What a wonderful weekend!

Students from a business school in Tangier came to Sevilla for the weekend and I was lucky enough to be able to spend time with them Saturday and Sunday. Their school receives 10,000 applications a year and only accepts 200 students. On Saturday, two other students and I accompanied them on a tour around the city. We took the metro from Nervion to El Centro. The students were having a hard time with the escalator and I couldn't help but laugh and of course hold their arms and tell them when to jump.

On Sunday they put on a bunch of activities for us including a concert, a fashion show, and a traditional moroccan wedding. I was originally asked to be in the fashion show but when I arrived at the Palacio on Sunday I was informed that I would be the Moroccan bride because the girl who was supposed to do it had other plans. Moroccan weddings are 3 days long; the bride and groom have their own wedding on the first two days and they're together on the third day. The bride usally has 3-4 dresses, and the long white gown is worn on the third day.

Dates with walnuts..so yummy! I had one when I first walked in and I was told that I shouldn't be eating on my wedding day. They are served with milk and if you offer a glass of milk to people when they enter your home you are considered generous.

The bride's hands are done up with henna on day 1 of the wedding. When it dries, the designs are very red and beautiful. Traditionally, it is done on both sides of the hands all the way up past the wrists but only the top of my hands were done. This red dress was dress number 1.

And here is dress number 2. My "husband," Josh, is also wearing his second outfit. The girls did my hair and make-up, too.

Later that night, we all went out for tapas and had a great time. We ate spinach croquettas, cheese, salad, bread, and everyone but me ate seafood paella while I had pork in whiskey sauce. Muslims cannot eat meat unless it is killed the right way, and they are forbidden to consume anything made with alcohol. We also learned that all of this is freedom of choice. If you choose to drink alcohol, you can. If you choose not to wear the head scarf, you don't have to. The girls left for Tangier and Courtney and I are hoping we get to see them again when we go to Morocco in April. 

5 days until Italy!!!

8 Days Later

Sorry for not updating this week has been hectic. I had 2 midterms on Thursday, one for my Intercultural Communication class and another for The Image of the United States in Spain: 100 Years of Myths and Stereotypes. Both exams went well but I feel like I did better on my Image one. Talking about school is lame so on to more important things...

Important thing #1: McDonald's has beer.

Important thing #2: WE WENT TO A FÚTBOL GAME! Sevilla FC vs. Coruña..the game ended in a tie but it was a great time nonetheless. The fan section is right behind the goal and they literally sing and bang drums and go nuts the whole time. I learned a few songs, some good and others histerical.

Important thing #3: A group of students from a business school in Tangier, Morocco are here in Sevilla! Two other American students and I accompanied them on a tour around the city today. A few of the girls are putting on a fashion show and asked me to be in it so that's what I'll be doing tomorrow afternoon.

Que mas? Students were protesting outside of the University on Thursday and Ramon, my intercambio, continues to show me where the best bakeries, shopping, and pizza in Sevilla are. The weather has been gorgeous and we leave for Italy on Thursday :)

11 de Marzo

Today is a very important day for me personally and for Spain as a whole. My grandmother would have been 73 years old today. Happy birthday, Nana, we all miss you and love you.

It is also the 7th anniversary of the train bombing in Madrid. I ask you all to keep my family and those families of the 190+ victims of the bombing in your prayers today.

Each bomb was filled with dynamite and nails.

"Sevilla no es una ciudad, es un sentimiento"

Translation: Sevilla is not a city, it's a feeling.


The truest words I have ever heard.

Tonight I taught Inma who 50 Cent is. This song is very popular in Europe right now and it's hilarious because no one here really knows what it's saying:



I played her the original version and explained to her why it's so funny to me. Clearly the two songs sound nothing alike. The music scene here is a curious one. Everyone loves American music, but not good American music. Like that Black Eyed Peas song, "I've Got A Feeling." I want to shoot myself every time I hear that song but it's guaranteed that you will hear it at least 15 times when you go out at night. Oh well. Speaking of going out, it's 1 Euro Wednesday at 100 Montaditos. Hasta Luego!

