Wow!  I´m horrible at updating this...sorry!

Spring Break:  I went with Stephanie, Cindy and Ben to Porto, Portugal where we flew to London.  In London we saw the main attractions i.e. Buckingham Palace, the London Tower, Tate Modern, and I can´t even remember it all now.  We rented a car our last day there to visit Stonehenge.  It was pretty funny to watch Cindy driving on the right side of the car on the left side of the road in a city of 7 million!  On our way to Stonehenge we stopped in a town called Mattingley since Steph´s last name is Mattingly and it´s where her ancestors are from.  It was a neat little town; it only had a pub and a church.  Unfortunately, by the time we got to Stonehenge it was totally dark although the moon was shining rather brightly.  We could this it by the light of the moon, but our cameras couldn´t so we have no proof we went!  From London we went to Dublin.  I loved it!  It´s much smaller than London and everything we wanted to see seemed like it was within the same mile.  We were happy to find that Dublin also used the Euro rather than the English pound which has a much worse exchange rate...$2 to the pound.  We saw Trinity College, St. Patrick´s Cathedral and the Guinness Storehouse.  We also took an bus tour out to the coast and visited Malahide Castle...my first in Europe!  After Dublin we flew to Glasgow, Scotland.  Our first day there, we took a train to Edinburgh, the capital.  Edinburgh is my favorite European city so far; it was beautiful!  You could stand on any street corner in the city and see something amazing.  We walked up a small mountain that overlooked the city and got a really neat view.  Back in Glasgow, there really wasn´t a lot to do so it was nice and relaxing.  We headed back to London and slept in the airport for 4 hours and then caught our flight back to Portugal where we´d take the bus back to Santiago.

We came back to three days of class and then off to southern Spain for our program excursion!

First we stopped halfway for the night in Toledo -- just a little south of Madrid.  It´s a neat medieval city built on a hill with a river around it.  We saw some different church and some of El Greco´s work.  Next stop was Granada.  We visited La Alhambra on a gorgeous sunny day and then enjoyed some of the shopping and nightlife.  Then in Córdoba, we visited La Mezquita which is the only mosque in the world which doesn´t face Mecca.  Unfortunately, Christians came in and took over, building a cathedral directly in the center of this amazing building.  It was neat, though, to see both religions expressed in the same structure.  As much as I liked the Alhambra, I think I liked the Mezquita more.

So here I am back in Santiago trying to plan some more adventures before I return.  I already have less than 2 months left...

Sorry I haven´t updated this in so long!

OK...a couple weekends back, I had to opportunity to see Real Madrid play in A Coruña (a town just north of Santiago) with my roommates and Malia.  It was at 10 p.m., and it was so cold...not to mention we were in the very top row!  It was a good time, though.  Since no trains came back to Santiago until 6 a.m., we just mosied around the town.  I have never seen so many people out at 5 in the morning!  Needless to say, we slept most of the day on Sunday.

Also, that same weekend was my first time to go to the Farmer´s Market in town.  It was so much bigger than Wichita´s and Lawrence´s.  We got some amazing bargains on some amazing produce!  They also have a whole stretch of seafood...and most of it´s still alive! 

Malia and I found a really good Crepería (crepe place) the other night.  We made a date out of it: dinner and we went to see Million Dollar Baby.  It was the first time I´d been to the theatre, and I think I understood most of the movie, but I probably would´ve liked it more had it been in English.