Moving Too Fast To Keep Up...

...Moving too fast to keep up with the blog, that is. And by moving, I mean moving from Madrid to Hoyo de Manzanares, plus all the little moving from-here-to-there bits that I did in between. Pretty much, I have a lot to catch you up on, so buckle down, because we have a lot of ground to cover.

I need to fill you guys in on two whole weeks. I left off on Thursday, the 24th of January. It's weird to think I've already been here for over a month, things feel like they are moving so incredibly fast. But also at the same time it feels like I've spent ten months here, everything has been so packed. And yet, looking back, it sometimes looks like I haven't really been doing much, so why did it feel so busy. Although, it did at some points seem like I had too much down time, even if I had a full schedule. Wow, ain't Time a funny thing.

One more thing, for whatever reason, when I upload photos they don't stay in the order I had them in, and with this program it's very tedious to move stuff around, so I apologize in advance if pictures end up out of place. I'll try my best, but just enjoy the view, in whatever way in comes :)

This is one of the "Persianas" I told you about,
the shutters that block out all light.

This is when it's not quite completely closed.

That following weekend (after the last update), I had a few adventures, some for the better, and some not so much. First, on Friday, our super-wonderful Spanish teacher informed us that it was her last day with us because she had to teach a different class the following week. That was sad, but I'm thankful for the time we had with her, she was very nice and patient with us. Next, remember how I said my toe had started hurting again? Well on Friday it became evident that it wasn't the pinched nerve again, but some odd fungus/wart thing that had cropped up on my toe. Seriously, why do my feet hate me? But wait, it gets better. Because of the pain caused by the weird fungus/wart and the limping I did to compensate for that, I woke up on Saturday with quite a bit of pain in the big toe of my other foot. Really?! Lets work together here, feet, not in opposition. We need each other, so stop rebelling, ugh.

Here's the progression of my wart/fungus over the next couple of days. Ooh, gross!

Yes, at this point it broke/opened/popped and oozed some. Just adding some more complication since there wasn't already enough.

Anyways, on Saturday my host family took me to El Escorial, a town about an hour out of Madrid. It was really cool to walk around the old town. My favorite part was the old monastery there and the amazing view out over the country side. The one problem, both my feet were hurting. I ended up doing this really awkward double limp thing that probably made me look like a bobbling, hobbling duck. I tried my best to not let it show because I didn't want my host family to start worrying about me on top of everything else. I mean, try explaining some odd wart/fungus thing that you don't even know what it is in a language you barely speak. Ya, I tried a couple of times in my head, it didn't go so well.

The hand is purposeful, I couldn't figure out any other way to keep the sun from creating a major glare. Phone camera.

For lunch they took me to this fun little restaurant that gives you a little mini-grill for your table and then raw meat, so you cook it yourself, it was cool and very tasty.

Nothing really happened then till Wednesday. We went to church on Sunday, continued on with school on Monday, though with a new teacher, who was good, but not as good as our old one. The pain in both my feet continued to persist, increase, and flow and ebb in throbs of pain.

This is our classroom :)

Madrid has wild parrots, it's very fun to see them around. This is in a park near the B.'s house.

 Then on Wednesday (the 30th of January) I had an appointment with the foot doctor again. Thank goodness there are people who know about these things. It turns out the the thing I had been calling the "wart/fungus thing" was actually fungus, but it goes deeper than that (pun intended). There was also I bacteria infection. The doctor believes that the fungus came first, which opened up my toe to the bacterial infection. He took this little knife thing and scraped it out, it was amazing how quickly the pain decreased after that. Apparently, when traveling in new countries, our bodies are much more susceptible to diseases and infection since our immune systems don't have antibodies for local things there. And since the space between toes are so nice and warm and moist, it provides a perfect little spa resort for any little bacteria or fungus that wants to tag along. So, moral of the story, when traveling, make sure you clean between your toes very well, and change your socks everyday (which most of you probably do anyways). The problem with the other foot turned out to be tendinitus, probably caused from over stressing the toe, such as limping on it because of pain on the other foot. I left his office with answers (finally), cleaned fungus, a prescription for antibiotics just to be on the safe side to make sure the bacteria infection didn't get into my blood stream, instructions to wear anti-inflamtory pads on my tendinitus toe, and a check-up appointment for Monday.

Thursday consisted of going to school and then coming home and napping and doing homework. And biggest  plus, I got to FaceTime mom and dad, so good! Love those two so much! Too bad Baruch was at school, would have loved to see him too.

Friday was our last day of school at the InternationalHouse. I think we've learned a lot, but there is a whole lot more to go. Friday evening we went with some friends for tapas, little snack foody things that come with a drink at cafés. To finish off the evening we had "Chocolate con churros," which is super fabulous. It's these fried, bready things that you dip in super-thick, super-delicious hot chocolate. So good!

