100th Day

Today is an extra special day - my 100th day in Sevilla (and also my 22nd birthday)!  So, being a corn ball who loves making lists, I have compiled a few lists for your viewing pleasure:


22 Things that will be missed when leaving Sevilla:

1. 1 euro bottles of wine and 1 euro shots
2. Tortilla Espanola and Lentaja
3. Speaking Spanish
4. Not having any household responsibilities (cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc)
5. No work or homework
6. Spanish friends
7. Calle Betis, Calle Alfalfa and discotecas
8. My senora - even though there's been ups and downs, I haven't had anything serious to complain about and have it much better than some
9. The aesthetic beauty of this city - I've truly taken it for granted.
10. Having 'Pues', 'Vale', 'Venga', etc. being accepted in conversation
11. The incredibly late bar time
12. Being able to travel to incredibly amazing places
13. Being surrounded by such historical monuments/buildings
14. Casuality of drinking - free beers and tintos at class activities!
15. Botellon by the Torre / Rio time
16. The relaxed style of living here - rhythm of life is much slower
17. Always having some sort of trip / event to look forward to
18. Being able to speak English when you don't want someone to hear/understand something
19. The beautiful weather and the strong Sevilla sun
20. The fairytale feeling I get when something is so amazing I am forced to ask myself, "Is this real life?"
21. My new friends here - we all went through this amazing experience together and now we're all going back to separate parts of the country :(
22. The life I've created for myself here - it's a second home :)

Things I am excited to come home to in Wisco:

1. FAMILY, FRIENDS, DOGS (claro)
2. Having a cell phone and not worrying about how much saldo is on it
3. Driving / not having to walk everywhere
4. Candy, sweets....and more candy and sweets
5. Not worrying about international bank fees
6. Graduation
7. Country USA
8. Drinking MILK again
9. Watching TV (on an actual television, not a laptop) - I need the E! Network, Tosh.0 and Ellen back in my life
10. Mix drinks (that cost less than 7 euro)
11. Having more to say than 'si'
12. Having more than a small armoir of clothes to choose from!
13. Having an income again
14. Pre-gaming and having music to play while doing so
15. BIG breakfasts
16. Mexican food
17. The luxury of having toilet paper, toilet seats and soap in ALL public bathrooms
18. Being able to wear sweats in public
19. Iced coffee
20. Not having the feeling of being a guest in someone's house
21. Dealing with Fahrenheit, miles, pounds, dollars instead of Celcius, kilometers, kilograms and euros.
22. Scrapbooking my entire 4 months here :)

Life is good.  Celebrating it.  Madrid tomorrow, Rome on Tuesday and Feria de Sevilla on Friday.  2 weeks.

Semana Santa

Disclaimer: long post ahead.  Prepare yourself.


Bonkers.  Semana Santa 2011 was just that - bonkers.

My first spring break started out with me almost missing my connecting flight to Athens, Greece in Barcelona (foreshadowing? - you'll see why later...)  On our flight from Barcelona to Athens, we met another American student who was actually studying abroad in Athens.  We got to talking and became friends really fast - maybe a little too fast.  After he found out that our flight was landing at 3:05am and we were planning on chilling in the airport until we could check into our hostel, he offered for us to stay in his apartment.  I (being the apprehensive one out of the two) immediately thought of the movie "Taken" and how the story started out exactly like this.  S, my travel buddy, thought we should do it since we were so tired and didn't want to start our Athens stay being exhausted.  Long story short - we put our faith in humanity and learned that there actually are good people in this world.  We stayed with our friend and had our own little couch-surfing experience.  In hindsight, it was a risky decision but was absolutely crucial to how our Athens stay ended up.  Our generous friend, Jeff, gave us recommendations of places to go, places to eat, what to eat and some Athens specific traveling tips - he even made us a travel itinerary of things we should do.  Everything we learned from him was dead on and our trip would have been completely different if we hadn't couch-surfed that first night.  After almost missing my flight and couch-surfing, I knew this would be a crazy trip, to say the least.

A is for ATHENS and Awesome

The amount of history in combination with the Greek mythology made Athens so interesting.  Here's what we saw on our (cleverly named by S) "It's All Greek to Me Tour":

• Acropolis which housed the Parthenon (monument dedicated to Princess Athena): these two sights are what some people call the most historical monuments in the world.  
• Parliament Building: complete with a procession in honor of "Day of Remembrance"
• The archeological museum: I'm not much of a museum person, but the museum was sweet - learned a lot about Greek mythology and the Greek Gods
• 2004 Olympic Stadium: even the official pool they swam the races in
• Old Olympic Stadium: from the 1890s
• The President's house
• Hadrian's Library
• National Gardens
• Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
• Folpappos Hill
• Temple of Olympean Zeus
• Hiked up another hill where we had a great view of the city
• Congress building which had a market inside

