Waka Waka

Left early Thursday morning and after a 2 hour bus ride followed by an hour long, nausea-inducing Ferry ride, we were in AFRICA -- no big deal.  

Concerns before leaving for Morocco:

• Dirty water - our director told us that the water is sub par when coming to cleanliness and many people get sick from it.  He suggested we even brush our teeth with bottled water.
• Food - we had also been informed that the food has an effect on those with weak stomachs that makes them "ir al bano todo el dia" (go to the bathroom all day). 
• Ferry ride - in the past, numerous students have gotten sick on the Ferry ride and would puke everywhere.  Getting motion sickness even when driving in cars as well as a friend on the trip who has a fear of people throwing up was cause for high concern for me.
• Men - a cultural characteristic of Morocco is that the women only leave the house when necessary.  Which means basically everyone walking around in the city were men.  Walking around in a huge group of Americans always ends up in us getting stared down by the Europeans, so we were somewhat prepared for this, only to find out that it would be 10x worse than in Europe.

We touched ground in Morocco and headed straight to the "Escuela Taller de Tetuan" - the school of craftmanship.  We were fortunate enough to run into Moroccan students working on their pieces and immediately saw the skill, patience and precision that was required of the students.  We were able to see the departments of painting, wood work, carving, sculpting, ceramic tiling and embroidery.  

We had lunch at a cute restaurant in the city.  I wouldn't necessarily call it a meal - more like a FEAST.  We soon found out that all of the meals in our Moroccan experience would be the same way.  We ate the typical meal of Morocco: couscous, which is a very small noodle in the shape of a ball accompanied with veggies and chicken.  The second thing you can't help but love about a Moroccan meal is the tradition of having tea and cookies after the meal.  The tea is absolutely delicious (Morocco is famous for it's mint flavored tea - ashe nana) so I had no problem with this.

I got to see La Medina of Tetuan - the market.  In Morocco, it's very common to buy anything you need (food, toiletries, clothes, etc.) at La Medina - little side stores and stands set up throughout the street.  We also walked through the tannery where leather is made out of sheep skin.  That was...interesting to say the least.  Smelt gross, looked gross...

On Friday, we bussed it to Tangier straight to the Coca-Cola factory of Morocco.  We weren't able to take pictures inside the plant, but it was SUPER cool to see the production process from start to finish.  We drank some free Coke products including the African-exclusive products of Poms (apple flavored soda) and Hawai (a fruit juice).  Both delicious!

Next on the adventure was seeing the Caves of Hercules.  Supposedly, Hercules would go to the cave to rest in between performing his 12 tasks.  There was a lot of metaphorical structures in this cave as well and it looked over the Atlantic Ocean.  We weren't too far from the Mediterranean Sea either.  And of course, who goes to Africa without riding CAMELS?!  Fortunately for us, we were able to saddle up and take a camel ride, which was crazy.  Never in my life would I have thought I would have the chance to ride a camel.  Check that off the bucket list.

(me falling backward after almost being attacked by the baby camel)

We had a mixer-type activity (accompanied with tea and cookies, only a short hour after our feast of a lunch also accompanied by tea and cookies) with a few Moroccan business students in Tangier after that.  These people are crazyyy.  All of us from Madison think that it's so hard to get into the business school and stressed about it for at least a year of our lives...well, to get into the Tangier business school, students are required to know (speak, understand and write) FOUR languages: Spanish, French, Arab and English.  Whaaaat?!

