Cádiz... during the day

I went to Cádiz for Carnaval earlier this year, but I never actually saw any of the city or the beach so I wanted to go back. I took a little day trip there during Feria to get a little break and just to relax on the beach. The weather forecast said cloudy, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to see the city. Cádiz is actually the oldest city in the Iberian Peninsula and possibly of all southwestern Europe! Very unbelievable. But... it was so nice and hot out that we (Jess, Franny, Jillian, Rachel, and Rachel) all decided that it was too beautiful to not lay out on the Caleta beach by the water. We first sat down and had a little coffee in the center of the city and walked around a little so I actually did see a bit, like the cathdral and the town hall. then we walked along the coast towards the beach and saw some of the cities most antique structures. We made our way to the beach, which was extremely empty since it is still before the busy season. It was a little windy at first, but then before I knew it, it was like 3000 degrees and every little breeze felt amazing. We at lunch at this little restaurant right on the beach and had an amazing meal. We all just ordered a bunch of dishes and then shared. Tuna, fresh olives, cheese, roasted red peppers and onions, and these tiny little fried tortillas with shrimp and vegetables (tortillitas de camarones). It is so nice to sometimes just get out of the house from Maria and Antonio and actually decide what I eat. I will definitely not miss spanish fried food when I go home. If a meal consists of noodle soup, bread, and a spanish tortilla...that is just way too many carbs. Sorrry Maria and Antonio... i'm not going to miss your bocadillos and your cooking. (except for paella and chickpea soup). Oh yeah... I like beans now... what's up with that?

RIP our toilet

Ok, I know this is quite an interjection with my other posts, but I just have to share this experience that is so annoying. So last Wednesday during feria, I came home and Maria was telling me how just had just mopped up the whole bathroom because the water tank of the toilet had pretty much exploded (i didn't even know that could happen). So... ok... broken toilet... can't flush. It's the only toilet in the apartment. It still isn't fixed and it is currently day 8. They have had to wait so long because of the holiday and because their toilet is the strangest blue color ever and they need it to match. Not ok. I have to fill up multiple buckets of water to manually flush. The toilets in Morocco were better... they were just a hole.

Feria de Abril

Finally I am only 1 week behind! ha. It is kind of hard to put time aside to blog when I have so much to do in the few days that I have left here in Sevilla. But I will gladly write about Feria, because it was probably my favorite time in Sevilla all semester. Originally I was planning on traveling during feria, but my plans fell through and it was definitely a blessing in disguise! Feria de Abril, or the Seville spring fair, happens every year 2 weeks after the Easter holy week. It is basically this huge festival where everyone drinks, eats, dances, and gets dressed up in the traditional flamenco clothing. There are hundreds and hundreds of casetas, or tents where families and friends get together the whole week. There are a few public tents, but most of them are private and require that you come with someone that has paid to be a part of the tent. These casetas are ridiculous!! They are completely furnished with tables, stages, bars, and bathrooms. Some of the ones I saw even had chandeliers! Also, one of the main attractions about feria is all of the horse carriages and caballeros riding on their horses through the streets of the city and at the fairgrounds. One part of the grounds is called the "calle del infierno" or hell street, where there are a ton of vendors, rides, and other kinds of entertainment. The traditional drink of feria is called a rebujito, which is a combination of sprite and sherry from Jerez called Manzanilla. I think the wine by itself is way too strong, but when it is mixed it tastes delicious :)

Jillian, Maria, Antonio and I in the caseta

I consider myself really lucky, because Maria and Antonio had their own caseta, which they invited me and my friends to. (a lot of families don't have casetas since they are so expensive). They had a live band every night and some of the other people in the tent tried to teach me how to dance sevillano flamenco (somewhat unsuccessfully). Antonio told the singer to do a special shout out to Jillian and I, and it completely caught me off guard and everyone was clapping and telling us to go dance... so awkward! but funny at the same time, so we just went along with it. It was so much fun! We also had fun with getting dressed up and buying flowers for our hair, huge earrings, and a little shawl that all the women there have. (pictures to come). After the tent kind of died down every night, we would go to the rides. It was hilarious and I felt like such a small kid, but it was the part I looked forward to most. ha. Our favorite ride was the huge viking ship... if you jumped when it was at its highest point, you felt weightless for a couple seconds. Of course I tried out quite a few other rides too, but that was the bestThe ferris wheel was cool too (faster than most ferris wheels), but we also got a great view of everything from above. . In general it was just so interesting people watching at feria. The women get so dressed up and have so many matching accessories it's ridiculous. Some of the dresses are beautiful, but half of them are way tacky and I couldn't take them seriously. They also all wear flowers on the top of their head, sticking straight up, which I still think looks so funny. Maria actually dressed Jillian and I up in a couple of her old flamenco dresses and told us we could wear them out... but one of them had the pattern of a couch in a nursing home and the other had sleeves that were so big they looked like wings that we decided against that. They also had the most amazing waffles (gofres) I've ever tasted (me and my sweet tooth). I never wanted feria to end! Feria unfortunately had to end last sunday evening at midnight, when they shot off hundreds of fireworks over the Guadalquivir river. I was standing on the next bridge from where they were shooting them off so I got a great view, and it was so pretty to see them reflecting in the water. I feel so bad for people that were traveling all week... they have no idea what they missed!The entrance to feria!

