This week has been exponentially better than the last. I mostly laid in my bed last week with some sort of terremoto happening in my stomach. I got sick again on Monday, but otherwise I'm back to normal, and back to work! This week has been great. I went to hours of meetings about the cancer campaign. That is planned for August 6th and 13th. We are doing it in a health center close to the part of town that we live. I was able to volunteer at a speech and physical therapy center and have been helping other people with their projects by translating. I went out to the fields today with another NGO that we are going to work with. They work with self sufficient agriculture and teach people more productive and efficient agriculture methods. We planted about 30 trees this week in a squatter settlement that doesn't have any trees as of now. Piura is basically the desert. It is really hot and has hardly any vegetation. The people have been really excited about planting trees. If they grow well we are going to plant them around the perimeter of a lot that they designated for a park in the settlement. Tomorrow I'm leaving for Cuzco and Machu Picchu! It's the 100th anniversary of its discovery so it should be jam packed with gringos. I can't wait! I'm excited about the projects we're working on, August is going to be a busy week!

shopping for bread loafs in leather loafers. i refuse.

I like that in America it is completely acceptable, if not expected, that people go grocery shopping in sweatpants.

And so the adventure began... without our blog

I don't really know how into this blogging thing we are, but we decided to give it another go for our mothers' sake. Savannah has now finally gotten herself over to the same continent and even city, but that wasn't as easy as we expected (more on that in a minute). Here is a very brief summary of what we have been doing for the past 2 months.

England- Savvi arrived in England a day later than Erin expected, which left Erin (I am now doing the very thing which I hate, which is people speaking in the 3rd person) at Heathrow airport a full day early with a *wicked* awful neck ache from the constant craning/turning/bending from searching for someone for a full 2 1/2 hours who had not even began their journey to the very airport she was at. Savannah arrived the following day and I was there to pick her up with plenty of practice at this point. We stayed with our dear friend Angus in Wimbledon (it's in London, we hope you know) at their college bachelor pad (+1 Scandinavian girl named Linda). While in London we did, well, pretty much everything you could and should do while being their for 2 whole weeks. All of the museums, all of the towers and tall things and old things. We ate our fair share of pizza and Indian food and English candy and sweets. We felt right proper well sick when we finally made it out of there. Highlights included: Les Miserbles with NICK JONAS woooow man, urban fox spotting, mysterious Crystal Palace dinosaur tour.

I was awoken on my birthday with the best nutella chocolate cupcakes I've experienced, compliments of Emily Meade. They even had edible sparkles on them, truly incredible. We took a day trip out to Oxford to celebrate the concluding day of my teenage years where we tried to do all things sophisticated but failed immensely. We ate scones with clotted cream at the Old Queens cafe, visited the literary land marks of C.S. Lewis, shopped around at book stores. We may have been a successful adults apart from our inability to stop laughing at Even Song at Christ Church at the spotting of the largest breasts on planet earth (As I type, Savvi keeps repeating, poor woman, they were so big, so big), and the overwhelming urge we had to spit from a bridge at the punters (lucky rich people who get to go on cool boats around the rivers at Oxford) below. After Oxford Savvi surprised me with sticky toffee pudding and light up balloons. Cheers to the best 20th birthday and friend a girl could have.

While looking up 4 hour bus tickets to go to Bath, England, we realized that in a mere 6 hours more we could make it all the way up to Scotland. Overnight bus rides sound a lot shorter when you are imaging it via the internet. We convinced our friend Erika from Australia to come up with us to Edinburgh. We arrived there after a 10 hour bus ride and set out exploring the city. We hiked up lots of muddy hills, stood in front of castles wishing we had enough money to go in, ate more pizza and our first ever baguette hamburger, drank tea at the Elephant Cafe where we paid homage to JK Rowling along with the rest of the H.P. tourist sites with the rest of the losers, and even went to a Tartan factory. Good thing Savvi and Erika were there because I couldn't understand a word anyone said to me with a Scottish accent. I would like to blame it on my being in Spain for 2 months and being overly comfortable with the word "what" in more languages than my own, but I might have just been really stupid. The next day we made it out to a little fishing village which neither of us remember the name of, and couldn't pronounce it at the time anyway. We hiked out to a little island and took naps on the semi warm beaches. That night we got back on the hellish night bus back to London, which turned out to be even worse than the first round. We had arrived at the bus station an hour or two early to claim our spots as first in line, which was the same goal as two very competitive Spaniards. Lucky for us, they weren't after our prized emergency exit seats or the back bench. Unlucky for us, we were not able to enjoy our winnings the entire way back to London because we got kicked off of our stuffy non-air conditioned coach, which was replaced by a freezing cold double-decker city transportation bus that swung side to side almost as much as the hilarious boobs we encountered at Oxford. After 6 hours of cold plastic chairs we were very glad to be back in London again, but even happier to be leaving for Norway!

