Semana Santa Traveling Adventures :)

Our first destination: Amsterdam

Day 1:

On Thursday morning Elena and I went to our cultures class at 11 for about 20 minutes before meeting up with the 5 other girls we traveled with; Eileen, Amy, Randi, Tayler and Brittany. Our flight left Sevilla at 2pm, but we had a connecting flight in Barcelona... Which happened to have a 6 hour layover! While we had to wait around in the airport for a long time, it wasn't all that bad; Barcelona has a huge airport filled with so many shops that it's practically a mini-mall--clothing stores, souvenir shops, duty free goods, various restaurants and more. While we waited, we walked around, ended up eating both our lunch and a snack, relaxed and planned our plans for Amsterdam.

On board the flight, most of us decided to get a soup and sandwich for dinner (they actually were pretty cheap!)... Though this sounds like an odd detail, I thought the sandwich was absolutely delicious; something that is probably not very typical of "airplane food". I must say that the "cup of soup" that consisted of some sort of powder and hot water didn't exactly hit the spot, but I was pleasantly surprised at how delicious the sandwich was (whole grain bread, lettuce, roasted red peppers and pesto--from a homemade bakery from Amsterdam)--I had been expecting the worst for airplane food.

Our flight took off at 9:30 at night, so we didn't arrive in Amsterdam until 11. We then wandered until we finally were able to find the right train to take us to central station, found a nightbus and followed Elena's GPS to our hostel, "Hotel AnnMarie". I wasn't exactly sure what to expect at this hostel since a) I had never stayed in a hostel before and b) their rating on hostels.com wasn't that amazing. The only thing that sketched me out a little was that the guy behind the desk first told us when we walked in after 1am that we came too late, and that he had given our room to someone else...but then when Randi mentioned that she had talked to someone on the phone about our late arrival on Tuesday, everything was all of a sudden "okay" and we paid the rest we owed and got our room key. Odd. After that, we made our beds and got ready to sleep as quickly as possible since we were so unbelievably exhausted and anticipated a busy day on Friday.

Day 2:

On Friday, we accomplished visiting and completing most of the tourist attractions in Amsterdam. After eating our free breakfast (just cereal and bread with peanut butter, jam, butter cream cheese or a Dutch version of nutella), our first stop was into a coffeeshop. Everyone that wanted coffee already got a weak cup at breakfast, therefore coffee was not what we went to buy; in fact, I'm not sure if they even sold any coffee there. If you haven't been to Amsterdam to see it or you weren't aware that "coffeeshop" is just a code word for the hundreds (270, I believe) of places that you can go to buy and smoke weed or countless baked goods with weed in it. As our tour guide later explained to us, weed is not legal, nor is it illegal in Amsterdam... Basically it's fine if you smoke, as long as you adhere to regulations, and coffeeshops need to be certified in order to sell the weed (the funny thing is that it's also technically illegal to grow weed... But once again, it's something they don't bother checking up on). After smoking a couple of joints together (we had to do it for the experience!) we headed to a free walking tour of the city. During the tour, we also learned that it is very common for people to mistake the coffeeshops for their literal meaning, only realizing it's a code after they walk in, ask for a cup of coffee and then realize their typical/reasonable mistake they made.

The weed "menu"

A warning sign on the window of "Dampkring", a famous coffeeshop

 During the tour, we walked throughout the city; through the red-light district, to the Dutch East India Trading company, to the Jewish neighborhood ... I didn't realize until walking around on the tour how many canals the city has; apparently they have more canals than in Venice--the only difference is that Amsterdam has actual streets on the sides of their canals and their canals are circulated better and therefore do not smell bad like in Venice either. When we walked through the red-light district, we were told a story about why there is a church smack dab in the center of the area. Apparently the district began as an area for the priests' mistresses to live, but then the area began to attract sailors. Just as sex out of marriage is a sin nowadays, it was back then as well; the idea behind the church was that the sailors would be able to confess their sins immediately after, in case they died at sea. (many priests charged for a letter that stated their forgiveness). I guess that Amsterdam really is a business-oriented city as our guide explained: supply in demand is present in both the red-light district and represented through the proximity of coffeeshops and fast food restaurants throughout the entire city. The other thing that somewhat shocked me about the red-light district was the girls that were actually behind the windows: while I had been expecting to see gross, fat and unattractive women working their windows, they were all in pretty good shape (not too skinny or fat) and were all pretty looking. Our tour guide explained that similar to the regulations for weed, prostitution is also regulated by the police, which allows them to work on their own, not be pushed onto drugs or deal with pimps and can work safely and independently (since they can report anything to the police). Our tour guide also told us that after World War 2, the Jewish community was completely destroyed and burnt down, but the city didn't bother to fix it up until the 1960's, when new architect students were assigned the plan.... Hence the reason the Jewish district is smothered with hippie colors and styles. An additional spot that we saw on our tour (with the exception of the countless bikes--there are almost as many bikes in Amsterdam as people!), we also entered into an old secret Catholic community with a church inside and everything. It seriously looked like an ordinary door.

