It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Segovia: snow, snowplow, icicles remind of home.

We had decided that we wanted to take a day trip to get out of the city for a couple hours, a friend of ours had been hiking in the mountains in Segovia (about an hour outside of Madrid) and said it was beautiful, there was a little bit of snow and a lot of hiking trails…

Heading up the mountain on the bus we were hoping to see a little snow, when we reached the town we pulled into a winter wonderland. Kids dragging sleds, snowplow trucks, slush, and crisp crisp winter air J we grabbed coffees and bought gloves from the gift shop and headed to the trails. After hiking for about 2.5 hours with plenty of snowball fights, and building one very handsome snow man we made it to the top. We ate our picnic lunch under a tree and enjoyed the beauty that surrounded us. We made it back to the lodge and had some time to spare so we grabbed a couple beers… and then missed the bus. We had to wait another hour for the next bus and finally we made our way back to the city.

Huelva- I had a Huel-of-va time in the most beautiful city in Spain.

Okay, so maybe I’m lying and Huelva is one of the least beautiful cities in Spain, but I had a FANASTIC time visiting Katie!!

I made sure to buy my tickets ahead of time and asked for the EXACT location of the platform. My bus departed for Huelva at midnight on Thursday. I lucked out and got a window seat hoping I would be able to sleep, thanks to sir restless next to me- little sleep was had. However, I had forgotten that I brought my old ipod to Spain— although it suffered a near death experience two summers ago when it caught my fall during a tragic ankle sprain—it still manages to play music, the best music at that. It has all of my music that I lost from my old computer and regrettably had forgotten about. So the ride was not terrible, if I had to rate it on a scale from Mega Bus to Superb it would have been about a 6. One minor scare when I thought one of my boots was melting on the heater that was BLASTING out heat, possibly shooting out flames at one point-but nonetheless I made it to Huelva.

I made it to Katies Piso around 7:30am, we chatted and caught up for about an hour and then we both went back to sleep for a little while. After we got up and moving we did a walking tour of the city. I saw the city center, did some shopping and we eventually made our way to the port and walked out onto the bridge and sat by the water. I miss being around water!! We grabbed Kebabs for lunch and went back to the piso where we commenced our modern family phenomenon. Katie’s recent discovery of the show and my continuing love affair with it, made it hard for us to pull ourselves away J. Later that night I hit a wall and was exhausted, so we just had a lovely evening in.

The next day we wandered the city and did what Katie and I do best, reminisce. We got coffee at one of Katie’s favorite places and later that night we went and saw the movie Los Ojos de Julia—SO good.  We were both proud to have understood everything.

Monday we headed to Sevilla to see the city and do some shopping. We got to Sevilla around Noon and started to notice that no stores were open, none. So much for our big day of shopping, whoops. We altered our plans a little and still enjoyed our day. We did a ton of walking, window shopping, I had my first Paella experience- excellent! We also toured the cathedral, it was gorgeous. We climbed the tower and saw some outstanding views of the city, it was incredible how green the city still looked- I couldn’t believe it was December! We got back around 7pm that night and had a hilarious time visiting, singing songs from elementary school and of course watching modern family. I think this visit was crucial for the both of us, it’s going on three months that we have been away from home, family, friends, and everything familiar—seeing one of your oldest friends is a marvelous remedy.

Other news:

I am tremendously ready to come home. Thanksgiving was hard for me to be away, it is my second favorite holiday (Christmas takes the cake as #1) and not being with my family was not something I was fond of. I made all of my classes color turkey-hands and go around the room to say what they were thankful for, “English teachers” put a big smile on my face. We had a nice dinner at our piso with Becca, her Mom, Rosa, and Abby. My turkey cookies were a hit J I brought some to my school and the teachers all went bananas! They loved them.

The Christmas lights have been up since the day after thanksgiving and it’s beautiful, it puts me right in the Christmas mood.

One of my teachers from school brought me to the outlet mall, she told me her daughter always wanted to go when she studied in New York so she offered to take me.

I have a shopping problem. I work 16 hours a week, which means I have a tremendous amount of free time on my hands. When 5 of my favorite stores are 50 yards away, what can a girl do? Granted, a lot of my shopping has been for gifts- I can’t stop. I told my roommate the other day that my room looked like it was one shopping bag away from being on an episode of Hoarders.

I am 5 days away from being HOME! My flight is next Saturday- I CAN’T WAIT TO BE HOME. J J J