Some women wearing the flamenco dresses

MOROCCO (April 17-20)

Now I can actually say I’ve been to Africa! I was lucky enough to get the chance to go to Morocco on a trip organized by my CIEE human rights interest group. As with all traveling, we had to be up bright and early on Friday morning to start the bus ride to Tarifa, Spain and then take the ferry across the Mediterranean Sea to Tangier, Morocco. There were about 30 people total on the trip, but we divided into 3 smaller groups once we got there to make traveling in Morocco a lot easier. In what seemed like an instant, the world around me had changed completely. Different people, different clothes, different language, different architecture, different smell... i could already tell I was going to love it within those first few seconds! We met our group leader Darren, a Californian guy working for the Moroccan Exchange program. He is probably one of the most interesting, educated and nicest person I have ever met! He greeted us with a big back full of nuts and tons of chocolate bars... ha. Obviously we were going to be friends.
Alright so we went to Tangier as our first stop to walk around the city a little, go to the fresh market, and then to visit a women's center called DARNA. There we talked with students about the role of women in an Islamic society and how things were changing (while eating the best pastries and moroccan sweet tea). Soon after that stop we drove, in our little bus, to a small coastal town called Asilah to get lunch (a lot of this trip was centered around food ha). We got a tour of the city and old palace by this really skinny moroccan man. There was this international center there that has anual expositions and I guess all the countries that attend paint murals throughout the city every year= a lot of artwork on the walls). He was telling us how traitors of the king were either thrown off the cliffs of Asilah or built/cemented into the walls of the palace. After the tour we went and sat outside to a wonderful lunch of the typical chicken tangine, which is couscous with chicken and a ton of cooked vegetables. (I thought i wouldn't like it, but I was obsessed and actually miss it now). I couldn't finish it all though, so I decided to give a little scrap to one of the stray cats that was by our table. BAD decision! about 20, 000 other street cats came bolting in my direction and I didn't know what to do. ha. There are stray cats EVERYWHERE in morocco!
When we were done in Asilah, we continued to our more permanent destination, Rabat, where we stayed for 2 days and lived with a Moroccan host family! Although they only spoke Arabic and French, (we had an arabic language session 101 , but you can only get so far with hello, my name is..., and thank you) ha, I felt so comfortable and welcome at their home. I stayed there with Franny and they showed us to a room, completely filled with couches and giant rug and said we could stay there. I really did feel like i was in a genie bottle :) To get to the eating area we had to climb up this almost ladder and walk across the roof to another room. All meals in morocco are eaten from a common dish in the middle of the table, which was a new experience. You just have to be careful that you don't take food from someone else's make believe food triangle. ha. The family was a mom and dad, with their 3 kids, 21 yr old girl, 18 yr old boy, and another 8 yr old girl. They were all so funny!
The next day in Rabat, we did a little sight-seeing to the Roman ruins of Chellah and to see the Mausoleum of King Mohammed V. At the ruins, there were literally hundreds of storks and egrets surrounding the place in their nests and in the trees. All of the paths were surrounded by so many cool plants and flowers, that I actually felt like I was in a tropical place. There was this one area, called the "fertility pool," where there is a legend if you throw an egg into it and one of the eels eats it (there are 2), then you will become pregnant. (Hence, all of the storks surrounding the place! ha) A couple girls in our group threw in eggs, but the eels never came out. Then we drove to the Mausoleum, which was beautiful and covered in so much detail, inside and out (so much gold!) Across from the Mausoleum was the famous incomplete minaret, Hassan Tower. It was supposed to be the tallest minaret in the world, along with a giant mosque, but construction stopped with the sultan died. Now the top of it is unfinished, and the area around it has about 200 incomplete columns and some started wall construction. Pretty interesting story.
So after returning to our families for lunch, our whole group met up with Moroccan university students and were taken on a little personal tour of the city and especially the giant marketplace in Rabat. I had thousands of things to look at in the marketplace and couldn't focus on anything... i just knew that I wanted to buy everything! They were selling everything from shoes to blankets, to olives and turtles. It was quite overwhelming (I need to go back again!) Then the students we were with, Karim and Adil, took us to this little bar/pool hall to get some tea. It was kind of awkward being in a bar because 1- they don't really drink in morocco and 2- you don't really see that many girls out in places like that there. But it was still fun.
Later that night we had a guest speaker from a memeber of the Peace Corps to share her experience. (She was not very interesting and also not very convincing) But after that... I went to my first public bath! Ha. All the girls in my group were really nervous about what it was going to be like, but everyone in Morocco was telling us how much they loved the Hammam (that's what public baths are called there), so we finally all decided to check it out. Darren's host sister, Widad, took us all down the street to go (she was so excited!) ha. Basically you walk in, change out of your clothes, (we had to bring washcloths and soap and stuff), then you walk into this sauna like tile room where the women there give you a ton of buckets filled with hot water. and then basically you just relax and clean. ha. Some people paid to get scrubbed down, but it looked kind of painful... so I voted against that. We went back to our family and were so relaxed and tired that we basically just ate dinner and then passed out in our beds.
We had to wake up really early the next morning to drive through the Rif mountains to our final stop in Morocco, the city of Chefchaouen. Saying good bye to our family was really sad, even though we had only been with them for only 2 days, I knew I was going to miss them. The ride was quite bumpy and curvy, and our bus driver was a little crazy. He had an obsession with passing cars and sometimes around the curves I thought I was going to die! Also our bus driver had "pimped out" our little bus the previous day. We had kind of complained how there was no music, so Darren was just going to bring his little ipod speakers, but when the bus came back, he had installed a complete stereo system and a dvd player for the trip. ha. We were trying to get lunch in this little rural village along the way, but got a little lost (after asking a ton of people though we finally found it). There we had some lunch and little discussion about the growing ecotourism industry that was developing in the area, where they invite people to stay in their village and offer outdoor activities, such as hiking in the area. The guy told us that ecotourism is their alternative to growing marijuana (it's more profitable ha). He took us on a little hike, even though it was really muddy, and when we got to the top of the hill it was such a pretty view of the valley.
Then we were off to Chefchaoen, a city founded by Moorish exiles from Spain during the Spanish Reconquista of the 15th century. "Chef Chaouen" literally means "look at the horns," referring to the shape of the mountains that tower over the town. One of the most noticable things is that every building in the city is some sort of shade of blue, which was a tradition from the former Jewish population. We got there kind of late in the afternoon, and once we checked into our hotel, only had a couple hours to do shopping before dinner. Like I said before, I wanted to buy so many things (a hookah being on the top of my list), and 2 hours was definitely not enough time! Especially with bartering with the shopkeepers, you need way more time to get the prices down. I had time to buy a few things I liked; I didn't want to stray too far from where we were meeting from dinner though, since it had gotten dark and I didn't really know my way around the town. We had dinner quite late and then went back to the hotel for a little debrief session, since it was our last night together. Our whole group talked about the highlights of our trip and what we learned (we all agreed how amazing everything was). Then Darren gave us all Moroccan bracelets, a desert rose from the Sahara, and this little perfume block that is very typical of Morocco. We had all (group 1) gotten so close to in the past couple days, that it was actually really sad to think that we would be going home the next day to return to Sevilla.
Before driving to the Moroccan-Spanish border the next day, we took a little farewell hike to the top of one of the closest mountains to get a view of all of Chefchaouen. We were all so tired since we had to wake up at 6:30, but everyone still enjoyed it (plus they brought us amazing breakfast!) Soon after we were on the bus again, sadly. I did not want to leave at all!! We got to the border, which was actually really scary with a ton of patrol and barbed wire and people waiting. Darren warned us not to take pictures because if the police saw us they would destroy our cameras (really intense!). We got there a little early and had to wait for the next ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar. We had to say our final goodbyes, and as sad as this is, I started tearing up when I had to say bye to Darren... he was really the best guide ever! He had taught us so much about Morocco and Islamic culture and I really learned so much by experiencing everything first hand. Then finally we boarded the ferry and were off to Spain again!

