Paris and London

The study abroad officially over.

 Grades still a mystery, Catherine went to Paris Disneyland before coming home. Paris is cold and she threw out her long pants but that does not stop any devoted Disney fan. She took the shuttle from the airport straight to Disney leaving her luggage in the locker.

She knew her friend, Madison was in the park, but Madison didn't have a cell connection, so they had to leave it to luck to meet up. But Disney is magical. Of course, they met up.

At the end of the day she had to find her hotel, which happily didn't seem to be much of a problem, even if the bus was squeaky. This was a relief to me since I was the one who booked it. Besides having a room with a bed, the hotel also has llamas, goats, bunnies and ponies. 

The next day Catherine was up early to catch her "Magic Hours." Wonderful! She was about the only one who came early. She had all of Main Street to herself!

She was the first to ride Buzz, which assured her that she had the high score of the day--at least for a little while.

There are many differences between Disneyland Paris and the American parks. Crush is a roller coaster---

Mr. Toad's is a restaurant, not a ride. The haunted mansion has a scary zombie theme--except for the singing busts which don't fit in at all. My favorite is Alice's curious labrynth. Catherine skyped me today and took me on a tour. 

Another real oddity, the rolicking pirate music was actually the hymn, "Who's on the Lord's side Who?" 

Not different is that Earl of Sandwich is still her favorite place ever. The Beef and blue sandwich was especially magical. Also, Disney merchandise is universal. I have no doubt there are gift shops on Mars.  Since Paris is hosting the Eurocup, Catherine got the ears to celebrate. 

The original plan was to stay for the fireworks, But since she rode everything that was open multiple times and she's going to have a string of bad sleep on long airplane rides, she decided to skip the fireworks and instead be at the park in the morning for as long as she can before catching her flight to London. 

Nothing like starting your day at Disneyland and ending it at platform 9 3/4.

Up through June 11th 2016

There's been a lot of classwork and general living over the last few weeks. One major adventure, involved her roommate, Jordan. Poor girl got a bug bite from who knows what kind of bug in Morocco. This bite became infected and Jordan needed to go to an instacare in Spain. Nobody at the hospital spoke English. Fine, but none of the leaders on the  study abroad--Shame on you teachers!!--spoke spanish (seriously?) OR were willing to find someone to speak it to help OR were willing to come and lend moral support themselves. Are you kidding? This is Madrid--not some village in nowhere. I'm sure English speakers are everywhere, just as Spanish speakers are not hard to find in the US!

Anyway---Catherine provided moral support and stayed with Jordan, eventually getting her to a place where they were able to lance and pack the bite.

After this ordeal, they got some chocolate waffles. A sound medical decision in my opinion!

A few days later, Jordan was able to get it checked again with language support. I asked Catherine about her last time I spoke with her, Poor Jordan now has an abcess under her skin. Doesn't hurt except when she's getting it treated.  Ow!

Next adventure---Bullfighting. Catherine had in mind to see a bullfight, just to have the experience of seeing one. She went to the museum and saw the bull-fighting ring.

After going through the museum and seeing the films, she decided that she'd seen enough. Judged bull-fighting as a horrible practice and passed on seeing the real thing. Good girl! I hope I make the same decision should I ever go to Spain. 

Onto the Hard Rock Cafe! Catherine won fame and fortune here (or at least a t-shirt and a beer--just what a BYU student needs), by singing Sweet Dreams are made of these.  Way to go superstar!!

Here's a group of the whole clan on this study abroad. I'm assuming the books are part of everyone's "book art" project. 

And now she's in Toledo where there are beautiful places. The ever present Cathedrals and Mosques of course. 

She also got to zipline over a river twice. I love my adventurous girl!

Possibly the most important place she visited in the whole trip was this shrine: Mary of the Pin.

If you put a pin in the shrine then you will find a husband who is handsome and rich.

Before leaving Madrid she was able to find a good sale at H and M and also get some fancy chocolate.

Then it's on to Paris where she found out that her bag was 3 kilograms overweight. Darn it. Throw out more stuff!

May 27 through Paris

From here on out Catherine is living in a small apartment in Madrid with 4 other girls. The focus is on classwork and just general living in the area.

One of my favorite things that she's shared with us is this book she picked up in Morocco, Attencion, Bobo! There's a whole series of books. The others are all normal, how to be polite, keeping clean, etc. But this one has a few problems.

 I think this last one with the plastic bag is my favorite. Nothing like giving your little one some good ideas!

