Talavera de la Reina, Monday the 29th

So on Monday, we took a day trip out to a small-ish town called Talavera, a one and half hour drive outside of Madrid. After a little bus tour of the city, we explored a museum filled with ceramics, which is the famous speciality of this town. After getting a bunch of free books and postcards from them (they were so kind!), we went to a high school to see what high school is like for some students around our age.

The school was totally new so it was gorgeous and clean, but the students were a bit...immature, to say the least. I guess we'd just forgotten how high school students can be like. Then afterwards, we ate some "authentic Spanish food" in their cafeteria, which, I have some reservations about.

First of all, they Spanish really like their food very mushy, and I'm not sure why. They think this is "riquiissimmo" (delicious) and honestly, it's just a bit overcooked...and has some funky smells sometimes, but I'm probably just spoiled with the aromas of Indian food. Also, there tends to be this "surprise" chunk of hardboiled egg in some dishes...it's totally unexpected and I don't quite understand it, lol. Lastly, sometimes, the meat looks like it was just cut off the animal's bones, cooked, and served on a plate. No spices or sauces or anything! But some food is definitely tastier, especially the dessert and fresh squeezed orange juice.

After a very filling lunch, we went on an adventure to a little pueblo outside of Talavera, I think called Ospera (?), to see a picturesque castle and walk around. This area is just soooo calm and noiseless and beautiful, it's completely different than Madrid. I mean, it might be a bit too rural for me because sometimes I would feel a bit...stuck? It's not easily accessible and although there are a few stores, I'm sure it's very difficult to aquire ALL your necessities...and there's no "Corte Inglés" (the Super Walmart of Spain) either. But what is really strange is that I can envision a lot of people would love to enjoy their last days in a little town like this.

Which reminds me of the book we're reading right now (Palmar; I think this was the point!), La Lluvia Amarilla by Julio Llamazares. It's a beautiful poetic memoria about the last survivor of a pueblo in Spain. I'm pretty sure that every paragraph almost sent me to tears. Not in a bad way but in a really prophetic, realization about being alone and having to die someday, kind of way. That sounded really depressing, and although it is, it's definitely worth a read, kind of like a slap in the face of sorts. Or rather, a "gentle breeze brushing across your cheeks", to keep in synch with the book :). Find a translated version if you can!

More pictures are up on the link and I'll try to post them here too! Keep the comments coming!
Love,
Jojo

Some reflections, Saturday the 27th

Some bad news first.
I can not work at the AECC (Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer; sort of like the American Cancer Society) because to work with the kids, there's a law that I need to take a day and half long course. And this course isn't offered till October 22nd :( (which is less than a month before I leave). I even thought it'd be good to take the course and work for a month, but the lady I talked to suggested that the post-course volunteering should be a least 3-6 months, if not longer, and since I have class and can only work a few days a week, it's not worth it to take the course. Lamesauce. She does have my number so if there are any mailing projects I can help out with, she'll call me.

So blogger HATES me and only once a day lets me load a single picture onto my blog. It's as if some unknown force WANTS my blog to look as boring as possible!!! I'm so sorry! I will keep trying but I still suggest:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jojo.basu/

To see some fantastic pictures that dumb blogger won't let me decorate this blog with.

To me, it seems that when anyone speaks Spanish, their voice sounds less...high pitched? Shrill? It's subtle, but if you listen for it, you might agree. So little Spanish speaking girls are probably the cutest kids in the world, because they're little girls that sound wayyyy more mature just by speaking Spanish.

One of my favorite areas of the city is called Barrio de Huertas also known as Barrio de las letras (with street names after famous writers that used to live there), and with the well known Plaza de Santa Ana in this neighborhood's center. This area is very central, close to Sol (which is the heart of the nightlife), near the museums, and beautiful both in the day and night. I will try to take pictures and post them here if possible, but if blogger hates me, keep an eye on my Picasa albums. Oh and you should "google image" it!

