Three weeks in...

Hi! Ok, well...I know that I am really bad at blogging. For lent, I am giving up Nutella and swearing and attempting to write in here more regularly. So we'll see how that goes. So anyway -- I've been here for a little over 3 weeks and so far everything is really fantastic. It's absoutely beautiful here -- the scenery alone is worth the trip. Last weekend, Annie, Cara, Megan and I went to Barcelona and I think the word for the trip was "stressful". We ended up flying into the wrong airport, had to find a train into Barcelona and basically it was just more travel time than we had originally bargained for. But no pasa nada, it was still a great trip and we got to see a lot of amazing stuff on Saturday - the Gaudi park (Park Guell), Sagrada Familia, La Catedral, and basically we just walked the entire city of Barcelona - which - by the way - is huuuuge. Way bigger than Palma. So we got to see a lot of random stuff as well. Our hostel wasn't bad either, for 20 Euro a night per person it was 2 big rooms with 4 tiny little cots and a really nice bathroom. Well, the cots sucked. I mean they were really terrible - but the location was great and it's a hostel so you get what you pay for! So overall Barcelona was really cool, but I have to say that I was relieved and very happy to come back to Palma where I at least have some idea of how to get where I want to go. And also, although the architecture in Barcelona is better (the whole city was basically inspired by Gaudi), the mountains and ocean here in Palma are prettier. I love my island. :)

My class schedule isn't bad at all either, once it gets to be beach weather I will have plenty of opportunity to go after or between classes, since I mostly get all my classes over with in the mornings. However my tuesdays suck and I am at UIB from 9am to 8pm. ugh. It's kind of a pain sometimes (Bc I take the metro to school) that the university is 30-45 minutes of travel time away from where I leave because if you have a 4 hour break like I do, you can't go home in between or whatnot. So the other day I basically worked out for 3 hours at the UIB gym because I had nothing else to do and all my friends were in class! haha oh well. Usually I hate to run (I think all of you know this about me) but I don't mind it here because the scenery is so pretty. When I run at UIB, I have the mountains to look at and when I run near my apartment building - i run on the beach. It's so great.

So basically my daily schedule is more or less this :

7:30...ok more like 8, but I should be walking up at 7:30 haha: wake up to my stupid alarm, or to Maria knocking on my door telling me that she just squeezed me some orange juice and that if I let it sit too long all the vitamins will disappear.

8:30... Sprint for 10 minutes to catch metro. Miss metro by 30 seconds. Watch metro pull away. Swear a lot.

8:45... Catch the next metro.

9:10...get to class 10 minutes late, but realize that not even the professor is there yet. (only my UIB class though. Tamara is always on time for my CIEE classes, so I have to be too. ha!)

11:30...bocadillo, work out, do some reading, etc.

2:00 ...either more class or miss/catch the metro home.

5:00....either cafe con leche with the girls, nap, run on the beach, etc.

9:00....dinner!

between 9:00 and midnight....skype with Brian and mom, maybe get some copas de vino with friends, or go out to Paseo Maritimo or wherever with Erasmus kids. (Erasmus is the other foreign exchange program - but most of them are from elsewhere in Europe. Currently we have a lot of German friends).

so...yeah! that's about it! i eat a lot , haha. and maria is continually telling me to "come mas!" (eat more!) but I also walk everywhere so my jeans are a little loose these days.

sooo what else is new...um, well my grandparents finally got skype! so I've skyped with my gramma twice this week, which is awesome, and gramma if you're reading this.."Hola Chica!"

I don't know what I'd do without skype, let me tell you it is so nice to be able to talk to brian just about every day...and he gets here in 2 weeeks!!!! ahhhh, the 14 of march. I am so excited. Today we found a hotel we like, for when he gets here. haha it has to be a hotel because in all hostels , the beds are way too tiny and there's no way all 6'4" of him would fit into they tiny cots we slept in in Barcelona. and they're all like that. So, it's a little more expensive for a hotel, but not much - and its worth it to have a decent bed I think and a private bathroom. So today, a couple of hours ago, I was skyping with Brian and at the same time googling hotels and telling Maria (my host mom) the hotels that we liked and so what happened was that Brian would lookin Frommers or google, tell me what he liked, i googled it myself, found the phone number, told maria the #, and then she would call the hotel, and ask for prices and what the bed situation would be for Brian, and then I would skype to brian about what she said. kind of a process. But it all worked out and I think we have a pretty nice hotel -- it's 2 stars here (which is like 3 or 4 stars in the states) and the communal areas are really nice with very simple rooms so it's kind of the best of both worlds bc it's cute -- but relatively inexpensive. This is the link for it in English, if you want to look at it.

http://www.theothermallorca.com/accommodation/born.htm#rooms

I'm going to go look at it in person tomorrow and see if it is what we want, but it looks nice! and it's a really good location.

We had a cooking class tonight with Annie's host mom - who is a professional chef. We learned how to make tortilla espanol, coca de trampo, and a kind of almond cookie that I ate like 7 of. so good.

hmm what else, well it is my mom's birthday today! she's 29. so happy birthday again mom! :)

Tomorrow we are going (with CIEE group) to Valldemosa, so that should be cool. Lots of walking and looking I think. I'll put up pictures when I get a chance! Sometimes it takes forever because my internet connection is never good for very long. That's all for now! I'll try to write again sooner than later. :)