Finally…A weekend in Sevilla May 2, 2007

So after, what, 6 weeks of travelling on weekends or something like that, I finally spent a weekend in Sevilla…and it was awesome.  I loooove Sevilla.

Saturday morning Kim and I woke up and went to the mercadillo (market)  which was a lot better than the time before because it wasn´t raining and there were soooo many more vendors.  There were soooo many we had no idea where to begin.   So we just start wandering with no game plan when we see some cute kids.  They were playing with toy guns, which ok isn´t the greatest thing in the world, but they were cute and maybe 4 or 5 so we were like oooo qué mono (how cute) and the little boys are like pointing the guns at us…when all of a sudden one boy points it at KIm and shoots it hitting her in the cheek.  Some toy gun, it was a bee bee gun.  ow!  After that unfortunate situation, we continued shopping.  We found some really good deals too.  I finally found a pair of shoes in Spain that fit me and they are red! yay!  We also had a brilliant idea to buy some of the illegal music they sell for cheap and then share it with each other since we both need to expand our spanish music collections.  I bought a Sevillana CD so that I can practice my flamenco for feria.  On our way back home we ran into Lauren who was going to go take some photos on the river, so we decided to change game plans and go get some café con leche like we always do together.   Coffeetime with Lauren and Kim is probably one of my favorite memories of sevilla.  we sat for an hour talking and chatting and having a lovely time.  Somehow or another conversation led to Grandma Peggy´s pencil test so we went to a cheap knick knack store bought some needles, thread, and pencils as well as some other cheap junk and did the baby test.  At this point in time it was time for lunch so we headed home for lunch with our families.  That afternoon Kim and I met up with Amanda to go hang out.  It was beautiful outside so we decided to partake in the best part of sevilla and go sit along the river.  There was the cutest little kids playing by us.  They were all wearing matching clothes and playing and they were adorable.  AFterwards we went for some ice cream which took forever to get, but was worth it in the end.  Finally, we finished our evening with a little shopping.  Later that night I met up with Lauren to go for tapas.  we went to this bute bar right by our houses that one of my professors recommended.  It was sooooo good.  I love going for tapas it is one of the best ways to experience spanish life.  Everybody just stands around the bar eating and drinking and having so much fun.  We ordered some red wine, this delicious meat tapa, squid tapa (the BEST), salmon, tuna, and stuffed mushrooms all for on ly 6 euro it was sooo good.  Afterwards we went and got churros and hung out along the river until Megan joined us to go out.

On Sunday I finally slept in.  I hadn´t slept past 930 in about 6 weeks.  After sleeping away the morning, I woke up and had lunch with my señora.  After lunch I went into school to do some homework, quite boring I know.  Afterwards I met up with Kim to go to mass and as we were walking to mass we ran into, guess who, Lauren.  Lauren decided to join us for mass, yay!  Mass was really nice our favorite priest was there, he is so cute.  During communion he sings the communion song since there is no music, this makes me happy.  His homily was also very good and interesting as he talked about how Sevilla needs to keep the spirit and word of God alive after semana santa, which I thought is very necessary in sevilla.  Afterwards we went for ice cream and procrastinated doing our homework for awhile.  Then we went back home and burried ourselves in all the homework we had to do…but it was a very fun weekend!

Crazy Week April 30, 2007

I´m starting to realize that I don´t have much time left here in Spain, so my philosophy is, why not enjoy it?

On Tuesday night Megan, Lauren, Kim, and I went out with Megan´s friend from Italy.  We took him to La Carboneria, which I had never been to but it was a lot of fun.  Its a bar with a flamenco performance.  It was so much fun!  We ordered some sangría and chatted while watching a flamenco performance, it doesnt get much better.  After this we went to another more local flamenco bar with our friend Mateo from Italy, also.  This bar was so fun and cute.  Its really local and the people are really nice.  They sing flamenco music and then brave souls can dance the sevillanas. Well maybe it was the cause of the sangría, but Lauren and I decided that we could dance sevillanas to. Apparently it was a source of amusement for the entire bar, especially our friends and ourselves. Until, that is, some old guy wanted to dance them with us. needless to say, it was incredible night

The next night it was pouring rain so we decided to go to Megan’s friends’ hostel and just play cards, make cookies, etc. So we trucked over there in raggedy clothes and sneakers. However when mateo and Domenico arrived…we were told we were going out and so somehow I ended up looking like crap at one of Sevilla’s most trendy discotecas. oops. Anyways, it was a lot of fun Excpet that Yasir was there and he was trying to make me jealous by showing off his dance skills in front of me. Nice try. I wish I would have worn better clothes and shoes because it was a really fun discoteca.

The next night we got Kim to go out with us So we met up with mateo and first went to this really cute, trendy, chill bar. Besides the face that the drinks were ridiculously expensive, it was a really nice and cute place. After drinks, we went to go to the discoteca that Mateo wanted to go to, however we discovered that they were having a special night and it was really expensive and none of us were feeling up to paying. So we decided to go back to the discoteca we were at the previous night. However, when we got there Mateo couldn’t get in because he was wearing white shoes and discotecas don’t allow white shows because that’s a sign of poorness. so then after some contemplating, we decided that we would go with out Mateo, except that when we tried to enter they carded us. We have never been carded before and so i never bring an ID, so once again we were denied entrance. After this about an hour of trying to find a place had past and we were pretty beat, but we decided to go to Azucar de Cuba. We had never been here before and it was actually a really neat place. For five bucks you got to salsa dance and you got a free drink of anything. We had piña coladas and margaritas…delicious! I don’t know how to salsa dance and it was really crowded and everybody there was really old, but Lauren taught me how to salsa sort of and it was really fun. The music was amazing and the atmosphere was great.

The next night Lauren, Megan, and I went out. We decided to try and go to the discoteca that was expensive the night before. It seemed like a neat place, but it was empty, so that wasn’t very fun. So we headed back to Triana and looked for something on Calle Betis. It seemed to be a night full of Bachelorette parties which was amusing. We spent most of our time dancing at this one place and it was really fun. We just kept switching between various discotecas on Calle Betis…and it turned out to be a great night.

A new look on Easter April 30, 2007

As soon as we got back from France, Sevilla was in the midst of its huge Semana Santa celebration. Semana Santa being Holy Week. Unfortunately we got back late from France and I was exhausted so I didn´t have much energy, however I wanted to see the madrugada of Semana Santa which is supposed to be really neat. Holy Thursday is supposed to be the best part so I decided to go for a little while anyways. Nothing that I had learned about in class or had been told by other sevillanas could have prepared me for this form of Easter celebration.

It was about 2 am when I left to go and see my first ¨paso.¨ I just went to the bridge close to my house since I was exhausted and the people were already lined up waiting to see the paso. Everybody was talking excitedly, drinking, smoking, going about normal behavior, but there was such a sense of excitement in the air. I really wasn´t sure what to expect and I too was very excited. I waited about an hour and half before the paso came, it was Jesús del Gran Poder. This is probably the most famous paso for the week and it was breathtakingly beautiful. Before people were drinking, laughing, talking, but when Jesús came, the street was dead quiet. There wasn´t a sound. Soon the accompanying band started to play music and the nazarenos (they look similar to members of the Ku Klux Klan and they carry crosses on their shoulders) started to walk. There were processions of fancy crosses and such before finally the huge float like structure came into view. It was sooo pretty. It was about 3:30 am now and the street was dead quiet save for the accompanying music and 100s of brothers were carrying this huge float like structure on their back swaying in time with the music. The ¨float¨was huge and gorgeous. It was an an ornate gold structure that was candle lit and on top of it was the most beautiful sculpture of Jesús carrying the cross. It was the coolest thing ever to see. People all around were so excited to see it and just looking at it in awe, admiration, and prayer. It was really really moving for me and one of the most spiritual moments of my life. After the paso passed by, the people returned to their talking and drinking but most of the people were talking about how amazing Jesús was. I wish I hadn´t been so tired and that I could have seen the other pasos that went on until like 8 am, but I was too tired and so I went back home to wait for tomorrow.

