BRIEF Update

Sorry I have been the biggest slacker with my blog lately, but it is just so hard to find time. Basically I am going to tell you what I have done and what I am doing and hopefully have time to write in more detail later.

The weekend after Portugal I went to Madrid, so a lot of art and most importantly for me, a Real Madrid vs. Sevilla fútbol game! Real Madrid won, which was fabulous, considering the fact that I was in Madrid. Also, Ronoldo scored a goal which was great to see and RM came back from being down 2-0 to win the game in the 93rd minute.

The weekend after Madrid I headed to Granada with my group. We saw the Alhambra which is huge and beautiful! We got to see a bit of the city and a group of my friends and I went out with Kaye and her friends...so fun!

That Thursday Jonathon and Sharon got here so I was beyond excited, but Friday morning they departed for Portugal and I for Morocco. It was way different than I expected and Tangier and Tetouan were not my favorite, but I loved Chefchaouen!!! The market place and tannery were absolutely disgusting, but it was a great experience.

Today I am off to Amsterdam with Jonathon and Sharon and then we are heading to Barcelona on Sunday. Sorry the recap of the last three locations I went to was horrible, but I will write in more detail when I get back next week for the end of Semana Santa!!!!

Portugal!

So it has been over a week since Portugal, but I loved it so much that I think I can manage to remember everything! Our means of transportation were not the best as far as the route goes, but we made it there and back and that is all that matters! Lisbon reminded me A LOT of San Francisco, maybe it had something to do with this:

We arrived early Friday morning and headed to our Hostel to store our bags. The hostel was AMAZING and I was far too spoiled. Unfortunately for me that was the first hostel I have ever stayed in, thus I have high hopes for all future hostels, and I will probably be disappointed more than once. The rooms were great, we had free towels and linens, lockers (which at this particular hostel I felt like I didn't even need!), free breakfast--including homemade pancakes!, homemade soup at night, the nicest staff ever, and the friendliest guests! If anyone ever travels to Portugal, let me know, I highly recommend this place. In fact, I am sending Jonathon and Sharon there the weekend I am in Morocco! Anyways, enough advertisement, back to my trip ...

That day we walked around a little and explore the town, then we broke off into two groups and the girls I was with and I happened to find a little theater that was playing The Wizard of Oz! We went to the box office and asked about prices and times and decided it was the best idea to just go then, so we did!

It was in Portuguese, but I know the story so that helped, and it was soooooo good! I loved it! That day it happened to be all little kids on field trips and us, it was so fun! After that we grabbed some lunch and headed back to the hostel. We ended up meeting some people that are studying in Sevilla as well and hung out with them for awhile. We went out that night and it was fun to see what the nightlife was like in Lisbon.

The next day we got up and headed to the aquarium with our new friends. Because I love animals, I had a fabulous time and the sea otters were my absolute favorite!!!

(**mom, that's what I want for Christmas :) haha) We grabbed some lunch after the aquarium and headed back to our hostel, but first stopped at the grocery store for some major necessities:

We played card games and hung out before hitting the streets of Lisbon for another night.

On Sunday we took a train to a town outside of Lisbon called Sintra. We intended on looking at some of the palaces and castles there and then going to another neighboring town to watch the sunset over the ocean. The second part didn't quite make the cut . . . We went to the first palace and it was so cool and beautiful, but by the time we made it to the castle it was pouring rain. We decided to catch a bus down hill/mountain/whatever you want to call it, and while the 8 of us waited at the bus stop it began to hail. What an experience. We finally got on a bus and reached the train station, but before we headed back to Lisbon we wanted lunch. The first place we could run into was a Pizza Hut, how adventurous of us. After our American cuisine we headed home and no one stalled in putting warm, dry clothes on. That night we took it easy and hung out around the hostel. I really like being able to hang out with my friends at night either before going out or just staying in all night. We don't really get that option in Sevilla because we all live with host families and we can't invite friends over.

