I had Thanksgiving at the home of the pastor of my church. The pastor has been a missionary here for ~25 years and they always invite all the Americans to have Thanksgiving. It was quite different than my normal Thanksgiving. Actually not too different; just that everything was very fancy. Wine, candles, etc. The company was great as well. There was a girl who lived in Sisters last year so we had a good time talking about Central Oregon. Here are some random fun facts I learned from the group:
- Some homeless people have wi-fi under a bridge in Madrid and are quite tidy. No it's not pronounced "wy-fy", in Spanish it's "wee-fee".
- The pastor's son, Ryan, said that one time he ran away from the ticket taker on the train just to see what he would do. The ticket taker finally caught up to him a few train cars down and Ryan showed him his ticket. The guy asked/yelled, "Why did you run?" and Ryan replied, "Why did you run?"
- One time our worship leader, Kenny, was (literally) running late to catch a train and didn't have time to buy a ticket. He asked a security guard who was boarding at the same time if he could pay on the train; the man said yes. When the train's doors closed the security guard fined him for not having a ticket. After a few moments of confusion Kenny started egging the man on and finally the security guard called him a bad name. After that Kenny took down his name and information. The train company dropped the fine after Kenny wrote to them saying he felt: insulted, ashamed to ride on their trains and was going to sue.
- Last year there was a strike by the parking enforcement because sometimes people would beat them up when they got a ticket. The parking enforcement wanted a security guard accompanying them. Everybody supported the strike. It was the best two weeks of parking in Madrid.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Segovia: Land of History and Funny Train Stories
A couple weekends ago some friends invited me to go to to Segovia, a city in a neighboring region. My friend Raquel and I were supposed to meet in Villalba, board the train together, and then meet up with our friend, Fernando, in another train station on the way to Segovia. However, I missed the early train and had to get on the train heading to Segovia. This wouldn't be so bad, but Segovia is about an hour away, the train only comes every hour, and my friend wasn't answering her phone...oh yeah, I also didn't have a ticket because in my little train station you can only buy tickets for the Madrid region. Fortunately we all met up fine. However, I still didn't have a ticket, I was planning to buy it in Segovia it would be morally ok or maybe pay for a different ticket that costs less because the train system fined me a different time even though I had a ticket (long story).
Fernando assured me everything would be okay; I asked what would happen if somebody came around checking tickets and he told me everything would be fine, there probably wouldn't be anybody checking tickets and even if there was it would be okay. You can probably guess what happened...yes! there did happen to be a ticket-checker lady (I have know idea what you call them) on the train. When we saw her Fernando got a little worried look in his eyes. We devised a plan where I would act like the innocent American tourist and try to communicate in very broken Spanish while my friends would explain to me in broken English what was going. In the end we were able to avoid the 15 Euro fine and were allowed to pay for the ticket on the train.
Segovia is known for it's cathedral, castle, but most importantly for it's massive aqueduct. The aqueduct was built by the Romans without using any type of cement. Everything is still intact, stretching more than 2700 ft and standing almost 100ft high. The cathedral was massive, ceilings 70 ft high...also kind of creepy. I can imagine people singing goulish hymns and a priest condemning everybody.
The temperature probably dropped below freezing and the slight wind didn't help very much. We spent a fair amount of time next to the radiators in the visitors center.
Fernando assured me everything would be okay; I asked what would happen if somebody came around checking tickets and he told me everything would be fine, there probably wouldn't be anybody checking tickets and even if there was it would be okay. You can probably guess what happened...yes! there did happen to be a ticket-checker lady (I have know idea what you call them) on the train. When we saw her Fernando got a little worried look in his eyes. We devised a plan where I would act like the innocent American tourist and try to communicate in very broken Spanish while my friends would explain to me in broken English what was going. In the end we were able to avoid the 15 Euro fine and were allowed to pay for the ticket on the train.