The group is still doing some fun things together besides class. They went to the world's oldest restaurant. Catherine had sucking pig and baby lamb.

Also old world to me, is how ham is sold. With hoof attached!!  I believe if you boil the hoof you can make some kind of nutritious gelatin--but who would want to? Omi probably would have, but then again, she was in wartime Germany. They ate anything. 

She does pretty well on her own too. She and her roommates had a tapa-rty. Her garlic mushrooms were a hit. 

Madrid is a fun city. They have candy...

and shoes!!!  This Disney-style line was for handmade shoes at a good price.

The happy results---the white polka dot shoes and the dark gray. Jealous here!

On one memorable day the apartment flooded. Luckily, Catherine had just mopped so a lot of stuff was off the floor. Probably a clogged pipe from 5 girls trying to shower. In sympathy, and because their kitchen is so small the girls were given 40 euro to eat out.

Catherine is funny. The apartment has no bowls smaller than a mixing bowl, and one morning all of the cups were dirty. Rather than washing a cup, she indulged in a classy breakfast.

There is a great deal of delicious food in Spain. American bread is called "bimbo bread." I agree! American bread is one of my pet peeves.  However, not all food will appeal to an American palette. The food below is from Mercado San Miguel and features, crab burger, baby squid, calamai, hamcone and gulas (maybe that's the horrifying squiggly white stuff on the second row?) 

To know Catherine is to know her thick, rich beautiful hair. It's gorgeous, but a chore to keep nice. She's always wanted to try a short style and finally took the plunge. 

The guy who cut her hair spoke just enough English to say, "This is all yours. So much hair." The picture below is just a small part. She gets this comment everytime anyone cuts or styles her hair. 

Then, today June 3rd, she tells us that she is going to a disco. I was glad. All three of us have taken German and in every German class we are given dialoges to memorize and a good portion of these involve going to the disco with a concert. I'm glad one of us finally went! Even if it was in the wrong country. 

Unfortunately, the place might not have been quite as cool as the students were hoping. Catherine's group was younger than the general crowd by a good 30 years. 

Oh well. This musician looks reasonably cool, so maybe it wasn't a total loss. 

May 26, 2016

At the Reina Sofia museum today. Catherine surprised by the hugeness of the museum, which surprises me, as she's toured so many European museums. This one took three hours just to see the top floor.  She saw an original Picasso and then took a picture of this bear to make Dave happy.

She got lost. I can't fault her for that!

But it looks like she, herself, might be hard to lose. This is her shirt. 

May 25, 2016

May 25, 2016

Goat cheese and ox burger for lunch.  Drawing and sunburn in Grenada and shopping in Madrid (4 hours away). One purchase was a Harry Potter duvet cover. She's telling us she now needs the duvet.

And, being Catherine, she is naturally able to whip up some fresh cookies with no oven, baking powder or measuring cups.

May 24, 2016

Traveled to Madrid stopping at Ubeda and Consuegra on the way. Apparently it took awhile to get settled into the apartments. The apartment fits half of a person. I think the washer in the kitchen is a nice touch. Makes me feel spoiled.

This part looks fairly modern

I assume this dish was made by someone else and not in their kitchen. (Shrimp and mussel soup)

Also, she has a spider bite on the bottom of her foot. Difficult to think of a worse place.

May 23, 2016

Problems today. They went to Granada, and were supposed to have tickets to see something, but things fell through.

May 22, 2016

Travel to Cordoba and enjoy real (lds) church!

After that go to Mezquita and explore. This is the Visigoth temple/mosque/cathedral of Cordoba.  In Poland many of the cathedrals also have this red and white striping. Catherine says this is not necessarily typical of Spain, in this case it is an Islamic feature.

A good deal less inspiring was a hamburger from a vending machine. Brave girl!

The vote is that it is "surprisingly good, but a really soggy bun"

Then they went to the fair. Things on sticks and sketchy fair rides, Catherine's favorites!

Also, this churro stuffed with chocolate. My friend Morgan went to Spain and had this. I've told Catherine to try this at least 20 times.

Cordoba is also called a "City of Light"

May 21, 2016

Visiting ruins of ancient Roman city in Merida. Absolutely mandatory to this on any vacation in Europe.

Tapas, if you're in Spain, has to be the number 2 event.

This is beef medallions with caramelized onion. She also had Eggplant with honey, and if I know her, a great many more exciting things.

Sadly, this was the day her misfit died. No doubt the misfit was beginning to get an inkling of just how much walking Catherine can and does do on trips like this.