I have yet to visit Templo de Debod and Palacio Cristal, but otherwise, I have most "main" tourist spots covered and will try to make a list with descriptions of these places soon. You may also be receiving a postcard in the next month or so with a picture of a famous site (sent a bit cheaper in the US, thanks to my parents)

If you read this and want a postcard, I need your addresses if you want a postcard! Please!

That's all for now. Keep the comments coming (especially with addresses!)

Birthday!

Hey everyone,
So it was my birthday (yesterday) but I wanted to write about it today after "celebrations" and what not.

On Tuesday evening (September 23rd, the day before my birthday), we had a "meeting" with our professor to hear about letting her know when we travel outside of Madrid, what to do if someone gets ill, etc.

That meeting made me little nervous because I guess I run a risk of paying 300 euros if I'm caught being in Europe without a Visa for more than 90 days, but I'm only here for like 96 days, so I don't know what would be my best option. In the spring, off-campus studies office at Carleton told me that it's not a big deal, especially because I'm not just staying in Madrid for those last 28 days but traveling around Europe, but Palmar is making it seem a bit more serious due to newer laws and regulations. I'll have to ask my parents what I should do.

ANYWAYS, other than becoming nervous about my Visa situation, Palmar treated us to chocolate con churros (dipping churros into a really thick hot chocolate) and I ate so much that I had no room for dinner when I got home! I got a sweet Madrid calendar, a "móvil" charm (cell phone charm), and of course, a card, of course, signed by all my classmates in class when I was sick at home on Monday morning. Lol.

So I woke up early in the morning, around 7:45 AM on my to go online and talk to some friends, and of course, my super adorable mother and brother sing "Feliz Cumpleanos a ti" (Happy Birthday to you) and give me a card and a gift (which is this really cute potpurri thing to hang in closets to make it smell good, and this one is decorated with felt to make it look like a cute rabbit; the potpurri "sack" is it's belly).

After checking facebook a bit, I fell back asleep until about 11 AM. I had class at 12 PM, so I rushed over there (15 minute walk). We talked to a film director named Oskar Garcia and he was very interesting, I just wish I knew a bit more about his movies.

So afterwards, I came home just for a few minutes, thinking I was going to join some friends for lunch, but since I hadn't eaten dinner the night before, my host mother insisted that I eat some pasta and well, it's tough to say no to free food in this continent. We had a bit of a discussion about the European education system versus the American, and although she's convinced the European is just the best, I think there are elements to each that are both good and bad.

Finally, we all met up at the "congreso de diputados" and it was more or less a tour of a government building. In Spanish, of course. Then my friend Hannah and I walked around for a bit looking for a library which I totally failed to find. Then I came home and took another short nap until dinner. Dinner was delicious; homemade "french fries" and an egg (although my mother thinks it's the STRANGEST thing when I separate the yolk out and only want to eat the white of the egg). And of course, flan for dessert! After dinner, I spent a bit of time on the computer video chatting with friends and talking to my parents. Then around 10:30pm, I left the house to meet some classmates at 11:15pm, near my favorite neighborhood in Madrid, to go to a bar and celebrate my birthday. On the metro, a guy told me I was beautiful and asked me my name and tried to get my telephone number from me, even though I told him I didn't have one, twice or three times. Very. Very. Creepy.

After about 15 minutes of walking around in a group of thirteen, we ended up going to a bar that I had been to before for a friend's birthday last week. I remembered LOVING a red wine that my friend had ordered, so ended up getting...um, 4 bottles of red wine that night (it's a sweeter wine, with a great aftertaste, making it dangerously easy to drink). The bartender/waiter remembered us and when I told him it was my birthday, he bought me a rose from a street vendor who walked into the bar, it was very sweet of him! We had an awesome time reflecting and bonding with each other and finally left the bar around 1:15 AM to try to catch the metro. I finally made it home, in a very happy mode, around 2 AM and fell asleep dreaming dreams about missing the metro and getting pickpocketed...

Indian Cooking in Spain

So after a weekend of a TON of reading and homework, and only a little going out at night (although I might have been out till 4am on Friday...), I finally came upon Monday.

