Better late than never!

Ugh! This week has been so long but it was definitely a fun one.

This week we had two birthday celebrations! On Tuesday my new friend Harold Howar turned 21! Of course for all due from the United States, that is a huge deal, but here in Spain, it is just another birthday so you can imagine the look on peoples faces when a bunch of Americans show up to the club turnt up and ready to go. Before we went to the club, we went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant and then did a little bar hopping scavenger hunt. So when we arrived at the club, there were a lot of people, not including me, who were pretty hyped, including the birthday boy. I was supposed to bake him a cake that night, but since they all went out to dinner I had to hold it off until Thursday. I made him a rum cake with a rum glaze on top. 

Side note: I got a Spanish buddy on Thursday night as well! Now I have someone to help me out with my Spanish!

Now the rest of the story: Saturday was another one of my new friends 21st birthdays, Andi Watkins! For her birthday we played a game called true American. For those of you who don't know who that is, it is a game that mixes history facts/American pop culture facts with drinking. Again, I was not participating in the drinking portion. It was such a blast, but, we made have burned a bridge with one of our roommates who was trying to sleep. You can imagine 20 or so drinking college age students playing a game that involves a bit of group participation and jumping on furniture...let's just say it was not the quietest game ever. But any way, that night I made her a no bake peanut butter cheese cake. The picture is below. We didn't even bother slicing it up, we all just dug in with spoons. I must say I did enjoy it quite a bit. After that they all went out to party, I stayed home and cleaned up the mess and slept.

It was quite an enjoyable week! This week the blog post may be late again as  I will be traveling so look for it Saturday, if it is not there, it will be there the next Saturday. It will be a busy weekend ;) but hey, that just means the next weeks post will be full of fun stories!

Hasta luego!

Stranded in la Manga

Another week has come to an end and I have had yet another great adventure.

You know how last week I said I started classes well, apparently that was just a continuation of the language and culture classes. This week was the start of my real classes. I am taking a history class, geography class, music class, art history class, literature class and politics class. They sound more intense than they are...at least so far anyway. All of the classes went very well but yesterday, Friday, is when the true fun stuff happened. Friday morning literally everyone in my class except for me and one other person went to travel, so there were only two of us in class. He subject was art history and mind you, it was the very first time having the class (what an impression to leave on the teacher). When the teacher arrives she gives us the option to leave and reschedule our four hour long class for another day, or have the lecture as planned, so we decided to do the lecture. It was very interesting! I didn't even realize we had been in the class for an hour ans forty five minutes until she told us to go on 20min break and meet her at the tram station. After break, we met at the tram and then walked to the museum of roman architecture. It was very informational and what's more interesting is that because there was only the two of us there, we got a personal guided tour by our professor! She is extremely knowledgable on the subjunctive and I can tell she really loves what she teaches. It is going to be such a fantastic class.