Athens after thoughts:

1. I am now very interested in Greek mythology
2. It's so sad how everything historical seems to be in ruins now
3. When America is old enough to have this much history, what are we going to have to show for it?  No Parthenon, no Temple of Zeus...but football fields?  Tall buildings?  Cool...
4. There are tons of stray dogs roaming Athens.  They are all so cute but look so sad. :(
5. Greek food = cheap and delicious
6. Kebabs are everywhere in Europe and I am not mad about it
7. We didn't have a map, which ultimately allowed us to see more things since we would roam around aimlessly
8. Aside from seeing all the touristic spots and monuments, it's the small memories that make the trip worthwhile (ie. our couch-surfing experience, meeting hostel-mates from all over the world).
9. Staying in hostels is awesome when your hostel-mates are cool. 

ISTANBUL = the land of mosques and kebab

After anxiously awaiting our trip to Turkey, we were greeted by Istanbul in a not-so-pleasant manner.  Here's why:

• Had to purchase an unexpected Turkish Visa in the airport,
• (What felt like) Freezing rain.  Definitely spoiled by the Sevilla weather,
• Couldn't find our hostel - walked around for a half hour with our heavy bags and were given wrong directions numerous times,
• Couldn't communicate as we don't speak Turkish and very few people spoke English,
• Hostel didn't have internet, maps in English nor directions to get to any of the monuments
• Couldn't find anywhere to exchange our currency to Turkish Lira
• We were laughed at/made fun of by so many people...Where is the Turkish hospitality?

Despite all the strikes against Istanbul, things got much better...

• Food is dirt cheap in Istanbul.  Thank you, God for creating 1 euro kebabs.
• Shopped in the biggest. market. ever.  (literally).  To get a sense of how big it is, a sign upon entering read, "Up until recently, the Grand Bazaar was home to 5 mosques, 1 school, 7 fountains, 10 wells, 1 water dispenser and 1 ablution fountain." Needless to say, we got lost many times trying to find our way out.
• Saw the Blue Mosque, the Burnt Column, Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace, Dolmabahce Palace, Spice Bazaar, Point Zero (believed to be the center of the universe)
• Experienced Turkish tea and coffee.  Turkish tea = delicious // Turkish coffee = strong and has a mud-like substance at the top and bottom.
• Enjoyed the beautiful view of the Marmara sea

At this point, the Istanbul experience was great.  Despite being thrown off our original plans numerous times and dealing with the curve balls Istanbul threw at us, I was content with my time in Turkey.  That was until we discovered there were 2 airports in Istanbul and we were at the wrong one trying to board our flight to Barcelona.  With no time to commute to the correct airport, we missed our flight and had to buy another one for 220 euros (refer back to the foreshadowing explained at the beginning of this post).  If that's not an epic fail, I'm not sure what is.  Ended our stay in Istanbul in the Ataturk airport eating Sbarro for dinner and sleeping in coffee shop chairs.

BARCELONA = Gaudi's Canvas

After arriving to Barcelona about 18 hours later than expected, we were determined to enjoy our last leg of the trip.  I can definitely say that we conquered Barcelona - in a short 50 some hours in Barcelona we...

• Saw an amazing view of the city from the roof of the Arena de Barcelona - a ginormous shopping center,
• Saw the Arc de Triumph, 
• Walked through Ciutadella Park, 
• Stumbled upon a mass in the Basilica de Santa Maria del Mar (beautiful)
• Stood in the same spot Christopher Columbus sailed into after discovering America (there's a monument dedicated to him there),
• Stumbled upon a Semana Santa procession - Sevilla is famous for it's Semana Santa celebration so I was bummed I was missing it.  Luckily we got to experience Semana Santa in Barcelona!  We saw the typical parade type celebration where men carry giant floats throughout the city accompanied by bands and other people dressed up in religious outfits,
• Went inside the 1992 Olympic Stadium,
• Visited Guell Park: huge garden with architectural monuments designed by Antonio Gaudi. Tyra even hosted a season finale of America's Next Top Model in this park :)
• Saw the Sagrada Familia: another famous (and unfinished) work of Antonio Gaudi and Europe's most unconventional Church (as described by my guidebook).  So amazing and definitely the coolest Church I have ever seen,
• Went to Easter mass inside the Sagrada Familia

I'm starting to believe that Spring Break is God's way of teaching us life lessons.  As was the case of my spring break 2009 in PCB (most of you probably know that story), I learned many life lessons on this trip:

• Being American has such a bad connotation in Europe,
• You don't know what you got till it's gone. Sevilla's humid 90 degree weather never seemed so pleasant until feeling the freezing rain (and ultimately getting sick) in Turkey,
• Having a set schedule/plan for everything is not always the best way to approach things.  Having everything deviate away from our original plans only made things that much better,
• Everything happens for a reason.  There IS a reason why we were forced to stay in Istanbul another night...there IS a reason why God did not want us in Barcelona until the next day,
• There really is no place like home.  Sevilla never felt so much like home until returning to it after ten days of traveling.  Makes me nervous to leave for good in a short 2.5 weeks.