The next day my señora had prepared a delicious meal, it was very elaborate and we had guests over. I went to Good Friday mass, which was like most spanish masses relavtively short. It was interesting though, they had a crucifix with Jesus on it and we all went up to kiss Jesus´feet. Later that day I went to see more pasos. Unfortunately it was rainy so I only got to see one. People spend all year preparing for this grand event, and then if it rains they don´t go. It´s really sad. The nazarenos are crying and depressed. It is so sad. This was the coldest and rainiest semana santa since the 1920s, so it was really sad for a lot of the ¨brotherhoods¨as they are called. But anyways, I saw another paso, this one was of the Virgen. It was really pretty. It was during the day so she wasn´t lit up but the sculpture was beautiful and once again their was a band and nazarenos that marched along. The pasos last hours and they walk all day often times barefoot throughout the entire city of Sevilla. This is a huge deal to the Sevillanas and those that are fortunate enough to walk, it is a great honor. The paso was neat.

Saturday I was fortunate enough to see several pasos. I went by the cathedral this time and all of the pasos pass by here so I got to see several. It was also neat because I got a spot next to children. It kind of reminded me of a parade, because the children were sooooo excited to see the paso, you could just see their impatience on their faces. Also, people line up to get good seats hours before each paso comes. When the children first heard the music of the paso, they started cheering and shouting paso paso! They all ran to their parents to grab their wax balls. Each year when the nazarenos walk by holding candles the children go up to them and try to catch some of the dripping wax from each candle, they then save their ball of wax for the next year and each year the ball grows bigger and bigger. The kids were so cute as they would run up to each nazareno asking for wax and then carefully holding out their ball trying not to get burnt by the hot wax. The pasos were once again beautiful. I saw a paso de ¨piedad¨which means that Mary is holding Jesus in her arms. That was really moving and almost difficult to watch, but beautiful at the same time. I still cannot believe how old and beautiful these sculptures are, how dedicated each brotherhood is, the excitement of the people, and how so much time is put into these pasos. It was so exciting to see.

After the pasos I met up with my friends to go to Easter Vigil mass. This was probably my favorite part of Semana Santa. As Spain is a much more Catholic country, the emphasis falls on Semana Santa, on the pain of the passion and not on celebrating the resurrection, so I was glad we went to the mass. We began it outside with our candles and a majority of the mass was candlelit. The mass was so beautiful because for once it was full of people, they had a band, and my friend Lauren came who is not Catholic which made me happy. It was the most beautiful mass I´ve been to hear. Afterwards, the church served champgne and pasteries which were delicious and all of the old ladies wanted to know what we thought of the mass and everything. It was so much fun!

Sunday was a weird day. I was a little sad and I actually cried during Easter mass. It was weird not being at home for Easter.  It was also weird because nobody went to mass with me which was fine, I made it fun for myself   I dressed up like always and curled my hair, you know just like Sarah…keeping with tradition.  I went to mass at the local church and in the cathedral.  The Cathedral mass was beautiful with lots of flowers and such but overall, mass was just regular.  Nothing special about it.  My señora did nothing special, it was just an average day in sevilla.  this was difficult for me because I didn´t think about the emphasis being on the passion and not on Easter here.  But later that afternoon I went to the river with Lauren, Megan, and Kim and we had a lot of fun eating ice cream and enjoying the river on a Sunday.  It turned out to be a great day

France April 29, 2007

We arrived in France early Monday morning after our lovely train trip and I felt well rested.  We began our day by purchasing our metro tickets and making our way to our hostel.  our hostel was very cute and nice.  We couldnt check into our hostel yet and so we did the best we could…not having showered in forever and spending the night on the train and then proceeded to check our luggge in.  As we were checking in our luggage, we accepted the help of a nice young man and then proceeded to do the traditional hostel greetings.  He was from the US and his name was Seth, he asked us where we were from and when I replied Chicago he told me that he was travellling with somebody from Chicago–Naperville in face.  How weird is that?  I went outside to meet him, and we started talking, he asked me where I lived I said by Naperville North.  He asked me if I went there and when I graduated, he graduated from there in 2004.  Then he proceeded to ask so if you live by NNHS do you live in cress creek?  Which of course I do so i was like yes, and he´s like me too, er well my famliy did right now we dont because our house was burned down.  At this point I started to realize who I was tlaking to and I asked him what his name was-Justin Black, Logan Black´s sister.  How very very very odd is that.  After this very strange occurance, Amanda and I set out to explore Paris.  Our game plan was to hit up the Llouvre first.  Amanda´s aunt had reccommended that we enter underground in the metro station to save time, so we went to enter into the Llouvre from underground.  when we go there we found complete insanity.  There were people everywhere, trying to figure out what was going on it was crazy.  It was really pretty to see the inverted pyramid that is below ground, but eveyrthing was so hectic.  After being hurdled along we finally entered the Llouvre, which wasn´t really helpful because we were still surrounded by people everywhere and had no idea where we were going in this huge huuuuge building.  Finally we wer herded very quickly and impatiently into the museum and still we had no idea what was going on or where we were going.  Following the crowd mentality we began to follow people hoping to figure out soon where we were and where we needed to go.  We finally discovered where we were and began going through the museum looking at the art.  The sculpture in the Llouvre was amazing…my favorite part, however, it was incredibly frustrating how disrespectful the tourists were of the art.  Everywhere we went people were touching statues in inappropriate ways and places, people were taking photos were photos weren´t allowed it was very disrespectful.  In addition to the disrespectful people it was very difficult to see art because the museum was wall to wall with people.  We looked at all of the scultpture, the Mona Lisa, other paintings, the King room, Egyptian art, and Venus de Milo.  What we saw was very pretty, but the whole Llouvre experience was very hectic and stressful.  It was by far my least favorite museum art wise and experience wise.  The Llouvre as a building however is very gorgeous.  We went outside the Llouvre at the end and sat by all the pyramids and it was really coool.  The pyramids are very neat.  After the Llouvre we walked along the seine river to go to Ile Saint Louis for some delicious crepes for lunch.  We found this adorable French restuarant and had an incredibly delicious meal of quiche, risotto, and crepes!!  It was so delicious.  After this we decided to head to Notre Dame, so we start crossing back over the river when I see a girl wearing a SMC t-shirt.  She looks familiar but I didn´t know her name so we stop and start a conversatin with her and discover that she is studying in Austria for the year and spending some time in Paris, the coincidence continues as we discover she is staying in our hostel.  How random is that?  Anyways, we continue on and make it to Notre Dame.  Notre Dame is huuuuuge and incredibly beautiful.  The stained glass is so pretty and bright.  Talk about gothic cathedral it was so beautiful.  We spent a lot of time just enjoying the cathedral and I lit a candle.  It was so beautiful and massssssive.  After Notre Dame, we wanted to go to Museu D´Orsay, however when we finally arrived there we discovered it was closed on Mondays pooey.  So we changed our plans quick and decided to go to Saint Chapelle.  We discovered that they were having a concert that evening so we bought tickets for it   We then spent the next hour or so walking around and exploring various street vendors while we waited for our concert.  The concert was simply amazing.  First, when we entered into saint Chapelle which is this small, quiet church tucked away behind the justice building we were amazed by how beautiful it was.  The starry ceiling was magical and the stained glass windows were incredibly.  The atmosphere was so gorgeous.  Then on top of it all we got to listen to some of the best musicians I´ve ever heard.  They played Vivaldi and it was simply amazing.  The main violinist looked kind of like Snape, but man could he play that violin.  The concert was absolutely beautiful with the scenery and music…it was awesome.  After the concert, we decided to try and run to the Effiel tower to make it in time for sunset, so we ran-took the metro and arrived probably a little too late, but it was still beautiful in the post sunset lighting.  The Effiel Tower was simply amazing.  It was soooo incredible.  I didn´t imagine it to be so cool in person, I don´t know what I thought I would think of it, but it was sooo cool.  It was so pretty all lit up it was cool.  We discovered that it twinkles too, which is soo cool.  We were surprised to see the french police guarding it with their huge machine guns, but I guess they take pride in their Tower.  I loved just walking around the tower and enjoying how pretty it was…we even decided to lie down right beneath it and look up which was really cool.  After enjoying the amazing Tower we went to a little cafe where I had some creme brulee for dessert which was soooooo good.  oh my goodness.  Before coming to Europe you eat foods in the US that are French, Italian, Spanish, etc. and you never imagine that they really taste that much better in the actual country but its sooo true….best creme brulee ever.  After this we went back to our hostel excited to finally settle into our room and get some sleep after a long day.  When we entered our room we were greeted by this very kind Turkish man, I forget his name.  he was soo cute though.  Apparently he is from Turkey and he is a surgeon doing some surgical observation work at a hospital in Paris for a month.  How neat is that?  He was so nice, he gave us suggestions for all these places we should go to and visit.  I guess he is really smart too, because he told us that he also did surgery and work at John Hopkins in the US.  amazing.  We also met two British girls and another American that were sharing our room with us. 