Morocco was hands down my favorite travel destination this semester!

Travel turns all the fairy tales and stories into reality.

More pictures...
Tangier, Asilah, & Rabat
More Rabat & Chefchaouen

Semana Santa (Holy Week in Sevilla)

Pure craziness… definitely a once in a lifetime experience to say the least. With the amount of preparation that I saw going on in the city, I could tell that it is the city’s most important tradition. The city started building up all sorts of stands and taking down anything that was in its way weeks before Semana Santa. I would have to go on new little detours every day to class due to “temporary construction.” Once I saw that them removing city bike stations and shutting down street car tracks, I knew it was serious. I’m actually overwhelmed in trying to explain it, because even after I saw it I still didn’t quite understand what was happening. ha. The entire week, before and up until Easter, there are processions with these floats of lifelike wooden sculptures of scenes of the events of the Passion or images of the Virgin Mary, called pasos. Basically every church in Sevilla and its brotherhood organizes one of these processions and they march through the streets. The pasos can weigh up to a metric ton and they are carried around by 20-40 men (often barefoot) for anywhere from 4-14 hours long! The ones that aren’t carrying the paso are dressed up in the traditional robe and hood, which look really close to members of the KKK and are called nazarenos. It was really weird at first to see the intensity of the processions and how many people participate, but it was really impressive and the pasos really are beautiful. I had no idea what to expect prior to experiencing it and I really learned a lot (More info here)
I was only in Sevilla for 2 days of the week (which was enough) due to traveling. The city literally shuts down. No stores. No transportation. Only Semana Santa and Semana Santa things. I ended up seeing 4 processions during the days and 2 during the middle of the night. I often thought I was looking at the exact same sculpture…and then I realized I really had to pay attention to the details. On some of them, Jesus was looking down… not to the right, or there were red flowers instead of blue flowers. Ha. I’d say the most intense moment I experienced of Semana Santa was when I went to the bridge right where I live at around 2:30 in the morning to see one of the most important sculptures from my neighborhood. The streets were packed so tightly I could barely squeeze through, but I worked my way to the front so I could get a good view. I had to wait for quite a while, but when everyone got quiet and I started to smell the incense (they use WAY too much ha), I knew the paso was close. Then the band started playing and everyone was just so serious, I got goose-bumps. I wish I would have taken a picture, (too late now right?) but seeing all of the candles lit up at night was amazing! Since the paso is so heavy with gold, wax, wood, and flowers it gets quite wobbly. Once the paso passed, everyone started to cheer and there was even a little chant that everyone knew that lives in Triana. I found this video, which helps explain better. SEMANA SANTA
Also, the women wear this traditional dress all week, (a special comb, a veil, and all black) and Maria decided to dress me up in it. Hahah.. i still can't stop laughing...

