Time flies

It has been quite a while since I wrote! Oops. I've just been so occupied here! With class, volunteering, worship band, homework, bible study, travelling, and other miscellaneous stuff, I barely have time to rest, let alone write a blog post.

As a preface to this post, I should admit that I have gotten quite lax in my photo-taking. Therefore, I will mostly be stealing picture from other people from now on. :)

Last weekend (21-22 Feb.) the school arranged an excursión (excursion) to the city of Toledo. On the way up there, which was a 6 hour bus ride, we stopped in the town of Consuegra to look at the famous molinos de viento (windmills) that Don Quijote fights. It was super windy up on the hill, but really cool to see the windmills that inspired Cervantes to write.

Alyssa and me with windmills (back left)
 

El entierro del señor de Orgaz

El expolio

Toledo itself was interesting. We saw the cathedral and a monastery, but the main reason we went was to see some famous paintings by El Greco, aka Doménikos Theotokópoulos, a famous painter we are learning about in art class who lived and painted in Toledo in the 16th century. We saw two of his cuadros (paintings) there: El entierro del señor de Orgaz (The Burial of the Count of Orgaz) and El expolio (The Disrobing of Christ). Even though El Greco isn't my favorite artist, it was pretty awesome to see in person the painting we were studying in class. El Greco has a very dinstinctive style and is very famous and well-known in Spain. The thing that I liked the most about Toledo, though, was that it was in Toledo that they made all the swords for the Lord of the Rings movies and forged the ring! They are apparently very well known for their blacksmithery in Toledo and make lots of famous swords (including the dress swords for the US Marines). It was pretty cool to see all the replicas of the swords and the one ring. :)

The next week was really short (3 days) because it was a public holiday in Andalusia - El día de Andalucía (Andalusia Day). It is pretty much a day to say "Yay, we exist!" and everyone gets the day off of work. Since it is on a Friday, nearly everyone gets another day off on jeueves (Thursday) that they call un puente (a bridge), because it bridges the work days with a holiday. For this 4 day weekend, a group of friends and I went to Madrid. It was TONS of fun! We did a lot of walking around the city, visiting all the churches we encountered, the cathedral, the Royal Palace, all the museums, parks, gardens, and anything else we could find! A lot of fun. However, I realized that I do not particularly like art museums when they are only paintings - I like a bit of variety in my art styles - and especially not when I am exhausted. But it was fun nonetheless.

The group in front of the Palacio Real (Royal Palace)

This week is a full week of classes. Then we have a 4 day week with a Friday excursion, one more full week, and then Semana Santa (Holy Week). I'll be travelling to Southampton during Semana Santa, so I'm really excited for that time to come :) My friend, Erika, is coming with me and I'll be spending 10 days with family, so it will be great. I just have to survive until then!

On that note, I am surviving! Praise God, I have not had any health problems thus far since I've been here. I tried to wean myself off of my beta-blocker (which controls my heart rate) before I came, but I kept getting arrythmias, skipped beats, etc., so I'm back on that. I've been a little bit homesick lately (never thought I would say that!), which has been tough, but managable. I am definitely excited to see family later this month and I'll be very happy to see my parents and brother and friends again when I go back to Minnesota in a little over 2 months. By the way, I can't even believe its been so long and we don't have much time left!

Like I said, time flies :)

Hasta luego,
Alannah