4-11
Hi everyone! I just got back from spring break and I have so much to tell!! I think I’ll divide it up into separate blogs by city to make it more manageable. So I’ll start with last Friday.
Jen and I caught a plane from Madrid to Budapest in the evening. The plane was delayed an hour, and then the gate was changed without an announcement or anything, so we didn’t even realize it at first. We started getting confused when the tv screen that had previously said Budapest said another city, so we went to the information desk to ask and she said that it was at another gate. It was really stupid. How would we have known? They should have at least made an announcement. But it turned out ok. So we flew in a purple and pink plane (that amused me vastly) to Budapest and arrived after 1 am. The metro was closed, so we decided to walk to the hostel rather than pay for a taxi. It was interesting to walk through a strange city at almost 2 in the morning. It’s a side of Budapest we wouldn’t have seen otherwise. When we got there, we collapsed into bed without even changing. In the morning, we first had to exchange our money, since they don’t use the euro in Hungary. They use the forint, and there are about 280 forints to a euro. I exchanged 50 euros and walked out of the store with more than 14,000 forints! I felt like I should be nervous carrying that much money around! It was really confusing, because we never knew how much something cost. I spent a lot of time with my phone’s calculator that day.
We decided to take a Hop On-Hop Off tour. For those of you who don’t know, you get a 24 hr pass to get on this tour bus that stops at various points around the city, and you can get off whenever you want to explore something and then hop back on when it comes around again in 20 minute intervals. It was very nice because not only did we get the chance to see a lot of the important sights in Budapest, we also got easy transportation around the city. We saw St. Stephen’s Basilica, which I think is the most marble-encrusted church I’ve ever seen. It’s all reddish-pinkish marble inside, and really beautiful. We also saw the Opera House, which was exciting for me. There was a statue of Liszt on the outside, along with lots of other Hungarian composers like Bartok and Kodaly. There were also various monuments to these composers around the city. We also saw the academy of music where they studied. That was just the beginning of a music major’s dream trip! J I would have liked to go inside the opera house, but we didn’t have enough time. I think Jen thought I was weird cuz I was nerding out with all my music knowledge (here and in Vienna), but I just studied all these people in my music history classes and it was very exciting to see everything in real life. We also saw the Synagogue, which was a gorgeous building with two tall towers and lots of arches. We couldn’t go in that either, though, because it was Saturday and closed for the Sabbath. One of my favorite buildings was the Vajdahunyad Castle (yeah, we had fun trying to pronounce all this Hungarian!), which looked straight out of a fairy tale! It had towers and spires and a moat, and inside there was a little park and a church and the museum of agriculture. It was the cutest little castle! We walked by it again that night and it was all lit up and so beautiful! Right next to it was the city park, with a big zoo and the Szechenyi Spa, which is a Roman bath. But more on that later. Another of my favorite things was the Fishermen’s Bastion, which is a sort of wall that overlooks the city with little towers and crenulations and spires and stuff. It was really pretty.
Our tour came with a booklet of coupons, one of which was a free boat tour on the Danube! So we decided to take full advantage of that! It was a beautiful day, and it was lovely to be out on the water. Most of the important buildings in Budapest are on the river, so we got to see them from the street side and the river side. One of the most stunning buildings in Budapest is the Parliament building, which is just off the river. I never thought of government buildings being this ornate, but it was beautiful. It had tons of spires and arched windows, and a dome. I would have thought it was a palace.
The thing Jeanette wanted to do most was to swim in one of the Roman baths. We had a 20% off coupon in our booklet, so we went to the Szechenyi bath. It was nothing like what I expected. For one thing, the building was bright yellow! It was like a big courtyard with changing rooms and stuff in the walls and three outside pools: one for laps, and two thermal pools, one warm and the other hot. Both of the thermal pools had jets in various places in the walls and floors. There were roman fountains spraying water into the pools, and pillars all the way around the courtyard. I can’t imagine that it could have all been original Roman stuff. It looked too new. And they wouldn’t have let people play around stuff that old and priceless. It must be copies, or a roman themed pool using the same thermal waters as the Romans. But it looked cool. It was so relaxing to sit in the warm water being massaged by a jet after a day of walking around the city. I could use another bath right now! The only downside was getting out into the open air soaking wet. It’s only the beginning of April, after all, and it was quite chilly!
We were going to go the bus station sometime during the day to see what time the bus to Vienna left and to buy our tickets, but we ran out of time. So in the evening we still didn’t know when we would be able to leave, or even where the bus station was. I was getting pretty nervous about that. We got up at 6 the next morning to make sure we would have time to get everything figured out and still get an early bus. Turned out that there was a bus at 7, which we didn’t have time to get to, and the next one wasn’t until 11. So we had lots of free time. I wish we could have gotten an earlier bus so we could have gotten into Vienna earlier, but that’s all right. It was nice, because the bus station was having a special: 50% off bus tickets for youth! So my bus ticket was less than 20 euros! (I don’t know exactly how much since I paid in forints . . . .) It was a 3 hour drive to Vienna through pretty, though unexceptional, countryside. I read for a while, and slept. It had been an early morning, after all.
More about Vienna in the next post!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
March 30
3-30
What a weekend! I guess I really haven’t done all that much, but I feel like I’ve been quite productive. I saw a musical, visited a convent and fulfilled a life-long dream; I think that’s enough for one weekend!
Thursday night after class a few other girls and I went to see Grease. It was so much fun! We all know the music and the story backwards and forwards in English, and it was cool to hear it all in Spanish. I wasn’t sure the entire thing would be in Spanish, since in movies sometimes they dub over the dialogue but leave the songs in English, but everything was translated. It was quite funny to see the Spaniards’ interpretation of American teenagers in the 50s! It was quite different from a play in the States, too. There was a lot more audience involvement, with things like ‘if you think Frenchie should go back to high school, scream’ and stuff like that. The audience was also really into the music; they were swaying and doing the Greased Lightning arm movements, and I’m pretty sure some people were singing along at times, although it wasn’t so loud that it was distracting. It was a really fun night!