Later on that night, we had a quick dinner at a Mexican restaurant (which was a COMPLETE rip-off) and headed off to a pub crawl. We went to six different bars/clubs (we skipped the last one because a couple people wanted to go back and sleep) and got a free beer/wine or sometimes a shot at each place... and got a free T-shirt to remember it. It was a pretty fun time!

Day 3:

On our last day in Amsterdam, we tried to do anything else that we still wanted to do, but mostly ended up walking around since our flight was that night and we didn't want to chance being late for our plane. The only "big" thing we did that day was visit the Van Gogh Museum, which was interesting, but after awhile was just too much and got repetitive.. which I'm sure is normal after having visited so many museums and cathedrals during the semester!

Complete photo album: 

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.1828357543824.2087779.1086870495&l=a4276f8ce4

Destination Number 2: Prague

When we finally got to Prague, it was already dark. Our flight landed around 9 PM and we found the night bus and got to our hostel by 11ish. Although there may not have been as much to see in the dark, I was in awe of the beauty of the city when we arrived. To be honest, Prague was unfortunately the city that I was least excited for (even though I have Czech heritage!); while I would probably travel anywhere just for the experience, it was not a place that I had expected to love and enjoy as much as I did. One of the biggest reasons why I think I loved it so much was the medieval "vibe" I got from being there. While the city has been renovated and can be considered modern, the architecture still gives off the feeling that you are stepping back in time--especially when you look at the gorgeous, ancient Charles Bridge over the river, with the castle in view... or the famous astronomical clock on the bell tower in the center of the city.

Day 4 :

view of one of the markets

The next morning, after having arrived late, settling in and calling it an early night, we headed off to another free neweurope tour at 11 (after eating the free breakfast they offered.. nothing special).  We walked around the city and were brought to some historical and famous places, including the astronomical clock, the Charles Bridge, the Jewish neighborhood, the only example of Cubist architecture in the city and saw the concert hall where Mozart used to perform. We were also introduced to an amazing bagel shop, called Bohemia

at the top of the hill

Bagel, which reminded me of the place in Boston that Tante always takes us to (I forget the name!). After the tour was over, we were on our own for the rest of the day. As I am looking back at my photo album from Prague, I'm actually a bit shocked to see how much we actually did in just one day; after the tour, we walked to the castle, saw the chang
ing of the guards, walked to the top of a huge hill (possibly the tallest in the city?) and saw the beautiful view over the city, walked to the John Lennon wall, shopped a little, and headed to their AMAZING Easter market for dinner.

John Lennon wall

the bridge, river and castle!

Seriously, one of my favorite parts of being in the city was probably the market. Although the Easter market is only around for about a month every year, I am so glad that we happened to be there during it. I love markets! It had traditional Czech foods and pastries, hot wine (which I had never tried before and LOVE) and homemade "craft" goods such as jewelry and hand-painted egg ornaments. This, of course, also gave the city a more medieval feel. That night, I ate some Klobasa and dark bread in honor of Dad and Opa, who I wish could have been there with me to enjoy it! (and after had some kind of fruit cobbler/tart pastry that was delicious as well) After dinner, we headed to their "Beer Museum", which was basically just a restaurant with a menu offering numerous types of beer (with descriptions), and you ordered which ones you would like to taste... I had a few sips of my friends' beers, trying to enjoy it, but unfortunately still really can't call myself a beer drinker at all. It was a cool experience though! On a side note about the beer, while I was there, Dad had told me to be sure to drink some Stella Artois and Pilsner Urquell for him, which are abundantly offered in the Czech Republic... later when I got back to Sevilla, one of my friends that had studied marketing told me that Stella is really the equivalent of BudLight in Belgium... AKA, it's not their best beer, but the reason it is so well-known and loved internationally is due to the way it is marketed! If you were to go to Belgium, it would not be the beer that the "locals" would drink! Interesting, huh?