Flamenco

..Enjoy!

Monday, Monday

Tonight we got to play dress-up with Inma. She makes these beautiful...things (I can never remember what they're called but the women here wear them all the time especially during La Feria). Her daughter lives in Barcelona and helps her sell them online. Our job was to model them!

They're a lot more expensive than you think. She was working on the white one when we arrived in Sevilla and told us that it will sell for around 600 Euros (around $800). There were a few more and pictures don't do them very much justice.
In other news, it's still raining. Wednesday looks promising and supposedly all of next week too so we'll see. I had my first intercambio meeting today. An intercambio is when you meet with a Spaniard and talk to them in Spanish to improve your Spanish and then in English to help with their English. We talked about the differences between Spain and America; I taught him how to tip in American restaurants and he taught me about different tapas that I should try the next time Courtney and I go out. It's a great opportunity to practice and I'm really trying to learn more.

I'm going to update older posts with pictures so feel free to scroll.

I love being productive

The past 24 hours have been excellent. We booked hostels for Venice, Rome, and Paris. All that's left to do is Florence! We also found the store where we can buy Universidad de Sevilla sweatshirts but it was closed so we're going back tomorrow. We went to mass at la catedral tonight and it was very overwhelming. There was no music and of course everything was in Spanish. I could understand most of what was going on but I'm going to look for a Spanish mass guide online or something. It would be pretty cool to learn the Our Father in Spanish. Everyone has family and friends coming to visit and I wish that I could bring my parents here. Yeah that's right Mom and Dad, I haven't forgotten about you!!! I know that you guys would love it here as much as I do and when I'm rich one day I will bring you back here. After mass Courtney and I walked around and stopped at a bar on San Jacinto to just hang out. We ended up staying there for over an hour just talking and reminiscing about life at home and at Bryant. I'm afraid that I am going to never appreciate America ever again but then again I hope I get the chance to explore my own country someday. Going out tonight is still up in the air so we'll see about that. Tomorrow we're going to go to the bus station to get tickets for Madrid and Portugal and then we're going to buy sweatshirts. It's still going to rain all week again. Everyone here is worried that Semana Santa and Feria are going to be ruined by this weather. I'll be spending the first part of Semana Santa (Holy Week) in Italy and Courtney and I are making it a priority to go to mass at the Vatican. I'm very excited about what the next few months hold for us. That's all for today! Buenas noches :)

I'm Back!

I am a genius! The virus is no more. Marisa: 1 Computer: 0

Last weekend's sightseeing was spectacular. On Saturday I took Courtney to Real Alcazar because she hadn't been there yet. I also got to explore a lot more because the first time that I went it was before a class so I didn't have much time to see everything. Everything was so beautiful and the gardens went on for what seemed like forever. I can't wait to go back in the Spring and see everything in bloom. And yes, it is still "winter" here. These people have no idea what it's like to be cold.

After Real Alcazar we went into Archivo General de Indias, The General Archive of the Indies. This building holds over 500 years of historical documents. They had an exhibit on the history of pirating and we saw documents from Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, and many more. It was pretty cool, but everything was in Spanish and hard to read.
On Sunday we spent our day at la Catedral. We spent HOURS in there and still didn't see everything. It was gorgeous.

The outside of La Catedral

Standing in front of Christopher Columbus' tomb. The person that took this clearly had no idea what they were doing.

There are plenty more. I took about 200 pictures and for some reason I can't upload the few that I want to upload right now. We climbed La Giralda which is the tower of la Catedral. It's 34 levels of ramps (it was built so people could ride horses to the top) and the view is stunning.

..Did I mention that it started to rain as soon as we got to the top? Imagine sunshine and blue skies please.

Monday we didn't have class because it was Dia de Andalucia. Courtney took me to Plaza de Espana and Parque de Maria Luisa.