Spending our dirheim (the currency in Morocco) was something we were all looking forward to.  We had all heard stories of how good the shopping is in Morocco - hand made ceramics, leather goods, knock-off name brand items, etc.  I was a tad bit thrown off at the fact that 1 euro = ~10 dirheim.  Hearing the cost of something as being 80 dirheim automatically makes you think of 80 euros or dollars...but in reality, it was only 8 euro.  Also, we were told to never accept the price you are told as the price you pay.  Thus, I got to experience the art of regatear (bargaining) and ended up getting some pretty sweet deals on some cool stuff :)

After thoughts of Morocco:

1. I wish I could bring the tea and cookie tradition to Spain.  Or at least my homestay...
2. I have mixed feelings about the bargaining.  Cool to be able to get a sweet deal but irritating that "no" doesn't mean "no".  If you really do not want something, the vendors think you're trying to bargain with them to get a lower price.
3. Wish we could have seen the Mediterranean Sea - guess I'll have to save that for Greece :)
4. The people of Morocco seem to be either rich or poor.  There's not really a middle class...
5. Crossing off "Visiting a 3rd world country" off my bucket list.
6. Wondering what it is about Americans that Europeans/Africans find sooo amusing that they feel the need to stare at us 24/7. 
7. We saw the best of both worlds in Morocco - products made by hand (Taller school) and products made by machine (Coke factory)
8. Waka Waka by Shakira now has a different and more significant meaning for me.
9. How the heck am I going to get all of my souvenirs/gifts back to the States?
10. Wishing that pictures reflected the true beauty of all the sights I've seen in Morocco (and Europe in general).  Cameras do NOT do nature justice....praying my mental pictures will last a long time.

Shukran y ma'assalama (thank you and goodbye in Arabic)

All I do is win, win, win.

Although this past week didn't appear to be my finest moment in Sevilla, my reflection on it is telling me otherwise...

It continued to rain (it rained for 8 days straight) and midterms were Wednesday and Thursday.  I tried to force myself to study but somehow always found a distraction.  In the end, it was better that way since all of my midterms ended up being a complete JOKE.  That didn't change the fact that I am glad they are over and also know now how much effort I need to put in for finals.  Thus, Michelle - 1, this week - 0.

It was especially convenient that we ended midterms on Thursday - St. Patty's Day.  The Irish pub right by the business school had an all day party...so we got there around 7pm and started doing as the Irish do and drank us some beers, shots of Jameson, ate some Doner Kebob (delicious) and celebrated the night away.  Michelle - 2, this week - 0.

Was planning on having a productive/relaxing day on Friday - catching up on all my shows I missed throughout the week due to "studying" for finals, ordering my cap/gown (craziness), and going for a run after lunch.  Instead, I decided to watch my shows and online shop.  My senora didn't make lunch until 4pm and by that time, we had made plans to go to "Festival de Primavera" - a huge music festival on the other side of town.  While there, it appeared that we were the only Americans there (a rare occurrence) and drank tinto de veranos that were almost the size of our heads while listening to Spanish hippie music.  Then we went to get some dinner in El Centro.  Obviously, Michelle - 3, this week - 0.

Saturday was pure goodness.  Woke up and met some friends early in the AM to head to the park and take advantage of the beautiful day.  We laid out (nearly 90 degrees out), drank some wine and played cards...until 8pm.  We then went to get more Kebob for dinner and hung out at a homestay, created another version of "Jungle Juice", watched the Madrid futbol game and called it a night.  Michelle - 4, this week - 0.

Went to bed early Saturday night since I had signed up for a 9 mile senderismo (hike) Sunday morning.  We departed Sevilla at 9am en route to Huelva - a small province north of Sevilla.  We hiked (up-hill, down-hill, in the mud, in the sand) under the warmth of the sun for 5 hours (9 miles with breaks, lunch and picture taking time).  The scenery and the weather were perfect and we couldn't have asked for a better day...and plus, worked off some of those chocolates that mom sent :)  Final score: Michelle - 5, this week - 0.  

So basically, DJ Khaled said it best when he said, "All I do is win, win, win, no matter what"....let's see what else Sevilla will try to throw at me this week :)

xoxo

Ginormous Post

Hey ya'll.  Haven't written in a while - these have definitely been the 2 busiest weeks everrr...thus, lots of updates so proceed with caution.