Friday morning I went to the Monasterio de la Encarnación. It was a 45 minute guided tour, all in Spanish, but I got most of it. There were a lot of paintings and frescoes, and of course the usual opulence of silver and gold in the sanctuary. There was also a room of relics, where there were bones or pieces of bones from I don’t know how many saints. All four walls were covered with glass cases that displayed them. There were even several with skulls. It was a little unnerving. And once again, I wonder: how do you go about getting the skull of a saint? This particular monastery is famous for its dried blood of St. Pantaleon, which mysteriously liquefies every year on July 27, the anniversary of his death. I strongly suspect there’s a duplicate vial somewhere in the monastery that gets filled with red water and stuck in the cabinet. I actually had a dream last night about that, involving a secret passageway behind the wall where someone could replace the vial without anyone seeing. Strangely enough, it was my uncle Tim who was the one sneaking back there to replace it. I have absolutely no idea where that came from.
Friday night I had choir rehearsal, and I still hadn’t received an email with the information about the concert on Sunday. I asked Nuria (the director) when the concert was, but instead of just telling me, she called over another person in charge of the emails and had me talk to him. So I gave him my email and hoped that he would send it before Sunday. Also, we had a rehearsal on Saturday that I wouldn’t have known about if she hadn’t mentioned it at the last minute. And I still didn’t know the time of the concert or of the rehearsal right before it, or what we had to wear. So I went home quite anxious and upset that night. I hate not knowing important things!
I still hadn’t received the email by the time I had to leave for rehearsal on Saturday afternoon. I was hoping it was at the campus, but I had printed out directions to the cathedral in case I got to the school and no one was there. I got there a bit early and asked one of my friends and she told me what I needed to know. So that eased my mind quite a bit. They did tell us at the end of rehearsal, so I would have known anyway.
Sunday I was going to go to the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, but by the time I got there all the tours were full, so I couldn’t get in. So I just went to the Corte Ingles instead and picked up a gift for a certain someone. Then I did some homework and headed over to the cathedral. I have always wanted to sing in a European cathedral, and now that I knew what I was supposed to do, I was excited! It had probably a 3 second echo, which sounds awesome, but let me tell you, it sure makes singing a lot more complicated!! We had 2 hours of rehearsal before the concert in which we smoothed over most of the problems, and then had an hour free time before it started. The first guy I gave my email to last week asked me if I had received his email. I don’t know if he sent it Saturday after I checked or if I just didn’t get it. I didn’t check my email on Sunday. But I would have thought he would send it a little earlier than that!! (I hate not having internet at home!)
The actual concert went very well, for the most part. We sang two pieces by Handel: Dixit Dominus and the Coronation Anthem. We sang with a small orchestra, harpsichord, organ, trumpets, recorders, and timpani. There were also five soloists who sang on various pieces. It was a surprise when all those instrumentalists showed up at rehearsal on Friday, but I was really glad we weren’t just going to sing with the organ! Singing with an orchestra just adds a whole new dimension to the music. There were a few parts during the concert where we started speeding up and had to watch Nuria very carefully. There was only one part where the sopranos totally fell apart. I’m not sure if we had gotten ahead or behind, but it sounded very strange for a few bars. But we got back on before too long. The audience seemed to really enjoy everything. They started out clapping in between movements of the Dixit (have I mentioned how much I hate it when people do that? Apparently Nuria hates it too, because she made a face every time) but then they realized that they shouldn’t. But then they did again after a few movements. I don’t really understand why they suddenly started clapping again, but whatever. They were good on the Coronation Anthem. And we got a standing ovation at the end of the concert, which is always nice. Jeanette came to see it and support me. That was very nice of her. I’m glad she came. A couple of the other girls had talked about coming, but she was the only one who showed up. I was happy to see a familiar face in the audience.
So that was my weekend! Now I’ve got 4 days of school before I’m off to Hungary! I can’t believe spring break is almost here. I’m really looking forward to it, but I’ll be so relieved when it’s over. I’ll be traveling alone for 4 days, and it’s a constant worry at the back of my mind. I’m sure it’ll be fine, but it’s still there, nagging. But at the same time, I get to see Salzburg, and Milan in addition to Budapest and Vienna, which I wouldn’t have been able to do if I stayed with Jen, and that’s going to more than make up for any uneasiness in traveling!
Well, I’m off to school. Bye!
Bethany
What a weekend! I guess I really haven’t done all that much, but I feel like I’ve been quite productive. I saw a musical, visited a convent and fulfilled a life-long dream; I think that’s enough for one weekend!
Thursday night after class a few other girls and I went to see Grease. It was so much fun! We all know the music and the story backwards and forwards in English, and it was cool to hear it all in Spanish. I wasn’t sure the entire thing would be in Spanish, since in movies sometimes they dub over the dialogue but leave the songs in English, but everything was translated. It was quite funny to see the Spaniards’ interpretation of American teenagers in the 50s! It was quite different from a play in the States, too. There was a lot more audience involvement, with things like ‘if you think Frenchie should go back to high school, scream’ and stuff like that. The audience was also really into the music; they were swaying and doing the Greased Lightning arm movements, and I’m pretty sure some people were singing along at times, although it wasn’t so loud that it was distracting. It was a really fun night!
Friday morning I went to the Monasterio de la Encarnación. It was a 45 minute guided tour, all in Spanish, but I got most of it. There were a lot of paintings and frescoes, and of course the usual opulence of silver and gold in the sanctuary. There was also a room of relics, where there were bones or pieces of bones from I don’t know how many saints. All four walls were covered with glass cases that displayed them. There were even several with skulls. It was a little unnerving. And once again, I wonder: how do you go about getting the skull of a saint? This particular monastery is famous for its dried blood of St. Pantaleon, which mysteriously liquefies every year on July 27, the anniversary of his death. I strongly suspect there’s a duplicate vial somewhere in the monastery that gets filled with red water and stuck in the cabinet. I actually had a dream last night about that, involving a secret passageway behind the wall where someone could replace the vial without anyone seeing. Strangely enough, it was my uncle Tim who was the one sneaking back there to replace it. I have absolutely no idea where that came from.
Friday night I had choir rehearsal, and I still hadn’t received an email with the information about the concert on Sunday. I asked Nuria (the director) when the concert was, but instead of just telling me, she called over another person in charge of the emails and had me talk to him. So I gave him my email and hoped that he would send it before Sunday. Also, we had a rehearsal on Saturday that I wouldn’t have known about if she hadn’t mentioned it at the last minute. And I still didn’t know the time of the concert or of the rehearsal right before it, or what we had to wear. So I went home quite anxious and upset that night. I hate not knowing important things!
