Sadly, I am feeling a bit under the weather. So this weekend has been filled with drinking fluids, taking vitamins and not being able to taste my food. I would kill for some Campbell's chicken noodle soup. So it has been a movie watching weekend.
Today is San Antonio (or tomorrow is but we still have school). The big bonfire at the church is tonight so I am hoping to be well enough to go so I can witness this. I have learned so much about the catholic faith since I have been over here.
My trip home was indescribable. I had such a great time and laughed so much. I love spending time with my family! I'm glad I was home for our many Christmas traditions. We always get a real Christmas tree and every year it is always an experience in picking just the right one. I feel that the tree grows on the drive home because every time we get home we have to shorted it a little bit. As always Dad put on the lights on the tree and then we decorated it. I was a little sad that my Brother has seemed to outgrow the tradition and went out with friends. But we had Chocolate Claus and Christmas music so it was still very special. Most of our ornaments have special meaning - I love that.
We went and did out Christmas Trip to the Galleria in Dallas, and I got my traditional chocolate covered strawberry from Godiva. This year it meant even more since we don't have strawberries in Spain yet...not until April. Love that freshness stuff...Oh how I want some strawberries!
It was a great family day, I don't think I will ever grow too old for things like that.
I'll update the next installment soon. Time for some tea...
Tori
XOXO
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Jet Lag - again
It has been hard to update since my jet lag is making me all kinds of tired at weird hours. Yesterday I woke up around 8 or 9 and ate a balanced breakfast and then was out walking around town for some exercise and bought some things for the house. I am going to attempt to bake chicken today. I have some delicious lemon pepper from the US of A that I am going to add to it. One of my friends back home found some recipes for me that I can look around and try. It was nice being home and not having to cook that much, now I am back in Manzanares and in charge of buying groceries AND cooking. Honestly I haven’t had much of an appetite, lately I have been skipping out on dinner because I am not hungry – this will probably change when school starts (MONDAY!) and I have all of my private lessons.
I hope I can stay awake for it all!
I am excited about my lesson on Monday because I bought a bunch of books for the 4 year old I have including Little Golden Books, which has brought back many memories. I remember when I was younger my sister and I would go pick out a Little Golden Book for our Dad to read to us before we went to bed, family tradition, and a good one at that. I also bought some Dr. Seuss books – those are all classics. In fact, when I brought the books home, my Dad read The Cat in the Hat to me (yes, I am 23 years old, but I enjoyed it like a 5 year old).
Being home was worth all of the stress it took me to get home and back. Traveling is one of my favorite things – but sometimes the airlines make it so hard on you to enjoy it.
I have a huge process I have to follow when I fly out of Madrid. I have to take a train (2 hours) to Madrid and stay in a hostel overnight so that I have plenty of time to make my flight. The train schedule isn’t always convenient – I think they did that on purpose. I usually take a late train out so that I can still have all of my private lessons. Then it is a pain to take the metro from the train station because it usually involves a large amount of stairs (and more often than not, someone is willing to help me because I try and look extra pathetic). Then getting to the hostel, there is another flight of stairs – I had a suitcase filled with wine – making it a trek.
Then, I stay the night at the hostel, make sure to set my alarm and go to bed early because the metro ride is about 45 minutes from my hostel to the airport (again, switching one metro line without an elevator, leaving some poor soul to help me). I finally got to the ticket counter at the airport – which is another trek to a different terminal from which the metro drops you off. I get to the counter, and the agent gives me a middle seat – um yeah no. I asked her if that was the ONLY seat on the plane – she said it was. I was almost in tears knowing that flying for 9-11 hours on a plane in the middle seat is actually NOT okay with me. The plane was delayed 2 and a half hours – meaning I was going to miss my connecting flight from Atlanta to Dallas – you’ve got to be kidding me. You stick me in a middle seat – AND I’m going to miss my next flight. Two strikes Delta! I decided to go up to the ticket counter and just SEE if there were any other seats (by this time I contemplated paying for a first class seat), and the agent was like, “Oh yeah, here is an aisle”. So the lady at the ticket counter lied to me, but I was super excited to not have to deal with a middle seat (which by the way two larger passengers were sitting in the row I would have been in).
Finally on the plane, some idiot hits me in the head with his suitcase (Really?). I started feeling nauseous and my head was throbbing. The flight attendant came by and offered me some Tylenol and ice. She was so pleasant, it really made the flight not so bad.
Then getting another connecting flight was another story. I had to get in line with a million other passengers that missed their connections as well. The first Delta employee told me I had to wait until the morning to fly out (yep, staying in a hotel for the night), I was almost in tears. I just wanted to go home. The agent at the counter asked me what I needed, and I told her I was trying not to be upset (the tears were about the come out), and she then told me they had ONE seat on the 7pm flight – note it was 6:30 and I had to go through security behind a woman with all the metal jewelry she owned AND take a tram to another terminal. I had to run, I had to weave myself up an escalator, I had to run some more to make my flight – and I was one of the last people on.