We flew into Oslo, Norway and were picked up by our friend Anders, who gave us the most enthusiastic hug and laughter filled reunion imaginable (for any of you who know Anders, you'll understand). We went on a drive through the "armpit of Norway", which at that point we thought was incredibly beautiful, but we hadn't anything yet. Anders took us into Drammen where he lives and bought us a lunch of the most expensive kebabs in the world due to the 400% tax they pay there (that's kind of an exaggeration). Next we went into Oslo, which is a cute little port city and tried to show us the "roughest part" of the city. All we found was a woman washing her hair in a fountain with an unfortunate looking back side. We met Mikael that day, who was to be our new traveling companion and the most Americanized Swede. We all took a swim in a lake and Savvi and I were happy to be out of the city and to have a little taste of something we had been missing from Utah summers. That weekend we went on a road trip west to Trolltunga "Troll's Tongue" with the rest of the Norwegian/Swedish gang; Claes, Marcel, and Patric. We pitched out tent wherever we pleased, which could have been almost anywhere since we are pretty convinced no one really lives in Norway. After a 7 hour hike we felt victorious standing on a ledge with a couple thousand foot drop off into a valley of pale blue watery abyss. It was definitely the highlight of our time in Norway thanks to Claes's mountaineering skills, Marcel and Ander's entertainment, Mikael's never-ending supply of posed model shots, and umm Patric's winning smile. We think that's the closest we'll ever get to Helm's Deep. After chasing sheep, attending a giant Norwegian barbecue, eating the best brown goat's cheese, and enjoying the hospitality of the Aabo family (including home made ice cream), we were very sad to leave Norway, especially considering that we spent 7$ the entire time we were there!

We got in Ander's car for another road trip, this time through Norway/Sweden to Stockholm. We had a fake birthday for Savannah in Stockholm and had 50+ people sing happy birthday to here in a square while a magician used her as a prop for his tricks. Stockholm was great, we didn't really see much of it because we were too busy climbing up things and on things with Marcel, and missing our ferries, twice.... We thought we only had a couple hours in the city, but it turned out that we had almost 2 full days after we watched our boat sail away on two separate occasions. We finally got on our ferry and set off for Helsinki, Finland.

Our favorite part of Sweden is what we saw from the ferry. We sailed through thousands of little islands off the coast of huge wooded forests with orangey-red sunset skies. We missed the first day of Fest i Nord, which is a young adults conference held in Helsinki this year. We all stayed at a school about an hour outside of Helsinki for the week. We met really incredible people from all over Europe (even from Iceland!). The week was filled with activities, dances, classes, and well, just a lot fun. We booked our flight out of Helsinki about 4 days after the end of the conference, so we had some time to kill. Some friends of a friend let us stay at their apartment along with our German friend Carsten and Mikael (still) in Helsinki, but we ran out of things to see there after about 5 hours, so we planned a trip to Tallinn. Carsten and Mikael headed back to their respective countries and Sav and I left for Estonia. We didn't miss our ferry this time and snacked on Haribo candy until we got to Tallinn, another place we had no idea what to do in, or why were there.

Accidental Adventures in the Baltics

We ran into the first hostel we found because it was getting dark and there was a staggering drunk mumbling slurs of what seemed to be attempts at compliments. The hostel turned out to be alright except for the snoring girl that was sleeping next to me. *Savvi is now typing** I wake up to Erin saying over and over "This has to stop, this has to stop, what is she thinking, why is she snoring, she has to stop". I tried to roll over and ignore this, but the other guy in the room couldn't, so he finally got up and put a pillow over her face until she stopped snoring and Erin stopped yell/whining.** Erin again. While in Estonia we never really figured out what we were doing there- We ate breakfast at a diner with half naked pictures of women on the wall, took walking tours of the city, went to a movie (it was raining, we have an excuse), were lost 90% of the time, walked through creepy Russian markets that sold everything from panties to cleaning supply, attempted to go to the "beach". We really did everything there was to do, so then we went underground and saw the Tallinn tunnels, which turned out to be the coolest thing we did. Overall we were really glad we made it to the picturesque, medieval city of Tallinn. After that we made it back to Finland, where there was still nothing to do.