I woke up in the morning feeling EXTREMELY nauseous for god knows what reason. Since I was pretty sick, I skipped one of my two classes of the day to rest a bit, but since I’m feeling a lot better now, I think it was a really good decision.

Anyways, after class and having a great lunch with my professor, Palmar, I came home and helped my mother prepare to cook tandoori chicken; to turn into murghi makhani (which was part of my gift to her; an Indian cookbook, some spices and teaching her how to cook some Indian food). She, my host brother, and his best friend were all invited to dinner that night.

Since she had once upon time eaten tandoori chicken and not enjoyed it, the night before when we were getting ready to marinating it overnight, my mother seemed extremely skeptical over everything I was doing. “You’re rubbing the masala into the chicken?” “You’re using lemon juice and not water to help marinate it?” ….the list goes on. Since instead of using boneless chicken breasts (to cut up into small pieces later when cooking) we were using drumsticks (which she insisted were tastier, along with insisting on keeping the “lean fat” on it), I was a bit skeptical myself. But since my real mom had reassured me that it wasn’t too big of a deal, I kept on trucking, assuring her that all the steps were correct.

So then, today was the day for baking and cooking chicken. If she had been insistant on her ways before, she was about ten times worse today. “You’re putting the casserole dish with the chicken on a tray with aluminum foil with water on it? How strange!” and “I know my oven; it is going to take WAYYY longer than 15 minutes to bake the chicken” and because of altitude, I figured she had a point and let her handle that part.

Finally, the chicken was pretty much baked and ready to be cooked. This part was more difficult for me, because my host mother a) did not want to use about half the spices on the list, saying “it’s too much, it’s too strong”, and b) we didn’t really have a blender to mix everything so I was beginning to doubt this chicken as well.

However, after using a mortar and pestle for the garlic (no ginger; it’s hard to get a hold of in Spain, as my host mother says) as soon as I started melting some garlic with the butter, I knew that I could cook at least a decent tasting sauce. I added a tomato (that she was VERY good at cutting into small pieces), some “ketchup-like-tomato-sauce”, a bit of the cumin and garam masala (that I had brought), the chicken and some of the lemon juice from the chicken’s marinade, that had been baked with it (which is partially why the recipe was a bit more acidic/tangier than usual).

However…after everything was said and done, the chicken came out marvelously! My host mother said, at least 20 times, that it was sooo good and she has never tasted something SOO tasty in her entire life. That was one of the most flattering things I have ever heard. Kudos to my mom for helping me follow through with my idea and teaching me how to make such tasty food! My host mother just couldn't stop raving about it! The texture, the taste, how well it blends with white rice and bread, how it was just the tastiest thing she had eaten, constantly saying that she didn’t even want to brush her teeth because she wanted to keep the taste in her mouth. Success! The chicken was different than what I had made in Madison, due to resources and lack of some spices, but it was definitely delicious in it's own way. After all her insisting and modifications, I was still able to help her learn how to make a chicken that she’ll never forget.

Photos!

Okay, I found a really good website through which I can share photos (for those that don't have Facebook)...it's connected to Google, just like this blog.

Check it out for a good portion of my pictures. Hope you like them! 

http://picasaweb.google.com/jojo.basu/

Let me know what you think! There'll be more soon!
Hope you're all doing well.

-Jojo

Totally Random Observations

Sooo I've been here for about five days and I have some random thoughts that I just HAVE to put out there.

In the morning, when I eat milk and cereal, so does my host brother. Except he toasts bread and spreads butter on it...and dips it in his cereal. It's not the grossest thing, it's just different. And fun to watch.

Speaking of host brother (who speaks a lot of Spanish to me...I'm going somewhere with this, lol), I'm realizing that I've made my worst nightmare come true. When Palmar's husband came into our class to talk about the linguistics/pragmatics used in textbooks for children during the Franco dictatorship, I kept feeling like something was not right, although he says everything correctly. Suddenly I realized. He says "Gracias", instead of "Grathias", like I do!!! I've picked up the "Spanish" accent AND I think that's the way Spanish should be spoken!!! Someone send me to Latin America right now so that I can fix this!!! Pleaseee!!!

