La Aventura de España 2008

Wedding Site

2008-04-19T22:53:00.003+02:00

Ok... i know it's been a really long time since i've updated, but here's the latest news...

we have our Wedding Website done, so you can RSVP, leave a message on the guestbook, AND check out the site for fun :)

the link to the site is:

www.mywedding.com/aarondenise

hope you enjoy! :)

denisie

A Whole New Chapter in Life...

2008-03-26T04:12:00.002+01:00

So much going on! wow...

ok, so cool things happening... the date is set. the church is booked, the reception location is booked. the minister is on board, and we have finished our FIRST wedding registry :) we have a Pampered Chef registry now! exciting, huh? i think we're going to go work on the registries at actual stores next weekend. so that should be fun!
ALSO... we bought our first BED today!!!! well, actually aaron's mom did... :) she had a gift certificate for Rooms to Go, and she let us use it to get our new bed set! so we have a KINGSIZE pillowtop posture-pedic bed! holla!

anyways... lots going on...

the golden date is: August 30, 2008! SAVE IT!!!

p.s. please email me your email and snail mail address as soon as you can! thanks everybody!
my email is: deniseborel@gmail.com

peace!

Back in Denton :)

2008-03-23T03:22:00.002+01:00

why is my body still not used to this time change...?
it's only nine thirty pm here in texas, yet my body still thinks that it's 3:30am...
i'm always ready for sleep...
i hope to go to sleep soon.

also, planning a wedding and contemplating all of our options... stressful.
so many options and such... :/

wedding ceremony or no... only reception?
nah.
back and forth... if we didnt do the ceremony, what do we do instead?
i dont know anything about weddings... i dont need to stress out...

sleep is good. :)

back in the states. part I

2008-03-20T01:02:00.003+01:00

well, i'm back in the united states for the first time in two months. one of my bags was left in madrid. we dont know where it is. maybe still in the taxi? gone forever? who knows. hope it wasnt important...
we are in atlanta. we've been here for quite a few hours now. had some dinner at TGIFridays here at the airport, and we're waiting to be cleared onto a flight to dallas/ft worth. it's impossible. we'll probably be sleeping in the airport tonight. so that should be good, eh? :)
anyways. i'm sorry if you are one of the people whose souvenir was in the lost bag. it sucks. Gooch, don't worry. your jersey is in a checked bag. not in the lost one :) i'm 95% sure :) haha.
ok... on to wait more.
please pray for patience. today is a trying day.

Engagement Story to Come

2008-03-18T22:13:00.003+01:00

please stay tuned for the entirety of the Engagement Story. I promise that I will post it as soon as I get a few minutes alone with my computer so that I can get it all typed up! I promise!!! Our plane leaves Madrid around 10am tomorrow morning (about 12 hours from now), so I'll be back in the states within a day or two with time that I can use!
We love you guys and can't wait to see you all again!!!

Engagement Photos!!!

2008-03-16T23:22:00.005+01:00

Place: El Parque del Buen Retiro, Madrid, Espana
Date: March 15, 2008

I'll post the story when i have more time, but i wanted to put up some pictures for you guys at least!!! :) :) :)

Barcelona Snapshots

2008-03-12T15:09:00.006+01:00

on the way up to the Gotti Park... i forget the real name of it... the floor just inside the door of this little cathedral/chapel...

pigeons!!! (they're too high up to kick... so i took a picture instead. hahaha) :) i like it.

i thought i would share a few of my favoirte pics from our Barcelona trip this past weekend. i'll put all of them up on Facebook at some point in time...haha. that is slow going there, though, as you know :)

well, never mind. stupid internet disconnected. now i can't post them... you only get these three... oh well... whatev! lindsey and aaron are coming!!!!!!!
hope you're having a great day!!!

Aaron and Lindsey are on a plane...as i type this... YES!

2008-03-12T15:07:00.000+01:00

Madrid, Spain
La Casa de Santibanez
El 11 de Marzo, 2008
5:16pm (11:16am Denton time)

Haha. Ok. So in an email that my mom sent me today (well, I didn’t get it until today… I’m actually not sure when it was sent…) she said that even though Aaron and Lindsey are coming, I’m not allowed to skimp on the updates.  I’ll do my very best to keep up with the updates. Although, if I am not very good at it, please keep in mind that I will be pretty much homeless from Friday morning until the end of my stay here in Madrid…so…if there is any delay, know that the reason is only that I don’t have the means of getting a post out.  BUT…I will do my best! Promise! 
I am so glad they are coming!!! Lord willing, of course. They ARE flying standby, the week before spring break…which also happens to be the week before holy week…so…yeah. It may be a tough thing for them to get out of the states, or even dallas, but I’m definitely praying hardcore every second that I think about it (which is a lot…haha), and I really hope that God wants them to come, because if he does…then they will. Fo sho! 
Ok. So. Living arrangements. Since I can’t stay at our house, I will be packing all of my belongings between now and Thursday night (when, Lord willing, AP and Linds are here to give me extra luggage to pack in…), and then I will leave the house when the family leaves on Friday morning. I will take my things to either the hostel, or maybe just to Cait’s to hang on to them until I leave (actually, taking them to Cait’s would probably be a much better idea. And safer…ok. Good idea.).
I have reservations at the same hostel as Lindsey and Aaron for Friday night and Saturday night. Then they didn’t have openings at the hostel for Sunday or Monday, so I will be staying with Caitlin those nights (maybe all of us will stay those nights? Breakfast on the terrace in the mornings? That sounds phenomenal. We talked about it a little today…), and then I have reservations at the hostel with AP and Lindsey for Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Then Thursday the tree of us will head back to the ol’ United States of America! SO WEIRD! I’m coming home in nine days??? So unreal right now…
Anyways. so that will be cool if we stay at her house for a couple of nights. That will save them a little cash to spend on food and souvenirs and stuff! We should definitely plan that for sure in the next day or two so that we can let the hostel know if we’re not staying those two nights so that we can get our (well, I can get my ) money back! 
So, to say the VERY least… I am so excited I could just burst at the seams right now. My last week in Spain will be spent with three of my favorite people on the face of the planet, and then I will be going home to see the rest of you very soon thereafter!
Also, I would just like to thank those of you who have been praying for my Mom-Maw. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, my grandmother found out a few weeks ago, that she had breast cancer, and she was going to be undergoing surgery sort of what I had done last September, to get the tumor out, and a bit of tissue surrounding it. They expected the surgery to go well, and for that to be the end of the cancer. So far, it looks like it worked. The surgery was last week, and she is doing so well. I keep getting updates from my mom and aunt, and I even got an email from Mom-Maw today  she sounds like she’s doing great. What a trooper!  AND my Pop-Pop, or so I hear, is just about the best nurse anyone could ask for! Pop-Pop, next time I’m sick, I expect you to be my nurse! I want some of that first class treatment too!  jk. She is great and he is great and all is well. Thank you, Lord, so so so so so so so so much. I love those two more than many people on this planet. They are so special to me. I am so thankful to have them in my life. They will never know how much!!! Never ever ever.
I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!! And I can’t wait to see you when you come out for Christopher’s graduation this spring! 
Ok. Well, the kiddos just got home, and I need to go freshen up before we have class. I love you all, and hopefully I’ll get to see you very soon! 
Oh, p.s. I got to upload another album on facebook today.
Some of you are asking how to be able to see those pictures. Well, here you go:

1. go to www.facebook.com
2. make yourself a profile. It’s kind of like myspace, etc. only I think it’s better. It’s a great way to keep in touch with people all over the world. Seriously. A great networking tool!
3. once you’ve made your profile, log in and you can search for your friends. You can search by name or email address.
4. search for my name.
5. it should pull up a number of similar names, and it will show you the profile pictures, too. Find my picture, and click on the link that says “Send Friend Request”. I think that’s what it says, anyways…
6. once you’ve sent me a friend request, it will let me know that you want to be my friend, the next time I log onto facebook.
7. when I accept your friend request, we will be able to see each other’s pictures, profiles, etc.

so, there you have it! Good luck! Hope to see you all on facebook soon! 
love, Denisie

later: 11:40pm Madrid time (5:40pm Denton time)

ugh! I love these kids. Seriously. I’m going to miss them so much!  veronica didn’t have homework tonight, so after dinner we got to just hang out in my room  she helped me wrap some of the souvenir gifts I’m taking back with me, and we watched “Elf” while I packed a little more. It’s so hard to pack when you still need to use most of your stuff! 
OH! And tomorrow morning I’m going to cook breakfast for everyone! The kids go down for breakfast at 9:00, so It’ll be an early morning for me since I need to shower. Desparately. Haha. Maybe that will wait until after breakfast. Haha 
I’m going to make them my mom’s most awesome stove-top biscuits in the world, and my favorite scrambled eggs with cheese  yeah! The only problems are: 1. I don’t remember exactly how long those biscuits take to make… and 2. I don’t know if they have self rising flour… shoot. I don’t remember how much salt/baking powder to use instead of self rising flour… or is it baking soda…haha shoot! Oh! I’ll call my mom. Ok. Gotta go do that! Hopefully she can answer! It’s only like 6pm there. I’m thrown off because of the time change. The time didn’t change here. Only in the US time zones or something. Spain’s time change happens later on some time… so now we’re only SIX hours ahead of you instead of seven  whoops?  six is good though! Hopefully they’re not in the middle of dinner! It’s strange that we eat three hours later here… lucky Texans!  haha.
Ok. Gotta go call mom!!!! Peace!

Shoot. My phone card is used up! UGH! Stupid phone cards. I had like 40 minutes on it last time I used it. I definitely didn’t talk for 40 minutes. More like 5 minutes. Blast. Stupid card… well, hope they turn out okay! Haha. We’lll see…

"home"

2008-03-11T15:28:00.004+01:00

it didn't really hit me, until i got back to the madrid metro station from being in barcelona this past weekend, how much Madrid feels like home now.
you know, the feeling of comfort and familiarity when you recognize your surroundings, and the machines around you, and the street names and metro stops...
it just hadn't hit me until sunday afternoon... anyways. it's cool.
thanks, God! :)

p.s. it is so strange to think that i will be headed home to Texas in only 9 days... so so so weird.

two more days, Bustas!!! :)

2008-03-11T13:01:00.000+01:00

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 5 de Marzo, 2008

11:58pm (4:58pm Denton time)

Muchas Felicidades, Ani!!!

Today is Ani’s 24^th birthday! Hooray! J so tonight was actually pretty fun J Paloma and Veronica made her a chocolate cake. It was a really cool way to make a cake. I’ll have to make one soon when I get home J all from scratch!

We realized that we didn’t have any candles, so Paloma handed me her change purse and I ran down to the little tienda that’s in our community. They don’t have candles… boo… SO… Veronica and I used…

Q-TIPS! Yeah! Hahaha J it was so fun! We were all rushing around to get everything in place before Ani came up. Veronica and I colored the qtips with orange and yellow sharpies and cut the other end off to stick in the cake. We put a little tealight candle in the middle so that we could actually light ONE of them. Haha.

So everyone huddled in the tiny kitchen (including Eduardo Sr!) and we turned off the light and surprised Ani when she walked in! I think she was actually surprised! I made her a card earlier today and had everyone sign it J the family got her a new skirt I think. So we all had cake and champagne and toasted to Ani J it was so fun! I’ll have to post a few pics if I can.

Oh. Also later on after all of that, I went back up to my room because the champagne was a bit more strong than I expected. Haha. I got sleepy J so I was sitting at my desk working on my budget when Eduardo came up and said that his parents wanted to know if I wanted to come downstairs with them all and drink champage. Hahahaha J the whole family was in the living room watching the Roma/Real Madrid Futbol game. It was a really big game. Unfortunately “we” (Real) lost… sorry… so even though watching sports games on television is one of the last things I ever want to do (unless it’s at the Goshorn’s with my awesome friends J) I have never really felt included with the family for things so I was NOT going to pass that up! So I just spent the last hour and a half watching futbol with the family. After the kids went to bed, I waited around to ask what I should do since it doesn’t look like Cait’s family is going to let me stay there… basically what I got from Paloma was… I’m out of luck because everyone she knows goes out of town too. Everyone closes their houses. So… no luck.

In somewhat related news…

I may be coming home a lot sooner than I originally thought. Maybe the same time Lindsey and Aaron leave… I may have to get a hostel for the week that the family is gone which would wipe me out financially. So I would have to waste the plane tickets I bought for to and from italy, forego the trip, and go back home earlier. It kind of sucks, but at the same time, it’s ok. I could go stay with my parents for a week or so, and then head back to north texas and get a job… haha. Yeah. I need one of those… badly…

Anyways. I don’t really know what to do. I’m really ok with having to come home that early. I love it here, but I’m not adamantly opposed to going home that early. And that way I would be able to go back with other people instead of flying back alone! That is much more fun!

So…I don’t know what to do. If I go back early, I don’t think that I can get a refund for my plane tickets and I don’t even think that I could give them to Caitlin so that she could go instead. That sucks. We already bought the tickets…so that means Katie would be going to Italy by herself… UGH. I don’t know what to do…. L L L

Help.

Hey. Question: if I do come home that early and I’m in Denton for my birthday (and Andrew E’s bday! March 24^th.) can we go to Okawa or whatever the new Reiku place is called?? J haha. Sorry I can’t remember the name for it… can we? J that would totally rock. Ok. That is all. Now I kind of hope that I do get to go home that early… once that idea seems like it could be a reality it makes me want to go home… haha. Whoops?

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 9 de Marzo, 2008

10:40pm (3:40pm Denton time)

So…we went to Barcelona this weekend! it was really great. Katie didn’t come, but Erin and I left on the bus Friday morning and Caitlin met us there Saturday morning. It was an eight hour bus ride to Barcelona from Madrid. The ride to Barcelona was much “longer” than the one back. It was impossible to sleep on the way there. There were a lot more people on the bus. On the way home today, no one was sitting in the seat next to me the whole way so I actually got to sleep like half way home! Haha. And luckily my ipod totally held up (barely, but it did! …I didn’t have a charger since I wasn’t bringing my computer)!

So Erin and I got to Barcelona around 6pm on Friday. We didn’t know it, but we got off at the wrong bus station, so when we followed the metro directions, thinking that we would be saving about 9 euros each by doing the metro instead of taking a cab. We ended up asking some lady at a pharmacy how to get to the street we were looking for, and she told us we were WAY far away, and that we should just take the metro back to the same station we STARTED AT! Yeesh!!! So we ended up having to pay for a cab anyways… sweet. Haha.

So we finally got to the hotel around 7 ish, and luckily Caitlin’s mom was right inside the door! So we took our stuff up to the room…which…surprise!!! We got our very own room! For FREE!!!! One of the other flight attendants is actually from Barcelona, so he didn’t need to stay at the hotel, so he told Cait’s mom to let us stay in his room! It was great! I’m pretty sure it was the largest hotel room I’ve ever seen! So we set up our stuff, and headed down to go out for dinner with the other ladies from the flight crew. We all walked for quite a while to get to the main part of Barcelona (or so we were told last weekend by another flight attendant who lived there for a while), Gotico Barrio, and finally found a place to eat. It was really good – a bit more expensive than I was planning on, but it was really good. I think one of my favorite things here is the bread they bring out as a free appetizer for the table. It’s toasted bread with just like mashed up tomatoes on top. Its so good! So after dinner we went to walk back to the hotel, and four of us ended up staring right up at a cruise ship at the coast after walking for about…and hour or an hour and a half. J apparently we were walking the opposite way than we thought we were walking on this one street the WHOLE time… there seems to have been a reason why I couldn’t find us on the map… we weren’t ON the map… maybe next time someone will listen to me and wait until we can figure out where we are before we keep heading the same way down a street that we don’t even know where it is… that sentence was not constructed well… oh well. J you get it.

So we FINALLY got back to the hotel around 11:30pm… we figured out that there was a computer in the lobby with free internet!!! It wasn’t supposed to be like that. It was supposed to need a credit card, but it was a real blessing that it was like that, because I really needed to figure out the names of the jerseys that Gooch wanted from FC Barcelona. J and I got to talk with Aaron on gmail chat for a minute. AND David Q was online (this is relevant because his parents actually live in Barcelona!). J so david’s dad called our room and we were going to try to set up a lunch meeting with them for Saturday, but it was a really busy day for them, so instead, I just gave Caitlin their number and hopefully they got to hang out with them for a little bit today? I’m not sure yet, though. I had to leave early this morning to get back before having to teach tonight.

I’ve decided I’m probably going to come home when Aaron and Lindsey head back next Thursday. I talked with Cait’s mom about the likelihood of getting a seat on a plane back with them, and she seemed to think it was very doable, so I think I’m just going to do that. I just don’t have the money to stay here longer. I’m really okay with it. It’s kind of startling to think that I’ll be leaving in just over a week instead of in two and a half weeks, but I think it’s really for the better. And it will be so good to see everyone again and be able to hug you guys! I miss you all! And I can’t wait to go back to church! I miss that family. For sure. And if I do go home this early, I think I’ll be able to go home to my parents’ place for a week or so. So that will be cool. It’ll be good to spend time with them when I get back! I wonder what reverse culture shock will be like… I heard that it does happen, but I don’t have internet, so I can’t look up what it is…haha. So if anyone knows, you should email me the list of stages or whatever. I’m curious J

Hey! It’s almost Easter! That means it is totally Cadbury egg season. If anyone has an overflow of them and they need something to do with them… I will totally take them off of your hands for you!!! No worries, my friends! I wish they were made all year long. Seriously, lets do something about that? Eh?

Oh, so back to Barcelona… where was i…

Oh yeah. Friday night. So we went back to the room and totally crashed. It was so nice. The only thing that I would have changed is the fact that this really nice hotel had the thinnest walls I have ever experienced in my life! I could hear the guy in the room next to us blowing his nose… nice. Not to mention his television while we were trying to sleep. Sometimes I really hate being a light sleeper… I was so ready for sleep, but it still took a good hour and a half to fall asleep. Yeesh. That is just plain crazy. Seriously. Anyways. so in the morning, we were wakened by a knock at the door. Caitlin had finally gotten to town! She took the night bus Friday night out of Madrid and arrived around 8am Saturday morning. So we all got up, showered, and enjoyed an AMAZING breakfast that her mom dropped off for us of chocolate croissants that were to die for, and other pastry things, and some cheese and crackers and grapes that she had brought us from the plane. MAN it was like a FEAST!!! It was crazy when I realized that last weekend when she gave me cheese and crackers from the plane, it was the first time I had had cheese (like cubes/block cheese) since I had left home! That is crazy! I’m a cheese fiend! Seriously. That stuff was heaven! So we went out to explore Barcelona. The first awesome thing we ran into was this outdoor flea market type thing right by the water! It was so pretty outside! That was a blessing! I found a book for you, Lynn! It is awesome! It’s actually a spending diary from like 1963 or something like that. It is written in and everything. Its really cool. Vintage Spanish book for you, baby! (for those of you who don’t know why that is significant, she collects old books…)

Next we walked up this street that was lined with street vendors, artists, human statues, etc. it was SO awesome! I saw some of my favorite paintings there. They reminded me of you, Lins! They were absolutely beautiful.

We then got some gelato on our way to see the Gotti stuff of the city! Gotti is the artist/architect who is famous for his mosaic tile art in the city. Its really pretty amazing. I didn’t really think much of it, other than it was kind of gaudy (haha. No pun intended!), but seriously. Some of these things are just beautiful and frankly just plain amazing. OH MY GOSH…LINDSEY>>> get this: the Gotti park is totally where they filmed the “dead brides” runway show on that episode of America’s Next Top Model!!!! No joke! I saw it! It was SO cool! It made me remember the show when I looked at that hallway. I could see them running down the hallway in my mind J it was pretty cool J

Oh man. Also, I have never seen so many stairs as the ones that we had to walk up to get to that park… after walking up what I’m convinced is the steepest hill in Barcelona! Haha. There was an escalator at the very top, but of course it wasn’t moving! Hahaha.

After the park, we took the metro back to the big government building near our hotel that I think they said used to be the palace? Well, now, they have these beautiful fountains and waterfalls out front that have light shows that go off every few minutes! We got there about 8pm and watched the water/light show. It was so great. My camera batteries died before we were done at the Gotti park, so I couldn’t take any pics, but you can be sure I’m going to jack some of Cait and Erin’s when they post them online. J when that was over, we headed back to the hotel, but not without stopping at a nearby Italian restaurant to pick up some pizza (YES!!! J) to go. We had a pizza party in the Gastons’ room and we even made up an Easter shot! Yep. That’s right. Anyone who is a bartender, you have the potential to make millions of dollars with this idea. Be sure. Ready? One Cadbury egg, top chopped off, one shot glass of Bailey’s Irish Crème. Pour Bailey’s into Cadbury, and enjoy! Seriously. Try it. Well, I didn’t, but Cait did, and it LOOKED fantastic! So you should all try it. You can call it The Denise. J I don’t mind J haha

So we crashed after our pizza party, and I was up early this morning to catch the early morning bus back to Madrid. I’m sure I left out quite a bit about the trip, but eventually I’ll have all of the pictures up on Facebook. Sorry I don’t really have the ability to do that now, like I would like to!

