yesterday

For those of you that have ever traveled extensively over seas to a place that requires you to have a visa, you probably already have a pretty good idea of how my day went yestaurday but for the rest of you this may be a whole new story for you.

Yestaurday I had to go to the consulate in spain to recieve an extention on my visa so I can be here legally until May. So armed with my filled out forms, little pictures attatched to each, and random other papers with information just in case they were in a bad mood and felt like asking for more information, I walked to the bridge a few blocks down from house. I should mention the night before I didn´t get to sleep until 12 and was up at 5am so it was dark outside and I had only gotten 5 hours of sleep. So it is raining here in Spain, and I mean pouring so that morning I was dressed in a light sweater, it wasn´t snowing so I thought I would be fine, and an umberella on my arm jumping around the puddles scattering the sidewalks and streets.

I met my friends Cari Ann (I met her Monday at the year long ISA students´ meeting and we exchanged numbers) and Brian ( the other boy in my program that will be here a year). Sleep deprived we started our half hour long treck to Plaza de España. We arrived at the doors at 6:15 to find a whole lot of other people standing, sitting, in a line waiting for the doors to open. The wind was blowing a little and couples were huddled under raincoats against the building. We sat for about 20 minutes then an armed security guard opened the doors and the whole line moved into the building and up the stairs to a balcony that overlooked a beautiful courtyard with a stream that runs in a circle with two bridges, street lights, and a fountain in the middle with trees around it(it is really pretty and when I learn to pics up I will show it to you, I think it looks romantic). So our trio acted like all the other foreigners and sat against the wall for 2 hours. I had to keep getting up to walk around because I was cold, it rained HARD and was king of windy. Finally, anther guard opened the doors and the line filed into the building to wait in another line to get a number. I recieved the number C031 which was good but not. We then sat in a waiting room with about 100 other people, and sat, and sat some more for 6 hours in this room. It took on average 1 hour for every 2 numbers and the category C was moving faster then category D but B was usually 10 numbers ahead of C the whole time kind of frustrating. So by the time the C category got to 21 we were getting anxious. Finally my number came up on the electronic board and I hurried to the desk.

I sat in front of a man and he went through my documents and by the end he had completely unstapled everything gave me back a lot of the copies and all my pictures that my directors had insisted that I include, and given me a date to return. I then rushed to my last class of the day, which for this class we walked around and looked at sights near the school.

Also, last night Ash and I went with a group of people I met at the police station yestaurday, random I know, and they had a Hispanic lady come in and teach us how to make paella (a traditional dish here) and it was so much fun! I think we will meet up with them again on sunday for bible study.

I´ll write again when I return from Morocco!
Lauren

Portugal

hey everyone I have been promising to tell you about Portugal so here you go now that I have a little bit of time!

We left on a bus at 8 am to Lisboa, Portugal. In English this is Lisbon, Portugal. The drive took 5 hours! (It was pretty tough especially since it is hard for me to sleep on a bus without being able to lay down as I had a guy in the seat next to me) The first sight I saw in Lisboa was this huge statue of Jesus with his arms extended outward in a cross shape, it is pretty huge and stands on the hill right next to the bridge. Now I need to explain that Portugal is built like San Francisco with a lot of hills and of course a bridge similiar to the golden gate bridge. So you see the big Jesus statue then cross the bridge to get into the city. This bridge was built because of the terrible earthquakes and tsunamis that Portugal has undergone. It crosses the river Tejo or Tigres River.

Right under this bridge is the hotel that we stayed at and it was really really nice. I believe it was a 5 star hotel and had a lot of business people staying there. The next morning it showed how nice it really was with our breakfast being unbelievably good. Ashton and I actually got up early by an hour on Saturday just to have more time to eat breakfast. When we arrived at the hotel the bus had a hard time getting in because the street in front of the hotel was small. The directors and a few boys got out and actually picked up two cars and ¨parked¨ them closer the sidewalk but the bus still couldn´t get through which was fine because it was about ten steps further for us to walk to the front doors of the hotel so it was fine. Our rooms weren´t quite ready when we arove so we put all our bags in a closet and some people stayed at the hotel but of course I was ready to explore and so were my friends so off we went, Ashton stayed and was asleep in the room when I returned later.

In front of the hotel was a bigger 4 lane street and then next to it the trolley tracks and then some open area and then the river, so we had to walk two blocks to get to a walking bridge then walk back nexst to the tracks to get to a set of restaurants that overlooked the river. There was a dock here too so of course these restaurants had amazing seafood. We walked by all of these restaurants then made our way back to the hotel for siesta time.

After naps the directors took us on a tour of the city and the bus dropped us off about 5 minutes away at the center of the city, and we walked the uneven streets in Alfama to El castel de sáo Jorge. We walked by the catedral but didn´t go through because it was empty. The reason for this was that it was ruined in the earthquake and had been rebuilt then was hit by the title wave and they rebuilt it again but only the outside could be rebuilt.

We walked up to the castle and I was blown away by how amazing it was. This was a fortress built only for defense. It is located at the highest point in the city and overlooks the river. It has a big courtyard surrounded by a huge wall that can serve as great protection for the whole city during attacks. We had to cross a bridge to get into the castle and it is pretty obvious that this was for a moat that had long since dried up and now it is covered in grass and has peacocks who roam around it. As a group we had fun walking on the walls and looking through the holes specially made for archers. There was a variety of towers just for defense and even some small couryards nest to the big courtyard. All of these were open to the elements so it could never have been used as living quarters.

After this tour we were given the opportunity to stay in this part of town or return to the hotel, most people stayed. My friends Media, Brian, Jim, and Robert walked around town looking at shops and looking for a place to eat. We went through a couple stores and saw lots of shops but as night began to fall we felt like food. We ran into Ashton and she recommended this restaurant we were deciding on and so we went there. By the end of the dinner we had consumed 3 bottles of the house wine and I had eaten one of the best salmon I have ever had. The way Ashton and I describe it is it melts in the mouth like an m&m. We then continued our walk around this small part of the city.

We found a guard in a special guard box near one of the plazas and I had to have a picture with him. Which was a story in itself because of course they speak portuguese in Lisboa so they had difficulty with our spanish even though it is similar to portugues our spanish is not great enough for them to understand us. They kept asking us to speak english to them as everyone spoke english. So I walked up the guard with his sword and asked in spanish if we could take a picture with him. He nodded so I stood on one side and was telling Jim to stand on the other side when the guard without moving said ¨either side is ok¨which startled both of us.

Also during our travels we encountered a huge building that is just for looking out over the city and evidently we had foudn the free way to do this as others were standing in line for the elevator and having to pay 2.50 euros to go up. It was beautiful on top and we got a lot of pics. There were tables set up on top and a lot of couples were having drinks and listening to a musician play the violin.

By the end of this we were ready to search for a bar to listen to fado. Now Portugal is famous for its fado like Spain is famous for its flamenco dancing. So we tried to return to a bar that our directors had suggested but it ended up opening a lot later and we would have had to eat dinner there and hope there were seats available so we decided to return home. Now as we know there was 5 people with us and taxis only take 4 people at a time so I decided that walking back to the hotel would be fine. Of course we did this and never got lost because we kept the river in sight but it took us 1.5 hours to do this and we were pretty tired at the end. Bright parts about our walk were some girls yelled¨I love you to Jim¨and he yelled back tambien para mi which made both parties laugh and there was a firework show that we would have missed had we not been walking in that direction. Also we passed some clubs and saw signs that said 100 euros and later asked the directors and learned that these clubs had a requirement that each group of people had to spend at least 100euros on drinks a night. But I guess this is not watched carefully and it is only a way for bartenders to get rid of annoying people throughout the night.

So we made it back to the hotel and slept. Ashton joined me a lot later as she went out to the clubs on the warf and had a great time. She was so drunk that she didn´t remember when she had returned to the room and had taken a cab to get back to the hotel with another girl in our group, I´m sure that was a pretty cheap ride.

Saturday
We got up and went to breakfast as I have already mentioned this was pretty fun as breakfast at this hotel was amazing. Then went on a tour another part of the city. We had a female tour guide who described buildings that we passed like a rope factory that was really long! Then the President´s house that had a statue and fountain in front of it. What amazed me about this was that it didn´t have a wall around it, it was in a pretty central part of the city and was pink.

We stopped at a monestary that used to have monks in it before they were cast out of the building. It had a church that had two important coffins in it one was for a Portuguese poet that is as important to them as Shakespeare is to us. On the other side was the coffin for Vashgo de Gamma. This man found a route to india and was famous throughout Portugal for it because it opened up more trading opportunities for Portugal.

We then toured a building that is similiar to a castle and was only for defense as well. It was located away from shore in the river, across from it closer to the other shore was another one, and then farther away in the mouth of the river used to be another one all of these had to be accessed by a boat and soldiers had to spend days at these buildings and none of them offered alot of protection from the weather. The idea of these buidings was defense. It was harder to attack Portugal by land as it closest neighbor was Spain so it placed more of its defense in the river. Now if a boat passed into the harbor it had to pass the first building that was in the middle of the mouth of the river. That building was close enough to the other two that it could signal to the others if a boat should not be allowed. the distance between the shores was really only wide enough for one boat to enter at a time. The other two buildings had canons facing the river and both could fire on a boat passing by to the harbor. Evidently this worked pretty well.

The bus took us back to the alfama area of town so I went shopping with Brian and Robert ate lunch of a soup with fish filets, clams, and some other seafood then went back to the hotel to rest up for the night.