We also explored el Barrio de Santa Cruz, which is supposedly the rich neighborhood of Sevilla.

It was back to reality on Tuesday. But reality is still Spain for the next two months or so. The weather here has been rainy still. It is very unusual for it to rain this much and the coast is flooded. Between the crazy weather, the earthquakes in Haiti, Chili, and Taiwan, I am convinced the world is ending. There was a very scary video on the news yesterday of waves crashing through the windows of a cruise ship.

To everyone going on spring break this week, be safe and have fun :)

More viruses

Only this time they are in my computer rather than my stomach. Blogging from an itouch is a bit difficult. Anyways, Courtney and I spent our long weekend in Sevilla and I don't regret it one bit. We visited La Catedral, climbed La Giralda, went to Real Alcazar, explored el barrio de Santa Cruz, saw an exhibition at El Archivo General de Indias, and much more. I will elaborate and post pictures as soon as my computer is fixed. Oh and we went to La Plaza de Espana and El Parque de Maria Luisa (how could I forget). It's back to school tomorrow but I am glad we only have three days of class this week. We are going hiking with CIEE on Sunday and I can't wait! More to come soon, buenas noches!

Quotes of the Night

Courtney: Oh you're from New Jersey? Do you speak English?

Spanish Man: Adonde vais?
Abby: Crees en una otra vida?

Me: Do you think we've changed? I don't think we have.
Courtney: I think we've matured...HAHAHA

Buenas!

The past two days have been very interesting for me. Yesterday I decided to sit outside of a cafe and do homework after class in el centro. Of course I end up running into Courtney and later we met up with Renee. We sat outside just talking and out of nowhere comes a giant political protest down la Avenida de la Constitucion. Here's an article (it's all in Spanish) but you can see a little picture of what we encountered:

http://www.diariodesevilla.es/article/sevilla/640026/miles/trabajadores/protestan/contra/pensionazo/sevilla.html

The retirement age here is 65 years and the government wants to raise it to 67. The people want to leave it at 65 or lower it to 60, and rightfully so. I wish I had my camera for this! There were so many people. Did I mention the weather was gorgeous yesterday?

Today it poured and I forgot my umbrella. I was literally dripping wet when I walked into my Intercultural Communication class at 11:00. I really enjoy that class because we learn about intercultural communication but the class itself is all about it. Our professor speaks hardly any English and every class we teach her something new. Today, for instance, we taught her what the Pledge of Allegiance is and she taught us that putting your right hand over your heart is an American form of nonverbal communication.

My Image of the United States in Spain class was VERY interesting tonight, too. We're learning about when the US wanted to buy Cuba from Spain but instead of talking about that I got our professor off track and we talked about religion in Spain for the majority of class. He explained to us that being Catholic in the US is completely different from being Catholic in Spain. They think that we're Puritans because we incorporate religion into our private lives. For them, religion and personal life are kept completely separate. I was fascinated and asked him what the point was to even have a religion. It's like Spainards believe in God but they don't have faith because God hasn't helped them throughout history. So all their lives they pretty much do whatever they want. The Virgin Mary is far more important to them than God or Jesus, because she is their Mother. In their eyes, mothers always forgive so when you're on your death bed, you just ask for forgiveness and it is granted to you because mothers always forgive their children.

I'm learning a lot and I will be enjoying my time a lot more if it stops raining!!!!!!!!!!

Granada recap..finally!

There are not enough hours in the day. I've also been waiting for Courtney to post her pictures from Granada (I didn't bring my camera) so I could use them but she hasn't yet and I don't feel like waiting anymore. I can always add them later or I'll probably just use Annie's. So here we go: I'm going to talk about Granada by following the itinerary we had for the trip.

Friday, February 20

8:00am: Leave for Granada from the Puerta de Derecho (at the University)
 Waking up this early was gross. We biked to the university and I tried my best to sleep on the bus. It was a 3 hour bus ride and I tried to sleep for the first hour and a half. For the last hour and a half I gave up and just talked to the guiya who was sitting next to me. His name was Pablo, and I'm pretty proud of myself for having a legitimate conversation in Spanish for almost 2 hours.