Palace from afar & in the fog . . . I thought it looked awesome!:

On Monday, we had the best day ever weather wise, and our activities were a blast as well! We rented these little go-cart type cars for two hours and got to tour the city. It was neat because you could turn the radio on and it was connected to a GPS system and the car would tell you were to go, and would proceed to give you information about the most well-known parts of the city. I had a blast, except at one point when Mary and I nearly died. You may think that is an exaggeration, but honestly, we almost got hit and I don't think there would have been much recovery from that. Aside from that, it was one of the most fun things I have done so far!

After that, we walked up to St. George's castle and had an amazing view of the city! That was our last adventure of the weekend, unless you count the travel home. We got back in Sevilla at 6:30 AM Tuesday morning and proceeded to classes. Talk about a long day! That week I only had classes Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and then Thursday night I headed to Madrid! I will save that trip for my next post, which will probably be soon!

SO BUSY!

Sorry readers, but I hardly have time for homework these days, let alone a detailed blog of my life! I will write soon in more detail, but bottom line is: PORTUGAL WAS AMAZING! And it reminded me a lot of San Francisco, a lot of that had to do with what I thought was the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and the style of many neighborhoods (pictures to come, I promise!). I will write about each day in more detail, but I am running late for class right now, trying to stay in contact with friends and family, trying to book flights, and trying to pack for Madrid which is where I will be spending this lovely weekend! I am super excited, and so again, I will not be blogging this weekend, but hopefully early next week! Stay tuned, I have a lot of stories :)

Brief Update//Thursday Thirteen

This is going to be short, sweet, and to the point:

Nothing too exciting has been happening here, just a lot of class, homework, and trying to sit in as much sun as possible! :) We have been having beautiful weather the last few days, lots of sun and around 70 degrees!! I hope it keeps up, but it's a little rainy today. I leave for Portugal tonight and I won't be back until super early Tuesday morning, so don't expect any blogs until after that, and I am sure I will have a lot to discuss! I really want to check out the Aquarium there!

Now for a quick and pointless Thursday 13:

*Thirteen things I am looking forward to in March

1. Jonathon and Sharon visit!!!

2. A weekend in Madrid

3. A weekend in Granada

4. A weekend in Morocco

5. A week of traveling with Jonathon and Sharon (places to be announced)

6. A week with J & S in Sevilla

7. Getting my midterms over with

8. Warmer weather

9. Wearing sandals

10. Knowing more spanish?!?! . . . HOPING!

11. Seeing what Semana Santa is all about

12. Trying torrijas (it is a traditional food similar to french toast that is very popular during Semana Santa)

13. Experiencing new places and cultures!!! :)

adios por el fin de semana!

ALWAYS a lot to catch up on!

Another weekend has flown by! I'll do another breakdown for the simplicity of it:

Thursday: Class at 11, good thing too, because Wednesday night I stayed up until 3:30 video chatting with some people from Purdue and doing homework. I went home for lunch and met Mary an hour before class for cafe con leche that I knew I would need to stay awake! After class we walked around a little and due to ridiculous amount of rain, went into a little bar had some papas bravas (my absolute favorite tapa!) and tinto verano. After the rain settled a little we headed home to get ready for the night. We went out in Plaza Alfalfa, probably my favorite place to go on the weekends now, and just had a chill night. The bars were really packed due to the rain, because a lot of times people will be outside of the bars in the streets.

Friday: I slept in and after lunch I met up with some of the girls from the other side of the river because it was such a beautiful day. We sat by the river for a few minutes . . .

. . . and then headed to get some smoothies. After that we shopped around for costumes for the weekend. That night everyone was pretty tired and wanted to reserve their energy for Saturday so most of us stayed in, myself included. It was nice to get a good night sleep!

Saturday: It was a BEAUTIFUL day in Sevilla, so Mary, Delaine, and I decided to meet at 11 and go explore the city. We all had sweaters and jackets on, but not for long! I stayed in the sun as much as possible and even got a sunburn :) We went to Parque Maria Luisa and walked around before heading over to Plaza de Cuba. This plaza is beautiful, but unfortunately parts of it are under construction. It was still gorgeous and I enjoyed walking around.