Anyways. It’s pretty late now… I need to sleep. Bus sleeping isn’t all that great J

Hey, pray for me to talk to Paloma about leaving. I chickened out tonight…. I need to let her know I’m leaving before they get home from their Easter vacation, since I’m pretty much kicked out when they leave Friday morning. It’ll be fine, I’m just kinda nervous for some reason! I need to start packing now, actually. That’s crazy to think about. I have to have all of my stuff packed up to take with me to the hostel on Friday. Yeesh. That’ll be fun! J

So, Gooch, I totally got your jersey this weekend! you have to wait till I get home to find out who’s jersey it is, though. Fortunately Eduardo approved of it. He said that the one I got was the best one J so I hope you are happy with it! J

Bale (okay), hasta luego, amigos!

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 11 de Marzo, 2008

12:50am (5:50pm march 10^th, Denton time)

I am going to be home for my birthday! That is so awesome! J let’s hang out, yeah? J and no, “I have to work the next morning” junk. Hang out with me on my birthday! I miss you!!! J J J (it’s the 24^th…)

it got cold again! yeesh!

2008-03-05T15:42:00.000+01:00

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 4 de Marzo, 2008

10:02pm (3:02pm Denton time)

Ok… news from today:

I didn’t wear a jacket for the first time today… bad idea. I thought it was going to be as warm as it was yesterday… nope. It was extremely windy… yikes.
“Crucial Tuesday” is today. Votes are counted in Ohio and Texas. I think two other states as well, but Ohio and Texas are huge states to win (or lose) in this race. I hope you are all voting… I also hope (personally) that Hillary “Satan’s spawn” Clinton is out of the race by the end of the day… that won’t happen, but we can always hope, right? (sorry, if you’re a hillary backer… I just really wish she would go away…)
That has been one of my hardest prayers these past months… praying that His will be done in this election EVEN if that is to have Hillary Clinton as our next president… so tough to pray that… BUT that’s good. J
If it goes to superdelegates and they don’t vote the way that the people vote, I will officially be extremely disappointed. That would make all of the votes pointless.
I like CNN. I’m so thankful for it (and the English that they speak…haha).
I’m making a Bucket List (a list of things to do before I die). It’s cool J
I’m making a book list that I want to read
I’m going to make a list of things that I am SO thankful to have back in the states that I have taken for granted in the past. I don’t want to take them for granted when I get back home. When I finish it (or get a good number of things down), I’ll post them for you so that you can see if you take them for granted too, and maybe checkity-check yourself J haha.
I’m sick of having white rice and hotdogs (no buns. Just the dog) for lunch…
I’m sick of fish sticks. They are NOT HEALTHY – especially when they’re DEEP FRIED…
I can’t wait to be able to eat WHEN I’M HUNGRY…. Not wait until I’m ALLOWED to eat…
i can’t believe it’s snowing in Denton!!! My sister sent me the most awesome pictures!!! She wrote things in the snow outside her house: “LOVE YOU, D” and “miss you too!” So cool! J
I went running yesterday and prayed for death afterwards. My lungs hurt so badly… also I had a headache last night more strange than I’ve ever had before. Not even a migraine. Worse. I honestly thought that my head was going to explode and my brain was going to spurt out of every opening in my head… not joking. There was so much pressure in my head I sat on my bed pressing on both sides of my head with my hands praying for the pressure to subside. Ugh. So weird. And so terrible…
I got mail from my MOMMY today!!! So awesome!!! She sent me “Phase Ten”, the card game that I was wishing I had to teach the kids! So cool! I hope I get a chance to play it with them soon. Maybe they wont have too much homework tonight!
Finding hostels to stay at and finding bus tickets online teach us patience. MUCH patience. So I guess it’s good J
I get to talk to Aaron tonight. That’s awesome.
I FINALLY got to post an entire album online on Facebook today! The internet connection stayed connected the whole time for it to finish uploading!!! YES! So… I now have pictures from the first TWO days of this whole trip…haha. Aren’t you excited?? J maybe one day’ll they’ll be up to date… I’m not sure if it’ll be before I’m home though. Haha
I still have nowhere to live for nine days starting nine days from today… neat.
please pray for me to find somewhere to live. I think I may end up having to pay to stay in a hostel here in Madrid. That sucks. If that’s the case, that will be about $275 dollars more that I was not planning on spending while here in spain… I don’t even have enough money to last until I get home, right now… I’m way more than counting on birthday money to get me through this month… ugh. I hate money. I hate not having anywhere to live next week! Man. Please pray. Please please. I need either a magic three hundred dollars to drop out of the sky (and for a bed to stay open at a good hostel) OR a free place to stay that week… pray pray pray.
I just wish that I would have known this before I moved here…they should have told me instead of just now informing me that I’m homeless if I don’t go with them to the north part of spain… it’s just not really fair… well, I don’t think so anyways… don’t just tell me that with no other options. That’s just mean.
I love you.
I need to stop stressing out about a place to live.
God totally provides. I’m interested to see how He will this time… interested, for sure. J
Thanks for making it through, again. You’re troopers J

Later: 10:15ish Madrid time

3:15ish denton time

I just cut eduardo’s hair. That was cool. His old haircut was driving me insane. It was not even AT ALL… surprisingly, his dad said I could cut it for him…

It looks really good.

The first thing his dad said when he showed it to him (and was really excited about it, I might add…) :

Eduardo: Papa! Look! Look at my new hair! How good it looks, eh?? J J J

Eduardo Sr: well, there’s nothing we can do about it now…

As he tossles his hair…

Nice. Thanks, dad. You’re welcome for saving you money for having to go to a hairdresser who does a crappy job anyways… you’re welcome…

Aaron’s going to call me in about five minutes. I wish it were now. Ugh.

Did I mention that his hair actually looks good… yeah.

And even later: 11:41pm Madrid time

4:41pm Denton time

…and have I mentioned how much i love that my room is right above Paloma’s?

I love this for the sole reason that I get to smell it every single time she starts smoking in her room… smoke rises. Right into my nostrils as I attempt to sleep…or breathe… you know, either one J haha.

just a little update for ya...

2008-03-04T12:50:00.000+01:00

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 28 de Febrero, 2008

10:02pm (3:02pm Denton time)

Wow…I feel like a whole lifetime has passed since I wrote in this thing. i feel like I did so much this weekend, but I’m sure that it won’t really be that much when I actually write about it all.

Ok…starting where… Friday? Saturday? Friday. That was the 29^th I think…

Ok so Saturday I had a few things that I knew that I needed to get done that day. I needed to try and find a free place for Aaron and Lindsey to stay, I needed to buy some stamps (after attempting it for 4 days now…haha), I needed to mail those things… I needed to meet cait’s mom to pick up some things for the girls…get some cash out of the atm…and finish up planning for the italy trip. And more I’m sure…

So I was bound and determined to get Pizza this weekend since I’ve been craving it for so long now. The other girls all went to Portugal this weekend so I was on my own. It was pretty cool to just hang out and walk around on my own for the whole weekend. I walked all around the Sol area trying to find the Juan Valdez Café that we had seen there last weekend. It kept evading me for probably a good 30-45 minutes which was pretty frustrating BUT I did get to see just about every inch of the area between Sol and la Plaza Mayor. I ran into the really popular chocolateria that’s over there too J I can’t wait to go there with Lins and Aaron! J it’s going to be so great. Mmmm! J I haven’t been yet.

So I finally found juan valdez, and I was planning to stay there for a good while with internet, but the place didn’t have a plug anywhere! Sheesh. Nice. So I was there until my computer died. Then I went over to the Alonzo Martinez metro area where the other Juan Valdez Café and Pizza Hut both are J literally just around the corner from each other. I went straight for Pizza Hut and ordered the special thing they have that is a personal pizza with two toppings (tomato chunks and black olive of course!), two Texas-toast type garlic cheesy bread slices, and a drink for about 6 euros. I was in heaven. You have no idea. I would eat pizza for every meal if I could, I think… well, not true, I would trade off between pizza (tomato chunks, black olives, extra cheese, and extra sauce with super thick crust J right, Gooch?? Seriously, that pizza you made for me that one time is still the pizza I dream of very often…hahaJ), California rolls, edemame, and Chilis hamburgers with chips, salsa and ranch (they totally don’t have ranch dressing in Spain….terrible…). J

Anyways. that was a ridiculous tangent. I can’t believe you guys actually read all this ridiculous writing. Haha.

So after pizza hut I tried to go back to Juan Valdez for more internet, but they were already closed, so I went to this little café place that said they had internet, but after only thirty minutes I couldn’t get it to work anymore even after I got a new password and everything. Sad. So I just went home. But I did get to chat it up with my friend, JG for a little bit! He told me I can come next time you guys go to camp on the beach, Pookie, so plan on it. J man. That sounds so cool! I love beach camping. WAY more than regular camping for sure.

OH…before all of this happened, I forgot to tell you the most terrifying thing of the night!!! Jeez… ok so I walk to the bus stop that afternoon after lunch around 5pm because I want to get on the bus before they start striking again…ugh. So inconvenient! The bus drivers are striking, and according to a posted sign at the bus stop, there are about 5 days that they are doing “partial strikes” and about 5 more days that they are doing “total strikes” between mid feb and mid march… not fun for those of us whose only means of transportation is being on those buses… yeah. So that day, it was a total strike during rush hours (7:30-9:30am and 5:30-7:30pm), so I definitely wanted on the bus before then. Unfortunately I didn’t make it… ha. But I did run into Ani while I was there waiting for the bus! She had a dentist appointment so we waited for the bus together and I let her listen to some of the music on my ipod (Jen, she heard your song “It shouldn’t matter”, it’s the only one of yours that I have on there, but she looked at me like I was lying to her. She didn’t believe me that you are my roommate. Haha. She loved it J), and we talked for a while. It’s fun talking with her. It makes me feel like I can speak Spanish. She’s really patient. J so the bus FINALLY comes at about 5:50pm, and it is PACKED!!! Seriously it is so full I’ve never seen anything like it… well, about 3 people get off and two people get on ahead of me and Ani, and we try to squeeze in, too… well we did, but it was so tight that I was having to maneuver around the door closing behind me… it closes, and I am pressed against it the whole ride… at one point I said to Ani (in Spanish…), “I’m so nervous right now! What if this door opens?!” haha. She looked at me with a “whoops” type face and said, “Hasta luego, Denise!” haha. Oh man. It was pretty intense of a ride! Haha BUT we made it to Moncloa (where the main bus stop and the metro is) in one piece and tumbled out of the bus when the doors open. I couldn’t help but laugh the whole way down to my metro car. It was pretty funny.

Oh, and earlier that day (Friday), before the girls left, cait and I met up at the normal Juan Valdez and I did manage to book mine and Katie’s return flight from Italy…so that’s good. J haha. So we’ll be going to Italy (why in the world have I always …ever since I can remember… tried to spell Italy and Italians with either two t’s or two l’s…sheesh.) from March 28^th to April 2^nd. We’ll fly out of Milan on Tuesday April 2^nd in the early early morning, and after that I’ll be heading back to the states! J I’m not sure the exact day, but I could be coming home as early as that day… we’ll see when Cait’s mom looks at the flights and sees what’s available. It actually works out really well because we have to get new Abono passes (for the metro and bus) at the beginning of each month or else pay 1 euro for each ride on them… so when we’re in Italy, my march abono will be done, and I have about 4 rides left on a ticket from when we were first here in January, so that should work out to be just about perfect! J just a couple for the metro/bus rides home from the airport and then hopefully Paloma will be able to take me to the airport when I go J

Oh… a must try for Madrid (and so I hear in Italy too, so maybe it’s a European thing) is the orange juice! They have these machines. They’re phenomenal! They have a tube out the top that you put in whole oranges, and the machine runs the oranges through and squeezes out the juice into your cup. It is the best orange juice I have ever had in my entire life. It’s just like when we were in elementary school and just sucked the juice out of our orange slices instead of eating them… it’s that fresh. Whoa. So good.

So that’s my new addiction… European orange juice. Haha J

Ok so that was Friday…

Saturday was really busy and long, but I didn’t really do that much because a majority of my day was spent walking all around this one area trying to find this stupid hostel to check it out and hopefully book some beds for Aaron and Lindsey for less than two weeks from yesterday! Usually, you want to book hostels about 3 weeks in advance to get the best prices… so yeah… anyways. I went to Juan Valdez to get info about it, and find out exactly where it was, went there and looked around for it, and couldn’t find it. So I went BACK to juan valdez to look it up again, and I actually drew the map out for myself. Went back and walked around a more narrowed down area for it… google maps is full of crap. It was totally not marked on that map correctly. I FINALLY found a shop keeper who knew what I was talking about and he pointed me down about two streets away from where the map said it was supposed to be. I found it and went up to ask the guys some questions. The guy at the counter didn’t speak English, so it was kind of hard communicating the questions I had, like, they’re flying standby, so if their flight doesn’t come in on the day that we book the first night for, will they still be able to come in on the second day without their reservation being canceled totally. The second guy finally figured out what I was asking and tried to start translating for us and speaking English to me, but the first guy kind of snapped at him and said (in Spanish), “no! let her practice! She’s doing well!” haha it was so funny. Frustrating at the moment, but after we finished the discussion and they understood my questions and I understood their responses, it was kinda cool that he did that. Haha. The Spanish people are really cool. They really do love the fact that we try to speak Spanish with them. Even if they do speak a little English. Most of them will pretend that they don’t understand English if they see that you’re proficient enough to get your points across with a little help and patience J it’s pretty cool. So those guys were pretty cool, and they gave me a flyer for 10 percent off of the stay, only you have to book online… so I still had to go get internet again to actually book the beds. ARG! I hate not having internet! Ugh. It makes the simplest things so difficult! Haha.

Anyways. so at that point I really needed to make my way up to the part of town where the Delta flight attendants stay to pick up some things from Caitlin’s mom for the girls. So I make the trek to that end of town… a lot of walking that day. Haha. And hang out with her mom for a little bit. She’s SO SWEET! It’s really cool to be able to see her pretty much every weekend while we’re here! I think moms (the cool ones anyways…) have this quality that make you just feel like you’re hangin with your own mom for a bit. Especially if they’re the mom of a really close friend, like cait’s mom. She brings snacks and goodies every weekend. its so cool. Next weekend we’re going to Barcelona, and we’re going to get to stay for FREE because her flight is to Barcelona too! J so we’re not having to get a hostel or anything. So awesome. Anyways, so she told me that some of the flight attendants were going back to that place called La Farmacia (they have the BEST sangria in all of Madrid, I’m convinced…at least it’s the best I’ve hadJ) for sangria and tappas, and asked if I wanted to join them. Of course I did! My girls were gone, so I had no plans… so that was really fun. Everyone I’ve met from Delta is SO sweet. Really fun people to hang out with. After hanging out there for a good while (where they randomly had wifi! So I was able to book beds for ap and lins! Not the hostel that I wasted my entire day looking for …. They didn’t even have the beds by the time I got to try and book them…FRUSTRATING!!! But at least they have a place for sure now!), I headed back home. Got there about 9:30ish and was just in time for dinner, so that was cool. Paloma and Eduardo Sr. went out again, so Eduardo, Veronica and I watched the Disney channel for a while. It was cool (Hannah Montana! Yeah!)J only it was in Spanish, and they can’t put English subtitles, only Spanish ones…so it got really frustrating after a while of not understanding anything, but I made it through an episode of Hannah Montana and that Nanny movie with The Rock in it? I don’t know what it’s called, Super Nanny or something like that… I dunno. But it was all in Spanish… I was definitely ready for some English CNN when the kids went to bed and I headed up to my room… yeesh. It’s not very fun when you don’t understand… dur… haha.

Ok. So my back is aching from hunching over this computer for so long. That means this entry is probably ridiculously long… big surprise, huh? No. prob not. Haha.

Anyways. so it’ll be 45 days tomorrow. That’s crazy. I’ve been away for 45 days.

BUT on the other hand… I get to see two of my most favorite people on earth in only TEN DAYS FROM TOMORROW!!! (tomorrow = Monday)

You have no idea how psyched I am for them to be here. I know I probably write that every time I write, but I promise, you still have no clue as to how much I wish they were here!!!!! I wish you all could come! I would love to actually show you the things I keep talking about J

Anyways, I love you all very much, and I’m super impressed if you actually made it through this far in this blog. I think I probably would have given up after the first few days of me writing this much. Haha. However, you get a gold star, for sure!

Break, team! J

Angela: "Well, Michael, whenever we're upset, you alway ask us if we're PMSing." Michael: "Well, I have to know whether you're serious or not!"

2008-02-29T14:54:00.003+01:00

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 27 de Febrero, 2008

9:47pm (2:47pm Denton time)

It’s strange. I am literally counting down the days until Aaron gets here because I absolutely cannot wait to see him again. I miss him so much!!! BUT at the same time… it’s like I want the days to pass faster that I’m here for… which is kind of sad…

On one hand, I’m here for about another month, away from him and the rest of you awesome people…

On the other hand…I’m ONLY here another month… and about 2 weeks of that time I won’t see the family because they’ll be out of town… I’m really gonna miss these kiddos.

So… catch 22, I guess…

Anyways, I finally went exploring in the other side of town. I’d never been to that part of town before… there’s not much there…so I guess its ok that I’ve missed out on it for the forty days that I’ve been here. I found a little grocery store kind of like Albertsons, though. So I went ahead and bought a few more things that I wanted to bring back with me. Some jam and chocolate mix (the kind that you make the really think drinking chocolate for churros y chocolate) and some of that nutella-type stuff J

On the way back I missed my bus stop so I had to get off on the next one. I didn’t feel like waiting for the next bus to come that way, so I decided to trek back on foot to the house…it’s further than I thought. Haha. And walking on the side of the 6-8lane highway in Madrid is actually rather terrifying… back to the cars that are approaching… they were not really that close but I almost peed my pants the first time a bus passed so close to me… haha.

I cut my fingernails again today… seems like a ridiculous thing to write in here, but it made me realize how long I’ve been here. Long enough to need to cut my fingernails more than once… weird…

I picked some wildflowers (uh…weeds) on the side of the highway on my trek back to the house today. I was reminded of the days that I used to play outside of our house in North Carolina… so much time back then to just wander around the yard, play in the treehouse, and pick wildflower/weeds. I remember there were so many of the purple ones that grow kind of like bluebonnets, tiny white ones, and dandelions. I wanna sit in the grass making flower necklaces again. Those white flowers were perfect for that!

Anyways. memory lane was fun today. Now my purple weeds are in a glass next to my sink in the bathroom. I like them. J they’re happy flowers.

I wish Aaron were here. 15 days!!!! J

Tomorrow will be exactly two weeks until I see him. YES!!!! J please go by quickly...

Later: 11:30pm Madrid time (4:30pm denton time)

Hey. Also, if you haven’t done so already… you should congratulate Aaron. He has been interviewing with a lot of companies and he heard back from the one that he has been talking about for a while. They offered him a position and it should turn into a really great fulltime position after graduation! J I’m so proud of him! All of you should hug him for me. Maybe it’ll make up for me not being able to congratulate him myself L I’m so proud of him!! J

Oh. Speaking of Aaron… funny thing today. When the kiddos came home and were finishing up their after school snack, just before we started teaching, they started telling their mom about the videos that Aaron sends me. I let them watch them because they’re funny and great and it lets them into my world J so far they’ve “met” Aaron, Jeremy, Darrell, Ben, Mr. and Mrs. Power… I think that’s all… anyways. it’s awesome. They were almost quoting the videos and they’ve only seen them like twice! Haha. They were so animated in their telling to their mom! They were so excited and they kept telling her how funny Aaron is J I can’t wait for them to be able to meet him! I hope that his flight gets in on Thursday so that they CAN meet him! They leave that Friday to go to their beach house.

I pulled my suitcase out of storage so that I can start to pack up the things that I’m going to let Aaron take back home for me in a separate bag that he’s bringing. J I’m SO glad to be able to do that. I definitely wouldn’t have enough room with all of the souvenirs/gifts that I’m bringing back. There’s no way. I’m so excited to get back and show you guys what I’m bringing back and to cook you some authentic Spanish food! Yum! J they like tuna. And mayo. Haha. And eggs! Bigtime!

Ugh.i just thought about their milk again… hahah it’s so gross! J haha. The only time I eat it is when I mix in Nesquik. Yup. They have that here. Legit nesquick. Bunny and all. Kinda cool. I think Eduardo drinks about 4 glasses of it every day…haha.

Ok. I need to go to sleep now…

Aaron had a test today about an hour ago… I hope it went well. Probably did. He’s a stud. I’ve been praying for it, babe!

Ok. Goodnight, everyone!

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 28 de Febrero, 2008

7:47pm (12:47pm Denton time)

Tutoring didn’t help today. It was a pretty good day. I’ve had a pretty terrible sinus headache all day though… Caitlin still hasn’t heard from her host mom if I can live with them while I’m kicked out of the house for 9 days… so that’s neat… also Lindsey and Aaron have nowhere to stay when they come as of now because we were hoping that they’d be able to stay with her also… so that’s neat, too… I’m going to have to call our friend Christopher and see if they can for sure stay there when they’re here, since he offered it when we were there last weekend… otherwise Aaron won’t be able to come. Awesome. After I let myself get so excited and think that it was for sure… I hate this. I said I wouldn’t get stressed about it but I am. Extremely.

