This is How Spaniards do Business

Ayyyye Madre Mia

So far my time in Spain has been really interesting. Some friends of Rebeca are in town and both of the families have kids so we have gone on some play dates which have been fun. I have enjoyed learning the culture and trying to figure out the language...The culture has been awesome but the language thing... Yeah... that one is a toughy... I will give you a couple of examples of why this has been difficult/amusing/confusing.

Example #1:

I am about to take the kids for a walk and I notice that they have packed a bunch of books into a Hannah Montana bag. (I know, the dreaded Hannah disease has spread here, you're welcome Spain) So I think, 'Great! We are going to read in the park, it's such a beautiful day, this is awesome!'. We got to the park, the children are chattering happily about something and as we approach the park, Paula comes up to me to say something and all I can understand is "los libros" and "es Legal, si?".. I respond "OF course it is legal to read books in the park!!". At this point I am pretty confused because how terrible is it that there are some places where it is illegal to read in public? What the heck?? But then it dawns on me, the kids are looking around and pointing at different families with children and I realize that they are not going to READ the books in the park, they are going to try to sell them to people. I can honestly say I was a little confused/embarrassed. Here I was with these four kids and they are about to just boldly go up to random people trying to sell books. I made sure to call Rebeca and make sure it was okay and while talking to her I realized that apparently this is no new thing, they seem to do this often. Cool.... At this point the kids have already talked to a couple of random families and tried to sell their extra toys and books and I have begun to walk about five to ten steps behind them. I was trying my hardest not to look like their ring leader but it was kind of hard when they would run up to me yelling "AIMEE AIMEE LOOK AT THE MONEY!!" At that point I would be like "ohhh yay..Keep it..Let's go play on the swings.."... Oh what the youth will do for five euros! I remember doing VERY random things for an extra buck but honestly I never sold my books in a park. The children's success rate was about 1 out of every 10 people and they finally got discouraged and played a little in the park. Thankfully I got a couple of pictures from the day so I will share them with you! :)

The little entrepreneurs themselves

That is victim number three that is about to be offered some gently used books. He said no.. Weird, right?

Example #2

The children and I are again walking to the park and one of the little girls asks me: "blah blah blah spanish word spanish word paseo". Obviously I didn't catch much of what she said so I just guessed at what she asked me.. Sometimes you can just say "Si" and it works perfectly and people don't really know that you don't know what the heck they are talking about. In my response I said "treinta minutos". Before I even finished my response the children burst into laughter and it took me about two minutes to calm them down and figure out what she had asked me... Which was "How long are you staying here (in Spain)"... Cooolll I just told them I was only staying for thirty minutes more... Oh the joys of being surrounded by a foreign language.

Those are all of the examples I have for now, I hope you enjoyed those two stories. It has been a fun and exhausting day.

Buenos Noches amigos!

~Amy

If Shoes Could Talk, Mine Would be Speechless

I have obviously been doing a lot of walking these last couple of days because everything is in walking distance and it is just easier! But, there is an additional explanation as to why I chose the title of this post. Mainly it is because pretty much every time I have walked out the door since Sunday by myself I have gotten lost. Well... not necessarily lost but I have certainly walked a great deal more than I should. It is easy to get turned around and walk about half a mile in the wrong direction here, at least for me it is easy! haha I decided to draw a picture of my most recent walking experiences so you can understand what I mean...

I will explain this crazy drawing, don't worry your pretty little head.

Note: Okay, I know the drawing is TERRIBLE..Deal with it. Or, post a question in the comments section ;).

The black route is the route I took yesterday to go to the village... Obviously I went in the complete opposite direction and turned around and found myself back at the house where I tried once again to go to the village and eventually made it there but went ALL the way around the park! haha

The lighter pink route shows the second time I went out on my own to find the hotel that the family manages (El Campus Cerdanya). This time I went in the right direction, sort of, but took a very long route.. :-P

The plus sign route shows the (soft of) correct routes to the village and to the hotel, much shorter as you can see.

So my poor shoes are very confused and speechless at this point because of the crazy routes I have taken and because of the fact that I also go on about two walks a day with the dog. The walking really hasn't bothered my feet and I think I am more sore from the workouts I have done than from just walking around a ton. I guess I was kind of used to it in Austin and I am not in too bad of shape. Thankfully, the long walks have provided ample opportunity for me to take some pictures so I will share them with you! :)

This is a beautiful view close to the hotel.

An Elliptical in the Park! Happy thought indeed.

Hydrangeas!! :) (right, Rebecca W.?)

This is the view from the house that the Garces' are building. The house is just to the left.

