Hola,
Yesterday we went to Pamplona. Which was a really cool city and a beautiful day. It was a 2 hour bus ride through mountainous lands that looked like Oregon on steroids and then through lands that looked like America's dairyland. When we arrived we were all hungry, so we decided to have lunch. We went to a restaurant where I had a caesar salad....which was nothing like...well.. a caesar salad. It had tomatoes, field greens, and a thick creamy dressing; no romaine lettuce or cheese. After I had peppers stuffed with minced cod in some green sauce that I still don't know what it was. Its hard to figure out when you don't know the words. For dessert I had a cold peach soup. After being too full to walk, we decided to walk. We walked to the stadium where the running of the bulls occur, and to the citadel. The citadel is ancient ruins dating back to the 1600's. It was Pamplonas main line of defense back in the day. There would have been a moat and a drawbridge and it was really cool. We sort of used it as our own personal playgroun taking the opportunity to climb things that aren't supposed to be climbed and going to corners that drop off 30 feet. It is really fun dealing with the language barrier: asking people for directions, starting random conversations with people on the bus, and ordering from your waiter. After we got back, we had a Erasmus event. Basically its an event between Spanish students wanting to learn English and English students wanting to learn Spanish. Its fun because you speak to the person in broken Spanish, and the answer you back in broken English. It is organized by our school and obviously takes place at a bar where liquor can raise the confidence of students worried about their speaking skills. Me and my friend had a kid named Felix who was really fun to talk to. We sat there for about 2 hours just speaking to eachother and I can't wait until the next event.
Today I woke up early and went for a run. I live about 10 minutes away from the rich neighborhood. So I decided to run through it. These houses are ENORMOUS and usually gated. So it was an interesting run to see the architecture. I ran for about an hour and made it to 4 train stops over. (Yes, I judge my runs on the ammount of train stops) When I first started running here, I was at run. Just because I was scared to get lost and had no stamina. Now I am a lean mean Spanish machine. It was a great run on a beautiful morning, but it is looking like it is now going to rain. After that I was asked by my mom to stop by the grocery store to pick up some juice (I also bought oreos, cause I love them sorry....). I brought Txentxo (pronounced Chencho, it is a Basque name. Basque is a completely different dialect of Spanish spoken in the northern part of Spain.), my dog, with me. The dogs, and it seems like everyone has one, are very well behaved here. About half of them are not leashed. Txentxo on the other hand is a hard dog to walk. He has to stop and smell everything, has to "mark his territory" on every corner, and gets really excited when he sees other dogs. I will train him to understand that I am has master and he has to do what I say haha.
Mom you will appreciate this. I went to the grocery store a couple of days ago with my house mom to purchase some food. She picked up something and said "Te gusta?" Me not knowing what it was and knowing that I like everying say "Si" She tried to explain it to me but all I got out of it was that it was meat. So she made it for me today, and kept giving me weird looks as she was cooking it. She puts the plate in front of me and it was very weird looking. It was very 3d in the fact that it had many waves. I asked her again what it was...and she explained. That is when I pulled out my Spanish-English dictionary and looked it up. This turned out to be tripe! Well, I told her I like it. So I ate it. After I informed her never to make it again.
That is all for now.
Agur!