Katie and I booked our flights from Madrid to Rome today. We fly out Friday, March 28^th and we will spend Friday night and Saturday in Rome. Saturday evening we will go to Florence. We will spend Saturday night and Sunday in Florence. Sunday night we will go to Milan and spend Monday there. We will fly back to Madrid either Monday evening or early Tuesday morning. Right now the early Tuesday morning is looking cheaper, but when we tried to book it…it denied my card. I have to call wells fargo and make sure they didn’t put a hold on my account. They did that to Katie the other day. Even though we told them we were out of the states… irritating… oh well. Then I’ll try to book our return flight again tomorrow.

The others are going to Portugal tomorrow night. That’s cool. Maybe I’ll get pizza some time this weekend. I keep saying that… I know.

I just really wish Aaron was here. I wish I knew for sure that he was coming. Having to get a hostel will cost another 150-175 dollars that I don’t think he has to spend. That sucks. Pretty much he can’t come if we can’t find somewhere free for them to stay. I just feel really helpless right now. I wish the family wasn’t closing the freaking house. That is so ridiculous. I need a freaking place to live. And if they weren’t so ridiculous we could all just stay here. It’s a whole house that is going to be empty the whole time they’re gone. ARG!

Sorry I’m just really frustrated right now. I kind of just wish I were home already, and not having to deal with all of this. I just want Aaron and Lindsey here already. No more of this will they/won’t they crap.

I’m just hungry, I’m sorry. I hate eating dinner at 10 o’clock at night. UGH. I just want some food…that isn’t ridiculous gross meatball things that we have ALL THE TIME I feel like… yup. That’s dinner again tonight. I’ll never eat them again.

Well… fourteen days (two weeks) until Aaron may or may not be here. Neat…

p.s. also, I really miss my Lindseyfriend. She should live here right now.

Later: 11:33pm Madrid time (4:33pm Denton time)

I hate conversations when I feel like I’m fighting for someone’s attention or that they are really tired of talking to you. Whether that’s really true or I just feel like that ‘s the truth. Either way. I hate those conversations. I also hate PMS and I also hate crying.

Also I hate the the conversion rate makes is so ridiculous for people to come here and afford it.

Also I’m just in a bad mood. I’m glad I don’t have to teach tomorrow. I’m glad it’s the weekend.

I’m going to take a bath. I just am not having a good night. Wonderful…

p.s. I did get to talk to Kelley for a few minutes before my phone card cut out. That was cool… Lynn I tried calling you but it wouldn’t work for some reason… I’ll try again soon. Bye.

p.p.s. (12:35am Madrid time. 5:35pm Denton time): I’m convinced that working out is more satisfying in Europe than it is in the US. Of course that is only my opinion…

my boyfriend is spiderman.

2008-02-27T16:52:00.002+01:00

wait... crap. i probably shouldnt have told you that... ;)

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 25 de Febrero, 2008

9:03pm (2:03pm Denton time)

Hey I just realized that my birthday is exactly one month from yesterday! J that’s fun J Eduardo told me tonight that he was going to sing to me:

“Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday…

Poor you!!!! Because you’re getting so OLD!!!”

Hahaha J I loved it J I can’t wait J hahaha.

That’s also Andrew Eenigenburg’s Bday, so write that one down for your calendar and don’t forget to give him a bear hug that day! (it’s the day after easter).

So yeah…I was in a really crap mood all day today. I wonder if it’s already PMS time again… ugh. Probably. But the cool thing is that God totally used the kids to get me out of it! Haha. I never would have expected working/teaching/tutoring to be the thing to rid me of my foul mood that I’ve seriously had since waking up this morning. Huh…

Oh… also:

“Mister Monday

He gets up at eight o’clock

On cold clear winter days

He eats his food at half past eight

And clears the pots away

He drives his car through the city streets

And meets along the way

Lots of tall dark people

Who stand there all the day

He’s Mister Monday

He works from nine to five

He’s Mister Monday

He lives alone in the city

I see him in the evening

I pass him at the door

I say, “Hello, how are you?”

And I know he’s very poor

He looks at the street through his window

He watches the people pass by

He loves little dogs and children

And he never tells a lie”

HAHA!!! I totally just nailed that! You have no idea how much that amuses me. I SUCK at memorization and I just memorized that with Veronica during our half hour of studying. I got to show her how finding the rhythm in the words helps you to memorize and learn it, kind of like you’re learning a song. It was so fun! I can’t believe we both learned that tonight… when she first showed it to me, she said, “OH NO! I forgot! I have an English test tomorrow and I have to know this poem!” I thought she meant that she just had to be familiar with it… oh no. nope. She definitely had to memorize it and she had not even LOOKED at it before we read it together!!! UGH! I was defeated when I looked at the page full of writing… I actually gave up before we even started. It was terrible, but then we went through the ol’ rhythm speech and we learned it together. It was really funny. We were clapping out the rhythm the whole time and she was dancing around the room while I clapped it out. Then we marched it down the million stairs of the house on the way to dinner… really funny J I can never tell if Paloma is amused. Haha it’s kind of funny trying to make someone laugh who is never amused and always sarcastic. Eh. ;)

God is funny.

And I like it J haha

Two of the light bulbs in my chandelier in my bedroom are out. It makes is difficult to see at night… I am just now realizing that… haha. I guess it makes sense though… I have half the light that I am used to having since there are supposed to be four lighted bulbs up there… I should go remedy that… or try to at least. I’m always afraid to interrupt the study sessions that Paloma has with Eduardo, though. Haha J man. She is SO intense. J haha.

Also my boyfriend is awesome and I got an email from him today that made me both tear up a little bit but also end with the most humongous smile on my face. J those are my fav kinds I suppose! He’s awesome. You should love him… you probably already do. Good for you. J

Oh yeah. I also wrote another essay tonight. This one was for Eduardo and it was over Hunting. Interesting, huh? Haha I kind of feel like I’m learning how parents feel. It’s actually a really cool thing that I’m doing this. I feel like I’m getting an important inside look to parenting that you don’t get just living at your own house. Even with two younger siblings. There’s something to be said for being an “outsider” just observing things. Kind of cool.

Ok. I want to be doing something right now… I wish I had a table and my sander and some paint… ha. Yeah right. That’ll be a few weeks to get that one… or months… haha

Guess I’ll read instead. Work out the ol’ noggin! J LOVE YOU!

Man. I love mood swings when they are swinging upwards J haha peace!

Oh, p.s. I taught Veronica, tonight, to say, “Peace out, Homie!” with the cocked peace sign in front of her as she says it. It’s pretty awesome. I’ll have to get her to make a video saying it and try to post it on facebook or something J so funny with her little Spanish accent! J

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 25 de Febrero, 2008

5:20pm (10:20am Denton time)

Ok. First off, I have to say that I just watched videos that Aaron sent me through gmail of his fam. And Darrell and ben and Jeremy.

I LOVE them.

Darrell…pookie…. You are definitely one of the most hilarious people I have ever met in my life and I’m so glad that you’re my friend! J I can’t wait to get home so we can go get sushi-lunch! J yes!!! Also, your laugh is still contagious from across the ocean. Incase you had always wondered that…

I watch the videos that Aaron sends me over and over so much just so that it’s kind of like I’m hanging out with you guys sometimes… haha. It’s pathetic… but awesome J haha.

And I laugh just as hard every time I watch them J

Love it!

Also I was attacked by the kitchen sink just 10 minutes ago, in case you were wondering… I know you were.

My left arm is extremely wet… I mean… sleeve. Left sleeve is wet…

Oh. Dang. Also… I may have accidentally stayed up, reading, until 5:00 this morning… whoops? And it wasn’t my “home” book of Anna Karenina… it was the Atonement book that was supposed to be my bus/metro book… now I don’t have one…haha. I really didn’t mean to read it all last night. I just wanted to read a little bit more… and I ended up reading about 335 pages… dang it.

Well, it’s a good book, though… haha. You can borrow it when I get home if you want J I want to see the movie now. Maybe it’ll be out on video by the time I get home! Maybe??

That’s all for now.

Ooh. And the kids’ dad is home now. Got home this morning I think. I met him when I went down for lunch and he seems really nice. J he brought me a USA Today from yesterday. J haha. That was nice of him! His English is very good. J so… I’ll keep you posted on all of that. Hopefully he stays awesome… J

That’s all… maybe more later.

Later: 10:31pm (3:31pm Denton time)

So family time exists somewhat now that papa is home J everyone is in the living room watching a movie. I can’t remember the name of it though… it’s the one with Johnny depp and Antonio banderas, Eva Mendez? Is it Mendez? I think… and Penelope cruz… in mexico with the guitar… yeah. I cant remember… help?

Whoa. Enrique iglesias is in this movie too! Haha. Nice.

I wonder…do they make dvd’s of any New York Philharmonic Orchestra? I would love to have one of those. Dvd as opposed to a CD because I think that watching orchestras play is something of a wonder. It reminds me of going to the UNT shows to see my lovely friend Meaghan Kawaller (Meaghan Walsh at the time J) wow the universe on her clarinet during our early college years J it blows my mind how talented those people are with their instruments… jeez.

I think it would be fun to write kids books with Aaron. He could illustrate with his little Monster guy that he draws. Just a random thought. Maybe some sort of bilingual or ESL type of books? or maybe something along the Veggie Tales line of Christian children’s books… eh. Just a thought.

So the girls are all going to Portugal this weekend. That should be fun. I’m not going because I don’t have the money for it. The bus ride alone is like 80 euros… or more maybe. Plus hostel money and everything else. Plus they’re not going to be back until Sunday night or Monday morning or something… I have to teach Sunday afternoons…so…yeah. Anyways. I was talking to Paloma and Eduardo sr. tonight and he was telling me that we should go all over spain because it’s the most beautiful country in the world J haha. He chuckled as he said it, but there was a hint of seriousness along with his Spanish pride J haha. The city that we were going to go to last weekend is one that he said we should see for sure. Maybe we’ll take a few day trips while Aaron and Lindsey are here. The bus fares are only like 10ish euros for round trips, so we’ll see how much money we’ve got to play with. Could be cool. Maybe that city… I cannot think of the name!! it starts with an A… and Segovia again so that Lindsey can go to the Cinderella castle J and maybe Sevilla. I feel like that city is a must to visit while in spain J maybe we’ll see a few others depending on speding abilities J we’ll see! It’s tiring, too! So… yeah.

Ok going to bed. Not another 5am night…haha.

Buenos noches, mis amigos! Te quiero!

(Goodnight, my friends! I love you!)

Don’t Drink Spanish Milk (to the tune of Don’t Drink the Water by DMB)…

2008-02-25T13:06:00.001+01:00

Later on February 20, 2008:
9:47pm Madrid time
2:47pm denton time

So… it’s hilariously official. My kids are the funniest, most awesome kids ever. J hahaha I LOVE them!!! Tonight, at dinner, both of them were there at the same time, and so we were supposed to all study together. So I took the lists of the irregular verbs and the list of opposite words that we are supposed to study at dinnertime and I made up a game. Really simple, actually but it turned out to be so fun J I told them that we would go back and forth between the two of them and I would ask them about a word. They would get a point for each correct answer. The first one to 20 was the winner. If they were tied the whole way, then at the end, if the first person got it right, then it was up to the second person. If they got it wrong, then the first person wins. If they got is right, then they tied!

Luckily, I know the words that each of them think are easy and which they each think are hard, so I kept them pretty equal the whole time… they actually ended up tying on both of them! J so that was cool. They really got into it and it was really loud and intense, but we were all smiling and laughing the whole time. I’m pretty sure that was the most awesome dinner time that we’ve had the whole time I’ve been here.

Also, Eduardo totally said that I was the best au pair/ assistant that he’s had, again, tonight J so that’s cool. Haha. Especially since up until this week (and actually kind of still) I’ve felt like I had no idea what I was doing, and was pretty sure they thought I was ridiculous… haha.

Anyways. that’s my story for tonight. I had such a good night with both of them. J oh, also, during studying with veronica, I taught her how to speak colloquially with the words “wanna, gonna, y’all”, and I think one more… I can’t think of it. J so that was fun J

AH my kids are so awesome. J J J

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 20 de Febrero, 2008

4:08pm (9:08am Denton time)

Haha. I think that Katie and Cait may be the ones to appreciate this the most… but I just asked Paloma where the best place to buy a book would be (I really wanna find that book, “El nino con las pajamas…” something… but I don’t really want to pay 13 euros for a paperback book… oh well. Anyways… surprise surprise…? J haha she told me to go to…

Drumroll…!!!

EL CORTE INGLES!!!

Duh. It’s the answer to everything for her. Hahaha. It’s so funny now. But it really is kind of ridiculous. Haha. It really wouldn’t be so ridiculous if they were actually a really cheap place to find things (like wal mart or something back home in the states) but… it’s not. Haha J

Anyways.

Oh. So apparently Paloma and I are speaking in Spanish now… that’s cool. Really intimidating…she speaks really quickly… oh man. But still kinda cool so far. HahaJ she just started speaking to me in Spanish today… I partially hope that she keeps doing that. And partially it scares the bajeezes out of me… I’m just scared people are going to get irritated with me when I don’t understand what they’re saying. L but its ok. J I’m in Spain. J

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 22 de Febrero, 2008

7pm (12pm Denton time)

Nothing really important to report at the moment, but I thought I’d mention, while I’m thinking about it, that the milk in Spain is weird. I know you’ve been waiting for a milk update for quite sometime now, and I really just couldn’t hold out on you any longer. ;)

So, yeah. They must have some strange sort of preservatives in their milk here… they keep it in cardboard cartons (milk and juice, both) and they don’t keep it refrigerated until AFTER it is open… MILK. Sick.

Also, it smells TERRIBLE!!!! Even right after you open it. It actually took me a good two weeks before I would even try the stuff in coffee or anything. I actually had cereal with water one day the first week I was here because I didn’t know if it was bad or what… apparently it really does smell that terrible always. Ugh… haha.

Well, I tried some by itself today. I poured to much into my glass accidentally and Ani was in the kitchen with me, so I didn’t want to just dump it out in the sink with her there, so I drank the excess from my glass… whoa sick. I really don’t like it. Which is really unfortunate, because I love a good cold glass of skim milk in the states. I am so looking forward to the day I get back… having an awesome Red Baron frozen pizza with a tall glass of ice cold skim milk… that’s what I really want J haha man. That sounds SO GOOD right now!!! J haha.

Oh. Also, one thing that I really wish I had brought… my slippers. I had them packed, but then Aaron laughed at me and made some funny remark about how slippers were such a necessity that I should definitely take up the space to pack them… haha J so I listened to him and left them out. Probably the only time in the history of us that I wish I hadn’t listened to him. Haha J I love you! J but I do wish I had my slippers. My footsies get so cold here on the cold wood floors in the house with radiators for heat J Haha J

Anyways. I’m almost 2/15ths of the way through Anna Karenina as of today. I really like it. It’s a really good book. You should go for it if you’re looking for a new read. I love the way that I learn so much about the world, history, and geography from reading these old novels. I feel like such a nerd, but it’s great! There are so many footnotes to inform you on topics, quotes, and definitions of things in the books (a TON in Karenina and there are always a good number in Austen’s novels as well) that I feel like I’m getting a history, geography, and theology lesson all in one while doing pleasure reading J haha. It’s cool. I hope when/if I have kids that they love to read. Random thought… haha.

Oh…so I also found out last night that the dad is supposed to come home probably some time this next week. Maybe 5 days or so? Something like that? And that they are going to their beach house up in the north of Spain from March 14^th (happy birthday to anna miller (bride to be so soon!!! Whoa!)! J) until about the 23^rd or so… yeah. Cool thing because that’s the exact date that Aaron gets here, right? No. they CLOSE THE HOUSE while they’re gone. They take Ani with them because, Paloma told me last night, “I tried going by myself without Ani once, and it’s just terrible and too hard to do everything myself.” Poor woman. It’s a wonder how every other mother in the world does it all on her own… My mom, I think the idea of Paloma living like my mom would give her a heart attack. Working full time, cooking breakfast and dinner for the whole family every day, doing ALL of the house-work, helping 3 kids with homework, projects, life problems, etc. while having a social life (as much as possible, right?), and anything else that may be required of her as a mother, wife, etc… HA the thought of her trading spots with my mom is actually laughable. Man. My mom really is supermom! J the kids in school used to joke around about it, but it’s totally true J except her superhero name is already Rocketmom. That’s what Aaron calls her. J instead of Mrs. Borel, he always calls her Rocketmom. I think it’s pretty much the most awesome thing ever. J and I know she loves it, too. I’ll never be that good, but at least I’ve got the ultimate role model, right?? J yup! Love you, mom! J

Ok… so I totally got off of what I was talking about… so anyways… they close the house when they leave and take Ani with them. Ani’s boyfriend, Christie (is that how he spells it? I have no idea…) lives here, also, and even he is not allowed to be here while they’re gone… intense… so… basically, Paloma tells me about this last night, and actually invited me to go with them! Well, I’d hope so since I’m basically homeless otherwise…haha. UNFORTUNATELY… that is the EXACT time that Aaron and Lindsey are going to be here in Madrid! Are you kidding me??? So basically, I have to figure out someplace to live for nine days in march… cool. I told Paloma that I had to be here during that time, and she tried to convince me to get them to come some other time… I explained that that’s when they had off of school, but I don’t think she either understood or cared… most likely the latter… either way, at the end of the conversation, she said, “well, what are you going to do?” so I told her I would just have to ask Caitlin to see if her host family would allow me to stay over there for that week since they have a ton of extra beds at their house…if not, then I am really not sure what I’m going to do… pray about that… please. Cait’s asking the family tonight… my fingers are crossed so tightly I think they may fall off…

So Paloma said, “Well, ok. We have three weeks to figure it out, so it’s not a huge deal, but just let me know what you’re going to do.” Wonderful. Thank you for not thinking that this is a big deal… cause it’s pretty huge to me, but ok.

Whatev! J no pasa nada. (Don’t worry about it).

It’ll work out. God knows. But still pray J

Twenty days! J

That’s all for now. Love you!

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 24 de Febrero, 2008

4:50pm (9:50am Denton time)

Ok. I pretty much feel like so much has happened this weekend that I will never remember everything to write it down here. You’re probably thankful for that since I’m so darned long-winded and rambly. Haha (also, rambly is not a word… too bad).

Ok.. where to start… wow…

Well, the family went to their country house/castle again this weekend. Surprise surprise. Haha. They left Friday night. So Saturday I met the girls (Cait, Katie, Erin, and another girl that we met in Spanish class) at H&M to go shopping. I know, I know, we have those in the US, but I’d never been to one before spain, so I justify buying things there. Haha. I finally found a locket! I’ve been looking for one for a long time, but every one that I found that was the length I wanted was really ugly or cheap looking. But alas, I found one! And it was less than 4 euros! J hooray J

Then Cait and I walked around a while after the rest of them had to leave, and I ended up not being able to resist buying a new book. It’s the book Atonement by Ian McEwan (the book that inspired that movie that just came out recently). I’ve been wanting to see the movie so badly! So I just bought the book since that came first and I actually have time to read here in Spain! J It’s so good. I decided that it was a great investment too, since Anna Karenina is way too huge to lug around on the bus/metro, so this new book is my metro/bus book since it’s much smaller J it’s perfect. It even fits in my smallest purse. It’s the small things… J haha.

So that was awesome…

Then I ran home to pack a little bag to make it easier to stay at Cait’s mom’s hotel so that we could stay out later than the busses since we can’t trust the night busses. Blah. I finally made it back to the hotel to drop off my bag, and the three of us (me, Cait and her mom) went out to dinner to this little place near Plaza Mayor called “Mesa de Champinon” in English it means the Mushroom Bar. It was so good! We just had mushrooms and these ham/cheese fried things (we never did find any ham in those… haha still a little confused…) with some bread and Sangria. It was so good. Then we walked to our favorite little café called La Mayorquina (I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s called… Cait, if you’re reading this, correct me if I’m wrong on the name there…) J so that cait’s mom could try a napolitana con chocolate. They’re awesome J

After La Mayorquina, her mom went back to the hotel and Cait and I went to meet Katie and Erin back near Moncloa (at Aguelles) to go over to this guy, Christopher’s (different Christopher from last week…haha) apartment for a little fiesta. Basically it was a bunch of us girls goin over to hang out, have some wine and some microwaved pizza… haha J Katie met Christopher Wade in English class and he invited everyone out to his apartment downtown to hang out. It was cool.

Talk about a character!!!! Wow. Christopher is a very loud, confident, 35 year old gay man who acts like he’s still 20 and is the funniest person I’ve met in a really long time! Wow. We were in stitches pretty much the entire time we were there. He’s so intense!!! I cannot even tell you! So animated. So loud and so intense! He’s modeled for a long time. He showed us his portfolio and it’s pretty impressive actually. My favorite pic from his portfolio was actually the main photo used in all of the American Crew (hair products) promotions not too long ago. Really impressive. Such a great photograph. Lindsey I can’t wait for you to meet him. He’s going to go crazy over you and flip out when he sees how beautiful you are. J he’ll want to make you his new project. J haha.