I realize that the above story has nothing to do with the title but lucky for you, I was just getting to that. Today me and my friend Margo decided that we wanted to go to the beach so, at 1:30 we walk to the bus station buy our ticket to la manga and head out at 2:00. It was so beautiful! On one side we had El Mar Menor and on the other we had the Mediterranean Sea! It was 70 degrees but windy so we didn't get in the water to spare us from freezing later on. The water is crystal clear, you can see to the very bottom; the scenery in general is just gorgeous! After we laid on the beach of the Mediterranean for about an hour and a half , her reading and me "sketching" and "writing," we grabbed our stuff and went to the restraunt across the street. We were pleasantly surprised to see that paella was on the menu! We shared the paella de pescado y mariscos. Needless to say, it was delicious! I am glad we got it to share because it was huge! I asked the waiter if he had ever seen anyone eat an entire plate by themselves, and he laughed and proceeded to tell me that they are originally for one person. If you all had seen the amount of paella that was on the serving dish, your jaw would have hit the ground! It was so much food! After we ate the waiter gave us free chupitos, sin alcohol for me, and brought us our bill. Once we paid, we walked on the beach of El Mar Menor for about thirty minutes thinking that we were going to catch the 7:00 bus back to Murcia. Wow were we wrong. After sitting at the stop for about twenty minutes, a boy about our age, asked which bus we were waiting for and he informed us that the bus did not come until 8 which means about 8:30 Spanish time. So we waited at the stop. When we got on, we had to get off in Cartagena because the bus that goes to Murcia is different than the one we were on. When we go inside to get our ticket, we see that the last bust to Murcia was at 8:45 and it was already 9:30 when we got there. We thought would just get another ticket for later, but it turns out the next bus to Murcia isn't until tomorrow at 9:30 am which is the same time as our hike that we are going on. So...we look at tickets to places that would potentially stop in Murcia on the way, and we find a ticket to Madrid but, it was 40euros! So we call the bus ticket company well try to anyway to see if the bus would for sure stop in Murcia before we bought our potentially useless ticket. Margo was on the phone with them when her phone shut off. We then proceeded to call back on my phone but mid call my phone died. What luck right? About an hour goes by of us contemplating our options which were 1. Stay in a hotel for the night and catch the next bus, 2. Buy the ticket to Madrid or albcete in hopes that they stop in Murcia, or 3. Pay for a taxi. We decided to take the taxi because at the end of the day, it was the quickest and cheapest/easiest thing to split cost wise between the two of us. We ended up spending 30euros each on the taxi, 18euros each on food, and 10euros total on bus fare. What should have been a 30euro day trip, ended up being an almost 60euro trip but were the memories worth it...absolutely, because they were priceless! 

All in all it was a pretty adventurous day with a pretty adventure filled day tomorrow as well! 

Thanks for reading I hope you all enjoyed it! There are pictures below! 

P.S. I realize now after relaying the story we didn't really get stranded, but would you have read it if it was less dramatic...didn't think so ;)

Have a great weekend!

 Hasta luego!

The Mediterranean 

Me "sketching/writing"

Margo looking cool on the beach

Paella de pescado y mariscos

El Mar Menor

Finally it's Saturday!

Buenas noches!

Well it is probably more like 3:00 your time but salutations no matter when you read this! 

This week has been so. It was my first full week of classes because; last week we didn't have class on Monday because it was a holiday. My classes are not very stressful by any means, but they are extremely long. They are from 9:30am-2:00pm with a half hour break. I know some people have longer work days than that, but that is a very tiring day for me! Everyday after class I would practice my violin, workout in either the park or my living room then shower (obviously) then try to nap. Usually I end up reading, listening to music, and or just laying in my bed. By Friday I was so exhausted! I even missed out on the international student party! Honestly though, sleep is the most important thing so I am glad that I got a good nights rest.

Besides classes this week, I also had a tour of Murcia! It was a little late considering i have been here for four weeks now, but it was still fun none the less. I went to two museums: the first one was el museo de Santa Clara. It was once a palace of the Moros and now it is a convent. The nuns are only allowed to be out and about when the museum is closed so we did not get to see them on our tour but it was beautiful!mthere are parts of the palace that have been preserved so we got to see some of the architecture. The other museum, el museo de la ciudad otherwise known as the city museum was very informative. I learned that there used to be a wall around the city and where my apartment is now, is where the wall used to be! I am literally living on a part of history! 

Today was a day of fun with some wonderful ladies I have become friends with since I have been here! Caroline, Kaia, Andi, Coral, Margo and I all went to the mall for the day and it was such a blast! I hate shopping alone so shopping with five other people with five different opinions was a blast! Way better than any party I have been or will EVER go to! 

As I mentioned, Friday was the international student party which as I also mentioned I missed, but because I got a good nights sleep last night, I can go out and party tonight!

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful Saturday evening!

Hasta luego!

Black girl in the City

Hola amigos!

Once again it is Saturday and there is another blog post from me. ¡Que Guay!

This week I want to talk about a little bit about race. Not anything heavy, just an observation between how races are seen here in Spain and in the U.S.

