Mountain Climbing and Mass Going

Friday night, I went with Bev, Casey, Taylor, and Cory to a bar called Corral in the Parte Antigua to watch a local singer perform. It was okay..it was just a girl singing and two guys accompanying her-one on drums and the other on guitar. Some of her songs were in English. The thing that really bothered me was all of the people smoking since it was outside...I can't stand smoke but oh well.

On Saturday, we met up at 11am and went to get churros con chocolate which is a Spanish food we had been dying to try. If you don't know, churros are a fried bread and in Spain, they dip it in a thick chocolate sauce and it is SO delicious! After our churros, we started our journey toward "the mountain". Apparently it is the only one around because everyone refers to it as THE mountain. We knew the general direction we were supposed to go but didn't really know how to get to the road that goes up the mountain, so we ended up taking a detour through some grass, past some sheep, and over a creek to get up to the road. It was a very hot walk up the mountain since the sun was shining the whole time and the road was pretty steep! It took us about 1 hour to get to the top. We could see all of the city of Caceres when we reached the top, even our university! We spent the afternoon on the top of the mountain and had a picnic with the sandwiches our families packed for us. It was lots of fun just hanging out together. Around 3pm, we headed back down the mountain. We all ended up a little sunburned but it was worth it...starting my summer tan already :)

Saturday night we all went out. Went to Corral again, La Habana, and Divina Comedia. I was soooo tired from climbing the mountain that I went home at 2am. One of these weekends, I gotta stay out til 6am like a true Spaniard!

On Sunday, I woke up at 11am and got ready and went to 1pm Mass at the Parroquia de Fatima with Taylor and Cory. It is a new Catholic church that my host mom recommended that is only 5 minutes from my house. It was great!!! There were so many people there and they actually had a choir that sang!!! Most of the people were old but at least there were lots of them there. I printed off a translation of the Order of the Mass in Spanish and we tried to follow along and respond but the people talk so fast! We'll have to work on it! There was one guy who was so excited that we were there that he ran over to give us the sign of peace. I still can't understand much at Mass but at least I can participate somewhat now. The music was pretty good...only bad part was when the pianist played Amazing Grace at the offertory...can't stand that song...thank goodness they didn't sing the words too yet! Mass only lasted 45 minutes. I spent the rest of the day working on homework and relaxing at home. I also skyped several friends over the weekend and it was so good to catch up with them!