some friends, but I really didn't talk to them - I was just in need of some alone time so I went to the library to read my book about sugar and then I got to Skype mom for about an hour - which was really wonderful - I really needed that.  And then I laid down on a bench in the sun in the courtyard of school and read my book before Ethics.  Ethics is just not a fun class for me - I haven't gotten my midterm back yet so I have no idea how I am doing in the class.  After Ethics I came home and changed and then I went for a run.  At first I was feeling really good when I was running but then I got really really tired - I started off way too fast and I was not have a good time so I decided to stop and do an ab workout and then after my ab workout I started to run again at a much slower pace and ran over 2 miles - the key for me is to run slow and enjoy it.  When I was running slower I didn't feel tired and my breathing wasn't as heavy and I felt like I could run for a long time - it was a really good feeling.

Dinner was good tonight we had rice with tomatoes and some sort of fired soy something - I never really know what it is but it was good.  We also had salad and fruit for dessert.  After dinner I tried to look up summer classes - Physics and Calculus - yea I know what fun I will be having.  It is a lot more difficult than I would have thought.  It is hard to find a college that offers the right classes and at good times - the best thing I found was taking the classes at UW - Milwaukee but I would be in class from 10am to about 8pm with a 2 hour break almost everyday during the summer - I really don't want to do that.  Then I got stressed about my four year plan with being a Environmental Science major with a double track.  Also it is hard to get a hold of my advisor/mentor with being half way around the world.  I just wish I could go into their office and be like HELP ME - I need to figure out what classes I need and when I need them, but I can't do that and emailing is difficult, because I never feel like they understand what I am trying to say.  I will try to make a four year plan on my own and see if it is even possible to graduate in four years or what I want to do with my life.  I need to remember to just relax - it will all be okay.

Paz y Amor.  God Bless.

...

Well to make myself a little less stressed I decided to skip my blog about Granada.  I have uploaded pictures to Facebook and I will be more than happy to tell anyone the highlights of the trip - but since it wasn't anything really excited I am not going to dedicate a whole blog to Granada at this present moment.  Hopefully this will allow me to get back on track with my blogs - I don't want to feel like I am always behind in regards to blogging.

Well the midterms I have gotten back on I have done alright right now - I will not be posting my grades on my blog... sorry.  I am glad the midterms are over and I can relax a little bit and start to prepare for the next round of tests and enjoy studying abroad and traveling.  I have been having some mood swings the last couple of days or the last week and I think I figured out why.  I have been spending a lot of time with people (the same people) and I feel as though I have always been doing something - I haven't really had Toria Time and I need that sometimes to just relax and not do anything at all.  I am planning on taking it low key this week.  Hopefully get caught up in the random stuff I have to do, keep up with blogging, read a little, maybe even watch a movie or watch some TV.  I am leaving for Malaga on Friday morning at 7:30am by bus - it is about a six hour bus ride.  Malaga is located on the southern Spain - I want to go to the beach and relax - we are hoping we are going to have nice weather - the forecast says rain at the present moment but we are hoping that will change.  I will be going to Malaga with Lisa, Kara, and Colin - a group I haven't traveled with yet so it should be fun and exciting :)

I sent the final application for my internships at UWM for this summer - I sent it by email however they wanted a hard copy so I had to mail that today.  I also sent out some postcards so be looking at your mailboxes everyone - maybe if you are lucky you will have a postcard waiting for you in the near future.

My book I ordered off Amazon arrived today - it is for my history class.  Instead of having a second midterm in class we are doing a book review of some sort.  The book I have chosen to read is about the history of sugar in the Europe and America.  I have yet to get farther than the first three pages, because I am really sure what the book review is on or if I need to take notes as I am reading the book so I am waiting to hear back from my professor before I dive into the book.

Today I was reading to rant/vent about my life and I knew I couldn't do it on my blog so I decided to write a nice two page single spaced message Kelsey True - it helped so much! Thanks again girl!! I love you!!

Well I believe that is all for today - I had a presentation in my EAS with Zack and it went well.  Nothing to worry about there.  I hope everyone had a good weekend and I want to talk to all very soon! I miss you all!! Oh I learned that daylight savings is different in the US and in Spain so I think for about 13 days most of your will only be 6 hours behind me instead of 7! Get excited.  Also tonight at dinner we had great conversation - I asked question on how to say different words in Spanish and about culture things - but I don't remember a lot of the words :/  I also taught Gloria want jimmies and a bubbler are.  Good dinner conversation for sure.  That is all for sure now.

Paz y Amor.  God Bless.