One day I was talking to a friend who is studyinghere about school, she is from the U.S. For us, this was our first official week of classes so I asked her how her classes were and she proceeded to tell me about her day. She talked about her professors and how cool she thought their classes were, and how she was feeling about the language difference being that her first language is English; she is really enjoying herself. Then I asked her if she had made any new friends in any of her classes, and as expected she said yes (she is very social). She started with, "I was a little nervous to talk to the people around me at first, but I had a question so I looked around to see who I would feel more comfortable asking" then she said, "this is going to sound racist, but there was a group of Mexicans..." Immediately, my attention was pulled to this statement, because to me that is not racist at all. One thing I notice in the states a lot is that when someone is asked to point someone out or describe someone, most people will say just everything about that person, their hair, clothes, shoes, way they walk, where their from etc. but leave out their race from fear of sounding racist when in fact their race would be the quickest way to identify who the person/group of people are. Some people I have spoken to previously whom I asked why they didn't just say their race to save all the trouble of trying to find "that one girl, with the pink shirt, with black shoes, standing next to the pole that is in the middle of the open space next, to the store with the pillows in the window..." you get the point, when they could have just said the "black/African American girl over there," their response is usually, " I don't see color." When I hear this, my first thought is to ask them if they are color blind, that would be a bit too sassy to say out loud. I usually come to the conclusion that they were too nervous or uncomfortable to say what race they were. I feel that it is the awkwardness of most people not willing to use someone's color as something as simple as an identifier, that makes it uncomfortable when people do use someone's race as an identifier and causes some people to think of it as racist. Here in Spain it is a different perspective.

In class, our teacher was talking about different types of stores and people in the city. At one point he said, in Spanish, but I will translate for you all...your welcome ;), "There are a lot of chinos here in the city, a lot of them work in small convenient stores." Immediately people started looking at each other with big eyes in shock that he used the word "chinos" (people from china) to describe them. He saw the discomfort from some people and felt that he had to explain himself. He said, "Here we see people's race, but we don't think any differently of them. It is because we do recognize that we all look different, that we are able to identify ourselves as the same...as people. We don't treat each other differently simply because our skin color is different. Sure we may say "la negrita (little black girl) or "el blanco" (the white guy), but we are not using it to be offensive, it is just the easiest/quickest way to identify someone, especially in a crowd." I was blown away (in a good way) by this explanation, I was also very pleased to see that there are people who think this way. It is interesting to me how in the country that is supposed to be a great melting pot where people of all races and ethnicities have freedom, is so sensitive about race, whereas a country that is seen as having not as much freedom in comparison to the United States is more accepting of race. Yes, I know there is racism everywhere and I am aware that it most likely does occur here in Spain, and it can be said that people in the states are more sensitive about race, because of slavery and the civil rights movement and other such political events, but what many people do not know, is that Spain went through the exact same phase in history. The difference I think, is that the people of Spain was able to evolve past (not just look past, as in learned something from) the times of race and racism and realize that color is not a personality trait or what makes a person who he/she is, it is just a color. Think of it this way, when a person wants to use the red crayon they don't say, "that one color next to the other one that's in the third row of the box with the writing on it." That would be madness! Color is just color and nothing more, it does not define you, you define it...unless maybe you are a crayon. 

My point is, the fact that the color/race of a person is not made into a big production here has made me feel very at home. Not that I don't feel at home in the states, it's just in the states I very much know and feel that I am a black person (no shame, I am proud of my roots) but here in Spain, I feel like a person.

Let the good times roll

Hola mis amigos!

This past week has been a blurr of good times.

On Sunday my roommate Yara, from France, invited me and my other roommate Kaia, from California, to see a free movie with her! Of course, hearing the word gratis and pelicula in the same sentence, I said ¿¡por que no!? The movie was in this really interesting bar. In the from it is a video rental/shop, the middle is the bar, and in the back there is a room with a projector to watch the movie movie of the week which was "mar dentro" or "the sea within me." It is about a man who wants to petition to commit suicide after becoming paralyzed from the neck down after diving into shallow water (the shallow end of the sea). It was a wonderful film, all in Spanish of course but there were subtitles which helped me learn some new words.

