Already April!

I can't believe how time has flown here. It is already April. I can't believe that the month of March is already done with. I have been traveling so much lately that I feel I need to update you all on what I have been up to lately. I don't even know where to start. Well, let's see...last time I wrote an update I was just going to Pamplona, Spain and then to go skiing at a ski resort called Formigal. The city of Pamplona is known for the 'Running of the Bulls'. It is a city that is about 70 kilometers away from Logrono. The day that we went to Pamplona was absolutely beautiful! We had packed bocadillos (sandwiches made on amazing Spanish bread) with us to be able to eat outside and relax in the middle of the day. We chose to sit and enjoy our lunch in one of the main plazas of the city as shown in the photo below.

Here are a few more photos that I took in Pamplona, Spain.

This is the countdown to this year's 'Running of the Bulls'. It happens during the first week of July.

Here I am standing in front of the building where the 'Running of the Bulls' starts from. There are massive crowds of people in this plaza partying and celebrating during that week.

Here I am standing on the street where the 'Running of the Bulls' takes place. Boy it is a small street!


The day after we went to Pamplona we woke up at about 4:00 AM to head off with a bus load of people from Logrono to go skiing at Formigal. Formigal is a ski resort about 20 kilometers away from the border of France. It took us 4 1/2 hours by bus to travel there. It was a beautiful bus ride. We got to watch the sunrise in the mountains throughout the drive.

Here I am wearing a mismatch outfit for skiing since I didn't have any winter wear except my winter jacket here in Spain . I had a great pair of gray sweatpants that I borrowed from Ben over a pair of jeans. I also forgot my sunglasses that day so our great group leader borrowed me a pair of his!




It was a long but fun one day of skiing at Formigal. I was happy to see snow for at least one day this winter.

Planning, Planning, Planning

Hello All! It has been way too long since I have last updated you about my adventures in Spain. I have been kept very busy lately. Ben and I have been on many recent travels and also planning for many future ones as well. Right now, I am in the long process of labeling all my photos so that I can put them up on the internet and then you will all know what and where they were taken. Little did I know when I started the process that it was going to take this long of time! I sometimes forget how with a digital camera you can take over 500 photos in a day and then trying to label everything gets very difficult. I hope to have some photos up for you soon! Within the next week.

Okay, I will tell you about a few of the past travels that Ben and I went on in the last month. Starting off month of February we traveled to Madrid to meet my good friend Amanda that came to visit us. We had such a great time being able to show her around Madrid and Logrono. She was here on February 1 - 8. During the time that she was here, Carnival was going on in Madrid so it was great being able to go and watch many parades and see people all dressed up in different costumes.



On February 9 - 11, Ben and I went to Lisbon, Portugal. The city was amazing! It was a very quick trip but we were able to see many sailboats on the sea, a gorgeous sunset over the water, and a tour of both the old and new parts of the city. It was a great place to visit. The temperatures couldn't have been nicer. It was about 70 degrees and perfectly sunny. Ben and I were able to eat meals outside. It felt just like summer.

On February 16 and 17 we took a short train trip to another city in northern Spain, Burgos. We walked and toured the city. Burgos is known for its large Cathedral. We ended up having a 10th floor hotel room that looked at the Cathedral! It was very beautiful to see during the day and lit up at night. We also visited a national monastery. The monastery had some kings and queens for Spain buried there.


Tomorrow, Saturday we are taking an early 7:00 AM bus ride to nearby Pamplona for a day trip. Pamplona is very famous for the 'Running of the Bulls' that happens during the Festival of San Fermin in July. We unfortunately will not be here in July for the event so we are going to go tomorrow to see what the city is like.

On Sunday we are also getting up very early. We have decided to go skiing in the Pyrenees mountains. We will be leaving Logrono at 5:00 AM to make a full day of skiing at a resort called Formigal that is about 4 hours away. I think it will be fun! The only bad thing is, is there might not be much snow. It has already started feeling like spring time here. The trees are all budding and blooming and we already have flowers in the parks! I have been checking the weather for the ski resort and it is showing high 50s and a chance of rain! I really hope the rain will move until Monday and be a beautiful day for us to go skiing.

Well, that is what we have been up to lately. We are also very excited to have many upcoming adventures. We are going to London the week of March 8 - 11. We also have our Easter break coming up from March 19 - 30 where we will tour the cities of Sevilla, Gibraltar, Granada and Cordoba. All four different cities in 10 days! After our break is over we are excited to have Ben's family coming to stay here for the start of April and Ben's sister coming here for the last week of April. We will be traveling to Barcelona at this time. Finally, we have just bought tickets to Paris! I have always dreamed of going to Paris so I am happy to finally know I will get to see the city in person.

Along with all the trip planning, we are also kept busy here with preparing for our school classes and tutor jobs on the side. I hope all of you are doing good at home. I will make a new blog to let you know when all my photos are up online. Have a great weekend everybody!

