Jun 11:
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I love their coffee! (can you see the heart)
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Sunday night I had gone to bed early because I was still pretty tired from the weekend. We had unlimited Domino's pizza on Sunday night for 6 euro and it was awesome! I got up Monday morning and got ready for class and headed to breakfast. It's really nice because breakfast is included in our program, so that is one less thing we had to worry about. It's not a bad breakfast either. Class was pretty good today. It was one of our longer days; we had class till 5. I really like the Professor. He, his wife, and her father are really awesome! After class we returned to the dorm and I worked on the homework. We have been watching the Euro cup here, so that evening we went to a restaurant across the street to watch London vs. France. It was a pretty interesting game. I have never really watched soccer, but I enjoyed it. The atmosphere was a lot of fun too! After the game, I came back to the dorms to finish the homework. About an hour after I returned, the girls came to my room to and asked if I wanted to go get Cafe chocolate (hot chocolate) and Churos. The hot chocolate is basically melted chocolate and it's very delicious. Churos are like a oblong elephant ear with sugar sprinkled on them. You dip the churos in the hot chocolate. It's heaven for any woman! We sat and chatted for a bit, then headed back to the dorms. Shortly afterwards I headed to bed.
June 12:
Tuesday class was only till 2. Normally, we have a cultural lesson after class, but that was scheduled for Wednesday morning. It was nice getting out of class early because we had time to do other things. Unfortunately, it was raining that day, so we took the bus to old town to try a vegetarian restaurant. It was a 1st, 2nd, and dessert course place. It's really nice to eat like that at lunch because then dinner is light. The food at this restaurant was really delicious.On our walk back to the dorms, we walked through the Citadel. The Citadel is the finest example of military architecture from the Spanish Renaissance. It was a really nice walk! After lunch, we went back to the dorms to gather our laundry. We thought we would be able to do our laundry ourselves, but when we got there we weren't able to do our own. I didn't have a whole lot of laundry, so I decided not to have it done. I instead came back to the dorms and did what I need in the sink. It was like I was experience freshman year for the first time. It has been pretty cool living in a dorm because I never experienced it. It's nice to just walk down the hall and say hey to the girls!
June 13:
Wednesday's are excursion days. This week we started out on campus and had our cultural lesson. We were going to the market later, so she taught us market words. We learned some fruits, meat, and vegetables. I'm slowly learning Spanish. I'm very thankful for the girls I have become friends with who know Spanish because they have been helping me pick it up! After class, we walked to old town to experience the local market. We were given a list of items to look for as a scavenger hunt. We had to find prices on the items and record them. Not many people participated, but Abby and I did. It was
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Group Photo at Palace of Navarre
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interesting trying to figure out what things were. After the market, our cultural teacher showed us where the Palace of Navarre was, so when we had to be there later we could find it. We branched off from the rest of the group and had lunch at the vegetarian restaurant again. That is how much we enjoyed it! When we finished lunch, we headed back to the Palace for our tour. Our tour guide was a man who didn't speak any English, so it had to be translated to us. The man was pretty funny and very sweet! Every item in the Palace has a meaning. The tour guide described everything and it's story. The Palace is where the President of the Government use to have his office. They told us only important people were able to go inside that office, like people from Indiana. It was pretty funny. Unfortunately, I couldn't take pictures. After we finished our tour, we went to the Foundation Moderna. They do economic evaluation of Navarre and try to improve it.Navarre is known for it's sustainability like wind farms, crops, and other green movements. After we finished our tour, our bus took us to a nearby winery on the outskirts of Pamplona. We received a tour of the winery and learned about how the process goes. It was very interesting learning how they make their wine and seeing the machinery used. Since my family has started a vineyard, I tried to take in as much as possible. But in the short amount of time we were there, I couldn't learn enough. The harvest time for their grapes is normally late Sept. They harvest at night because the coolest temperatures help bring out the most flavor. They then put their grapes in silver bins(not sure exactly what they are called, but I think they are used to pull the juice out). The grapes sit in the silver bins for at least a year and then they are transported to barrels. The grapes then sit in the barrels at least a year normally longer.They change there barrels every four years to give the wine a better taste. Once it is taken out of the barrels it is put into bottles and sit in the bottles at least a year. They then guess when the wine is ready. Basically it's all a big guessing game! The land that the vineyard sits on is beautiful. It is surrounded by mountains! Spain in general is so beautiful! When we left the vineyard, we returned to the dorm because it was late and we had class the next day.
The girls and I at the Winery
The Winery had 1200 barrels of wine and each barrel holds about 300 bottles.. you do the math :)
June 14:
Today we had class until 2. When we were finished with class we had to take the public bus back to the dorms because our bus wasn't able to pick us up. It took about a half hour to get back to the dorms, but it would have been nearly a 40min walk. The girls and I were starving when we returned, so we went to grab lunch. After lunch everyone returned to their rooms because we were wore out from the week. We knew we would be going out for pintxos. I stayed in to catch up on my blog and photos. My internet stopped working for a bit so I was getting pretty irritated. Finally, I got it to work and I was able to update everything. Around 8:30, we went to old town for pintxos and to experience the Thursday night life. I returned just a little bit ago, so I could talk to my mom and pack for the weekend. Tomorrow morning we are headed to San Sebastian, which in on the coast, and then Saturday we are going to Bilbao, which is were the Guggenheim Museum is located. I think it will be a good weekend.
I am missing home a little more everyday. I'm sad that Sunday is Father's Day and I won't be there. It's one of the holidays that my whole family is together. I'm really enjoying Spain, but a part of me misses Indiana. I miss my family, friends, and the food! I know I have mentioned before that there are so many carbs, but honestly I just want a good home cooked meal. Eating out all the time really begins to wear on you. All I know is it's a good thing that we do so much walking or it could be bad! :) I hope you are all enjoying! Sorry I'm not posting everyday, but sometimes there isn't enough that happens in a day to post and I don't wanna wear it out.
I'll update again on Sunday!