12:00pm: Arrive and check-in, Hotel Alixares
Our hotel was pretty nice. I roomed with Courtney, Annie, and Veronica. Our room was on the first floor, which was great...or so we thought.

1:00pm: Lunch in the Hotel
You're going to have to ask Courtney how lunch was, because I slept right through it. It was a much needed nap, and I definitely would not have enjoyed the day as much as I did if I stayed awake. The girls woke me up before we had to leave and they all said the food was great. It was a buffet so needless to say I was excited for dinner.

3:00pm: Meet in the lobby to visit el Barrio del Albaicin. Our guides will take us through the tight streets to El Mirador de San Nicolas, where you can take the most authentic photos of the Alhambra and of the city. After we will descend to the city center to visit the Capilla Real in which you find los Reyes Catolicos (the tomb of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella).
I was pretty mad that I didn't have my camera when we got up here. The view was beautiful; you could see the Sierra Nevada mountains, the Alhambra, and all the beautiful buildings in the city.

 

Annie took this picture of us. You can see the white tops of the mountains in the background. Pretty cool.

Afterwards we walked through Barrio del Albaicin. All the houses were white to reflect the sun; it gets unbearably hot in the summertime. The streets were tiny, and the roads were hilly. We eventually got to this hippie plaza. I fell in love. People were just hanging out and selling stuff they made. I bought a painting of the Alhambra from a girl. The black parts were done by a man in Belgium and she did the colors. It's one-of-a-kind. We headed around the Barrio some more and then to La Capilla Real. Seeing the tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella was a bit creepy, but exciting at the same time. The tomb is  above ground. It was massive, made out of marble with the most elaborate carvings and sculptures. You then went down this teeny set of stairs to see the actual coffins with their bodies inside. You obviously couldn't see the actual bodies. The chapel was gorgeous, too. You weren't supposed to take pictures but Courtney took them anyway so when she posts them so will I.

5:30pm: After, our guide will accompany us to the city center and we will have tea with arab desserts at Teteria Kasbah. After tea, you have free time.

Teterias are hookah bars and they were EVERYWHERE in Granada. The tea was delicious (we had two kinds-one was really minty, but yummy) and the desserts were too. We walked around the marketplaces afterwards and I bought lots of presents for my favorite people back home. Hopefully everything fits in my suitcase! Of course we found another hookah bar and drank more tea before we had dinner at the hotel.

9:00pm: Dinner at the Hotel

Our hotel was on a hill in the middle of nowhere. The girls were freaking out because they were so hungry and we couldn't find our hotel. We ended up taking a taxi back that cost us 4 Euros. We were happy that we were so close. Dinner was everything I hoped and dreamed it would be. 

After dinner I called David and talked to him for a while. I called my mom after that, too. Technology has been pretty good to me so far. I went back to the room to shower and was warned about the flood in the bathroom. The showerhead was pretty powerful, and Courtney and Veronica showered while I was on the phone in the lobby. Even if I had Noah's Ark I wouldn't be prepared to the mess that I walked into. The water didn't spray in the shower but I made it so that when I showered the water stayed where it belonged.

Granada nightlife wasn't as fun as Sevilla's. The only good thing was that you got free tapas with every drink you ordered. I had a cup of tinto de verano at the first bar and we all got turkey and cheese melts with french fries. Yum! And that was the only 2 Euros I spent all night. Annie and I walked back around 3:00am and almost got kidnapped. It was the first time I haven't felt safe in Spain. But we're ok, and that's all that matters. Moving on!

Sunday, February 21

8:45am: Breakfast in the Hotel

YEAH RIGHT. CIEE also convienently signed us up for wake-up calls at 8:40. Thanks for that.

11:00am: Meet in the hotel lobby to visit La Alhambra and General Life

Huge and incredible. I'll have to post pictures because no words do it justice. General Life is just the area where the king and everybody else who was under him would spend their days. La Alhambra used to be a city completely separate from Granada.