After finishing up at the beer museum, a few of us headed over to another recommended bar, called Harley's...as in Harley Davidson... let's just say we were almost the only girls inside, other than the bartender! Also, there were 2 bachelor parties going on inside, we found out. The one comment I have on our visit to this bar is that there must not be any law, or atleast enforcement of it, to public exposure. There was a guy that decided to strip down to a suspender-thong, dance around, re-dress, and repeat... almost constantly! It was interesting that he was never stopped or anything. We stayed at the bar until we realized how drunk everyone else seemed to be...

Complete photo album:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.1828504027486.2087852.1086870495&l=ddbb7f5f55

Final Destination: Paris

Day 5:
On our last day in Prague, we bought tickets to see inside the Jewish region of the city (the temple, cemetery, etc) since the Jewish community in Prague was so significantly impacted by Hitler and the Holocaust. We walked around for awhile, ate dinner in the market again and had an early night since our flight to Paris was at 6 AM (and we were leaving the hostel at 3 AM)...

Our 5th day traveling clearly had an early start. With our early flight, and the long conversation with the man that was in the same room with us in the hostel (he was French-Canadian, so we were asking him what to see in Paris since he already visited, etc), I was running on virutally no sleep... I got about an hour worth of a "nap", I guess. We arrived in Paris and took a train to the center of the city, found our hostel pretty easily and arrived there before 10 AM. We couldn't check in yet, so we dropped our bags off and found a nearby cafe that our hostel manager (?) recommended to us before we headed off to another free neweurope tour.

I am going to be completely honest now; I have been getting lazy with writing my blog, therefore I have no motivation to mention every single thing we saw and did in Paris.. It was a LONG day. Our tour was the longest one out of the 3 cities we visited, starting at 11 and lasting until about 3:30, where we then headed over to have a lunch/dinner until 5ish. Afterward, we headed to the Eiffel Tower, took pictures below, climbed as high as we could, and Randi and I ended up buying tickets to take the elevator to the top. It was about a 45 minute walk back to our hostel... had we known this and not thought that we were located reasonably closer, we may not have decided to walk all the way home, after an entire day of walking and no sleep! We were starving by the time we got to our street, so we each grabbed something to eat, and went to bed, planning another early start the next day.

view from the tower!

Here is the link to my first album for Paris, I basically documented everything we did/saw:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.1830317312817.2088498.1086870495&l=2774683db7

 

Day 6:

the hall of mirrors

outside the Palace of Versailles

The next morning, we woke up early and grabbed some breakfast (I got an egg and cheese crepe!) and were off to see the Palace of Versailles. Having been exhausted from our week-long traveling adventures, we "only" spent a few hours there. We walked around the crowded palace (I can't imagine how crowded it is in the summer...), tried walking through as many gardens as we could and even got some sorbet. After Amy and Tayler decided they were too tired to walk around anymore, we took the long walk back to the entrance, through the city, to the train back to Paris. Our plan was to walk around the city a little bit, but after attempting this for a little, we decided it was best to just take the metro back to the hostel until we went out for dinner and a riverboat cruise later that night. The riverboat didn't really help me learn anything new, since the lady's accent was almost impossible to understand, but it gave us another pretty way to view the beautiful city.
Day 7:

my idea of the perfect French breakfast :-) with the exception of crepes!

It was finally our last day of traveling... while I was loving everything I was seeing, I feel like I wasn't getting much time to relax, let alone breathe.. I was excited to be able to go back to Sevilla and relax. We woke up early again, headed to see Notre Dame and then went to another region of the city, Monmarte (?), where we saw the famous basilica, Sacre Coeur, an art market and Moulin Rouge. We walked around and ended up getting lunch at a delicious bakery that makes everything fresh (Randi works at a cafe based off of it in Wisconsin) and then headed back to the hostel to grab our suitcases and catch our flight "home".