Anyways. it was a really fun time. We all just hung out and talked and goofed around for a few hours. A few other girls from the class came in with some more people later on, and it got a little out of hand… they are both extremely intense and well… yeah. I can only handle about 3 minutes of them at once… so I was ok when everyone decided to head out to another party that we were invited to. Cait and I decided to call it a night. It was already 1am… we were the party poopers… haha that’s when people START going out here… I cannot get over that. Seriously… I plan on doing it ONE night when Linds and Aaron are here, and I’m pretty sure that’ll be enough for me… maybe I’m wrong, but we’ll just have to wait and see. I’m just not a partier… sue me… J

Ok so we went back to the hotel and went to sleep. We were going to go out to some other Spanish city today, but the weather is disgusting so we decided against it. I’m glad. I was exhausted when we got up… yeesh. We went down to the hotel’s café and had café con leche with the Delta crew before they headed off to their flight and after they left, we made friends with the guys that were working behind the bar. They were both older men named Luis. J the tall luis gave us SO MUCH FREE STUFF!!! He told us we were muy simpatica and that he really enjoyed talking with us. Bear in mind everything that we spoke with him was in Spanish! So awesome!!!! Anyways. ended up giving us free muffins, croissants, juice AND two café con leches before we left. Haha.

While we were down there we also met another Delta crew that was meeting before they headed out to New York. We met the pilot and their team leader along with a few of the other flight attendants. The team leader, Diego, was so friendly and he was really helpful about Barcelona and other places around Spain. He lived here for a while before he worked with Delta. He also heard us talking about how we were seriously considering doing the flight attendant thing, and he heard that I had put in my application a few months ago. He said that they were definitely hiring right now, and asked us if Cait’s mom had put in a referral for me. I didn’t know anything about the referral program so he told us about it, and basically if you get referrals from employees, your name gets bumped up to the top of the list! Before they left, Diego also gave us his card and told us to email him if we would like for him to put in another referral for us if we were serious about applying! How cool is that?? Really cool. So I just wrote him an email and also wrote one to Cait’s mom for it. Never hurts to have more than one referral! So anyways. Those are some pretty cool things that have happened this weekend. I’m gonna go now and piddle around a little before teaching starts in about 45 minutes… maybe read some J

I think Aaron’s gonna call tonight if he can. I hope he can J

18 days!!!!!! J J J J

p.s. oh…did I tell you that I bought a spanish cd the other day? Chambao is the group’s name. it’s this girl and guy. Her voice is solid! My fav song is called “Mi Primo Juan” (English: My Cousin Juan). It’s a really cool tune. I translated it… not at all what I was expecting… about her cousin going to the hospital and getting sick and on bed rest… not at all what you’d think it’d be about if you were just listening to the music… anyways. it’s a really cool tune and you should check it out if you have a way to preview music, like iTunes or something. J

p.p.s. OH! I cannot believe I forgot to say… Cait’s mom totally brought me a HUGE bottle of Downy Fabric Wrinkle Release! Oh my goodness. I’m pretty sure I could have hugged her and never let go. I am SO happy to have that!!! I have my entire wardrobe going through rounds of being “Wrinkle Released” right now. Haha. They’re all laid out on my bed and getting a squirt/rubdown. It’s pretty awesome and my room smells like Downy. The smell of fresh laundry is definitely one of my favorite smells ever ever ever! J YES! J

now if I could just find bubble bath (my bathtub is perfect for baths and I love taking them, but I wish I had some bubbles in my tub with me!!!)in the entire country of spain… so weird the things you can’t find here… can’t even find bubble bath for little kids! Our au pair friend just pours in shampoo when she gives her kids “bubble baths” haha. J

Spanish word for you to learn: Borbujas (bore – boo –hahs) it means Bubbles J also, in Spain, the J is always pronounced kind of like you’re pronouncing it like an “h” while hocking a light loogie. How do you spell that word… hmmm…

ok. The end!

Later: 6:10pm

Um… I’m kind of confused… they’re not home from their country house yet… We have lessons on Sundays at 6:00…it is Sunday…right? Hmmm…

just sittin' on the ol' pot... again... uh... flower pot i mean.

2008-02-21T19:44:00.004+01:00

i have a few minutes before i have to go back inside and teach/have dinner. thought you'd like a few more pictures from Toledo last weekend. :)

this is what Euros Cambio (change) looks like :)
they have ones, two's, 1 cent, 2cent, 5 cent, 10 cent, 20 cent, and 50 cent.
cait is a real life pick pocket. m&m's of course...

i ate a crawfish... gross. still don't like them, Pookie (Darrell) haha. :)
this is mike. everyone? meet our funny amigo nuevo, mike:

we all ate at this quaint little place in Toledo for lunch. who makes you pay for friggin water?? well...they do. brats. ;)

Later on February 20, 2008:

9:47pm Madrid time

2:47pm denton time

AH my kids are so awesome. J J J

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 20 de Febrero, 2008

4:08pm (9:08am Denton time)

Drumroll…!!!

EL CORTE INGLES!!!

Anyways.

i'm getting a bruise on my butt bones from this ol' flower pot... haha

2008-02-20T16:25:00.004+01:00

well, that's not actually funny. it's more like painful... but... nah. it's funny too :) haha

some pictures from Toledo:

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 19 de Febrero, 2008

5:07pm (10:07am Denton time)

Aaron is coming in twenty three days. I cannot wait. I made cards. Like a day to day calendar that you flip over every day… or like the Christmas countdown calendars… only it’s a calendar that says, “[23] days until Aaron IS HERE in Espana!!!”

I have lists to make of the awesome places that we HAVE to go to while he is here. I’m so excited. Him coming here makes this trip eight billion times more awesome. 23 DAYS!!!!

That is all.

Later: 9:42pm Madrid time

2:42pm Denton time

Wow. So Paloma wanted me to sit and watch how she works with Eduardo so that from now on I can work with him like she does, because she says that with her, he learns things like three times as fast… duh. She’s his mom… anyways.

Wow… she’s so intense. No mercy. Seriously. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to sit there and be as harsh as she is with him. She makes him cry every third sentence out of her mouth and she’s practically yelling at him the whole time. Jeez. I’m sorry, but I just can’t be like that. Maybe it’s because I grew up learning from my mom. She was merciful. When she could tell that we were at a breaking point, or when we were overwhelmed. She would calm us down with kind, encouraging words. It’s so necessary! She wouldn’t yell at us and make us keep going all strung out… I don’t know… to each his own, I suppose, but I really don’t think that I’m wrong on this one… I just can’t be that way. I hated the people that treated me that way, and I NEVER wanted to learn with them. I pretty much just spent the whole time wishing I could punch them… nice, right? Yeah… well, I’m just being honest…

Anyways. also, a couple of really cool things today from working with the kids…

During our conversational time (me and veronica), she said, “I want to be like you, Denise.” I asked her what she meant… like how did she want to be like me, and she just said, “I don’t know! I just do J.” With a big smile on her face. It made me feel so good. It was just like God totally patting me on the head. I love her. Not because of that, that just reminds me that I do… haha. She’s so cool.

Also, when I was studying with Eduardo today, (he has an English vocabulary exam tomorrow, so we were going over that stuff the WHOLE hour and a half and he’s working with his mom more right now (yeesh…)) he looked at me, and he said, “you know? You are the second best au pair that I have had. You know that?” (sometimes the kids call me au pair instead of language assistant… sometimes the other… just different on different days… haha. Anyways.) and I said, “yeah? Well that’s awesome! I’m really glad!” He said, “You know who the first one is, no?” so I said, “No, who?” (as if I would really know them… haha), but he said, “you know her! She is here! Ani!” J although, she’s not been an au pair for them, I don’t think, but I knew what he meant. You know. You can’t ever say anyone’s better than the one that is there at the moment. Especially when she’s been there as long as Ani has. J anyways. I just thought that was really cool. I got compliments from BOTH kids tonight! I really love them. They are both so awesome. Totally a handful and they can definitely drive me up the wall sometimes, but they’re kids. That’s to be expected. I really do love them with all of my heart.

I told Veronica, tonight, that when she gets to be in high school, that she should come and live with me (and my husband if I’m married in four years…) and do a foreign exchange thing during her high school time. She got really excited about that. I’m so serious. I really hope that she does get to do that. I told Paloma, when we were all at dinner, that we had talked about it, and we all talked about it for a while. Maybe she will be able to! I mean it is four-ish years off, but I really honestly hope that it works out. J She is such a sweet girl. I would absolutely love to have her in the states for a while.

We get to talk about our beliefs randomly through our lessons, too. Today I got to explain the Trinity to her. She’s such a smart girl! And we talked about the difference between Catholicism and Protestant beliefs, about the Virgin Mary… I got to explain to her how Mary was just a normal woman. She made the connection like, “oh! So it really could have been, like, the virgin Christina, or the virgin Denise, or the virgin Veronica!” and I said, yeah! And explained to her that God used Mary in order for Jesus to come to earth, but she was not God. She was just a woman that found favor with the Lord, and that’s why I don’t believe that we should pray to her, that I believe we only pray to God.

I used an egg as the example of the trinity. How the egg is made up of a yolk, the white, and the shell, and how each of those parts, together, is definitely an egg, but they still are separate, too. I told her how Jesus was totally human, but he was still totally God at the same time and how Jesus along with the Holy Spirit and God the Father made up the Trinity… I expected her to be kind of lost after that, but she nodded and really looked like she understood all of what we were talking about! It’s just really cool when we get to talk about the Lord. It’s never long, in depth talks. It’s usually just here and there, if she thinks of a question or something like that, we’ll talk a few sentences each about the subject, and then we’ll jump right back in to our lessons. Man. I hope opportunities like that keep coming up. It’s just really so cool. Pray for that, too? Just that I get to keep getting closer with the kids. I really love them. My heart really aches for them, and I’m actually tearing up thinking about them right now J that’s so cool. God is so cool.

Ok I’m gonna go read my Bible for a bit. I have been lazy about it the past few days. Ugh. Then I’ve gotta get to bed. I’m meeting Cait at some new coffee shop tomorrow J that will be fun. I like new places. I really hope it’s sunny. I decided today that I’d really like to explore out here, near the house… I’ve never gone the opposite way from Moncloa (south east is Moncloa). So I think next time it’s nice out, I’ll ride the bus down a few more stops the other way and see what’s there. Maybe something cool? J I hope so! J

Ok. I love you!

(Aaron is coming in 23 days J)

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 20 de Febrero, 2008

4:08pm (9:08am Denton time)

Things that I love about today:

there are massive, black clouds still in the sky (they’ve been there for a very long time now…) BUT, I can see the sun peeking through as if to tell us all that he is about to destroy those awful black clouds and come raging back into existence any day now… I look forward to that day of victory for ol’ Sol.
I met Cait for coffee today and we sat in this new awesome café, had café con leche AND napolitanas (google it, maybe they have pictures somewhere? They’re pretty much the best thing about spain… ok well, close J haha) con chocolate for only 3 euros! Ta freakin’ da! Haha J we sat in that café and talked and laughed and talked more for pretty close to 3 hours. Awesome.
I got mail today!
It was from AARON!
It was a Valentine’s Day card from him! I LOVE when he makes me cards (I hope that he knows that he now has to make me one for at least every birthday and valentines day since he has done so for the past two years now…)! J
I got to have a salad with lunch today. I love when I get salad. I love salad.
It is only 22 more days until I see Aaron again! J

more pictures from toledo:

oh... before i left the house that morning, i jacked the rest of the orange juice for breakfast and snackage the rest of the day... we consumed it at the museum before lunchtime... haha

this is the awesome necklace that i got from Toledo for only like 10 euros. it's 24 freakin' carat gold. that is so awesome. and hand-made. yeah! :)

the sun was a joke. just a sick sick joke.

2008-02-18T15:48:00.001+01:00

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 18 de Febrero, 2008

12:19pm (5:19am Denton time)

man. Ok. Well, I’m definitely still very much craving pizza. I don’t think I’ll be able to get some this week like I was planning though, because I decided to go to Toledo anyways. haha. So that just means that I can’t spend ANY money for a good week or so… that’s ok. It’s dreary outside anyways. extremely cold and pretty dark and it’s drizzly raining. I don’t really want to be in that anyways. although that really does make the internet availability diminish down to nothing… can’t very well go sit on my potted plant and use the computer when it’s raining… haha… oh well. I’ll live. I’ve got a lot of Spanish studying and a big, thick novel to keep me company.

Oh, my new addiction is definitely chocolate covered peanuts and chocolate covered raisins. I’ve always liked both of them, BUT since I’ve been here, it is necessary for me to have a bag (from the little candy shops where you scoop out the amount that you want of each candy and then they just weigh it to see how much you owe…) with one scoop of raisins and one scoop of peanuts to have handy for reading time J kind of like eating popcorn while watching a movie… I find it necessary for me to have my chocolate/raisin/peanut fix with my books J haha. Don’t worry – I limit my intake per day that I eat them… I don’t let myself get carried away. Although if I’m honest, it’s probably more because I don’t have an unending supply of money to support my habit as opposed to it being because of them not being the most healthy of choices to indulge in so much… haha

OH! So the family is back in Spain from Las Vegas now. The kids went back to school today and we started lessons again last night (I teach Sundays through Thursdays in case I haven’t already said that…). They had SUCH a great time! It’s so fun listening to the kids’ stories. They stayed at two hotels. One was the “New York, New York” and I don’t know if they told me the name of the other one. They got to ride the roller coaster that is inside the hotel, and it was their first roller coaster ride! They were cracking me up at dinner the other night when they were telling me about it. It was so funny. Veronica kept saying how she thought that Eduardo would have screamed like this: “AHHHHH” (she screamed in a lower tone, like a boy), but instead, “He screamed just like me! Like EEEEEEEEAAHHHHHHH!!!! (in a really high-pitched girlie scream)!” HAHAHA every time she would tell the story he would crack up even harder because it was true and he couldn’t deny it. He kept telling me how he was sitting in the roller coaster. He told me that the safety bar came down across their laps and he just crossed his arms on top of it and buried his face in his arms and screamed and screamed! Hahaha

I told them that they need to come to visit me in Texas and we’ll go to Six Flags. J they all asked me what that was and I told them that it was a HUGE park just FULL of different roller coasters to ride. They all (Paloma included) looked at me with this look of awe and horror mixed into one. Hahahaha J good times.

OH so we went to Toledo yesterday! We took the bus, and the trip was only one hour each way! AND the tickets were only 7,90 euros (they use the comma instead of the period to separate the euros from cents. Just so you don’t think I typed the wrong key… J) for a round trip ticket! Pretty awesome. I had to head back earlier than the rest of them because I was the only one that had to teach on Sunday. Boo. Bit at least I got to go! We met up with some friends, Christopher and Mike, at the bus station. Caitlin met Christopher on her flight to Madrid last month. His dad is a Delta pilot so he takes off random weekends from University of Ohio, I think? Something like that…just to travel and visit mike and such. J so awesome. And Mike is Christopher’s friend from high school who just happens to be doing the exact same thing that WE’re doing here. He’s a language tutor for a family that lives only about 10 minutes away from Caitlin’s family! So cool. Anyways. it was fun hangin with those guys. They’re a blast. Aaron, I think that you and Mike would really get along. I hope you get to meet him when you’re here J He’s hilarious.

So I did have to go home early, but I did get to take some great pictures before I left. After that, I’ll just totally jack pictures from everyone else’s facebook albums J haha. But I got to ride the bus home to Madrid by myself, and that was actually kind of cool. I listened to some Shane and Shane. Man. They are so good. I think I forget how good they are, sometimes… they are so good it’s ridiculous. I adore their harmonies. It was so hard to not sing along out loud to my headphones… hahaha. But anyways. I was just listening to some Shane and Shane and enjoying the amazing scenery as we drove back to Madrid. Basically a cool time of just worship and acknowledging the Lord for the crazy awesome things that he has created and allowed us (humans) to create over the last thousand years or so… man. It’s so crazy. So, all in all, pretty good trip! J

Oh, will you be praying for more opportunity to serve for me here at the house? It seems like I just don’t have a lot of opportunity for it, and when I do see one, it gets shot down… since Ani does all of the cleaning already, and like just a few minutes ago I tried to see if I could at least help Paloma put away the groceries, and she would just rather do it herself because she can do it faster or something… that’s fine and I understand, but I’m just trying to have something to do so that I can interact with you instead of having to just got back up to my room, alone. You know? It’s fine. My feelings aren’t hurt or anything. I’m just kind of at a loss here sometimes…

Also, one of Ani’s grandparents passed away on Saturday, so if you would be praying for her. I can tell it’s really hard on her. And it’s so hard to comfort someone…especially when you don’t speak the language, or really know them extremely well, you know? So anyways, that would be great if you guys could be praying for those things J

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 18 de Febrero, 2008

2:56pm (7:56am Denton time)

Ok so I have this new game I’m playing with myself… it’s a scavenger hunt for serving… haha I’m awesome. J

It’s actually really fun. It’s hard. This is continuing from the prayer request to have ways open up to serve here… I just got one. J haha. I hope that it doesn’t bit me in the butt somehow and make anyone mad… you really never know here… BUT… how lunch works, is that the kids come home for school for lunch, then paloma eats by herself, then she hollers upstairs and tells me I can eat, then… weird, I know. But whatever. then, I guess Ani eats later? I’m not really sure yet. Regardless, TODAY, when I was just down there studying and eating my lunch, I noticed that all of the dishes were just left in the sink after Paloma was done with them. Obviously left for Ani to clean up after… SO… I take this as an answered prayer, and quickly and quietly do all of the dishes from lunch before Ani can come in, figure out what I’m doing and tell me to stop! haHA! I win J hahaha. It was actually really fun. It’s like a challenge to do these things without anyone catching me. Almost like I’m doing something wrong… but I’m not. At least I don’t think I am… haha.

So anyways. basically, I had an answered prayer just now. Now I’m just praying that Ani doesn’t get upset with me for doing it… and that Paloma doesn’t find out and then tell me to stop helping Ani… (to “stop doing her job”, I can hear her saying”. Ok. I’ll let you know how that goes.

I’m liking this whole “make up new silly games to keep yourself occupied” thing J haha. LOVE YOU!

Whoa. PLUS I just realized that I left denton exactly ONE MONTH from today, to begin my Spanish Journey that I am currently in the middle of… so weird! ONE ENTIRE MONTH! Really doesn’t seem like it’s been that long! And, yet, it kind of feels like april will never get here… not that I’m homesick or anything. I’m really actually doing quite well in that area. But I am definitely ready to be with the people that I love once again. See, I’m convinced that if they would just all be here? Well, then I’d be totally fine staying here forever J

I love traveling, by the way. I hope that I’m able to travel more often than I know I’ll be able to… it’s so awesome. Different cultures. Different “stuff”. Different traditions… you know, just all of it. I love it.

Also, we (the girls and i) are planning a Texas Roadtrip. We want as many people as want to, to come. The plan thus far is to hit every area of Texas and to only stay with people that we know, and their families. We figure we’ve got most of them covered… North Texas (Caitlin), East Texas (moi!), West Texas (Katie), McAllen Area (I think one of their roomies?), San Antonio Area (Leanne), Austin Area (tons of people), etc. we’re pretty excited about it, so you guys get to saving some moolah so that you can be a part of this exciting and awesome adventure. Deal? Ok awesome! J we want to pretend like we’re tourists and know nothing about texas. To look at it with fresh, un-monotonous (is that a word? I’m not sure. I may have just made it up… Haha) eyes. You know what I mean? Like, you live in one place for so long that you just get USED to everything around you. You never really experience it for how awesome it really can be. You just know that it’s near you or around you so it’s just “another thing to do in texas…” yeah, but think about the people from the rest of the world! Or even the rest of the united states! They don’t get to experience Texas everyday, so when they get the chance to see it, it’s SO AWESOME for them! I want to explore Texas the way we’ve been exploring Spain and the way that we’re planning on exploring the rest of Europe, should we get the chance, you know?? Anyways, I’m really excited about it. I really want it to happen, so you guys get pumped up, and when we get back, we’ll set a date and just plain do it J maybe some time this summer. That would be awesome. Then we could swim in rivers and stuff. Oh yeah J it’ll be like our Austin/San Antonio trips only way better! J

Ok I’m done rambling on and on about that… I love you guys! I hope to hear from you soon… I haven’t heard from a lot of you in a long time… it’s weird. L I miss you!

p.s. Katie, are you as sore as I am??? Good heavens!!! I don’t think I’ve woken up with my body as sore as it was when I woke up today in a VERY VERY VERY long time… it’s so unreal… I could NOT figure out what in the world would have made me so sore! BUT… I think it’s probably from the other day when we went to the Parque de Retiro (BEAUTIFUL!!!) and took a bunch of “jumping” pictures… haha. We stood on this bench and took pictures of us doing different jumping poses… like hmm… 1. Frog Jump, 2. Spidey Jump (oh yeah. Totally B.A. J), 3. kung fu jump, etc. it was awesome! Haha

and so couple THAT experience with (after doing that AND walking around for hours, again…)going, the very next day, to Toledo which is pretty much ALL mountains/hills. Its extremely beautiful, but really tiring when you’re walking ALL Uphill going into the city. Haha. Man. I seriously didn’t realize how many steps/hills we walked up until I headed back by myself to the bus station in the afternoon! Man! I had to sort of jog down the hills/steps to keep from falling forward. NOT exaggerating for once in my life. Haha J I know. It’s an accomplishment J anyways. I think those things put together in the past two days totally gave my body the intense workout that it hasn’t seen in years! Haha. I got up to pee this morning (nice, I know… sorry.. but it’s true! Haha) and I felt almost as stiff as I used to after the first day or two of cheerleading camp! Whoa doggy, talk about SORE… man. I never want to re-live those days… no thank you! Haha.

