The Month of November....

Oh my goodness everyone... I know I have not been in a very long time and I just want to say that I am so sorry for this. November has proven to be crazier than ever... and I haven't even traveled! Right now, I will tell you that I have been very busy with choir and studying and maintaining a social life in Alcalá. Let me take some time to update you with some things that have happened to me this month!

This month has been all about choir. I have so much respect for almost everyone in the choir. Their dedication and rich tradition was proven during the choir's thirtieth anniversary weekend. That weekend was a whirlwind for me because we literally had about thirty hours of choir concerts and rehearsals all wrapped up in one weekend! We got a lot of free food out of the deal so of course I was content. My favorite meal would definitely have to be the breakfast we had of pan frito (fried bread) with hot chocolate! Yum! We performed about three concerts that Friday and then we were loaded up with eight hours of rehearsal all Saturday. Normally, we have about thirty to forty people in the choir on an average practice or concert. With the alumni coming back for the weekend, our choir nearly tripled. It was incredible and you could see the rich history of thirty years that the choir had when everybody sang for our grand concert on Sunday. I felt like such a huge part of the family and loved by all of my friends I have made through this organization whether old or young, it has just been a great way for me to make my time in Alcalá so much more enjoyable. We also last weekend had a concert in Madrid and we sang with two other choirs from different areas of Spain. Personally I thought we were the best and most diverse choir, but I am pretty biased. My favorite part after concerts, as I have told many of you is the fact that we always get together and share appetizers. It allows me to get to know the people in choir more. Right now in rehearsals, we are preparing for our Christmas concert series and busily learning Spanish Christmas carols. Needless to say, I love choir!

In terms of regular life and school, things have been picking up as well. My school life has maintained a pretty regular stream of normalcy and I am usually trying to study a lot on the weekends to improve my Spanish or for my classes. We are nearing finals time for three of my classes which will take place during the midway point of December right before Christmas. My other final I will take after break with many of the other foreigners who are studying at the actual university during the month of February. That is how the university testing system works around here. My parents are coming in the end of December so I am also very excited for their visit and them meeting my host family and all of the traveling we are going to do! My social life is good. I am meeting tons of people who I really care about and fortunately two of those people I will be going back to Madison with. Hannah and Maggie two girls in my program also go to Madison and they are two of my closest friends here and I am so fortunate that we can continue our adventures in the States.

Next weekend, we have a very long break due to many festivals of the Saints that they have here. We have from Thursday til Tuesday off and I plan to be very active in Madrid! Sorry it has taken me so long to write but I will make sure that long of a break doesn't happen again! Miss you all and I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Extremaduras and Halloween Weekend!

Hi Guys! I am so sorry that it has taken me so long to update... but it has been a crazy past week and a half. Let me start with Extremaduras... I would say that this trip was not one of my favorites mainly because I got really sick during it. I guess you all know that being sick kind of puts a sad cover over whatever you are doing. I loved our hotel... each room was themed with a different color and our room was the pink room and it had little pink chairs and pink sheets! We also visited a Roman amphitheater and a coliseum. These structures are impeccably well-kept and beautiful and it was cool to just be sitting in there and looking around at all the architecture. I also liked seeing the acqueduct that was HUGE and still just as magnificent as ever. My friend Hannah commented on how amazing it is that something so monumental and beautiful could have been made so long ago with almost nothing. It does make you think about how amazing people are! Unfortunately, my camera died that weekend so I barely have any pictures.

I am starting to fall in love with Alcalá especially after Halloween weekend. I mentioned in an earlier post that I am part of the choir here and we had our big Halloween concert with a choir from Berlin on Friday. Then we had a big choir party afterwards where everyone brought food and wine and there was a lot of merriment! There was a huge party and then we would have singing battles against the Berlin choir (I would definetely say that our choir has more fun..) Then the other Spanish kids asked us to go out with them. I was also able to go out with both the adult and younger group of kids just because it is more of a culture norm here to be able to go out with your adult figures! It was so fun getting to know everyone better and I am finally starting to make better friends with the choir members and feel a part of it! On Halloween, I went out with my friend Molly and we wandered around the city to three different bars. One bar that we went to was really interesting because before you entered there were people who wore a lot of make-up and acted like prisoners and they would come up and talk to you and act very scary. It took about five minutes before Molly could get me to go through that! I hate scary things! But the best part of that night was when we met some random Spanish girls in the bathroom and we talked with them for about a half an hour about our lives and our time in Spain... they were so nice! I love this town!