Brian, Robert and I went to eat dinner at an italian restaurant on the warf then met up with Ashton and the rest of the group to go dancing. Together we went to the irish pub and they drank and danced to the music from the live band and I danced. Then it got a little crowded so we moved to the club next door called the seven seas and we danced first on the first floor then moved up to upstairs that opened up to the dj downstairs. We danced a whole lot! They played a little bit of everything and all songs were fast so we got a lot of exercise. The down side was the amount of Portuguese guys that were in this club that followed us from the first floor to the second. These guys were pretty aggressive, after I danced with one a little bit I began to feel uncomfortable with him so I left him to dance with some other people and always seemed to end up behind me. I would turn around and he would be righ there trying to dance with me again. He even bought me a flower from one of the older men that kept walking into the club and trying to get guys to buy flowers from them.

My friends began to notice how this guy would not leave me alone so Brian and Robert kept grabbing me when he came near me which means they had to practically dance with me practically the whole night. At one point the guy tried to pick a fight with Robert but Robert handled it great. I felt bad that the two guys had to keep dancing with me so I danced with another guy in the program and he was great. First off he has a bigger build then the other two so he was more intimidating and I later found that he danced similiar to Isaiah and I had a lot of fun dancing with him.

We left the club 15 minutes before it closed and walked back to the hotel. I got to bed at 5 am, needless to say the bus ride the next day was really tough as I was sleep deprived and sick of riding on the bus. I was so excited to get home and sleep eat dinner then go back to sleep.

En Español la cuenta promité

¡Hola!

¿Listos para esto? Es muy divertido....

El sábado y el domingo estaba en sevilla enferma Ashton y yo tomamos té y cola cao y medicación, para el dolor de cabeza y garganta. ¡Por supuesto dormimos mucho! Hacía un poco de calor y Ashton y yo normalmente dormimos en camisetas y ropa interior. Pues la noche del sábado nuestros padres fueron a casa de sus amigos para cenar. Eran las 12 am y yo necesité el baño. Ashton dijo que nuestros padres no estaban en la casa. Yo salí del dormitorio, a través de la sala hasta el baño. Después fui a la cocina para preperar un cola cao. Estaba en la cocina cuando la puerta se abrió y los padres y sus amigos regresaron a casa. ¡yo tenía puesto solamente mi camiseta y ropa interior! Rápidamente corrí al baño y me cubrí con una toalla y pasé al lado de los padres y sus amigos y dije ¨hola¨y regresé al dormitorio. Ashton se rió mucho. ¡Me dió mucha vergüenza!

¡Buena suerte! ¡hasta luego!
Lauren

Just my thoughts

Yestaurday I wrote a whole lot of information so today is going to be more relaxed. It is raining hard here and I am still recovering from the cold that I have had since Thursday. I just got out of my first class, which only lasted 10 minutes because the teacher got stuck in traffic and was around 45 minutes late (it is only an hour long class). I took my first quiz here last Wednesday and knew that I did horrible! We got back our quizzes and I got a B not one of my best grades but hey I did a whole lot better then I thought I had.

I have been having a hard time deciding what to tell you guys and what you might not find interesting so if you have requests let me know otherwise you´re stuck with what I like. As you can tell right now it has been the history of Spain and it´s rulers, which I have even more on that. But right now I am feeling more in an cultural Anthropology mood so I am going to describe a little more about the differences I have been noticing about the people.

First cars are a whole lot smaller here! The streets go from normal streets to tiny little allies and I have no idea how they don´t have more accidents. It is normal for people to park on sidewalks and for sidewalks to just randomly disappear. Sidewalks are made for about one person and on one side they are lined with apartments and little shops. I find it annoying for me and other americans as we are used to walking down the street side by side. Buildings are taller here and there is not a seperation between the buildings.

From Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are big party nights. There is a limited amount of parking here so it is normal to see double parking. The unsaid rule here is that when you double park you leave your car in neutral so others can push your car out of the way when they leave. Also we have made a slogan for the Spaniards on parking places ¨there isn´t a sign that says I can´t¨ as they park in some of the wierdest places. Now you may wonder what about the police don´t they enforce strict parking laws, no. We watched a person actually obviously disobey a parking sign in front of two policemen, there is never one by himself, and they just walked away. I rarely see cops here and when I do they always seem to disappear in a matter of minutes. Only in madrid did I find them a whole lot more and there they spent a lot of time redirecting traffic.

Next store hours, can we say extremely annoying! The shops here open around 10 and close at 2 for lunch and siestas. In the really touristy parts of town they may reopen around 5 and close at 7 it really varies. Which gets me to banks they open at 8:30 ( it really varies) and close at 2. They are never open later and very few are open on Friday through Saturday.

Names I thought this was interestign in class so I have to share, how many last names do you think the typical person has here? Well let me explain first let´s have an example Wally Walters marrys Penelope Cruz and they have a child named Pedro. Pedro´s last names will be Walters Cruz making his name Pedro Walters Cruz (the man´s name first). then if Pedro gets married to a woman by the name of Elise Peterson and they name the child Bart his name will be Bart Walters Peterson, mom´s last name just disappears. Now comes the reason this was so important in the 16th century. In the 16th century they were having the inquisition so by keeping both parents´last name they could track if you came from a good catholic family or not. They just never got rid of this.

Hey I learned yestaurday and there is a piece of legislation being debated right now regarding the passing of the royal crown. In the spanish constitution they clearly state the women and men are equal, like the US´ constitution. However, when the crown is passed from generation to generation it is given to the first born son, if there is not a son then it goes to the first born daughter. This directly contradicts the Spanish constitution so they are changing it for Felipe´s children. I hear that it is pretty well supported by the house and senate and they are only trying to figure out when it will go into effect. I like that!

Oh some more anthropology stuff. I learned that a survey went out about work ethic differences between catholics and protestants. Nobody be affended please. They found that more of protestants had white collared jobs and more catholics had blue collared jobs. It was actually such a significant difference that anthropologists set to work to figure out why and they made a couple theories. Number one being the difference in the type of church services each had. The catholics had services in Latin and nobody spoke Latin so they had to depend on bishops to interpret the services to them and describe what the bible said about god. They had to be extremely trusting and follow along. While protestants had services in English and made their own interpretations of the bible. Another difference this causes is that the catholics unlike americans in general believe that status is passed down through lineage. Americans believe that status is achieved by your actions in life this belief is common among protestants as well. So it barely explains reasons that there is such a difference in the religious representation in jobs but I think there is a whole lot more to it and this explanation only skims the surface.

One last thing, I have a teacher that is actually a whole lot better at English then he even knows but he was talking to us about a difference that he noticed. This year at the beginning of the semester he had our class seperate into groups for a competition and we were given a bunch of words and one person in the group had to guess the words based off of what the group members said to describe it. Well, of course it was a huge competition and in the end my group, of course, won and we let everyone know ( we got chupa chups the next day). Anyways last year he was teachng in south america and he tried to play the same game and it failed miserabley because the kids would try to help the other groups on a word instead of only concentrating on their groups words. We are definately a competitive society in the United States.

Alright I am tired of writing now so later! Let me know what you thought of this stuff! I love the comments!

Lauren

Spain and it´s rulers

I am not sure how many actually know this but right now I´m living a fairy tale. A land far far away with a king and queen, princes and princesses, royal weddings and happily ever afters. How about an in depth look at the royal family in spain?

The Royal family starts out with the Hapsburg family from Germany and here is the order of the kings:

Charles I
Phillip II
Phillip III
Phillip IV
Charles II--This man is incredibly important as he is the man that changed the royal family´s lineage. He is known as Charles II the childless. He married but they never had any kids because he had a STD. So the crown had to be given to someone now it is believed that he gave it to two different people, one was Philip V of another family and then when Charles II was on his deathbed he gave it to a member of the family. The two families fought for the title in the War of Succession and Philip V won. Passing the crown to the Bourbons a rich family that was from Paris France describing how the royal family today is of French ancestry.

Bourbon Kings:
Philip V
Ferdinand VI
Charles III
Charles IV
Ferdinand VII
Isabella II
Alfonso XII
Alfonso XIII
Juan Carlos

Now is a great time to explain the history of the rulers. In the 15th century Fernando III ¨the saint¨ reconquested Spain from the Moors, a people who had moved in and ruled the country very openly and freely. They mainly lived in southern Spain and a lot of their buildings are still here today. they were a muslim group and last week I saw one of their amazaing masques in Cordoba really an amazing sight.

Anyways Ferdinand III was the ruler of Castille and Léon ( Castille is the region of Sevilla and surrounding areas today it and Léon were big regions making him an owner of most of Spain and he has a son named Alfonso X ¨the wise¨. Alfonso X was really smart and he decided that he should give a gift to the people of Spain that helped to unite the region and cut down on internal conflicts this is still here today and everywhere you walk in the streets it is proudly displayed it looks like this:
NO 8 DO This means Nomadejado which translates to No me ha dejado ( they don´t pronounce the e on me or the h on ha so it is ma for both words together) or in english Sevilla hasn´t abandoned me.

Ok on with the story of the king of Castille Alfonso X has a son named Erique and a daughter named Isabel. Now Isabel is very pretty and she is told that she has to pick a husband and is given two choices Bachelor #1 is Alfonso V of Portugal who is older and not very handsome ( as the legends say) Bachelor #2 is Fernando de Aragón who is a little younger then her and smart, athletic, young, and handsome (ok who would you choose). Obviously she chose Fernando and the first time they met they fell in love. It is said that they wanted to get married immediately and instead of waiting for the Pope´s signature they forged his name and got married in 1469, (this was okayed later and they got the real signature).