Here's the second album for Paris:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.1830434915757.2088528.1086870495&l=d8eca4a879

Our trip was really fun and while I wish I were more descriptive, the pictures show everything we did. Some day I hope to go back to these places with friends and family, as I thought of many people specifically when I was in each city. I am glad I took the opportunity to travel to these places, even if my wallet is more empty due to it :-P

Happy, Thank You, More, Please!

After cooking class tonight, a few friends and I decided to go see a movie at the only theater that plays English-speaking movies. As odd as it might sound, it was almost a relief to just watch a movie in a theater...and have it in English! Haha. Other than the fact that the movie was really cute (although the title was very odd-- "Happy, Thank You, More, Please"--at first, when I had been seeing advertisements for the movie all over the city, I had thought that maybe it was just a really bad translation... I had no idea what the movie was about...or that one of my favorite people from my one of my favorite TV shows, Josh Radnor, would be in it!)... one of the characters in the movie reminded me about something that I think I will really miss when I leave Sevilla; walking to get from place to place. 

Although I've mentioned this before, I hate it and I love it. I do get really lazy here sometimes and not want to go places because I think about the walk I need to take to get there (well, technically I could also use public transportation but I never really bother; I figure that I might as well walk because it will only take a little more time since buses have to stop so much, it's free, and I'm burning calories haha), other times it's just nice to go for a leisurely walk to get to places... It can be relaxing. Anyways, the girl in the movie was talking about how she didn't want to move from NYC because she wouldn't be able to walk everywhere anymore...which got me to wonder if I would possibly want to live in a city some day. I never really pictured myself as a "city girl", but after being here I have noticed all the pro's of city life: free or cheap transportation (I get to look forward to rising gas prices when I get home... Yay!), exercise, proximity of shopping, restaurants, gyms and other places...cities have it all! It's still something I can think about, of course, but an interesting new insight that I think will be important to think about some day :)

La Extremadura! and Memories of Grampy

 I started writing this yesterday, but here it goes...

Ok, so I know I should be finishing up my Arab paper and presentation for Wednesday (since my professor was nice enough to understand that my stupid Dell computer is a piece of crap so I couldn't finish it for today)... but I don't know, I'm just not in a very focused mood. I also am very unmotivated and didn't go on my run yesterday or today :/ BUT, one thing I know I still need to and should do is write about our weekend in Extremadura a couple weekends ago:

On Friday morning, we met up with the group at 8:15 and were off to Mérida. The drive was about 3 hours long. When we got there, we walked through the city a little (it wasn't that big), visited an old Roman amphitheater and theater and then an archeological museum that had objects from Roman times also. The amphitheater was really cool to see after already visiting the old Roman city of Itálica with my class the previous Thursday. Although Itálica was really interesting to see, since it was the Roman's first settlement in Spain, it was mostly just ruins, whereas the ones in Merida were ruins, but were more intact. The museum wasn't too interesting since we were told that most of the sculptures were just random people, but what I enjoyed most at both Itálica and the museum was seeing all the mosaics. At Itálica, there were mosaics in each house originally, and they were themed. For example, one house contained a room with a bird mosaic built into the floors, therefore it was referred to as "The House of the Birds". The coolest mosaic was probably at one of the other houses though, that had an image of all of the Gods and Goddesses that represented the days of the week.

While we were at the museum on Friday, we also visited the old crypt. My friend, Alex, immediately asked me when we got inside, "How many people in here are dead?" which brought back funny memories of Grandpa because he always used to ask me that. It's nice to know that even though he's gone, I still think about him and nice memories or even corny jokes like that come back all the time; they help me smile a little when I remember him. It's still very surreal to me that I will never see him again though--I almost cannot believe that. Almost every place I have gone to, especially those where we go on hikes or are in nature, I think about how much he would love to be there and wonder if maybe he has been there already. While I wish he could still be alive to be receiving my postcards and hearing about all the cool places I've been visiting (and know that he would enjoy to know that his granddaughter has become more of a "world traveler" like himself), I'm a little happy that since his time was coming that I had time to spend with him before I had to leave--and that he didn't pass away while I was over here in Europe. Another girl on the trip said her grandfather just passed away on Sunday, which I can't even imagine how hard that is for her; she said her mom has been hysterical and of course she can't go home...if that happened to me I would feel so helpless. Sometimes I suddenly have the urge to cry, but have mostly been remembering the good times with Grandpa. Lately I have also been wondering if God chose to make me strong the day he passed away and throughout the entire time I was home to support my Grandma and Mom. Before he died, we constantly reassured him that we would all be okay and that he could stop struggling, but I also asked him to promise to watch over me and show me that he was with me when I came to Spain.  I have still been looking for signs that he is here with me and wonder if it's enough that certain things I see or hear remind me of him; or if there may be a bigger sign that I am missing. Maybe it's as simple as the fact that I haven't forgotten him that matters, though, which is something I was a little scared of happening.