Latvia- left Finland and took a 40 minute flight to Latvia, where we have a 14 hour accidental layover thanks to some very skillful traveling agents who were ... us. We arrived in Riga and took a bus into the center and met up with a friend of a friend who served her mission in Riga. She showed us around the city and told us all about Soviet times in the Baltic Countries. The last bus went back to the airport at midnight, and we caught it just in time, so then we had a 10 hour wait until our plane left. We became more and more homeless looking as the night went on. First we tried to assemble makeshift beds out of metal benches, which was surprisingly comfortable until it became freezing cold and we had to wrap scarves around our head and I had to put on my flannel shirt. Then a bunch of flies came in, probably trying to find someplace warm too, so we ended up sleeping on benches in plaid shirts with flies bugging us all night. After that we were really ready to make it back to sunny Spain.

That's the first month of our travels. There's still a lot that has happened since then, but we'll save it for 5 months from now when we finally decide to write on this thing again.

Until then, hasta luego!

Majadahonda, a tour with disproportionate amounts of grafitti

The weather was really awful in Madrid for the past two weeks, but we don't care because now we're living the easy life in Pineda, which is a little beach town near Barcelona. I'll put up some pictures soon. This is Majadahonda, it's a really nice suburb of Madrid, even though they let people dump their garbage/graffiti in the old ruins around the town. The picture above is my street and the others are pictures from my usual walking route. That picture below was my most impressive self timer feat yet, 10 seconds to run through an obstacle course of broken glass, beer cans, crumbling bricks etc, it was quite a sprint. It really is a nice place to live, although I'm sure I didn't capture it's grandeur in these gloomy, trash-filled pictures









Martina's end of the year program. Era un helado, que preciosa!




















Guapa, hermosa, preciosa, bonita, chula! Presenting Miss Martina the princess, guapisima!!! These are a couple pictures of us playing dress up. She is such a great model/fashion designer/make up designer/hair stylist. You can't tell in the pictures, but we both had blue lipstick on.

squatter in hot bath water

The other day we drove past an apartment building in my city that was hustlin' and bustlin' with residents. Apparently this wasn't always the case, and still shouldn't be, as this building was never finished or rented out. But nonetheless, there are plenty of people setting up camp in there, sans water and electricity, living life as political protesters, squatters, okupas. I'm no expert on this subject, so some of my facts may be fiction, but here is what I've collected on the subject.
You are a rich Spaniard with a vacation home in Barcelona, which you renovated two years ago, but have since failed to utilize on account of your yaya dying up in the Basque Country in 2008 and some extraneous business distractions. However, this summer, nothing is standing in the way of visiting your Catalan escape, nothing, except a bunch of rasta chumps with dread lock mullets. Upon arrival, you become suspicious when you spot an unhealthy number of scooters parked in your drive way, but in spite of this, you proceed, only to find that your key no longer opens the doors to your own house. You knock angrily. Some shirtless hombre smoking some mota who studies Catalan poetry at a nearby university answers the door. He's accompanied by a whole hoard of them, spongin off your winnings in there, so you can't very well just tell them to leave, but you do anyways.
They respond with some incoherent rant about their social movement which promotes housing for everyone as a right and utilizes "abandoned properties" to demonstrate this. You high tail it to the local incompetent police, who by law can't do much of anything, proceed into a lengthy court process (in which the judge sometimes favors the squatters and looks at variables such as duration of abandonment, condition of the property, etc.), and eventually they are evicted from your property after you wasted your summer in court, spending the money that you had previously set aside for drinking cervezas on the beach. The hombres get a little smack on the wrist and move on to find another vacant site of their choosing to reside in, which they probably had loads of time to look for while they lived in your house rent free all summer. The least they could have done was wash their grimy hair in your new lion foot bathtub.

Check it out....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatting#The_Movement

So this example isn't exactly the most common or accurate, the more frequent being run down urban buildings and unfinished apartment buildings, but it was a little more entertaining. Upon reading this, I had two dominating ideas enter my thinking.

1. How well could I manage living sans electricity and indoor plumbing? I know I can score free wifi from the parking lot at McD's. This sounds like a good deal....