  

Enjoying the view

2:30pm: Lunch in the hotel

By the time lunch came around, we were all literally starving. Lunch was delicious and I had ketchup for the first time since I've been here. After lunch I bought a couple more presents.

4:00pm: Leave for Sevilla

Adios, Granada! It's been real. I didn't want to leave; Granada was definitely my favorite trip so far. The entire bus was silent for the first hour and a half. We stopped at the strangest rest stop ever and then everyone was awake again..sort of. We got back around 7:30pm then biked home. 

All in all, a great trip and I wouldn't hesitate to go back to Granada :)

One More Thing

I had Nicole set up the internet on my iTouch so now I can use it in the apartment. Thanks, Nicole! There are a bunch of different ways to get in touch with me, but here are a few:

Email: mbono@bryant.edu
Skype: marisaabono
Text: marisabono@textfree.us
Phone: (603) 574-4359

Just Living the Life

So Monday was the 4 week mark. Technically though yesterday was the 1 month anniversary of our arrival in Sevilla. I can't believe how fast everything is already going by. This week is the last week in February! Where has the time gone? I guess I will never know. The rain here has been brutal. Luckily, this is what I woke up to today:

..Not bad, eh? I didn't sleep at ALL last night and when I did finally fall asleep, I had the strangest of dreams. Regardless my lazy butt got out of bed at 1:00 this afternoon and showered. We had paella for lunch! God bless you Inma, I knew you would make today a good day.

We then had natillas for dessert! It's basically homemade pudding with cookies in it. Yum.

 

 

After lunch Courtney and I decided to gallivant around Sevilla because we obviously couldn't let this beautiful weather go to waste (it's going to rain for the next 10 days again). She convinced me that the Palacio was open so we could go get some homework done on the patio outside but of course we rode our bikes there and it was closed. We decided to walk back down through El Centro to the river.

That's Hotel Alfonso XII, where all the famous people stay when they come to Sevilla. 

There's the pretty fountain with the hotel in the background. God I'm such a tourist. There are a bunch of benches around that fountain. I usually try to find one between classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays to chill out and eat lunch if the weather's nice. We went down by the river and sat on a dock for about 10 minutes before the nice man on one of the boats told us we could not be there. We laid down in the sun in our usual spot and listened to some music and I passed out for a good 20 minutes. I was a cat in another life, I swear. It started to get pretty chilly so we left and Courtney did some shopping. We leave for Granada tomorrow for the rest of the weekend, so I will update the blog when I can! Besitos :)

Boo

Being sick in Spain is probably the worst part about going abroad. I want to be curled up with Farley watching OnDemand reruns of Jersey Shore and free movies. And surrounded by warm gingerale and Saltines. And be waited on hand and foot. I'm a baby.

I'm never taking another history class again.

Quote of the day

Me: Are we talking about aliens?
Courtney: I thought we were talking about living in South America..

This is what happens when all your classes are in Spanish.

Random Thoughts

I have discovered the beauty of the .30 centimo combination of cappichino and hot chocolate that comes out of a vending machine. I'm also starting a list of the foods I miss the most:

1. Peanut butter & jelly sandwiches
2. Buffalo chicken anything
3. BBQ chicken personal pizza from Ronz
4. Nachos
5. Tacos
6. My mother's meatballs
7. Chicken parm
8. Cookie dough
9. Chunky Monkey ice cream
10. Reese's

La Carnaval de Cádiz: Una Noche Espectácula

La Carnaval was absolutely amazing. There are no words to describe it. I'll let pictures and videos do the talking. Everyone was fascinated by my hair!

I was a rock-n-roll troll, but I don't think people got it right away. Courtney and I went with Discover Sevilla, a student travel agency. They bussed hundreds of people to Cádiz, it was madness. Pure madness. They had a costume contest on each bus and I won third place (a t-shirt). Kurt won second place as a nerd and some other girl one first place as a Greek girl. There was so much music and dancing and everyone in costume looked phenomenal.