Okay lies, other than to save myself a LOT of money (because everything here is MUY CARO--REALLY expensive...curse you, you worthless US dollar$!$!$! I watch my money go away, slowly, every day...it's so sad), I wouldn't want to leave Madrid for Latin America, at least, not until I'm totally broke (...although I am getting closer to that every day). It's a really amazing city, with a lot to do, places to see, easy to get around, very clean, nice people. Oh also, they're REALLY educated here.

I'm beginning to realize my mom and dad were right; we know nothing about the world in America. What have we even learned in school?! My host brother and his friends and I all played Trivial Pursuit the other the day, and they CREAMED me. Granted, I had quite the language barrier (I don't know half their vocabulary), I don't know ANYTHING about sports, they have different names for people/places (such as Alexander the Great is Alejandro Magno...okay?), and who has any clue about Spanish literature other than the Spaniards themselves, but STILL, in certain areas, I think they know more about both Europe, and MY country, than I, or any educated person in America knows. Plus, even an average Spaniard can speak Spanish, French, sometimes Italian, and a bit of English (I guess I have all of those languages to an extent, but I also have an different passion for languages; most people in the US barely know English) I have like, 2 years on them. Dang. Although, I think they memorize more than us, and we might be better at more analytical thinking type stuff, but maybe not. I don't know how the Spaniards do in the grand scheme of the world, but then again, I don't think I know anything anymore.

Also, my mom and dad would FREAK OUT if they came to Spain in other aspects. These VERY EDUCATED PEOPLE are VERY PDA. ALL. THE. TIME. I count how many couples I see displaying affection every day (I don't want to be too descriptive because my favorite little girls that I nanny might read this, but let's just say more than just hand holding. Way more than hand holding, sometimes.) and I've never seen less than 10. And I'm not out that much. It's that intense.

Alright, well that's all I have to say for now. I'm going to take a nap before going out to dinner with my class. Hasta mañana.
Besos. And please comment on the blog! It's really easy. Sorry if I write wayyy too much, I just have a lot to say.

An 5 day update of sorts

I'm getting around the city pretty well, I can usually figure out how to get to where I need to go, or ask people for help. Unfortunately, sometimes they speak WAY to fast and I realize they think I'm a native. That's what I get for being able to pronounce words (by knowing some other languages) yet not actually speak/understand THAT well.

So yesterday, I went to "The American Store" to try to find myself some peanut butter. And guess what? They have almost all the foods you'd want there except, well, you guessed it. They restocked last night but I don't feel like going back yet. I have their number now so I'll call and check before going next time.

Class is going well; we have a LOT to do in a really tiny amount of time, but hopefully, it'll be good nonetheless. I'm definitely getting better at understanding, I can almost fully understand my professor (Palmar) now and I remember not being able to earlier (especially when she starts talking CRAZY fast). I don't think I'm getting that much better at speaking, I need to practice my conjugations WAY more; they're not quite natural yet. I need to be able to take 300 level spanish classes and do well, dang it! Oh well. Tonight, our class is going out to dinner to celebrate the birthday of a couple students in our program! Maybe we'll go out for my birthday too! The food here tends to be REALLY tasty sometimes, when it's not super fried or bright red pieces of...pig butt; it's mostly hit or miss.

Also, after class today, I walked to the AECC (Asociación Española Contra de Cancer; I'm thinking, the equivalent of the American Cancer Society in Spain), which is less than a block away from the house I'm staying at, to ask if I could volunteer for a couple months. I'm crossing my fingers that they'll call me!! (it was siesta time, lol). I'll keep you posted!

Okay that was all the important-ish stuff. Next post=totally fun. I hope.

Class...and a bar, Monday the 15th

So yesterday was our first day of class. It wasn't as much class as introductions, but we're starting to get a feel for what it's all about. It went from 9 am till 2:30 pm...sighs.

Rafa is a prof that's going to talk to us about social issues in Spain, and we have three little projects to write for him, I hope it's not too hard. Mostly involving newspaper articles and such.