Carnaval
Last weekend, we had the opportunity to attend Europe's 2nd biggest carnaval - appropriately named Carnaval located in Cadiz, Spain.  It's basically like Halloween in Madison on steroids - as if the entire Madison CAMPUS (not State Street) is crowded with people.  Everyone dresses up like on Halloween as well.  I went as a hippee where as other people in our group went as gypsies, french maids, guidos, etc.  Aside from losing some of the people in our group and dealing with people puking on the bus, it was a fun night! (Although I have zero pictures to prove it)


Gymkhana
Our program is doing a scavenger hunt where we have to find all of these somehow relevant places around the city, take pictures in front of it and turn it in for points.  My group and I ventured into the rain (the 3rd rainy day of what was soon to be many) in efforts to get some early points on the first weeks missions.  We're not striving to be the best - only 2nd best - the 2nd place prize is a spa day for the whole group...sign me up please.  


Cuaresma (Lent)
As you all know, Lent started this past week.  We decided to celebrate Fat Tuesday since a friend's boyfriend was visiting from the States - so we of course had to show him how Sevilla-Americana life is (Fundicion, Betis).  After class on Wednesday morning, I decided that going out on a school night isn't really my cup o tea.  On Ash Wednesday, I walked about 45 minutes in the cold rain to go to mass, but never ended up finding the Church.  That was fun.  Speaking of fun, I had a blast telling my senora that I couldn't eat meat on Ash Wednesday and all the Fridays during Lent.  After mucho tiempo debating whether I should ask her if this would be possible or not, I decided to give it a go.  Of course, her political/arguing self started ranting about "los catolicos de los estados unidos son tan antiguos" (the Catholics in the US are so old-fashioned) and brutally asked me why the Pope and the fathers can eat meat, but I can't.  All I wanted to do was tell her to PIPE DOWN and to stop being so closed-minded when it comes to cultural differences.  
Also, I ventured to La Catedral this morning before class to attend a mass.  La Catedral is the 3rd largest church in the world (so I've heard) so they have about 7 or 8 masses every day.  It was extremely eye-opening going to mass and hearing everything in a different language.  I figured I would at least have an idea what was going on since it would be the same concept but boy was I wrong.  I had to awkwardly look around constantly to see if I was behaving/reacting in the normal way (ie. when you get Communion here, they put it straight in your mouth, not in your hands).  Being here has made me want to be more involved with my religion, so one of my Lent resolutions is to go to mass every week and I'm hoping I'll get into the swing of things sooner rather than later.  Another interesting note is that the mass only lasted 25 minutes.  My senora almost went on another rampage when I told her that masses at OLOL lasted almost an hour and a half.  I'm starting to think I should just keep our conversations to the weather... 


Actividad de Finanzas
For our classes here, there are required activities that we have to go to in order to get full participation points for our final grade.  We had our finance activity this past Friday where we took a bus to a family-owned company based in Sevilla called Cafe AB.  It was interesting to see the business aspect of one of Spain's most  popular traditions.  We toured the warehouse and also the store and even got some free coffee!  Fun fact: the most expensive coffee in the world is a type where a certain animal (forgot what kind) eats the fruit of a coffee plant and digests the coffee beans.  His digestive fluids give the beans this insanely rich flavor so companies go out and collect this animal's feces, wash it and use the beans for coffee.  LOCO!  I wonder how they figured this out in the first place.  Anyway, this coffee costs over 600 euro/kg.  