After we left Merida and went to another city in Extremadura, Trujillo, we walked around the city, saw an old castle/fortress and also visited a medieval type/themed market outside our hotel. Trujillo was beautiful and reminded me of what I would think Ireland would look like (except less hilly)... It looked like a cute little antique town, and our hotel actually used to be a palace. The market was probably one of the coolest things though--it had traditional foods and pastries/desserts, unique gummies (like vodka and mojito flavored ones) and various different stands with nice jewelry (better quality than in morocco), toys, pottery, dried fruits and nuts (and dried kiwis, which I have never seen before and actually got to taste one of my friend's). The funniest thing that we found there that also reminded me of Grandpa (which I would have gotten for him if he were here and I'm sure he would have loved) was a little ceramic bird whistle that sounds exactly like a bird. My friend Alex got it and whistled it outside our friend Mary's door that night (she wasn't there with us when she bought it), and Mary thought it was a real bird--once again, this simple prank reminds me of something he would also do if he had one. I am just beinning to realize how similar my friend Alex and I are; she also loves soccer, is a Christian, is just as sarcastic as me, and right now is dealing with a similar problem with her dog that I dealt with Persia a few months ago. A few weeks ago, the vet found a rare cancer in her dog and said she only had a few weeks to live... but I'm glad to say for her that her dog is still with her mother (who shares a special bond with the dog like my mom did with Persia...)

Most of this post I had already written on my iPhone while on the bus ride home to Sevilla, and since it was a couple weeks ago, I'm not exactly sure what I should add. If you'd like to check out the pictures I took; there are many of the hike and some in each of the places that we visited, follow this link to my facebook photo album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2084630&id=1086870495&l=1d628ae07b

Let me know if you have any questions about the trip, or comment here and I will answer :)

An Eventful Weekend

By the beach in Cadiz

My weekend began on Thursday night, technically, since we do not have classes on Friday here, so I guess if you wanted to get technical, that particular night wasn't very eventful as the title of this post describes. I decided to stay in that night (although Thursday nights are usually the best and most fun nights to go out here!) so that I would be well-rested for my field trip with my history and mythology class the next day. The day began at 7:15am when I had to wake up in order to get ready and walk to the university for the bus (I unfortunately didn't sleep too well, but better at least than it would have been if I had gone out, I think). Our first destination was Cadiz, which made it my third time in the beautiful city; although it is the only city other than Sevilla that I have visited more than once, I have never done the same thing while there (the first time carnaval, the second was a beach day and this time all we did was walk through the city a little bit and visit the museum). I loved Cadiz and wish that we could have stayed there longer...it is definitely a great place to visit!

Can you spot Morocco's mountains on the horizon?!

After Cadiz, we headed to Bolonia, which is one of the most southern points in Spain. It lies on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and has beautiful beaches. It is also VERY close to Africa; so close, as in you can see Morocco over the horizon, like when you are on the Long Island Sound and can see NYC--so close, that people's phones changed their network and time to Morocco settings when we were sitting on the beach!!! Bolonia was beautiful and definitely did not appear to be as touristy as other destinations in Spain; the place that we went was literally Roman ruins that were inches away from the beach... the Romans sure knew how to pick the perfect location! The water was so clear and clean and REALLY blue from far away); it was a bit cold, therefore I didn't go in past my ankles and when the wind picked up and blew the sand it was painful. Other than these minor details, Bolonia definitely had one of the most beautiful beaches that I have ever seen.

 "El Foro de Baelo"-- used for Roman court trials mostly.

On the beautiful beach in Bolonia!

My lovely sunburn. See the "stripe" from my purse?