Javier is an Art History prof, and his classes mostly meet at the museums, once or twice a week, and will end by the beginning of November. We'll have a comprehensive test then, but not too much more.

Palmar is our prof from Carleton College, and with her, we have a ton of work. One part is a project about an issue that has changed/developed over time in Spain. Our small group of 4 plus a "tutor" (which is both a hired friend/mentor for this project) is supposed to study women and gender roles. Our presentation is the first one, on Monday, October 6th, so we don't have too much time to prepare. But hopefully, getting that over with will help us focus on the second part of her class. We have about 6 books to read in a period of less than 10 weeks. So we read a book, meet the author, read another book, meet another author, and so on, throughout her course. We also visit various places throughout this course, and learn about themes in the books more "firsthand" (ex: we're reading a book about a "golpe de estado", or coup, of the Spanish government; next week, we'll visit government building where it happened).

So after our "introductions" to all these, we were sent off. A group headed towards a bookstore to buy books for Palmar's class, but I wanted to go back to my host family's house first. Then I went to the office of the cell phone company that was selling our class phones (but I didn't buy one earlier because I wanted to check if the European cell phone I'm borrowing from a friend was able to take their SIM card, then I could pay only 50e for that, instead of 50e for the SIM plus 109e for the phone. The convenient part is we can sell the SIM/most of the phone (minus 5e per month, so 15e total) back to the company at the end of our stay here).

I meet up with a student from Carleton at the office, so we went to the bookstore together afterwards, where I paid 74 euros for 3 books (I have a couple more to buy as well!!! Ahh!!).
Afterwards, I came home and played some Cluedo (Clue) and Trivial Pursuit (in Spanish) with my host brother and his friends, which was a lot of fun. Although, I have no clue about ANYTHING European History or Spanish Literature. So much for my education...

After that, I ate a bit, chatted online for a bit/sent some emails, then found out that some friends were going out to a bar to celebrate both a birthday and Mexican Independence Day! So I took a train out to the heart of the city, meet up with four friends, and we went to a bar. I didn't order anything myself (although I did finish off my friend's red wine, which was AMAZING compared to the box stuff I've tried before, hehe), but it was a lot of fun spending time with the friends. I came home around 1:45am and fell asleep pretty quickly.

The first reunion, Sunday the 14th

On Sunday, our class was to meet up with each other in Retiro, a gorgeous park. Since I live close to Noe, we were going to meet up early with some other classmates, but we got lost for about 40 minutes in the center of the city...lol. Finally, we found them, and then we went the park. We got talked to about lots of things, such as buying a metro pass for the month, meeting for class, etc. Afterwards, some of us went to buy the metro pass (the metro is SOO easy to get around), and then a couple left right after that. However, six of us decided to get some authentic Spanish food. We walked through some strange streets which seemed like "dark alleys" as we would call them in America, but they've got some more expensive shops for Spain (such as Billabong, Quicksilver, etc). We made our way to this little, awesomely authentic restaurant for tapas and it was amazingly greasy but tasty, although the cheap beer was kind of awful. But otherwise, a pretty cultural day.

Noche en Blanco, Saturday the 13th

Sooooo, I'm beginning to settle down in Madrid. On Saturday afternoon, my professor, Palmar, called me with a list of home numbers of students that are already here. So I called a few of them to see if they wanted to go to Noche en Blanco with me (which they did).
Noche de Blanco is essentially a huge cultural night where everyone is out at night, going to watch movies, going to museums, listening to music, for free! The streets are blocked off so you can only walk around, and it goes from 9 pm till 7 in the morning. So we all decided to meet at 8:30 near Banco de Espana (a HUGE building which I think is now a post office? Or not a bank anymore...? I can't remember exactly). We went to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes and saw a Goya exhibition, but otherwise, we mostly walked up and down the streets, which had TONS of people.
When we finally decided on a place to eat, we got TOTALLY ignored by the waiter who told us "there was no more bread for the sandwich we ordered" (even though all the customers around us, who came after us, were able to get sandwiches). I'm so glad that they treat us Americans sooo well. A little bit after that, we all dispersed. But just getting a feel for the city was an awesome experience that first night, despite being a bit ignored.