I still hadn’t received the email by the time I had to leave for rehearsal on Saturday afternoon. I was hoping it was at the campus, but I had printed out directions to the cathedral in case I got to the school and no one was there. I got there a bit early and asked one of my friends and she told me what I needed to know. So that eased my mind quite a bit. They did tell us at the end of rehearsal, so I would have known anyway.
Sunday I was going to go to the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, but by the time I got there all the tours were full, so I couldn’t get in. So I just went to the Corte Ingles instead and picked up a gift for a certain someone. Then I did some homework and headed over to the cathedral. I have always wanted to sing in a European cathedral, and now that I knew what I was supposed to do, I was excited! It had probably a 3 second echo, which sounds awesome, but let me tell you, it sure makes singing a lot more complicated!! We had 2 hours of rehearsal before the concert in which we smoothed over most of the problems, and then had an hour free time before it started. The first guy I gave my email to last week asked me if I had received his email. I don’t know if he sent it Saturday after I checked or if I just didn’t get it. I didn’t check my email on Sunday. But I would have thought he would send it a little earlier than that!! (I hate not having internet at home!)
The actual concert went very well, for the most part. We sang two pieces by Handel: Dixit Dominus and the Coronation Anthem. We sang with a small orchestra, harpsichord, organ, trumpets, recorders, and timpani. There were also five soloists who sang on various pieces. It was a surprise when all those instrumentalists showed up at rehearsal on Friday, but I was really glad we weren’t just going to sing with the organ! Singing with an orchestra just adds a whole new dimension to the music. There were a few parts during the concert where we started speeding up and had to watch Nuria very carefully. There was only one part where the sopranos totally fell apart. I’m not sure if we had gotten ahead or behind, but it sounded very strange for a few bars. But we got back on before too long. The audience seemed to really enjoy everything. They started out clapping in between movements of the Dixit (have I mentioned how much I hate it when people do that? Apparently Nuria hates it too, because she made a face every time) but then they realized that they shouldn’t. But then they did again after a few movements. I don’t really understand why they suddenly started clapping again, but whatever. They were good on the Coronation Anthem. And we got a standing ovation at the end of the concert, which is always nice. Jeanette came to see it and support me. That was very nice of her. I’m glad she came. A couple of the other girls had talked about coming, but she was the only one who showed up. I was happy to see a familiar face in the audience.
So that was my weekend! Now I’ve got 4 days of school before I’m off to Hungary! I can’t believe spring break is almost here. I’m really looking forward to it, but I’ll be so relieved when it’s over. I’ll be traveling alone for 4 days, and it’s a constant worry at the back of my mind. I’m sure it’ll be fine, but it’s still there, nagging. But at the same time, I get to see Salzburg, and Milan in addition to Budapest and Vienna, which I wouldn’t have been able to do if I stayed with Jen, and that’s going to more than make up for any uneasiness in traveling!
Well, I’m off to school. Bye!
Bethany
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
March 24
Hola todos
Today is March 24th, and we all know what that means. Well, maybe you don´t, so I´ll tell you anyway. Today is the 2 month mark from when I arrived in Madrid. It seems like I just wrote a blog exclaiming over how quickly one month had gone by, and now I´m already here again at two months. I think this second month has been a lot less eventful, with more school and less traveling. But it sure has flown by! I think the routine of school has probably had a hand in that. Time seems to mush together when it´s all the same thing day after day. Luckily there are plenty of weekends to have crazy adventures! :) I´m looking ahead in the calendar and realizing that I don´t even have two months of school left! I´m past the halfway point of Madrid (but not of Europe!), and I feel like I just got here! Well, in some ways. In other ways it feels like I´ve been gone for ages. This next month will be fun, because it includes spring break (Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, and Milan) and Easter, for which I´m hoping to find a mass to go to. I don´t think there are protestant churches in Madrid. At least, not that I´ve found. But it should be cool to see a Spanish Easter service. I don´t know if Manuel and Rosaura will go to church, but if they do I´ll see if I can tag along. It will be weird not to be with my family for Easter. That´s never happened before. And I bet there are no Easter baskets in Spain! Sad! Oh well. I´m getting ahead of myself. It´s still March, and I have plenty of time before then.
Speaking of looking ahead, I got my scheduling information for next semester and, as always, its an absolute disaster. There is only one Spanish class offered that I haven´t taken, and it conflicts with a music class that I absolutely have to take in order to graduate, that won´t be offered again for four semesters. So I don´t know if I´m going to be able to take any Spanish classes next semester, which seems to bode ill for my Spanish major. I don´t need any more credits for that one, and I could take two classes next semester to get all the requirements in, but I feel like I don´t want to skip a semester of Spanish, especially right after I get back from Spain. And if I don´t take it, I´ll be taking exclusively music classes. Now, there´s nothing really wrong with that, but I´m not sure how many classes outside of my major I´m supposed to have, so I´m a little wary about that. There is one class in particular, a theatre class on costumen construction and design, that I really really want to take, but it conflicts with not one, but two of my other classes. It´s a MTW class, and I have a class on MWF and another on TR at that same time. Go figure. And I´m most likely going to be jumping into a Conducting II class even though I haven´t taken conducting I (which is offered this semester, of course. I talked with the prof and she thinks I could probably learn enough on my own over the summer to not be completely lost), but I really want to take a conducting class, since I want to have a choir some day. I´m also debating taking Orchestration, which doesn´t conflict with anything, but that class looks hard and that might put me over the limit credit wise. It´s all a huge mess. I emailed my Spanish advisor this morning begging advice, but he hasn´t gotten back to me yet (I suppose I´ll forgive him since it´s not even 8:00am there!). I wish there could be one semester in my entire life where scheduling wasn´t a disaster! Why does Ripon College hate me so?!
Well, that´s enough ranting for one post. I´m sure more will come later. ;)
Bethany
Today is March 24th, and we all know what that means. Well, maybe you don´t, so I´ll tell you anyway. Today is the 2 month mark from when I arrived in Madrid. It seems like I just wrote a blog exclaiming over how quickly one month had gone by, and now I´m already here again at two months. I think this second month has been a lot less eventful, with more school and less traveling. But it sure has flown by! I think the routine of school has probably had a hand in that. Time seems to mush together when it´s all the same thing day after day. Luckily there are plenty of weekends to have crazy adventures! :) I´m looking ahead in the calendar and realizing that I don´t even have two months of school left! I´m past the halfway point of Madrid (but not of Europe!), and I feel like I just got here! Well, in some ways. In other ways it feels like I´ve been gone for ages. This next month will be fun, because it includes spring break (Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, and Milan) and Easter, for which I´m hoping to find a mass to go to. I don´t think there are protestant churches in Madrid. At least, not that I´ve found. But it should be cool to see a Spanish Easter service. I don´t know if Manuel and Rosaura will go to church, but if they do I´ll see if I can tag along. It will be weird not to be with my family for Easter. That´s never happened before. And I bet there are no Easter baskets in Spain! Sad! Oh well. I´m getting ahead of myself. It´s still March, and I have plenty of time before then.
Speaking of looking ahead, I got my scheduling information for next semester and, as always, its an absolute disaster. There is only one Spanish class offered that I haven´t taken, and it conflicts with a music class that I absolutely have to take in order to graduate, that won´t be offered again for four semesters. So I don´t know if I´m going to be able to take any Spanish classes next semester, which seems to bode ill for my Spanish major. I don´t need any more credits for that one, and I could take two classes next semester to get all the requirements in, but I feel like I don´t want to skip a semester of Spanish, especially right after I get back from Spain. And if I don´t take it, I´ll be taking exclusively music classes. Now, there´s nothing really wrong with that, but I´m not sure how many classes outside of my major I´m supposed to have, so I´m a little wary about that. There is one class in particular, a theatre class on costumen construction and design, that I really really want to take, but it conflicts with not one, but two of my other classes. It´s a MTW class, and I have a class on MWF and another on TR at that same time. Go figure. And I´m most likely going to be jumping into a Conducting II class even though I haven´t taken conducting I (which is offered this semester, of course. I talked with the prof and she thinks I could probably learn enough on my own over the summer to not be completely lost), but I really want to take a conducting class, since I want to have a choir some day. I´m also debating taking Orchestration, which doesn´t conflict with anything, but that class looks hard and that might put me over the limit credit wise. It´s all a huge mess. I emailed my Spanish advisor this morning begging advice, but he hasn´t gotten back to me yet (I suppose I´ll forgive him since it´s not even 8:00am there!). I wish there could be one semester in my entire life where scheduling wasn´t a disaster! Why does Ripon College hate me so?!
Well, that´s enough ranting for one post. I´m sure more will come later. ;)
Bethany
Monday, March 23, 2009
March 22
3-22
Hello everybody! I’ve had a busy weekend, and I’ve been too tired/lazy to write about each day when I got home that night, so I’ll combine it all into one blog. I’ll try to keep it brief-ish.
This Thursday was the Fiesta de San José, so we had off school! That in itself was exciting enough. A lot of people went various places far away (some girls in AYA went to Dusseldorf, Germany), but Katie and I decided it would be cheaper to do various day trips from Madrid, and that way we wouldn’t have to pay for planes or hostels or anything. Actually, we only decided this after we realized we had left planning for this weekend too late and the plane tickets to Portugal were way too expensive. But whatever, it’s fine.
Thursday we went to Salamanca. It’s almost 3 hours away by train. I got to use my Eurail pass for the first time! I’m still a little fuzzy on what the best way to use it is, but what I did worked, so I guess I’ll just do that again. It was good, because my ticket for there and back was only 8 euros instead of almost 30! My friend Yvonne from church was going to come with us, but the metro was having problems or taking a long time or something, so she didn’t get there in time and the train left without her. I felt really bad about that. So then it was just Katie and me. For those of you who don’t know, Salamanca is the home of one of the oldest universities in Spain. Or at least, one of the oldest Christian universities. I think the Muslims had some older ones before they were driven out. Anyway, we saw some of the buildings, which are all huge and amazing, with sculptures and statues and pillars and royal crests carved on the outsides. We were able to go inside the library (which is called the House of Shells because it’s got tons of conch shells carved into the outside) and the Universidad Pontifica, which was a church. Then we saw the Plaza Mayor, which is the most famous in Spain, apart from Madrid’s. The Plaza Mayors of Salamanca and Madrid are in competition for which is most beautiful. Personally, I think Salamanca’s is better. But that’s just me. After that, we went to the Cathedral of Salamanca, which has got a newer and an older section. We thought we were buying tickets to go inside, but it ended up being a ticket to climb the towers of the older, medieval part of the cathedral. It was really cool. There were little museum rooms where they displayed artifacts and diagrams and stuff. There was a display of medieval and renaissance instruments and music books. That was very exciting for me! Then we climbed up the scary spiral staircases to the towers. We got to walk outside along the roofline, where there was not only an amazing view of the city, but an amazing up close view of all the stonework on the cathedral itself. Then, back inside the cathedral, we got to walk along the perimeter, way above the ground, and get a bird’s eye view of the interior. It was so cool. A very different cathedral experience from any I’d had so far! We never actually got to go inside on the ground level (it was closed whenever we passed by), but this made up for it! After that we went across the Puente Romano, which is an ancient Roman bridge that’s still standing and functional. We wandered around the city for a while, and then took the train back home.
Friday we went to the monastery at El Escorial, which was built by King Felipe II in the 1500s. It’s sort of a mixture between a church and a palace, and it’s huge! There were royal apartments (Felipe’s chambers had a little portable organ that only had about 3 octaves of keys and was so cute!), state rooms, and other various things that were clearly the royalty part of the palace. But there were also churchy things, like the rooms where the bishop lived and worked, and several rooms of tombs where the various rulers of Spain are buried. We couldn’t go inside the Basilica because it was under construction or restoration or something. There’s also a famous library there, that’s got an amazingly painted ceiling and books from the Renaissance!! They were all behind cages, of course, but they had some of them open so we could see what they looked like on the inside. They were beautiful! They had brightly painted pictures and beautiful script that I couldn’t read for anything (I think it was Latin). They also had some instruments that scholars used, like one model (I can’t remember what it was called) that was supposed to show the solar system with the Earth in the middle and the planets as rings around it. They also had globes (one that didn’t have countries on it, but all kinds of wild animals and monsters; I’m not really sure what that was supposed to show!), and old desks, and all sorts of cool things! There were also several little museums: paintings, tapestries, and architecture, which included plans of the monastery and the tools they used to build it. They had this machine that had pulleys and a clamp thing that they used to lift the huge building blocks to make the walls. It was really cool! After the tour of the outside, we went out to the gardens that surround the monastery. There weren’t many flowers, but there were lots of cool patterns of hedges and little fountains. We walked back to the train station by way of the Park of the Princes, which is home to the Casita del Príncipe, which is a little palace were the royal family would spend the summers. We couldn’t go inside, but we saw the outside. Rosaura had told me about it, so I was expecting something pretty cool, but it just looked like a big house with white shutters. It was cute, but nothing spectacular.
