Guernica y San Juan de Gaztelugatxe

So this past Friday (REALLY)our group took a trip to Guernica (Gernika, Gurnica, and others) and then to the church at San Juan de Gaztelugatxe. I think this might’ve been one of my favorite trips thus far. It could’ve been because of this:

It’s also possible that it had something to do with this:

Possibly this:

Or maybe it was because we were here:

This is the island we hiked (down and then back up a mountain) to. It was beautiful. At the top there was a church with a bell that everyone rang (10 times to get a wish). It was quite a hike, but SO worth it, let me tell you. I had a wonderful time there! It was nice to be able to get away from the whole group and do my own thing for a bit too.

Before that, though we went to Guernika. For those of you that don’t know, the city of Guernika was destroyed in 1936 by a combined Spanish and German effort. There was no clear objective in the bombing, as the arms factory, one main bridge to the city, and town hall/Basque government centers were all left nearly fully intact. For years the Franco regime told Spain that the town had burned itself down. Now there is a peace museum in the center of town with ideas on what is needed to create peace, why it’s important, and things like that. It also chronicles the Basque conflict and ETA’s history, which I found quite interesting. I think the only thing I really didn’t like about the museum is that they tried to make it seem like this bombing, in terms of scale and magnitude, was the biggest in history (they didn’t mean up to this point, they meant in all of history up until now).

Anyways, Guernica was (and still is) one of the main places in all of Pais Vasco for the government. The king is sworn in here under this tree, the Tree of Guernica:

This is the new one. Whenever the tree is dying, they plant one of it’s seeds and start a new one. Across the way, housed in a little gazebo,was the old one.

All in all, quite a fun trip. It was a bit hard on my feet, knees, legs, butt, and stomach with all the walking (jeepers I’m out of shape!), but SO worth it.

Finally, I leave you with this….

I finished a gold one earlier, but I can’t for the life of me get it to photograph well C’est la vie…they’re pretty cute little fish and all my friends here are asking for them.

Alright, time to get back to studying for two tests tomorrow. And then, this weekend…BARCELONA WITH SPARKEY*!!!!!!!! My parents (and sister and uncle) come Monday. I’m pretty psyched. YAY FAMILY!

*Sparkey is my boyfriend of almost a year, he’s pretty cute and maybe I’ll post a picture of us being cute or silly together, because that’s what we do. But only if he lets me.

I know, I’m behind.

I’m sorry, I haven’t been around recently. I was in Poland and school was out and I don’t NEED to check my e-mail daily and my computer has started to make a loud whirring noise…so I just haven’t blogged recently; I’m sorry!

To make up for it, I have a funny story. While babysitting today (that’s my summer job; I get paid to go to DQ, the pool, and the park…my life rocks) they boys decided that we were all going to be super heroes. They asked me for my name and super powers and I said “I’m super knitter and I can knit things really fast and throw fibers of my choice like spiderman.” The boys looked at me and just kinda laughed (they’re 5 and 6). Then, later, when we were “fighting the bad guys and girls,” I decided that to get them, I would knit up a net made of silk (it’s VERY strong) and they could fly over the bad guys and drop it on them so that they’d be caught! The boys looked at me again and, in unison, said “AWESOME!!!” One even said that I should REALLY knit a net. I promised that I’d teach them to knit so they could make one themselves and they can’t wait for our first lesson.

While retelling this story to my boyfriend, he decided that it was one of the stupidest super powers ever. This was also after I said something like “Well if someone else had it they could attack me with a huge mess of wool roving and I’d start to break out in a terrible rash because I’m allergic to wool…also, if someone had peanut allergies, you could throw a bunch of peanut based fiber on them and they’d die that way too!” I think he might think I’m crazy

P.S.A.

I knit something very much resembling this out of this (color: violet). Please don’t gag, it wasn’t disgusting (even with the acrylic).  I borrowed Amanda’s Denise needles in size 15 on Sunday and had them back by 7:30 tonight (this is during finals week, mind you, and I’m working 5-7 hours a day).

Pictures soon enough of this, razor, and a hint of the surprise for my Momma!

Also, I will be going to Poland on Saturday. HOORAY!

PICTURES!!!!

That is Albert Darwin Heathcliff, or ADH for short. He is the newest addition to my room. I won him at a school event today. I think he might be anorexic though, as he has yet to eat any food and it’s been a while.

This ball of bluish stuff is actually purple and looks more like this

More later…I’m supposed to be doing homework.

