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| Anita at The Nativity Scene in La Plaza del Pilar in Zaragoza |
Well I went back to work on January 10th but all the professors gave me the day off and they gave me Wednesday off as well. Incredible! In all of December and up until today I’ve worked a total of 9 days, that’s 36 days of vacation...crazy. No wonder my routine is off! Anyways it’s great to be back at work! This week has been nothing but coffee and welcome back kisses....an A+ transition back to work if you ask me. Everyone seems to be in good spirits and to top it off we are all enjoying the clean air at the coffee bar across the street. Congratulations Spain on prohibiting smoking in public places! It makes life so much better...especially if you are recovering from a cold. I hate being sick but I have to be grateful that it hasn’t interfered with work. I also have to be really really grateful that I got sick after vacationing with my sister Anita and not during. I am so happy she came to visit me for the holidays. We had fun traveling with unforgettable memories like touching down in Paris to mounds of snow and slush, almost missing our flight to Milan, and witnessing a purse snatching attempt in Rome. Fun times lol! An enjoyable experience sightseeing with those “This is so beautiful!” full of awe moments and of course not everything lived up to our expectations so we had those “This is so ghetto!” awful moments too. It’s exhilarating to see something you’ve only ever seen in movies or in books, in real life. Well after touring the sights of Paris and Milan Anita and I made it to Rome to celebrate Christmas which of course had a different feel. We found the only restaurant open and ate some not so spectacular pasta for our Christmas dinner. At first we were two of a handful of people in the restaurant but then a Christmas party came in and filled the place. Someone started playing or I should say “attempted” to play some Christmas carols which included a bad rendition of “Silent Night” but it still made it more Christmasy than nothing at all. As time went on the music just got better and better (sarcasm alert) and soon we were listening to “When the moon hits your eye. Like a big-a pizza pie. That’s amore”. Too funny and cliché...If only we had left a little earlier we wouldn’t of got that cheesy song stuck in our heads. Well the whole time we were in Italy it seemed we had two goals. Find a place to wash our clothes and learn some Italian so we did learn “Where is the laundromat?” and not much more lol. Oh wait...we learned Exit to the left and Exit to the right as well, after our many trips on the metro. Anyways cheap lodging was getting too expensive so we decided to head back to Spain a little earlier. A good decision because we got to celebrate New Years (my Birthday) in La Puerta del Sol in Madrid. It was fun to experience a Spanish New Years. I even had my 12 grapes in hand to bring in the New Year but honestly I didn’t hear the bells chime so I just ate them all at once...it’s a tradition to eat grapes as the bells chime and it’s suppose to bring you good luck in the coming year....so I hope it worked. Anyways our trip inevitably came to an end and I had to say goodbye to my favorite sister. I was sad to see her go and it made me homesick which lasted a little longer than I thought it would....but now I am feeling better. Things are back to normal, I am 90% recovered from my cold and the weather has been incredibly warm lately...so I am feeling very comfortable here in Spain. What can I say? God is good!
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| Sightseeing in Paris! |
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| Le Louvre in Paris |
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| New Years in Madrid! |
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| Il Duomo in Milan |
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| Il Colosseo in Rome |