That night I had choir, so I had to stop home and grab my music and rush to Leganés (that’s the city where the campus is). I arrived about a half hour late, but there was nothing I could do about that. Our concert is next Sunday, so the directors are getting anxious and a little short tempered. It doesn’t help that the students (just like in the States) insist on talking incessantly every time we stop. I guess some things are universal. I had a rather happy moment, though. There are two directors for the choir: one that does the warm-ups every other week, and one that directs the actual songs. The warm-up lady sits and watches the rehearsal when she’s there, and makes comments and suggestions to people or sections. It’s almost always something to improve on. So when she came up to me I got a little nervous. But she just said that my face was “fenomenal” and went on to another person. I was quite happy about that! Facial expression is one thing that I’ve always had problems with, and I’ve been working hard to improve. It was very nice to hear that it was working!
To get home from choir I have to take the train to the metro to get home. I can either take it all the way into Madrid and then take a short metro home, or I can take it to the bottom of my metro line and take the metro all the way to my stop. Usually I’ve been doing it the first way, but I think the second way is a little shorter. Anyway, I was glad I had discovered the second way, because when I got on the train there were tons of people on it, all probably high school or college age. They were all being really loud and obnoxious, and one girl was smoking, which is prohibited on public transportation. There was vomit on one of the seats, and there were so many people in the aisles that you could barely get through. Then a couple of the guys started breaking the glass that covers those hammers that you’re supposed to use to break the windows in case of an emergency, so there was broken glass all over the floor. I was expecting security to come any moment, but they didn’t while I was on the train. It was scary. There have been very few times I’ve actually been scared on public transportation, but this was definitely one of them. I was so glad that I had discovered the way home on the metro, because it’s only 2 stops on the train that way, and I was anxious to get off! That was crazy.
Saturday we went back to Toledo. This time Yvonne did go with us, and she brought one of her friends. It was so good to see her! We’ve been living in the same city for two months and we still hadn’t gotten together yet! We were going to take the train into Toledo, but there was such a long line for tickets that it had left before we were able to buy ours, so we decided to take the bus instead. We spent a lot of time wandering around the city trying to find where we were when we were there before. We went into a synagogue, and went back to the cathedral. Actually, we didn’t get to go all the way in. There was an entrance where you could go for free just inside a small part of it. I think it was so you could pray at a chapel or something. But it was like 7 euros to get in the whole cathedral, and we were feeling cheap. At least this way we could see it, even if we couldn’t walk through it. I wasn't so important for Katie and I since we had been there before, but it was the first time in Toledo for Yvonne and Laura, so they wanted to see it. But not enough to pay 7 euros. We had a lot of fun on the busses that day, too. We were trying to take a bus to a plaza where there’s a little tourist train that’ll take you across the river, because Laura wanted to see a famous view from one of El Greco’s paintings, but we got on the wrong bus and ended up driving through residential Toledo with absolutely no idea where we were. So we just stayed on until it got back to where we had gotten on, and then waited for the right bus. We spent so much time waiting for busses yesterday! It got a little ridiculous. But whatever. We just got to see more of Toledo that way, I guess. . . . Then when we got to the bus station the bus was there and ready to go, so we got in line, but right before we could get on, it was full. We had to wait another half hour before another bus came for Madrid. We didn’t get home until 8:30 last night, which was really long, considering I had left the house at 9:45 that morning. The day was longer than any of us expected, but it was still fun. I was absolutely exhausted last night.
This morning, I slept until 10:30, which felt amazing. I finished my homework and then sat down to write this blog. I was thinking of maybe going to the park to read today, but right now I’m feeling very lazy. Maybe I’ll just watch a movie here instead.
Bethany
Hello everybody! I’ve had a busy weekend, and I’ve been too tired/lazy to write about each day when I got home that night, so I’ll combine it all into one blog. I’ll try to keep it brief-ish.
This Thursday was the Fiesta de San José, so we had off school! That in itself was exciting enough. A lot of people went various places far away (some girls in AYA went to Dusseldorf, Germany), but Katie and I decided it would be cheaper to do various day trips from Madrid, and that way we wouldn’t have to pay for planes or hostels or anything. Actually, we only decided this after we realized we had left planning for this weekend too late and the plane tickets to Portugal were way too expensive. But whatever, it’s fine.
Thursday we went to Salamanca. It’s almost 3 hours away by train. I got to use my Eurail pass for the first time! I’m still a little fuzzy on what the best way to use it is, but what I did worked, so I guess I’ll just do that again. It was good, because my ticket for there and back was only 8 euros instead of almost 30! My friend Yvonne from church was going to come with us, but the metro was having problems or taking a long time or something, so she didn’t get there in time and the train left without her. I felt really bad about that. So then it was just Katie and me. For those of you who don’t know, Salamanca is the home of one of the oldest universities in Spain. Or at least, one of the oldest Christian universities. I think the Muslims had some older ones before they were driven out. Anyway, we saw some of the buildings, which are all huge and amazing, with sculptures and statues and pillars and royal crests carved on the outsides. We were able to go inside the library (which is called the House of Shells because it’s got tons of conch shells carved into the outside) and the Universidad Pontifica, which was a church. Then we saw the Plaza Mayor, which is the most famous in Spain, apart from Madrid’s. The Plaza Mayors of Salamanca and Madrid are in competition for which is most beautiful. Personally, I think Salamanca’s is better. But that’s just me. After that, we went to the Cathedral of Salamanca, which has got a newer and an older section. We thought we were buying tickets to go inside, but it ended up being a ticket to climb the towers of the older, medieval part of the cathedral. It was really cool. There were little museum rooms where they displayed artifacts and diagrams and stuff. There was a display of medieval and renaissance instruments and music books. That was very exciting for me! Then we climbed up the scary spiral staircases to the towers. We got to walk outside along the roofline, where there was not only an amazing view of the city, but an amazing up close view of all the stonework on the cathedral itself. Then, back inside the cathedral, we got to walk along the perimeter, way above the ground, and get a bird’s eye view of the interior. It was so cool. A very different cathedral experience from any I’d had so far! We never actually got to go inside on the ground level (it was closed whenever we passed by), but this made up for it! After that we went across the Puente Romano, which is an ancient Roman bridge that’s still standing and functional. We wandered around the city for a while, and then took the train back home.