It honestly puts Halloween to shame. Courtney, Renee, and I walked around all night until it was time to go home at 2:35am. The buses were late because of the police controlling traffic and for some reason that lead to everyone pushing each other to get on a bus. While we were waiting we met some poor girl who dislocated her shoulder, it was pretty gruesome. We got on the bus and they gave us all sandwiches. The vegetarian sandwiches were Nutella. Guess who was a vegetarian for the bus ride home? Me.

All in all a FABULOUS night and I cannot wait to go to Italy with these two girls!

Paris

April 9-12..booked!

I'll tell you how I really feel

Bank of America shut my card off, turned it back on, changed my pin number, and now I have no access to any of my money until the secret envelope with my pin number gets sent to my house. Awesome.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

It is seriously the most miserable day in Sevilla today. It's rainy, it's cold, it's windy. Que lastima. My first week of classes went well. I changed my schedule around so now I have 3 classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and only 1 on Mondays and Wednesdays. Courtney and I have 2 classes together. We got kind of antsy in Spanish for Business so towards the end I was drawing stick figure comics about our lives. Classes here are so different. Everything is in Spanish, and some classes you do absolutely nothing (like my Spanish for Business class) while others you have to do minimal reading, and others you have to read an entire book. Right now I'm taking..

MW Spanish for Business (3-5pm,  9-11am home time)
TR Intercultural Communication (11am-12:35pm, 5-6:35am home time)
      History of 3 Cultures in Spain: Christians, Jews, and Muslims (1-3pm, 7-9am home time)
      The History of the United States in Spain (5-6:35pm, 11am-12:35pm home time)

My 3 Cultures class is the one I have to read an entire book for. Oh and write a paper. In all my other classes my grades are based on two tests, a midterm and a final. I'm not too worried about that class though because we get to go to a lot of cool places outside of class and the professor is interesting.

I gave in the other day after class and went to M.A.S. (the grocery store here) to buy Principes. I went in and they were playing Eminem in the store. Unedited. I laughed because I knew that there was a good chance that not a single person had any idea what they were listening too. I thought a lot more people here would speak English. I've meet a few Spaniards who speak minimal English but none who are fluent.

Speaking of things being uncensored, the news here is very graphic. During the earthquake in Haiti, they were showing children being operated on without anesthesia. Another point in time they showed a man having a sex change operation. No one even blinks at things like this! I finally learned why. Before democracy came to Spain, the country was ruled by a dictator named Franco. Everything was very censored; women had to dress very conservatively and certain things on TV were edited out, for example. To Spainiards, democracy means total freedom, including no censorship. Even though America's government is deomocratic, to them we are not free because everything is censored. It was an interesting take on things.

On a lighter note, Courtney Marie Viehl is the love of my life. The other night I had the worst migraine. I couldn't eat a bite of dinner so I went to bed at 9:30. Courtney and I had class together the next day so when we got out around 6:30 we decided we were going to walk home rather than bike because it was a nice night out. This was the conversation we had:

Courtney: Marisa, I have to tell you something, but you might get mad at me.
Me: (Stops walking) What did you do?
Courtney: ....Dave and I are dating
Me: -_-
Courtney: No ok but seriously...while you were sleeping last night, I booked two plane tickets to Italy.

You can only imagine my reaction. There was a lot of screaming and jumping up and down. We're going for the first part of Semana Santa in March. Our itinerary looks something like this:

March 25: Bus from Sevilla to Madrid
March 26: 7am flight from Madrid to Venice
March 28: Train from Venice to Rome
March 31: Flight from Rome to Madrid, bus from Madrid to Sevilla

We're still working on hostels right now but I couldn't be more excited that we're really going to Italy!

La Carnaval in Cadiz is tomorrow and we're leaving around 8:00pm and getting back around 5:00am. We decided to bear the awful rain and go out to do a bit of costume shopping today. Hopefully the weather isn't this bad tomorrow but we'll see!