Lagos, Portugal (April 10-12)

If you ever get the chance to go to Lagos… GO! It is so amazing! It was really windy and a little overcast the first day but the whole weekend we had amazing weather. The water is crystal clear and the cliffs are so pretty. It was the perfect place to just relax, lay in the sun, look at the beautiful landscape, and of course… people watch too. The agency that we went through had to put us in a 4 star hotel, Aqualuz, (how unfortunate, right? Ha) because the one they booked was still being renovated. We had our own little apartment with kitchen and it was so close to the beach. Plus they had an amazing breakfast buffet. I roomed with Franny and Jessica and we were like little kids on Christmas at the hotel. We were so excited to cook our own food and buy our on groceries, since that is something we all miss about home (and can’t do at our Spanish homestays).
A bunch of the girls on the trip and I went on a little sailboat cruise to go out on the water and see some of the caves along the coast. They took us out on a little speedboat to go in and out of the little grottos and I was obsessed with it. Everyone was freaking out because our driver was going kind of fast and doing all of these tight turns, but I was having the time of my life. Ha. The next night we drove to the southwestern tip of Portugal to Cabo san Vicente (Cape St. Vincent). They used to think that this was the edge of the world (and for good reason!) The cliffs are soo high and all you see is the ocean which seemed to stretch out forever. It was also the windiest place I’ve ever been… I definitely had to stay away from the edge. Even the seagulls were flying and couldn’t move because the wind was so powerful. We went to see the sunset, but were a little unlucky with some clouds that came at the last minute. Still very impressive though. Other than those two little outings, it was pretty much just time laying at the beach. I am so lucky to be doing the things i'm doing :)

Florence

After the mentally overwhelming and physically exhausting days in Rome, Franny and I bought a train ticket and headed to Florence. I was so excited to go since I had heard that Florence is to Italy as Seville is to Spain. Since Rome had been jam-packed with sightseeing, I was really excited to just take it easy in Florence, spend some time with my friends studying in the city, and do some shopping for Italian goods. Some of my favorite things in Florence were…
1. Gelato!!! The most beautiful and delicious ice-cream I have ever seen/eaten. They really make it a work of art
2. Duomo of Florence (Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore)- This cathedral was really different than any other cathedral I’ve ever seen. The outside had all these marble panels in various shades of green and pink bordered by white. The inside had a very simple gothic architectural style. It is also the largest brick dome ever constructed. The line to go to the top of the dome was unfortunately waaayy to long.
3. Palazzo Pitti- The Pitti Palace is basically this giant palace with a collection of treasures, like jewelry, paintings, and decorative plates. There was this really interesting collection that walked you through the evolution of clothing. With so many fashion designers coming from Italy, it was cool to see the clothes that they displayed.
4. Boboli Gardens- Right behind the palace there are these vast and beautifully landscaped gardens. Franny and I were exhausted so we actually took a little power nap lying in the shade under a tree. We could see all of Florence from the top of one of the gardens.
5. Ponte Vecchio- literally means old bridge in Italian. This bridge was built in 972 AD and has survived everything from floods and fires to bombings in WWII. The bridge is lined with one jewelry shop after another.
6. The leather market- shopping makes me happy… what can I say? Ha I was looking for a leather jacket but was unsuccessful. One of the shop owners proved how good the quality of his leather jackets were by holding a lighter to them to prove they don’t light on fire.
7. Our hostel, Archi Rossi- Everything you could possibly need was there. They had this cute little courtyard, nice rooms and lockers, free internet and breakfast and was in an amazing location.
8. Pizza and pasta… obviously amazing.
9. Seeing my friends from IU! Made the trip a lot more memorable and they were all great hosts and showed Franny and I a good time in the city.