I will go for more walks and take some more pictures of the scenery. There is a running/walking trail that I like called "El Paseo de Los Enamorados" (I think that is how it is spelled)...AKA "the path of the lovers", or something like that. It is really pretty and calming.

Today is the last day of the English camp for the kids so I won't be as free to write as much..But I will still try to do one a day.

Hope everyone is having a lovely day! If I could bottle up some of this fresh mountain air and send it back to Texas, I would.

~Ames

The Gig is Up!

A quick post for the morning! :)

Okay so obviously I was not expecting to completely blend into this village as a Spainard but I thought I was doing a pretty good job at it...Until this morning. Yesterday when I was walking in the village I was able to communicate what I needed in Spanish and everyone tends to talk to me first in Spanish. (Also, it's not like I walk around with a fanny pack and an old navy 2011 fourth of July shirt on). Needless to say I felt like I was doing a pretty good job at keeping my "cover". And then this morning I was walking the children to their school where they are attending an English camp and when we arrived at the school there were the English teachers(Spaniards teaching English) and lots of other children around. Even though I have never met any of the teachers they ALL said "hello", "how are you?" and a couple of them said "see you later". I guess they had heard there was an American coming to stay with Marco and Paula? Anyways, this may not make much sense to you but I thought it was pretty funny that they all spoke to me in English... Maybe they are practicing? Who knows. It is funny to think that I am pretty much the token American here in the village. Anyways... I hope you all are having a wonderful morning back in America! Rise and Shine! :)

~Eime (this is how Paula spelled my name today...? haha)

p.s. No pictures for this post but here is a picture of what I have to do to charge my computer...Looks safe, right?

Five things I have learned about Spain thus Far!

I love this village!

I thought that yall might like to know some little things I have learned since I have been here. Just a couple of fun facts that I found to be interesting about this region of Spain and the people I have been in contact with! I am very tired today because I did not really get to sleep much last night. I did not fall asleep until 4:00 :(.

1. Pretty much every person I have met has been very warm and welcoming. I mentioned the fact that they give you a slight hug and a kiss on each cheek whenever they first meet you. It took me a little while to get used to this! haha! Also, the people Rebeca has introduced me to (a couple of her friends own shops in the village) have been very willing to help me. They always say "if you have any problem. You come here and we take care of it! Es nothing Aimyyyy (Amy)!"

2. Meals are taken very late in the day (lunch and dinner). I know what everyone is saying, 'of course they do! It is Europe!'. But I guess I never thought about it until I really experienced finishing lunch at 3:30 and dinner at 10:00! haha!

3. I am one of the tallest people around. The first thing that Rebeca said to me when she met me was "you are SO tall!". It is not that the people I have met are super short or that there is no one that is taller than me. But I have yet to meet a person that is significantly taller than me.

4. During my run yesterday in the village I passed a car that had stopped in the road. Other cars began to pile up behind it and when I circled around a few minutes later I noticed that there was a significant amount of traffic being caused by this one little car. The thing that is most interesting (I am sure you are probably wondering what I am getting at) is that NO ONE was honking or yelling and I saw no signs of frustration from any of the drivers. As I was circling around and ran past the car that was stopped I believe it was a REALLY old french couple who were confused about the roads and were talking to a lady in the street. The lady was then helping the couple get out of their car and from what I could hear she was going to drive them to their location! Anyways so it is interesting to see the different temperaments of different countries. Here in the village of Puigcerda the people are very relaxed and you often stand in line for a few minutes and listen to the customer in front of you gossip or catch up with the salesperson! It is really quite nice and it suits my personality just fine.

5. Even though I am in a completely different country it is fun to see the similarities! I have taken some pictures of these similarities:).

Okay so I don't have a picture of what I think the similarity is but what I was going to say is that people in Spain are also quick to marvel at beauty and take pictures of beautiful things. How awesome is our God that He created such wonderful things for us to enjoy! Incredible!

They read about Michael Phelps! :) Apparently he too is a human being and got Silver in the 200m race. Tsk tsk. He is slipping.

The children play video games...and LOTS of them. This is Hugo. He is the cousin of Marco and Paula. He has a little brother who is three and very blonde! :) Some of the cutest kids I have ever seen have been in Puigcerda. Perfect skin and beautiful hair!

They watch Friends!! For those of you who know me. I am sure you can understand why I was excited about this fact :).

Es todo por el dia! Estoy a la caminar con el perro, "Rocky".

Vale!

~Amy Elinor

p.s. please feel free to correct my Spanish. Really not sure if I said that last bit correctly.:)

The Trip to Puigcerda

Hola Amigos!