The next day we decided to start off at Museu D´Orsay.  When we arrrived there….it was packed!  We had to wait outside in the cold for about 2 hours before getting in…but it was totally worth the wait.  The museum in itself was a really beautiful building.  It is an old train station and it was so beautiful and neat.  The art inside however was incredible. INCREDIBLE.  I love impressionist painting and this, being an impressionist museum, was any impressionist lovers dream.  I saw so many paintings that I have loved my entire life.  It was so cool…Monet, Manet, Degas, Van Gogh, and Renoir.  The museum was so neat and it was nice to be able to pass through it in a leisurely manner for once.  After the museum we went to the Arc d´Triumph.  Which was really neat and then we walked down the Champs Elysees.  We stopped to have lunch at a cute little cafe and we had some delicious baguette and delicious raspberry torte for dessert.  It was soooo goood.  Tha Champs Elysees wasn´t as cool as I had anticipated it being but we saw the huge Louis Vuitton and Mercedes Benz and even Gap Paris.  After the Champs Elysees we went to see the famous obelisk and some other the palace, however by this time we were freeeeeezing as we had expected the day to be more like the day before.  so we hopped on the metro and headed back to our hostel to change into warmer clothes.  After this we head back out to go shopping at the infamous Galeries Lafayette, however as soon as we arrive the store closes ;(  We were so sad, but I guess our bank acconts were jumping for joy since we couldn´t take advantage of the sales going on.  We then went to Montmartre.  We weren´t planning on going here, it was just a random decision and it was sooo worth it.  The sun was beginning to set so we caught it at the perfect time and it was sooo beautiful.  It was a loooong hike up there and as Amanda said, we should have stretched before doing this hike, but it was a lot of fun.  We could see all of Paris in front of us from up there.  In addition to the spectacular views, the church itself was sooo pretty and neat to see.  We could also see the Effiel Tower from up here which was so pretty with the sky a purpley color.  It was so beautiful.  Unfortunately it was freezing again…so we went back to our hostel to grab all of our warm clothes before heading to the Effiel Tower again.  Because it was soooo cold the line for the Effiel Tower was surprisingly tiny so we didn´t have to wait long to go up to the top of the Tower.  The cold was intense and horrible, but it was worth it to go to the top of the Tower.  It was so neat.  The way up was really scary especially with how windy it was and the way we were jammed into the small elevator.  But once we were at the top it was so perfect, the tour even began to sparkle right when we were on top.  When you are at the top they mark where major world cities are from where you stand and you look down below and you cna see allllll of Paris.  It was sooo beautiful.  We even climbed up one more floor to take pictures without the glass and to chance a look down below and up to see how high we really were.  We couldnt have gone much further up the Tower we were seriously at the top.  The wind was crazy though and we couldnt even stand straight on the top level of the tour which was pretty nerve wrenching so we didn´t stay too long before heading down into a state of less coldness.  After the Effiel Tour our ears were about ready to fall off in coldness so we went back to our hostel to sleeep.

The next day we woke up leisurely and then spent the next hour freaking out about changes in our plans to get home because we discovered that our airport was in the middle of nowhere and the process of getting to the airport was highly confusing.  After a very stressful half hour of uncertainty, we made an arrangement with our hostel that we could just hang out in the lounge all night so we didn´t have to pay for a room before leaving at 4 am with some Argentinan boys to go to the bus station to take a bus to the airport and leave on our flight.  Whew we lucked out there.  So we finally leave and head to the train station to buy tickets to go to Giverny to see monet´s house.  An hour train ride later we arrive in the adorable town of Giverny.  I wish we could have explored the town a little more because it looked so cute, but we immediately had to board a bus to head to vernon were Monet´s house is.  Monet´s house was amazing.  First the house is the most adorable thing ever.  It is pink and green and inside it is so cute.  It is very colorful and has lots of pretty Monet paintings.  I loved the adorable pastel yellow dining room and the blue kitchen.  It was soo cute.  The gardens however were the most amazing part.  They were sooo beautiful    I was glad to see sooo many flowers already.  They were everywhere and so beautiful.  The Japanese gardens are really neat to.  The bridges and ponds with lily pads are just like Monet´s paintings.  It was so cool to see in real life.   I also loved the gardens because it was so peaceful and enjoyable.  For once all we had to do was walk around and be with nature it was so pretty.  I loved all the flowers.  After Monet´s house we went for some lunch and explore a bit of Vernon.  we found a  cute farm and talked with some cute horses for like 30 mins and we found the church that Monet is burried at which was neat.  Overall, it was a really nice and peaceful day trip.  The gardens in Monet´s house were totally worth it.  When we got back to Paris we had a lot of time to kill before we could return to our hostel, so we went for a leisurely dinner and dessert of crepes and nutella.  We also just relaxed, wrote postcards, journaled, and chatted until it was time to head back to sevilla. 

