Pros and Cons of living in Spain

Things will be added as my time goes on. I was just thinking about this the other day in regards to the US.

Pros:

• People don't rush here as much. Time is valued but going fast isn't important
• The waiters don't come check on you every 18 seconds and aren't trying to rush you out of a restaurant
• Beautiful, old, very historical
• Business settings are more relaxed and people get to spend time with their families
• Travel within the Eurozone is extremely easy/inexpensive
• Plazas galore
• SANGRIA.
• The views. Everywhere in Toledo and Madrid is beautiful.
• Siesta time every day...enough said!

Cons

• SMOKING. ugh. so many people smoke.
• Not many people speak English here at all.
• The exchange rate right now. It's killing me.
• Not much AC, at least where we are
• Slower internet, again where we are
• Ke$ha still plays here. Somehow.

HI

Dear Jorge,
HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Brittany

Honeymoon phase over

Saturday there was a group of us that went to Madrid. It was really pretty and busy, which makes me like Toledo even more. Everything is so calm here. It's definitely my kind of lifestyle since I'm such a laid back person. In Madrid we walked around all day and saw a bunch of different buildings and places. We didn't want to go anywhere that required money because we have a paid day trip there on Friday with the Fund. We saw Plaza Mayor and Puerta del Sol, then went to this HUGE park and rented boats on a lake there. 4.55 euro for 45 minutes on a boat. I found out that I am not very good at rowing. The tiniest person in our boat rowed the other 2 of us around while we laid down.
Yesterday we went to mass at El Catedral. The outside is beautiful, but the inside is even prettier! It was cool to see the mass performed in another service especially since I had an idea of what was going on after my 4 years at Rosary. Then last night there was a free concert close to the cathedral that was really cool too (there are free concerts all week because of the festival on Thursday). Afterwards a few of us went and split a pitcher of sangria. I'm really going to miss sangria when I go back home.
So about my title. Today has been a really stressful day and it's not even noon yet. I'm ready to curl up in a ball. I'm getting so frustrated with the fact that no one speaks English and everyone speaks really fast. I mean, I understand Spanish, but I can't catch half the words they're saying so I have to attempt to fill in the blanks. It's frustrating at the Fund because all of the staff speaks SO fast and only in Spanish. I nod my head like I understand but a lot of the time I don't. But the main source of my stress and frustration today is the fact that I can't use my traveler's checks. I tried to use one today at a store and they couldn't take it because the checks are in US dollars, which I definitely understand, but I don't understand why my bank back home didn't mention that fact when I bought them. So basically I have 250 dollars that is just frozen. I talked to the program director and she's going to try and figure out if she can deposit the checks into her account and just give me the converted money. Also I can't access my Chase account because I have to verify my identity and I can't get texts from them here, and my email address is saved wrong. Money issues galore and I am extremely stressed about it.
I don't have class until 7:45 so I am going to curl up in a ball for a while. Sorry I have barely any photos on Flickr, I'm having a lot of trouble uploading them there. Adios

Toledo at sunset (kind of)

Plaza Mayor (Madrid)

Pretty buildings in Madrid. Everything is so ornate.

Fountain in a park in Madrid

Sitting by the water and this giant monument

The last 24 hours

Yesterday was another pretty calm day. I found out that my internship placement is at FEDETO, which is a business federation that represents small businesses. I don't know exactly what I'll be doing, because I was still pretty tired and out of it yesterday and couldn't understand much Spanish to save my life. Today is better though! They only speak to you in Spanish here and not many of the locals speak English which can be challenging. I feel like it's definitely different in places that are more touristy like Madrid and Barcelona but Toledo is more off the map than the others. Seriously though, if you ever come to Spain, you need to visit Toledo. I can't even put into words how beautiful and special it is.
Last night we had an orientation and a little party with a bunch of different foods and a little Spanish mariachi band that came and played for us. Very cool. Then a giant group of us went out. 3 euros for a giant mug of sangria right outside of the Fund (nickname for the place we're staying) and it was delicious. Then we all walked to this discoteca that actually used to be in church; it was a strange feeling ordering drinks inside a church. The nightlife is definitely different here. We thought we went out late at 11:30, but we were literally the only ones there until at least 12:30 and the bars don't close until 4 or 5 in the morning. It was a great chance to get to talk to people more and I now have found 3 other people from the Chicagoland area!
Today was a long day. We had a long tour of the city which was amazing. I will post the link to my Flickr at the end so you can just look at all of the pictures. Everything here is so old and detailed. It is absolutely incredible here with all of the history and different styles. One funny thing is that the streets are SO NARROW. I have no idea how cars even drive down them. They're all 1 way streets and half the time you have to squeeze into a doorway to avoid getting hit by a car.
We had a meeting for Arcadia students today just to get to know eachother a little more. I just got back from it and dinner is in a few minutes thank GOD. I don't know how Spanish people survive. First of all, they barely eat a breakfast which is my favorite meal of the day. We have cereal, some pastries, and coffee. Breakfast is at 8:30 and I'm starving in an hour. Then, they don't eat lunch until 1:30! I'm so used to snacking throughout the day and it's really difficult to go that long without eating. The past 2 days I've felt sick to my stomach from being so hungry and I think that was a huge part of my problem yesterday. Then, they don't eat dinner until 8:30 at night. They have tapas during the day that are open for a certain amount of time which is basically a tiny little appetizer to tide you over. A couple of us took advantage of those today on the way back from our tour. I had something that I can't remember the same other than the word migas. It had bread pieces that tasted exactly like stuffing, a couple pieces of chorizo (sausage), garlic, and topped with an overeasy egg (these food descriptions are for my father)
Hope everyone is doing well and hopefully it finally warmed up back home.
I haven't loaded the pictures yet because food is on my mind but here's the link for later:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brittanydoss/

Love.