Enrique´s other sister was Juana (believed to be illigitament) married Alfonso V of Portugal and when Enrique died the sisters fought for the crown. Obviously Ferdinand and Isabel won! So they are now the Catholic Monarchs ruling a big piece of land in Spain. They created a couple symbols that represented these rulers the first being a picture of a yoke showing that both of them were ruling united, with the same load neither over the other. If you see a picture of them together you will also see that neither is taller then the other. However, in the relationship you will find that Isabel had more power then Ferdinand because she ruled Castille which was a lot bigger region. She was richer because more people to pay taxes to her and she was the one who supported Christopher Columbus on his voyage in search of new lands. The second symbol of these Catholic monarchs is a bundle of arrows. Arrows together are strong and can´t be broken but by themselves they are easy to break. Same as the monarchs.

In this relationship castille is never united with Aragón and both are considered the only rulers in thier respective regions. for example when they traveled to Aragón Isabel was an outsider, or foreigner and visa versa. They say theat the only thing united was the crown and the inquisition. But kids fall in there too!

Kids of Ferdinand and Isabel are Juana La Loca, John, and two other sisters (I think they are vague on the amount of sisters). John died before Isabel, the queen of Castille, died. So anyways the history of Juana La Loca is very interesting and if anybody can rent the movie Juana La Loca it is excellent on portraying this story. But to make a long story short Juana La Loca is sent to marry the son of Maximillion I, Felipe ¨El Hermoso¨. This man was a very promiscuous man and he drove her crazy. They had two kids the first a girl and the second was a son born in a toliet, he would later become the ruler of Castille, Carlos I. Actually, she found out that her mother had died, making her the queen of Castille, and that her husband was cheating on her in the same day. She dealed with it by yelling and screaming in a courtyard in the rain and everybody just decided she was loca or mad. She loved her husband very much but he was always cheating on her and she begged for him to only love her. He, her father ferdinand, and her son ended up betraying her and telling everyone she was crazy so they could keep the crown for her. Her husband died at a young age from a disease and she was depressed by this even though he betrayed her. To fulfill his wishes she had his casket carried to Granada. they never made it as she had to stop in Torquemada to give birth to another child. Then they continued to Tordesillas a small town where she was locked in a tower by the aristocracy of Castille to keep her away from ruling the region. Her husband´s body was buried in a local monestary and she was allowed to visit him once in a while. She lived there for 28 years and died in that tower at the age of 75 years old. (It makes more sense in the movie) Felipe and Juana´s bodies can now be found in the cathedral of Granada.

So the crown of Castille passes from Isabel to Juana, for only a couple of years, then to Fernando (Isabel´s husband and Juana´s dad) then to Juana´s son Charles I/Charles V. His name was Carlos I of Castille but he ruled Germany too and there he was Charles V.

Charles I lived in Germany and was described as ugly. Juana was in the tower and lanlords fought Charles to keep Juana queen so they could continue ruling, in the end of the battle Charles won and ruled both Castille and Germany.

His son was Philip II. this man was not a conquesting man like the rest of his family he just controled. He built El Escorial so he could live in the middle of Spain and rule. He collected body parts of saints (wierd). He had three main enemies France, Turks, and the Protestants of England. During his reign he demolished the Turkish fleet. He defeated the French which had the battle of Le Planto. During that battle San Laurenzo was ordered to be grilled alive by Phillip II, which he was. To comemorate this El Escorial is built in the shape of a grill. As for his third enemy the protestants. The netherlands were a small and weak country so they claimed they were protestants and got help from England and they went to war against Phillip II. Phillip II had the first marines and he sent them sailing to England in the Spanish Armada. This was not a good attack as it sank because of bad weather.

then the crown (just to remind you again) passed to his son Philip III, Philip IV, Charles II and then to the Bourbons. Those kings really didn´t do too much.

Now to the 20th century with Alfonso XIII. In 1931 at the end of his reign Spain became a republic and he died. Franco then took over. Now Franco was around the same age as the king´s son Don Juan Carlos (if you haven´t figured it out Carlos is Charles in English). Franco saw Don Juan Carlos was exiled because Franco didn´t want to have a monarchy so the royal family was exiled and lived in Italy. Don Juan Carlos´ son Juan Carlos was born in Italy but attended school in Switzerland because of WWII. When Juan Carlos was 10 years old he was sent to study under Franco in Spain. His family moved to Portugal, they couldn´t live in Spain, to live near their son. And when Franco died he allowed Juan Carlos to take his place as king of Spain. Juan Carlos I went against Franco´s teachings and made Spain a constitutional monarchy. Today Juan Carlos I is still king, and his face is on the euro of Spain.

The family today:

Juan Carlos I is married to the Doña Sofia of Greece. They are professional partners not really husband and wife). Which is ok because Juan Carlos I is a promiscuous man and they say he has some illigitament children. But his children with Doña Sofia are:
Infanta Elena- The oldest child and now works at a bank in Spain (doesn´t have to). She is not very pretty and shows the effects of imbreeding by having a little amount of mental retardation.
Principe Felipe, the next to rule Spain. He is watched closely by all so I have a lot to say about him. He dated three women before he met Leticia Ortiz a news reporter who was doing some interviews about him when they begain to date. Now here I should say that the Prince only wanted to marry for love so his hunt for a wife took a long time actually he met Leticia Ortiz, at the age of 30. They dated for about a year and then decided to get married on May 22, 2004. (interesting how close that is to my birthday and the same year I graduated, and that was the same year as the terrorist attacks in Madrid). Anyways this wedding was huge and I have a lot to say about it but all you realy need to know is that it was the first royal wedding to be performed for someone who would later rule the country, performed in Spain in 100 years. Milliones of people lined the streets of madrid and the whole country was at the tvs watching the wedding and activities in Madrid. they now have a daughter named infanta Leonor. Problems with the prince marrying this woman was first she was divorced once, but had no kids. Second, she was agnostic which is huge deal but now she is catholic. Otherwise she was considered a good choice by the royal family.

Last but not least Infanta Kristine. She is now a school teacher, even though she doesn´t have to .

Ok I am tired of writing so I will write pre 15th century later.

Lauren

neat stuff

Ok cool thing I learned this weekend. For all you guys who are UCC and donate to Unicef here is some new info. Every morning I pass the Unicef office here in Sevilla, it is located on one of the back streets, or allies, like my school. I really want to go into it because it looks really nice. But I also see it on uniforms everyday too as the professional fútbol clubs here that support Unicef have Unicef across the chest of their jerseys. These two clubs are Barca and Español. It is a pretty big deal here!

Another wow for me was that every night at 12 normal tv channels play porn, it is not extremely vulgar, I only saw one program so I don´t know too much, but it is just more accepted here. Also teenagers give out free papers here daily, the Metro, 20 minutes, ADN, and Que! and in those I have come across ads that have nudity well advertised.

More tomorrow!

Lauren

Jerez de la Frontera

I just got back from my trip to the city of Juarez de la frontera. this is a town about 20 minutes away from Seville. It is pretty small but those that live there are very rich. Most people know Juarez because of it´s alcohol. Let me explain the city used to be called jerez and it´s alcohol was massively traded around the world jerez in english is sherry and is still called that today.

One of the main attractions of Juarez is its bodegas which are all over the place. We took a tour of one of the most famous of all Tío Pepe. Through the tour we saw how they make their wine and store it in huge casks. we were shown how they made the wine and how the longer it sits in the casks and grows older it gets sweeter and darker colored. We also went through rows and rows of casks that famous people had signed a few that I liked was Chelsea Clinton 2003, Speilberg (dont remember the year), and even Winston Churchil in ´79. Then we had wine tasting and needless to say I preferred the sweetest wine, brandy and that is really strong stuff. You can guess how I was acting afterward as nobody I was with really liked the sweet brandy and kept handing them to me to drink. And we could not waste any wine. I was definately tipsy by the time we left to our hotel for siestas that afternoon but I was not alone.

That evening we had dinner at a smaller restaurant and the three guys I was with got about a whole pound of meat, a big bowl of salad, wine, and papas fritas. They were wining and plumper when we left they took a ton of pictures so I will see if I can add those to this page later, or maybe get help from mom.

Lauren

La virgen de Pilar

¡Hola everyone!


Hacia muy calor hoy y este es mi tiempo para dormir pero quiero hablar con uds. sobre mis adventuras de jueves y viernes, o hoy, de este semana.

Let me know how many people understood that! It is kind of spanglish and I used easier words so you should be able to figure it outç!

So yestaurday was a national holiday in Spain called the Virgen of Pilar. I am not quite sure I remember the story extremely well so when i do figure out more about it I will let you know.

Back to yestaurday I got up at 7 to walk a couple streets around my house following a procession of a statue in rememberance of the virgen de Pilar. It was pretty neat so I am going to try to explain it. In front there is a priest followed by teenage boys carrying candles on long poles they hold above their heads. they were dressed in robes of cream and red designs. They were followed by two youner boys who had outfits that reminded me of little boy blue but red. One had a teacup kind of container of incense and the other swung a silver bowl on a chain that had burning incense. (this incense was strong and not exactly nice by the way). The boys had an adult helping them. Then next was the statue on an intricate stand set on top what looked like a table with a cloth over the top of it. The older men were positioned under this table and walked in sinc amazingly like the armed services. I would guess there was about 25 men underneath and they were pretty good as they had to make some pretty tight turns in these small streets. People followed singing songs and they would stop when they entered new streets and the men then set the table down and I believe there was a wooden piece seperating the rows that they could sit on, as they never came out. That had to be a pretty heavy task. I was told that they carried the statue to a convent had a service then walked it back again. Then in the streets people threw flower petals from their windows as the stature was brought back to the small church. I had to leave for the bus station to catch a bus to juarez that morning so I didn´t get to see the afternoon part of the ceremony.