Cool picture of the bridge in Plaza Espana, I like the reflection in the water!

Delaine and Me

Mary and Me

Finally, we found Plaza de America where you can feed the pigeons . . . they are supposed to sit on your arms and eat from your hands but for some reason they were shy today, I was upset about that to say the least!

Trying to get the pigeons to eat out of my hand

I still had a lot of fun exploring more of Sevilla and spending the entire day in the sun! I was craving a salad that day and of course diet coke (but settled with a coca light), so we sat outside by Plaza de America at a cute cafe.

mmmm . . . so refreshing!

Afterwards, I headed out to get some final things for my 80's costume and met Kirstin and Mary for Yogurtlandia . . . yum. I went home to get ready for the events of the evening!

I got dressed for Carnaval in Cadiz and headed to get some alcohol before boarding our bus at 8pm. It was quite embarrassing to walk through most of Sevilla in my 80's outfit, but oh well! We got to Cadiz and started drinking in the streets checking out everyone's costumes and then headed to the main plaza. Everyone was having a good time just hanging out, meeting new people, and taking pictures.

Much of Bus #1 when we were all still dry and happy!

Some of the girls!

After awhile a few of us really needed to use the restroom, did I mention the fact that all the bars block off their entries so you can still buy drinks from them, but aren't able to enter and use their facilities? This left us with a lot of alleyways, but luckily a group of us found some port-o-potties!

Find us a REAL bathroom, please!

Later, it started getting breezy and I insisted it was an ocean breeze, despite the fact that I knew it meant a storm was rolling in. Spain and it's crazy weather resulted in a group of us walking up and down streets looking for an open place to go sit inside, and after what seemed like forever, we settled on sitting inside a churros tent. Not the best location, but at least we weren't getting rained on anymore. Of course, I chose not to bring my umbrella because I didn't feel like holding it; although, I am not sure it would have been all that helpful, numerous umbrellas snapped in half while others were dropped and lost. Also, my fanny-pack (yes, I wore a fanny-pack! it went with my costume!!!) didn't have room for me to squeeze my raincoat inside, so I was soaking wet. The night turned from fun into miserable, leaving some of us to be jealous of the bums under the dry arches of doors in what looked like extremely dry, warm sleeping bags! You can guess when this next picture was taken:

Nap time in the Churros tent!

Luckily, due to the rain our bus left at 4:30 instead of 5:30 in the morning, but you can only imagine how humid and sticky and comfortable a coach bus full of 60 soaking wet 19-21 year olds can be. We gave in and took a taxi from where the bus dropped us off in Sevilla to our houses. I crawled into bed at 7:15 and slept for most of the day.

Sunday: I woke up around 3!! I felt bad, but I needed my sleep! I ate some lunch, did some homework, and then headed to Starbucks with Mary to do even more homework. I never really expected so much work, and it just stinks because my homework takes me so much longer due to everything being in spanish. I had some dinner, took a shower, and now I am going to finish up some work and probably watch some American TV :)

Thanks for reading! Sorry my posts have been so lengthy lately!

Now That I can Upload Pictures....

I wanted to share my 3 favorite pictures from Thursday night! hahaha . . .

This is my new best friend . . .
He is the 9 month old Portuguese Water Dog many of you already know about . . .

It's LOVE! Do you think the US will let me in with a puppy from Spain???

MUCH to say, lo siento

I haven't blogged in a couple days, so of course I have a lot to say. Let's go back to Sunday:

After lunch and some television watching Delaine and I headed out on a lovely afternoon walk. haha It was fun to people watch and check out some markets in Plaza Nueva. And as a bonus, we apparently found Spain's version of Dunkin' Donuts: Duffin Dagels (see pic below). We later ran into some of Delaine's friends at talked with them for a bit before heading home. That night I just stayed in and relaxed.

