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!

CÓRDOBA

Although the weather was somewhat iffy in the morning (little chilly and rainy), I joined the CIEE program in a day trip to Córdoba last Sunday. I had to wake up earlier than usual, considering the bus left at 9am. After about 1 ½ hours of driving, we made one stop in the city of Montilla, where there is the oldest wine warehouse in Andalucia called Alvear. There we got a tour of the wine making process, from start to finish and ended with a little winetasting of their most famous sherry, known as Amontillado. I don’t know if it was the fact that it was still 11 in the morning or I’m just not a wine person, but I was certainly not a big fan of the 3 samples we tasted.

After that, we continued our little journey to Córdoba. We had a little free time before we had to meet with the group, and I had the chance to go into a lot of the little souvenir shops and stop into a café to get coffee and a waffle. I wish I would have had more time to explore on my own, but then we had to meet back with the group (it had started pouring rain at this point). We waited until the rain let up a little and then went on a little walking tour of one of the oldest and most famous parts of the city, known as the Judería (the Jewish quarters).
Next we went to visit the inside of La Mezquita (Muslim temple of Córdoba)... the best part of the trip. It is so huge that with all of the arches it really looks infinite, like in a mirror maze. I cannot even put into words how beautiful it was, and I know my pictures don’t do it justice either… it’s the most incredible building I have ever seen. It was also so impressive to see the distinct contrast between the Arabic architecture right next to Christian part added to the mosque (Christians conquered the city in 1236). Here are a few of the pictures I took though… Enjoy!

My birthday in Spain!

As all of you know, (because so many of you actually read my blog) I finally turned 21 this past Saturday! Although I thought turning of age in a country where I already am of age would be anticlimactic, it was definitely one of the best nights in Sevilla yet. I celebrated Friday night, since at midnight was my actual birthday. A lot of my friends were unfortunately out of town this weekend, but I went with Franny to Plaza Alfalfa (where there is a big strip of little bars) to meet up with everyone else that I knew still in town. We actually rode the Sevici (public bike service in Sevilla) bikes that we had been trying to sign up for the whole week before! It finally worked and I was so excited. So anyway, rode our bikes into the center, and went to the first bar and got mojitos… not just any mojito though… the biggest one I have ever seen! Ha. Everyone I was with sang “feliz cumpleaños” at midnight. We went to a couple other bars down the street and then decided that it was time to go to the discoteca, Budda, to dance. It was so funny, fun and crazy… just like a birthday should be. It ended up being a late night and on the actual day of my birthday, I actually slept for most of it ha. Once I finally woke up, I went for a nice little bike ride with Franny (yes… we pretty much do everything together, but I swear I have other friends). Ha. After that we went to dinner to this really cool Italian restaurant we had found earlier last week. Getting there, we took a wrong turn (it was my fault) and unexpectedly ran into this really serious catholic procession. There were like 15 men carrying a huge crucifix on their shoulders, a guy with a megaphone praying, a fairly large crowd of people (especially for those tiny streets) and so much smoke from incense I could barely see. I’m not quite sure what the occasion was, but interesting to say the least. So we finally got to the restaurant (called Maccheroni) and eventually got seated. The waiter gave us a Spanish menu and an English menu just in case. The translations were quite entertaining. My personal favorite was one of the toppings on the pizza Franny wanted to order: rocket. We had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but decided to order it and find out. The waiter finally brought out our food, and Franny’s pizza literally was topped with a mountain of salad… not what we expected. That’s what “rocket” was. We were about to tell them that they hadn’t translated it correctly (arugula) but then decided it was just too funny. After dinner I just went home, since it was raining, and I knew I had to wake up early the next day for a little excursion to Córdoba. I had such an amazing and enjoyable birthday… thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes!
The new 21 year old,
Chrisy