Monday was a very interesting day. After class I walked around the city with my new friend Joe, from England for a good hour and a half. It was such a good time to just walk around the city. We talked about pretty much everything you can think of. After the walk we went our separate ways. When I got to my apartment Yara once again invited me to go out with her. This time we went to this club called foster's. "A club on a Monday! What up with that!?" You are probably thinking, but it wasn't that kind of club. It was a social event. We walked in and there were tables with different languages on the top of them: Inglés, Español, Aleman (German), Frances, and Italiano. The point is to sit at the table that has the language that you want to practice speaking so naturally I went to the español table. It was such a wonderful way to meet people and practice my Spanish. I was very pleased at how many compliments I got on how well I spoke. I also met a few people: José (Toledo), Sara (France), Kevin (Philadelphia), Alexandro (Italy), and Estelle (Murcia). All in all it was a good night!

Tuesdays I have to say are my favorite. Every Tuesday for only one euro ($1.38) I have a two hour salsa lesson from 10-12am. Yes that is very late to be staying out on a school night, but the night life here is too hard to pass up! I get to dance with several devilishly handsome young men. This last Tuesday I danced with two guys Alfonso from Spain and a young man from Italy who's name escapes me at the moment but is a fabulous dancer who has requested to dance with me next Tuesday! After salsa we go to the international club called Badulake. My friends go for the free beer, but I go just to work on my freestyle dance moves (watch out Jazz III).

Wednesday was a very relaxing day. After class Kaia and I went to the grocery store and bought some chocolate (our guilty pleasure) and some bread for pb&j sandwiches (our lunch everyday). After that at 5:00 me Joe, Iris, California, and Caroline, Arkansas, worked out in the park! It was a blast and we all felt so good afterwards. When we finished that, we all walked with Caroline to the corte inglés, the only grocery store that sells American treats such as peanut butter, so she was not walking alone in the dark. It was a great cool down. Later that night we had our weekly potluck (checkin) with all the international students at Vivian's (West Virginia). I made my peppers with goat cheese which were a huge hit again.

Thursday was our last class of the week, so rather than sitting in the class, our professor decided to take us to the farmer's market. It was so fun! Churros with chocolate sauce, fresh vegetables and fruit, dried mixed fruit and nuts, and of course shoes and clothes. The main difference between the farmers market or mercado here compared to the u.s. Is there is not much artesianal sales. The clothes were all bought from a store and then re sold at the market for a lower price which was okay with me because I needed to go shopping for new clothes anyway. I definitely did not bring enough.

Friday, because we had the day off from class, I slept until 10:30 and then went for sushi with Joe and Natalia, from Poland. We were a bit skeptical because good fresh sushi is hard enough to find in the U.S. but to find it in Spain was a stretch. We found a place just 5 minutes from where we all live called sushi. It was delicious And it was a good price. After that we went to Smöoy. Smöoy is this fantastic real frozen yogurt place! Honestly, if I didn't have any self control, I would eat there everyday. Then we walked The Gran Via which is equivalent to the miracle mile in Chicago. Good thing I don't have tons of money otherwise I would be there everyday too! Then at about 5 Joe and I did an ab workout in some random grass, which is very hard to find in the city, that we found across from hotel. We got stared at by plenty of people because apparently the only workouts people do out side here is run or walk or bike, otherwise they go to the gym.

Now today is Saturday it is only noon so not much has happened. I tried this new, new to me, pasteleria around the corner. It was good,but not as good as the others I have been to. Next I am off to get some more clothes so I don't boil to death when the warm weather hits or freeze to death while it Is still cold. Okay it has only been in the mid 40s here but that is still pretty cold and my leather jackets and my pink trench coat are not sufficient enough.

I definitely hope the good times keep on rolling!

