A Weekend For The Women

This is the door to my apartment -- the key is even cooler
An "Arc de Triumph" on our Segovia adventure



Lighting the man on fire!!

Dancing in the street/plaza

How do you say it again??

This weekend was somewhat different than the others in the fact that I actually got to go out at night without being 'yelled at' for coming home too late. I was still criticized, of course, but I've learned to finally not take it seriously. We had a really good time both nights. We love to go up and hang out at the top of the Aqueduct and check out the view of the city with the lights keeping everything lit up. It's gorgeous! Ashley and I took a long walk on Saturday to wander through the city and kept our conversation in spanish the whole time. We were proud. Sunday we went to the Fiesta de Santa Agueda (Saint Agatha -- look her up, it's crazy). The weather was a little chilly when we went, but we quickly forgot about that when people came dancing up the street to music from tiny little oboes and drums. They had a few more dances and whatnot and then we all headed to church for mass. About halfway through we were really longing for a service in English. We went outside trying to decide what to do when we it started pouring rain/sleet on us. It was so cold and so rainy but we really wanted to stay and watch them burn the man doll. After a while of painful waiting in the freezing cold and rain, they finally lit the doll on fire and we took off for our 6km walk back to the Aqueduct. I was excited to go home and rest, but to my surprise my parents had some friends over for the evening. They were eating a fancy dinner in the living room (when we usually eat in the kitchen) and I was really intimidated by the whole situation!! They 'made' me come and eat with them, which was fine because I had eaten yet. (We had fajitas with salsa roja - ketchup and mayo mixed! Ha -- how spanish!) The people were old college friends of my dad's who have pretty much all studied other languages...especially english. I did decent enough trying to discuss with them, and after a while a was a lot more comfortable, which helped a lot. It's tough when I'm with my family and other native speakers because I feel like I can't speak at all, but it's definitely not the same when I'm with my friends because we don't have anything to prove to each other. If we make a mistake, we correct each other and move along and don't care, but when we try and speak perfectly with our families and others, our brains slow down a lot. Then, we watched Forrest Gump, which really doesn't have the same humor as when you hear it in English, but it's still funny. They all liked to quote the same parts: "Jenny," "Lieutenant Dan," "Bubba." It truly is/was one of our only weekends that we're here in Segovia (because we have so many excursions) but it was very enjoyable! I love getting to know my new city. Today also marks our one month anniversary!!