2. In so many cases life seems to benefit those who sit around leaching off of others productivity, which in a twisted way sort of defines my situation right now. How is it that I was spending thousands of dollars a year to work my butt of in school and am now getting paid to sit around and study what I want and go on free vacations all expenses paid? PLUS I have electricity and water... I think I'm going to go wash my grimy hair and read in the bathtub....


Ok, I just found out that they use generators, they too have electricity.

Hola luna! Martina and I talk to the moon every night and tonight the moon was sad because she has crocodiles in her house. But, the moon is also very nice because she gave everyone so many presents today, flowers, mountains, apples, and crocodiles. Thanks moon. Thanks to Martina! She was so so good today. She gave me the gold medal for finishing my dinner first and I am giving her the Princess award. For the first time since I got here she didn't call me stupid or crazy or tell me that we're not friends. We went to the zoo (which is spelled the same way, but pronounced though ha.) and got a lot of stares, especially when she was on her dad's shoulders, which made her about 8 1/2 feet tall. Minnie con gafas (glasses) was a big hit at the park today. I hope no one was looking out their window while she was having me chase her around growling and wearing a Minnie mask. I got to pretend to be the baby, the mommy, and the princess today, and only had to be the witch once, instead of the whole time like usual. Estoy tan orgullosa de Martina, bravo niña!

Side note: If you're reading this and it's not making much sense. I'm nannying for a family with one little girl, Martina, who is three years old. Her dad (Salva) plays professional basketball for Fuenlabrada, which is one of the teams in Madrid and her mom (Mariona) works as a flight attendant for a Spanish airline.

My dear friend Savvi is coming in a little over a month to be a nanny for a family in Madrid as well, so we're sharing this blog and our grand adventures in Spain.

Once upon a time I was in Rome in a cathedral and was confronted by a hoard of Chinese teenagers holding cameras in their extended hands. I took one of the cameras, thinking that they wanted me to take a picture of them, but the guy took it back and told me no, a picture with you no no no! They grabbed my friend Hannah and put their arms around us and kept yelling at her calling her Britney Spears and switching cameras to get pictures with us. I promise I'm not bragging, I'm not flattered by being mistaken or having my friend be mistaken for Miss Brit these days. They yelled "We love USA, we love Obama, we love him, we love Britney" while they all threw up their double peace signs (I got this one of Hannah, they opted for the lion paw this time).

I told Martina that I'm Mary Poppins, I wish she was as easily convinced.

This was our conversation. Me- "Martina, I'm like Mary Poppins." Martina- "Oh, can you fly?" Me- "Yeah, sure." Martina- "Yeah, in an airplane."

Martina only called me "tonta" (stupid, but a really mean way to say it) once today, which was a drastic improvement from the nightmare that happened yesterday. She can sense my fear and I know it, so today I took a different approach. When she's bad her parents tell her they are going to put her on the street, and it works, so I'm adopting the same strategy. Our conversation today went as follows. Me-"Martina, you can't throw your toy at my head anymore." Martina- "Yeah, I can." Me- "Alright, well then I can throw you to a street in France. Have fun on your vacation." Martina- "Nooooo, I don't want to go to Frankie's house (her Dad's friend)." Me- "Alright, well what do you want to eat for breakfast in France tomorrow morning, cereal, milk, a banana?" Martina- "Noooo, I'll be a good girl now, I want to eat breakfast here." She wouldn't get in the car, so her mom gave her a blanket and told her to keep warm and then walked away and then I took breakfast orders again and warned her not to let the dogs get her food. She's always really good after that, for 30 minutes. She gave me a manicure with her princess markers and her special treatment, which was slamming my arm on the table repeatedly "to help my nails dry" and drawing all the way up my arm and on my glasses. She's got character and isn't scared of anything (even her 7 foot father), and I like that about her.

I'm attempting to read Harry Potter y las Reliquias de la Muerte (the last book) in Spanish, which is a much loftier goal then I realized when I checked the book out from the library. I now know that if I don't even know what all of the words in the title mean, I probably won't know most of the words inside either.

I love how in all of the dubbed shows and movies here they give all of the people really unfitting deep sexy voices, even the hot teenagers.

This week has been pretty much the same as the last. Gym with Mariona, help with lunch and dinner, attempt to play and speak English with Martina (I taught her how to say stupid ant yesterday while she was dumping sand on the ants at the playground), go shopping with Mariona. I've been growing out my hair all week. When you can say that that is the hardest thing you've done, you know you have it made.