Everything was amazing in Florence until... We MISSED our flight home!! :( I was in shock when Franny woke me up and told me what time it was and then we realized that both of our phones had died. There was no way we were going to make it to the airport on time. I wish I had a map where I could trace our route of travel… it ended up being ridiculous! So we had to take the train from Florence to Pisa, which was the airport we were flying out of… Turns out there were no more flights to Sevilla so we decided to switch our flight to go to Barcelona to at least be in Spain. Unfortunately we had booked our flight with Ryanair, which is the shittiest airline in the world, no exaggeration. We had to wait all morning in the Pisa airport for our new flight that afternoon. So then their airport is over 1 hour outside of Barcelona in Girona and we had to take a bus into downtown Barcelona. Oh yeah… best part… it was pouring rain in Barcelona. Then we took a metro from the bus station to the main train station, only to find that the train to Sevilla was sold out. Since when do trains get sold out?!? So the guy at the ticket counter said that the best would be to take an overnight train to Córdoba. I had my first train hotel experience and slept in a little bed on the train. Once we got to Córdoba we immediately caught a train to Sevilla, then had to take a bus from the train station to our apartments. After over 24 hours of straight traveling and an empty wallet, we finally made it! ha I think I purchased a ticket for every form of public transportation except for boat… not kidding. It was an interesting adventure home to say the least, and I will never miss another flight in my life!

PS. Also…whoever told me that Italian is so close to Spanish and we would have no problems understanding it… they lied. Two completely differently spoken languages.

Outside of the Duomo

Inside the Cathedral


GELATO

When in Rome...

Seriously...where did April go?!? I have so much to catch up on! I just had to look at my pictures to jog my memory, and realized I still have to write about Rome, Florence, Lagos, Semana Santa in Sevilla, and Morocco! But better late than never, right??
ROME…there is so much history in that city and sites to see that it is overwhelming! (also don’t think I have ever climbed that many steps in my life) Here are some of the main sites that I got the chance to visit…
Colosseum- all I can say is wow... this place is enormous! I felt like I was in the movie Gladiator the whole time. And I still can’t believe they could build something that enormous in 80AD without any machines
Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill- I’ve seen roman ruins before, but seeing them in Rome for some reason made everything way better. Ha. These ruins are what’s left of the homes and palaces of the first inhabitants of Rome. Also saw some of the most beautiful gardens… we walked to the top of this one hill that was supposed to have the best view of the city… and of course my camera died just as I was about to snap a shot.
Trevi Fountain- I woke up extra early on the last day we were in Rome to make sure I could see this. I feel repetitive saying this but I just can’t put into words how enormous and impressive it is. There is a legend that if you throw a coin in you are guaranteed to return to Rome. If you throw in another it will lead to a new romance and a third guarantees either a marriage or a divorce. (I only threw in 1, so don’t worry Ross ha) I heard that over 3000 Euro get thrown into the fountain daily!
Pantheon- A classic Roman temple from 27 BC…We actually never got a chance to go in because there were about a million small children running around and waiting in line for class trips, but I saw the outside of it. ha.

Vatican Museums- In Vatican City, these museums have such a huge collection of artwork collected by the Roman Catholic Church. Gallery after gallery after gallery…. Definitely the longest building I’ve ever been to. (Over 7 ½ miles of hallways are filled with artwork!). It was so hard to focus because everything was so detailed and every inch of the building was covered with something to look at; the walls, ceilings and floors were artwork themselves… you could have spent your whole life in this place before you noticed every detail. I was also really surprised at the amount of mythology in the Vatican Museum, with Roman gods and goddesses all over the place. Towards the end of the museum there was a really cool collection of modern religious art.

Sistine Chapel- A must see is Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, along with countless other paintings of his. They wouldn’t allow anyone to take pictures but everyone was sneaking pictures so that little rule was kind of pointless. I snapped one but it’s not that good :(

Me outside of St. Peter's Basilica... waiting in line

St. Peter’s Basilica- This came in two parts… the inside of it and the top of it. This is the Christian cathedral with the largest interior in the world, and can hold up to 60,000 people! I felt like a tiny ant (basically everything in Rome makes you feel tiny…well except the people). Then we climbed 551 “steps” to the top of the dome. These steps were actually a very tight and spiraled ramp with really tiny steps that were just really slanted. I actually got dizzy at one point and had to stop for a second. (after we ran up the steps trying to get away from on oncoming stampede of teenage boys). Maneuvering to the top was completely worth ever step though…The view from the top of the basilica was breathtaking! The weather was beautiful and we could see all of Vatican City and Rome below us in every direction.
I definitely got a lot of main attraction sightseeing done, but also just walking around the city was continuous “sightseeing.” (This blog entry is more or less so that I don’t forget what I saw and did, so I apologize for how boring it is. Ha) We stayed at this little hostel right on the edge of the city, but still good location, called “The Yellow.” (http://www.yellowhostel.com/tour.php) It was really clean and cute considering how much we paid for it, and we shared the room this really talkative couple from Australia who were backpacking through Europe. It was interesting to hear about a completely different traveling experience than what I am doing this semester. One night for dinner we went to this little restaurant that was right down the street from The Yellow, and it looked really cute from the outside… but little did we know what we were getting ourselves into. Basically the whole restaurant was empty but they sat us next to this really awkward family from England. They barely were talking to each other, the little girl had blood all over her face from a bloody nose earlier that day (don’t know why she didn’t want to clean it) and the mom had this giant buckteeth. Also the waiters were so creepy and kept blowing us kisses and the pasta was barely cooked and the pizza had no sauce. It made the whole dining experience quite…unique. The following night we had an amazing dinner though so it made up for it. ha. Alright, well I think I covered mostly everything that is important… more to come soon!!

