Cuando en España: This experience has been what I've made it to be

So.

This is awkward.

I came down with a terrible case of chicken pox? My computer crashed? I forgot how to speak English?

Alright so none of that is true. I'm simply attempting to come up with excuses for why I haven't blogged for the past two months. I don't have one... unless laziness counts.

I usually have a theme for each of my posts, but since it's been so long, I'm going to share with you whatever thoughts enter my mente.

Tourists like Segovia. I've been a tourist many times, but never have I been the resident witnessing tourists take photos and talk in excited voices about visiting my city. #goodfeeling
Spain is pretty great. It's very diverse... meaning the northern part of the country (called "país Vasco") is much different than the south. Customs are a bit different, typical foods vary, the accent differential is similar to that of Minnesota compared to Texas.
Terraces are awesome. It's now 73 degrees F in Segovia, and I'm sitting out on the Terrace with the sun roof up... all right outside my room.
The Semana Santa in Segovia was impresionante. I was lucky enough to be here and witness it in person. Photos to come.
Going to a theater and watching a movie in Spanish is a ton of fun, and very educational.
As a group we have traveled to maaaaany different cities within Spain (in order):

Salamanca
Madrid
Toledo
Escorial/Valle de los caídos (site - not a city)
Barcelona
La granja (countryside outside of Segovia)
Andalucía

Córdoba, Granada, and Sevilla

Some of those cities we only stayed for a day, others we were there for at least three nights. Andalucía is basically a large area within Spain. We had our biggest excursion there where we stayed for one night in Córdoba, a couple in Granada, and a couple in Seville.

"[Spain] wasn't going to be like I thought it was."

Even though at times life is hard, I've had a fantastic time here. The most important thing for me to realize early on was that it wasn't going to be like I thought it was. I studied abroad a second time because I wanted to perfect my Spanish. I did not come because I wanted a semester off of "real" school, because I wanted to party in a new and exciting country, because living with a host family is the summit of happiness, because I wanted to meet Spanish girls. No. Those did not have any sway on my decision to study in Spain.
What I had to realize was that if I wanted to strive for perfection with Spanish I would have to do it on my own. Perfection is not going to walk up to your front door and ask if it came come in, sit down for a while, and chat. It's not easy. I realized early on that if I didn't put in major hours on my own time, in addition to studying abroad in a Spanish speaking country, it wasn't going to happen. Excellence isn't achieved in a classroom; it's achieved at home, in the library, in a cafe, or wherever else you choose to work at it.
I was upset that I wasn't learning Spanish at the pace I wanted to. Once I came to grips with the fact that I wasn't merely going to absorb the language as I hoped a second abroad experience would do for me, my impression of Spain changed drastically. I began hitting the books harder than I had before. Doing the homework in a way that most students should - but also in that way that simply never happens because it takes "too much time". In addition to a respectable dedication to school assignments I began to work on my individual areas of struggle within the language: grammar and vocabulary. For the grammar I bought a book in Spanish - Los Juegos del Hambre (The Hunger Games) and started reading. For vocabulary I went to the local "chinese store" (which is what the Segovians call it because it's proprietors are Chinese) and bought myself a shiny new orange notebook in which I would record seven new words a day, including three phrases a piece for retention. Since that time, my Spanish has improved in leaps in bounds - something that hadn't happened since my abroad experience in Chile where my Spanish comprehension level soared.

This experience has been what I've made it to be. I went in expecting to learn Spanish from the Spaniards. What I didn't expect was everything else I've learned.

How to cook deliciously healthy meals.

It wasn't till last semester (fall of 2012) when I developed my interest in cooking. Before that I was awful... my goodness I was bad (at the beginning of the semester I had to ask my roommates to help me fry an egg). My first "big" attempt at cooking was to, of course, impress a girl with her favorite meal. I asked my crush over to my apartment in an attempt to have one of those movie-perfect nights where the guy and girl cook something together. You know, where there's fun music in the background, and inevitably a food fight breaks out at some point? What ended up happening was she came over and worked on homework while I struggled to figure out how to brown some beef. However, even without a food fight, I think it turned out alright... just ask my girlfriend :)
ANYWAY. The point is I developed an interest in cooking right before I left for Spain, and now that I'm here I have learned from my host mom how to make many healthy, delicious, and filling dishes. I learned that it's very easy to have a fresh piece of fruit after every meal, and making home-squeezed orange juice for breakfast is an easy thing to do while waiting for your toast to pop up. I learned that there are a thousand distinct ways to make a salad, all very easy.
I learned how to very quickly and effortlessly peel an orange... a pleasing fruit I had always avoided due to the hassle in peeling it.

How to plan a vacation.

This has been something that all of us study-abroaders have done a lot of. During our free weekends many of us have hauled ourselves off to another city for a couple of days. This is a list of places I have traveled to outside of group guidance, or will travel to after the program: