Supongo que me gusta el numero 9 (9/29/2010)
A lot of my posts are on dates with the number 9… huh.
Anyway! Since I’ve last posted I have:
Gone to Germany
Gone to Austria
Gone to el Retiro en Madrid
Learned more Spanish
Went to another Rotary meeting
Had a birthday!
So here we go:
Rotary
We had a meeting for just our district with is Sierra Madrid, district 2201. It was really fun! different than the meetings my club at home has. For one, it started at around 8 at night. All the exchange students (inbound and the returned ones) were sitting at the front and the two returned exchange students gave a speech about where they’re from. After, all the inbounds had to say (in Spanish) what our names are, where we’re from, our family, and our tutor. **[side note: pate is my lifeee. I’m eating it right now and it’s the best creation ever]** This meeting was right after our long weekend with ALL the exchange students, so I was pretty much English-ed out. I spent the whole time talking to the Rotex kids (former exchange students are called Rotex), Carlos Brazao (my tutor in Spain), and the other tutors and parents. Everyone was complimenting my Spanish haha it was such a boost, seeing as I feel like I’m constantly speaking in tongues.
Germany
So about a week ago at lunch my mom told me that we’re going to germany for the weekend! Yes, I freaked out. Germany is awesome!
When I flew in, I went with my brother Alberto and we got there around midnight. First we went to burger king ‘cause Alberto was dying of hunger and apparently so was everyone else (even though he and I had already had lunch, then dinner at McDonalds, then he ate AGAIN on the plane).
This picture is at the market which we went to the following day. There were a bunch of booths just like this, and they all smelled amazing!
After, we walked around and just kinda window shopped for a while, and navigated the metro. Around the time we were walking back to the metro, we ran into this guy:
The cool thing is that everyone is dressed like this right now. It’s Oktoberfest so the German spirit is like, through the roof haha. But he was special ‘cause his outfit is real, and the real ones cost over 500 euros when you buy EVERYTHING. So he’s hardcore.
After we got back to our car, it was right to my “birthday surprise”. I was napping in the car, and when I woke up I looked out the window and saw this:
Awesome. The Alps! The pictures don’t do mountains justice at all. They’re HUGE. And gorgeous and glowing and it was rainy but everything was all bright. Total fairy tail moment. And then my mom told me that we were in Austria. That was my birthday surprise! A trip to Austria! They told me pretty much, why not? Seeing as it’s two hours from Munich (where we were in Germany) to Salzberg, Austria (the birthplace and residence of Mozart, FYI).
Austria:
So we got to Austria then spent a really really really long time looking for a place to park, which is borderline impossible, until we realized that our hotel has it’s own private lot. The room was adorable, the bed was SO comfy, and there were little chocolates with Mozart’s face on it: totally lovely. PS, everything is Austria is so so beautiful. The buildings are all crazy clean, the people dress really well, landscape is all perfectly trimmed. We walked around the market that’s there all the time and after that, went to this little festival kind of thing that’s there for Oktoberfest in Austria. (I didn’t know they celebrated in both countries..)
My mom and I on a back street, close to where we ate dinner.
Carnival rides
This giant sculpture that I don’t know what it is, and was too busy to ask. But in the background to the left you can see the tent for Oktoberfest, and at the top you can see the fortress, that’s now a museum.
My brother and I standing outside the restaurant we had my birthday dinner at. (This is all in the same day, by the way.)
Birthday dinner! Everything was amazing, and mad hearty. Really different than Spanish food. It’s a lot closer to what my Dad (USA Dad) makes at home.
Austrian Oktoberfest! There was music playing, people dancing and standing on tables, everyone was drinking obviously: it was so cool.
The carnival at night. There was a chain of Austrians on this, all trying to hold on to the ones in front of them, laughing hysterically because they’re smashed. It was so funny.
After this, we walked across the river to a bar to hang out, and my mom ordered me a piece of cake with sparklers in it and they sang happy birthday in Spanish :] But obviously me, being the dud that I am, was exhausted. So we went back to the room and I took a bath and everyone went to bed.
The next morning, we went out to breakfast: grand is kind of the only word for it. Everyone got rolls, and two kinds of jelly, and honey, and butter, and an egg, and my dad got salmon and cream cheese, and my brother got these slices of meat.
The thing I really wanted to see was the fortress, so that’s where we went:
The view from the “back”
Inside
Churches and other random buildings
Rotary Austria! I left a business card with my pin attached. They have lunches on Monday (I asked) so hopefully they saw it, seeing as I left it on Sunday.
El Retiro
This really cool park in Madrid. I went with two of my good friends, one of their boyfriends, and like, four other people that I just met. Everyone was so nice and wanted to know about America, so we had an English lesson, and everyone asked me questions about the stereotypes they have about Americans (most of which are wayyyyy off). 
These are the two girls I already knew, Elena y Irene. They’re in my class, and help me TONS with everything. 
Us on the way to find snacks.
random pictures everywhere haha I told Irene and Elena that I need to take more pictures, so now I have probably 300 more from one day. Thanks guys.
But yeah. OH! This isn’t recent, recent but here’s a picture of virtually my whole class haha
Okay, I think that’s long enough.
Tan mas ingles! Tengo que dejar mi idioma!
Hasta luegito,
Besos