Things I have noticed about Sevilla

I have tried to make a list of some of the things that I have noticed about life in Sevilla... these are just the things I can think of right now... i'm sure there will be more to come!

1. Most people have dogs here… and they don’t really own leashes. That means a couple things… dogs poop everywhere and anywhere, and it usually stays there... also, for some reason, dogs always run into me... magnetic force?
2. Sevillanos take Flamenco dancing and singing very seriously… if you talk during a show… you will get death stares.
3. People cannot walk in straight lines or at a pace that would be fast enough to be considered walking. Yeah the sidewalks can be small, but even one person somehow manages to take up the whole thing, making it impossible to pass them.
4. I discovered the best ice cream ever called “queso-miel.” Directly translated, cheese-honey does not sound very appetizing, but it is kind of like cheese cake flavored but 100X better.
5. Everything is politically incorrect. From “chino” stores to dark rum called “negrita” (little black one) to chocolate cookies called Obama galletas… don’t ever be surprised by the name of something.
6. Make sure you don’t plan on doing any kind of shopping or errands during the siesta hours, (hours of rest), which range anywhere from 2-5:30 in the afternoon. It definitely cuts into your day but I’m getting used to it.
7. There are orange trees everywhere, and in the spring the whole city smells like the orange blossoms… Sevilla is actually famous for its smell.
8. Scarves… even if it’s hot out, everyone, old or young, wears one.
9. There are all kinds of transportation on the streets here… cars, buses, trucks, bikes, motorcycles, carriages, dirt bikes, and ATVs? Yeah I think I got all of them. Also, I don’t know how they do it, but I’ve seen so many bikes with 3 people on them… amazing balance and strength I guess
10. Cobblestone streets and riding bikes... not a good combination
11. Speaking of transportation… people also park wherever they want to here. If it means parking in the middle of an intersection, on the corner of a busy street, or blocking in 3 other cars… it doesn’t matter to them. People actually leave their cars in neutral so that people can push other cars out of the way if they happen to be trapped in.
12. Women here… their hair doesn’t move. The other day it was really windy and I constantly had to keep my hair out of my face. Well everyone else’s hair looked like the wind was going 0 mph. Powerful hairspray? Thicker hair? I don’t know but it is still a mystery to me.
13. The homeless people in Spain all own strollers and sticks...yes, the fact that there are homeless people is always sad, but when you see them walking with a stroller and a long stick in their hand you just have to laugh.

Just wanted to give everyone a little taste of some of the quirks of the culture here in Sevilla :)

El Capital... Madrid

A trip to Spain would not be complete without spending a few days in the capital of the country. I had a small list of places I wanted to visit, but still had no idea what I would actually be able to see during my visit or what to expect. Franny and I decided to take the midnight bus to Madrid so we would have all of Friday in Madrid to walk around and do some sightseeing. The bus ride was 6 ½ hours long but comfortable enough that I could at least get some sleep. So we arrived in Madrid extra early, got on the metro to get closer to our hostel and then found it all before 7:30. On my hostel reservation, I had selected my arrival time to be 7 am so I figured it would be no problem to check in then. Apparently it was a problem for the little woman that was running the hostel out of a 3rd floor apartment building, considering all of the lights were off and she was whispering to us. After freaking us out at first and making us feel really uncomfortable for showing up so early, she soon warmed up to us and let us keep our bags there and said that we could check in soon and told us a place to get breakfast in the meantime. The little joint we went to had the best toast and orange juice ever and a group people that were still out from the night before, which provided plenty of entertainment for the time we had to wait to check in.
After walking around the city for a while and just getting a feel for Madrid, we decided to tackle the Prado museum. That place is so huge and has so many paintings that at one point Franny and I literally got lost… with a map. Ha. But it was incredible to see all of the famous paintings by artists I have always read about or seen in books. Greco, Goya, Valazquez… and I don’t even know how many more. It was really interesting to see the different interpretations of religious and mythological scenes. I actually just learned a lot just by looking at the paintings seeing the story they were telling. At the end though, I don’t think I could have looked at another painting of Jesus if you paid me a million dollars. We were exhausted after that and went back to the hostel for a little nap and to get ready to go to dinner. Dinner was amazing at this Italian restaurant downtown and then we were ready for a night out in Madrid!
Although cover to get in was expensive (but expected) we went to this club called Kapital, which had 7 different levels, all playing different kinds of music. Surprisingly for a Friday night however, it was not that busy and only like 3 of the floors were packed. The ground floor was the best because it had live music and the most people. There were also these blasts of air over the dance floor every few minutes, that were so refreshing and my favorite! (a nice break from the smoky air) ha. We went home early (3 is early in Spain) since we wanted to get a lot of sightseeing done the next day too.
Saturday we woke up and our first stop was Palacio Real. It was such a beautiful and gigantic building from the outside, and we wanted to go in, but the line was so incredibly long we just decided to keep walking toward the other side of the city to see what we would stumble across on our way to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. We went out of our way to walk through this plaza, and thank god we did because it had street performers in crazy costumes and all of these artists painting and drawing. I can’t decide who my favorite was… the man completely covered in mud or the 250 lb man in a Spiderman costume (he was serious). So strange, yet so captivating. Ha.