So… basically… I’m sore… J the end. J

it's finally sunny in madrid again :)

2008-02-16T13:26:00.001+01:00

Madrid, Spain
La Casa de Santibanez
El 14 de Febrero, 2008
2:53pm (7:53am Denton time)

Man. I just really really really really want a pizza right now. Can the first thing that I do when I get home, be that I get to eat pizza? Ok. Good. J thanks J

Madrid, Spain
La Casa de Santibanez
El 16 de Febrero, 2008
12:49pm (5:49am Denton time)

Bah. So I just finished looking at my finances again, and I’m a little disappointed in myself L I thought I was doing so well! I have my expenses and available funds broken into 3 months (jan 20^th thru feb 20^th, feb 20^th thru march 20^th, etc) and I broke it down as far as knowing exactly how much money I can spend every day to allow myself enough to last the whole trip. Of course I do have to have money when I get back, so I’m not including the money I’ll need when I get home, in my available funds that I’m working with… I’m a nerd. I love that stuff. Sue me. No don’t. I’m broke. Haha J

Anyways… so I thought I was doing so well this first month, but it turns out I’m already over my first month’s budget by 18 dollars. Dang! Of course I would be fine (and have money to spare, actually!) if it weren’t for that dang medical bill from that surgery that I thought I was already done paying on… oh well. J at least it’s only 18 dollars over. That’s easy to remedy. Just don’t spend any money for three days. Perfect! J it just means that I’m not going to be able to travel anywhere this weekend. We were going to go to Toledo tomorrow. Oh well. I’d rather miss THAT trip than miss Paris or Italy or one of those, so all is well… anyways. that was a really boring update, but that’s what’s going on right now J

Hope you’re enjoying your Saturday!!! J I love you! J

p.s. it’s difficult to carry on a conversation, even with someone you love and who is an ocean away from you, after you have been asleep for an hour and have taken Nyquil… I don’t recommend it… I’m sorry, Aaron! I tried my best to uphold my end of the conversation. I didn’t do very well, though, I don’t think… I’m sorry!!! It was kinda funny though because as I took the phone back downstairs when we hung up, I felt all floaty J haha. Weird!

blah day...

2008-02-14T13:54:00.001+01:00

whoa! it is so cold out here on my little potted plant. yeesh! well, happy vday! :)

Madrid, Spain
La Casa de Santibanez
El 14 de Febrero, 2008
12:24pm (5:24am Denton time)

So…I’m pretty sure I just got chastised by Ani for trying to help…neat.

Every Thursday, Ani cleans my room/bathroom (like dusting, etc) and does my laundry… so today, I thought instead of just bringing down the laundry and leaving it in a pile on the kitchen floor (where the laundry machine is…weird), that I would go ahead and start it. It’s a very simple thing to do… so I did. I’m pretty sure she just told me (as she stopped outside my bedroom door on her way up to the floor above) that I’m not allowed to have more than one load of laundry…that I’m washing too many clothes… the ironic thing is that I hardly wash anything here because I detest the feeling of cardboard clothing on my skin, which is inevitably what happens any time I wash ANYthing here since it has to be line-dried… and is not usually even dry when she piles it outside my room for me to put away…so I end up having to put it back outside OR just hang everything on every surface around my room. I think I had like 4 shirts, underwear, and some socks to wash besides my sheets and towels… maybe that’s too much… whatever. I figured that maybe she just wanted me to put it all in one load, so I tried to tell her that it wouldn’t all fit, and she argued with me, telling me only ONE load… so…whatever. Maybe she doesn’t realize that it doesn’t get clean when you shove two loads of laundry into a little washer that is no bigger than a kitchen sink… UGH. Whatever. I’ll just have lots of dirty clothes for the next two months. Then, when I’m home I’ll do my own laundry as often as I freaking want to. And, God forbid, I may even do more than one load in a week! WHOA!!!

Sorry. That reeks of bitterness… L I don’t want to be bitter, I just wish people would use their common sense sometimes.

Also, meatballs and rice is not very good. Especially when the rice is dry and you haven’t ever liked meatballs to begin with… bah. I’m going to go read my bible and spend some time with the Lord. My attitude is crap right now. I need it adjusted. Sorry.

…oh… Happy Valentines Day, by the way… haha. Whoops? J

p.s. I finished my book last night (Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen) that Lindsey gave me when we left. It was fantastic and I really want to see the movie again, now. I wish I owned it… my roommate my freshman year of college had it and I think she watched it on a loop every single day that year. Haha. Now I can hardly remember anything about the movie except that the chick from Titanic was one of the main characters… J Today I’m starting on the Russian novel by Leo Tolstoy called Anna Karenina. Pretty pumped about that. Should be a good read. And it’s long enough! Jeez. Haha. Should keep me occupied for some good amount of time J

a little time in the cafe...

2008-02-13T16:50:00.005+01:00

this is me with the one i love (hangin out on our one year anniversary this past fall):

and miss (this one's from a going away dinner for me and cait last month):

and this is me and my spanish damas looking all over Madrid for a restaraunt that we never found last week... but we found a cool train station! haha:

also this is me being ridiculous by la palacio royal:

ok... i have to pee... really badly...and probably shouldn't leave my computer unattended in a coffee shop...therefore, i bid you adieu. :)

realization...

2008-02-13T16:49:00.001+01:00

um...i need a job when i get home... :/

so...anyone who knows of anything opening up around the beginning of april...let me know?

thanks :)

We went to Segovia on Saturday :)

2008-02-11T13:44:00.001+01:00

Notice: i posted a video on facebook for lynn. you should check it out. :) haha

Madrid, Spain
La Casa de Santibanez
El 9 de Febrero, 2008
10:39pm (3:39pm Denton time)

Sometimes I hate it here. Not Spain, really. I really love Spain. Sometimes I just wish I were at home. Sometimes I whine too much. I’m sorry.
This woman apparently has CAMERAS here… Ani got in trouble for the girls being here last weekend one night when she and the kids were gone…after she TOLD ME IT WAS OK!!!! Are you kidding me???
They stayed here last night before we went to Segovia this morning, so I’m sure to hear something about this when they get home next week. Or if not, Ani is probably going to get in trouble. UGH. This woman… I’m sorry. But SERIOUSLY???
I’m done. I swear.
I wish I hadn’t told Aaron not to call me tonight since I may not have been here if we ended up going out. I’m here… and I don’t have any more minutes on my phone card so I cant call him… I have a headache. I think it’s from the knots in my back. I am not really sure what’s happening with my back/neck right now but I have so many knots in me… I have a HUGE knot that Katie tried to rub out a little bit last night, and couldn’t even believe how hard it was… it hurts so much. I can feel it (feels like stabbing in my shoulder blade) when I breathe if I don’t take shallow breaths. Every time I moved last night it would “stab” me again. I don’t know how to make it go away. Stretching isn’t helping L I’ve been on the verge of tears several times this evening, and I have no PMS to blame it on this time… seems silly, but please pray that these knots in my back just go away? Please?
Anyways, Segovia was awesome. We spent all day there and walked more than I think I have every walked in my life before. We took the train from Madrid to Segovia. It was only about a two hour ride each way. Not too bad, considering we only had to pay 10.70 euros for BOTH WAYS!!! That rules. First thing we did was walk down to see the Aqueduct. it was so awesome. here's a pic of it and a beautiful lamp post :)

and us... (oh, meet our new friend Erin. She's from Florida and just got here through the same organization about a week ago!)

After lunch we visited the castle that Ferdinand and Isabella ruled from. The very castle that Christopher Columbus went to in order to get permission to…find America pretty much… we stood in that very room on the very spot that he probably stood… that’s awesome. This same castle is also the castle that Walt Disney based Cinderella’s castle on! The famous Disney castle! I was there! Today! J it was so awesome.

we also got to see two really beautiful cathedrals while we were walking across the city... here's one of them from a distance:

With seeing all of these great old castle-like homes and all of the awesome stone architecture around Europe and also reading my fav. Jane Austen while having watched Pride and Prejudice AND Becoming Jane in the past three weeks, I want a house like that so badly J haha. Well, not a castle. Just castle-like. Haha. Smaller, of course, but with the same great stone work. I love stone. With comfortable, elegant rooms that have fireplaces (one of my fav things anyways) and lots and lots of great tapestries and rugs and old-looking furniture J that stuff makes me so happy J anyways. Great day, all together. Goodnight!

Madrid, Spain
La Casa de Santibanez
El 10 de Febrero, 2008
6:08pm (11:08am Denton time)

Wow. So I just realized that I have lived in Spain for exactly three weeks today… 21 days… that’s kind of a long time! Wow… I wonder how strange it is going to be, going home. I have a feeling it’s going to be like a chunk of my memory is gone. Kind of like amnesia for the three months that I am here… you know? Maybe that doesn’t make sense, but as far as life in denton, I mean…I think it will feel like that.

Oh… we were trying to start planning out our travel weekends yesterday and guess where we’re going for my birthday…

PARIS.

Oh yeah. Not even joking. I’m going to freaking PARIS for my “golden” birthday J that is so sweet (the “golden” birthday is when the age you are turning matches the number of the day your birthday is on… like mine is my 24^th because I turn 24 on March 24^th J)! I’m so excited about this…

Also we’re going to go to Barcelona either the first of second weekend of march, and we’re hoping to go to Italy maybe the last weekend in March J that would be so awesome. That way we could go to Rome, Venice, and Florence each for a day, I think! Or we’ll try to at least… I hope money holds up! I spent a good amount of my day today working on my budget again. Just making sure that I’m staying on schedule with that and all that good stuff.

Oh…speaking of money…Kelley emailed me this past week to let me know of ANOTHER medical bill that they are JUST NOW sending me from my surgery that happened back in SEPTEMBER! I thought I was completely done paying on that… so I’ve got less money than I thought… haha. Neat, right? Yeah… I’m just gonna stick to the “what I want for my birthday is money” plan. I think that will be the most realistic, eh? Yup. Thought so. Although, Lindsey and Aaron, you already know that I want you HERE as my birthday present so no backing out of that ;) haha.
Man I am SO excited for you guys to come
Oh, and Zari, I have to tell you that every single time I pass these awesome street-side florists I think of you J I miss you girlies! I miss homegroup. I’ll be excited to come back to that J
I get to talk to Aaron tonight, so that’s awesome J
I was out the door to head into Gran Via for a little bit today to look at some fabric shops that they have down there, but before I got to the bus stop (thankfully! Haha), I realized that it’s Sunday and everything’s probably closed… bummer. I wish I had some yarn or fabric to make stuff with while I’m here. That would be cool. That’s my goal this week is to get some of that stuff. I have such a drive to be creative right now, but I have no outlet for it. It’s frustrating. I wish I were an artist. I would have so many awesome drawings done by now… haha J
Oh, Aaron, you need to send me a pic of some of your “monster-guy” drawings bc I was telling the kids about him and how cute/funny he is when you draw him, but you know that I can’t draw him at all…so yeah. J also, I miss him! Haha
Ok. I’m done rambling for now.
Oh… I totally got scared earlier! I wanted to sit down and read some more of my book that Lindsey bought me, and I couldn’t find it ANYWHERE! I was mildly freaking out thinking of all of the places I could possibly have left it, and I was about to settle and come to terms with the idea that I had left in on the metro or the bus when I looked under the bed and saw it tucked under the corner! Yes! Man, I knew I’ve been so careful to make sure that I don’t ever leave anything behind, but with my history of losing stuff…everything?... it wouldn’t have surprised me if I did… I’m so glad that I didn’t though! It’s so much more than just a book when it’s got a personalized note written in it, you know? Especially when it’s from someone you love!
So…crisis averted. Good work, team!

some pics while i wait for katie's bus :)

2008-02-08T20:25:00.002+01:00

here are a few more pictures for you. the first is of some sort of union protest or something! katie and i were walking around near Puerta del Sol (near school) when we heard all of these whistles and chanting behind us... we turn around and see a FLOOD of people carrying signs and blowing whistles and chanting something about "where's our money", so we assume it's a union? it was really funny because all of the people seemed to be older business people...not the usual protesters that i'm used to seeing... kinda cool, i guess! i have a video of it too. i'll see if that will upload. last time i tried a video it didnt work though... so. yeah.

second pic is of a "walk thru" mcdonalds! there are several of these in madrid! instead of drive-thrus they have windows that you walk up to for "express service". i think its awesome. how many people have i heard stories from who tried to walk thru a drive thru when it's the only thing open so late at night... they always get turned away! Josh, didnt you guys try that since the tour bus was too big for the window?? anyways. i think the walk up idea is funny :)

let the travels begin!

2008-02-08T20:22:00.000+01:00

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 7 de Febrero, 2008

11:03pm (4:03pm Denton time)

Ok…so new things as of today…

1. I’m listening to the new Jack Johnson cd that just came out this week. Great “home” music J

2. my baby bangs are becoming less and less terrible with every passing day… J haha I’m really glad I brought my shears to help with the development of them as they progress…

3. the family is leaving tomorrow at 8am for Las Vegas. A part of me looks forward to a week of “freedom”. Basically a week of not having to teach, but at the same time I’m totally going to miss them. We finished “Transformers” tonight. I can’t remember what I write here and what I don’t… but just in case, I’ve been letting the kids watch a little bit of transformers every night before bed this week. They love it. The next film they want to watch together is “Ratatouille”. So that will start up when they get home next week.

4. I haven’t seen Caitlin since Saturday since she’s been sick this week. That’s been really weird. Hopefully we see her tomorrow!

5. I think I get to get my pillow from caitlin’s mom this or next weekend! YES! My life is going to be eight million times better. I can’t wait J I’m so happy! Haha

6. Aaron and Lindsey are, Lord willing, coming to visit the Wednesday before spring break for a week. I seriously cannot wait for that. I’m so excited for them to be here. 34 days? I feel like every time I count the days on the calendar that it comes out to be a bigger number. I am kind of confused… haha.

7. I am not happy with my hair right now… I want a new hairdo overhaul… that’s totally not an interesting thing to put in here, but I was just looking at a pic of me and Aaron and his sis from some months ago, and I want my hair like that again. Haha. I’ll wait to do anything drastic for a while… at least until my bangs catch back up to normality? Haha.

8. I’ve decided to do individual Spanish study. I decided that I was learning more when I was studying/teaching myself at home than when I was in the class, and since I haven’t paid yet, I just decided to stop going. I’m learning a lot still though. So it’s good. I have a lot of time to study this week with the kids gone J

9. Ani (the maid) and I got to talk the other day for a bit and she told me that my Spanish has gotten a lot better since I got here! J she seemed really impressed J so that was really encouraging! Also I wrote her a note this morning and she brought it to me amazed that I wrote it! Haha. It’s so encouraging for her to be impressed with my seriously lacking Spanish skills J makes me want to know more. I’m glad she’s here. Also I’m glad she’ll still be here this week. She’s not leaving with the family. So that’s good. At least I’m not all alone at the house this week. J

10. I got a letter from Katie today in the mail! It was the highlight of my day J I forgot how fun getting mail is. And it’s even better when it’s from across the ocean J thanks, Katie! Love you!

Ok I’m going to bed now. I just realized that I hadn’t updated in a few days. I’ve been writing individual emails with people and just kept forgetting to update here since it felt like I had already told everything… J

I love you,

Denise.

p.s. reminder for you attached (dating OR married) J boys reading this… get your thinking caps going. Valentines day is coming up! Get ready to “wow” your ladies! Tell ‘em how special they are to you! It doesn’t take a lot (or sometimes any…) money, so don’t even use that as an excuse. It’s lame and you know it. ;)

Even though it’s a ridiculously over-commercialized holiday that doesn’t mean you can’t use it as another excuse to lavish her with love and adoration… J haha.

Consider this your encouragement and reminder in one.

And… GO! J

Madrid, Spain

Juan Valdez Café

El 8 de Febrero, 2008

7:36pm (12:36pm Denton time)

Ok I’m not going to lie, this is getting kind of ridiculous… the internet connection here is TERRIBLE!!! I just came in and spent 3 euros on a drink at this coffee shop so that I could sit enjoyably for a few hours and use some internet only to find out that the internet is broken… wonderful… so I guess I’ll just go back home and sit on my potted plant and hope that it doesn’t kick me off like it usually does… it’s so frustrating. It’s my only way of communication with home and I’m denied it so often. L I know it could be worse, but it’s still terribly frustrating. I just wish I could find ONE reliable way to communicate with you people who are so far away!

Anyways. cool thing, Cait, Katie and I are taking a bus to Segovia tomorrow morning for a day trip. It’s one of the places in spain that we wanted to be sure and visit, so that’s cool. And when Katie and I went to find out info on the busses today, we found out that it’s only going to be like 15 euros round trip! HOLLA! J that’s pretty awesome.

Ha….getting that information, however, was a totally different story. I think we rode the metro for about an hour or two just trying to get to a station that would give us information on getting to Segovia. Every place we went, they told us to go to another station (each one just having to be on the exact opposite side of Madrid than we are at that moment…) BAH! So frustrating! Haha. But anyways. I think we’re all going to stay at my house tonight and leave in the morning for the bus station. I’ll definitely let you know how that all goes! J Wish us luck! J

A toast: “A Segovia!” J

2008-02-06T15:53:00.000+01:00

Also, Lindsey, this is a picture of me reading the awesome book you got me just before we left. i LOVE it. i can't put it down...well, i do...but only because i have to do stuff... so i only read it on the bus and metro. :) and a little at home... haha

i finally remembered to take a few pics of the kiddos! we have been watching 10-30 minutes of Transformers together every night just before they go to sleep. Eduardo LOVES it! haha. it's so great. this night, we watched a little of the movie and i taught them how to play "Phase 10". it was really fun. things are definitely turning around. i hope it stays that way.

this is a video of us in the courtyard of La Palacio Royal. I think Maria was telling us that it is where the Prince and Princess were married. around the left side of it. the video is from the courtyard. it's right in front of it. :) it's so pretty there! this was our "touristy" day. it was fun. Maria showed us a lot. then we all got lost in a new part of town... haha :) it's fun just walking around trying to find any trace of a metro so that you can get somewhere familiar :)

the family is going to Las Vegas for a week. they leave on friday morning... so it'll just be me and ani. that is going to be so cool :) she's awesome.

shoot... also, the cell phones here are so weird! they have a PIN number for each phone and every time you turn off your phone, when you turn it back on you have to enter your PIN. i learned yesterday that if you enter it incorrectly three times, you have to take it in to an actual Vodafone STORE to get it "unlocked"... so i have been without a phone since my phone decided to randomly turn off on the bus yesterday after i called to check on cait...
she's doing a little better, by the way. at least she's not still throwing up. she was thinking that they were going to still make her cook for the kids and i'm not sure if that means teach too... yesterday, so pray that they go easy on her!!!
love you guys!
p.s. i love getting your emails. i'm pretty sure that i have the coolest, most hilarious friends on the planet. i love when i laugh out loud in a coffee shop or while sitting on my potted plant (OH!!! did i tell you that story?? the only place near our house that gets WIFI reception is this potted plant by the road. so i sit on the side of the pot and hold my computer sometimes... it's really cold when i do that... but it's funny at least :)
this is the one, just so that you can get a visual...haha :)

hope you're having a great wednesday!!! HUMP DAY! HOLLA!!

p.p.s. just so that you know... this video is taking forever and a day to upload!!! jeez!!! i dont think it's going to work before i have to go... i'll have to try again next time. dang.

it's been a few days... sorry.

2008-02-06T13:55:00.000+01:00

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez
El 4 de Febrero, 2008
7:11pm (12:11pm Denton time)

I’ve got about 45 minutes between teaching Eduardo and dinnertime before teaching veronica tonight. I’m studying a bit and thought I’d blog for a moment as well…

Please pray for Caitlin. She is very ill right now. She was throwing up all last night. I think she got whatever it is from her mom since that same thing was happening to her mother when she was here. Caitlin spent quite some time in the hotel with her… whoops… pray for a quick recovery and for comfort there in her home.

Spanish class was terrible today. I’ve decided that I’m going to try a lower level class tomorrow. I didn’t understand half of what the teacher was saying and her explanations, in Spanish, were pointless because I obviously don’t speak Spanish so it was just plain frustrating…. I know that them only speaking Spanish is helpful for our ears, but I’m thinking that course level is just a little too high for me… so I’m moving down. I hope tomorrow is better… I’m studying a lot of the book and workbook tonight starting at the very beginning so hopefully that helps a little bit. I just need to be really diligent in studying and have a good attitude going in to the class. I can do this… I can…right? I mean surely I can… I made an A in Spanish IV only two years ago… ugh. 2 years ago. Crap… haha. I forget so quickly… bah.

