"I know now that there is no one thing that is true - it is all true"

Two weekends ago, I drove to Badajoz, a  city on the West side of Spain. It has a main city area as well as villages and pueblos around it. I have several friends that are from Badajoz, and the "Carnavales" festivals are celebrated there in abundance. Carnavales is a time when people wear costumes and have giant parties in the street. It is very big in the south of Spain, Andalucia, as well as in Badajoz.  The house in the photo above belongs to the family of one of my friends named Carmen. They are from Badajoz, and this house is actually in Portugal. It is a farm house and they have some Portuguese people that live there and take care of the house and the animals.

The inside of the house... so rural!!

A giant fireplace was welcoming because the house was very cold.

The woman that lives there made us afternoon coffee with homemade bread and spreads for the bread. It was quite a lovely indulgence, especially because we had just come from an amazing restaurant meal. We ate lunch in Portugal at a restaurant on the border where we drank beer and ate a seafood rice stew. The two people in the photo above are my roomate Barbara (also from Badajoz) and her boyfriend Dani.. I love them, they are so much fun!

This photo is our group. From left to right... Javier Kayser, the bofyriend of Carmen who is next to him. Carmen was my roomate, but now she and Kayser (he goes by Kayser because everyone in Spain is named Javier and nobody has the last name of Kayser) live together, then Barbara and Dani, then Kayser's brother Agustine, and then me. They are all wonderful and fun people, and I certainly realize how lucky I am to know them. It can be difficult to meet and get to know local people when living abroad, and I was lucky enough to find some amazing ones.

This is the closest I have ever been to real animals! Look at the size of that pig... I think it was pooping. The farm is filled with female cows and there is only one bull that empregnates all of them. If they had more than one bull, they would fight. I had no idea that this was the case on farms. What a lucky bull, right??

They are Iberian pigs. This is the best ham you can taste. I never, ever ate ham before I came to Spain, and believe me, it is delicious!

The dog was mesmerized with the pigs, and they completely ignored him.

Quite a photogenic cow

So peaceful

Time for Carnavales! After the afternoon on the peaceful farm in Portugal, we drove to Carmen's apartment home in the city of Badajoz where we prepared our costumes and drank some spirits before heading out into the streets.

Kayser and Carmen dressed as Inspector Gadget and his partner, the young girl, Penny.... such great detail!

Barbara was a Russian Spy (she wanted to think of the warmest possible costume as the streets were blistering cold)... and I was a pirate because it was the first thing I saw!

Dani was dressed as a 1980's Columbian soccer player ... apparently a really funny joke... here you can see the streets during Carnavales

The night was filled with dancing through the streets... everything that you hear about the parties in Spain are true. The Spanish never sleep. The Carnavales festivities last until 11am... we went home "early" at 8am. If I end up back in the States, the early nights there will be one of the most difficult adjustments for me!

"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another."

This post will offer a random mix of photos from the last few months in order to offer a short preview of the big events and every-day occurrences that have happened since my arrival in September. Then, little by little, (but not too slowly), I will ponerme al dia (catch-up) by writing blog posts and posting pictures of the events or occurrences that deserve their own blog post, rather than be mixed in with this mix of random.

How I could possibly begin with a topic other than futbol? It was a fortuitous day when I stumbled upon this wall holding my two most favorite Spanish players. On your left (my right in the photo), you see Sergio Ramos, a star on the Real Madrid team. On your right (my left in the photo), you see Fransisco Torres, who is Spanish but plays currently on England's Chelsea team. I was lucky (I can't think of a stronger word, but this deserves one) enough to be here two years ago when Spain won the World Cup. What a night! Both of these players help major roles in the championship team. During the general league of soccer, players from any country can be placed on any team around the world. For the World Cup, every player returns to play with their country. This is why Torres returned to Spain for the World Cup. Anyway, soccer games here are very exciting and are a part of the soul, the blood of the Spanish. Team loyalties are very important and the greatest rivalry is between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona (who happen to be the best teams in the world right now).

 Madrid loves Christmas! The entire city was illuminated for at least two months. Once Christmas ended, I kept thinking that the lights would go away, and finally sometime around the end of January, they disappeared.

 The next three photos are taken in Madrid's Retiro park. It is a massive park filled with grass, trees, fountain, and a very small lake which you can see is popular for rowboats. Retiro is a space where people leisure in the grass, picnic, carress their lovers, run (there is a four-mile track around), or simply enjoy the almost-constant sun. Please note the incredible full moon in the third picture. Dusk in Madrid is stupendous as the sky turns a million shades of pink.

 The following two photos are in central Madrid. There is never a dull moment as the streets constantly beam with people, movement, and life. One is never far from an architectural masterpiece. Even a post office can be a sight for sore eyes.

 I have gone hiking twice in the mountains outside of Madrid. The first three photos took place in a mountain region called "Miraflores."

 The following photos were taken during a hike in a region called "La Cabrera." This means "little goat." We hiked to the very summit of the mountain where no other hikers dared to go ..... not really that dangerous, but still exciting.

Yes, it is a little strange to post photos of perfume. However, after months of eyeing it, I finally decided that I had to have it, and it is so beautiful! The bottle is a beauty, as is the box, and it even came with the adorable scarf. After Christmas, every store in Madrid carries extreme "Rebajas" (reductions) and they are still going on right now. Each week, they get progressively lower until now almost all stores are at 80 percent off, (Below this photo, you must click "read more" to finish the blog post)

“My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.”

I have already been in Spain (round two) for five months, and this is my first blog post. What a tragedy, really, to have experienced so much and neglected to put it into writing. After reading quite a bit about the life of Ernest Hemingway over the past months though, I have found myself relating very much with many of his life principles. He never kept a journal because he claimed that everything that was worth remembering, he remembered. This certainly has merit, though I would prefer to keep a record of my time because as time goes, some things will undoubtedly slip from mind. SO, right here and right now, I PROCLAIM that this blog will be BETTER than my blog from Spain (round one) because I WILL post frequently and thoughtfully. Yes, I have already been here for five months and this is my first posting, but (and please forgive me for being unfaithful to Hemingway for just a moment, as I must quote a different great mind) as Montesqui once said

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."

So, now I shall be what I might have been five months ago. And let me say that as we are still only about one month into the New Year, I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a tremendous 2012. This year, I have decided to do away with resolutions, to be me, raw and real! Every year past, I expended too much energy thinking about how I could change. This year, I have noted that I would like to simply get to know myself better before deciding on anything that needs to change. After all, how can we ever really know who we are if we are constantly looking ahead to what needs to be different?  Once again, I must be disloyal to Hemingway in order to utilize a quote from Erasmus:

"The chief happiness for a man is to be what he is."

I suppose I had been avoiding beginning this blog because I was concerned about writing beautifully and inspiringly (which is not actually a word), and interestingly, and many other -ly's. But as was Hemingway's goal to write with simplicity and truth, the same will go for me with this blog. I shall write what I see and feel, nothing more and nothing less. If it is not beautiful nor inspiring, so be it. This shall be me, raw and real.