FIN (END).

Pues....

Hola amigos,


Lo siento que no he escrito en los ultimos semanas.  Hoy es el ultimo dia antes de Semana Santa en Espana y manana salgo para...Hahah just kidding - not in Spanish.  Haven't written in a while - tomorrow marks the first day of our first spring break.  We have off all next week for Semana Santa (Holy Week) and just wanted to give a quick update before I leave for Athens tomorrow night!


The weather has been beautiful lately - almost a little too beautiful at times.  It's been about high 70s and sunny for the last 2 weeks...there was even a couple days where it's been over 90 degrees.    Thus, there's been a lot of laying out in the park and hanging out by the river to "tomar el sol" (sunbathe) and hang out.  The Spaniards are crazy and still wear long pants and shirts...and then look at us like we're crazy wearing shorts and t-shirts.  Conveniently located by the river is the "Festival de Naciones" - a festival where you can buy different meals and desserts from stands representative of different countries around the world.  Heaven?  Not quite yet...One of the stands offers Mexican food.  Heaven.  Contrary to popular belief, Spain food is actually NOTHING like Mexican food and Mexican restaurants tend to be very unsuccessful here.  So we of course went straight to Mexico :) The sun, the river, friends and Mexican food all in one place makes it easy to see why we've been doing this all weekend for the last couple weeks.

[@ the Festival de las Naciones]

For my finance class, we visited a company that produces Jamon Iberico - a popular type of ham that requires specific upbringing of pigs and a time-consuming production process.  Not sure if I mentioned this or not, but at most restaurants and even some houses, it's common for there to be pig legs mounted on some sort of contraption where the ham is then sliced off of and consumed.  The company we visited was the most prestigious Jamon Iberico producer (about 18 euros for about 5 little slices) so it was interesting to see the process and of course all the pig legs.  After the company visit, we walked through a cave - which was crazy cool.  

Went on another hike where it rained (more like downpoured) all day.  So that was fun.  Also checked out the Museo of Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Museum) - which is the 2nd best/biggest museum in Spain.  

Other than that, just trying to live up to good student standards (not).  Group projects are really starting to be a pain - all conveniently due this week or the week in between our 2 spring breaks.  Trying to get those done in addition to finishing up the rest of the homework for the semester to avoid having to worry about it during our 2 weeks off/travel time has been taking up most of the time during the week.

Random updates:

• The man who lives above me has FINALLY (knock on wood) stopped singing/dancing flamenco.
• After 7 weeks without a phone, I FINALLY got my movil back from the hostel in Portugal.
• My group members and I took 2nd place in our Gymkhana competition (scavenger hunt).  We won a free boat ride on the river :)
• Rum & coke's are called "Cuba Libre" which translates to "Free Cuba".  Reason: Cuba was under the Spanish reign prior to the 1890s when the 2 countries went to war over Cuba's independence.  The US (neutral at the time) sent it's ship the USS Maine to protect their interests in Cuba when it exploded, at the fault of Spain.  The US, ticked at Spain, entered the war to help Cuba after this catastrophic event and won, thus allowing Cuba to gain independence.  It was later found out that it was actually NOT Spain's fault that the ship exploded.  This story has huge historical impact for Spain - so much, that they apparently name alcoholic drinks after it.  Anyhoo, the point of this randomness is when a Spaniard asked me if I knew why it was called a "Cuba Libre", I actually knew why (thanks to my history class I'm taking here) and after I explained it to him he replied, "You're the only person I've ever asked that question and received the correct response" (in Spanish, of course).  Yay me for learning historical facts, conversing with Spaniards and conveniently finding a way to connect drinking to class :-D
• Time is moving much too fast.  4 weeks until I'm back in the US....probably the definition of bitter sweet.
• ALMOST 22 - can't believe it's been a year since I turned 21 haha.
• Leaving for Athens, Greece tomorrow.  Then Istanbul, Turkey.  Then Barcelona.  Then Easter, 4 days of class and my birthday.  Then Madrid.  Then Rome.  Craziest 3 weeks ever? Yes.  Real life? Still trying to find the answer that one...

[Gymkhana Group]

[@ the disco :)]

See you Easter Sunday peeps (hopefully) with a blog post and lots o' pictures :)