Facts: first this statue originated from a church that is near my house and is pretty small, second one of the men that carried the statue from under the table was my host father so it was a pretty neat sight to see. I will try to get some pictures to share.

Traditional foods

I just got back from a wonderful meal of paella. Now I have a pretty good idea that nobody really knows what paella is so let me explain. Paella is a mixture of rice, shrimp, squid, beef, sometimes chicken and for foriegners they mix it with a chicken base. It is very good and I have been told by the directors of my program that they will give me the recipe and then I will post it for you guys. Paella is a traditional dish of Valladolid but all of Spain claims it. Paella is traditional eaten in the afternoon as lunch is the strongest meal of the day. Maybe I should explain about the meals here.

In the morning around 6-10am they eat breakfast which tipically includes toast, coffee, hot chocolate, fruit, and little sweet breads. This is a very small meal. There is a snack time between breakfast and lunch where people typically consume various drinks, and small cold tapas ( It is not normal to do this in Sevilla so I don´t know too much about this ¨snack time¨). Then lunch at 2-3pm where we typically have salad which is a lot like the US but it has olive oil and salt added to it, so no salad dressing is added also it normally has a little bit of corn on top. Then we have the main dish of paella, or some type of soup, etc. I should add here that we have bread every meal, it is always served. Then for desert we have fruit or helado ( helado is ice cream and we have only had it once). Then we have siestas for 1 to 2 hours (of course I sleep for two hours usually) and about 4 hours until dinner from 9-10pm. For dinner they usually have soup or another smaller main dish, salad, and bread. We have fruit again for dessert.

Other traditional foods for Spain include:
Flan, churros in chocolate, and some others I don´t really know the names of.

Spain is really known for it´s seafood dishes, wine, and olive oil.

If anyone wants to know more about something let me know.

Lauren

Peaceful mornings

¡Hola Chicos!

Ok I have been trying to think of a way to explain Spain especially Sevilla and when talking to my host mom this morning I figured it out so here it is one of Lauren´s famous quotes for everyone
I come from a world where people wish for more time to get their work done, but now I am surrounded by people who wish they had more time to sleep.

I walk through the streets in the mornings and see people walking to work, talking to a neighbor they saw as they went through their chores. Elderly holding hands as they go for an early morning stroll, young kids walking behind their moms dressed in little uniforms that match their sibling but nobody else, teenagers standing on street corners handing out newspapers to passerbys, young professionals walking to their jobs with a slow peaceful walk. And I am swept up by the peace all of them reveal.

I watched a father walking down the street with his son dragging his rolling backpack behind. They were probably on their way to the son´s school as he was dressing in a uniform. What amazed me about this scene was the man´s patience as they walked along he never sped up or moved any faster even though he was probably growing later for work by the minute. The son held tight to his father´s hand and they walked on to meet the day ahead of them together.

En Español

Mickey dijo que ella fue gusta un poco español desde mi. ¡Buena suerte su espíritus valores! Esta mañana tuvo una prueba con mi clase Lengua Española. Lo fue bien pero no sé si mi perfomancia fue muy bien. Pero no es muy importante porque los es solamente para practica. Un minuto mi computador es horrible en este minuto. Habla me si no comprehende todo!

continuing about Cordóba and Cadiz

Ok so we saw these beautiful gardens in Cordóba then walked around the city. The reason we had to walk more was because the king of Spain Juan Carlos I was in Cordóba for a matter nobody knew about and streets were blocked by policemen and onlookers so we had to walk some side streets to get to the places we wanted. So ISA just let us go on our own, after showing us the meeting spot, to eat lunch and wonder. So Ashton, Carmen, Sarah, Andrea, Becca, Media and I sat down on a landing of an old building and ate our bocadillos. (Later we would learn that the landing we were eating on was the Mezquita which I will explain later.) When we had finished Media and I walked through the small streets looking at shops and I bought an ice cream and later I got an amazing deal on a fan for 2 euros. We then returned to the meeting place to see the Mezquita.
The Mezquita was a breathtaker. It is a big masque in which the moors built a long time ago. The light in the building is only from candles on chandeliers and it sets a tranquil mood. Throughout the masque there are arches that are held up by tons of different kinds of pillars. There is a lot of architectural stuff here and I could never explain it all but it is definately amazing. This place is enormous and as far as the eye can see is pillars and arches. There are sections in the middle where the catholics have built alters. What is neat about this is that lining there are lines of little alters along both sides of the building and bigger ones in the middle. these areas were sold to families and that allowed each family to have ¨their own little church¨. In the middle ones there is one big church for everyone that has a two levels for choir members to sit and in the lower one there is a place for the Bishop and his attending to sit in the middle of the seats. On the other side of this is a huge alter that is emaculate. then in the middle are rows of pews for others. right in front of the pews and close to the alter is a grave in which the man that paid around 500,000 euros for the alter when it was being constructed. If you ask me it is dumb to be buried in a place that so many people will step on you but I guess you are really well remembered.

We had 15 minutes after this tour to wait for the bus so of course everybody bought ice cream at the shop across the street so i had cookies and cream ice cream. It was nice! then we left for home.

Ok so Ashton and I got up at 9 to take the train to Cadiz. We were late because I had to run back for my towel, which wasn´t that far, but when I had returned evidently a bus had gone by and left but Ash wasn´t sure if it was the correct bus and waited for me. So we got a taxi, an expensive form of transportation and we were late. So we rode a bus for about 3 hours to Cadiz. The people on the bus were interesting as that day was a big day for ninjas and other thngs so there were a lot of people dressed up like cartoon characters, animals, robots, ninjas, and even a group of kids dressed in white collared shirts with blood stains and tears topped off with red ties and missing sleeves. Definately an interesting thing.

The beach was pretty but as always I got a little bored. But I did get a pretty nice tan and we saw the sunset and it was really neat to see the moon even with us as we left. It was pretty but we were tired from all the sun.

Sunday Ashton and I slept a whole lot and of course did homework.

October 9, 2006

October 9, 2006 3:01 a.m

Hey everyone!

So we learned from one of my favorite new professors that there is a lot of gypsies in Sevilla. Evidently there is a town within an hour away, he won ´t tell us exactly where it is as he doesn't want us visiting it, and taxis will not travel there. The people live in flats that were supplied to them by the government a long time ago. they are really run down and rumors say that if you peek in them you will most likely find livestock and run down beds. They believe that their animals should live as well as them so the livestock lives in the apartments with them, even on the top floors!

I guess a couple years ago there was a famliy in the town that did something the village didn ´t agree with and they felt that they needed to punish them so they set their house on fire. This fire was so big tha Sevilla ´s firetruck tried to respond to it and it was shot at by locals and was not able to respond. So now policemen, fireman, buses nothing goes out to this place it is just ignored and that is what the gypsies want.

Just a little background Gypsies came from Pakistan and India in 1425 and 45% of gypsies live in Andalucia ( which is southern Spain). Until the 19th century they were not considered Spanish. They have their own laws, flag and hymn. The flag is a wagonwheel representing that they are nomads. Most gypsies live under the threshold of poverty and most spaniards would be upset if they had neighbors that were gypsies.

However, while Spaniards don ´t like them very much they do owe the art of flamenco to them, at least some say that. Today if you want to go to a good flamenco performance it will be performed by gypsies.

That is about it - hope you liked it!

Lauren

October 9, 2006

October 9, 2006 2:44 a.m

Hey mom,

I will try to keep this brief as I only have 20 minutes to write before I have my next class.
You are right I need to open an account with a bank so you can send money to me easily or a debt card would work too as I believe Ashton said they only charge 2 or 3 euros to do it. I don ´t know if that is a possibility or not though. Now that I am thinking about it a debit card would be nice for this but let me know what you think.

I am trying to find the pic cell website and am not really being able to access it. We ´ll see what I can find out. I know I need to get a phone just choosing the best rates is becoming a hassle.
I will try to not wait on the phone or money issues.

I talked to my host mom longer last night and I should definately stay for Semana Santa but I don ´t know that dates for that yet so we ´ll see. As for this weekend 4 of us, not including Ashton, are going to try to go to a small town nearby that has wine tasting every weekend for 3 euros and we ´ll stay the night then explore the town for the next day, return home and then go out to a small town called Italica on Sunday for a few hours.

Italica is a town that was built after the Punic War because Rome had so many injured and instead of moving them back to Rome they just made the town of Italica. It has a ton of ruins and a whole Archaeology Museum for Spain ´s artifacts there so yep that is definately interesting to me. Oh I don ´t know if Isaiah told you but last week we were at a coffee shop an in the middle of the street where they are doing a whole lot of construction, there were archeaologists excavating a body. you could see the imprint of the smaller person in the mud. I was extremely excited and have a pic for you guys to see it but it is from the paper.

I Also would like Uncle Jon, Micky, and anybody else that I should be sending massive e-mails to so please send those to me. Also good luck with the blog stuff, let me know if you can figure it out. I will be sending another massive e-mail later today so let me know.

I love you and miss you every day!