Then we went to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum where we saw hundreds or more paintings. I actually liked this museum way more than the Prado because it had more of a variety of artwork and some of my more favorite artists like Monet, Kirchner, Renoir, Degas, Pissarro, Kandinsky and tons more that I am in love with. I found my new favorite painting there… the colors were incredible and I just wanted to paint so badly after seeing it… very inspiring. They also had a very interesting exhibition called La Sombra (the shadow), which was a collection of paintings where the artists captured light and shadow and was really cool. The earliest paintings were of a people actually painting shadows on walls and such, which I had never seen. It was by far my favorite part of the trip.
Painting with Three Spots Wassily Kandinsky

We were ready for some shopping after being in a museum for the afternoon. We were trying to find the street in Madrid with tons of shopping, but it ended up being off the map we had so we just followed our gut feeling and eventually found it… which completed our loop around the entire downtown area that we had started in the morning. So much walking and I don’t think my feet have ever hurt so badly. But we made it back to the hostel and it felt amazing to just lay down for a bit before we got dinner at this Mexican joint down the street. I was so exhausted and just immediately crashed at the hostel after dinner.
Our last day in Madrid was actually only the morning since we had to catch the 1pm bus back to Sevilla. We packed our stuff and left it at the hostel and walked to the Rastro, the famous marketplace that has hundreds of vendors every Sunday. We literally left everything at the hostel, since the Rastro is pick-pocketing central and I did not want to risk getting anything taken. People were selling things from dresses and belts to screwdrivers and pans and everything in between. In one of the stores on one of the streets of the Rastro, I saw the most incredible and beautiful hookah I have ever seen and now I’m so mad at myself for not buying it or at least seeing how much it was. I’m hoping that when I go to Morocco I can find its match… too late now. We gave ourselves an hour to get to the bus, which should have been plenty, but then we realized we were going the wrong way on the loop to the stop we needed… so we had to almost go around the entire route and got off the metro with no joke 5 minutes left to get to our bus. We ran up 3 flights of stairs and then I frantically asked where the bus to Sevilla was and we just barely made it. My heart was racing and I was sweating like it was my job… the feeling of relief when we got there was unreal. Other than that little scare, it was a trip with no problems and tons of great experiences. I’m really proud of how much we saw in 2 days but, as with every place I have visited in Spain, I would love to go back and see more of the city.

More pictures in Madrid!

Weekend with my Spanish family… La Antilla

So, again…. I have a lot to get caught up on. Today it is raining unfortunately so I have some motivation to stay inside and blog a little more. A couple weekends ago, Maria and Antonio took me along to their beachside apartment in La Antilla. At first I was kind of nervous, because I was going to be with them the entire weekend, along with their son and daughter and their families. But I’m not an idiot and I couldn’t turn it down. It was about a 1 ½ hour drive from Sevilla, and the whole way Maria was telling me about all of the sights we were passing. It was really weird sitting in a car for that long, since I walk everywhere or ride a bike here at home, but it was an enjoyable drive. Their apartment was really cute (kitchen, living room, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and terrace) and less than 2 minutes walking from the beach. The weather was beautiful and hot (especially still for march) and it was the most relaxing weekend I have had yet. We spent all Friday and Saturday and the beach.

Friday at the beach...empty!

Antonio with his fishing pole

Antonio was fishing and sitting by the water while Maria and I tanned and chatted. The beach was pretty empty, but I still could do a little people watching (I should have been studying, but I feel like that is impossible at the beach). Saturday they took me out to lunch with the rest of their family: Daughter Eva and her husband and two kids and then their son Ernesto and his wife and son. I couldn’t really contribute much to the conversation but it was so entertaining just to listen and watch and laugh of course too, because Ernesto’s son, Daniel, is the most ADHD child ever. Saturday night we took a little road trip to Portugal for literally less than 3 hours, but it was cool to see the harbor there and the little shops. I know they just wanted to show me around a little bit so I could see something new, which was so nice of them. We left on Sunday morning, a little earlier than planned, since it was pretty cloudy and not warm enough to enjoy the beach. I was however fine with that since I had to get back to study for a couple midterms exams I had the following week. That weekend was really good bonding time with them, and I’m so happy I got to spend time with them and their family. Now things are more relaxed and open at home and I feel even more comfortable living with them.