Switzerland April 13, 2007

whew.  I think I am still processing the fact that I went to Switzerland, I don´t think I´m even processing day two yet.  But, nevertheless the long story of my amazing vacation…

After a stressful week of planning out the vacation, finding buses, trains, hostels, etc.  I left my house at 11 pm Thursday evening looking forward to some wonderful sleep in the airport-NOT.  Unfortunately we realized that our flight from Malaga was too early and we would have to take a bus the night before to get there on time.  Excellent first night of sleep in the airport.  It was okay, I slept as good as can be for the very comfy airport benches, however when we got up and passed through security finally at  7 am, I realized that I didn´t have my cell phone.  great.  I spent the next 30 minutes frantically searching the airport for it, no such luck.  Incredibly distraught that I had lost or somebody had stolen my cellphone, I got on my plane to Switzlerand determined to make the best of the vacation.  After an uneventful flight that I spent completely passed out on the airplane, Amanda and I arrived in Switzerland.  As soon as I stepped off the airplane I was amazed by how clean the air was.  I didn´t expect that I would be able to feel such a difference, but I could definitely tell that the air was so pure and fresh and everything was so clean here.  It was a beautiful smell and fresh feeling.   After gathering our luggage and passing through customs, we began to complete the beginning parts of any journey–getting a map and getting money.  Once we had both we made our way to the train station in Basel to buy our tickets to Lucerne.  We decided to buy a ticket for later that afternoon and use our couple hours of free time to go to Germany.  Germany is only like 20 minutes away by bus, so why not?  It was nice to, because the tram took us around Basel a bit so we got to see how pretty it was.  The river was gorgeous and eveyrthing so fresh and clean and mountainy looking.  It was beautiful.  When we arrived in the little town in germany we realized we had about 45 minutes.  We walked up and down the streets exploring some shops, taking pictures, and picking flowers.  It seemed like a really neat and cute town.  During our German adventure we found this amazing organic health food store with SAMPLES.  It was soooo good!  I wish I could go back there again and again.  It was absolutely delicious and friendly and healthy and organic.  It was perfect especially since I miss Trader Joe´s and Whole Foods.  After this we had to head back to Basel to catch our train to Lucerne.  Our tram was a little late, so we had to sprint to catch our train and we just made it on.  The train ride to Lucern was absolutely beautiful and peaceful.  I was able to sit back, relax, and journal a bit while I watched the most amazing scenery pass by me. We arrived in Lucerne at about 5:30 and made our way to our hostel. Our hostel was more of a hotel in dorm style rooms and it was really nice. After resting a bit since we were exhausted not having had a good night of sleep, we headed out to enjoy the evening in Lucerne. It was pretty chilly and verrrry windy down by the lake but soooo beautiful. The city was fairly quiet, but we walked along the river and on the famous wooden bridge and just all over the little town. We started to get reallllly cold though so we headed into an American diner to grab some food quick. It was a very interesting little diner that kinda started turning into a nightclub like place it was very odd. After this we headed back to our hostel or rather ran to the hostel since it was raining-snowing and freeeezing.

The next day we woke up and had a great free hostel breakfast. Then we headed down to the main part of town to walk along the river and the market that is there on Saturday mornings. The market was probably one of my favorite parts. The streets along the gorgeous river was full of cute little market stands full of flower shops, chocolate vendors, fish, meat, CHEESE. It was soooo cute. They had amazing samples to. It was so fun. I love watching native people shopping and i love the freshness of being able to buy things at markets. We found this stand with these ladies selling goods from women in India. It was a nonprofit organization and these women make these hand made goods everything was sooo pretty, we couldnt resist. We also found a really cute souvenir and art shop. I bought some wool and the next time I am on a long bus ride I plan to knit myself a scarf. I’m very excited. One of my favorite things about Switzerland was the number of bead and crafty stores. Everything is soooo pretty. The craft stores were everywhere with lots of beading and scarves and everything. it was really bad for me and my love of jewlery and crafts. We spent all day just walking around the river stopping to take a multitude of pictures. We stopped to wade into the freeeezing water, play in a park, climb a tree, watch parrots, and watch Swiss people and little children playing. It was so lovely and relaxing to just have no agenda, no specific museum or place to go and to just enjoy the company of mountains and lakes. We explored some more of the shops too. The shopping in Switzerland was amazing! We didn’t do much but it was fun to look. The most exciitng thing was when we went to a shoe store and I actually found a pair of shoes in my size…first time since being in Europe. It was great. The people were generally really tall in Switzerland so I guess it makes sense that they have huuuuuge shoes. Afterwards, we went to a cute little chocolate shop to buy a toooon of chocolate…I mean we were in Switzerland we had to buy chocolate then we we went to a cute cafe for some lunch. I had a delicious asparagas quiche that had the most delicious cheese. It was sooo good and cute. After lunch we decided to explore the other side of the river and so we took another 3 hour walk along it. It was exciting because the weather was clearing up and the sun started to peek out through the clouds and the clouds started to lift and we could actually see the top of the mountains. We knew there were mountains…we could see them, but we didnt realize how many of them there were and how beautiful the mountains were until the clouds lifted. It was breathtaking. By now it was getting colder and dark, so we headed back to our hostel to chilll a little before dinner. When we got back we found an older lady sleeping in our room, we were no longer alone and she was already sleeping at like 7pm…oh well I guess we’ll just have to relax quietly. After relaxing and getting ready we went out for a great dinner of fondue. I had never had fondue before, let alone Swiss fondue. The fondue was soooo great. We got delicious wheat bread, potatos and veggies and put them in the amazing fondue. I had a delicious cup of tea to accompany it also it was amazing and sooo fun to make and eat. The restaurant was so cute too. It was all woody and firey feeling and homey very long cabin like. It was cute. We stayed there forever (again) just loving the fondue. it was the best cheese ever!!