Segovia is known for it's cathedral, castle, but most importantly for it's massive aqueduct. The aqueduct was built by the Romans without using any type of cement. Everything is still intact, stretching more than 2700 ft and standing almost 100ft high. The cathedral was massive, ceilings 70 ft high...also kind of creepy. I can imagine people singing goulish hymns and a priest condemning everybody.
The temperature probably dropped below freezing and the slight wind didn't help very much. We spent a fair amount of time next to the radiators in the visitors center.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
What I've Done the Past Couple Weeks:
- Climbed the highest mountain in La Cordillera Central (Central Mountain Range). It actually wasn't that high (~2,400 meters) and was just an easy hike up, but it was pretty cool. I'd rate this mountain about a 0 out of 10 for solitude. There were about 40 people at the summit, not counting the people still hiking up.
- Didn't go/have many classes this past week due to a teacher not showing up, setting my alarm clock wrong, not needing to take a test, and sleeping in because I stayed up late watching the elections.
- Got invited to go to Madrid to drink and party on Halloween. I ended up teaching some friends how to make pumpkin pie and caramel apples.
- Didn't embarrass myself too much during a volleyball practice
- Ate Kebap (Turkish food) and watched a movie with some friends from church.
Interesting Things I've Noticed:
- The Spanish people are very proud of their country. Someone mentioned that the greatest bullfighter in the world is from a neighboring town. I can't think of another country where people have bullfights except maybe Mexico.
- A jar of about two cups of peanut butter costs ~$6 and Nutella is about half the price!
- Lots of people use trekking poles to hike. It's kinda funny because it seems like it'd be more of a hindrance than actually helpful for the trails I've seen people using the poles on.
- Students here care a ton about school. However, I don't think they care too much about learning, only passing the exams at the end of the year.
- Spain has the craziest billboards. One said, "They Eat Meat", and had a picture of two very fit looking people. The vegetarians are abused here.
- Music from America is way, way more popular than music from Spain.
- A friend asked me the other day what are the white things that people roast over the fire in the American movies (s'mores), nobody here knows what they are! She thought maybe it was meat.
- They don't eat peanut butter!!!
Be sure to check out my pics. The link is at the bottom of the page. (I've got a few albums so you can choose which one to look at on the left side of the page)
- Climbed the highest mountain in La Cordillera Central (Central Mountain Range). It actually wasn't that high (~2,400 meters) and was just an easy hike up, but it was pretty cool. I'd rate this mountain about a 0 out of 10 for solitude. There were about 40 people at the summit, not counting the people still hiking up.
- Didn't go/have many classes this past week due to a teacher not showing up, setting my alarm clock wrong, not needing to take a test, and sleeping in because I stayed up late watching the elections.
- Got invited to go to Madrid to drink and party on Halloween. I ended up teaching some friends how to make pumpkin pie and caramel apples.
- Didn't embarrass myself too much during a volleyball practice
- Ate Kebap (Turkish food) and watched a movie with some friends from church.
Interesting Things I've Noticed:
- The Spanish people are very proud of their country. Someone mentioned that the greatest bullfighter in the world is from a neighboring town. I can't think of another country where people have bullfights except maybe Mexico.
- A jar of about two cups of peanut butter costs ~$6 and Nutella is about half the price!
- Lots of people use trekking poles to hike. It's kinda funny because it seems like it'd be more of a hindrance than actually helpful for the trails I've seen people using the poles on.
- Students here care a ton about school. However, I don't think they care too much about learning, only passing the exams at the end of the year.
- Spain has the craziest billboards. One said, "They Eat Meat", and had a picture of two very fit looking people. The vegetarians are abused here.
- Music from America is way, way more popular than music from Spain.
- A friend asked me the other day what are the white things that people roast over the fire in the American movies (s'mores), nobody here knows what they are! She thought maybe it was meat.
- They don't eat peanut butter!!!
Be sure to check out my pics. The link is at the bottom of the page. (I've got a few albums so you can choose which one to look at on the left side of the page)
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