Amazing City

Okay, that was enough boring blogging about my travels. I have my bags, I'm settled in, everything is perfect. Today, I walked around my neighborhood with my host brother a bit, then hung out at the house and waited for my backpack. After it came, I hung out with my brother and his friends and we playe "Cluedo" (Clue). After that, I went to Noche en Blanco with a few friends from Carleton, and it was really fun, although we were all really hungry and there was problems finding food. Finally, I came home halfway by myself on the metro and it was superfacil (easy). I'm starting to get a hang of this city, and I think if I get a bit better at my Spanish and used to the city, they won't know that I'm NOT a Madrilena. I'm trying to post my pictures on this but I'm not totally sure how to. I can add a couple pictures to previous posts, and my other pictures are on Facebook. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. I ADORE this city. I actually look sort of like the people here! It's crazy. I'm glad I didn't tan too much this summer; I would have stuck out a bit more.

Once again, I have TOTAL internet access and want to hear from all of you. I'm working on responding to emails/comments right now. Keep commenting, por favor!
Hasta luego,
Jojo

I'm finally in Madrid!

So as I was about to board the plane from O'Hare to Philly, they tell the last 20 passengers boarding that there's no room for carry ons, and we have to check them in (so basically, that heavy third bag got checked in for free). Luckily, my big backpack has a little detachable daypack on it, so I put my computer/some papers/neck pillow in there and then I "checked" in my huge bag. So although that was nice because I didn't have to deal with it, it was AWFUL when I got here and waited for all the luggage, just to find out that my backpack is still in Philly. It should be getting in on tomorrow mornings flight, so I should have it by noon, and luckily, other than medicines/etc, there wasn't anything too important in that bag (plus I don't really need the big bag until later, when I'm backpacking). OH NO, i just realized my toothpaste/toothbrush were in there; thankfully, I have my Listerine.

So on the last leg of the trip, we got some food on the long plane ride, I talked to these girls from Austin College the whole time (that are going to study in Granada) and because both my TV broke and my reading light couldn't turn off, I couldn't get any sleep. So I got here, finally figured out my backpack stuff (it should be coming in tomorrow...), transferred my money to Euro (120 dollars=84 euro. Blah.) and took a taxi to my host mothers house.

My spanish with the taxi driver was really comfortable, I could both understand and speak, and I was getting pretty confident, but when I arrived at my host mother's house, boy, was I wrong about my Spanish. They speak SO fast, and with their Spanish accent, I'm just terrible at following what they say sometimes. But some good things you'll like to know.

One, although the house is small, it is extremely beautiful and VERY clean, with a GORGEOUS bathroom. Two, my host mother can read english and loves the cook book and has hardly any spices so she is excited to learn how to cook some food. Three, my host brother has internet/router/wi-fi, so I am always connected online, never have to bring my computer to the cyber cafe, and can chat/email/video chat with any of you from the flat. The family seems REALLY nice and they've hosted other Carleton students before so they're already really helpful. Hopefully that keeps up!

Unfortunately, I just realized that my power cord is three pronged and my converter is two pronged (dumb dumb Jojo), so I'm going to save some battery power and hope that these posts keep you all a bit more updated. Thank you for all the comments; I will definitely respond to them when I'm not in such a power crisis!

Love,
Jojo

SKYPE SKYPE SKYPE!

Do any of you have skype? Or AIM? Or G-talk? Please please let me know. Or add me:

Sykpe: reallycrazyjojo

AIM: reallycrazyjojo

G-talk (google talk): jojo.basu

Many thanks,

Jojo 

Less than 48 hours...

