A lovely weekend in Segovia

This weekend we ad a lovely time here in Segovia! On Friday a couple girls and I went out after class to the coffee shop to celebrate our 2 week anniversary of being here! We had some coffee (which is so good here) and played phase 10! That night our group went out together to check out the night life of Segovia, which was very fun. Though people were just heading out for the night when we were coming home!! (at like 3 AM)

On Saturday my host mom made this homemade biscotti-type bread for breakfast which was so good. I could have eaten it all. Then afterwards Katie and I met up to study grammar together…direct and indirect object pronouns duh duh duuuh! All the studying is paying off though now because I am starting to understand it a lot better, which is good! When I came home, I had my I-pod plugged in and I was kind of dancing to myself like I always do, and I was opening the door to my house and I look up and my host dad, Ava (the one who lives at home) and the other sister Monica (who I had never met were watching me). Smooth. oh well, I guess her first impression of me was…memorable. She is pregnant right now which is really exciting. She is going to be having a baby girl in May and they are all so excited. I’m disappointed though that I am going to miss out on all the excitement! Before lunch I had the chance to talk to her for a bit and she was really nice, and her accent was easier to understand than some of the others here in Spain. Lunch was pretty exciting, first it started off with the dad joking around that he was going to have to separate from him wife if she kept making him eat garbanzo beans…they all thought it was the funniest joke ever. I was slightly confused. And then we got into talking about Spanish history and democracy when my host mom declared that “Sometimes a country does need a dictator to keep things in line.” And I’m thinking…Franco and the Spanish civil war…you really think that? You can tell though that I am a child of democracy. It is interesting talking to them though because Monica the daughter was born the year Franco died and Eva was born the year the constitution to turn Spain into a democracy. Democracy is so new to this country-I forget that sometimes. Afterwards I took a quick siesta and then went out to walk around the shops with friends. The big thing here is boots…and everyone wants a pair because it is what all the Europeans are wearing. Later that night we went out to see a movie in Nueva Segovia. We decided to walk there even though it was a bit of a hike…about 45 minutes. Though it is always fun walking around here because everything is so lovely. We had some pizza beforehand-a nice American treat then went to see Revolutionary Road. The movie was dubbed over in Spanish so we tried our best to understand the fast dialogue! It is interesting because here in the movie theatres EVERY movie was from the U.S there wasn’t a single movie that was made in Spain or even Europe for that matter.

Sunday Katie, Alyssa, and I attended church at the Cathedral here in Segovia. It is so big, and beautiful! The service was interesting because on the side of mass there are two little boxes that serve as confessionals, and people can go them during the middle of mass! It was so distracting, because even though they were talking quietly, they were still loud enough to notice! Also we were laughing at the priest, because he was probably 80 some years old sitting in this box with his arms folded with the most unfriendly-slightly angry looking face. We were wondering who would want to go talk about their sins with him! Then we were thinking it was funny to think about trying to do confessions in Spanish in general. At the end of mass we found out they were having a celebration of the year of St. Paul in the afternoon that was supposed to be a pretty big deal. Katie and I decided to go to it, though we ran into an obstacle. It was actually quite funny. So the cathedral has security guards on the outside that seriously serve as bouncers. As we attempted to enter the church, it felt like we were trying to get into a club or something, like in the movies. The bouncer took one look at us, saw we were Americans and told us that we couldn’t come to visit the church at that time. Though as he is saying this he opens the door to let some parishioners in, and then some people behind us told him they wanted to go to mass, and he wouldn’t let them in either. Then finally we told him that we were trying to go to the celebration of St. Paul, then he looks at us in a sort of secretive way and finally lets us in. It was like we had to know a secret password. So odd! Studying grammar and prepositional phrases were the events to follow mass for me. Then my host mom wanted to teach me how to cook so I helped her prepare “Tortilla Espanola” for everyone in the house. It was so fun to spend time with her and to cook! She made me bring a piece of paper so I could write down the recipe and the new cooking vocab words I learned! I can’t wait to make it for you all when I come back home! Hope that all is going well in MN!