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!

Ein Prosit Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit

This past weekend I met up with all my friends from Richmond in Munich and went to Oktoberfest! It was so great to see everyone and catch up with them! I waited in the airport for a while to meet up with Hannah and Jessie. While I waited for them, I saw so many Richmond people come through arrivals. So comforting to see familiar faces. We all got to the hotel around 10ish and by that time we were all hungry after a long day of travel. Unfortunately, Germany is not like Spain where in Spain, every restaurant would be open. In Germany, all that was open was McDonalds, but we were starving so we went. We headed to bed early because the next morning we were up at 7 to get to the tents early to get in line. You had to get in line early because you had to get a table. No table means no beer. And really, why did we come to Oktoberfest? haha. That was enough motivation for all of us to wake up early. While we waited in line to get in, we found so many more Richmond people. It was so exciting to see so many people. Once we got in we ran to a table but in the end there was plenty of open tables. Once we got our table and found all of our friends, we quickly sat and as soon as we did the ladies came with steins of beer. We all got some beer and hung out for a while. Once we finished our first beer we got another one and headed over to "Richmond Territory" as I referred to it as. On Friday, we as Richmond dominated about 6 tables right next to each other. There were so many Richmond people in one area that someone referred to it as just an Oktoberfest themed lodge! It was so much fun seeing everyone from school.

Basically the tent for Americans

Think I could be a lady?

Richmond friends at Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest Rule #1: Do not stand on the tables. You could dance on the benches as much as you wanted but as soon as you placed a toe on the tables, the ladies would come yell at you. Unless you were chugging your beer, where in that case, the whole tent would cheer for you

Oktoberfest Rule #2: You must at least try to sing along with Ein Prosit, which the band plays every 20 minutes! "Ein Prosit" means "good cheer"Here is a just an idea of what it was like...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0xvDceYgqg

After hanging out at actual Oktoberfest for a while, we left and went and got some lunch. I then went and explored downtown Munich a bit. 

Dirndl Store

Glockenspiel

Onion Domes

While I was down in Marienplatz, I asked some lady where a good place to eat was. She told me about a restaurant right off of Marienplatz. I think we went where she told me to go, but I am not positive. I had some sausage and sauerkraut for dinner. #sogerman

We headed back to bed relatively early because guess what? We got to do the whole thing all over again the next day!

Saturday, there were even more people. So many people to the point that it was ridiculous! When they let us in the tent, there were so many people that I got squished between people, elbows in my ribs, could barely stand. Once we finally got in the tent, it was much harder to find a table. I found my friend Angela and joined her table quickly! I had a pretzel and it was delicious! Since we were in the tent that all the Americans were in, the band played Sweet Caroline at one point. It awesome! Basically, Saturday was like Friday on steroids.

Oktoberfest was a great time to catch up with friends and see everyone from Richmond. And I mean if you go to Richmond and are studying abroad in Europe for the semester, I saw you at Oktoberfest! Prost!

The Adventures Continue

So I have been very busy lately, just exploring the city, planning trips, and just hanging out.

My first day of school was Sept. 11. I am taking International Finance (My only class in English), Phonetics and Phonology ( I still can't quite tell the difference between the two, give me another week), Spanish Culture, and Economics of the EU. In my Spanish Culture class, there were about 12 Japanese students. I still can't figure out why they want to learn Spanish and not English? They really struggle with their Spanish to say the least. But the other day, they basically got kicked out of class and told to come back at 4 for a class at their level.

The other day Cece and I explored Alcazar, a 10th century castle. There, Christopher Columbus told King Ferdinand and Queen Isabelle all about his travels, Ferdinand Magellan went there before he sailed around the world, and Amerigo Vespucci thought about the name for the new world, America there too. (Thanks, Rick Steves)

Me in front of the Gardens of Alcazar

Courtyard of the Maidens

On Sundays, there isn't much to do around here because the whole city basically shuts down. So we went to the beach for a day in Portugal. Our neighbors, Hayley and Meredith were suppose to come with us, but they missed the bus.... 

So Cece and I enjoyed a nice day on the beach. It was a beautiful beach. However, because of the full moon the night before the tide was so high. So high, that we could not cross over to the other beach to go back up the stairs. It was like we were stuck on an island! We waited for about a half an hour and nothing really changed. We finally just made a run for it when the waves were out. One girl lost her phone and another guy lost his glasses. Luckily we made it with all of our stuff!

