Top 5 Reasons Why I Can't Stay Forever

It's my last week in Spain.  I can't believe that's true, so depressing!  As I'm getting ready to go home, I can't help but be SO SAD!! I just really don't want to leave!  So, as an attempt to make myself excited to go home, here is my list of the top 5 reasons why I can't live in Spain forever, no matter how badly I want to:


1.  PARKING
I can't park!!  And Spaniards cars usually look like this:

2.  CLOTHES
When it's 100 degrees out, I like to wear this:

And Spaniards look like this:

Also, I prefer to wear clothes that are comfortable clothes, like these:

While Spaniards always look like this:

On second thought, those are the unfashionable Spaniards...


3. MOUNTAINS
I miss my mountains! Enough said.

4.  SPANISH SCHOOLS
I could never work in a Spanish elementary school for a long time!
Here the little angels are:

Don't be fooled....they are usually more like this:

True Life.


5.  FAMILY AND FRIENDS
I need to see these lovely people (and everyone else!) again.  Spain is not complete without everyone I love <3 

Oh, who am I fooling, I don't want to leave!!!  T-minus 3 days until Sevilla is no longer my home :(

DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH???

I came to Spain with the hopes of truly becoming fluent in Spanish.  Well, I'm not sure if that came true exactly, but I can say that there have been a few times when speaking Spanish has DEFINITELY come in handy!  Here's the top 5: 


5.  When I am talking to my host family!


The couple Drew and I live with speak NO English.  When we asked her if she speaks English she replied with "No, sólo 'Oh my God'"  And she wasn't lying.  She literally asked us one day "qué quiere decir 'good'"  She has had over 50 americans live with her, I don't know how she still doesn't know what good means!! Also, one day I translated between her and the parents of a girl who had stayed with her in the past that came to say hello!


4.  When I was hanging out with the Niños :)


This semester I was able to hang out with some pretty cool niños and "teach them english."  They were 4 and 5 years old, sooo there wasn't a whole lot of English being learned, but they can sure count to ten and name all of the colors!  They are the cutest!  This little girl Laura is my favorite.  Here she is telling me about the tooth fairy! Just ignore me talking at the end and look at how cute she is! 

3.  When I almost lost 260 euros!!


When we did the horseback riding on the beach, multiple people called me from their office (they were NOT very organized people) and our plans changed multiple times.  Finally I was so frustrated with them that I cancelled our reservations and we showed up and paid in cash.  Bueno.  Well, not quite bueno because when I got back home I saw that I had been charged 260 euros to my bank account, and I was so angry I called them up, and after a bit of explaining, arguing, explaining some more and a tid bit of yelling, she told me I would get my money back, and I did.  Phew!


2. When my parents almost got stranded in Sevilla


Huelga.  If I had come to Spain in a different semester, I may have never learned this Spanish word, but you better believe I know what it means now.  Huelga is the Spanish word for "Strike".  On March 29th there was a "Huelga General"  which basically meant that most things were closed, some classes were cancelled, and everything was in a bit of chaos.  They provided "servicios mínimos" which meant the metro ran once every so often, etc, but there were tons of flights and trains cancelled.  This would not have normally been a huge deal, except that my parents were scheduled to fly out on March 29th to go to Barcelona for their cruise.  Well, we looked online and their flight was cancelled, so we went down to the train station and I got a worker to assure me "cien por cien" that their train would be leaving the next day.  It was a bit stressful, but their train left as promised, and they made it to Barcelona just a bit behind schedule (:


1.  When we had to beg our way onto a flight


On our way back from Vienna, Austria, we had two flights with about 45 minutes in between.  Not a huge deal.  But our first flight left 30 minutes late! Soo we had 20 minutes from the time one plane landed to get onto the next one.  Should be able to make it right?  Well the catch is that we were flying Ryan Air.  This airline requires that non EU citizens get their boarding passes stamped before going through security.  Well, we didn't have time for that, so we sprinted to our gate and decided to give it our best shot and talk our way onto the flight.  Changing the flight would have been 110 euros plus whatever a hostel for the night would have been.  It was not an option.  So when we got to the gate, we begged ("por favor, no es nuestra culpa"), reasoned ("tenemos los pasaportes aquí, tenemos los billetes, por qué no podemos entrar"), and begged some more ("estamos en una isla, no tenemos opciones").  There was lots of yelling and then finally crying (good work by my friend Deirdre) before about 15 minutes later they broke down and let us on the flight.


