Last Excursion

So I was just on Facebook reading some friends' statuses and I just thought, "I'm living such a cool life". What a good realization to come to, I mean I've known it all along, but it's nice to remind myself that I'm doing so much with my life right now. Even days when I feel like I suck at Spanish and I can't form a proper sentence to save my life, I still manage to get my way around and communicate with friends. Like today, I was feeling really discouraged after my Spanish class because I was explaining something aloud and my professor told me the way I had phrased was confusing, but then he never told me how to correct it and that frustrated me cause I am obviously always trying to improve. Then after class, Elley and I went to lunch with an Italian friend who speaks Spanish very well...of course, he's Italian!...and I carried on a good conversation the whole time about several different topics. That just makes me feel really good because that situation would have been really hard for me four months ago and honestly, would have scared me! One day at a time, improvement is happening.

Well, I wanted to write about our excursion that we had on Saturday, even thought it's not all that interesting and it wasn't an awesome day for me cause I came down with a cold the day before. We went to the Navarra region of the basque country, which is the largest basque region and according to one of my friends, it's the region that actually wants to be apart of Spain.
The first place we went was the Monastery of Leyre, which was about an hour or more away from Vitoria and it's in the mountains. It is actually situated in a really beautiful place! Great view of the mountains and forest as well as a view of a large lake below; Elley and I felt kinda at home there. We took a tour and learned about the history of the site and found out that nuns still live there and services are still held at the church connected to the monastery... and those are buildings that were built in the 11th century!
After that we had a short ride to Olite, a small town with a sweet castle! We went there specifically for the castle, which was built for Carlos III in the 1700's. It was such a cool place to go explore and it literally looked fake sometimes; whoever restored the castle did an amazing job because it looked like it was straight out of Disneyland! We had a lot of fun running up and down the towers and finding hidden places, it would have been the best place for hide and seek!
Our final destination for the day was Pamplona, which may be familiar to you, or not, but it is where the running of the bulls happens every summer. We weren't there for very long, but we walked along the path that the bulls run every year and ended up at the Plaza de Toros, where there happened to be a Christmas market. It was kind cool to see that part of the city because it is so famous, but it's hard to imagine what it would be like when it is full of people and the running is happening.
Then we headed back to Vitoria, everyone else went out that night and had a lot of fun but since I wasn't feeling well, I decided it wasn't the best thing for me.

Well, I have my final exams at the end of this week and the beginning of the next, so wish me luck! I might not write again until I start my Christmas in Germany!

Agur!


Part of the Castillo de Olite.