Monday: I had class at 11 and it was pouring rain, lucky me. After class, I tried shopping around for rain boots, I used to make fun of rain boots, but they are a necessity in Spain this month, but apparently not highly in-style. I could not find a pair of rain boots for the life of me, and the ones I could find were not quite what I had in mind . . . the first pair had a heel on them, rain boots WITH a heel, not ideal! The next pair had fur that folded over the top, being desperate for boots I decided to try them on and figured I could tuck the fur in, but luckily they were too small, because I couldn't imagine owning rain boots with fur on them. Finally I found a normal 'style' of boot, but the design on the other hand, not my thing. There were oranges all over them. I decided to ask the salesperson if they had them in another color and they did! GREY! Being the plain person I am, I was thrilled; however, they were a bit more expensive than I would have liked, but they have already been worth the money, and it has only been two days. After an hour and a half of shopping I headed home for lunch.

I had class again at 5, and before that I bought a sweatshirt that says Universidad de Sevilla on it. Boy, do I feel cool. haha Class was super boring, and I think I will rarely enjoy this class. Hopefully the art becomes more interesting in the near future. After class I headed to Flaherty's with Mary and Delaine to meet with Alfonso, our joint intercambio, if you will (which by the way, there is no phrase similar to 'if you will' in spanish as far as I know. We tried explaining the context of it to Alfonso for a good 5 minutes...which was really hard to do!) Then, it was home for the night.

Tuesday: Class at 9 and on the way it was kind of sunny and fairly warm and then out of NOWHERE it began pouring rain. They have the craziest weather here right now. As a matter of fact, when talking to Francisco at lunch about the weather he told me he likes to call February, 'Febrero Loco' (Crazy February) because of the weather. At least February is almost over so this unpredictable weather will hopefully be over! Then, I headed home to Skype with Jonboy and Sharon, and we were trying to plan our trips over Semana Santa!!!! Dublin and Amsterdam...this should be a great time! I think we have our flights all squared away, now we just have to book them! I had some lunch and again headed out to class at 5. (I am sure getting a routine here lately!) After class I think I just went home. I had some dinner and continued to Skype with Jonathon and Sharon again about our adventures in the near future (29 days until they get here . . . not that I'm counting or anything)! At dinner, Francisco was making fun of me and asked if I lost my arm and where my other arm was, because Spaniards eat with BOTH hands on the table, and I always have my left hand in my lap. Maria was reminding him it was a custom of Americans, and he told her he knows that he was just kidding, and told me that every exchange student they have had stay with them eats the same way. A few of us were planning on going out but due to the sudden torrential down pour, which wasn't much of a surprise to us anymore, we stayed in.

Wednesday: I went to my class at 9 and decided to hang around the CIEE building and do homework. Well, that fell through and I headed to get some Cafe con Leche with Rachel and Jasmine. We talked for awhile and headed back to CIEE to actually do some homework this time! The picture below is the inside of the CIEE building where I have my two spanish classes (I still need one of the University, and more of CIEE...it is crazy because it is open in the foyer, it rains into the building!)

I did my homework until Mary got done with her class and then we decided to get some ice cream with Jill when we stumbled across something EVEN BETTER....Yogurtlandia! Almost identical to Pinkberry! I was so pumped, especially because it is like 3 stores away from school! Not a good thing, but I will probably become a regular! We ate our ice cream in Plaza Alfalfa while the weather cooperated and headed home for lunch.

I just ate lunch and it was a pasta with a lot of tuna mixed in. I was disgusted. I tried to eat some, but it just wasn't happening because there was so much tuna....I had to tell them I don't like tuna and I felt so bad, because they asked if I liked it, because there was so much on my plate still haha. Luckily, Maria told me not to worry she doesn't like that pasta either and that's why she had this broccoli casserole thing and told me I could try that next time! I'm glad they weren't mad! I have class at 5 and a lot of homework to do for tomorrow, so that is what my night will be consumed with.

*One more thing about the weather (SORRY!): now it is pouring again, and it only drizzled for approximately 2 minutes earlier today and it was sunny. This drives me nuts because I never know if I should wear my rain boots and rain jacket, and I have to carry my umbrella with me everywhere! grrrr...