Friday we went to the monastery at El Escorial, which was built by King Felipe II in the 1500s. It’s sort of a mixture between a church and a palace, and it’s huge! There were royal apartments (Felipe’s chambers had a little portable organ that only had about 3 octaves of keys and was so cute!), state rooms, and other various things that were clearly the royalty part of the palace. But there were also churchy things, like the rooms where the bishop lived and worked, and several rooms of tombs where the various rulers of Spain are buried. We couldn’t go inside the Basilica because it was under construction or restoration or something. There’s also a famous library there, that’s got an amazingly painted ceiling and books from the Renaissance!! They were all behind cages, of course, but they had some of them open so we could see what they looked like on the inside. They were beautiful! They had brightly painted pictures and beautiful script that I couldn’t read for anything (I think it was Latin). They also had some instruments that scholars used, like one model (I can’t remember what it was called) that was supposed to show the solar system with the Earth in the middle and the planets as rings around it. They also had globes (one that didn’t have countries on it, but all kinds of wild animals and monsters; I’m not really sure what that was supposed to show!), and old desks, and all sorts of cool things! There were also several little museums: paintings, tapestries, and architecture, which included plans of the monastery and the tools they used to build it. They had this machine that had pulleys and a clamp thing that they used to lift the huge building blocks to make the walls. It was really cool! After the tour of the outside, we went out to the gardens that surround the monastery. There weren’t many flowers, but there were lots of cool patterns of hedges and little fountains. We walked back to the train station by way of the Park of the Princes, which is home to the Casita del Príncipe, which is a little palace were the royal family would spend the summers. We couldn’t go inside, but we saw the outside. Rosaura had told me about it, so I was expecting something pretty cool, but it just looked like a big house with white shutters. It was cute, but nothing spectacular.
That night I had choir, so I had to stop home and grab my music and rush to Leganés (that’s the city where the campus is). I arrived about a half hour late, but there was nothing I could do about that. Our concert is next Sunday, so the directors are getting anxious and a little short tempered. It doesn’t help that the students (just like in the States) insist on talking incessantly every time we stop. I guess some things are universal. I had a rather happy moment, though. There are two directors for the choir: one that does the warm-ups every other week, and one that directs the actual songs. The warm-up lady sits and watches the rehearsal when she’s there, and makes comments and suggestions to people or sections. It’s almost always something to improve on. So when she came up to me I got a little nervous. But she just said that my face was “fenomenal” and went on to another person. I was quite happy about that! Facial expression is one thing that I’ve always had problems with, and I’ve been working hard to improve. It was very nice to hear that it was working!
To get home from choir I have to take the train to the metro to get home. I can either take it all the way into Madrid and then take a short metro home, or I can take it to the bottom of my metro line and take the metro all the way to my stop. Usually I’ve been doing it the first way, but I think the second way is a little shorter. Anyway, I was glad I had discovered the second way, because when I got on the train there were tons of people on it, all probably high school or college age. They were all being really loud and obnoxious, and one girl was smoking, which is prohibited on public transportation. There was vomit on one of the seats, and there were so many people in the aisles that you could barely get through. Then a couple of the guys started breaking the glass that covers those hammers that you’re supposed to use to break the windows in case of an emergency, so there was broken glass all over the floor. I was expecting security to come any moment, but they didn’t while I was on the train. It was scary. There have been very few times I’ve actually been scared on public transportation, but this was definitely one of them. I was so glad that I had discovered the way home on the metro, because it’s only 2 stops on the train that way, and I was anxious to get off! That was crazy.
Saturday we went back to Toledo. This time Yvonne did go with us, and she brought one of her friends. It was so good to see her! We’ve been living in the same city for two months and we still hadn’t gotten together yet! We were going to take the train into Toledo, but there was such a long line for tickets that it had left before we were able to buy ours, so we decided to take the bus instead. We spent a lot of time wandering around the city trying to find where we were when we were there before. We went into a synagogue, and went back to the cathedral. Actually, we didn’t get to go all the way in. There was an entrance where you could go for free just inside a small part of it. I think it was so you could pray at a chapel or something. But it was like 7 euros to get in the whole cathedral, and we were feeling cheap. At least this way we could see it, even if we couldn’t walk through it. I wasn't so important for Katie and I since we had been there before, but it was the first time in Toledo for Yvonne and Laura, so they wanted to see it. But not enough to pay 7 euros. We had a lot of fun on the busses that day, too. We were trying to take a bus to a plaza where there’s a little tourist train that’ll take you across the river, because Laura wanted to see a famous view from one of El Greco’s paintings, but we got on the wrong bus and ended up driving through residential Toledo with absolutely no idea where we were. So we just stayed on until it got back to where we had gotten on, and then waited for the right bus. We spent so much time waiting for busses yesterday! It got a little ridiculous. But whatever. We just got to see more of Toledo that way, I guess. . . . Then when we got to the bus station the bus was there and ready to go, so we got in line, but right before we could get on, it was full. We had to wait another half hour before another bus came for Madrid. We didn’t get home until 8:30 last night, which was really long, considering I had left the house at 9:45 that morning. The day was longer than any of us expected, but it was still fun. I was absolutely exhausted last night.
This morning, I slept until 10:30, which felt amazing. I finished my homework and then sat down to write this blog. I was thinking of maybe going to the park to read today, but right now I’m feeling very lazy. Maybe I’ll just watch a movie here instead.
Bethany
Monday, March 16, 2009
March 15
3-15
Today Katie and I went back to the Prado museum. It wasn’t free to the public until 5, so we went an hour early to see some of the sights around it. We were heading toward the Vertical Garden, which is a garden planted on a wall, straight up and down. We wandered into this art exhibition that our Estudios Culturales teacher had told us about, but we had no idea where it was. It’s called Arte en las Calles, which means Art on the Streets, and I think it’s collections of art that come to Madrid for about a month and then move on to another city. This month’s collection was all Rodin sculptures from Paris, including The Thinker. It was so cool to be walking down the street and suddenly, out of the blue, see one of the most famous sculptures in the world staring at me. There were eight statues total, all by Rodin. I think our teacher said it was the first time these statues have been out of the Paris museum, and I had wanted to see them, but I didn’t know where to look. I thought they were in another museum; I didn’t realize they were out in the open. I love how we always wander into cool things! Then we realized that the vertical garden was right there, behind the statues, and we had been seeing it the whole time while we were taking pictures without realizing it. It was mostly just green up a wall, since the flowers hadn’t bloomed yet. It was interesting, but nothing spectacular. The statues upstaged it by a long shot.