Cordoba
Much like our day trip to Cadiz, our program ventured to Cordoba this past Saturday.  It's a small town about 2 hours northeast of Sevilla.  And just to get an idea of how beautiful Cordoba is, it's currently a candidate for Europe's Cultural Capital for the 2016 election along with 5 others.  We got to see the amazing Mezquita/Catedral and la Juderia (old Jewish neighborhood).  Kind of cool because I learned in one of my classes that Cordoba was taken over by Muslims in 1492 - which was evident in the architecture of the Catedral.  The picture below shows all of the arches in the Catedral - no two are the same and the bannisters are actually leaning (our guia compared them to the Leaning Tower of Pisa) We then had free time to eat our bocs (bocadillo = sandwich), get some yummy ice cream (the ice cream here is really growing on me - definitely better than in the US...) and wander around and take pictures.  I still hadn't received my new camera at this point, so all pictures on here are taken from others.

Midterms
This week is our midterm week.  Yay.  Despite the 7 straight days of rain, I still cannot seem to concentrate for longer than 5 minute on studying.  I finally hiked (and by hiked, I mean walked 5 minutes in the pouring rain) to the library and buckled down.  Not sure if my Spain version of "buckling down" is going to suffice for 5 finals in 30 hours but that's a risk I'm willing to take.  We've heard that since these tests are in our 2nd language, they understand that it's a little harder so they make the tests a little easier...and I'm hoping that remains true.  None the less, I am fully equipped for exam week - thanks to my mother dearest who sent me the MOTHER OF ALL CARE PACKAGES...yayyyy for the biggest bag of Peanut Butter M&Ms you can imagine, fun size chocolates, Jelly Bellies and Oreos.  (In addition to a new camera, clothes from my closet (sick of my clothes here already) and a calculator (the lack of has slowed me down quite a bit in finance class).  

Final Thoughts/Comments
1.  Hidden Valley Ranch should really establish themselves in the salsa (dressing) market here - I've had enough of the lettuce with tomatoes and vinegar/oil!  Every time I get yet another salad, I want to pull my hair out.  I truly believe I will turn into a head of lettuce any day now.  Por favor, dame el Ranch!
2.  End of midterms + St. Patty's Day on Thursday + Irish Pub = __________
3.  This Friday will mark 8 weeks left here....unbelievable.
4.  I may have to take the leap of faith and ask my senora to start serving me less food.  She always prepares and serves me so much food and since I often times eat earlier than the others due to class, I don't want it to go to waste or seem ungrateful so I just eat it.  The reason I haven't said anything earlier is because I'm nervous that once I say something, she won't give me enough food and then I'll feel stupid asking for more after I already told her to give me less.  But, this is becoming a problem.  For those of you who know me (and you don't necessarily have to know me well), did you ever think you would hear me say the words "too", "much" and "food" in the same sentence?  Neither did I.  She'll probably go on a rant once I ask for less, but I'll keep you posted :-/
5.  Getting very excited for this summer - CUSA, Summerfest, tubing, cookouts, farmers markets, you name it, WE'RE DOING IT, my friends!  It's a shame that adulthood doesn't allow for summer vacations.
6.  Thoughts and prayers go out to Austin Bice and his family.  (Study abroad student from California who was found dead in the river in Madrid after missing for a week)...also everyone in Japan.  Tomorrow is no guarantee so don't waste today!

That's all for the massive upload...

Peace and blessings.

Peace. and. blessings.

Portugal

One word.  AMAZING.

This weekend was definitely one of my favorite ones while here - 5 friends and I ventured to Lisbon, Portugal to celebrate our day off from classes today (Monday) due to Dia de Andalucia.

The trip started out Thursday night.  Carmen (my intercambio) and I received a coupon for free drinks and tapas at a restaurant in El Centro - so I met with her and ate some deliciousss food, talked in Spanish and walked around a little.  From there, I walked to the bus station to board our 11:45pm bus to Lisbon.  We took the night bus so we could sleep on the bus and avoid paying for an extra night in a hostel, which was a good idea in theory but not so much in practice.  I slept pretty well after popping 2 Tylenol PMs but the other girls in the group didn't get so lucky.  So, we got to Lisbon at 6:30am Friday morning, got to our hostel, realized we couldn't check in until 3pm, slept on the couches in the hostel until 8am, checked into our room (they cleaned it right away and let us check in early) and slept again until 10am.  Then, we were ready to start the day.