 Saturday I went with some friends from school to Segovia, another city close to Madrid. We took the speed train, so it was only thirty minutes. The speed train was super cool :)
I'll just let the pictures and their captions tell the story of the day, it was so awesome.

This is a two-million year old Roman Aqueduct
 from sometime during the first century.

It's made with no mortar,  it's just solid stone-upon-stone.

It was in use, like actually being used to transport water for the city, until about thirty years ago when they decided to stop using it to make sure it remained preserved. So yes, it is still functional, even though it's not in use at the moment.

Some views of places visible from and near the aqueduct.

It was quite a cute, quant little town.

This is the beautiful cathedral.

Very big and grandiose. 

Some views of the inside.

 

A fun little enclosed courtyard.

Looking up at the Cathedral from the courtyard.

One of the odd little spire things up close.

This is a book of old music. Being interested in music and music theory and music history (thank you Mrs. Krechel) I found it very interesting to study the note taking format they used.

And back outside...

A smaller church down the road with a very lovely little bell tower.

Some more of the city.

The dish that Segovia is most known for is its roasted suckling pig. How couldn't miss such an opportunity to try the local dish. We had it for lunch and it was very good!

Hmmmm, yummmmm!

This is the castle "Alcázar," which supposedly Disney based their castle off of. But that's only speculation.

It had such a nice view. Wished I could live there, *sigh.*

I mean, just look how gorgeous that is.

Some more of the awesome view from the castle.

And more awesome view, though in the other direction, facing the city rather than away from it.

My friend doing a split in front of the castle....

...and me attempting to do a split in front of the castle.

More splits. I didn't try this one ;)

A pretty little fountain in one of the castle courtyards.

 Some basic Castle-y things. 

Come at me bro!

Aahgg, such a gorgeous view. Why I no live there!

Some nice stained glass.

Most every room had really awesome ceilings.

Great Hall, at least that's what I called it (for any of you Redwall fans).

Little alcove with a lovely view. I would so
spend my summers there reading in the sunshine.

Aaahh...

Probably my favorite ceiling.

More cool ceiling.

 The Armory

View from the Armory. Seriously, all the views were so pretty!

Secret door we couldn't open, but....

....the camera could still take a picture through the crack above the door. Pretty little balcony.

Some sort of something, not really sure?

Stairs up to the tower. A total of 157.

View from one of the staircase windows.

...still climbing.

To the top at last. Though it was snowing and super windy and super cold. But all the gorgeous views were well worth it.

Hmm...what's down there?

Oooh, hahaha, never mind. A bit of a long drop.

Back out front. So wonderful!

The castle from a distance.

Cool sculpture, because....

....because it is actually two parts.

A view of the Cathedral from a different part of the city.

Some more pretty pictures of the city in general.

And to finish off, we stopped by the aqueduct on our way out :D

On Sunday at church one of the kids put on my coat and scarf and started strutting around the room saying, "Soy Asher, soy Asher" ("I'm Asher, I'm Asher"). When I took a picture of him, he decided he wanted  to taked pictures too, hence all the some-what-random photos.

Sunday was also mine and Reneé's last day with our Madrid host families. It was a sad goodbye, and I'm thankful for the time I was able to have with them and thankful to them for opening their house up to a total stranger.

But, do to some complications, we weren't able to move in with our Hoyo host families until Tuesday, so we stayed Sunday night, Monday, and Monday night with the B. family. Guess what, they have Nutella cereal here, Nutella everything. Okay, it's not "Nutella," there are different brands of the stuff, but they make everything with it: cookies, spreads, cereals, more spreads, crackers, snacks, it's just all too wonderful!

Also on Monday I had my check up appointment for my toe. He says it's looking good, and he gave a anti-fungul spray to help clear it up. I have another check-up next Monday.

Tuesday night I moved in with my new host family in Hoyo. My host mom is the owner and cook of a restaurant here in town, so I get to eat very good food all the time. My host brother is twelve years old and quite a hyper little kid. I get along with them quite well and things are going smoothly, except for the parts were we don't understand each other (mostly each others' Spanish), and that's about 68% of the time. But things are working out, little by little.

I did make my first big Spanish mistake. Instead of saying, "Tengo mucha pena," meaning, "I have a lot of pain," I said, "Tengo mucho pene," which is essentially saying, "I have a big penis." Yeah, I had no idea why they were all laughing so hard until someone explained it to me later. I definitely thought I said "pena," oops :/

I'm going to wrap things up here for now. Please feel free to comment or ask questions here on the blog or via email through my Communications Girl Extraordinaire, Hope, at constanceh.95@gmail.com. Also, my prayer requests come through Mike, so contact him at biblebeach@hotmail.com if you'd like to receive those when I send them.

I think that wraps things up. Know that I miss you all a whole lot, and I love you a "bushel and a peck, a hug around the neck, and barrel in a heap, and I'm talking in my sleep about you!"

Hasta luego

Many Loves and Misses,

~Asher Fickett~