Hasta luego

My new sweater!

So Far So Great!

Hola amigos!

Welcome to this Fridays blog post! This one will be a bit shorter but still interesting I hope. This was my second week here and my first week of my Spanish intensive course. The course is pretty similar to the Spanish classes I have taken at Millikin or in high school, but rather than only being in class for 50 min then getting out and speaking in English, the class never ends...and I love it! Everyday here is like a class because I learn something new everyday! Sorry, I had to ramble a bit there, I just got really excited! 

The topic of this blog is culture shock. "What is that?" You may have asked, but luckily you have me here to tell you. Culture shock is something that most all travelers experience. It is when you are in a new place and are literally shocked by the culture differences between where you live and where you are visiting. A lot of people may think they have never experienced this, but the signs can be very subtle. I had a bit of a culture shock myself when I first got here, and I am not talking about the plane situations that I mentioned in my second blog post. I had a severe loss of appetite, and had a deep disorientation. I also felt a bit lonely my first couple of days, and even the language barrier had me a bit nervous too. Some symptoms of culture shock that others may experience are excessive eating, extreme dislike of where they are visiting, never leave the house/apartment/hotel, and have an overall negative attitude about their whole experience.

Although these symptoms can be a bit intimidating, there are ways that you can overcome or even avoid culture shock! 

 Have knowledge about the culture: One thing you can do before you even go on a trip, is read up on or get informed about the culture before you arrive. For instance I was not freightened by my first European kisses because I was told about them ahead of time. 

Be open minded: Another thing, is to be open minded. Of course, when you go somewhere outside of your home town/country, there will be customs or everyday things that are different from home. If you are open minded, you may find that you like the customs and cultural differences of the place you are visiting more than your hometown. Example: I like the fact that everyone greets with kisses, even when it is the first time meeting. To me it says, "I don't know you, but we are equals, and I would not mind getting to know you better," rather than a hand shake that say, "I don't know you so I am going to keep my distance until I know your whole life story."

Immerse yourself into the culture:  Something that I found helpful was just diving right into the culture. Of course it was scary and yes I made mistakes, but that is how you learn. My first full day, although I was tired, most likely from jet lag, I got up at 9am, the work day starts at 10am here, and got myself ready for the day. Breakfast is least important here so I didn't eat it. When I arrived at my apartment at about 3pm it was lunch time so I ate a tiny snack. The hardest part was waiting for dinner because here, dinner is not until 9 or 10pm! That is still taking some getting used to. The next day, while my French roommates were in classes, me and my roommate from California walked around the city to get oriented to exactly where we are and what's around us. We even spoke in Spanish the whole time to practice and help each other with things we did not previously know.

Some other fun things I have done since I have been here are: I cooked dinner for my roommates, walked around and found something I wasn't looking for, a pastelería, (aka I got lost and stumbled upon it lol), had a potluck dinner with the other international students (we all spoke in Spanish the whole time), and I, yes me Toni Pennington, went out to an international club and danced and had fun until 5am the next morning (I went with my roommates and some friends from the program)!

I am having so much fun here! I love everything about Spain, the culture, the people...there is nothing right now that I can say that I dislike, except maybe the fact that dinner is at 9/10 but I am confident that I will adjust to that very soon!

Have a funtastic weekend everyone! 

¡Hasta luego!

Sautéed red peppers with goat cheese and spices! ( yes, I made that)

Caramelized onion tart (yes, I made that too)

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Hola!

Finally it is Friday, the day that everyone looks forward. Not because it is the end of a long week, but because you all are so excited to read my blog...jk but I thank you for taking time out of your Friday, or what ever day you decide, to read my first post from Spain.

**WARNING: Because this was my first week, this is probably (hopefully) going to be the longest post so I will bold the parts I think you should read and the headings so you can get the gist of it.**

Although i have titled this blog The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, I feel I should start with the ugly and end with the good (who wants to end on a bad note?).