I'M GOING TO ITALY!!!!!

More details to come later! Too excited right now to post anything. AHHHHHHHHHHHH :) :)

Back to School

Well today was a nice reality check..well, sort of. I had my first class at 9 today. The professor strolled in at 10 past 9. Being on time in Spain means being 10 minutes late. The class is the Contemporary History of Spain and I'm pretty sure I'm going to try to drop it. I'm without a doubt dropping my Services Management class. There is no way I will ever make it there on time. I didn't even bother going today, there was no point.
I guess I'll never know what I missed on that first day of Services Management class...

Mom where were you to take me out to lunch on my first day of school!? :( I missed that today and I hope you didn't think I forgot. We'll have to go out when I come home. I miss you and Daddy and give Farley lots of kisses for me.

It was raining this morning but I biked to school anyways. I haven't been sleeping well the past week or so and I'm starting to get sick because of it. I don't have class until 1:00 tomorrow so hopefully I can actually get some sleep tonight.

Courtney and I have our Spanish for Business class together. There's a couple girls from my intensive course, too. The teacher seems really nice and the class doesn't seem like too much work. It was gorgeous out today after class so we went to the Discover Sevilla office and got our wristbands for La Carnaval this Saturday. We went to the river afterward and just laid on the ground and enjoyed the sun. We saw two boys fishing and one of them actually caught a huge fish. It was extremely amusing to watch the whole process and I wish I had my camera. I decided today that I'm going to take my camera with me everywhere I go because I find myself saying "I wish I had my camera" a lot more than I would like.

Oh! I signed up for a workshop for study abroad students today. The program certifies you to teach English to little ninos and other students part-time. It's on Monday, February 22 for 2.5 hours. I guess after that you get a little diploma and you can start advertising your English classes and charge 10 Euro an hour ($14). The only thing I'm not sure about is where exactly you can teach. I live in a homestay so obviously I can't teach here. I emailed the people in the program so I'll have to wait and see what they say. Courtney and I are also going to sign up for a Sevillana dance class. I haven't taken a dance class since I was 5 so this promises to be interesting.

Well it's off to bed for now. I'll be fighting with the CIEE people on Wednesday to change my schedule. Wish me luck! Buenas noches :)

PS: cinco <3 tag

Happy 53rd Birthday, Fasha

 

I love you, Dad!

Weekend Recap

So it's Sunday. We had our final yesterday for our intensive Spanish course. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I'll go as far as to say that it was a lot easier than my first exam. Courtney and I rode our bikes to school and there was only one open spot at the station by the CIEE building. Courtney took one for the team and walked her bike back to Plaza Nueva and made it to her exam right at 3:00. The weather was gorgeous when we got out so we decided to ride our bikes and walk around the city for the rest of the afternoon. We have this little cafe that we've been to once before. It's literally floating on the river. We were there for probably about an hour and the CUTEST little Spanish girl was sitting next to us with her parents. Her name was Pilar and she was 4 years old. I wish we lived with a little girl because she could probably teach us more Spanish than any class ever could.
The kids here are so cute! One of the first things I noticed in Sevilla was how well-behaved the children and animals were. You rarely see dogs on leashes and you never see kids on leashes. I feel like at home parents are so overprotective of their kids but here they're like, "Ok little Pedro if you want to go down the steep downhill bikepath sitting on your skateboard then have fun. If you get hurt, you'll know not to do it again." That's the best way I can explain it. It's just much more relaxed here and everyone seems a lot happier.
Anyways, we literally had the worst luck with the bikes yesterday. I kept getting broken ones and there was always only one spot in every station we tried to go to. It all worked out though and hopefully it was a once in a while occurance.
Last night we went down by the river. Apparently that's the thing to do before you go out and it's perfectly legal. A bunch of 20-something (even younger) year-old kids just drinking outside by the river. Blew my mind. I only drank water last night and I have to admit I felt very out of place but I still had fun. There are about 20 people from Penn State in our program and we went out with 6-7 Penn State girls.
It's pretty nice out today so Courtney and I are gonna bike and try to find the building our business classes are in. I'm trying to change my schedule and I need to find the syllabi for the other courses I can take. It's such a pain. Inma' s been out and about all weekend so she's been making us lunch then leaving it out for us. She made pasta today and I'm getting hungry so time to eat. Buen provecho!

