To be honest, I haven't had too much to write about lately. All of my travel plans in October kind of fell apart. We weren't old enough to rent a car to go to Portugal. We didn't sign up early enough to go to Burgos. We weren't motivated enough to take advantage of our 3 day weekend over Halloween, so I have been in Santander ever since returning from Madrid 4 weeks ago. That doesn't mean I am staying here much longer, though.
This weekend Chloe, a good friend from high school, is coming all the way from Paris to visit. We are going to be staying in San Sebastian Friday and then will return Saturday, perhaps passing through Bilbao, to Santander. The Wednesday after I am headed off to Belgium with Alex and Josh, the land of waffles, beer, french fries and CHOCOLATE. That's right ladies, guys like their chocolate too. Two weeks after Belgium I will be going to AFRICA! Yes, I guess I will only be about 30 miles a way from Spain, but Morocco is in Africa and there are plenty of camels to be ridden. We were slightly disappointed that we didn't have time slash were too poor to do the 5 day trek through the Sahara, but a night in Tangier is almost as good, right? At least there will be an abundance of falafel. Mmm. Falafel.
And that isn't enough, Mac will be arriving about two weeks after that. Which reminds me, the past few weeks have been mainly me focusing on planning trips and studying for classes. Now, Mac and I have booked a few of our hostels and finalizing details. We have been researching attractions, but I wouldn't mind suggestions of what not to miss, be it museums, churches or food, I want to see it all. To remind you, we will be in Barcelona, Andorra, Geneva, Lyon, Paris, Marseilles, Nice, Monaco and Rome. If there is something I can't forget, even if it is obvious to you, just shout it out (through a comment I suppose).
Other than that, I guess we had Halloween here. Most Europeans it is purely an American thing, but they still do it, although in Europe, instead of slutty, everybody is scary. I'm not sure which tradition I appreciate more, but nonetheless, it was fun. We went a the Beagle Boys (google it, they are from Duck Tales I guess) which none of the Americans knew about, but this German girl was super pumped and a lot of Europeans recognized our costumes. It was a good time.
Oh, and speaking of American traditions and holidays, we order a turkey today for Thanksgiving. Yes, we ordered one. They don't have frozen whole turkeys for sale so we need it specially ordered. We went to a carnecerÃa, a butcher shop essentially, and asked for them to get a turkey from their supplier. That is actually a lie. We asked them to get two. We wanted a 7 kilo turkey, about 15 pounds, which we thought wasn't too big, but the guy said the normal turkey they got was only about 4 kilo on the big side. Being that we want to invite the Spanish kids, some roommates, and friends will be visiting from the US, we need a lot of turkey. Hopefully they are here in time.
Finally, the weather in northern Spain sucks during the winter. I wish it got cold enough to snow, I wouldn't be as wet every day. It is like a hurricane here. The winds make it impossible to use an umbrella. The rain is falling horizontally into your face, adding insult to injury as it pelts you in the eyes. It is non stop too. It has been raining two days straight, and looks like it will continue for a good week. Ugh. Oh well. This leaves me more time to study (read: watch Phineas y Ferb, which I consider studying up on my Spanish) and sleep (thank God for siestas).
Okay, so that is all for now, but there will be more following my trips!