The next morning we woke up bright and early to take our train to Zurich. It was such a fun train ride we somehow ended up in the “baby” car of the train. Behind was a dad and his little baby. I just love watching dads with their kids they are soooo cute. the baby kept crying and the dad was just so sweet with his baby it was probably the cutest thing ever. In front of me was a young couple with a baby girl proabably about 10 months old. She was the cutest little baby and she had the greates smile ever. She kept looking at me and I would make faces at her and she would give me the biggest most adorable smile. Her parents kept and laughing at us, but she was the cutest thing ever. then next to us sat another adorable family. There was the grandma, mom, a girl about 5, another girl with the cutest blonde curly hair about 1 or 2 and a baby boy. They were soooo adorable. the toddler was absolutely adorable. It made the train ride so enjoyable I just love kids! Once we arrived in Zurich, we set out to do the usual tourist information stuff and discovered that Zurich is worse than Spain–nothing is open on Sundays Well, I guess we saved a lot of money, but it was sad nothing was open at all…a lot of restaurants were closed, even the tourist shops were closed. At least in Spain come Sunday the more touristy shops stay open and its a big tourist day. In Zurich the only things open were a few restaurants and the stores in the train station. It was very very odd. I had read in our travel book that Zurich had free bike rentals, so Amanda and I went to rent bikes for the day. It was so fun and such a great change of pace from walking the whole time. We rented our bikes and signed our lives away by giving them our passports and set out to explore Zurich. It was a little chilly, but it was nice and sunny out. We also picked a good day to go to Zurich because it was the annual Zurich marathon…so a lot of streets were closed. We decided to go and see the marathon first. it was so neat, we just stood and watched the runners for awhile…I give all of them so much credit for doing that. We continued down the street a little more because we had music and we soon discovered a large stage with music and dancing as entertainment during the marathon. It was the oddest entertainment I have ever seen. First of all it was right on the path of the running, which would seem distracting to me. Second of all the show was very odd, I felt like I was in a strip club or something to give you an idea of the kind of dancing it was. amanda and i were very confused by this. We continued on our bike exploration of zurich by biking along the river stoping very often to take pictures of the pretty lake and town. Since it was palm sunday, I really wanted to make it to mass, so we rode along the lake looking for the three famous cathedrals/churches in Zurich. the first church we went to was Grossmunster. It was really beautiful. It was a lot simpler than other churches we have been to, but it had a gorgeous stained glass altar which was highlighted by palms for palm sunday. We continued along the river and then went to Fraumünster. Fraumünster was beautiful…once again there was no mass to attend, but it was beautiful to explore. The famous stained glass windows by Mark Chagall were simply beautiful. The colors are amazing. Usually stained glass windows are such dark colors in churches, but these had the most beautiful pastel colors. They were bright oranges and turquoises and just breathtaking. They were very modern and pretty. I really liked the churches in Zurich I wish I could have gone to a mass there. After exploring the gorgeous churches and the river, we grabbed some lunch. We got some amazing sausages from a stand and sat in a cute little gazebo for a picnic lunch. It was very nice and relaxing…I love picnic lunches! We even had the entertainment of some Swiss skateboarders during lunch. They were actually amusingly annoying. But the sausages were soooo good. After this, we went down by the river to go on a river cruise. We bought our tickets and boarded our boat, realizing that once again in Switzerland it was not necessary to pay to get on. Everytime we bought bus tickets and now these boat tickets, they would never check to see if we had tickets, we could have done everything for free. But anyways, we chose a table on the top of the boat right on the side so that we would have a perfect view of the river and everything. It was gorgeous…sunny, perfect weather, and the sights were beautiful. Amanda and I spent most of the time picking out our future houses along the lake. We ended up bothing liking the same house so I think we’re going to have to fight over it in the future But they were sooo pretty, old style houses, perfect size, with nice boat garages, some had slides into the river and such. It was very very pretty. The boat cruise was sooo fun, we got to admire the amazing houses and see the river and the people on the river. there were these two cute little boys trying to raft on the river they were adorable. after the boat cruise, we biked around Zurich some before we returned the bikes. We then explored some of the lovely shopping that Hauptbahnhof (Zurich train station) offered. It surprisngly had a lot, but it was all very odd. We couldn’t believe that the only thing open in the entire city were the stores in the train station. We bought some more delicious chocolate from a chocolate shop and tried on shoes in a shoe store and looked at books and a book store. It wasn’t the best shopping, but I tried on shoes and they actually fit so it was a fun time. After shopping a bit, we set out to find some chocolate fondue. We had tried the cheese and we really wanted chocolate. We walked a long ways to this adorable fondue house… it was so cute, but…they didnt have chocolate fondue. The owner told us that Zurich doesnt really have chocolate fondue Oh well. So then we walked back into the city by the lake to find some food, we went to a cute Swiss restaurant and sat at a table with a Greek girl, Swiss man probably in his upper 20s, a beautiful German in his 20s also, and an older German man that had the weirdest and most annoying laugh. It was certainly interesting dinner company. But, we had a nice meal of potato pancakes, eggs, and dumplings with delicious cheese. After dinner, we went back down to the river to look at it at night. I love when cities are all light up and pretty at night! We ended our night at a piano club that we had found earlier…which ended up being one of the most amusing parts of Zurich. When we arrived it was just getting started. We sat down at a table and wanted to order a drink, but we discovered that the cheapest drink was about 10 swiss franks and the average price was 15. woah expensive. We decided to order some tea since it was only 4.50, we discovered later when we got the bill that we had ordered just after 9 and therefore our one cup of tea was 9.50. Most expensive cup of tea I’ve ever had. the music began, and we could tell this was going to be a funny night. The pianist was an American singing fairly well-known English songs and he was intoxicated and he kept asking for more to drink while he sang and played. In the corner next to us was an older man that looked like he was straight out of the mob waiting for his bussiness partner to come and deliver the cash or something. At the bar was another couple. After a few songs, some mroe people entered into the bar including a man dressed as…i still cant believe it…he was dressed in a hard core purple pirate outfit! He had this long purple coat and a ruffly shirt and just hard core original pirate look. It was the funniest thing ever. Then another young trendy couple came in and finally a German punk kid came into the bar that was apparently friends with the pianist. It was an odd group of people. Of course, we could not get over the pirate. We spent the next half an hour pretending to take pictures of Amanda but really just trying to get a good shot of the pirate…which we did. I think he figured us out though cause he winked at us when we left. We enjoyed some more music, and before we had to go we asked the pianist to play Tiny Dancer by Elton John. It was such a funny place and a great way to end Switzerland. At this time, we went back to the train station to get on our night train to Paris. The night train was sooo much fun. We opted to not spend an extra 30 bucks on a bed, which was actually a really good idea, because instead of a cheap cramped bunk bed, we had an entire compartment to ourselves. When we first walked in we both looked at each other and were like–we are in harry Potter. It was exactly like the compartments on the hogwarts express. With the benches on each side, luggage racks, sliding door. It was sooo neat! We were so excited, we couldnt contain ourselves. We started to get really hyper, and so when we tried to lift my heave handleless suitcase up onto the luggage racks it took us 10 minutes, and only after we dropped the suitcase and my head and cracked my neck did we calm down to lift the thing up. It was soo amusing. We then sprawled out on the bench and slept on the train. I slept really well, except for when people would come in and try to sit in our compartment…but we had taken over. the only other interruption was when somebody came to check our tickets for a second time. We had both been in a deep sleep and it was probably about 3 am by now, and she was like tickets! and we were so startled and disoriented we couldnt figure out where we were, where our tickets were, we were so confused and we started laughing. the lady was not happy, but it was funny. We fell back asleep, and soon we woke up in Paris. :0)

Morocco April 10, 2007

If there is one thing I´ve really learned this trip its the need to be flexible and spontaneous. I don´t know how many times I have had to plan a trip or go somewhere with out any clue. Morocco was no different.

It began on Thursday as Megan and I went to buy our tickets on the ferry. Lauren and Megan thought that they had checked out into the process and we thought we knew what we were doing. We go to the bus station and for 102 euro we get a bus and ferry ticket to and back from Morocco. However, when we got to the bus station we discovered that the 102 was just a ferry from Algeciras, and we would first need a bus ticket to Algeciras. Oh, and by the way, the bus to Algeciras is on the other side of Seville. So we make the 40 minute walk to the other bus station to buy our tickets to Algeciras. When we get there, we discover that the bus times are not compatible with the ferry schedule. The bus would arrive at 7:30 and the ferry leaves at 7. This makes no sense whatsoever. So we go back and forth trying to decide what to do, trying to talk to the counter lady and explaining that this makes absolutely no sense. After about an hour of debating what to do, we decide to just buy tickets to Algeciras at 6 am and see what we can do about a ferry when we get there. We´re going to Morocco and we have no idea how we´re getting there.

So we wake up at the lovely hour of 4:30 and head to the bus station at 5. We hop on our bus and pass out for 3 hours of sleep before arriving to the port. Luckily, we get off the bus and see about 10 ferry companies selling tickets onto the boats. We want to walk around and find the best deal, but the first place we stop at offers 35 euro for an hour ferry that is leaving in 10 minutes. We decide to go for it. We buy our tickets and run to the gate. We have no idea where we are going, but just as we see the passport stamp location we hear the lady say that the boat can leave. We sprint to the counter and show her our tickets. The lady insists that they are done boarding the boat and there is no way we can get on. We explain that we were just sold these tickets, and we´re getting on the boat. so the lady calls to the “boat man” and they wait while we hurry through customs. I’m pretty sure everybody on the boat hated us for being so late, but I’m so glad we made it. The ferry ride over was beautiful, I could see the coast of Africa and Spain–how neat?!!?!?!? The ferry actually made my stomach a little unsettled, but I was okay. After about an hour and a half we arrived on the coast of Africa. I can’t believe I am in Africa.