Coming home to my family (and Chick-fil-a and Dr. Pepper) made all of that nonsense totally worth it.
Until Next Time
Tori XOXO
I hope I can stay awake for it all!
I am excited about my lesson on Monday because I bought a bunch of books for the 4 year old I have including Little Golden Books, which has brought back many memories. I remember when I was younger my sister and I would go pick out a Little Golden Book for our Dad to read to us before we went to bed, family tradition, and a good one at that. I also bought some Dr. Seuss books – those are all classics. In fact, when I brought the books home, my Dad read The Cat in the Hat to me (yes, I am 23 years old, but I enjoyed it like a 5 year old).
Being home was worth all of the stress it took me to get home and back. Traveling is one of my favorite things – but sometimes the airlines make it so hard on you to enjoy it.
I have a huge process I have to follow when I fly out of Madrid. I have to take a train (2 hours) to Madrid and stay in a hostel overnight so that I have plenty of time to make my flight. The train schedule isn’t always convenient – I think they did that on purpose. I usually take a late train out so that I can still have all of my private lessons. Then it is a pain to take the metro from the train station because it usually involves a large amount of stairs (and more often than not, someone is willing to help me because I try and look extra pathetic). Then getting to the hostel, there is another flight of stairs – I had a suitcase filled with wine – making it a trek.
Then, I stay the night at the hostel, make sure to set my alarm and go to bed early because the metro ride is about 45 minutes from my hostel to the airport (again, switching one metro line without an elevator, leaving some poor soul to help me). I finally got to the ticket counter at the airport – which is another trek to a different terminal from which the metro drops you off. I get to the counter, and the agent gives me a middle seat – um yeah no. I asked her if that was the ONLY seat on the plane – she said it was. I was almost in tears knowing that flying for 9-11 hours on a plane in the middle seat is actually NOT okay with me. The plane was delayed 2 and a half hours – meaning I was going to miss my connecting flight from Atlanta to Dallas – you’ve got to be kidding me. You stick me in a middle seat – AND I’m going to miss my next flight. Two strikes Delta! I decided to go up to the ticket counter and just SEE if there were any other seats (by this time I contemplated paying for a first class seat), and the agent was like, “Oh yeah, here is an aisle”. So the lady at the ticket counter lied to me, but I was super excited to not have to deal with a middle seat (which by the way two larger passengers were sitting in the row I would have been in).
Finally on the plane, some idiot hits me in the head with his suitcase (Really?). I started feeling nauseous and my head was throbbing. The flight attendant came by and offered me some Tylenol and ice. She was so pleasant, it really made the flight not so bad.
Then getting another connecting flight was another story. I had to get in line with a million other passengers that missed their connections as well. The first Delta employee told me I had to wait until the morning to fly out (yep, staying in a hotel for the night), I was almost in tears. I just wanted to go home. The agent at the counter asked me what I needed, and I told her I was trying not to be upset (the tears were about the come out), and she then told me they had ONE seat on the 7pm flight – note it was 6:30 and I had to go through security behind a woman with all the metal jewelry she owned AND take a tram to another terminal. I had to run, I had to weave myself up an escalator, I had to run some more to make my flight – and I was one of the last people on.
Coming home to my family (and Chick-fil-a and Dr. Pepper) made all of that nonsense totally worth it.
Until Next Time
Tori XOXO
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
I'm back
If you noticed, I took a bit of a hiatus from blogging. I only told a few people the news that I was coming back to the States for Christmas, and I wanted to keep a surprise element for a few people. So I didn’t write about it. When I got home I spent a lot of time with family and friends and neglected to update you on my adventures.
I’ll update you slowly but surely on the highlights of my trip. Today I am just recovering from a long journey back from Texas
Karlyne, my roommate was chosen to be one of the Kings yesterday so the children could drop off their letters of what they wanted as presents (the Kings bring presents). There are about 5 black people in Manzanares, and they wanted her to play the part, which I think is absolutely stellar. I don’t know if she is going to be in the parade, I passed out at 5pm yesterday so I haven’t talked to her about her experience.
Today I have to get a lot done, tomorrow is a holiday and we all know that means everything is closed. I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning and I only have pasta and rice in the pantry, so I need to go shopping and get some food. Back to healthy eating – fresh fruits and veggies. I am excited to cook with some things I brought back with me – salsa, lemon pepper, and I did splurge and get some mac n cheese.
Now…just have to wait another hour for the stores to open.
Until Next Time
Tori
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