We still had some time before 5, so we decided to go into the Botanical Gardens that are next to the Prado. It was mostly green, and there were only a few flowers, but it still smelled heavenly. The flowers that there were were beautiful, and it was such a gorgeous day that it was very nice to walk through the little pathways amongst all the greenery.
In the Prado, we finished seeing everything in the permanent collection. We saw a lot of Italian Renaissance paintings, and I recognized a fair few of them. There was even the portrait of Mary Tudor that I used in my presentation about her last semester! It’s so cool to see the originals of all these famous paintings I’ve seen in books and stuff. We saw the treasure of the Dauphin, which was a collection of glassware, precious stone-encrusted gold and silver dishes, medallions, and little statues. There were even pictures that looked like paintings, but were actually made from precious stones like jade and amethyst. It was amazing. They were so detailed; I can’t imagine cutting the stones into such tiny little shapes and fitting it all together so perfectly!
There were also a couple of temporary exhibits that we saw. One was called Sleeping Beauty, and it was a collection of Victorian paintings that all depicted sleep in one way or another. There were some works that were sketches of the bigger paintings that were there. There was a set of three paintings that depicted scenes from the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, and one that was called the Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon or something, that showed King Arthur sleeping in Avalon until the day he’s called back to Earth. My favorite was called Flaming June, which is a pretty famous painting. There’s a huge version of it in the Pallas restaurant that we’ve been to in Brookfield or Wauwatosa or somewhere around there. It’s a woman in a bright orange dress who is curled up sleeping on a bench in front of the ocean. They were all really beautiful.
The second exhibit was called Between Gods and Men, and it was all ancient Greek sculptures. I think a lot of them were copies of the originals made during the Renaissance. I don’t think many of them were actually the ones that were carved a couple hundred years BC. There were a lot of sculptures of gods, naked athletes, drunken revelries, and naked women. A lot of them had missing limbs or heads, and some of them were just heads. And, of course, they were all in white marble. It was pretty cool.
I’m sitting in my room listening to Jesus Christ Superstar. I love King Herod’s Song! “Walk across my swimming pool!” Hehe.
Well, that’s all for now.
Bethany
Today Katie and I went back to the Prado museum. It wasn’t free to the public until 5, so we went an hour early to see some of the sights around it. We were heading toward the Vertical Garden, which is a garden planted on a wall, straight up and down. We wandered into this art exhibition that our Estudios Culturales teacher had told us about, but we had no idea where it was. It’s called Arte en las Calles, which means Art on the Streets, and I think it’s collections of art that come to Madrid for about a month and then move on to another city. This month’s collection was all Rodin sculptures from Paris, including The Thinker. It was so cool to be walking down the street and suddenly, out of the blue, see one of the most famous sculptures in the world staring at me. There were eight statues total, all by Rodin. I think our teacher said it was the first time these statues have been out of the Paris museum, and I had wanted to see them, but I didn’t know where to look. I thought they were in another museum; I didn’t realize they were out in the open. I love how we always wander into cool things! Then we realized that the vertical garden was right there, behind the statues, and we had been seeing it the whole time while we were taking pictures without realizing it. It was mostly just green up a wall, since the flowers hadn’t bloomed yet. It was interesting, but nothing spectacular. The statues upstaged it by a long shot.
We still had some time before 5, so we decided to go into the Botanical Gardens that are next to the Prado. It was mostly green, and there were only a few flowers, but it still smelled heavenly. The flowers that there were were beautiful, and it was such a gorgeous day that it was very nice to walk through the little pathways amongst all the greenery.
In the Prado, we finished seeing everything in the permanent collection. We saw a lot of Italian Renaissance paintings, and I recognized a fair few of them. There was even the portrait of Mary Tudor that I used in my presentation about her last semester! It’s so cool to see the originals of all these famous paintings I’ve seen in books and stuff. We saw the treasure of the Dauphin, which was a collection of glassware, precious stone-encrusted gold and silver dishes, medallions, and little statues. There were even pictures that looked like paintings, but were actually made from precious stones like jade and amethyst. It was amazing. They were so detailed; I can’t imagine cutting the stones into such tiny little shapes and fitting it all together so perfectly!
There were also a couple of temporary exhibits that we saw. One was called Sleeping Beauty, and it was a collection of Victorian paintings that all depicted sleep in one way or another. There were some works that were sketches of the bigger paintings that were there. There was a set of three paintings that depicted scenes from the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, and one that was called the Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon or something, that showed King Arthur sleeping in Avalon until the day he’s called back to Earth. My favorite was called Flaming June, which is a pretty famous painting. There’s a huge version of it in the Pallas restaurant that we’ve been to in Brookfield or Wauwatosa or somewhere around there. It’s a woman in a bright orange dress who is curled up sleeping on a bench in front of the ocean. They were all really beautiful.
The second exhibit was called Between Gods and Men, and it was all ancient Greek sculptures. I think a lot of them were copies of the originals made during the Renaissance. I don’t think many of them were actually the ones that were carved a couple hundred years BC. There were a lot of sculptures of gods, naked athletes, drunken revelries, and naked women. A lot of them had missing limbs or heads, and some of them were just heads. And, of course, they were all in white marble. It was pretty cool.
I’m sitting in my room listening to Jesus Christ Superstar. I love King Herod’s Song! “Walk across my swimming pool!” Hehe.
Well, that’s all for now.
Bethany
Sunday, March 15, 2009
March 14
3-14
Hello again.
