Life in Sevillle

Things have really started to settle in here in Seville. Two weeks ago, my culture class was cancelled for the week so we made it up last week by going to a flamenco show. While, the flamenco show was really cool, I've realized that I just don't like flamenco that much. The music and singing is usually very winey. And for me, I'm just not that impressed with ladies just stomping their feet around. But that's just my opinion, I encourage you all to see flamenco at some point if you have the chance, whether you like it or not, it is a good experience. During intermission, I was talking to one girl in my class who was also a dancer and she understood what I was saying about the relatively simple footwork. She had been to a flamenco show the night before for another one of her classes and said that you have to appreciate flamenco from more of a cultural and historical perspective instead of from a dance perspective. After that, I did appreciate the second half more. But I kept thinking about the tango show I saw in Argentina where it was incredible both from a historical/cultural perspective and a dance perspective.

Also, last weekend, I went on top of las setas (the mushrooms) with my friends, Hayley and Meredith. Las Setas are the largest wooden structure in the world. They are just a giant wooden structure that looks like a mushroom. You can go on top and see beautiful view of the city. We got lucky and happened to go up at sunset...

While I have really been trying to immerse myself in the Spanish culture and act as they do, many times people just know I am an American. I went to church this past weekend and a man and his 3 kids sat in front of me. They did not look Spanish at all but then there were speaking Spanish so I was quite confused. For the peace be with you, Spaniards usually give each other a kiss on the cheek, so I went for that but he knew I was American and went for the handshake, we kinda did a combination. Turns on he was actually Scottish but has lived in Seville for the past 20 years and is one of the directors for CEA, one of the study abroad programs. I'll keep trying to act as Spanish as possible :)

This weekend I am visiting Jessie in Madrid! Real Madrid plays FC Barcelona this weekend too! The game is in Barcelona so we won't actually be going to it but it will be so fun just to watch it. While I'd rather root for Barcelona, I think I have to root for Madrid if I am in Madrid! 

To the End of the World and Back: Lagos, Portugal

Last weekend Jessie and some other friends from Madrid came and met me in Seville then we all went to Portugal! We to a bus ride to Lagos and then went on a Sangria sailboat cruise. It was a lot of fun! We took smaller boats to explore the grottos and caves. They were named like rooms of a house with a taxi stop, a kitchen, and a bathroom. It was so pretty! We got back and jumped off the boat and swam around for a while.

Our Sailboat

Casual Titanic picture

Not a bad place to go for a swim

We got back to the hotel and got ready for dinner. Our guides took us downtown and showed us one of the best places to eat in Lagos, Nah Nah Bah. It was really good! I got nachos! We went out to a club then that night with all the people in the program to Portugal.

The next day, Saturday, we spent all day at the beach. It was a beautiful beach day, blue sky, sunny, and not too hot. 

Quick excursion to the cliffs before our beach day

My friends, Quinn and Constantine, and I swam all the way out to the sailboat. It was a bit farther than it looked.

 

That night we went to the end of the world to watch the sunset. Back in the old days, when people thought the world was flat, the Portuguese people thought this was the end of the world because you look to the left and all there is is water and you look to the right and there is nothing but water and you look straight out and there is nothing but water. It was super windy but absolutely beautiful. Even pictures can't capture just how beautiful it was.

The end of the world

Sunset at the end of the world

That night we had a guide take us to another fantastic restaurant for dinner. They were friends with the owner which was cool. I had portuguese styled prawns, yum! After that we headed to a bar where they covered a pool table with a piece of wood and then you could dance on it!

The next day was another beach day. Today, the sun was hot! We decided to stay at the beach by our hotel instead of going to the west coast because supposedly there were cliffs/rocks you could jump off of into the water. We got to the beach and all wanted to jump but we had to wait until high tide. A bunch of us went on quite an adventure. We climbed over a wall to a cool little cove. While in the cove we saw some kid sitting on a rock out in the ocean, so of course we swam to the rock to jump off of it like we saw the boy do. I scampered up the rock with no problem more or less, but when I got to the top, I sliced my finger. The rock was so rough that we were sliced up on our hands and feet. Getting up the rock was the easy part. Because the water was so clear, you could see the rocks right at the bottom but you didn't know how deep it was. We probably spent about 15 minutes strategizing how to jump off the rock. Eventually we all jumped off the rock, and luckily no one hit a rock on the way down. It was so much fun!

The wall we climbed over...

...to the cove (see the rock in the background?)

It was sad to leave beautiful Portugal and my Madrid friends. However, many more adventures to come. I booked trips to Rome with friends from Seville and Paris with friends from Richmond. Maybe I'll take a quick weekend trip to visit Jessie in Madrid!

Home is where the Heart is

So this past Monday I moved into my new house with my friend Cece...It is absolutely wonderful! When I was thinking about this blog post I was going to do things I missed about my old house and things I wouldn't miss about my old house. But the more I thought about it, there were very few things I would miss about my old house.

A few would be:
          1. being called "guapa" "cariña" and "hija" (pretty, darling and daughter)
          2. having salad every night
          3. trying to figure out pasapalabra (maybe you can figure it out...Pasapalabra

A few things I knew I would not miss at all:
          1. the bathroom....having to ask to take a shower so my madre would turn the hot water on,                     walking in and there being pee in the toilet and the seat up, then getting in the shower and only being about to rinse my hair with one hand because the shower head it not attached to the wall.
          2. being so far away from everything, 45 minutes from the centro by bus
          3. having fried food everyday, specifically french fries
          4. taking taxis home and night and always having that nervous feeling as I struggled to jiggled the keys to my first door of my apartment building

Don't get me wrong, I loved my old padres, but my new madre, Susana, is so cool! As soon as I got there with all my suitcases, she asked if I wanted some coffee or tea and we just sat and chatted for about 45 minutes. I mean it was easy stuff about where I am from, my family, what I am studying, and what I like to do. She told me too that we all eat lunch together but she goes out with her friends or one of her 11 siblings in the evenings so she leaves my food on the table and I can just heat it up whenever I want. It's nice not the feel the pressure to be home for dinner at a specific time. She made huevos a la flamanca for me for dinner one night, its one of my new favorite dishes here. Its vegetables covered in tomato sauce with a poached egg on top. While I don't get salad every night, I get a lot of vegetables. I had peppers today and I had some kind of vegetable last night for dinner. I have no idea what it was and I had never heard of the word when I asked her what it was. And while I thought I would miss pasapalabra, I am much happier just chatting with Susana. We just kind of chat quite a bit. I mean it's nothing serious, we talked about her dryer for 3 minutes and about Pamplona for 10 minutes, but hey at least I'm having conversations with her. I think I have talked to her more in the past few days that I did with my old host padres in the past month.

Also I just love how close I am to everything. I met friends down on Calle Betis the other night ( a street with a bunch of bars on it). At the end of the night, they took a cab home and I just walked about half a mile home. The streets were so well lit and I felt very safe, a feeling I haven't felt in a while.

Here's some pictures of my new house :

The Living Room

Kitchen Table

Check out my incredible shower!

See the Giralda in the background of the view from my rooftop terrace 

My room

Also, I want to give a huge shoutout to Davey Dog for selling a mill! Woohoo!

This is the closest thing I could find to hoagies and red wine : )

Tomorrow, I go to Portugal for the weekend with Jessie and some of her friends in Madrid!