coming home!

Woosh so I kinda failed at blogging this last month.  I can't even describe how quickly this last month has gone here!  It seems like just yesterday we were saying goodbye to all our friends, meeting everyone new (and it'll probably seem that way to you too since thats like the last thing I wrote about), and starting new classes.  I've been so busy and so tired that I haven't had time to write about everything!  I guess that means I'll have more stories when I get home!
Right now, we just got back from our last trip to the beach....incredibly depressing!  Although we are going to go hang out down there this evening, we won't be tanning and swimming all afternoon anymore.  Our flights don't leave till Saturday, but since we fly out of Madrid, we will be leaving Malaga tomorrow evening to take a bus to Madrid.  Some people have flights leaving pretty early, so we'll get to the airport around 3 or 4 am.  That means I have the pleasure of hanging out in the airport until 1 pm when my flight leaves!!  Oh well, there is a few other people's flights that leave late so I'll have people to hang out with...and I'm just so excited to be on my way home!
As excited that I am to be home, there is going to be a lot of things that I miss...and probably more that I even realize once I get home.  First off, I am really really going to miss my Senora and my home here.  I couldn't have asked for a better replacement mom while I was away!!  Her food as been great, she's interesting and fun to talk to, and super nice.  Some people just have had some bad experiences with their families and I can't say I've had a single bad one!! (Okay, I could have had bean soup one less time, but I'm not complaining :) )

With my senora before her dance concert thing.  (she does not normally dress like this!!)

I'm going to miss eating outside and the slower pace (and not having to tip waiters, haha).  It's so relaxing to have a meal outside at night and watch everything that's going on in the streets, because there is always something.   Of course, I'm going to miss the beach.  I got really depressed this morning when I was on my way down to the beach (I have a nice morning tradition of heading there to read and relax before class for an hour so) and realizing that wasn't going to be possible anymore.

I will miss random festivals that are sooo much fun!  Here's a few pictures from "La feria en el palo", Fair in ...well...el palo.  El Palo is the neighborhood that I live in.

"La ranita feliz"  The happy little frog.  Amber and I were obsessed with this ride and rode it every night of the fair.

Me and amber on the happy frog!

Omg!  I'm going to miss Amber!  However...we only live 20 minutes away from each other.  It'll just be weird not to have her living one room over from me after all this time!

I feel like I've changed a lot in these last 2 months.  I know for sure I've become a lot more outgoing, I'm more willing to talk to random people and make friends, try anything (including snails!), and just go with the flow!  It has been quite an experience.  Literally everything I've done here has been an experience of some sort, whether just living with a host family, making great friends from all over the states and all over the world, traveling in foreign country by myself, flying to London on a spur of the moment decision, all sorts of public transportation, or just trying to figure out what to order off a menu.  I'm so glad I've had this experience and I am so thankful that I had the opportunity!

Love you all and I'll be home in...well....about 2 1/2 days Nebraska time! 

londres dia 3 y 4

The first thing we did Sunday morning was head to Buckingham palace for the changing of the guards.    It was really neat, but hard to see too much because there was about one million people there to watch it, but we got some pretty good pictures.  It's quite a bit different from what the changing of the guards is like at Arlington (or at least what I remember of it) that I saw in 8th grade.

The fluffy hat men!!

'

They came our way slowly in groups of 2.

I really wish I understood more about the ceremony...

mmm...a museum that we didn't go to but looked really cool.

more of the same museum.

We did however go to the science museum and it was sweet!!

Some particle separater thing.

A dress made of old newspaper.

me and Amber's art.  (we were playing in the little kid area....)

Cochroach people?  haha it was really weird...both the adults and young children were dressed up.  no idea why.

A pretty park that me and Amber sat down in after we got really frustrated with trying to figure out where the heck we were going for the 10 millionth time.  However, after being frustrated we had an epiphany that it was the first time either of us had ever tried to navigate a huge city by ourselves and we hadn't really gotten lost yet and we'd followed our itinerary fairly closely, so we were really doing alright.

"Mind the gap"

The underground.  Easier and faster to get around the city then with the buses, but you don't get to see the city then and you have to be super crammed in with a bunch of sweaty ople in a very small space.  Yuck.  When the underground is stopping the announcement tells you to "mind the gap" when getting off...we found it entertaining.

Yes...we're Harry Potter nerds!!  We took the underground to Kings cross station to find platform 9 and three quarters.  For those non-Harry Potter nerds reading this,  Platform 9 3/4 at Kings cross is where the wizards go to get to Hogwarts.  Of course the platform isn't a real thing (even though as you see they now have a sign for it) so we wondered around the station forever trying to find it, because we knew they had a sign for it.  We were embarrassed to ask but eventually Amber got up the courage to ask and we found it.  Its not actually between platforms 9 and 10 since so many people come to see it , but it was still pretty cool!

Trying to get through the wall (you have to walk through the wall to get to the Hogwarts train....)