I haven’t written in several days, so I’ll just catch you up on what’s happened before I tell you about my trip to
On Friday, Katie and I went to the Parque del Oeste, which is a park in
After the temple, we walked around the rest of the park for a while. It was really beautiful; there’s so much green, and there were trees blossoming all pink and white! And it’s March! I love being out of
This morning, Katie, Jen, and I went to
By that time it was almost 4, so we started heading back to the Convent of Santa Teresa. Katie especially wanted to see it because St. Teresa is her confirmation saint. It was a beautiful little church, and there was an old woman who must have worked there who told us a little about various things. Not being Catholic, I didn’t know much about St. Teresa, but it was still very pretty. There was a little room off the church where the relic is kept; they have her ring finger, preserved and displayed. It’s fairly disgusting: half decomposed, but with two gold rings on it. I asked Katie and Jen, the Catholics, how churches got relics, but they didn’t know. I’m imaging people swooping down on saints as soon as they die, cutting off their fingers and pulling out their teeth to distribute to various churches. I’m sure I’ve just horribly offended every Catholic in the world. Oh well. J There was also a museum at the church, but it was also more expensive than we were willing to do. We meandered back toward the bus stations. We stopped in the Plaza Mayor to buy yemas de Santa Teresa, which are a kind of candy made from egg yokes and sugar that are characteristic of
We caught the 6:00 bus back to
I can’t believe it’s halfway through March already. This month is flying by!
Monday, March 9, 2009
March 8
3-8
Today we went to Patricia’s house to cook Spanish dishes. We made tortilla de patata (Spanish tortilla, which is a kind of potato omelet), espinacas (spinach with onions, green pepper, raisins, and tomato), arroz con leche (rice with condensed milk, lemon, and sugar for dessert) and, of course, sangria. It was a lot of fun. We mostly chopped vegetables and stirred things, and Patricia’s neighbor did most of the “real” cooking, but we did get to help. There were 16 of us total, including Patricia’s husband and two sons, so everything was in mass quantities. We made three tortillas, I think; all bigger than a dinner plate. Probably about the size of a frozen pizza. You cook them like omelets in a fry pan and then when the time comes to flip it you put a flat lid on the pan, flip it upside down and then quick slide it back into the pan. It was rather impressive when Patricia’s husband did it; we gave him a round of applause. One of the ones we made was over an inch thick, but the others were probably only about a half inch. Everything was delicious. Well, the spinach was not so good. It was alright for a one time thing, but I don’t know if I would make it again. Maybe without the raisins. They gave it a weird sweet taste. Patricia is going to send us the recipes for everything we made (in quantities for 4 instead of 16, and with American measurements!) so I can make it for people in the States! We also had cheese slices and three kinds of sausage, including blood sausage which was actually quite good, and sliced ham. Delicious! We ate an entire platter of meat and cheese before lunch because we were all hungry, and then there was another platter during the meal. We ate for probably 3 hours between the pre-meal snacking and the very long, multi-course meal. Which, of course, is very Spanish. Their meals tend to be very long, social occasions. It was fun to get together with the AYA group again. We actually talked in Spanish most of the time this time because the neighbor and her husband and kids were there. The kids speak English, and I think the other two know some, but mostly it was Spanish. We sat and talked for a long time after we finished eating, too. We got there a little after noon and didn’t leave until 6!
When I got home I talked to my parents for about an hour and a half. It was a different time of day than normal, and a little longer than usual because I hadn’t talked to them for two weeks. When I was done and I brought the phone back, Rosaura told me that I can’t talk that long because she was waiting for a call from her daughter who usually called then because that was when her baby went to bed and she could only call on Saturdays and Sundays because she had work and yadda yadda yadda (as if I could talk to my parents who are 7 hours away at any time I please). First of all, I understand that she wanted to talk to her daughter. But I felt like she was giving me one of those classic Rosaura scoldings where I should feel terrible and never do it again type thing. I don’t know if that was her intention, but it felt like it. I was upset at her for tarnishing my good mood, but I tried to just let it roll off. I wasn’t going to let her make me feel bad! But I think in the future we’d better keep to our normal time frame on Sunday nights.
Well, that’s all folks!
Bethany
Today we went to Patricia’s house to cook Spanish dishes. We made tortilla de patata (Spanish tortilla, which is a kind of potato omelet), espinacas (spinach with onions, green pepper, raisins, and tomato), arroz con leche (rice with condensed milk, lemon, and sugar for dessert) and, of course, sangria. It was a lot of fun. We mostly chopped vegetables and stirred things, and Patricia’s neighbor did most of the “real” cooking, but we did get to help. There were 16 of us total, including Patricia’s husband and two sons, so everything was in mass quantities. We made three tortillas, I think; all bigger than a dinner plate. Probably about the size of a frozen pizza. You cook them like omelets in a fry pan and then when the time comes to flip it you put a flat lid on the pan, flip it upside down and then quick slide it back into the pan. It was rather impressive when Patricia’s husband did it; we gave him a round of applause. One of the ones we made was over an inch thick, but the others were probably only about a half inch. Everything was delicious. Well, the spinach was not so good. It was alright for a one time thing, but I don’t know if I would make it again. Maybe without the raisins. They gave it a weird sweet taste. Patricia is going to send us the recipes for everything we made (in quantities for 4 instead of 16, and with American measurements!) so I can make it for people in the States! We also had cheese slices and three kinds of sausage, including blood sausage which was actually quite good, and sliced ham. Delicious! We ate an entire platter of meat and cheese before lunch because we were all hungry, and then there was another platter during the meal. We ate for probably 3 hours between the pre-meal snacking and the very long, multi-course meal. Which, of course, is very Spanish. Their meals tend to be very long, social occasions. It was fun to get together with the AYA group again. We actually talked in Spanish most of the time this time because the neighbor and her husband and kids were there. The kids speak English, and I think the other two know some, but mostly it was Spanish. We sat and talked for a long time after we finished eating, too. We got there a little after noon and didn’t leave until 6!
When I got home I talked to my parents for about an hour and a half. It was a different time of day than normal, and a little longer than usual because I hadn’t talked to them for two weeks. When I was done and I brought the phone back, Rosaura told me that I can’t talk that long because she was waiting for a call from her daughter who usually called then because that was when her baby went to bed and she could only call on Saturdays and Sundays because she had work and yadda yadda yadda (as if I could talk to my parents who are 7 hours away at any time I please). First of all, I understand that she wanted to talk to her daughter. But I felt like she was giving me one of those classic Rosaura scoldings where I should feel terrible and never do it again type thing. I don’t know if that was her intention, but it felt like it. I was upset at her for tarnishing my good mood, but I tried to just let it roll off. I wasn’t going to let her make me feel bad! But I think in the future we’d better keep to our normal time frame on Sunday nights.
Well, that’s all folks!
Bethany
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)