After my trip to La Antilla, was probably my least favorite week in Sevilla. It was perfect weather and I was stuck having to study for my midterms. Since the midterm and final exam are pretty much the only grades in my classes, I really had to buckle down and actually try to study since it is worth such a huge chunk of my grade. I had my Spanish linguistics test on Monday and my international relations one later that week on Thursday. I was kept sane those few days of stress by knowing that I would be going to Madrid that weekend :) Having something to look forward to makes everything easier.

Barcelona...

So obviously I haven’t been as good about updating my blog in a timely manner, but I figure better late then never! So… Barcelona…. Where to start? It was my first self-planned trip with Franny, Jessica, and Jillian and I had no idea what to expect and what little obstacles to expect, but surprisingly everything went pretty smoothly. Our flight to Barcelona was at 7 in the morning so we had to wake up extremely early to catch the bus to the airport. I should have been tired, but I wasn’t since I was so excited. Then got on my flight, arrived in Barcelona a little over an hour later, caught a taxi to the hostel (at first the driver didn’t know where it was), and then tried to check in. However, we couldn’t check in for another few hours so we decided to make good use of our time and go to the Picasso museum right around the corner. It was a little museum that led you through Picasso’s work from the young age of 5 or 6 until his later more famous works. The coolest part was seeing Picasso’s different renditions of Velazquez’s Las Meninas. Just from looking at that one painting, there were at least 30 or 40 different versions of his interpretation. Unfortunately, just as with all art museums, I wasn’t allowed to take pictures, but I found these online for your viewing pleasure.Valazquez's original Las Meninas

Then we quickly checked into the hostel and continued our sightseeing in the city. The hostel had a great location so we walkedtowards the famous strip, las Ramblas, to do a little shopping and get a bite to eat. On the way, we passed the cathedral of Barcelona, which was for the most part was being renovated, and it was not even worth taking a picture of it (especially compared to the cathedral of Sevilla). Then we went to La Sagrada Familia, an amazing cathedral designed by Antoni Gaudi. It is still in the process of being built, but the main part that was completed was incredible! I have never seen any cathedral like it. Very impressive… and I hope to come back one day and see it when they have more of the inside completed. There was a little museum in it, which explained a lot about Gaudi and his work and how things in nature were the models for his architecture and designs.

The front of the new side of Sagrada Familia

Stained glass windows... perfect lighting too

Inside La Sagrada Familia... still under construction :(

The back/ older part of Sagrada Familia

After that we headed back the hostel and got ready for a night out. Barcelona apparently has the best nightlife in Spain, and from what I experienced, I definitely have to agree. The club we went to the first night was insane… so nice, so many people dancing, so many people in general, great DJ with euromusic, and it was right on the beach!

The next morning we got an early start, since we knew we had no time to waste, and hopped on the metro to go to Park Güell to see some more of Gaudi’s work and his house. My favorite part of the trip by far! It was at the top of a mountain, so we had a perfect view of the city with the Mediterranean in the background. The outlook in the park was completely surrounded by these benches that all had a different mosaic design on them. Everywhere I looked, there was some sort of new crazy artwork that was always more incredible than the last thing I had seen.

"You can fall in love at first sight with a place as with a person."

My favorite part was the mosaic designs on the ceiling of the area underneath the outlook. I now have an obsession with Gaudi and I wish I could live in a house that he designed. I need to blow up some of the pictures I took for my room when I get back.

There was so much to look at, plus the weather was perfect, so we ended up staying there longer than we had planned, but then were forced to leave when we realized it was way past lunchtime and our stomachs wouldn’t stop growling. We also managed to squeeze in a little walk to the beach and along the harbor before we had to go back to get ready before dinner. Jessica had a friend in Barcelona, so it was really nice that he could kind of show us around and took us out at night. We unfortunately had to wake up really early on Sunday morning to catch our flight… biggest struggle ever. Franny tried to wake me up after I had turned off my alarm, and I literally hit her (and I’m usually not hard to wake up). Luckily we all finally made it to get the bus to the airport and then were on our way. It was a short trip but I felt like I got a really good taste of Barcelona and saw quite a bit of the city within those 2 days. I still can’t believe I can just take a weekend trip to all of these amazing cities. “what did you do this weekend?” “oh not much… just went to Barcelona, no big deal.” Ha I’m so lucky! Coming to Spain is definitely the best decision I’ve ever made… I continue to love it here more and more everyday. Barcelona was amazing, but I am really happy I don’t live there. It would be too big and too touristy for a whole semester. Plus they speak Catalan there, which seems to be a mix of Spanish and French, so I have no idea how people are learning Spanish there. It felt good to come “home” to Sevilla :)

More pictures here!