Goal: By this winter, I will have a pair of of Fair Isle mittens like these that I can and will wear. It will be loverly. I will also have a scarf of some sort that it beautiful and it might be either A. recycled silk from Mango Moon or B. something knit into Clapotis

Also, I recently won a gift certificate to Barns and Nobel. I know they do not sell yarn, but they sell books on yarn and knitting. I’m not sure what to buy. So far my thoughts have been No Sheep for You (it works because I’m alergic to wool!) or Fitted Knits. But I’m open to other options as well. Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?

I have a camera cord. Wifey and I are going to go make sushi and then I’ll take some pictures of WIPs, FOs, and whatever else I may decide is pretty.

Hair

I got out of the shower a little bit ago and sat down to work on my razor cami without putting my hair up in a ponytail like I usually do. I’m dead set on finishing this tonight that I decided not to get up and try and find a hair thing when my hair started to bother me by being down. Instead, I grabbed the set of size 8s sitting on my bedside table, twisted my hair into a bun, and threw them in like chopsticks (remember that trend from a few years back? yeah…like that). I’m so cool/resourceful/lazy/weird.

Just thought I’d share

Everything is SO EXCITING!!

WELL MAYBE. Amanda and I might have a photo shoot sometime soon. Then I will show off a few FOs and WIPs!! THAT IS SO EXCITING!!

Speaking of which, Amanda, our friends Jenni and Christi, and I are all going yarn shopping on Saturday! I cannot wait! SO EXCITING!! We are visiting our other friend Lindsey, who is now the proud owner of The Yarn Garden in Charlotte (SO EXCITING!!), and then we are trekking (haha…a yarn joke!) to Ann Arbor to hit up the wooly (and not so wooly, if you are me) goodness there. Maybe I will have my tanktop finished in time? I doubt it, but a girl can dream, can’t she?

In other news, I have to go to class. Such is the story of my life

Whoops, how did that happen?

Some how, in a haze of sleeplessness (I was up late last night…studying watching Finding Neverland and knitting Razor) I bought this in burgundy and these in size 1 before class this morning. I swear, I have no idea how it happened., but I suppose it means I need to pick out a pattern to knit my secret socks (they are for someone very specific).

So here are the two patterns I’m considering:

Hedera
Monkey

I could also just do a basic sock….possiblities are endless here…

College is craziness

Really, it is. There was a huge fiasco about where 16 of us will be living next year and, as of now, we have nowhere. What happened was this; ResLife told 30 groups of 2 people that they would be living in one set of apartments. We are to come to a meeting at 5pm on Monday to pick out where we will be living (which specific apartment). The process goes by each group’s combined lottery number, low to high (lottery numbers are assigned based on GPA/number of units completed/whatever else the school wants to use). We get in there, sit down and one of the residence hall directors explains all of this and, as we’re all sitting there, staring up at the diagram of the building, we start to realize that it’s short a few apartments. Just before we begin, I raise my hand and ask about that. The RD says “Oh.” They had no idea until right then that there was a problem. They give out the first 22 apartments while the director of ResLife goes over and physically counts the number of apartments they have to give out. We wait, rather distraught, and they finally tell us that they screwed up and we get “first priority in the suite lottery,” which means we’ll be living in the dorms. SO NOT COOL. Particularly living in the dorms means not having to eat in the cafeteria and we all thought that we would be off board. So there are 6 of us trying to live in an annex (lovingly called the screw up annex, for when ResLife makes mistakes) and I have a meeting with the director of ResLife at 3pm today to try and figure out what’s going on. CRAZINESS!

In addition to all that, I was supposed to register at 7:45 this morning, but somehow I managed to slept through BOTH my alarms. Yes, two of them going off at obnoxiously loud volumes. I turned them off in my sleep and only woke up about 20 minutes ago. I, luckily, got all the classes I wanted,  but it never ceases to amaze me how soundly I can sleep if my body thinks I need it. I have answered my phone and had 10 minute long conversations IN MY SLEEP. I’m special.

In knitting knews (haha, I’m funny), I cast on for this two nights ago. I woke up yesterday morning to an inch of snow and it kept coming. I blame myself entirely for thinking warm thoughts and taking warm weather actions, like knitting a tank top, I am sorry for all the snow, folks. I am using Bercco cotton/modal in a really light blue color and I LOVE it. The pattern is super easy and I think it will look cute on me. I am already through 1 skein (they’re small, less than 100 yards) and I feel like it’s just going to be easy like this from here on out. I can’t wait too wear it!

Time to get back to my reading It’s Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, for english class, but it’s excellent!

Look! I’m on Steph’s site!!!

Oh buddy is THAT exciting…