Sofia Somewhere

A few weeks too late... but I'm back home. Home sweet home. :)

Since we had no classes on Friday, I went with a few friends to visit Torreciudad for the day. Torreciudad is a shrine dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It's located in the north of Spain, about a 3 hour drive by car from Pamplona. Since the eleventh century, people have kept alive the custom of coming on pilgrimage to pray to Our Lady. The actual shrine was built under the guidance of the St. Josemaria Escriva and was inaugurated on July 7, 1975. He built the shrine out of his love for Mary and so that other people may come shore their love and receive spiritual miracles. He hoped for “the conversion and the peace of many souls.” The story of St. Josemaria is that when he was two years old, he and his sisters fell seriously ill. His sisters died, but after much praying to the Virgin from his mother, St. Josemaria lived. Later on, his mother with his father brought him to Torreciudad (then just a tower, and a small hermitage) to give thanks to the Lady. Much later on, St. Jos...

Way overdue but here it is. We left Pamplona for Rome on the 3 rd of April and as the bus pulled out of the parking lot we prepared ourselves for a 24-hour trip on the bus. I was part of the Larrabide group, we were ten: me, Larri, ShanShan, Marina, Emilia, Patri, Isabel, Elisa, Teresa and Clara. But we were part of a much larger group, which was composed of practically all the women in the University of Navarra (and from Pamplona) that were going to Rome. We started the trip off with a prayer, of course, and then passed around some gummies. Bad idea; I ate too much and spent the next two hours with a stomach-ache. Fortunately, we stopped soon after that at a gas station in the border of France. The trip went smoothly from there. We watched a film, I read a little, and stopped a few hours later for dinner. We watched another film afterwards but I fell asleep in the middle. When I woke up we were in Italy already! The hours passed by and the journey didn’t feel too tiring. We stop...

Happy Easter to everyone! How was your Holy Week? Mine was great. I spent an amazing week in Rome, but I'll blog about that another time. In the meantime, here are photos from Valencia , but I have yet to get the ones from my cousin.

I left Pamplona Monday evening at around 11 for Valencia. The bus ride was about seven hours, and I tried to sleep during most of it. We arrived in Valencia at 5:30, and it was pretty cold. My cousin Andie picked me up. I haven’t seen Andie in probably more ten years, as she lives in Spain, and it was good catching up. We drove to her place, and went to sleep. I woke up at about nine, thanks to the loud firecrackers going off every five seconds. We had breakfast together, then I showered and changed, and met her husband, Miguel. At about eleven, we went out. Andie lives to the west, out of the center so we took a taxi to the Old Quarter, where all the craziness of the festival is.

I'm going to Valencia tonight so I won't be able to upload pictures from the Javeirada. But here are a few... Some pilgrims on the side of the road. Me with a background Lunch break! (L-R) Lorena (Valencia), ShanShan (China), Bea (Madrid), Carmen (Sevilla), Ofelia (Taiwan), Me

I woke up at about 7:30 on Saturday morning. I showered, dressed, and prepared my food for the day. Then Bea and I went down and met up with ShanShan and Carmen from the other apartments. We walked to the parroquia (parish church) together. There we met with two other girls, Ofelia and Lorena. There would be plenty of pilgrims from all over Navarra, and some parts of Spain, and the parroquia helped organize buses for us to take. The complete pilgrimage is actually 50km, but we opted for option B: to ride the bus and then walk 23 km. There was also a third option, in which you only had to walk 5km. Anyway, by 9:00 everyone was in the bus, and ready to go. We prayed a little first and the priest explained about the Indulgence Plenary. Since it is the Pauline Year, the Pope has granted to the Archbishop of Navarra to grant the Plenary Indulgence to those who, aside from doing to the pilgrimage to Javier (birthplace of Saint Francis Xavier), 1) prayed for the Pope 2) went to mass and 3)...

Though it snowed last week here, today was very sunny (hopefully, for good). It was perfect weather; I was able to leave the house in a t-shirt and a light sweater. No more coats and scarves! By midday, there were more students outside than usual, lying on the green grass, basking under the sun. Though the sun was out, it wasn't very hot; it was still cool, about 11 degrees. Though I was really excited to experience winter, I'm glad it's over. I enjoyed the cold and the snow, but I don't think I could live in such weather all year long. I'm enjoying the changing of seasons. I arrived in Europe during the heat of summer, but by the time I arrived in Pamplona, the heat was dying down. Autumn came, and the leaves were truly as pretty as I imagined. By the middle of Autumn I started wearing sweaters and then coats. Early winter arrived, and I added scarves, gloves, and boots to my daily wear. The whole winter I bundled up, dressing in more layers than ever. Late January...

I’ve had to get out my hat and gloves last Thursday because it SNOWED in Pamplona. Snowing in March: proof of Pamplona’s weird weather. I enjoyed the snow for a while, but having no umbrella, I got pretty much soaked and cold. Other than that, everything’s been pretty tranquil here. For the second semester, I’ve enrolled in five courses: Spanish II, Spanish Linguistics, Introduction to Global Communication, International Relations, and French. My Spanish Grammar and Linguistics class are pretty much like the ones I had last semester. In Spanish there are two translations for the verb “to be”: ser and estar. What’s interesting is that there are some adjectives that change meaning when you use them with the other verb. For example, ser lista means to be smart, while estar lista means to be ready. And the list goes on and on… It’s actually pretty interesting though I do get confused sometimes because I just go with the one that sounds right. International Relations I have in S...

I've gotten back into the rhythm of life here. When I arrived back from Milan, I had an intensive Spanish course that started the next day. I was busy with that plus the final essay I had to write for one of my courses. That took up about all of my time, and for two weeks I was always busy writing or studying. One weekend, I went with some girls from Larrabide to a small town on the outskirts of Pamplona. It was less than half an hour away, and there were nine of us to be living together. It was called a Convivencia de Estudio. Being away from the city and in a more studious atmosphere helped me study and concentrate, and I was able to write most of my paper here. The next week I had a short vacation before classes were to start again. Last weekend I visited my cousins in Barcelona. I left Pamplona Friday morning and arrived in Barcelona in the afternoon. I had a late lunch then went to watch my cousin Maya's dance show. She dances Contemporary, and it was a good show. Afterwar...

This is way overdue, but no excuses, I'll just get right to it. I've had quite a crazy holiday, filled with Spanish Christmas traditions and delayed train rides in Italy. I left Pamplona on the 19th, and took the bus to Barcelona. It was a long bus ride and I arrived at around midnight. My cousin Maya picked me up and we took the taxi to their new apartment. It was much bigger than their old one, and really nice. The next day I spent with Julie. Day being around 5pm. I woke up at about 11, and my cousins, who love to sleep even more than me, woke up even later. We had breakfast, then they started cleaning up the apartment since their mom would be coming later in the evening. After cleaning up and showering we had lunch, and then we went out to start our "day". I helped Julie with last minute Christmas shopping for our cousins back in the Philippies. Barcelona was steaming with people, but instead of disgruntled and harassed shoppers, it was much nicer in t...