Love,
Lauren

Mom's comments:

October 9, 2006 2:21 am

Lauren,

Good news, I think I know how you can write to all at one time on your blog spot. I have been in contact with family this weekend and they are ALL very eager to hear from you and to write. (Probably a lot more than you want to hear from them!) but here it is. You need to go to www.blogger.com and then enter your informationl. I posted a message and will try to get your prior letters added when I can today.

I will call pic cell in the USA today. It appears like there is just a 29.99 fee to active the account, and then incoming calls are free, and vydaphone to vydaphone calls are about .28 E or US? a minute. Any calls made outside of Spain would be much more expensive. Do you plan on using this phone for more than just making contact with friends in Spain, and getting calls from us? There is no monthly fee, just a per call fee. I am going to ask about just gettting you a sims card through them too, if you tell me the type of phone the host famly is wiling to let you use.

I did find the big buck contest but the site was in being worked on (it is 2:30 in the morning right now) and I could not get in. I will try again later. I have not seen Isaiah yet, but I know he is busy. I am not busy anymore, in fact, life is back to normal, and less.

It is so strange to have no one home but just Dad. Adar spent Friday night with the V-ball team in Cheyenne and KJ had a college trip to Denver to see the opening of the new Denver Art Museum, so it was just Dave and I and Pooka. Pretty quiet. I had better get used to this! I wish I could helpt Isaiah but other than study for him, I can't.

I am going to try your face book and then see about your email problem at UW. Today is a federal holiday so don't know how much I can do but I will stay on it.

I have not told you how much I love the necklace you gave me. I have worn it non-stop since the day you left. It is beautiful and I cried when Dad and I both cried when we opened it. The card was wonderful too. I can't believe how organized you are!! I miss you but will be able to see you soon.

I am glad you like your host mom so well. Her name is Reyes? I feel better knowing you do. Remember the book said that there would be a period or two of depression, so be prepared to deal with it. Allow yourself a set amount of time to be sad, even cry, and then when that time (say 15 minutes) is over, pick yourself up and move on. Being busy helps and that is a problem. I wish you could join a soccer team or something physical. Even running is out unless Ashton does this with you.

I just got your email and so I will send this. The pic cell web is piccellwireless.com.

Love you, Mom

October 9, 2006

From: Lauren Westling [mailto:snowflake_baby23@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 2:27 AM
To: Dave Westling
Subject: RE: hey guys

Daddy Patty,

You are so cute! I am glad UW and Green River are doing so well I am sorry that I can´t be there cheering for them with you. I did get to tease Brian, the other year long student here because he is from New Mexico so that was nice.

Tonight is our soccer game, for three hours, so I am definitely excited about that. This weekend was nice and I am a lot tanner then I was before but the mornings are getting colder and I am actually contemplating wearing long pants again, but I am pushing it until the last day possible with my shorts.

I am hoping to get a cell phone today so please quit worrying about me and my excursions out at night. We don´t tend to go out that much anyway and I would not go without a friend usually anyways. Brian tends to walk me to the door most nights that was just a random chance that I got so lost. The cell phone will help though.

The website for Isaiah´s big buck pic is www.wytrucks.com and then you have to go under big buck contest. It isn´t hard but make sure you find Isaiah´s pic then down lower is Eli´s small buck, it´s pretty funny.

Good luck with your designs and I have faith you will find a way to get ride of the distractions and get it done so you can come and see me in December.

I love you!

Lauren Toren

Mom to Lauren 10-5-06

October 5, 2006
Lauren,
Please give my best to your temporary mom. I really appreciate all she is doing for you. Are you doing a lot with Ashton? She is going out with you when you leave after siesta and again after dinner? Dad is probably going to say something to you about the other night, just like I thought. He has been dwelling on the matter and is now of the opinion that you should not go out after dinner any more. He is going to try to call and tell you this. I explained that she will probably listen to him just like he would listen to his father when he would tell Dave to not drive back to UW in a snow storm. Anyway ……
Isaiah called last night and tried to drop by but Dave was watering horses and Adar was studying for a Biology test at Sara’s and I was in Rock Springs attending a fire class. He is going to be hunting every weekend this month he told me. I tried to look up his picture on the web site but there are no buck pictures and no mention of a buck contest! I looked hard too.
I saw Will last night and he is doing well. I gave him the souvenior I got him in Pisa, Italy and he liked it.
If you can find a way to open an account, I will send you some of our money for the vacation in December as well. That way we can have you pull euros for us when we arrive and I will just send it all with our money at one time. Find out what the bank’s hours are though, as it may not be easy to get money out. I think you just need a savings account and for that they will probably issue you a savings book that you must have to withdraw cash. You do need more money in the short term though, and so I suggest you not wait too long to find out how I am to send it to you.
The cell phones sound like a good idea. I could call you whenever I like then. Also, why can’’t I call after lunch and before siesta, or after dinner at night? There must be lots of time that you are in the house. You can’’t be gone all the time. What do you do when you go out? Is Sevilla that big? Look for a hotel that we can stay in when we come so we can visit Sevilla for a day or two. I am sure there will be lots of things you want to show us. Are you using the buses or just walking everywhere. Dad thinks you should stay home and study more. How are your classes anyway?
On the Vodafone, are the ten calls unlimited in length? Would incoming calls be free??? Is so, get it!!!! If you call me, call on my cell phone unless you are sure I will be home. If we brought your computer to you would you be able to get wireless internet access on campus or the house, or is it worthless?
It sounds like you are having no problem staying in contact with Isaiah and I am glad to hear that. I can’t wait to see you but I have a lot of things to do to get ready to come. So do you though.
I love you so much and am glad you are handling things so well. Keep up your studies and make lots of friends. See much, love a lot, and experience everything.
Mom

Lauren's Paul Harvey 10-5-06

From: Lauren Westling [mailto:snowflake_baby23@yahoo.com] Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 11:19 AM To: Lisa Botham; Dave Westling; Isaiah Subject: hey guys
This is a massive e_mail so I am sorry but deal with it,
I feel like a wealth of information and just want to share about my experience thus far and at points you will see that it is like a Harvey episode from 92.1.
First I am going to talk about Spain´s inventions because so few people actually know about this stuff.

Futbolín_ this is the word in Spanish but to describe this invention I need to describe a man. There was a man that fought in one of the punic wars and was injured. He was put in a hospital where he met a nurse that was really nice to him. This nurse enjoyed playing the piano and to thank her for her kindness he invented the page turner for her music. When this man recovered he returned to the Spain that was obsessed with fútbol. He watched as millions of people played fútbol and got hurt a lot because of its an aggressive contact sport. He decided to invent a futbolín so people could play fútbol an not get hurt. After he invented this object he had to leave Europe because of problems in Spain, he couldn´t carry the futbolín with him because it was too big so he copyrighted his invention with a piece of paper from the government. Then he traveled to the americas for a couple years. When he returned to Spain later he descovered that futbolíns were extremely popular in Spain. When he tried to prove that someone had taken his idea and claim the money that he deserved he found that nobody would believe him because his paper had gotten wet in his travels and could not be read. He never recieved credit for inventing what Americans now call a foosball table. However, futbolín is different from our foosball tables because it is a little longer and the figures have split legs which makes the game a little harder play and more interesting. I´ll let you know when I find a futbolíñ to play with.

Another invention came from a man in Cataluna named Enric Bernat. Carmels were prevalent throughout spain and after kids would eat them their hands would get dirty so he invented carmelo con tenedors, which in english is carmels on a fork but honestly he only put them on sticks as it was cost effective. That is where chupa_chups, or what we call lollipops, was invented. If you decide to purchase this Spanish lollipop you will be excited to learn that the wrappers were designed by none other then the famous artist Dahli in 1969. However, today you can´t find Dahli´s signature on every wrapper but it is still the same design. Little masterpieces massively produced.

How about those knives that fold up so they can be carried in your pocket yep inventd in Spain so they could cut mangos. The king Carlos V carried one around. How about that I?

Electronic pencil sharpeners, stapler, also of course the mop so that women didn´t have to clean the floors with their knees and feet, were invented in Spain.

How about the canteens that are pouches, yeah can´t remeber the name, those of course were need to carry water around.

How about cigarrettes in the 16th century Sevilla was known for it´s fabrication of tobacco. And is was the poor people in sevilla that invented tobacco rolled up in paper ito our modern day ciggarettes. You guessed it smoking is really REALLY big here!

They also had cards in the 14th century and the suits were representations of the social structures at that time. (However don´t get me wrong this was not a spanish invention) the diamonds was the monarchy hearts the church the spades were the nobility and the clubs represented the poor also they didn´t have a queen and instead had a knight. In addition they only had 40 cards in a deck.

The guitar was also popular among the poor in Sevilla, not among the nobility, and the flamenco was rarely performed without it.

And now you know the rest of the story!

Lauren

October 5, 2006 from Dad

October 5, 2006

Lauren:

I realize I haven’t written to you since mom came home. Work is very busy for me especially since I need to design a project by December and I sill need to do some field work before winter hits. We have had more rain lately than we had all summer.
I agree with mom that it scares us when you walk home alone late at night in Spain. Have you taken any precautions so it does not happen again! Mom doesn’t agree with me but I think there is no reason to go out after the night meal which you say is around 9:00 pm especially if you are out alone. Enough about that!

