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.

Yeah, I lose at this.

Alright, I admit, I didn’t do a very good job of posting this summer. I have another “blog” that is something more like a diary and I use that on a much more frequent basis. I’ve adjusted to that format so using this is a bit of a challenge. I also feel that if this has the ability to include pictures, that I should. So, when I don’t use pictures in a blog, I feel like I’ve failed on some level.

THE GOOD NEWS is that I’m back at school where I have constant internet access and a lot of time to procrastinate doing homework. This means I will post, sometimes. Probably at odd hours (case-in-point, right now).

Until I can get new batteries for my camera and take pictures of my knitting, I will leave you with a glimpse of my summer…

Which, from the table’s point of view, looked something like….

This!

Alright, it’s to bed with me.

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!

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!

I still have not found my camera cord, so no pictures as of yet. Maybe I will borrow Amanda’s camera and take some. Also, once Amanda posts, I will put up pictures from the excitement this weekend that was THE YARN HARLOT! Yes! I met my knitting idol (yes, I have a knitting idol). She came, I knit re-knit an entire calorimetry whilst waiting, Amanda, Jenni, and I gave her chocolate, she took our picture when I told her that my boyfriend and I broke up the day before (forgot to mention that, my arse insensitive ohsolovely now ex-boyfriend decided to come over at 3am on Friday night, when I was sleeping, and I decided that that was the last straw). Keep an eye on her blog, I might have my picture on it. She also complimented me on my tank top *that I knit* and I am nearly positive that I made a fool of myself thanking her/speaking to her at all. The poor woman had been up since 3:30 in the morning, flown from Cleveland to Chicago to Detroit and then back to Chicago due to fog in Detroit. She finally hopped a plane to Detroit and arrived two and a half hours late with a stranger she had met on the plane. Quite an adventure, I’m sure. It was a ton of fun, however, and I can’t wait until I get pictures to prove that it all even happened!

Now I need to do some school work and get back to reading Arthur A. Miller’s Death of a Salesman for class.

Happy Passover!

Knitting, knitting, and midterms :(

So I did my laundry tonight AND felted my purse/bag/thing. It needed two cycles because the first one had too many other things in it. I think my jeans cluttered it up too much. Kiri is also coming along nicely. She’s at about 5 repeats but it’s slow going with 150 and growing stitches per row. Easy in that I can do it, but hard in that I have to be able to read the pattern so I can’t do much else besides listen to music or half watch TV. This also means that I cannot study for my midterm tomorrow whilst knitting So I have to go study now, so I don’t fail my Christian Ethics class.

(Note: Kiri is my first lace project and I. Am. Slow.)

Also, I just filled out my applications to get off board (it’s hard, here) and to live in the international house. Wish me luck on both, they get turned in tomorrow!