Four quick things

I don't have much time to write so here are four quick things.

1) The clothes that the Spanish girls wear to class... I've only seen such things on a runway on America's Next Top Model. Seriously, I haven't even seen such outfits on the streets of Chicago. They're so stylish. I saw a girl the other day with Christian Louboutin shoes. Those shoes range from hundreds if not thousands of dollars! I mean, they might have been knock offs, but I doubt it. And today, a girl walked past me three times in tight knee high boots. The heels were about three inches high. How is she wearing those to class?? I don't know. I'm not being critical. I'm just so impressed with these girls!

Even middle aged women wear heels all the time. When my madre picked my up the first day, her friend came with her. When we were walking back to the apartment, the friend told me that earlier that day she's fallen and sprained her ankle, but she was still wearing heels to pick me up! Brutal. But as my friend Sohae (a girl from my program here in Spain) says, "Beauty is pain." Too true. So the few times I've gone out, I wore my heels all night and I felt it the whole next day.

2) I was supposed to go to Valencia this Saturday. The international center here at the university was offering a day long trip. Valencia is only about an hour to an hour and a half north of here so the trip was from 8am to 8pm. For 45 Euros (~$55) we got a round trip bus ride, a tour guide, and entrance to the Oceanarium. That's a pretty good deal! But not enough people signed up for the trip so they cancelled it. :( They said we could have our money back or we could apply it to the rescheduled trip. But that's on February 19th.... my birthday. And I'm not sure I want to do that on my birthday, especially since my madre said we'd do something special. So I don't know what to do. I really wanted to go to Valencia. Oh well. I'll just have to think about it.

3) With the help of my cousin, Margaret, I booked a flight to Paris for February 24th to the 26th! My Aunt Laura and Uncle Vic and Margaret are visiting Paris for two day and they said I should meet them there! But the bad thing is that my flight into Paris goes to a small airport an hour north of Paris. So I have to take a bus to the center of Paris. And I'm getting there a night before my family so I have to find somewhere to stay. Margaret said I should look into Shakespeare and Company, a bookstore that lets people stay overnight if they reshelve books for two hours. I can do that. I'm just not sure I'm brave enough to ask. So I'll have to find my way from the bus stop, to the book store, and also have an alternate plan and find a hostel in case I can't stay at the bookstore or if I'm too scared. Then I need to make sure I know how to get to the hotel were I'm staying with my family the next night. I pray to God I don't get lost. I don't even speak a little bit of French other than "My name is Lizzie. What's your name?" and "How are you? I'm fine." But I have a month to figure it out. And I'm pretty good with directions so it can't be too bad, right? We'll see.

4) I'm going to a free cooking class tonight with people from my program and our supervisor Armando. We're learning how to cook paella, tortilla espanola, and hopefully some other things. I'm super excited about that because I love to cook and I want to be able to cook a meal for my family when I get back and then for my roommate and adopted roommates when I get back to school. So I'm gonna try to take pictures and maybe get recipes so I can remember how to do it in 5 months when I get back to the states.

Maybe when I get back tonight I'll blog about Granada, but it'll take a while to write so I might just do it tomorrow.

Hasta manana!