Adar sprained her ankle again Monday in volleyball and it was really hurting that night. She stayed home for the morning session. We borrowed some crutches from Jay and she used them for Tuesday but I think she is going without them now. They had a training session on Tuesday morning in which they evacuated the high school that Adar missed. She would have had a tough time with the evacuation on crutches. She was a little upset that she missed it.
Not sure if I told you but Green River won their home coming football game against Cheyenne East last Friday which was somewhat of an upset. I was there cheering for you. This Friday they play Casper Kelly Walsh (4 wins &1 loss record) in Green River which would be an upset also if Green river wins. I’ll be there to watch the game as usual.

I took Classie to the vet for the wound on his leg. I have been giving him penicillin but only have to clean the wound and re_bandage (wrap bandage) once a week which was much better than twice a day. The last time I saw the wound it was looking much improved. I will change it again this Saturday.

Well I just got a phone call from Adar to go pick her up so I better close. I assume we won’t hear from you until Monday because you are probably on an excursion somewhere. What a life you have!

Love Ya Always,

Daddy Patty

October 4, 2006

Lauren,

You sure have been busy!

I will try to briefly address your concerns at this time but we should schedule a time to talk on the phone. You do know that you can set up a group name such as "family" and include in it all the names and emails of those you want an email to go to. For example, Family, may include Isaiah, dad, me, Kayli, Micky, Uncle Jon and Grandma and Grandpa. Then you just type family and the email automatically goes to all of us. Just a thought.

A cell phone seems like a must for you to stay in contact with friends in Spain. As far as us calling you, we will need to arrange a time and then we can call you at your home or on your cell phone, as calls to your cell are free for you. Only out going calls you make from your cell phone should cost you money. Vonage is not really an option as they charge $25 a month PLUS 30 cents a call to a cell phone. Not great. Now we only pay 8 cents a minute to any phone in Spain. Since we would love to see Isaiah more too, he is more than welcome to come here and call you whenever you guys can work out times.

As far as which cell phone to get, it’’s up to you. I don’’t think you need a phone so renting is an option. I will look into the information you sent.

I am not pleased to hear of your nighttime experience of getting lost. I worry about you and hope you will be careful. I am hesitant to allow your dad to even read about that as he might come and bring you home! Please be more careful. You are priceless to us and if a cell phone would help, GET ONE IMMEDIATELY.

I have three more disks for the camera and I will send them to you as soon as I find an address to mail them. Please advise me of your address! This way you can send a disk home to me when you fill it (save pics to your jump drive first if you want) and then I will down load the pictures onto my computer, delete the pics and return the disk to you. This way we will always have some disk either coming or going back and forth and you will have lots of space for pictures. There is one disk that is 64 megs (holds about 30 pics.) another that is 128 megs, (holds about 60 pictures) and the third is 256 megs (holds about 200 pictures.) I will try to look at your face book.

Tell me how you want me to send more money. I think you should ask the bank you are using if you can open an account and how to do this. They should have routing numbers that I can give my bank and I can have the money wire transferred directly to your bank account in Spain. If not, ask if they accept checks from America. The last method I am aware of is Western Union but then you have to go to the Western Union station in Spain to pick it up. Talk with your bank ASAP and let me know.

I think you should have me send you at least 2,000 US dollars as things are more expensive in Spain but that is not a reason no to do things. (I think Morocco sounds wonderful and we will want to do it again as a family in December!) the thing to remember is that it does take a few days to get money to you in Spain so DO NOT WAIT until the last minute. Tell me now how you want it sent and to where!!!

The trip to Barcelona is also a good idea. Check with Ryan Air as they were running a special in which the flights were free! And you only had to pay taxes as long as you bought the tickets at least 14 days before hand. The special may be over but check. Ryan Air is their low cost airlines like Southwest is here. Using your credit card is fine in a pinch but I think they charge a fee of 3 to 5 Euros each time and when you get cash out they charge a finance fee. So let me know before and I will try to prepay the card with additional money for you to get cash out. I will try to get into your emails. But not today.

You wanted to know when we are coming in December. We leave Wednesday, December 27th and will arrive in Madrid on Thursday, December 28th. You will need to meet us at the airport. We will rent a car there and visit Madrid and the surrounding cities for a few days (we will need to look for hostels or hotels and note that this is very close to new years eve.) Then we will work our way south. We have a time share for the week of December 30th thru the 6th and then another for the week of January 6th through the 13th. We will need to drop you off in Sevilla and be in Madrid on Saturday the 13th of January for us to fly out. Grandpa Botham will be coming for a week to 10 days in the middle somewhere, we are still deciding when and for how long, but he does want to come. I was hoping to rent a car for 6 or 7, maybe putting the suitcases on the roof somehow, and may a Vespa or scooter or too as well for part of the time. I know we want to go to Morocco as well as anywhere else you think would be fun. Barcelona is a long ways away though; you can tell me more when you find out. Traveling out each day in a different direction from the time shares is good, but remember both are south of you on the coast in the vicinity of Malaga. (Grandpa will probably fly in and out of Malaga. ) I will let you know exactly where the time shares are located so you can look them up on a map.

Well, enough for now, as I have class in Rock Springs tonight at 6. Adar fell and sprained her ankle during V-ball practice and its really messed up this time. She is on crutches and it looks like a tennis ball is stuck to her ankle. I don’t think she will be playing anymore this season.

I love you. I have not seen or heard from Isaiah yet, but then I have only been home two days.
Pooka is growing hair like a hippy and I hope Sage comes to visit her soon as she has LOTS of energy. I hate to have to go borrow Sage but it may come to that soon!

Adar loves you bed so we may have to look into getting another big bed. I can’’t believe it, we buy all these beds when you girls leave!I love you and hope to hear more from you each day.

I drove to Evanston with Jay Hamblin today and Dad and I will do another trip on Saturday. Then it will probably end as they are closing the Green River Ford store and we are taking all the cars BACK to Evanston now! Weird.

I have to go and write up a judgment and sentence on Bart Ellison. He was sentenced today and he did not make a nice impression with the judge. He is his own worst enemy at times.

I love you. Have fun and let me know how to send you more money. Spend it all now as you have your whole life to work!

I love you.
Mom

October 3, 2006

October 3, 2006

Hi dad,

I am glad mom’s home and would love to hear from her when she regains her composure. I have a couple questions to ask her about a phones, credit cards, classes, e_mail accounts and camera disks. No hurry!

Did you receive my massive amount of e-mails yesterday explaining the weekend?

Oh and Isaiah wrote and told me he was quite busy and was trying to visit you guys more often but just has no time but he will visit more often. Then he can call me with you guys when mom gets Vonage and share his e-mails.

I love you guys!

Lauren


Lisa's response to Lauren.


October 3, 2006
Lauren,

My dearest daughter, how are you? I had a very busy two weeks in Italy but I thought of you often. I am glad I was not aware of the problems you had at the airport in Spain or I would have been tempted to fly to you. I know they did not say anything about you having to call the ISA representative upon arrival, as that is why they wanted your flight information in advance: they were going to meet you at the airport when you arrived. Oh well.

Dad gave me all your emails as soon as I got into the car in SLC and it sounds like you have been adjusting well. I can’’t believe how busy you are and I am so very glad!! Travel is cheap and at this time of your life, it’’s wonderful. I am glad you enjoy traveling as much as me, and I am proud of the fact you have a good head on your shoulders and will think before you act.

I loved the little episode with the English lads, especially since you said you went with several other girls. It sounds like your days are very busy, with going out so many times each day. Are you always with Ashton, and the other girls you mentioned or are you going with others too? Are they all with ISA or are they locals as well? Have you met lots of people or is it difficult to meet people?

I am glad you like your host family, and I hope you are helping out in any way you can or that they expect. I will try to make arrangements to call you but not today. I probably will not be getting Vontage as the program is not what I expected. They allow unlimited calls to Spain, but only to a land line! That means I would have to call the host family’’s phone and you said that it was not allowed very much. Right now, Dad has made arrangements through AT&T for a plan that will allow us to call fairly cheap, and we can call both land lines and cell phones, assuming you find one. Are you still considering this? Do you want to me look for one on this end? I understand that calls from your cell phone would cost you on a per minute basis, but calls to your cell phone would be free. So we could call from here on our house phone. Let me know.

What is this bit about the British ‘‘lads’’ ?. Obviously, they are visiting Spain like you, but were they students, or just sailors on leave? Uncircumcized …… uhummmm? A bit closer than you wanted to be obviously. And the man in the park, that was a real experience wasn’t it. I told you that there are wacko’’s everywhere and especially where you least expect them!

How is Ashton? She sounds like she likes to get out and about. Are you learning any dancing moves to teach us?

Keep track of the places you are going so we can go back if you like them. It sounds like you have already gone south to Marbella which is close to where we will be living in our timeshares. I will try to get exact locations of the two time shares so you can be aware of them in case you go back near them.

How was Madrid? Any thing you especially liked there. OH, I need you to write on your blog space if at all possible as there are a number of people that want to know how you are and what you are doing. I will try to cut and paste your previous letters to Dad to the blog spot but I am not sure if it will work. If not, I guess I can rewrite everything again on it. Let me know if you will be able to write on the blog spot or not.

As for my trip, it was great. I loved Tuscany and would love to return for a longer time, like 3-4 months. It was all hill country and very beautiful. I love old cities and castles and they have a lot of them there. On the way home we got hung up in London and had to spend the night. London is SOOOOOO VERY expensive too. The pound cost 2 American dollars and they spend pounds just like we spend dollars so everything was 100% more expensive than the states. Be aware of this if you get the opportunity to go there. Hotels were outrageously expensive. Anyway, we stood by for about 6 flights before we all got on and then we had to go to Washington, DC instead of straight to Chicago. We got to Chicago late on Sunday and I had to stay until Monday to get home to SLC. I missed an important hearing but it was reset so I am OK. I took lots of pictures, which is good since midway through the trip I dropped my camera it is not working real well now. I have over 373 pictures to show off though.