When we got back to Sevilla, it was almost dinner time. I realized that I had gotten sun burnt; the worst thing about it was that I got a sun burn on my neck where my purse strap was--it looks ridiculous, as if my skin is striped! On the walk home, I quickly stopped into a supermarket to pick up some moisturizing lotion (my sunburn is almost gone now, and turning into a tan, only 2 days later) and rushed home. Carmen and I ate dinner right away and I showered and got ready to go out, met up with some friends, and after a couple hours 3 out of 5 of us decided we were way too tired to stay out any longer... it was maybe 2am... not even close to late here. I was in bed by 3 and although I had planned on doing a lot of things Saturday, I ended up "locking" myself in my room in order to try and do my Arab paper/presentation that is due Monday... as much as I worked on it, it wasn't very successful.

Saturday night, I went out to see another concert with Carmen Maria. We met up with her cousin and her cousin's boyfriend and Maria (Carmen's friend that went to the other concert with us last time) came too. The concert was really good, we saw a more modern rock band, called "Gritando en Silencio"... it was funny because the singer had a very deep voice, but after the show, when he signed Ara's (Carmen's cousin) CD and my ticket, I saw that he was really short. I had a great time last night with everyone, the music was great, and I got to practice some more Spanish. I decided to be good and come home after the concert; we were home by 1:15, so that I could discipline myself into getting my work done today. 

Unfortunately, when I woke up this morning and began to work on my paper, my computer decided to freeze repeatedly--I restarted it countless times and even shut it down to 'rest' a few times! I hate this computer. I wish I never listened to Quinnipiac and got the stupid Dell laptops they "required"! Other than that, I haven't done too much today... I am hoping that I can finish off this paper quickly so that I can go for a run before dinner again today. Yesterday I noticed how much better I felt after going for a nice jog and working out and relaxing a little bit after my shower. I will have to try to do that some more, because relaxing is not something I do very well.

Anyways, this was a decent break from my paper, but I better get back to it for an hour or so... perhaps I will get to writing my blog on Extremadura later! I will try my best! :)

A couple random last minute comments:

• Ara's boyfriend had a conversation with me about how smoking marijuana here isn't a big deal... and we also had a long conversation about curbs, yes curbs. I couldn't understand what he and Carmen were asking me (they were trying to describe it to me in Spanish and just wanted the translation in English)... It was kind of funny.
• I just found out that the time of my return flight was changed... and now I have about 8 hours to wait in Madrid's airport if I can't change it as I asked! 
• I just realized that the stupid QU Registrar's office didn't register my classes as they assured they would do for me on Friday since I was on my fieldtrip.
• I have only a little over a month until I'm home! I can't wait, even though I know I will miss some things about being over here.
• If you are curious about the band I saw, they really were good! I want to download their songs eventually. This is their website: http://www.gritandoensilencio.net/ and you can click on the tab "Media" to watch a couple videos they have... or simply type their band name into youtube :) Let me know if you like them!

The Technically Challenged Spanish Speaker Helps the Technologically Challenged?

Haha. So, I was trying to be creative with the title of this blog, which I am basically writing just to mention my experience helping Carmen out with some computer problems. Today, she was talking about how she wanted to check her email and it wasn't working (I had suggested to restart the computer, thinking it may have been the internet or something; this was without looking at the computer at all, just going by what she told me). Later, at dinner, she mentioned again that her computer still wasn't working. I told her that I could take a look at it if she wanted, which she seemed to appreciate.

When I was looking at the computer and realized that everything was working fine except the keyboard, I attempted to explain that there was nothing wrong with anything except the keyboard (which I learned was called "el teclado"). She tried to show me that she couldn't sign on to her windows messenger program and kept pressing the "sign on" button. She looked very confused when she kept getting an error message, which was basically saying that you need to put in your password, which, once again, I attempted to explain in Spanish that the reason it wasn't working was because of the keyboard, because you obviously can't type in your password without a working keyboard! (...but she still didn't understand! haha)

Even though this may have been a simple problem and not the big of a deal, it felt nice to be able to help Carmen out. It also reminded me of my Grandma and when she asks me to give her computer lessons when I visit... she even said that I "know a lot about computers" (probably because I knew to restart the wifi one time that the internet wasn't working also) and asked me how I learned. While Carmen may have difficulties figuring out technology sometimes, it is clear that I struggled to try to explain the problem to her in Spanish. I guess it just goes to show you that no matter how simple you think a task may be, it may not be as simple to somebody else :)