We got off the ferry and the insanity insued. I was pretty overwhelmed for the first several hours in Morocco being that this was my third country and thir continent and my first experience in a country where I don’t speak the language. We were immediately hounded upon by men from everywhere all wanting to help us. A nice man gave us vague directions to the bus station and a tourist office and we set out to accomplish our first tasks: bus tickets, money, tourist info, hostel to leave our bags at. These tasks took about 3 hours to complete. Everywhere we walked we were stared at and more often than not somebody would call attention to us, “hola guapas” “bienvenidos” usually in spanish sometimes arabic, sometimes french, sometimes english. It was mainly flattering since Moroccan men are generally beautiful. We finally arrived at the bus station and were horded by men trying to get us to buy tickets, it was all very confusing. But, we managed to buy our tickets to Chefchaouen. We had a few still in tangier so we decided to explore a little. The bus station was right next to the famous mosque in Tanger. It also happend to be one of the times in which Muslims go to the Mosque to pray. We couldnt enter since we aren’t Muslim, but it was nice to sit and observe the tradition of praying and such. A majority of the men were wearing traditional arabic clothes and the women were wearing their traditional clothes. the music was really pretty and it was very interesting to watch. After this we wanted to find some “markets” We didn’t have a map or anything, so we decided to ask some nice looking girls sitting on a bench…but what language to try? We started with french which failed immediately since none of us really know French. The girl then asked if we speak spanish, perfect. So we start trying to explain that we want to go to a market with traditional Moroccan goods and she doesn’t understand. She informs us that she has never learnt Spanish, she’s just picked some of it up over the years. Her friend and her can not understand what we mean, do we want a shopping mall? No, a market. They tell us to hang on, there friend is coming and he speaks better Spanish and he can help. So we wait and chat with these two girls for awhile, when a nice Audi pulls up and the girls walk over to the car. before I know it the trunk is over and they are calling us over, it finally clicks he wants to take us to the market not just give us directions. Its a nice car, they seem friendly, why not? so we all pile in to his audi and are basically sitting on each other’s laps, what a way to meet people. We have a much easier time communicating with this guy and he immediately asks us if we are looking for a bazaar. DUH. The three of us were astounded that we couldnt remember bazaar, of all words we should know bazaar. Then as we’re drinving and chatting, they start giving us their recommendations for Morocco. They suggest we head to this costal city about 20 km away, they even offer to take us there, but we decide to draw the line on that one. We arrive at the bazaar, and get out and gather our things. Sara (one of the girls) then insists on physically walking us to the stores and showing us where some of the good ones are. She was so sweet and beautiful. We were all shocked, even Sara, when we found out we were all the same age. WE exchanged phone numbers with her, however and she offered to show us around if we come back. She was sooo nice. We spent the next hour or so shopping around in the bazaars practicing our bargaining skills and such. After shopping, we found a nice sunny spot by the fountain to enjoy our lunches courtesy of our señoras. After this, we had to hail a cab and head to the bus station. When we got to our bus, some guy helped us with our baggage and then replies “Give me money.” We thought that was so odd so we just ignored him, since we didn’t understand. We discovered later that he actually worked for the bus company and we were supposed to pay to store luggage, oops. The bus ride to chefchaouen was pretty awful. It was the worst bus I’ve ever been on, but we made it to our destination safely. Once in chefchaouen more insanity insued as we had no idea how to find our hostel. The great thing about Morocco is that none of the streets have names and everybody wants to help you for some money. So we start walking along, trying to find our way and trying to ask people that we think will be nice and speak English or Spanish to help us.  It takes several people until we finally find somebody with good English that knows how to get us to our hostel.  we went into this trip planning to not be from America, and when the Moroccan asked us if we were canadian we complied.  He took us directly to our hostel and asked us to come visit us at his store later.  We enter into the hostel and immediately find 4 people sitting in the common room.  After putting our things away, we go out to meet them and find ourselves immediately making friends with these people.  After chatting for a bit we went out to dinner with Ben and Nate.   someday I hope to be like ben and Nate with my sister.  Ben and Nate are brothers and best friends they live together and were both stuck in rotten jobs, wanted new ones, and the rent on their apartment was expiring, so they figured why not move everything into storage and travel Europe for 2.5 months.  How sweet is that?  They are at the end of their trip now, they went to Spain, Morocco, and then they were off to Portugal and home.  I thought that was soooo cool, hopefully someday we can do that too.  We went to this cute little restaurant that these boys had found and had a deliciously cheap meal.  I tried this fish dish that was very good, and we had Moroccan tea, olives, cheese and bread.  It was sooo good and cheap.  WE were there for about 3 hours to sharing stories from our trips and getting to know one another. AFter our meal we talked to the owner for like an hour.  Apparently his family has lived in this house-restaurant for 100 years.  He was sooo nice and funny.  HIs English was hilarious too.  He also thought we were canadian and we spent a majority of the time telling him all about our ´¨lives¨¨ in Canada.  After dinner we decided to walk around and explore Morocco.  we began on the main strip with all the stores and such.  As we began walking, I hear somebody yelling ¨¨Hey canadians over here¨¨  but I just ignored it and continued on.  AFter exploring some of the things we could buy the next day, Nate and Ben decided to show us some of the neat places they had discovered.  In order to do this we passed by our friend that showed us our hostel and he stopped to talk to us.  He was surprised that we didnt hear him calling to us earlier and he thought we were lost  his exact words were, ¨¨I kept saying hey canadians over here you´re going the wrong way.  i thought you were lost, but now i see that you have this young man with you so I know you are not.¨¨  Nate complied saying something about how he has control over us now.  That was really one of the only verbal times we realized the differences in culture and the treatment of women.  We began exploring and Nate and ben showed us where the women go to wash clothes and we walked through the streets were most people live.  We then found the greatest store–small shop hat man.  Inside was a guy selling hats, scarves, gloves, etc.  Megan needed a hat for Norway so we went in and began to try on hats.  They were sooo cute and the man that owned the shop was incredibly high and therefore incredibly hilarious.  Megan ended up finding a really cute giraffe hat to buy and I found a hat too.  We then decided Lauren needed one, and Lauren told him that she didnt like any of them, she wanted an elephant.  So the hat man sat down and began to make it and said it would be done tomorrow.  He was soooo funny.  we declined the elephant hat and spent another 20 minutes trying on hats and taking pictures with him.  After this we returned to our hostel to sleep.