I bought new three new cards for your camera and will send them to you as soon as I can find an address to send them to. Also, how do you want more money sent to you? I can’’t remember how big the jump drive is that we got you, so if it looks like you may need another, let me know so I have time to buy it and send it to you. Also, I may just bring another jump drive when I come at Christmas time and exchange it with yours. That way I can bring your pics home and you can continue downloading to the new one. Let me know what you think.

The trip to Morocco sounds wonderful. Remember to take notes as we will want to repeat it with the family. Don’’t they charge you a 3 Euro fee each time you exchange money at the bank? If so, change all your money at one time as you know you will need it before next April.
I agree that trips are cheap now. Ryan Air is actually free and you only pay taxes, BUT, they only fly into small airports and you have to pay a fortune to get to the actual city you want to visit. We had to pay $45.00 US dollars each just to get from Stansted airport to Heathrow Airport; a one way trip! Bear this in mind when planning trips. I would also like to see a picture of this Brian, traveling partner.

I have so much I want to ask you but will try to close for now and will write again. I love hearing from you and if you could, just put both Dad and my email addresses on the same line so your letters go to both of us. Or else, switch to the blog spot. Remember though, the blog will be read by LOTS of people besides just Dad and I.

I am about to have my first work lunch without you. I miss you smiling face but look forward to your letters each day. Do you want us to bring your laptop yet?

Love you always,

Mom.

October 2, 2006

From: Lauren Westling [mailto:snowflake_baby23@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, October 02, 2006 2:53 AM
To: Dave Westling
Subject: RE: hi daddy

Ok comp kicked me off again!

So we saw the beach and then went out for dinner. The tapas in this town were small!! I mean pequeno they were about 1 bit and we had ordered 5 thinking that we would all just share yeah no! The girls were so hungry afterward that they had to go to Burger King for hamburgers ( yeah I was not excited to be in a burger king, but they were angry because it was 5 € for a hamburger!)

Then we went to a bar so the girls could wait for 12 when the discotecas opened up. The bartender was really nice and with their Spanglish we got along fine, except we kept standing in the way and waiters couldn’t get around us and of course the rest of the students in Marbella came and we got really loud and I think the bar got a call from the police. By about 2 the bar kicked us to close and Ashton and I went back to go to bed, it wasn’t that much fun babysitting so many drunk, loud, girls. Obviously I had only had one glass of wine and was nowhere near as smashed.

Saturday morning I woke up and took a stroll around the town by myself, it was awesome to see all the business people going to work. I went and saw their park that was covered in trees with fountains around it and then to the beach to watch the sun peaking over the mountains. A man sat next to me and after a few minutes of weird conversation he gave me some free samples of lotion and nail files from the hotel he worked at and then tried to feel me up, yeah that was a quick escape for me.

I returned to the hotel and at about 10 all of our group was down on the beach tanning, and walking in the tide as the water was still a little chilly. A group of British guys asked me and Becca, the girl I was walking with, to go out with them on these paddle boats that had slides on top. Of course we got some more girls and out we went with the 8 lads. Ok I don´t want to get into too much detail now as this was definitely one of the weirdest things that has ever happened to me but these guys brought a TON of alcohol and they got drunk, and when they got drunk they also seemed to get naked. That was definitely the first time I have ever seen an uncircumcised man,( YUCK) and that is all I am going to say. It was gross and all those girls on that boat left as soon as they possibly could. The guys on my boat tended to be pretty good and we loved listening to them talk about their job with the British Royal Navy and London, in their accents. Those guys spent a ton of money on us renting the boats for more then 3 hours and making a trip in for more alcohol. By 3 we were tired of their vulgar language and went back to shore for lunch and siestas.

Not much else happened. If anybody has questions feel free to write and I will definitely answer but right now I have class!

Chow!

Lauren

September 28, 2006

From: Lauren Westling [mailto:snowflake_baby23@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 7:57 AM
To: Lisa Botham
Subject: hey mom

Hi mom,

I am in Spain and you are still in Italy and I would love hear from you when you return so just so you know.

I am downloading my pictures from my camera onto my USB thing which works great as only one of those cards you gave me works for my camera so I can have 30 pics. I have tried to send these to you but am having difficulties.

Umm yeah money wise I have been changing money at a bank down the street from the school and not too much. A lot of kids are going through money FAST but I haven ´t but a problem may arise later in the semester as the trip to Morroco is going to cost around 400 dollars (about 349 euros) and even though that is extremely expensive it includes meals, hotels, transportation, camel rides, and the experience. I had to put a downpayment of 100 euros down already so the rest is coming later.

I met a guy named Brian who is the only other person staying the whole year and he is really neat. He has the same kind of travel ideas as me (not partying all the time but seeing the city and sites too) he and I are going to sit down and plan out trips to places in Spain this semester and then places like Germany ( he has been there before and has a friend there) Italy, Ireland, london, etc. I hear that if you book it now tickets are only about 11 euros including taxes.
My comp is kicking me off so I will write later.

Love

Lauren

_____Original Message_____
From: Lauren Westling [mailto:snowflake_baby23@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 2:55 AM
To: Dave Westling Subject: RE: hi daddy

Dad,

I absolutely love hearing from you! Umm ok today was an interesting day because I had to walk to class on my own at 9 am. I did a great job at not getting lost. But after my first class this morning I had to search for a bank and change my money. I am so glad I don´t have a problem talking Spanish to people because getting directions and help would be so difficult!

Are you ready to be jealous? Well, I have the same classes everyday I start at 9 have a break from 10_11 then have my other 3 classes from 11_2 and then I am done for the day. In the afternoons from 2_5 is siesta and lunch time. So I eat lunch then nap for 2 hours. Also school is only Monday through Thursday so we have three day weekends every week for us to travel and see the sights of the town.

My senora (mom away from home) is extremely nice and talks only spanish to us so we are forced to speak Spanish and that is AWESOME! She is really easy going and very helpful. Also my senor (or the dad) is really excited all the time and works only a little bit as he is always home for siesta time and meals. He is a HUGE Sevilla Soccer team fan. there are two professional soccer teams in Sevilla: Beatis and Real he is really antiBeatis and pro Real. It is fun to watch him watch the soccer games. I will be attending one of these games soon as a couple of the guys here are obsessed with soccer and attending one of the Real games. I´ll take some pictures for you.

Last night we found a flamenco bar and were watching a little bit of flamenco. There was a man that played a guitar, one that sang, a lady that clapped extremely loudly, and a man and woman that danced. It was pretty neat and I am going to have to find it again.

So did you give the gift to Isaiah?
Ok on with me I get up at 7:45 in the morning and shower and eat. Am at School from 9-2 I go home to eat dinner at 2-5 about and then go out around the town from 2-8:45 and am at home for dinner at 9-10:30 and am out again until about 11:30 or 12:00.

So as for you to call me how about you let me know if there is a good time for you because it is going to have to be in the morning for you. So here are the times that are good and let me know in advanced so I can wait by the phone for your call. From my calculations it is good for you to call me at 8am Wyoming time which will be 4pm Sevilla time. Or maybe 12 for you and 8pm for me. We can do that tomorrow if that is convenient for you just let me know! Tomorrow for me is Wednesday, Sept 27th. Right now it is 3am for you and 11am for me so I will be checking my e-mail again this afternoon around 2 but that is 6 your time so I will try to check it again tomorrow and see what you have to say!

I am sorry this is so long I guess I got a little excited.

I love you,

Lauren


Dave's reply the same day.

September 26, 2006

Lauren,

I think I will call you at 7:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning which is 3:00 p.m. in Spain. This will give me an hour to talk so I can get to work by 8:30 a.m. This is during your usual nap time but I think it will work out the best. I’m looking forward to talking to you over the phone although I have told you almost everything through my e-mail letters to you.

I took Classie to the Vet today for his leg. He thought that Classie should have penicilliun shot every 48 hours for the next ten days and he showed me how to bandage his wound for 5 days so I don’t have to doctor him twice a day any more. He was concerned about proud flesh developing in the wound. He wants me to keep using the same salve (medical dressing) on the wound.

I still can’t get Federal Express to leave Kayli’s new computer at the house. They need signature of someone over 21 or they want your mother to pick it up at the office in Rock Springs between 4:4 and 5:00p.m.because her name is on the package. I told them that she is in Spain and won’t return until next Monday and that I can’t take a day of work to wait for them to deliver the computer. Kayli is getting frustrated and I told her that she can come spend the day at home waiting for the delivery of it which she might do.

Adar is very happy with your bed. I don’t think she will give it back when you come home. I guess mom and I will have to do something about that before next summer.

Well I better get home to bed so I can get up early to talk to you.

Love

Dad

September 24, 2006

September 24, 2006

Lauren:
I hope you received my last letter that I sent you last Friday evening. You haven't responded to it yet and its Sunday morning at 8:30 a.m. in Wyoming. I need you to send me your phone number over in Spain. Mom must have taken the copy of the information on your host family. I plan to call Isaiah today to find out if he has heard from you yet and maybe he has your phone number. Also I need to get him the birthday gift from you.

I tried calling on Saturday but no one was home. I assume he is out hunting in earnest since you are not here. Please call the home phone again and at least leave me your phone number. You could also try calling my cell phone at 1_307_870_5444.