Update 2: Family in Logrono for Christmas!

On December 23rd, the seven of us made it to Logrono in the afternoon to all go to the grocery store together to buy what we would need for the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals in Spain. My family thought it was crazy how the the people pulled around little mini carts in the grocery store. Ben and I have become accustomed to them so it was funny to see how new people laughed as we had done right away. The mini grocery carts remind me of a wash bucket that you use to clean your floors but on wheels and having holes in them. They are very small so you always have to pull a couple around in order to fit all your groceries.

For Christmas Eve, Ben and I decided to venture once again in making the turkey, mashed potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, green peppers, a fabulous salad and vegetables meal like we had once before for Thanksgiving Day here in Spain and sort of failed at it then. This time though, the meal was a success! Like on Thanksgiving Day our power went out again but this time we were prepared and everything was finished all together. Ben and I treated my family to traditional Christmas treats. In Spain they have many different Christmas goodies that are excellent at Christmas time. My family liked them so much that they all packed a few away to bring back to share with people in the US. I also was able to show my family the greatest candy that I have ever had and they all fell in love with it too. I have never liked candy so much as I do here in Spain. There are candy stores everywhere in my city and they seem to always be busy all of the time with children and even adults. We took my family out for the traditional churros and chocolate for breakfast on Christmas Eve morning. They were great!

My mom, dad and I went to midnight mass on Christmas Eve at the beautiful cathedral near our apartment and we also went again on Christmas Day with everybody. It was interesting both times because it was all in Spanish! Everybody could kind of understand at least the traditional Christmas tunes they played during the masses.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were spent relaxing with the family catching up in our apartment. It was a great time being able to have all 7 people together staying in our apartment. It was a tight squeeze but we all managed great and it was really nice to be able to spend all the time together. We also spent the days here wandering and exploring the city.

Here are some photos of the places in Logrono we visited.

Here is "a" for Abby!

Here is my mom, Rob and I at the RiojaForum. The RiojaForum is a concert hall and also used as a building for where the Congress of La Rioja meets.

Cities in Spain are known for the traditional 'tapas' or appetizers. It was exciting going out for tapas with my family during the Christmas time. Most Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights families in Spain go out to many different bars and eat small appetizer foods together with a glass of wine or beer. It is a fun time to wander the streets and visit with people. Here we are above in one of Ben and my favorite bars in Logrono to visit for tapas. It was especially exciting during the Christmas time since there were many small local bands playing Christmas tunes marching through the streets and stopping to play outside for the crowd. It really made it feel like Christmas even though there wasn't any snow or cold weather! During Christmas they also had two different little outside markets to buy handmade goods from people that came here from all over the world. We all bought a few gifts from there to remember the markets.

After Christmas Day my family took two more day trips to the cities of Bilbao and Zaragoza. They are both cities within 2 hours away from Logrono by bus. I will update you later on the excursions of both those cities. Goodbye for now!

New Update: My Family Comes to Spain!!

It has been quite a long time since I have updated my blog. Time is flying by fast here! I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I can't believe it is already the 20th of January! We are very lucky here as even though it is still 'winter' it was a great 60 degrees outside today! Spanish winters are very nice.

Okay, I will now take you all the way back to December 15th to update you for what has been going on in Spain this past month. On Monday, December 15th Rob arrived in Spain for a month long adventure staying with Ben and I. He arrived at 12:00 AM on a bus from Madrid wearing only shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals! We (and also the other people on his bus) thought he was nuts. Nobody else knew he was coming here from a place that was very hot and didn't have anything else with him to wear that was warm. It was only 25 degrees outside that night. We even had to walk back to our apartment that is about 1.5 miles away from the bus station.

Ben and I took school off on Thursday, December 20 and Friday, December 21 to go with Rob to meet the rest of the family in Madrid. Here we are below 'Welcoming the Larson Family to Spain' in the airport as they walked through the exit where all the people wait for those that are getting off the airplanes. We were very excited to see my family walk through that door!
After many hugs we took all seven of us on the Madrid Metro System...each of us carrying two large suitcases. Wow, how tourists can stand out in Madrid with so many suitcases! We lugged all of our suitcases on 3 different metro lines to finally arrive in our apartment that we stayed in for 3 days near the Puerta del Sol. It was a great apartment in an excellent area of Madrid. We had a fabulous time walking around Madrid seeing the sights of the Christmas season.

On December 22nd we took a day trip south of Madrid to the city of Toledo. It is about an hour and a half away from Madrid and one of the oldest cities in Spain. Here are some photos from Toledo. Below is a photo of us so excited to be in Toledo, Spain together!

The city has very small apartments and roads. I can't believe that people drive in them!
While we were there we met a guy named Antonio and he showed us the way to his 'little artisan shop' where people were making traditional jewelry made of gold thread onto a black backing. We were lucky to be able to watch them work on the jewelry. They were all beautiful that everybody walked out of the artisan shop having something in their hand.