So I'm almost ready to go to Madrid. I'm 98% packed, minus a few things I still have to use tomorrow/today (since it's already 2 am on Wednesday), and I've finished reviewing most of these looming readings that I'm supposed to get tested on, although I'm still uneasy about how I'll do on the test, but oh well. I'm getting really really sad about leaving my family, my friends, and of course, my adorable dog. I also continue to wonder how it would have been to go back to Carleton this fall, to meet new people and see familiar faces, although, as a friend once reminded me, no matter how bonding and exciting fall is, after Carleton's six week break between Thanksgiving and New Years, winter will somewhat be like starting all over again for a lot of the students (especially the freshmen). But other than these petty thoughts, I'm just getting anxious about being in Spain, possible language barriers, how my host family will like me, whether or not it will be difficult not speaking any english, etc. 

So my host family is a single mother and her seventeen year old son, I think...(I only think this because she specifically writes "the son's father" in reference to an email, although that might just be cultural...?). She has been on vacation for a month now to San Sebastian and seems very excited about my arrival, and is really caring and interested in what foods I like and other such motherly things. Speaking of food, since she seemed so interested in what I like/don't like, I decided to get my host mother an Indian cookbook and some Indian spices so that as she teaches me to cook Spanish food, I can teach her how to cook some Indian food (which I personally think is just a bit tastier than American food; no offense to any die-hard hamburger lovers out there :-D). Hopefully we can all enjoy this gift together. 

Interesting fact; the three foods I don't care too much for in America all start with "P" in Spanish: cucumber (pepino), peppers, green/red (pimiento, verde/rojo), fish (pescado). (although I'm not too picky; I can tolerate all of them in tiny amounts.)

So this entire month has really been dedicated to planning out the post-Madrid Europe traveling plans with my two friends Leona and Ryan. We have a "tentative" itinerary yet pretty solid itinerary, thorough research about hostels vs. hotels etc, maps with train stations/hostels marked out, lists of attractions to see (which will soon be marked on the maps as well), and we're getting pretty close to having a almost-travel-agency-planned trip. Leona and Ryan have a lot to take care of when I'm studying in Madrid, but it seems they've got it under control and I'm hoping that our trip is as fantastic as possible (although I'm a bit worried that Leona might freeze to death; she barely made it through the 50 degree weather tonight). 

So I still have some studying/goodbye-saying/cleaning up my room stuff to do. My dad mentions that if I can pack all I need for 3 months into two suitcases and a backpack, how come I can't just take that to Carleton when I first move in? If my dad is talking about lessening some of my clothing, he just has no idea what it's like to be a girl (sorry we can't wear the same grungy tee shirt and socks for 3 days in a row; no offense to those that don't do that). Also, things like furniture, extra school supplies, lots of clothing and shoes for ALL types of weather add up(ex: I'm not bringing snow boots to Europe). I'd hope I'm not packing all that stuff for Europe! 

So hopefully, I packed light enough so there's room for presents and souvenirs (I totally failed at spelling that word; yay for spell check) bring back  on the way back. I'm not at all worried about space, just weight because I'm at about 30 lbs for each suitcase now. If worse comes to worse, I'll pay $25.00 more and the airlines shouldn't complain too much...I hope. 

To my big group of mafia friends this summer (no, we're not actually part of the mafia); I've been missing you for a couple weeks and I hope all is going well in your respective cities/colleges. I want your addresses so you guys can get postcards (though they might end up being sent from the states...we'll see how my budget does).

To the Fantastic Four; I'm going to miss you like crazy (for the next 2 or 3 months) so please don't forget to keep in touch.

To my amazing friends at college that I won't be seeing until 2009; please write to me on this blog and facebook so I remember to write you postcards (hopefully you all have the same address!). 

To my wonderful wannabe-emo-kids-that-sit-on-the-couches-in-front-of-the-auditorium-sometimes friends from high school; I still miss you like crazy! Please give me your addresses so that I can at least write to you.

To all my other random friends; addresses, please! Pronto! 

To my family; I love you all dearly and will hopefully be seeing you someday soon. Reminder addresses would be superb, especially for those of you that have just moved!

To my parents; I love you so much, thank you for putting up with me this summer. You know I'll want to buy all of Europe for you........sooo.... some extra spending money might be nice, just a thought :)

Much love,

Jojo