I think it would be really cool to keep going to Spanish classes when I get back to the states. I know I can’t afford it, but I would really like it… if I’m spending so much time and effort to learn this I don’t want it to just go to waste as soon as I get home and other than that I don’t really have any way of practicing…also I would just like to get better. I’d like to be pretty proficient in another language if I ever have kids. I’d love for my kids to be able to speak more than one language. I think Spanish is a great language to learn. Especially us being to close to mexico! J

Michelle, my teacher at the academy reminds me of you. She looks a lot like you. She’s so cute J

Ok. So I think that things are getting better at the house… last night teaching went really well. I really didn’t feel like I was pulling teeth the whole time. Haha. And tonight was not bad with Eduardo. It wasn’t the easiest night, but it wasn’t bad once we got started. I think things are getting better with Paloma, too. I’ve decided that I just need to be more assertive with her and stop being so quiet around her. I’m just going to push my way into their lives and make them like me ;) haha. Well, try to anyways. in my experience, the more you know about someone and the more they become a part of your everyday life, the more you grow to love them…no? Well, we’ll just hope this to be true here in this house. I’m at least making myself more available for these opportunities. Not quite so much time outside the house. I’m not going to hole up inside here, but it’s been so cold and damp out lately that it’s just plain miserable, so I’d rather be inside anyways… Besides a massive amount of the glorious gift of cramps… yeah. Nice. Everything points to being here. So her I remain… J

I worked out my inner thighs last night. I can’t remember the word for that muscle… you work it out with that machine that you can switch to do the outer and inner muscles…dang it! What is the name of that muscle! Kelley! Help! Anyways… I’m sore… haha. Good story. Aaron, you know you miss those good stories. Don’t lie.

Ok. I’ve got to study more. Bah. Good “bah” though. Don’t get me wrong… this learning another language and trying to be proficient at it is tough stuff… it’s different when you’re just taking the class for a grade… there’s a lot more pressure when you’re really trying to learn in order to understand the people around you (like when they make announcements in the metro station telling you that your train in not coming… I didn’t know what they were saying! Ah!). getting there…

Peace!

-d

p.s. Also: kind of random, but I want to share a quote from something I read from a friend of mine recently. It’s one of the most blunt, beautiful statements I’ve read in a long time. She spoke of her final decision to make sure that she does her part to bring a stop to anything that encourages actions less than pure between a man and woman who are trying to live a physically pure life in the midst of our human, sinful, fleshly desires. Absolutely beautiful. Hopefully you see it the same way.

“I am a princess of the King. I will not be another dirty confession from [any] man's lips.”

Amen.

a God-sized smack in the cabeza...

2008-02-04T13:44:00.001+01:00

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 2 de Febrero, 2008

7:07pm (12:07pm Denton time)

Ok so I must first apologize for my little Culture Shock outburst. I really am sorry you had to read all about that… I’m doing better now. God smacked me in the head a few times this week (that’s right, Lindsey. Still usin’ it J)

So… this whole post is basically just telling you all of the ways God totally made me feel like a selfish, spoiled idiot this week.

So since I’ve been here in spain, I’ve finished Genesis and gone through a bit of Exodus. The stories that I’ve gone through were Joshua and also the Israelites in Egypt and the plagues…

So, let’s break this down a bit:

Joshua: sold into slavery by his OWN BROTHERS, taken to a foreign land, separated from everything that he knew and loved… with absolutely no hope of return or even of safety or life…
Israelites in Egypt: Slaves to a horrible pharaoh who made their lives a living Hell more and more as they (through Moses and Aaron) did EXACTLY as God was telling them to do… doesn’t makes sense, and yet we know that the ending of this story is that God blesses them immensely after they had to experience torture and terrible times even though they did nothing wrong. These things had to be endured by them in order for them to experience and understand the immeasurable power and control of God who was in complete control of the entirety of the situations the whole time… Even when they didn’t see anything good happening…
Chinese man on CNN the other night (these next two are not from the bible…obviously J): He is forced to live ONE THOUSAND miles away from his 24 yr old wife (who also has to live in a far away town from their home) and his 4 year old son. Their son is raised by grandparent’s since both of his parents are forced to go so far away for work. They get to see their son and be together as a family once a year at the Chinese New Year (which so many Chinese people have not been able to get home for because of the freak snow/ice storms taking out the roads/trains in China lately). He was interviewed and explained that in his life, he is forced to basically suck it up when he is lonely or sad or troubled. He has no one to talk to but himself. He said that if he could only speak with his wife, then he would be able to talk things out and would be a lot better, but he’s not able to see her until the new year. That is so terrible that my heart breaks for that family. Literally. I cannot imagine. Not even where I am right now. I am at least able to go home if I needed/wanted to… you know?
US (well not just US, I suppose!) troops that are out in some foreign land (as my grandfather reminded me). These troops who have been shipped out by the military/government with no hope of returning home any time soon (if they even have a date to go home) unless it is as a casualty…

I’m a spoiled brat whining about conditions that would be more than some peoples wildest dreams… who the heck do I think I am?? Really…

So anyways. I’m sorry that I’m such a spoiled brat. I’m really trying to love this family. It is so hard sometimes. I really find myself wanting to be gone or hide in my Cinderella-room (J) just to get away from the awkwardness of being around Paloma since she never talks to me and gives me shortest possible answers anytime I try to start conversations or just makes me feel stupid… about things I’m not ignorant about.

Regardless… I am in this house for a reason. Even though it is not the ideal family life that I wanted to be a part of, that doesn’t mean that God didn’t put me here for a reason.

AND at the same time, as frustrating as this situation is sometimes, I could have it so much worse… I really could. I have a pretty sweet setup here.

Praying for patience, warmth within this house, less awkward/forced interactions with the family (mainly Paloma)… thank you so much for all of your prayers. I love you all so very much, and appreciate you more than you know. J

Love,denise.

p.s. school started on Friday and it’s going to be extremely challenging. The professor speaks solamente espanol… only Spanish. Not even explanations are in English and she doesn’t speak slowly… it’s frustrating for us. It is good, but extremely frustrating. Please pray that learning happens quickly and solidly. I’m ready to be at the point where I can eavesdrop on people’s conversations on the metro/bus J haha. I know that sounds terrible, but I’d really just like to know what people are talking about!!! Haha J

p.p.s. also, we’re going to dinner tonight at some really cool dive-place in Madrid that should be pretty cool. OH! We went out and experienced just a little taste of Madrid’s nightlife last night! Not much because we were exhausted pretty quickly and a lot of Marie’s (the girl we went out with) friends are still in the middle of their finals weeks (yeah. weeks! They have 3-4 WEEKS of finals here! Yikes!) so everyone is still studying right now. When they’re done we’ll go out with everyone and I’m sure that will be really fun.

Ridiculous part: one drink in Madrid costs an average of NINE EUROS!!!! That’s like FIFTEEN freaking dollars!!! Are you kidding me??? I like water. Haha. I will not pay that much for one drink. I might get ONE sometime when we go out. But seriously. I’m fine with water. Yeesh. HA.

Ok I’ve gotta run to meet the girls for dinner in Sol! J toodles!

I LOVE YOU!

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 3 de Febrero, 2008

2:09pm (7:09am Denton time)

Ok. So my latest dilemma has been whether to stay in this house or switch families… Caitlin, Katie, and their families are all encouraging me to switch. There is a family that lives on floor below Katie that is looking for someone, but no one is applying to the program at this time, so they don’t have a tutor. They are good friends with the family that Katie lives with and I met one of the little girls yesterday. She is ADORABLE! They want me to switch to go to that house… haha. I probably would, but at the same time, the thing holding me back from looking into that is that I don’t want to just quit here if this is the place where God wants me… you know?

Yesterday I was constantly praying about whether to look into switching or not, as I was pretty much ignored by everyone in the house unless I spoke directly to them and I would get those short answers before they would go back to watching tv or doing whatever they were doing (kids and paloma…), so most of the time that I was home yesterday I just stayed in my room… most of the time that I’m here I just stay in my room because the rest of the house is FREEZING cold. Well, and I guess that’s good because, as I learned the other day, I’m not supposed to sit on the couch! So I guess I’d have to sit at the dining room table or something. Haha J

Anyways. so I was praying the whole day to try and figure out if I should or should not look into switching houses… my thoughts went to two options:

1. God could have me at this house to teach me patience or to show love to the kids or other things that I don’t even know right now…but regardless, He could have me right where I’m supposed to be, and He could WANT me to be here… if He does, then I definitely don’t want to pull a Jonah and run away from Nineveh… you know? Well, maybe that’s a terrible comparison but you get what I’m trying to say I hope.

Or…

2. God could have put me here in order to get me to buck up and do something about it since I am definitely NOT a confrontational person, and since I’m such a push-over, people-pleaser…. So he COULD have put me here, just to teach me to make things happen…

See? So how do I know which it is???

I’m going to keep praying. I’m not doing anything unless I hear very clearly from Him that I should go somewhere else… I think that’s probably the safest bet… I hope it is, at least. I just want to do what I’m supposed to and be where I’m supposed to, you know?

Anyways, so if you want to, I would definitely appreciate any and all prayers about this. A lot of you are asking for specific prayer requests… well, here’s one! A biggie! J

So today I was going to go into the city and just probably go to that internet café, but I think that I’m going to just hang around the house and look for opportunities to nudge my foot in the door with the fam… it’s tough to find opportunities for it since there are no meals together or anything… so I’m really not sure what it’s going to look like, but I’m praying for opportunities. I just want them to see me as a part of the family instead of just a tutor that lives in the room upstairs that they have to see for a few hours every day, and then can just avoid the rest of the time… I’m not sure if that’s what God has planned, but that’s what I’d like to see happen…

Anyways. basically I’m just saying that I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing, but I’m searching for clarity and I’m asking for answers and I’m looking for opportunities to get further into the lives of this family that I live with and really don’t know very well other than what is extremely surface level…

Pray with me?

Thanks, you guys. I love you dearly and I’m looking forward to getting home and hangin with you again in a few months J

Love, denisie

p.s. so meeting the girls for dinner last night was an adventure, by the way. Caitlin’s mom was in town on a flight assignment which was really cool! I’m so glad she got to hang with her mom! She’s been looking forward to it so much! Anyways, so we were all going to meet up for dinner, but her mom was sick, so the three of us were just going to go to this place that her mom suggested, but we met up outside the metro and searched and walked and walked and walked and never found it… haha

BUT I think that we found the train station that has a forest or something inside of it! We’re going to go back sometime during the day to see if that’s what it was J haha but the building was so cool. We took pictures in front of it. I’ll take better pics in the daytime so that you can see the whole thing.

Oh, also we were SO touristy on Friday. It was funny. Marie took us around and showed us this really cool cathedral and La Palacio Royal. It was so beautiful. Some of it was under construction, so it blocked the awesome view of the city from the hill, but it was ok. I took a video from the courtyard of the palace and I’m going to try to figure out how to post that for you J then you can “meet” Marie! Haha

And Katie and I saw La Plaza Mayor on accident when we went to the wrong place to meet up with Marie for lunch! Haha J so that was pretty cool. There are murals painted all on one part of the building. The whole thing is so beautiful. And larger than life, for real. Whoa.

Ok. Going down for lunch! J love.

Also, can I just say that I love these girls that are here in spain with me. It is so nice to have friends to pray with and a solid support group here. I’m so thankful for that. OH… that reminds me. I want to make a list of the things I’m so thankful to have here… most of it will seem silly but just incase you travel to another country maybe it’ll be helpful for you to have a list of “must-haves” haha J

It was bound to happen eventually...

2008-01-31T16:12:00.000+01:00

i'm good today. really. i just have to preface this post from last night. haha :) i'm sure i'll be frustrated again when i get back to the house, but it's ok. today was awesome. we had coffee with Tep today and it was rad. we sat in the coffee shop for 3 HOURS! haha. sweet times. school starts tomorrow!!!! YEEE! :) i'm not sure what that means...but. yeah. :)

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 30 de Enero, 2008

11:32pm (4:32pm Denton time)

ok so I think I just experienced my emotional semi-breakdown. I’m not sure it’ll be the last. Or maybe that wasn’t even it? I don’t know. I think I’m just really hating being here alone. I mean, I’m not really here alone. Cait and Katie are here, but at the same time… most of the people who I love the most, and who love me the most, are nowhere near me. I can try to call (when it works?) or email or instant message (when I can find internet connection)…but that is so random and far between… and when I do, the time difference is so off that it’s seriously inconvenient for you guys…

I miss Aaron a lot. I just called him, but he was in class. Sorry about that, again, by the way, Aaron…

As soon as I heard his voice I started crying for some reason. I was trying not to let him know that I was (how did I do? Haha) because I knew he was in the middle of class and he needed to go. But as soon as we hung up, I started bawling. I can’t really stop now. There’s no way I’d be able to get through a conversation with my mom or dad… jeez. I’m ridiculous.

I’m just so sick of being here in this house, I think. It’s so harsh. There’s almost no loving interaction. Or at least of what I see. She’s always yelling or harping on the kids, and she never even really talks to me unless its to tell me how to do/clean/eat something… other than that I’m just like a machine that goes in and teaches her kids. And even then, it’s my fault if they don’t do well, even if it’s because her little boy is burnt out by the time he gets to me so he can’t/won’t focus on anything I try to tell/teach him…

Maybe that’s why God has me here, but at the same time, I think I’m just so used to living in such a love-filled environment (my home, so many awesome friends around, my church, my family, etc.) that this is absolutely killing me. I’m alone most of the day and night, and the time that I am interacting with other people, it is so high-stressed and irritating that I can’t wait to be alone again.

I just really miss Aaron.

I just wish that he was here.

I’m thinking that I’ll probably not stay for the full three months. The initial reason is money. It’s costing a lot more just to live than I expected. But this doesn’t setting isn’t really encouraging me to search high and low for ways to stay, you know?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love being in spain. I seriously love it. I just don’t know how much longer I can be in this house and away from the people that I love. I feel like a kid counting the days until I move away to college… only I graduated from that a year ago…

I don’t know. Please keep me in your prayers. I just need to get over myself… I’m sorry for the rant. When school starts, maybe it will distract me more. I’ll have more to do with my time. Sorry, again.

Goodnight (well, for me. Happy Dinnertime for you)…

Love,denisie

2008-01-30T16:14:00.000+01:00

ok. just a few more important photos to upload right now before i have to get headed home for tutoring... :)

also, i know a few of you have been asking for my address while i'm here in spain. i put it in a "note" on facebook if you want that. if you dont have facebook, just email me and i can send it to you! :)

love you guys and miss you all terribly. i'm so blessed to have such awesome friends and family even from an ocean away!!!! seriously. i'm praying for you all constantly and i'm so blessed by each of you. i hope that you are aware of that :)

Mucho Amore,
Denisie

This is the day that the girls hung came over for our slumber party! Haha those pictures are ridiculous…i'll post sometime soon. but these pictures are for our dear ones who aren’t here with us at the moment…

Miss Lindsey, the third of we three…

(oh, p.s. random fact… baby bangs …see above, haha… are so in here in spain! EVERYONE has them! Its so funny! Also there is an unreal number of guys with the most terrible mullets I’ve ever seen in my life. No joke. Oh jeez…. Yeah.)

And next two are for the one and only, our personal favorite… Leanne Hotface Mcgee (don’t worry, you won’t get the pictures. It’s apparently an inside joke between them…J):

leftovers from last post.

2008-01-30T15:58:00.000+01:00

i think it was telling me something like i had too many picture up on one post? i dont really know since it was in spanish... haha. anyways. here are a few more from the last picture post:

this is the view from my balcony. the metal thing is the walking bridge that i walk on to get to the bus stop every morning. :)

this is the view straight down from my balcony. that's our "backyard"?

this is the view from my balcony at night. well, really early morning, i guess. i took this that first night when i woke up at 4am and couldn't go back to sleep until about 7:45am. haha :)

Picture update numero dos! Our first week in Madrid:

2008-01-30T15:00:00.000+01:00

Here are some more pictures for you! Enjoy!

Check out my HUGE bed! it's actually two twin mattresses put together on one bed frame. that's like a queen bed, right? something like that... anyways. it looks so comfy!!! (tricky little buggar. that's not at all the case. ha!)
also, i dont know if they could have picked a better decor for the room (the entire house actually). i LOVE it. if i were going to decorate it, i would totally be using the same furniture and stuff! :) love it.

that's my desk with a great view. the window/door to the little balcony/terrace thing is right in front of my desk. pic of that in a second... (the doorway to the right of the desk goes into the bathroom.

there's my ol' bano! double sinks for little ol' me! i need a friend to share with ;)

faceoff! my toilet and bede... i dont know that i will try it. part of me wants to just to say that i used a bede. i am, after all, living in europe... but still. that just weirds me out. spraying water on my butt?? no thank you... i take showers for that... you know??

no central heat. radiators in every room that they hang their towels and stuff on! dont they know that those things catch on fire?! i dont let mine touch. the thought of my room burning makes me a bit uneasy... i dunno why...
this is my tv stand/dresser that i'm not allowed to use because it has paloma's stuff in it. haha.
also the closet is full of her stuff too. i have about 4 little drawers and a little spot in the huge closet space in the room for my stuff. haha.

this is the view from bed. check out the freaking light fixture! i love it :) i think it's even prettier in person. these pictures make it look kinda dull...
ok. now i'm going to try and let you get a feel for the house (townhouse?) picture, if you will, about 7 stories that are kind of staggered. so kind of 7 Half-stories? i dont really know how to explain it. but here are some pictures taken from each landing of the stairwell that goes on for days... haha. the first one is from my floor, right outside my door looking down the staircase towards the children's floor. i forgot to take pics of above my floor, but there are two more landings above my room. one is the room entrance and the next higher one is the "play room" which is pretty much just used for when their tutors come over. they study up there.

this is a view from where the last picture ended. turn that corner on the stairs, and you get the children's rooms and bathroom.

then i turned to the right and took this picture from children's floor which looks down to Paloma's room/floor (the mom).

this shot is from paloma's floor. just turning the corner from the last picture.

turn the corner at the end of the last photo, and you are looking towards the dining room with the kitchen on your left. the dining room has not been used since i've been here... maybe they use it sometimes when their dad is home? we'll see. he comes back in a month or two? eh.

this is the tiniest kitchen. seriously. the chairs are kept hanging on the wall when the kids are not eating. otherwise you can't get around the table... TINY!!! there's a little stool that i sit on. As you can see, there is never "family dinner". Very rarely are even the three of us in there at the same time. it's usually just me and one child at a time. studying while they scarf down some food before they go back to studying more...

this is where they hang the chairs that the children use. my stool is kept just below the hanging chairs.

this is the very rarely (if ever?) used dining room.

I live in Spain...weird...

2008-01-30T14:55:00.000+01:00

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 28 de Enero, 2008

11:13pm (4:13pm Denton time)

I got to talk to Aaron for a few minutes today. We’ve pretty much worked out to where we get to talk for a few minutes on Mondays and Fridays… It’s never long enough and Monday to Friday is a really long time without hearing his voice. Sorry if that’s sappy for you to hear or if you’re slightly gagging at reading that, but you’ll just have to get over that problem. Deal? ;) sweet.

Now that we’ve got that under control…

There is a chance that Aaron may be able to visit me here in Madrid over UNT’s spring break. Then again there is a very good chance that he may not be able to. Even with a SERIOUSLY awesome airline hookup (standby which is about a good thousand dollars less expensive than a normal ticket. Maybe more than that?)… money is still a really tight thing considering a place to stay while here and provisions and stuff… it can get pretty costly… especially for a final semester college student, you know?

I’m praying so hard that he either gets a new AEWSOME job that he loves and that pays him what he’s worth (can anyone really afford to pay him that? He’s freaking awesome at what he does… anyone looking for a fabulous logistics/supply chain managing mind… call him. Seriously.) so that he can afford on his own to come and visit me… OR that someone just randomly decides that they really want to give him several hundred dollars (say…around $600?) because he’s so awesome. Haha J either one will do, I think J. I think that spring break is probably the week right before my birthday, too… so that would pretty much be the best present I could EVER get in my life if he came to see me. Man. You have no idea how hard I’m praying for that.

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 29 de Enero, 2008

10:41pm (3:41pm Denton time)

I’m getting extremely irritated with this woman. I am starting to hate tutoring time. I’m praying for completely unnatural patience and that she will just shut up for once. She’s a control freak and its seriously driving me crazy. Also, I don’t know what she’s thinking, but if her son is not learning as much as she would like him to, it’s definitely not my fault… I’m not going to shove this stuff down his throat while he throws fits. If he does, I wait for him to chill out before I move on. I’m not in spain to babysit children throwing fits because their mother shoves 8million years of studying down their throats every single afternoon. Good lord, woman. Chill out. Go drink your wine and smoke your gross cigarettes (in the house, no doubt where you can give us all asthma attacks… yeah. Your son has asthma and you’re going to smoke in the house. Nice.).

Bah. Sorry. This afternoon I wondered how possible it would be fore me to find somewhere else to live… and how soon I could do it… but seriously. I’ll get over it. I prayed for patience last night… maybe God wants me to learn it instead of just handing it over to me. Either way…

We got our Abono passes today! Finally! The Abono is the Metro/Buss pass that is good for the entire month. We went ahead and got our passes for February and I can’t wait to be able to use it. They are good for unlimited trips on both the busses and metros. Right now we are having to buy “diez viajes” which are good for… you guessed it, 10 trips. They are almost 7 euros a piece and an average day is at least 2-4 trips…so…yeah. They’re adding up. (haha I made myself think of Kevin…the office…after I just wrote that last sentence. )

Katie and I also signed up for class today! We’re in the same class so that’s awesome. Caitlin is not going to do it since she just got finished Spanish four in December. Katie and I, on the other hand, haven’t had Spanish in about 2 years now, so we definitely want to get in on at least an hour a day. Our first class is Friday morning at 10:30am. Wish us luck! We’re really pumped about it. I’m actually really excited about it. Sorry I think I’ve mentioned that a lot… eh.