Kayli went to Laramie this weekend to the Wyoming/ Air Force game. Wyoming lost 31 to 24.

Are you interacting with your host family. I'm sure you will probably meet more American kids over there when you go to school which is ok but remember you need to spend most of your time with the Spanish people to get the most out of your trip plus and to become fluent in their culture and language.

I'm spending lots of time at the horse corral doing some of the construction work I never had time for when I originally built the barn. I think about you all the time hoping you will call again or answer my E_Mail. I have to come to my office to E_Mail. I suppose you have to be at school to answer my E_Mail therefore I shouldn't expect you to respond on the weekend when I hope you are out having a great time.

I'm anxious for mom to return next Sunday in the mean time all I can do is stay busy. Adar came home late last night so at least I'm not totally alone. Can't wait to hear back from you!!!!

I'll love and miss you always!

Dad



Lauren’s response.

Hi dad,

It is so nice to hear from you! I was getting discouraged about not hearing from you guys when I kept calling but it happens. I did talk to Isaiah and yes I am ok ask him about my airport experience and that because this computer is hard to write on ( the keys are really different and it is hard to understand how to do it). I had to wait for the first day of school, today, to write you and find your response.

Ok as for my phone number I am going to have to go to my host family´s house for it so I will try to get back on later today. Man there is just so much I want to tell you especially about the cities we visited, the people, my host family, the problems I have had, the classes, and of course the soccer over here but right now I am famished as it is lunch time over here (2:00 pm) and siesta time.

I will come back later today and write. Thank you so much for writing such a complete and long letter it is so nice to hear from you! Write me as much as you can as it is nice to hear from you.

Tell everyone that I love them and can´t wait to hear from them.

I love you guys!

>Lauren

I am going to try to post a few of Lauren's prior emails and our comments or responses. this should bring everyone up to date on her expericences

Sent: Friday, September 22, 2006 10:46 AM
Hi dad,
It's Lauren. I have missed you guys so much. I have been trying to call and I am bad at calling at times that you guys aren't awake or at home and is only convient for me. Tell everyone I am ok and meet my family tomorrow.
I hope mom will return and get Vontage so I can talk to you guys. I have only had a few homesickness points but I am ok and the weather here is nice, not hot. I want to check some things with mom too so please have her write me. You can write me too. I would love to hear from you!
On September 30 Isaiah turns 22 and I have a gift in the guest bedroom for him. Have him go over to the house and open it. It is long picture frame in marroon wrapping. Don't give him any of the other boxes!!!!
I love you guys and hope to talk to you guys soon.

Love,
~Lauren

Cordóba and Cadiz

Ok I have finally found out how to access my blog again!!! Yeah I know all of you are excited now! Ok mom is going to rewrite my other e-mails I believe because I don´t have any of those so this is going to be about this past weekend October 6-7. This one I wrote when I couldn´t sleep on Sunday morning.

Ok can´t sleep so I´m writing you guys!

We are going to start with Thursday night. Ashton and I decided to go out and on our walk back to the house I saw a flea market in one of the bigger plazas near our house so we went through it and I bought my first Spain skirt it´s cute. While there Ashton flirted with the vendor and got his number yep another intercambio possibility. (which means we meet with someone who speaks spanish so we can work on our spanish skills). Then back at home we ate with our host parents Reyes and Alfonso, just to give you a time frame we eat dinner every night at 9pm).

So we were walking away from our house and we meet up with the people who made it to the intercambios on time and we sat down with them and watched them drink wine, and various other alcoholic drinks. One that I have to mention is Sangria. This drink is really good it is a red wine that is mixed with juice and a variety of fruits. If I am out and buy a drink it is that. The group intercambio ends at about 10:30 and we then as a pretty big group wonder to a bar we have heard about from our directors and other Sevillans we have met. It is called Alphalpha and it is just a street where a lot of college students hang out and drink. Let me explain bars in Sevilla first the bar themselves are extremely small and they offer no seating. They sell the alcohol at the bar and then the glasses are taken out in front of the bar itself and consumed on the sidewalk and street in front of the bar. The glasses are just returned to the bar after the person is done with it. Alphalpha street has about 3 bars next to eachother and then a pizza joint across the street.
We meet some students from the University of Sevilla here that try to speak english to us and we speak spanish back to them. It was fun but the setting was loud and very hard to understand eachother. We got their number as they invited us to a party on Wednesday, since nobody has school on Thursday as it is a big celebration of the Virgen de Pilar. Anyways we enjoyed talking to them and will later decided if they will be good for more intercambios. Now I did not set the scene for this street as a lot of my family is very worried about me already but I feel it adds to the story if you know more about the setting. We are a group of Americans that try not to seperate as there are LOT of people on this street and a few of the guys have been offered marijuana and there are a couple drunk guys hitting on only American girls so we are keeping a pretty close eye on eachother and the surroundings. I did hear one person slur guiri at us which is a derrogatory term for foreigners, we learned that in one of our classes that day.
Now it is getting around midnight and the bars are closing down because the discotecas are opening for the night so we go in search of a discoteca called casino in which we have just recieved VIP passes from some guy that was handing them out at Alphalpha so we begin our search. Which ends up with the front people getting lost, and then more Americans that are studying at the University show up looking for the same place so now about 40 of us Americans are loudly walking through the streets looking for this discoteca. Needless to say 4 of us decided this was not a good idea so as soon as this kid came up to the group offering tickets for free entrance, and a free drink at a discoteca near Alphalpha we left and headed back.
I am in heels at this time while that is normal for most spaniard women it is not for me so my feet are aching. So we stop on the steps of the cathedral for a rest before trecking on to the discoteca Catedral. The bouncers let us in easily and once inside it was a whole new scene. this place was really nice with a white leather couch that has a rope blocking it for a reservation I suppose. Then the bar with a nice marble counter nicely dressed bartenders then to some stairs that lead to a big room covered in mirrors a couple couches neatly placed with occupants two DJs in the back right corner two pillars in the middle and close to the stairs a back room that leads to the bathrooms. It is pretty dark and lit up by hazy lights. So we go in and watch people a little and notice that everyone is drinking so we get our free drinks which was ok because the bartender made the drinks in front of us like they are supposed to so we got vodka with fanta. Then danced a little on the dance floor near one of the pillars and watched around us. We didn´t stay long as we began to tire of the lack of people and little interaction between groups within the club.
Ashton and I then went home and it was so nice to sit down and take my heels off. Needless to say we slept well that night.

So now how about Friday. We went on a excursion to Cordóba and the ride wasn´t too bad actually. However, when we arove of course the first stop was the bathrooms for the girls and as usual there was only one bathroom and only one toilet, yep I was definately pulling the dance for a bit, sometimes it sucks being a girl. We then toured the gardens of Alcazár. Which was breathtakingly beautiful. Let me explain about Alcazár it is a palace that was built by the Moors so there is a lot of ponds and waterfalls. Then it was overtaken by Isabel and Ferdinand and they occupied it for 8 years during the inquisition. In the inner garden there is a large, tall, stone wall that surrounds it and during the inquisition they made this a jail for the muslims and jews.

We walked through tree lined walkways by ponds with little fountains and flowers blooming every step of the way. Hidden in between the trees were statues of past kings and at the end a huge statue of Christopher Columbus approaching Isabel and Ferdinand. An amazing site I hope to gather some pictures for you guys from my camera of it.

I have to go to soccer so I will write more tomorrow!

Lauren

Monday, October 9, 2006. 2:56 am. Wyoming time.

I received this one this morning at 2.20 am my time.. I am still trying to see if this copy and paste will work.

OK, it worked! I will find the older emails and post them today!!! Happy reading. As you can see, Lauren would love to hear from all of you.
Hey mom,

I will try to keep this brief as I only have 20 minutes to write before I have my next class.

You are right I need to open an account with a bank so you can send money to me easily or a debt card would work too as I believe Ashton said they only charge 2 or 3 euros to do it. I don´t know if that is a possibility or not though. Now that I am thinking about it a debit card would be nice for this but let me know what you think.

I am trying to find the pic cell website and am not really being able to access it. We´ll see what I can find out. I know I need to get a phone just choosing the best rates is becoming a hassle.

I will try to not wait on the phone or money issues.

I talked to my host mom longer last night and I should definately stay for Semana Santa but I don´t know that dates for that yet so we´ll see. As for this weekend 4 of us, not including Ashton, are going to try to go to a small town nearby that has wine tasting every weekend for 3 euros and we´ll stay the night then explore the town for the next day, return home and then go out to a small town called Italica on Sunday for a few hours.

Italica is a town that was built after the Punic War because Rome had so many injured and instead of moving them back to Rome they just made the town of Italica. It has a ton of ruins and a whole Archaeology Museum for Spain´s artifacts there so yep that is definately interesting to me. Oh I don´t know if Isaiah told you but last week we were at a coffee shop an in the middle of the street where they are doing a whole lot of construction, there were archeaologists excavating a body. you could see the imprint of the smaller person in the mud. I was extremely excited and have a pic for you guys to see it but it is from the paper.

I Also would like Uncle Jon, Micky, and anybody else that I should be sending massive e-mails to so please send those to me. Also good luck with the blog stuff, let me know if you can figure it out. I will be sending another massive e-mail later today so let me know.

I love you and miss you every day!

Love,
Lauren

Hi everyone,

Lauren is having a bit of a problem getting to her blog spot in Spain, so I am going to try to post her letters to me for you. This one is a test to figure out if I even can. Have patience with me and if it works I will send her letters for the last three weeks. Mom/Lisa