After freeezing all night, we woke up to a very sunny day in Morocco.  We headed upstairs to the roof of the hostel for breakfast with the adorable british couple.  They were sooo cute.  They had a hammock up there too it was such a cute breakfast area.  AFter breakfast we decided to climb the mountain to visit the mosque.  We started out on our leisurely hike stopping periodically to observe the people and take pictures.  We wanted to get pictures with the adorable Moroccan kids, but unfortunately a lot of them wanted money for the pictures.  we passed a bunch of kids playing soccer and basketball.  We finally began our hike up the beautiful mountain.  It was sooo pretty and peaceful, however we soon came upon what we had been told was a moroccan cemetery.  It was very odd, there were graves sprawled out everywhere all facing Mecca but in no other order and the only way up was through the cemetery.  I felt really odd walking through it, but we did it being very careful and respectful of the graves.  Once we reached the top of the graveyard we ran into two cute old men and we stopped to take a picture with them.  continuing on with our journey we found various animals and soon we came to an area filled with houses.  There was a nice old lady doing chores around the house and she showed us the path through all the houses.   Everything was so cute, we wanted to take pictures but we didn´t want to bother her so we continued on to the mosque.  we had been warned that last night the mosque was full of boys somking and such, so when we saw three boys sitting around we knew we needed to be careful.  we decided to pretend we were from ¨¨Croatia¨and didnt know english, spanish, or french.  This seemed to work ok.  The boys immediately started offering us drugs and trying to talk to us saying ¨come here flower¨or ¨que guapa¨  we just ignored them and spoke our mix of gibberish, english, and spanish to one another.  It was probably one of my favorite moments of the trip.  We spent the next hour taking photos around the mosque and avoiding the creepy boys.  After the mosque we headed back down the mountain walking more slowly and watching the people that lived up here.  WE saw a mom and a little child washing clothes together, some cute houses, and some really cute animals.  We stopped when we saw the cutest little boy swinging on a swing in a tree.  we tried to take some pictures of him and soon we found ourselves in the company of his brothers and sisters.  No pictures they said but we could come and play.  Yes!  we went to the house and the oldest girl got out a rug and we sat down on the rug together.  Megan and Lauren taught them a hand game that we knew and we just tried to talk and play with them for a couple of hours.  They were so cute, there were two twins, a boy, and a girl and their friend.  We didn´t speak the same language so it was difficult to communicate but they were so cute and fun.  The eldest girl finally decided that we could take pictures, so we spent some time taking pictures with them.  They invited us to stay for lunch, but we didnt want to impose so we decided to head out at lunch time.  After this we headed back down the mountain and began shopping around.  Shopping is very stressful since we have to haggle.  Most things are orignally priced at at least 4 times their value, if you cant get a fair price then you have to leave and you dont get that item.  We decided to just start looking around and see what we were interested in and then come back.  AFter our browsing we went to lunch where I tried cous cous with lamb.  It was soooooo good.  delicious.  After lunch we went back to the hostel, before we set out again.  We started by going back to the place where the women wash their clothes, however we werent very welcome.  They knew we wanted pictures and they didnt want to be disturbed.  We put our cameras away and just wanted to watch, but even then we felt watched.  It was still neat though.  They had htis system in the river, there was a center with washboards and the women would scrub the clothes and then the dirty water would run back into a certain part of the river and they would ring the clothes out in clean water.  Then they would lie the clothes flat and do a little dance on the big blankets to get them drier and flater.  It was neat to see.  It was annoying however to see that the men were just sitting around drinking cokes during this arduous process.  After this we began our shopping.  It was very stressful.  But we found some cute stuff.  After shopping, we met up with Nate and Ben to buy tickets for our bus the next day.  It was a long walk, but very pretty as the sun was setting and we got to see some other parts of the city.  AFter this, more shopping.  I really wanted a blanket and was having trouble finding one, and despite our next attmepts I was still blanket less.  WE then went to dinner with nate and ben and the british couple.  they were so fun.  WE felt like friends and we had only just met.  I love meeting people in hostels.  After dinner, we set out to finish our shopping so that I could finally buy my blanket and I ended up buying one from the ugy who thought we were canadians.   After this we were exhausted and went to sleep before our 7 am bus. 

The next morning we woke up for a quick breakfast and we headed down to take a bus back to tanger.  AFter another uncomfortable bus ride, we said goodbye to our new friends and headed off to buy our ferry tickets.  Unfortunately as Morocco is already an hour different from Sevilla and as sevilla was changing time, we had to leave Morocco early to get back to sevilla.  We bought our ferry tickets and had a couple hours to spare so we went for one last glass of Moroccan tea.  It was sooo good, however the bees liked it to so that got annoying.  After tea, we walked down to the coast line to see the aFrican beach.  It was neat because there were organized games of soccer alll over the beach.  It was fun to watch them play soccer.  AFter the beach we headed to our ferry and back to Sevilla. 

It was such a fun trip and I learned a lot.  I still cannot believe I finally made it to Africa.  I cant wait until I go back to Africa some day

Busyness March 29, 2007

Whew.  this week has been full of stress as I prepare and plan my first big trip here in Spain.  I know I haven´t updated in awhile, I will try to do so soon, but not until after Semana Santa when i get back from Switzerland and France and a wonderful Easter in Sevilla.

So…until then

Greco, Velazquez, Dalí Oh My March 26, 2007

So this past weekend was my art history trip to Madrid. I had heard from people that Madrid was “just another big city” and I wasn’t expecting much. I expected to see a lot of tourism, English, big buildings, just very cityesque. I was pleasantly surprised.

Lauren, Kim, and I boarded the AVE early morning to head off to Madrid. I was very excited to take the AVE for once…and not a bus The AVE was really nice. We had a group of four seats together. It was so cute, there was a a table we could pull out to play board games and we got to watch a movie during the trip and they gave us yummy caramelos (sweets :0)) When we arrived in Madrid we bought some metro passes and took the metro into the heart of the city. Our first mission was to find a hostel since Kim and I had nowhere to sleep that night. After visiting about a dozen places and starting to get very nervous about sleeping in the train station that night, we found the cutest hostel. It was an incredibly relief…the hostel was cheap, clean, bright, cheery, free breakfast, free blankets, everybody was really nice. It really worked out well. It was also in the direct center of the city, we couldn’t have done any better After dropping off our bags we headed back out to find a cafe to eat our lunches at. Madrid appeared to be lacking outdoor cafes so we decided to sit next to a fountain and eat our lunches from our señoras. Afterwards we had a little free time before Lauren had to meet Megan so we wandered around exploring Madrid. The buildings were so pretty. they weren’t city like at all very old and gorgeous. The city was very touristic, moreso than Sevilla. There was a lot of international restuarants and things and a lot of english, but it was very pretty. After Lauren and I left Kim and I decided to explore the main street. We found a really cute park and played in it for awhile. The slide was realllly steep and scary lol. After walking for awhile more and finding the plaza de independence, which boasted a really neat memorial and some really neat fountains we decided to use our bus day pass to head to the top of the street and walk down it. At the top we found these two really neat towers that we’re slanted majorly so that they pointed towards each other it was neat. We continued our walk down exploring various shops and sights. We saw a lot of neat things. We found an Aston Martin car dealership and a mini BMW cafe. We also saw the Real Madrid stadium which got me really excited. We then went to Plaza de Picasso and walked around enjoying the nature and Picasso building. Afterwards we found a shopping mall!!! What a comfort I haven´t seen a shopping mall since I left, it was an actual shopping mall like in the US. It didn´t haveany good stores but it was fun to find. Afterwards we did find a mercadillo, which I loooved. I got a pretty scarf for my sister and some pearl earrings I had been wantin. We continued wandering when we met some random boys from Peru. They asked us for directions and they we talked a little bit. Kim and I joked that receiving besos (kisses) from them alone made the trip worth it haha. We then came upon a famous historical café Café Guijón and Kim and I decided to take a break and enjoy the atmosphere. We sat in the most adorable little seat that overlooked the very old café and spent a couple hours people watching, drinking coffee and having fun. We then decided to head back to our hostel, but a we were walking back we ran into Cristina from our center and she informed us that they were heading off to a jazz club, would Kim and I like to joing…OF COURSE. So we set off to meat up with Juan and other students and went to the café. It was sooo fun. We ordered some drinks and Kim and I shared a caprese tapa while we waited for the show to begin. We were sitting next to this really odd and funny and adorable old guy. Kim started lamenting about how we got olives with our drinks and they got potato chips, so the old guy (not understanding this however) gave us his chips haha. It was amusing. All throughought the evening he would shush the crowd and make weird noises and smile at us it was funny. The concert was amazing. It was flamenco jazz, there was a pianist, guitar player, bassist, drum player, and a singer. It was so neat. The singer sang in the traditional flamenco style and the musicians played very jazzy music. It was AMAZING. It was definitely an awesmoe cultural experience and it was so fun to hang out with new people. Oh yea! and I discovered that Cristina and Juan are from Plainfield..how odd is that. Apparently Juan´s family does the music at Plainfield´s spanish mass, so I´m going to go smoetime when I get home. After the concert, Kim and I headed back to the hostel to sleep. When we got back to our room, we found it empty and took the opportunity to get ready for bed in peace…when in walked a person. Kim immediately introduced herself in spanish, however this person looked really confused so Kim repeated in English, more confusion, until finally the person said, oih its all the same to me because my last name is korean. Kim chuckles and responds how funny would it be if we got married…then I´d be Kim Kim. More awkward silence. At this point we btoh realize we have no idea if this person is a boy or girl. Luckily the moment was saved when in walked a boy who looked startling like Harry Potter and he began shouting obscenities. Apparently he just began his work in Madrid and still doesn´t have an apartment so he needs to go get wasted. okay. an interesting mix we got here. But he soon left, and the Korean person, Kim and I went to sleep.