PS-A special hello to Mr. & Mrs. Potvin. It was wonderful videochatting with you yesterday!

The Perfect Friday Night

Success!

Oh..

HI DAVE :)

The Evil Naranjas

I've been bed ridden all day. My stomach still doesn't completely agree with all of the food here. Inma freaked out when I couldn't really eat lunch today. I managed to put down the French potato soup. The second plate was what looked like chicken cutlets but I still have no idea what kind of meat it was. It was dark with a rough texture. No bueno. She offered to make me 10,000 other things and I had to explain to her that I couldn't really eat anything. I'm pretty sure it was gorgeous out today, too. At least it's going to be 68 and sunny on Sunday.

Last night Courtney, Annie, and I had some fun with the orange trees. The oranges aren't sweet. They're used to make marmalade but I swore I wouldn't leave without trying one. Well, I did and it was disgusting. Trying to get the thing out of the tree was the best part though. Who knew orange trees had thorns? Not us. It was painful.





Oh and Annie's coming to Portugal with us! Very excited. We somehow managed to skip La Churreria AGAIN last night so we're going tonight after dinner. I swear.

I'm a Heavy Child Grandmother

Today was the last day of class! It was also the second really poopy rainy day I've seen since I've been here. It rained all night and it stopped around noon and then it was nothing but sunshine for the rest of the day. This weekend is supposed to be beautiful, too. My apologies to all of those bearing the New England weather.

I decided to color today, and Inma thought it was hilarious. Courtney made fun of me too but then requested a drawing. She's a strange girl. But yes, Imna asked me if i was a nina and the answer was obviously si. I really need to figure out how to put accents and ~s in this thing.

We had a very strange lunch today. The first plate was a mixture of vegetables, mostly chick peas and pea pods and other things. That was good, we've had it before. The second pate was a bunch of strange meat. We didn't like it too much but of course we sucked it up and ate it anyways. Before class I was in my room and I yelled over to Courtney in her room, "Courtney, llevame en su espalda" (carry me on your back) and Inma almost immediately goes.."Pero tu pesas mucho!" (but you weigh a lot). We laughed for literally the next ten minutes. People outside probably thought I was crazy because I was still laughing.

We got to school and I told Courtney I wanted to go into the antique shop that's across the street. Between that and all the museum talk in the past two days, I guess she had legitimate reasons to call me a grandma. Oh the life I lead.

Inma's kicking us out tonight. She said that all we do is go to class and come back to the house and we should go out tonight. So we're going out with some of the girls to some bar called Long Island. Let's get a little more American, shall we? I've never been there before so it should be interesting. Apparently girls get free sangria on Thursday nights there so at least the night will be yummy. We also decided to save churros for the way home.

Some of My Favorite Pictures (So Far)

Uploading pictures in Spain is so difficult. I don't know why I have such a hard time; everybody else does it so easily! But I'm sitting in a cafe and I FINALLY got some pictures on Facebook, so maybe they will work here too.

This is the main altar of the Cathedral in Cordoba. This picture does it no justice.

These are some of the Roman ruins we visited in Italica. This was the coliseum. Everything is so well preserved. There were mosaics everywhere, too.

This is our walk to class every morning. The river is beautiful. There are a couple different ways to get where we need to go but when it is nice out the river is the best.

This is my little bed! The sheet is pulled back because I took this right before my siesta. I can't take a picture of my whole room because it's teeny tiny. I love it. There's these shades/blinds on the outside of all the windows in Sevilla that completely block out the sun. They make any time of day seem like midnight.