Outside of the station.

King's Cross

Near Trafalgar Square  (where a week after our trip the Harry Potter premier took place)

Such a beautiful city!!

Another view of the city (and a double decker bus)

The obligatory red phone booth picture!!

We call these "Paul pictures"  Our friend Paul always takes pictures when he goes someplace to show that his feet were there, so we continue this tradition.  This is our (tired) feet on the top of double decker bus!

Road close to our hostel (those colorful lights is how we knew that we were indeed on the right bus and going the correct direction)

Our last morning, Tower Bridge

View from Tower Bridge

The other side of the river from the bridge.

'

After our fiasco coming to London, we wanted to get to the airport early.  After checking out the tour bridge, we headed back to Liverpool station to get our bus back to the airport.  We caught the bus and were on our way back to the airport.  We got there supppppppppper early this time and had to sit around forever, but it was better than sprinting through the airport to catch our flight!! 

londres, dia 2.

Day 2...
We got up pretty early the second day.  Its hard to sleep in a hostel in the morning because everyone's alarms are going off and people are getting up and showering and going to the bathroom and kids outside yelling and so on and so forth.  (and after all that noise, some girl yelled at me and Amber because we were talking quietly about our plans for the day)  We ate some nasty Spanish granola bars for breakfast...but they were enough to tie us over for awhile...and headed out for the day.  Our first stop was the London eye, the giant ferris wheel type thing.  It wasn't too far away from our hostel, just one bus trip. It was pretty cool and gave an awesome view of the city, but I don't like heights or enclosed places that I'm trapped in...so it was a little nerve racking for me.

the london eye

Amber thought it'd be fun to take a picture of me stressing.

almost to the top!

Big Ben and Parliament buildings

all better now :)

After the eye, we headed to Madam Tousaads (or something like that) wax museum.  I originally wasn't that excited to see it, but it turned out to be really cool!  The place is huge and has like 6 floors and each area has a different theme, like all the "A-listers" then people dressed as famous characters, music, sports, historic figures, a little ride that took you through a history of London, and a little haunted house type area.  The haunted house part was pretty cool, you walk through this area and people jump out at you and there's really neat lights and affects and stuff.  Ooo and the figures are creepily life like.

Harry Potter!

ohh Leo...

Being a BA with the terminator.

as close as we could get to Captain Jack Sparrow...he was being swarmed.  (Everything was, there were wayyyy too many people there!)

John Wayne.  (being BA again)

Miss. Hepburn.

he may be married now, but I can still get a picture!

he however...is cuter, and not married.

Beatles!!!  (more on them later!)

Obama...and

Hitler, in the same room.

After the wax museum we were starving!  We found this delicious place to eat randomly.  I'm not exactly sure what kind of food it was because I'm not very worldly, but I'd say its some sort of Middle Eastern type food.  We got a hugeeeeee meal for a decent price.  Had an appetizer with pita bread....and more pita bread, our main course, then dessert.

Amber's humus (just her appetizer)

my mixed appetizer in the background with our bread.  No idea what all my little blobs of sauce were, but they were amazing!!

amber's salad.

my chicken and rice.  The chicken had some sort of somthing in the middle.  very good.

CHEESECAKE!!

After we finished stuffing our faces (it was probably the most full I have EVER been) we set off to find Abbey road and Abbey road studios,  both me and Amber are big Beatle's fans.  We weren't really sure how to get there or what bus to take (Did I mention that we managed to be in London for 4 days and never got a real map, only a bus map or a underground map?...wait, I think the last day we had something that was a real map, however this day, we only had the very vague bus map).  We wondered forever and asked directions a million times and eventually got going the right way and made it there.  It was a long walk but totally worth it!!

new album cover?

unfortunately, we did not bring a marker with us to add to the wall!

that's a peace sign, not a middle finger.

abbey road studios, bad picture because its under construction.

aww not our work, but so true!!  miss our old pals here!

rocking out to some Beatles of course!

another attempt.  I don't think those trying to drive down the road appreciate the number of people trying to recreate the album cover.

After all the walking and everything we'd done we were very ready to get back to our hostel.  I'm pretty sure that this is the day that it took us about 5 different buses to get home.  There was some sort of big event going on (which seems to be a common theme for me whenever I visit anywhere) and all the buses were being rerouted and not going where they were supposed to go, so we kept getting dropped at random places and had to find another bus stop to get us close to where we wanted to be.  It was quite an adventure.  Luckily, with the visitor Oyster card (the bus passes we bought) it stops charging after a certain point (I think its like 4 pounds a day or something like that) otherwise we would have run out of bus money very fast!!  

After a long day of walking, touring, and figuring out buses, we headed to the pub across the street from our hostel to relax.

the beer we had here was the best beer i've ever had and it wasn't even cold.  anyone know if Sundance  exists in the states?

Another busy day in London!  Again we headed to bed early because we had another big day on Sunday.

Love you all!!