The next morning we woke up and went to mass before meeting our group at our new hotel. Our hotel room was sooo sweet. It was just the two of us but we had three beds and this amazing balcony that was right in front of the main sign over looking the main street it was beautiful. After settling in a bit, we headed to El Prado our first of many museums. The museum was amazing. We began as a group and Conso explained various paintings to us and we saw a lot of the work we had studied in class. The greco room was my favorite. He is sooo amazing. I loooooved all of his works. We also spent a lot of time in the Velazquez room enjoying his many paintings. he too was a superb artist. Las Meninas was amazing, the colors and details. just awesome. We also saw a lot of Goya. Goya was a very interesting artist, previously I had only known about his dark and morbid paintings, which are very interesting, but we also discovered that he was a multi-talented artist that painted many themes and concepts. We then explored the museum on our own, paying another visit to Velazquez and Greco. After the museum, the four of us went for a delicious lunch at Vitamina. It was perfect for 7.50 we got a buffet and a 4.50 freshly squeezed smoothie drink that was to die for. The buffet was really good to, while it had all the traditional Spanish salads and meats and such, it was so nice to be able to just eat a salad for lunch. It felt good to eat like I do at home for once. After lunch, we went to Museum Reina Sofia. This museum was sooo awesome, I just wish that I hadn´t been so exhausted by this point. We started going around the museum as a group enjoying the amazing Picasso, Dali, Miro and more that the museum had. It was sooo beautiful and fun to stand in front of paintings and discuss what we think they mean. It was awesome. Then we had some free time so we went to check out some more paintings at the museum and we saw a very odd exhibit on televisions. I still don´t understand it, but it had tv´s showing football, static, bars, odd things. I´m not sure what it was all about it was interesting though. After this museum, we went to head back to our hotel but we were confronted with a very large anti-war demonstration. It was very interesting to see and hear. I was very excited to see this. WE decided to avoid the crowds and take the backroads back to our hotel, where I enjoyed a lovely shower and chilled around with people until dinner. For dinner, Tina, Tiffany, Kim, and I went to a little bar for some tapas. It was delicious. I was excited to finally be with people that liked seafood! yay! We ordered some delicious paella, salad, bread, and some really good cheesy tapa. It was a really nice meal and it was fun to go out to dinner with different people. After dinner, we headed back to our hotel and went to bed. we were sooo exhausted.

The next day, we woke up to a lovely hotel breakfast before embarking on our visit to El Palacio Real. The palace was amazing. It was my first palace too! yay! It was huge and breathtaking. The decoration was so awesome and intricate.  There was so much symbolism and meaning in everything.  There wasn´t one plain room, every room had a specific design and layout and theme it was so neat.  AFter the palace we went to Plaza Mayor which we also studied in class.  We just did a quick walk around it and reviewed the concepts that we learned about.  It was very pretty and neat to see in person especially with the Sunday flea markets and shops around it.  Afterwards, Lauren, Kim, and I went to El Rastro-a famous market in Madrid.  It was realllllly busy and we didn´t have much time.  We found a couple of neat things that were way too expensive, and we also found a lot of junk, but it was fun to go.  We had to return to our hotel for lunch then, which was of course delicious.  After lunch we went to Museo Thyssen which was my favorite of the museums.  The whole museum is a collection of Thyssen´s works…man was he riiiiiiich to buy all of that art work.  It was awesome, we started upstairs in Gothic painting and worked our way down into the modern painting.  It was neat they had most major artists like Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Miro, Dali, O´Keefe, Picasso, and soooooo many more.  They had every style of art and all the good artists it was so cool.  WE were on our own in the museum to, so we were able to leisurely explore the Museum at will.  AFter this we went to get some coffee at the best coffee shop-faborit.  The cappuccinos had heart-shapes in them with the foam it was sooo cute and yummy.  After coffee it was time to go back, so we headed to the train station for another ride back to sevilla.

The next

Saturday Night Fever March 13, 2007

Saturday night was so fun. Lauren, Megan, Amanda and I met up with our friends Chames and Gunice. They are such fun and nice guys. We went to McD’s first, ew so that Chames and Gunice could get some food. I love hanging out with them and just chatting in Spanish it was a good time.

We then headed out to a cute little bar where we caught the end of the big Real Madrid-Barcelona match. It was so exciting cause Real Madrid was winning when it went into stoppage time and then with like a minute left Barcelona scored to tie the game. It was incredibly exciting. the rest of the time we just sat around and chatted and had coffee/tea etc. It was so fun. We had to get Amanda back early because she is ill, so we all walked her back to her apartment. Then we headed down to Calle Betis for some more evening fun. As we were walking down we ran into a group of very drunk italians. They started asking us where they could go to dance and such and then they were talking about how the place they went on Betis played American music and at this moment Megan and I looked at each other and we knew what was coming. Yup, the classic I hate Americans comment. Chames so kindly decides to point out that we are Americans which led into several apologies and explanations yadda yadda everything was ok. We all decided to head back to Calle Betis and go to a discoteca together. As we were walking I told him how I was italian and I tried to pronounce Nardozzi as best as I could in italian and they all got really excited. It was funny. It was also awesome because I could converse with them in italian. We would both speak really slow me in spanish and they in italian. It was neat. We ended up at the discoteca we always go to and spent a very enjoyable evening dancing and taking many many silly photos. Oh spanish friends

Dime Guapa March 13, 2007

Our professors are so amazing and so cute.  This weekend when we travelled to Granada it was so fun to get to see them in such a personable light.  Ernesto basically rocks our world.  If he lived in the US he would probably be stereotyped as gay, but in Spain he is just this incredibly fashionable and nice guy.  He’s a dancer too and he’s been in music videos.  It’s so funny when he speaks English because he uses like all the time.  We also went with our art history professor who i love and deborah who is very sweet.  There were so many funny incidents with the professors that would never happen in the US and this is one reason why I just love Spain.

When we were touring La Catedral with Conso she was talking about speaking English and then we got into a discussion about how her English improves when she is drunk.  How funny is that…we would never talk about a professor being drunk at home.  Later that evening at dinner, Eric (who we also love)  was talking to ernesto because he forgot nice shoes and you cannot get into discotecas in tennis shoes or white shoes because that means you’re poor so he starts trying on Ernestos alligator skin shoes.  It was the funniest thing ever.  While he is doing this Ernest begins to explain that with these shoes he must wear brown and he cannot wear thick white socks, he needs thinner brown ones.  Then deborah begins to insist that he wear long pants.  Amanda and I laughed forever it was the cutest thing ever.

The next day we woke up to the best outfit ever from Ernesto…jeans, a pink button down a blue tie and a blue sweater he was the cutest thing.  Amanda and I spent the rest of the day trying to get a decent picture of him haha.  When we were at La Alhambra Conso and Ernesto entered with several students, when there was a problem and deborah couldnt get in.  So Conso goes to try and solve it leaving us with Ernesto. Conso then calls Ernesto with the news and he answers his phone “Dime Guapa” which is probably the funniest thing ever. It means “tell me gorgeous” hahahahahahh. I love it!!!! They are the funniest people ever. hahaha.