The Ugly:
When most people travel by plane, they probably think that when the ticket says they are going to land one place, that is where they are going to land. Furthermore, I do not think that people think about what they are going to do if they in fact land in a different place than they were expecting. If you do that, you are one step ahead of where I was when I boarded the plane to Alicante. Long story short, because of heavy cloud coverage my flight that was supposed to land in Alicante landed in Valencia. I was already nervous about going to Spain by myself. The original plan was that I was supposed to land in Alicnate, be picked up my a cab driver named Paco, driven to Murcia and get to my apartment by 9:00pm where my landlady would be waiting for me. However that is not what happened. Because we had to land in Valencia I had to wait two hours for a bus to Alicante that is two hours away, with all my luggage, then take a 45 minute taxi ride to my apartment in Murcia. BUT...because it was then around 3:00am my landlady was not waiting for me any longer and when I went to open my door it was locked with no hope of unlocking it so I got back in the cab and went to a nearby hotel. You better believe when I got into my hotel room I cried from being so nervous about being in a foreign country by myself and having to figure all this out on my own. At least I was alive right!?
*My Advice: Never follow a pre-made plan, without making a back-up plan of your own. Furthermore, Freak out after you have gotten through the hard stuff; focus on what needs to happen to get you where you need to go.*

The Bad:
Obviously, or maybe not so obviously for some (not judgement), it is impossible to take one flight from Charlotte, NC to Murcia, Spain; I had a few layovers here and there. I had a six hour layover in Minnesota and another six hour layover in Amsterdam. Nothing really happened in the layovers that made them bad, but they were a little bit boring. Of course I had my iPad and my cell phone but those can only be entertaining for so long. Luckily, when I got on the plane there was plenty to do like sleep, or watch movies, or even watch people watch movies; that was all fun but the in between not so much. I would have explored, but I am not a fan of exploring on my own. Although there were things to do on the plane, sometimes the people were not so fun. On the flight from Amsterdam 1. everyone including the flight attendants spoke some sort of dutch or German that I just flat out do not know, and 2. there were these three ladies who just would not stop pushing everyone around and getting frustrated with me when they would be trying to tell me things but obviously I did not understand so they would get visually frustrated with me and just push me around even more. I couldn't even tell them to stop properly because of our language barrier.
*My Advice: Always bring something to during during your layovers, and don't let other passengers get you down (or push you down)*

The Good:
Obviously, or maybe not I don't know, there can not be some bad without some good in between. 1. During the Ugly, when I was pacing the airport waiting to board the bus with my eyes huge and watery from holding back tears of frustration, the man who sat next to me on the plane noticed my distress and let me board the bus as his plus one so I would not get left behind or overlooked if the buses filled up (I didn't even get his name...but he gave me my first European Cheek Kisses). 2. When I got on the bus the man who sat next to me on the plane let me use his phone knowing that I had to call internationally to my parents with no hesitation once so ever and when I started to crack a bit he he said in his best English, "take it easy, we will be in Alicante soon" (which I appreciated more than he probably knows). 3. When I was on the phone with my dad, he knew I was nervous about my situation, so he encouraged me to stay strong and not to cry until I got to where I needed to go because tears would only make the situation worse (so true). 4. I was able to facetime with my family once I got into my hotel (more like cry to them but eventually we had a conversation). 5. Even though she knew I was really tired Carmen Aravena of Millikin, called to make sure that I was safe and sound for the night. 6. The cab driver only charged me for the ride from the airport to the apartment and drove me to the hotel for free and 7. When I got to my apartment, I was just in time for lunch and my roommates welcomed me with European Cheek Kisses and welcomes.
*My Advice: Always keep in mind that there are good people out there who will help you and remember that you have a support system and never be too overcome with emotion to reach out to them and ask for help and support (that is what they are there for).

Sorry this one was so long, but as I said, a lot has happened in this week. I didn't even get to say what I have been up after all of that went down! Oh well, if you really want to know, I guess you are going to have to wait until the next blog ;)

Abiento...oh wait that's French...Hasta Luego!