It has been a very interesting couple of days. Last night was the first night that I have slept more than four hours since like Friday night so I feel much better today.. Maybe it is all of the coffee I have been drinking?

The beginning of my trip:

On Sunday morning I flew without any trouble to Atlanta but unfortunately I had to wait a LONG time at the Atlanta airport (because my flight did not leave until 6pm), by the end of the eight hours or so I was so tired of sitting down that I contemplated doing a couple of sprints but I decided against it:). While I was waiting, my mom sent me an AWESOME sermon by Francis Chan about prayer. Just a huge reminder of how the Lord is able to answer every single prayer we send to him, no matter how small! Please be praying that I find a Christian friend in Puigcerda and please read Psalm 27 and pray that for me, it has been on my heart for this trip.

It was finally time to begin the process of boarding.

Side note: For the past couple of weeks I knew that there was a slight possibility that I would get to ride in first class. But I had not let myself get TOO excited about the thought because I didn't want to be let down if it did not happen.

So everyone was lining up to get ready to board and they start calling names..I suddenly hear "SHEINNKKK" and I quickly rush over to the person behind the counter and I get asked, "window or aisle?" and then she handed me my ticket and I immediately got pretty excited because it said "Seat 2A which I was SURE was first class(technically called "business class" because there is no first class)! And about five minutes later, I was able to board with those in first class. I think one of my favorite things about first class is that you get to board before anyone else and you also get to get off before anyone else!

We sat down and were immediately handed a menu for the flight where we saw what the appetizers were and what main course and dessert we could choose. Also, before the flight began, we were handed a glass of champagne.:)

The food was wonderful and the seats were comfortable, I cannot say a bad thing about the whole thing! But I did feel a little pretentious sitting in the front! haha

That is the appetizer we had: Potato soup and duck breast with couscous..

I had a great conversation with the lady sitting next to me, she was an American whose daughter had moved to Spain with her Spanish husband she had met in New York. She gave me her card and her daughter's email address so I am going to contact her daughter for some advice about what to see in Barcelona!

After arriving in Barcelona I got my baggage but unfortunately my telephone did not work so it took awhile to get in touch with Rebeca. We finally met up and she was so wonderful and warm that I immediately felt at home with her!

The drive to their village was not too bad, the scenery was beautiful but I did not get any pictures because I just didn't think about it (I think I was too tired! haha!). Their village is situated in a valley and there are beautiful mountains all around, I wish I could see them with snow on them! During the drive Rebeca and I chatted about various things. which included the pronunciation of "Puigcerda", the village where they live. It is in the region of Catalan so the language of the area is different from Spanish and sounds pretty odd. The pronunciation is REALLY hard to do, haha it is something like; "poocher'da" (I think). Every time I say it, Rebeca repeats it back to me and I don't feel like I sound at all like her! haha

We had lunch at the "Chalet del Golf" which is a hotel that they manage that is about ten minutes drive away from their house. The great thing about being with the Garces family is that they manage two hotels so we get to eat at either hotel for free! The Chalet is a beautiful and very calming place. The view is amazing and the golf course looks beautiful but not beautiful enough to tempt me to try my hand at golf again;).

The other hotel "Campus Cerdanya" is more active and it is very modern. The hotel is designed for groups to stay and they provide a lot of activities. Rebeca has set it up so I can take the children to the pool, ice skating, or to play tennis. But, if I want to do a class (spinning, abs, pilates, etc...) I have to pay 6 euros.. So I probably won't be taking very many classes.

My room at their house is small but very comfortable. I really like it.

Here is a picture of my windows (which take up a lot of that wall! haha)

The people I have met are very nice and it is apparently normal to hug someone when you meet them and give them a kiss on each cheek! haha

More on the town and the surrounding view whenever I have more time to take pictures and explain them:). Hope you are having a great day!

P.S. In Spain they do the lisp for their C's and Z's.. I have started doing it, but it takes a while to get used to saying! haha and sometimes I cannot understand a Spanish word if they say it quickly and lisp.

The Countdown Begins..17 days until Spain

Pictured above is the town I will be staying in, Puigcerda...


Hello all!

I am getting excited about my trip to Spain which will include but is not limited to:

Hanging with kids.

Hiking.

Going to Barcelona (hopefully).

Sailing to Ibiza.

Learning. Learning.Learning.

Spanish.Catalan. French. annndd who knows how many other languages.

Growth! (In my relationship with God and in understanding myself!)

Driving a standard vehicle (oh help).

I am going to try to keep up with this blog and keep everyone updated on how my trip is going! :) So come back and see what you can see in a couple of weeks!