So…I’m watching CNN right now and its kind of reminding me of hangin out at the orange house or something. Haha. I never watch sports and that’s all that is on right now. It’s world sports updates and stuff. J I couldn’t care less about this stuff, but it’s the only English station that I get here…so…here I am, listening to sports. It’s actually been good because I used to be so up on current events and stuff, but since college I basically know nothing. Awesome. It’s really good to know what’s going on in the world again. Especially with the presidential election coming up.

I walked around the area that our house is today for a while to see if I could jack any wifi. I’d had no success around the house and stuff, so I decided to broaden my scopes… ;) I walked around almost the whole place and nothing would connect. I finally found this one space where I could connect! I almost didn’t believe it! Unfortunately it wasn’t at any of the many benches that are around here. Of course not. Haha J I had to sit on the edge of this big potted plant next to the entrance to the area. Right by the gate. Haha. It was really actually kind of funny. But the awesome part about it was that when I checked my google mail, I Chad Farmer messaged me on the google instant messaging thing. I love that thing! J haha and then I noticed that Aaron was logged on to his mail too!!! It was so awesome! So I got to message with Aaron, Chad, and Gooch (who was in class sitting right next to chad! Haha) for a few minutes. Unfortunately my computer connection died before I could say goodbye, so guys, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry that I hung up on you. Totally didn’t mean to do it!!!

Ok. I’m going to see if I can prepare pictures at home and then just upload like I do with my updates. That way you can actually get pictures before I get home… haha

Ok here goes: hope this works!!!

nope. didnt work. blast. oh well. i'll upload some more. :) the good old fashioned way. oh yeah.

and again, three hours later...

2008-01-28T15:38:00.000+01:00

so my computer battery kicked the bucket earlier and i have honestly been walking around Madrid looking for anyplace that had wifi so that i could plug in this baby. my goal for today was to finally upload pictures and get caught up with all of that...so...
PLUS all of the intense walking is good for me! :) hooray! haha :)
ok i'm now going to attempt to upload a booty load of pictures... we'll see how well this works out!
i'll just "start from the very beginning...a very good place to start" :)
Aqui! Para tu!

this is the first time we got kicked off the plane... (i'm BOR D and katie is CAT K) not too bad...

this was the plane first plane we didnt get on. the one caitlin is on... this is just before she left us.

this is our friend, Rob. He is a bike policeman inside the airport! haha :)

he bought us both toothbrushes because our mouths were grody feeling after sitting in DFW for the entire day! He was SO COOL!!!

so i went in search of a starbucks that was not supposed to be very far away... its wasnt. at all. i just happened to walk WAY past it THREE times before i finally found it hiding back in a remote corner! who does that??? its just cruel! to see so many people walking around with starbucks cups and not being able to find it... boo :) haha

suck we're still here. this was very many hours after we arrived at the airport around 10 am that morning... MANY hours... haha

ok. holy cow... so there was this lady. she worked at the airport... with my own eyes, i see her peek in the trash can, pull out a USED (do i need to add that??) burker king cup, take off the lid, throw the lid BACK away, and take the cup down to the burger king TO GET A FREE REFILL!!!! WHAT THE HECK???? HAHAHAHAHA!!! this is our reinactment of that trash lady

so we decide to grab some dinner at tgifridays since we're starving and still have to wait and be told that we cant get on the last flight of the day...

at least we got really yummy deserts! :)

the next morning (saturday) - extremely early... if we dont get on this first flight, we are basically screwed because they CANCELED the last FIVE flights from dallas to atlanta for the day because of the freak snow/ice storms! yeesh! but we're so hopeful! its lookin good so far!
(and, yes...we're wearing the same things as the first airport day because all of our luggage is already in Atlanta even though we are still in Dallas!!! haha)

ok. we DID get on the flight to atlanta! hooray!!! yes! we were SO relieved! so on the flight to atlanta...there was this guy sitting across the aisle from me. he was OUT way before the plane even took off. he had his ipod on, and when the stewardess tried to wake him up so that he could turn it off while we got in the air, he just kinda flopped around like he was DEAD or something!!! drool was dripping from his mouth! it was so weird!!!! the guy was so out, that he slept the entire flight and didnt even STIR until we landed! i wonder if he was on something... it was so strange.... seriously....

one frustrating thing about waiting in airports for entire days at a time is that you have to pay for effing internet because of the stupid "hotspots" (yeah right. i'm not paying for that. rude!) AND it's almost impossible to find outlets to charge your cell phones or your computers! so... in the food court area of the atlanta airport (where we had to wait from 9am, when our dallas flight got there, until 7pm, when our madrid flight left atlanta...), we found plugs!!! YEAH!

we also found panda express! YES! it's probably my favorite fast food Chinese place ever :) haha i know... weird. but i love it!!!

ok i'm going to start a new post. i'm scared something's going to happen and i'll lose this whole thing. oh lord. may it never be... haha :)

finally more wifi! holla!

2008-01-28T13:08:00.000+01:00

ok. a few things before i post the latest blog entries...
1. i have seriously spent the past 30 minutes trying to get the wifi to actually connect. dang wasted computer battery! but alas it is here! yeah! :)
2. i just saw a guy that looked SO MUCH like our friend Micah Kinnard that i seriously thought it was him for a split second and then realized that i was in spain. there's no way he's here, right?? yeah. anyways. plus this guy's hair was way too short to be micah. there's no way micah would cut his! haha
3. i'm sitting on a bench. same bench by the bus stopthat i was at a few days ago. it's my new fav. haha... anyways. there is definitely something moving around in the bushes behind me... some little critter. i'm going to assume it's a cute, sweet little bunny rabbit. or maybe a pigeon that's playing hide and seek with his friends :)
4. there is a guy that works for the city of madrid cleaning up the park area that i am at (raking the dirt. haha) but he keeps talking to me randomly. it is not a great conversation because my spanish sucks big time but we did talk about madrid (sol y moncloa), florida, and my awesome boyfriend :) so thats cool. haha
5. also i saw eduardo (remember the neighbor that is my age?)'s brother on the bus this morning! we sat next to each other and actually had a semi conversation, too! so that was really cool. i like being able to communicate. i cant wait for school to help with that! :)

ok. here are the posts :) i'll try to upload some pics too!

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 27 de Enero, 2008

6pm (11am Denton time)

Ok. Its been a couple of days.

Yesterday was SO much fun. Man. And I didn’t even leave the house except to meet the girls (Katie and Caitlin) at the bus stop by my house. Haha

The family is gone for the long weekend to their (CASTLE!!) country house about an hour and a half away from here, so the girls came over to keep me company/spend the night away from their kiddos for a night. We were going to go into Madrid in the evening, but we decided to just hang around the house and hang out with Ani! J it was so fun! (Ani is our maid, if you don’t remember). She’s exactly the same age as me, we found out! She turns 24 on March 6^th or something like that (my birthday is on the 24^th for those of you that didn’t know that). So that’s really cool. Ani was cooking in the kitchen for a while, so we went in to talk with her and she let us try this dish that she was making (I cant remember what it was called. Dang). It was made with these white beans, she boiled them till they were soft, then she mashed them (they looked like mashed potatoes then). On top of the lentils, she put some sort of mixture with maybe tomato sauce? (it was reddish) and cooked onions… it was really good!

THEN, after that, she started making these little donut type things! In Romania (that’s where she’s from. Isn’t that awesome? J) she said that in Romania they are called Gogosh (Guh- go- sh). They’re like homemade donuts except they don’t have holes J she basically deep fried the dough that she made from scratch (flour, egg, yeast… is that all? Maybe?). she cut them out of the dough using a drinking glass like a cookie cutter and placed them into hot olive oil on the stove (they use olive oil, and LOTS of it, for EVERYTHING, I’m noticing!) and they fried. Then she turned them over and when they were done, pulled them out and sprinkled vanilla on them! The vanilla was so cool. It wasn’t a liquid. It looked almost just like cinnamon and sugar! So weird! J

Anyways. she is so awesome. J we hung out with her for a few hours at least! It was just in the kitchen, the three of us trying to speak Spanish, and her helping us and being SO patient with our Spanglish. Haha. We found out she’s from Romania, and she only moved to spain a year and a half ago. When she moved here she knew no Spanish at all! Not even one word, she said! Now she is definitely fluent! Its cool. She was telling us about the family. Haha. She’s really funny. I’m glad she’s here. For sure.

So we hung with Ani for a while and then we just had dinner and watched a movie and the south Carolina presidential primary (Katie knows so much about the presidential race and it’s inspiring! It makes me want to know everything I could possibly know about the candidates! Unfortunately I don’t have the internet, so I’m not able to do that… that’s ok, though), and just talked forever. It was good.

Oh, speaking of the presidential election, does anyone know what we do/how we go about registering to vote while we’re out of the country? Do we go to the embassy or what? Just curious…

Anyways. yesterday was a good day. J

Today we woke up too early and went to El Rastro! That was one of the things that I had on my list to do here in spain. Probably the top thing, actually. Haha

It wasn’t as great as I was expecting, but it was still really cool. Its basically just a HUGE flea market set up in the streets. Caitlin has a bunch of pics from it, so I’ll have to jack them from her soon to update.

OH…. Aaron… I’m just going to say that I totally got you the ultimate gift from Spain that you could ever get. Haha. I’m so proud of it! J hahaha it’s actually kinda silly but its so freakin awesome and I think you’ll really actually like it. I hope! J

OH another thing that we accomplished from my list to do in Spain: we had churros y chocolate at this corner café place that we found when we got lost just exploring the streets of Madrid after El Rastro! J so awesome! Man. It’s basically hot chocolate with these long, skinny pastries that you dip in the chocolate. Only the hot chocolate is SO THICK you wouldn’t believe it. I tried to take a picture of it dripping off the spoon, but I’m not sure it makes it clear enough. It’s basically like a melted chocolate bar! Almost that thick! So good though. Haha. And for 2 euros (each), they gave us each enough to serve two or three people. Haha. Its so rich that you can’t even try to eat all of it, and they give you an entire coffee cup full of the chocolate with 4 of the churros! No way. I don’t know if any of us even ate half of our stuff! We were all sick from eating too much sweet/chocolate by the time we left. Haha J

We took a nap when we got home this afternoon and I think I could have slept straight through the whole night. Oh man. Now I have one of those “I slept during the day and now I feel like I have a sinus headache” headaches J haha.

But I learned how to make espresso and Caitlin had about 3 café con leches last night I think (that’s like taking SIX shots of espresso. Hahahaha!). She was basically cracked out on espresso. It was interesting because she had not gone to bed until 4am the night before and was up at 8am! Hahaha. Silly nina! J haha

I love those girls. So fun. I’m so glad they’re here. For sure J

Food has been interesting this weekend since the family’s gone. She (paloma) showed me where they had put several partially prepaired foods in the fridge for me to eat while they were gone, so I’ve just been mixing it up every night. Haha. Last night I made us some spaghetti with chopped up turkey in it and toast and butter. For breakfast yesterday I had some of the leftover Spanish omelet J yum. For dinner/lunch just now I had pretty much a baked potato with a hardboiled egg and more chopped up turkey and butter with salt and pepper… kind of interesting, I know… but I’m using what I’ve got! Just call me the Iron Chef. HA! Oh man. No way.

Anyways. I think that’s all for today. The girls left about an hour ago, so I think I’ll probably just chill at home again tonight. Tomorrow is the saint’s holiday that I mentioned before. It’s the reason the ninos don’t have school. So I think I’ll probably just take the bus into Moncloa, and take my computer to that little park by the bus stop and do some catching up there. I know I say this stuff a lot, but it really is just so strange to not have internet available whenever I want it. Even weirder that I don’t get on the internet every day.

I can’t wait to upload some pictures tomorrow! I’m going to go out until my computer runs out of juice. Maybe I’ll recharge and go back again. Who knows! Haha I think my computer might even get about 2 hours worth of charge on one go! That’s kinda cool. Hopefully!

Ok. Te amo muchisimo!

Jdenisie

P.s. OH MY GOSH I almost forgot to mention… hahaha…ok, so we definitely have been doing a TON of walking every single day (not even including all of the millions of stairs I have to climb any time I go to another room in the house, here! J), so it is a normal thing to expect any time we go out. Not a big deal. Ok… so on the way to El Rastro today, we are headed out of the metro and we are just following the crowd to get to the market. We get to the escalators to get out, and they are absolutely packed. So… duh… take the stairs, right?

HA! Wow. We step out of the line for the escalator (there is NO turning back nowJ) and look up to see how many stairs we will be climbing. HOLY CRAP. I think terrible words that should not be uttered from our lips were flying through each of our heads at that moment… oh man. I think that staircase was at least 150 steps high… oh man. Our quads were BURNING and we were SO out of breath by the time we reached the top. Hahahahaha it was ridiculous J and great.

Oh also. Not interesting at all, but I think it’s kinda funny. We stopped at the little convenience store/pharmacy/shop that is right inside the gated entrance to the place I live (like townhouses kind of?) I need to take pictures of the outside of home.

Wow… bill Clinton looks so old!!! I just saw him on CNN for a second. Good lord…

Ok. Sorry. Anyways. back to the story. Stopped at the shop to get milk because we drank so much of it last night with our coffees and I was worried we would have none left after we made some today, so we got some more milk… later after the girls left (we didn’t even drink the milk…) I found where they keep the rest of the juices and milks that aren’t open! Dang. Haha. So we spent money unnecessarily. Dang. Oh well. J

That’s all… J

Later (9:30pm …2:30pm denton time):

Just a thought: I’m super excited about Spanish courses beginning on Friday. For once, studying sounds really good. I’m glad that there will be something to take up time. It’s a great time when I’m gallivanting about the city, but after studying with the kids on the weekends there’s a lot of down time with not much to do since I can’t get online. Oh well. J either way, I’m excited for school to start. I’m positive that when I’m actually in the middle of the course, I’ll be sick of studying and my brain will want to explode, but for now… I’m pretty ready J haha.

We go to sign up and pay for the course on Tuesday.

2008-01-25T15:30:00.001+01:00

just at taste until i can upload the rest of them :) amore!

Bus stop WiFi when i should be on the bus going home...

2008-01-25T15:27:00.000+01:00

ugh! finally! i found some wifi by the bus stop! now i'm late... haha but i had to upload this before i exploded. haha :) te amo muchisimo!

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 22 de Enero, 2008

4:36pm (9:36am Denton time)

Sometimes I wonder if this lady is for real… paloma, the mother of the house that I live, is not very helpful and it is very frustrating. I’ll ask her how to get places, or where I should get things, and you would think that she would offer to help me figure it out, maybe? Or at least tell me something rather than…”hmm… maybe El Corte Ingles (the big mall type thing)? I don’t really know. Maybe there. I don’t know where you would buy a fan…” like that was a stupid question? Ugh. Also they don’t have a dryer here… she said, “people don’t use clothes dryers in Madrid. We don’t need them.” People do use them in madrid. She just doesn’t have one. My towel felt like I was drying off with a loofa this morning. I love line-dried things… wait. No….

Katie’s family seems so helpful. I’m a little envious. I feel, sometimes, like she doesn’t really care to help me with anything, regardless that this is my first time in this country and I obviously don’t speak the language. I’m just here to tutor the kids. Neat.

Speaking of the kids. I love them. They are so cool. Eduardo is 11 and Victoria is 12. they are so smart and funny! They study so much I don’t know how they don’t have a mental breakdown every single day. Seriously. They go to school from 930 to 530 every day. Then they come home and have a snack. After their snack, we study English. I work one hour with each child. While I’m with one, paloma is with the other one working on other homework. After homework, they bathe and they have dinner (not together. One and then the other. I am with each of them.). they have 30 minutes for dinner and the whole time that we are eating dinner, we are studying verbs. It is so structured. After dinner, they go straight back to studying, and that lasts until about 1030pm. They go directly to bed after homework/studying. This is every day. 5 days a week. The weekend is the only time they have to not think about studying and school.

They’re going to las vegas to visit their dad around the first week or second week of February. I’m so glad they have some time off from this schedule. I want my kids to know more languages than just English, but this is a little ridiculous. I just feel like they are going to be so burned out so quickly… I don’t know…

Anyways. I got off the bus ok today. That’s a great thing… yesterday I couldn’t figure out how to make the bus driver open the back door to let me off. He let a bunch of people on from the front door, but the back door never opened and he started going again… I had to run to the front of the bus to get him to stop again and let me off! That was horrible. I was rushing and talking in English because I was freaking out, “POR FAVOR! I NEED TO GET OFF!!!!!” yeesh…

Katie and I walked around Moncloa (the part of Madrid where the agency that we came over with has their office). I feel pretty familiar with that area now. It’s the same area that I walked around for hours yesterday, looking for wifi.

Oh! And I found an internet café over there that is pretty good. They already have the computers and you buy hours for one euro/ hour. And you don’t have to spend the whole hour at one time. You have an entire week to use up your hour. So that’s cool. Also, it’s in a shop that has Dunkin’ Coffee (exactly like Dunkin’ donuts…only… called coffee instead… haha) and subway. Then there are tables to eat at and a line of computers along the other wall.

We were supposed to meet up with Caitlin today, but Katie waited for an hour for her at the metro stop they were supposed to meet at, and never saw her… she doesn’t have a phone yet, so we have no way to contact her. I left a message with her host mom to call me on my cell when she got home, but she hasn’t called yet L tomorrow we’ll all meet (hopefully!) up in another part of Madrid called Sol. Apparently it’s like the real downtown of Madrid. I’ve felt pretty safe so far, so I hope that this part isn’t too bad. There are a lot of tourists at that part, though… so… yeah. And gypsies… I hope I don’t have any pickpockets or anything. That would be terrible

ALSO a terrifying thing is to be walking around Madrid and taking the bus home while carrying 170 euros in your purse… yeah. But it was fine. I figured it would be because it was fine yesterday. I’m just glad we got the atm to work!!! none of the 5 or so that we tried yesterday would give us any money!!! I finally tried this other bank (BBVA) this morning and I actually got money out. Praise Jesus. That was so stressful. Seriously. But I’m going to take Tep’s advice (she’s the contact that Caitlin made with that ministry that we’re going to look into) and take out a certain amount of money every month and then just budget the cash for myself at home and only take a certain amount with me every day. Unfortunately when I took out 150 euros today, it gave me 3 50s so… yeah. I’ll have to take 50 a few days… and then get change somehow. Haha.

Oh another cool thing is that there were about 3 accordion street players on the street this morning. J I like that. It’s cool.

Ok. I know there’s a lot more to write, but I’m written out for now. More later. I’m going to work on my budget now.

I need a hair dryer and a fan.

Also my mattress is terrible… you can feel every single spring in it and the pillows are so flat… I wish I had my temper-pedic (is that how you spell that?) pillow that the Powers gave me for graduation… I wonder how much that would cost to have sent over here… :/

Overall spain is great, though.

Oh yeah! Katie and I went in search of some of the language schools to see if we can afford any of them. The one that we found today wasn’t accepting any more students because we missed the entry deadline and it goes until june… so… yeah. There’s one near Sol where we’ll be tomorrow, so maybe that one will work out. If we can’t find one that we can afford, or one that will take us, then I think we’re going to try and get together and do some learning Spanish from CD’s thing… someone gave Katie a set before she left. We just desperately need to learn Spanish. This is ridiculous for us to know as little as we do… it’s hard to get around. And we feel stupid. Haha. I wish I had the internet at home, then I could just look up schools and how to get to them… man. I am so thankful for the internet in the states and how much it is at my disposal there… seriously.

Ok. Thanks for reading that novel! I love you all. Wish you were here to learn the city with me. It’s pretty fun J and tiring!

But… I have been taking my vitamins every morning (Kelley and mom. You’ll be proud). I do better taking them here, than I do at home… J

Peace out!

OH! I totally almost forgot to tell you! Yesterday, I think I got griped at by this old lady on the bus! Hahaha it was really funny. I was sitting on the bus going home. I was so tired. I had been walking for (literally) several hours with a heavy bag on my shoulder and I was so ready to be home. Anyways. I put my feet up on the seat facing me since no one was around me or obviously sitting there. She started talking really fast and seriously to me in Spanish… I’m pretty sure, by her body language and gestures, that she was telling me to not put my feet up in the seat because if I do, then the next person to sit down will get their pants dirty with whatever is on my shoes (there was nothing)… haha. So I acted like I was wiping the seat off and put my feet on the ground. Haha… it was funny, I thought. I actually have no idea what she was saying… ;)

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 23 de Enero, 2008

8pm (1pm Denton time)

So, I pretty much feel terrible about being so gripy in my last entry. I went to El Corte Ingles today (the big mall type thing) and just kind of wandered for a while. I really needed to buy a hair dryer and I didn’t know where else to go, so I figured if they had things like department stores, surely someone would have a hair dryer and hopefully a fan… anyways, El Corte Ingles is so different. Its cool:

There are about 8 different floors and each floor is about as big (wide/long) as a Dillards or something in the states. There are escalators at each end going up and down. Each floor is a different department. Like the ground level is bags/purses/shoes/perfume/makeup. The lower level is the supermercado. I was so happy when I found a big sign that told what each level was, and even more ecstatic when I realized that I was staring right at the Spanish lists and the lists were in English right below it!!! Holla! J so I looked at what all the levels were (mens, including a men’s hairstylist, womens, with a womans stylist, houseware/electronics, juniors/stylish section, etc…) so I went straight for the electronics, of course. I found a hairdryer and a flat iron since the converters we brought totally don’t work, unfortunately. They work for all of a few minutes and then whatever we have plugged in blows. Yup. My sound machine that I am in love with that jen got me for Christmas blew in the first hour of me being here. My flat iron that jeff let me borrow blew this morning. Neat…

So anyways. I bought those two things ( I found both on sale…that was interesting.. haha) for about 40 euros (60 dollars. Ugh…) but It’s ok because I totally need those two things. And I’ll have them for the next time(s) that I visit Europe J I plan on coming every chance I get in my life. Seriously. It’s so cool. Only next time, Aaron’s coming. (sorry, AP, you don’t have a choice…hope that’s ok).

