Home for the Holidays

I suppose I owe you all an update on the many things that have been going on since I last wrote. Time just slips away here, and once again I have found myself very behind in blog updates. I will just write about a few of the highlights so as not to overwhelm you with details of my life.

Thanksgiving:

In preparation for Thanksgiving, my co-worker Nandi and I decided to do a whole-school project. We made a tree and cut out leafs for every student from 2-6 grade. Each student received a leaf and on it wrote, "I am thankful for..." and something they are thankful for. We taped the leafs to our tree in the hallway for the whole school to see. The 3-5 year olds and first graders made turkey hands. It was a huge hit!

Nandi showing off her leafs.

Me with my tree

To celebrate Thanksgiving, I had not one, but two dinners! The first one was in Cordoba with a group of Mount Holyoke girls: my friend Tilly (who came to visit from Germany), Liz (who works in Cordoba), Carmen (we celebrated at her house), and Stephanie (who was studying abroad in Sevilla). I cooked a turkey and we had the whole Thanksgiving works! See below:

Thanksgiving Round 1: Cordoba

Then I celebrated Thanksgiving Round 2 in Fuengirola with Rachel, my roommate Alicia, and our friends Carlos and Xavi. Rachel and I cooked for hours to give them a taste of a real Thankgiving (turkey, cranberry sauce, grave, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, biscuits, pumpkin bread, apple pie...) and it turned out to be delicious!

Thanksgiving Round 2 in Fuengirola: Me and Rachel preparing dinner

Portugal

As soon as Thanksgiving had come and gone, it was time for a trip to Portugal! In Spain we have almost a whole week off for different holidays. Rachel and I decided to take advantage of the "puente" (literally bridge, meaning long weekend) and started to plan our adventure to the other Iberian country. Our group grew to three and then four. My friend Caitlin who lives in Sevilla and my Sevillana friend Silvia joined on, and we soon had a fantastic travel group! We rented a car and left Friday morning for Lagos, in the Algarve region in the south of Portugal. We traveled to Cabo de Sao Vicente at the very tip of the country, once thought to be the end of the world, for sunset - and boy, what a sunset! We spent the night in Lagos and then headed to Lisbon mid-morning on Saturday. Meanwhile, back in Spain there were huge strikes and many, many flights were canceled. My roommate had planned to fly to Galicia to visit her best friend, but since her flight was canceled, she changed her plans. She drove from Malaga to Lisbon and met her best friend, Ruky, there. The two additions to our trip made it even more fun, filled with even more laughs, and more memories. The six of us rocked Lisbon, despite the rain. We visited the old monastery in Belem, saw the views from Sao Jorge Castle and ate loads of Portuguese pastries. Yum! On Tuesday we went to Sintra for a few hours. Sintra is about 45 minutes away from Lisbon and is famous for its many castles. It was completely foggy (apparently the sun didn't like us too much) so we couldn't fully appreciate the supposedly magnificent colors of the buildings, but it made for a very fairy-tale like experience. I felt like I was walking through a book, or something that was a creation of the imagination. Quite magical indeed! Later that day we headed to Evora, a town situated more in the center of the country. Evora was named a World Heritage site by UNESCO, and it sure does deserve the title: it's a city surrounded by the original city walls, complete with an aqueduct, Roman theater, and a chapel made entirely of human bones. Definitely worth a visit. After our day in Evora, we headed back to Spain to end our trip. It was one of my favorite trips I have taken and I will be back for more sometime soon!

Caitlin, Silvia, Me and Rachel at Cabo de Sao Vicente during sunset

A taste of the magic of Sintra

Our whole group (starting with me, counter-clockwise): Me, Rachel, Ruky, Alicia, Silvia and Caitlin

Me with my roommate Alicia in Portugal

See more photos of my Portugal trip here: The Best Long Bridge Ever: Roadtrip to Portugal for December Puente 2010


Home

I arrived home on Sunday night, just in time for tortellini-making with Nonno and presepio building with my aunt and cousin, with my Grannie's supervision, of course. It's nice to be home, although I had quite a bout with jet-lag. Thankfully I am almost back to Pacific Coast time. Linguistically I am still adjusting; there are some things that just come to me easier in Spanish or sound better in Spanish. I can only imagine what coming home this summer is going to be like.

I am still in the midst of graduate school applications. I need to get them done this week though because they are due very soon. While it'll be a bit stressful the next few days, I am looking forward to having them all completed and submitted. Then the big wait comes, as well as the obligatory biannual life crisis, which will, of course, work itself out and everything will turn out just as amazingly as it always does in the end. Maybe Dr. Seuss said it better:

You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?

Yes! You will, indeed!

(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)