Ok so I lied, last night some of us went out into the city to look for an ATM and a place to have a glass of wine. My roommate and I decided to decline the last part and got semi lost in the city, which is a great thing to do actually if you have nowhere to go. We ran into the library which was ....can't think of a word to describe, majestic, beautiful, magnicifent...I will definitely be making a trip there. Shocker! As we were wandering around halfway trying to find our way back, we saw El Catedral de Toledo through a street/ally and it was all lit up at night..another beautiful sight. I will be making a trip there as well. After we finally found our way back, we passed out immediately. I wish I could say I slept great but our fan is the loudest thing on earth. For the first half of the night, it was squeaking and squealing and the second half it was clicking extremely loud. I guess you can't expect much more in such an old building, and I should be happy because some rooms don't even have fans- we lucked out!
I'm extremely excited because my Spanish advisor finally wrote m e back about my class conflict that I had because of my internship and she said that I can take basically any class I want. The one I really wanted to originally take is an art class in which we study Christian, Muslim, and Jewish architecture. For those of you who don't know, Toledo has been ruled by all 3 of these religious groups so there's a bunch of different architecture. We get to take a field trip to Madrid to go to El Prado which will be very exciting as well!
We finished our written exam about 30 minutes ago and I don't have anything to do for almost 3 hours, (which is why I'm writing so much) when I'll have my oral exam. An hour after that I'll interview for the internship. I might go wander around the city but I'm feeling a little queasy and dizzy. One of my roommates keeps getting sick and they told her it was probably because of jetlag. I'm probably feeling the effects of that as well so I'll probably just lay low for a bit...we do have 6 weeks to explore!

I just did some research on festivals going on in Spain while we're here and it turns out there's one here next week (the 23rd) called Festival of Corpus Christi, an important religious holiday. Apparently the streets get adorned with old craftsmanship, herbs, and these awnings that we happened to actually be walking under last night. The awnings mark the way of the religious procession that takes place on the 23rd. Pretty cool!

La plaza de Zocodover...there is a McDonalds in that building that is blocked by the tree. Haha

This is la Biblioteca (library). Way too big to get into one picture. SO PRETTY

Our sneak view of the Cathedral

I took this this morning. This is the view from one of the classrooms . I am in love. This is El Catedral as well

Now that I'm awake..

I landed in Madrid this morning around 7:00 their time so midnight back home. We had to wait like 40 minutes for our luggage and people from the Fundacion met us right away. Couldn't tell you about my bus ride from Madrid to Toledo, since I slept through most of it. The land looks pretty dry; it's all grassy but it's barely green and mostly brown. Once we got to Toledo, I was immediately in awe! The city is on top of a huge hill (seems like I really like going places situated on top of hills) and the hill's sides have giant stone walls. Everything is so old and cobblestoned and quaint and precious.. I was too tired today to get out and explore, but we had to walk through some of it to get to the Fundacion and I can't wait to go see more of it. We didn't really have anything to do today, the big day is tomorrow when we will have oral and written placement tests and I'll have an interview for my internship as well.
I was really nervous because there's no air conditioning in our dorm rooms (and if you know me, you know I am not tolerable of heat) but Toledo doesn't have much humidity and we have wide windows that open that I'm obsessed with, and best of all, a ceiling fan! I strategically chose my bed to be right under that just in case. There's 6 of us in our suite I guess you'd say, there's a little hallway leading into the room with 2 bathrooms off of it- 1 with a shower, 1 with a toilet. Interesting. Then there are 2 rooms, and each has 3 people in it. We have precious 90's looking little twin beds and we each have our own closet that's pretty big. We also each have our own desk with a shelf on it...in my desk drawer someone from the class of '93 had written a warning note about a "sneaky Moroccan" named Ali Baba??
This is going to be a great experience because I'm the only one from Western and there are people from all over the country. 2 of my roommates are from Minnesota, 2 from Ohio State, and one is from Evanston but goes to Notre Dame (she has a list of all the bars and interesting places to go to from her cousin so she is definitely an asset :) )
Hope everyone is doing well back home, it hasn't hit me yet that I'm not at home, but I'll definitely miss you all!

To clarify for Aunt Dianna- I am in love with the city, never saw my pilot :) I was in love with the airline though!

My one picture I've taken of a street in Toledo. It's right by the Fundacion. So many twisty narrow streets

Our room.

View from our room

Our giant oldschool window

Day 1? 2? I don't know

I'm too tired and jetlagged to write much but I will say this: I am already in love. I have no idea what time zone I'm in, or what time it is, or really much of anything other than that right now. Hopefully tomorrow I will be slightly less dead :)