Here I am standing by the famous Don Quijote..."The Man of La Mancha".

Toledo has castle walls around the old part of the city. Here is part of the beautiful castle wall at night.
After a full day of walking in Toledo we headed back to Madrid on the "Ave"(Bird) high speed train for the last night in our rented apartment. Everyone in my family was a good trooper in Madrid and Toledo having done so much walking, visiting many art museums (such as the Reina Sofia and Prado) and famous sites around both of the cities with Ben and I leading the way.

The next morning we woke up to go on a 4 1/2 hour bus ride to Logrono to celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in our apartment. Come back tomorrow as I will update you then about the family Christmas in Logrono, Spain.

It's Snowing!

Everybody in Logrono always says that it only snows in January or February and only about once or twice a year. It is officially snowing right now and it is only December 17th! It really feels like the Christmas season now. I didn't think we would get to see snow here this year. Enjoy the mini video that I took of the first snow. Happy Holidays!!!

Happy Holidays!

Hello everybody! I hope you are all having a great start to this wonderful holiday season. Last night Ben and I went to watch the act of lighting all of the Christmas lights in our city at 7:00 in the Square that is very close to our apartment. There were lots of people in the square watching marionette shows, giant puppets running around, getting free hot chocolate and waiting anxiously for the lights to turn on. Our city looks very beautiful now with all the lights on. Tomorrow, Ben and I head to Milan, Italy with one of our friends from here that is from California. I can't wait! This will be our first time leaving Spain to another European country. I love Italian food so I am planning to eat a lot of great pastas there. We will be there until late Tuesday night. I will update you all late next week on all that has been going on here in Logrono. I am also very excited because 2 weeks from today my whole family will be here with me in Spain to celebrate the Christmas holiday. Wow, how the time here is flying by! I will leave you with a few photos from last night that I took of the great Christmas lights. Have a happy holidays!

Supper with the Primary School

This past Friday night Ben and I went out for supper with my teachers from the Primary School where I teach at in Logrono. It was a great night! We started out by meeting everybody at 9:30 at a local bar for a drink before we went to our restaurant to eat. There was a total of 22 of us that got together. I didn't have a clue that it was going to be the biggest meal I had eaten so far since being in Logrono.

We sat down and they started bringing around many bottles of water and wine to everybody. After the wine, they brought out baskets and baskets of fresh bread. The appetizers we had were amazing. There was a total of 5 different kinds of appetizers! I couldn't believe it every time a new one came out of the kitchen. The first appetizer we had was 'croquetas' which are ham and cheese snacks in a breaded shell. They remind me of mozzarella sticks. The next appetizer we had were very large mushrooms with a garlic taste. Then we had typical Rioja ham and slices of cheese. After the ham and cheese we had cut up octopus pieces that we on top of sliced potatoes. Finally we had salad that had fried red pepper, sardines and tuna with it. I tried all 5 of the different appetizers.

While we were eating the different appetizers a waiter came out and read off a huge list of foods that we could choose from for our main meal. Ben and I had no clue what to choose. I had no clue even what was a meat or a fish from the list. It was hard to understand the man. He talked very fast. Finally all of the teachers started trying to tell us what we should choose to eat. The two ladies across from me helped me choose my meal and Ben's. When my meal came out it ended up being a huge steak fillet with potatoes, kind of like french fries. It was really really good! I ate the whole thing even though I was already stuffed from all of the appetizers I had eaten. I completely forgot about dessert! I am not used to eating dessert after every meal. Here in Spain it is always served with each meal. We all laughed when we saw our dessert come out. It ended up being 7 pieces of different kinds of desserts for each one of us! It was unbelievable. I was so full but I had to eat (because I really wanted to and love dessert) all of the different types of desserts. I was really full. After dessert they brought all of us either a cup of coffee or tea. I chose to drink a tea. After the tea and coffee they asked everybody want kind of shot of alcohol they wanted. That is very typical for people to do after a meal here. I declined the offer due to how full I was by that time. I couldn't possibly add anything else in me. Finally the bill was about to be given to us. I was scared! I couldn't imagine how much we would pay for this incredibly excellent meal. It ended up only being 24 euros per person. That is about $35.60. I have never paid that much for a meal before but I swear it was the most food I have ever eaten before at a restaurant. We were also at the restaurant from 10:00 until 1:30 AM!!! They eat supper very late here.

We all decided to go out to the local bars next to the cathedral to go dancing for the rest of the night. We went to two different bars and stayed out with all of my teachers until 4:00 AM! It was so much fun. We danced and danced and danced! I hope that we will be able to go out dancing with my professors again. We were able to talk Spanish all night and learn a lot more about the Spanish culture from them. The meal on Friday night was like having another Thanksgiving Day dinner. It was great!!