Ok. I’ve lost my place. I have no idea what I was rambling about…

Oh yeah! The fan. I feel bad… yes, yes.

So I was in the department with all of that, found the hair stuff, and was looking for the fan. I find the heaters, but don’t see fans ANYWHERE…so I set all of my bags down, pull out my little dictionary to figure out what the heck the Spanish word for fans is… (it’s vantiladores, by the way, in case you were wondering), and so I asked this lady about it… she was speaking extremely fast spanish to me, but I am pretty sure that she was telling me that no one really uses fans here in spain, so they don’t sell them. I asked, “Que usar cuado hace calor??” (what do you use when it’s hot??) she just told me ( I think…haha) that it doesn’t really get hot here, so really no one in the entire city sells them that she knows of… awesome… it’s ok though. One less expense. I’m pretty comfortable at night. Just in the afternoons when I get home, its extremely warm in my room since my window faces west and the sun is shining directly through the huge windows. Oh well. Win some, lose some, I guess.

Oh, by the way…the flat iron I just bought today and was so excited to use tomorrow? Yeah. It’s broken. Stupid. I have to take it back tomorrow. It was broken when I took it out of the box. Ugh…

Sick. Paloma’s smoking in the house again. I smell it. I absolutely hate this. When I asked her about the fact that she smokes, she told me that she does smoke but only in the living room by the doors that stay open, and that you can’t smell it anywhere in the house unless you are sitting right by her. I can assure you that the doors are not open right now. It’s cold. Also everything is above the living room. Smoke rises. Duh. You can totally smell it. Everywhere. Blech.

Oh well. I’m in freaking spain. I can live with smoke for three months. I’m in spain. Serisouly.

OH! Heath ledger died??? What the heck??? Katie got like three emails saying that last night… what the heck are they gonna do for batman movies now??? He seems (from the previews) to be the perfect joker, no? anyways…

-The song that starts, “angel of mercy, how did you find me…” just came on and it makes me think of aaron b/c he was singing it the whole week that I was leaving (not singing it to me. Just that it was in his head all week so I got to hear it all week… J) anyways. totally unrelated. Just made me think of him… yet again. You all wanted to know that. I know J

Man, I know that I say this a lot, but these kids are so ridiculously busy I cant even believe it… jeez. Also I found out today that each of them does THREE different sports every week!!!

Eduardo - hockey, tennis, golf

Veronica – tennis, golf, swimming

They both have math tutors, also, tonight, so I don’t think dinner is until like 9pm maybe? Bah. This is so strange. I don’t like eating so late. I eat, and then I just want to go to sleep… this city is exhausting. Haha. Or maybe it’s just that I’m walking about a million and a half miles every day! J either way, my metabolism is absolutely through the roof. I am hungry so quickly after I eat, it’s ridiculous. I went to the Super Mercado today and got some special K bars (the box is in espanol. Its funny J also some mixed nuts, some fish-shaped crackers (not like goldfish…they have the flavoring on it kind of like oyster crackers in the states, I think). Oh and I got some juice boxes. Today I got a bottle of water with my lunch, so I kept the Aquafina bottle (also in Spanish…you’d think I’d be used to that already, but I don’t think I ever will be. Its funny to see things that I am so accustomed to seeing in English be in Spanish… yeah. Anyways…I’m ridiculous) and so I ‘m just going to keep refilling that bottle from the water pitcher in the kitchen every morning, and I’ll take some fish crackers, a juice box, and a special K bar in my bag every day. That way I’m not spending money on lunch every day. That would be killer. I would just come home for lunch, but it’s so inconvenient to do that when you have to take buses and metros and blah blah blah. And then if you want to go back out, you have to do the same thing and then still be home by 6 in time to teach until dinner/bed time… so I think I’ll just maybe ask Paloma about packing sandwiches or something? Especially if we start going to the Spanish school from 1030 to 1230 every day… we’ll see J

Ok. I write a lot… and theres still so much to tell. Sorry if the detail of these entries is totally boring for you. You don’t have to read them J they’re mostly, I guess, venting for myself. It’s strange to not have someone to talk to about everything every day. You know? Usually there are about 10 people to spread the stories out to every day so that not just one person has to hear the detailed version of my “interesting” life, but now you’re all stuck with it all. Just be thankful that I usually just don’t feel like writing stuff so you don’t have to hear a lot. J haha

Ok dinner! Yeah! And it’s only 830! More later. I’m sure.

…later (10:04pm –3:04pm denton time)

Ok… study time maybe is over now? Maybe? Eduardo is asleep on my bed right now. He’s so exhausted. His eyes are red and falling shut. He’s been studying for 4 hours straight now. Right through dinner like normal… I love these kids. Seriously. Eduardo and I have a handshake. It’s kind of a normal handshake and then you do the pound thing like from The Office where you make the explosion sound? You know? But we pound it and then bump our foreheads together and THEN make the explosion sound J he’s such a cool kid. Tonight aaron called me while we were having dinner (Eduardo and i) and so he got to talk to him for a minute or two. Eduardo loved it. I could tell from his face. It was really cool for him to have an older (American!) guy talking with him and asking him about himself. I also did Veronica’s hair tonight after her bath. I would have flat ironed it… but…yeah. Stupid broken things…

Also, something cool… I started praying for the meal the first night that we had dinner together (me and the kids) and so we’ve been saying the blessing before we eat every night and the kids want to pray too! They love it. Tonight I actually forgot to before dinner. Things were so crazy and different today with the tutors and all, but we were half way through the dinner and veronica said, “OH! Denise! We forgot to say the blessing!!!” J that was really cool, because then we all three went around and said a short little prayer at the table. Really cool.

I seriously love them. They are such cool kids! I’ll have to take some pictures and post them soon so that you can “meet” them.

Oh, mom… when you called the other day, it was Eduardo that answered. I know you couldn’t tell which one it was. Just thought you’d like to know J

Oh, and we went to see another school today. It was in the area of Sol. I think that I personally like the Moncloa area better (the area we’ve been in the past few days). It just makes me a little uneasy to have a lot of people just loitering around in an area, you know? Not really doing anything in particular, or if they are, they’re street vendors or beggars. Just makes me more nervous. The area seems a little less clean and a lot more touristy than moncloa. Maybe I’ll like it better when we spend more time there. I’m sure we will J anyways, we found that school and went ahead and took a placement exam. We’re not beginners at least! Haha. One step up J none of us knew past tense… haha. Dang…

Anyways. the price is just about 200 american dollars a month plus books but I think I’m going to do it. It seems pretty expensive, but if I’m in spain, I may as well be taking advantage of these opportunities. And I’ll practice every day that I’m here! Well, I’m working out my budget to see what kind of spending I’m looking at (average) and I think I’ll be able to swing it. No big spender here while I’m not getting income. That’s for sure. Haha.

OH…speaking of not spending much… new favorite store: BLANCO. It’s pretty much the Spanish version of Forever 21. I LOVE it. I got a brown clutch there yesterday for 2 EUROS!!! That’s like three dollars. Its awesome. I can’t remember if I already told you about that. Sorry, if I did.

Oh, and Lindsey, there are Zara’s EVERYWHERE! That’s the place you told us to go, yeah? I think so. They’re seriously on every street. Haha you should come J

Aaron, did you get your passport yet? I will forget to ask you in an email when I actually get to where I have internet, so I’m putting it here…. That’s all…

I love you!!!

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 24 de Enero, 2008

7:10pm (12:10pm Denton time)

Ok only two things for now, which is good because dinner (cena!)’s in just 20 minutes! Yeah!!! I saw tomatoes and corn on the table. I think maybe for a salad type thing? J I’m glad. Everything the first few days was fried. I’m glad to have healthy alternatives now! Haha

1. Annie (the maid who lives downstairs with her boyfriend) works so much!!! She starts before 8am or maybe at 8? And she doesn’t finish until about 8 or 9pm! I just found out that she irons from about 5 or 530pm until about 8pm!!! What??? Goodness! She irons EVERYTHING. Sheets, towels, EVERYTHING. So strange… I guess since everything is line dried and that makes it pretty wrinkled… still. Weird…

2. FUNNY! And terrible… haha: Just now, I was having my study time with Eduardo and we were talking about Dirk Novinsky…. He kept calling his name Dick instead of Dirk… so I told him not to say that word because it was a bad word in English… BAD IDEA! Jeez. I should have known better. Hahaha. We spent about 10 minutes of our hour together looking up different English/Spanish words in order for him to figure out what it meant… oh man. Anyways. so I just came upstairs and I could hear him in the bathroom saying, “dickdickdickdick”…. Hahahahahahaha oh jeez. What the heck did I do???

I told him seriously not to say that in the united states and that it was extremely offensive. He wanted to know how much so and if they would take him to jail for saying it. I said, “no. they won’t take you to jail, but someone might punch you in the face for saying it to them.” Haha J

Is that wrong? Nope. I think not.

Funny? Yes.

Terrible? Yes….

The end for now.

CENA!!!! Yeah!!!! J

Later, at 11:15pm (4:15pm denton time)

Ok. Funny story that I have to write before I forget. Aaron, I know that you, in particular will love this story. This just goes to show how funny these kis are!! (the last story was eduardo’s funny story. This one is victoria’s… haha

So, I go downstairs and have dinner with Victoria and we head to her room about 9:40pm to start her English homework. On her way to her room, I noticed that she went into eduardo’s room for a moment. I didn’t know why. I figured it was just to grab an English book or something. They share some of them. A few minutes later, Eduardo comes into his room and Victoria goes in and whispers something in his ear. He makes a gagging, crying sound and lies, flailing about, on his bed with his head buried in his pillow. I think he’s crying.

Me: VICTORIA!!!! What in the world did you just say???

Victoria: (laughing hysterically) nothing…! J

Me: (to Eduardo, comfortingly) what did she just say to you??

Eduardo: she just tell me that she “PTHHHHH” (makes the fart sound) in my room!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

I said to Victoria: is that why you went in his room when we came upstairs just now??

Victoria: yes! JJJ

Oh my gosh… I cracked up!!!!

Victoria could not stop laughing for the first 10 minutes of her lessons. It was so funny! I told her that I was going to have to tell aaron about this. She was still laughing but yelled “NO!!!” hahaha J

I said, “it’s ok. He’ll just think you’re the funniest 12 year old girl in spain. J”

My kids are so cool! Hahahahahahaha

I love laughing with them. Ugh! I forgot to take pictures with them again today!!! I’ll try and remember to do it before they leave for the country tomorrow. They are going for a long weekend (Monday is some saint’s holiday or something) to their “Country House” which is actually a freaking CASTLE in some town about an hour and a half north of here… I took a picture of a picture of it that is framed in my freaking bedroom. Haha J it’s ridiculous. An actual castle… seriously… yeah.

J I love these kids.

I’m going to take my laptop to the park that we’re going to tomorrow. It’s a huge, beautiful park that was only open to royalty until the 1800’s. There is a huge lake/pond thing in the middle that I think you can rent rowboats for, too! J it’s supposed to be absolutely beautiful. I am seriously hoping that they have some wifi available out there…. Anywhere would be fantastic, really. I need to upload some pictures for you guys!!! J

when you´re alone...

2008-01-23T15:27:00.000+01:00

your first time to ever see, let alone have to get to a specific place on, a metro is absolutely terrifying.

but, i did it. and i am alive to tell the tale.

the end.

I'm here... holy cow.

2008-01-21T16:48:00.000+01:00

ok. i'm in spain. i'm sitting on a park bench somewhere because i've just spent the last 3 hours looking for someplace with wifi. i found a starbucks a million miles from my bus stop and bought a drink. sat down and their internet was broken! are you kidding me???
i miss aaron and i haven't seen caitlin since she got on the flight without me and katie. i miss her.

i've decided that since i can't get on the internet at the house, i'll just blog in an open word file and then copy/paste when i get to someplace with internet... here is what i have so far.
thank you for your prayers. i love you.

~db

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

9:30pm (2:30pm Denton time)

Ok well I’m finally in Madrid! Could that have been any more stressful??

Friday: we get to the airport about 1030am and find out that the flight has filled up since the weather has been bad for Atlanta lately. Everyone and their moms were all trying to get to Atlanta. Caitlin and her mom got on the flight. Katie and I had to wait for another flight. We waited at the airport for the next 7 flights and got bumped from every single one… we had katie’s old roomie pick us up and take us back to denton to sleep for a few hours and go back to the airport at 5:15 Saturday morning.

Saturday: 515 we go the airport again and pray that we actually do get on the first flight available since they CANCELED every flight from dallas to Atlanta after noon on sat. there are a TON of people waiting to fly standby on the flight. Most of them flight attendants or pilots. All but three people on the list are above us in rank… so… we are at the bottom of the list…but we got on!!!!! Man. We just about cried!!! So happy.

We get to Atlanta around 10am their time, so our next job is to sit around and wait until our Madrid flight that didn’t leave until 655pm from Atlanta. It’s not a sure thing that it’s leaving at all, since Atlanta had a wonderful blizzard all day… perfect… so our fingers are crossed, and we are SO sick of being in airports.

We find out there is no way we won’t be able to be on the flight and we make phone calls and texts before we get on the plane bc there’s no more cell phone after we leave for Madrid! I hate that…

We get on the plane, and find out that we’re in FIRST CLASS! HOLLA!!! J it was so awesome! I never wanna ride anything but first class again! Haha. Yeah right.

The chairs are big, there is a personal tv that pops out of the arm rest of your chair, and when they serve dinner and breakfast, you get a tablecloth, real dishes, and awesome food (multiple courses! I couldn’t even have all of the courses I was so full!). oh you also get a pack of stuff that has toothbrush/paste, socks, earplugs, eye cover, lotion, chapstick… lots of stuff! So great! J

Well, we had to sit in the plane for an hour and a half before taking off because there was ice on the wings and we were 12^th in line to get de-iced…

But… after all of that… I’m in Madrid!!!

When we got to the airport and got through customs, katie’s host dad had a paper with her name on it and we found him rather quickly. That was awesome. My host mom, however, didn’t even know what I looked like and did not have a sign… I made a few rounds around the airport looking for any woman who looked like she was looking for someone…. Finally I just walked up to this lady and asked her if she was Paloma… and it was! Praise Jesus! Ugh. Stress… seriously… uncalled for. ;)

I hate not having a phone. I hate even more not having internet. I have no contact when I’m at the house… it sucks. I can’t wait to get to an internet café tomorrow. Seriously.

I hate not hearing Aaron’s ringtone. It’s silly, but that’s one of the first things that I missed… I just wish i could hear it anytime in the next three months…

I’m exhausted. Paloma (my host mom) said that I should stay up as late as I possibly can just so that I’m not super thrown off by jet lag… she had me take a nap this afternoon, so I did for about 2 hours or so. I could have slept the whole day. My eyes are about to close on their own right now. So I’m just sitting at my desk in my room with no internet, writing a blog that I will post when I next have a chance… I hope tomorrow.

The children are amazing. I’m in love with them! J

The daughter, veronica, is 12 and we hung out a lot today. Also she’s studying “religion” in school so I hope that brings a lot of opportunity for talking about Christ with her. She’s studying for an exam over the stories of Abraham and Isaac and Moses and Egypt right now. So cool.

Eduardo (a SUPER common name here in spain! I’ve already met 4 of them! Haha) is SO cute. He’s 11, and super adorable. He’s gonna be a handful, but he is SO sweet. They both are. i gave them both a book from the states, and they were SO grateful! I’m so excited that I get to hang with each of them one on one every day. We have a schedule for studying every day. It’ll be rigid, but it’s good. J

I’m meeting Katie downtown tomorrow at noon. That will be fun. My first bus ride by myself! Ah! J I don’t even have any euros… hmmm… I wonder how that’s gonna work… ha.

I’m, so far, extremely disappointed with the food. We had turkey (that thick fake looking stuff that mom used to make, lynn?) with French fries and some egg thing that was really good but I have no idea what it was. Haha just didn’t seem very healthy… I hope not everything is fried… ugh. I’m gonna get huge L and feel disgusting. Arg.

I’m seriously about to fall over I’m so tired… I think I’m going to go to bed anyways. I don’t think I’ll have a problem sleeping for 12 hours… I really don’t…

I wish Aaron was here… there are just some things that are a million times cooler when your best friend is with you…

Speaking of best friends… I miss Linds, and I hope I get to see Cait soon! I haven’t seen her since we first got to the airport on Friday!!!

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

4:47am (9:47pm Denton time)

It’s 4:30am. 9:30 where you are.

I’m wide awake and an ocean away from anything to do with you.

Except me.

And you’re everything to do with me.

~db

I definitely didn’t think that I’d have a hard time sleeping until morning… I mean real morning when people are supposed to be awake… I guess I was wrong.

The smells are different here. Also the sounds. Little sound differences. Like, for example, I’m so used to the soft background sound of the gentle blowing of central heating/air… Here, there is just this metal thing on the wall that gets hot… no blowing heat. I wonder how they do air… open the windows, I suppose? Hmm. Also there is no ceiling fan in my room. This is terrible for two reasons. Number one: the sound is another soothing sound that I have hardly ever slept without. Number two: the air is very still in here and I think that’s the biggest reason I’m not able to go back to sleep right now. I need some air blowing on me… growing up I used to have my ceiling fan plus another little fan next to my bed for the noise, but also for the air blowing at my face (I know, terrible idea for a singer’s voice, but whatev).

That’s all that’s in me right now. Maybe I’ll watch a movie or maybe an episode or two of the office? I dunno. I wish I had the internet. Bah.

Tengo hambre.

I’m hungry.

cheerios da'hling...

2008-01-17T19:00:00.000+01:00

it's been quite some time since i have eaten cereal... for a meal, at least. it's just not one of my fav's. it just doesn't fill me up, so i'm hungry again thirty minutes (15 minutes?) later...
well, i had cheerios for brunch ( i say brunch because somehow between waking, packing, unpacking, repacking, and calling my mom to tell her happy birthday, i forgot to eat anything until it was just not ok to call it breakfast anymore...).

point of this blog entry? not one, really, except to remind you of the one thing i forgot when eating cheerios... the disgustingly terrible taste of your burps for the remainder of your day when you eat cheerios for breakfast... or brunch...

over.

Parking Lot Rodeo

2008-01-16T18:05:00.000+01:00

so... i forgot to mention this yesterday, but as i type and my wrist yells at me (not really...that would freak me out...) with every key pressed, i am reminded of my awesome idea and follow through that occurred yesterday afternoon:

the setting is the Denton Campus church parking lot
the main character would be my dear friend (who will remain nameless)'s car
the supporting roles would be played by myself and my dear, nameless friend...

it's pretty simple, really... she had parked her car in the area of the parking lot where you are sure to get a ticket (and she did...) so she was simply moving her car from one corner of the parking lot, to the other... not a daunting task.
it was cold outside, and i didn't have a jacket, so instead of walking back, i dec
ide that the logical thing to do would be just to hop on the back of her car (the trunk, if you will) and hitch a ride - a very SLOW ride, since we ARE in a parking lot... i can't imaging going more than, what, five miles and hour??

bad idea.

now, i must preface this by placing all responsibility upon myself, because, number one, i am the one that jumped on the car... number two, i would have probably done the exact same thing. haha:

as she backs up out of the parking space that she's in, i think to myself, "man, this is actually really cool! just sittin, with my little dr. pepper and the awesome chocolate bar that my friend just gave me. the sun has warmed the trunk of the car, and therefore has warmed my tooshie so that i am no longer shivery...

BAM

i'm on the ground.

ouch...

as i'm sliding off the trunk, i think (split second thoughts are never the brightest), "ok, this is ok... i'll just hop down before i actually fall off. falling off would suck."

i did, however, forget this little thing called physics... an object in motion will stay in motion... yeah. you know the drill. my body was obviously traveling at a good 10 miles an hour in the direction that my back was facing... so when i hopped/slid/fell down off the trunk, even though i did land on my feet for a brief second, i proceeded to slam into the pavement before another thought besides, "oh, crap!" could run through my brain.

all that to say that i have one awesome (and i do mean awesome) bruise on my right butt cheek since that lovely gift from the Lord (natural padding to land on, right?? haha) caught the majority of my fall, and my right hand/wrist is a little more tight than it usually tends to be...

moral of the story?
even when riding on the back (or front, for that matter) of your dear nameless friend's car seems like a great idea... don't do it.
it only causes swollen butt cheeks and achy wrists just in time for you to take those lovely gifts across the ocean to your new homes...far, far away...

...i am moving to another continent in less than two days... wow...