Beautiful Beaches of Algarve, Portugal

Beach cliffs at sunset

The Impassable Pass

I am headed to Munich for Oktoberfest with all my friends from Richmond on Thursday! I am so excited to see everyone again! 

Also, when I return, I will be moving host families. I will tell you more about that later, hopefully, tomorrow.

10 Things About the Past 10 Days

It has been very busy since I've gotten here, so here's a recap of the past 10 days.

1. The first few days, I spent a lot of the time just exploring the city.

Barrio Santa Cruz: a lot of shopping on windy streets

 

2. During the first week, I had an intensive class with people from all over. I was the only American in my class. There were Germans, Dutch, Brazilians, Poles. It was interesting to hear about their experiences in their home countries and how school works there. 

3. One day while taking a walk around the city, we walked past a wedding!

Military Wedding

4. I discovered an app for the bus system because there is no universal map that has all the bus lines on it. That has made my life so much easier.

5. On Saturday my roommate came. Her name is Michelle. She seems really cool.

6. We took a beach trip to Cadiz. It was so beautiful and relaxing.

The beach at Cadiz 

View of the old town at sunset

7. We explored Plaza Espana in Seville

Me in front of Plaza Espana

Cece and I in Plaza Espana

8. While exploring Parque Maria Luis, the park that Plaza Espana is in, we saw a ton of doves and pigeons and I held one! I was the only one out of my friends to get a bird to sit on my hand.

Me holding a dove

9. When I came back from Cadiz on Monday, my madre informed me that my roommate was leaving. She wanted to live closer to school, more in the suburbs. I'm sad that she's leaving me, she seemed really nice and a lot of fun. However, the plus side is I now have an open bed if anyone wants to come visit me!

10. On Sunday, a lot more Americans came to Seville for the start of classes on Wednesday. There are two girls who live right next door to me and one of them is named Meredith too! Her madre struggled too with the name Meredith. She told her madre to call her Meredi, which is much better than what mine calls me, Merh.

Me and Meredith

Pulling an All-Nighter my first day in Seville

So, I have been awake for the past 26 hours and so much has happened. I sat next to a stinky man, got left at the airport, got my wallet stollen, almost decided to jump on a plane back to Philly, met my whole family, and shared a nice afternoon with friends.

The flight to Madrid wasn't bad expect for sitting next to the stinky man. The flight from Madrid to Seville was wonderful! I was fortunate to be in business class. I was offered cocktails, sandwiches, drinks, chocolate and a moist towelette. I thought I was living high!

We arrive in Seville and Cece, my friend from Richmond, finds her real family quickly  who take her to her homestay family. I on the other hand, did not have that easy luxury. The loop was not closed that my family was not meeting me at the airport and I was supposed to take a cab to their house. So I waited and waited for my family to come, but no one ever showed. I felt like a lost puppy. My phone didn't have service so I couldn't even try to call someone. So I decided to try to use a pay phone. Yea, that will be the first and last time I ever tried that. They are so complicated and all the directions were in Spanish, but they weren't really directions, it was just all the different options and I was so flustered. I accidentally left my wallet there, which contains my LIFE! Once I realized that I almost started to cry. I asked everyone I saw if they had seen my wallet. I met these girls from Chile who were so helpful. Luckily the robbers in Spain are actually very nice and they only took my cash and left everything else in there for me. Once I found my wallet I still had to figure out how to get in contact with my family. We went to the tourist desk and I ended up using his wifi and phone to call my family and figure out how to get to their house.

Whew, that was enough for one day. When I got to my house, mi padres' grandchildren were there. They are around 12 and 15 I think.They were very nice. I think they will visit a lot which will be fun. My Spanish was a little rough at first. I may have told them that Alli was married. oops. But other than that I don't think I really butchered anything. We had fried potatoes and eggs for lunch and salad. Yum!

My lovely humble abode for the next 4 months

After lunch, my madre insisted on finding out exactly where Cece lives because she thinks she is close. She even called Cece's house just to say hello. I think I am really starting to like my madre. I finally took a siesta, thank goodness. Then I met Cece and her roommate Helen and we went for a walk. We talked about all the adventures we are going to have over these next 4 months, including going to the beach, a bullfight, discotecas, the archeological museum, and many more.

Tomorrow, I have orientation and my first day of Spanish intensive course. I hope I can figure out how to get to school.

View of my bus stop from my bedroom window