We roamed the city and saw a lot of great sights such as: Praça do Comércio (the plaza), Santa Maria Maior de Lisboa or Sé de Lisboa (catedral) and last but not least Castelo de Sao Jorge.  Got a nice view of the city as well as the Atlantic Ocean, supported some local artists who set up shop on the streets and stopped at an Italian restaurant.  We then went back to the hostel to freshen up and eat dinner with the hostel-mates.  The hostel offers typical Portuguese dinners for 6euro.  Probs one of the better decisions we made - we got to meet new people from all over the world (Portugal, Germany, Australia, Brazil and Canada) and eat a delicious meal (some Portuguese soup, a salad sans the vinegar and oil which we were happy about and a chicken pasta dish along with sangria and dessert!)  We had a lot of sightseeing to do the next day so we ate dinner, chillaxed a bit and called it a day.

On Saturday (after a HUGE, free, delicious breakfast - we actually had eggs for breakfast instead of dinner!!) we ventured to Sintra, a town about a half hour outside of Lisbon. Sintra is home to the Palacio de Pena - which is hands down my favorite thing I've seen since being here in Europe.  It was this huge palace built for a German king to have as a summer house but then he liked it so much he made it his permanent residence.  Since then, it's been the residence of royalty in Portugal.  It was at the top of a hill and when at the top, we could see the entire town bordered by the ocean.  The pictures don't even begin to do it justice...so we decided to put our cameras down for a couple minutes and just take in the beautiful view.  We then got to walk around inside the palace and see King Ferdinand and Queen Amelia's bedroom, the chapel, Amelia's dressing room, the private sitting room which was described to be cluttered due to "the horror of empty spaces and the desire to collect" and much, much more.

We got back from Sintra and joined our new hostel friends for dinner once again.  Today we had another type of soup, salad and the famous Portugeuse fish dish, bacalao.  With plans of discovering the nightlife of Lisbon, we got a few bottles of wine and went into the main room to socialize.  The hostel gave everyone a couple rounds of free shots and we taught our new friends how to play an American drinking game, which was a hoot.  The workers of the hostel brought us out on the town and showed us a good time....possibly too much of a good time.  While taking care of a friend who was a little too borracha, somebody stole my camara - complete with ALL of my un-uploaded Portugal pictures as well as ALL of my pictures from Spain that have only been uploaded to facebook, not my computer (the pictures on here are stolen from Salima's blog)

We ended our trip Sunday by walking around the city, visiting Santa Justa's elevator (below), relaxing in the sun, browsing the local market complete with hand-crafted jewelry and gifts and saying goodbye to our travel friends at the hostel.  

I left Lisbon questioning a few things...

1. Why the first time I ate McDonalds in at least 5 years was in Portugal...
2. How the levitating man we saw in the street was actually levitating...(picture below)
3. If our foreign friends are going to teach the drinking game we taught them to their friends...
4. How many people laughed at us while we chased pigeons...
5. Why people say that the Portuguese and Spanish languages are very similar.  Couldn't understand anything when listening to Portuguese.
6. How common it is to be offered hash twice on the street within a half hour...
7. If Portugal was REALLY this amazing or if we had skewed judgment since it was our first trip outside of Spain.
8. Where in the world my camera is now and if I will ever get it back.
9. How ridiculous it is that we just assume we can speak English to anyone in a foreign country, expecting them to understand...because 75% of the time, they do (when we went to McDonalds, for instance, we just started ordering in English and didn't think anything of it).
10. How ironic it is that the Spanish woman (also visiting Portugal) who found my phone knew exactly where WI was and mentioned the she spent 5 weeks in Green Bay (before she knew it was my hometown) and said it was one of her fondest memories...small world

Adeus (good-bye in Portuguese)