Best part?  We got stuck in the emergency exit seats because that's all that was left, and they happen to be the most comfortable on the whole plane (:

Feria!

Feria.  aka Sevilla's week-long party including lots of Flamenco dancing and drinking for nights on end.  For this wonderful excuse for a holiday we got 12 days off of school which gave us the perfect opportunity to travel!!

But first, we spent the first night of Feria in Sevilla seeing what it's all about.  The first night is the "Pescaito" which is where everyone eats fish dinner in their "casetas" which are big tents.  It is also the "alumbrada" which is the lighting of Feria that happens at midnight Monday night.  

This is the Puerta de Feria (the entrance to the Feria grounds) all lit up at the Alumbrada

After getting home around 4 we had to sleep fast before our 8a.m. flight out of Sevilla.  Next thing we knew we were on our way to Germany, which was our first stop of our Feria travels! Berlin was so great.  I didn't expect to really "love" this city, but I did.  I loved it.  There was so much history everywhere, and it was a lot more beautiful than I had expected!

Berlin is full of beautiful buildings like this one (:

We may or may not have accidentally taken part in a peace rally...Umbrellas for Peace! 

The second day in Berlin we visited a concentration camp.  It is definitely a once in a lifetime experience that I would recommend to everyone.  Our tour guide was great and had a way of making us think about the holocaust in a way that I never have before.

Before we left Berlin, we went to tiergarten, which is basically a big garden right smack dab in the middle of Berlin.  It was beautiful! And a nice escape from the city life.

Before we knew it our time in Berlin was over and we were headed to Prague.  I think I had unreasonably high standards set for Prague, and they just weren't quite met.  It was a beautiful city, sure, but it was SO crowded with tourists that I could hardly think straight!  I think my highlight of the time we spent in Prague was renting paddle boats--our one escape from being surrounded by tourists!

Finally we headed to our last city, Vienna.  Vienna was my favorite of the trip.  It was absolutely BEAUTIFUL.  I wish we would have had more time there, but the time we did have was great! We couchsurfed in Vienna with the best hosts ever, Johanna and Sebastian.  They were so great, and had a great apartment right in the center of the city with an incredible view from the roof (which they kindly showed us).  

Random Asians wanted to take pictures of us and with us haha People are so funny!

Beautiful gardens of Schonbrunn Palace

Johanna and Sebastian in their apartment! Best decision of the trip was to stay with them (:

After a bit of conflict (saving that for another blog) we made it home safe and sound.  Feria was an unforgettable trip with three girls that I have grown to love.  <3 It was a great way to spend our 12 day vacation, and I wouldn't change a thing about it!

HUNGER GAMES!! (and other less important things about Portugal)

Holaaaaa!!! It's only been a week and I'm already updating my blog.  Be proud of me!  So this past weekend ISA (the program I am studying with) took us on an excursion to Lisbon, Portugal.  That means, four star (or in this case 5 star?) hotels and it's all included in our program fee, so great!

Primero, HUNGER GAMES!!!!  So several weeks ago, my friend Allie who studies here was talking about how the Hunger Games movie was being released in Portugal before it is in Spain (it STILL hasn't come out here, feel sorry for us) and that there are theaters that had it in English with Portugese subtitles, so of course we went the first chance we got!! Friday night we piled 30ish Americans in a Portugese movie theater along with the approximately 7 Portugese people who were in there and we saw the movie, FINALLY!!  I don't want to say it was the highlight of Portugal....but it was pretty darn great.

The REAL best part of the trip was our trip to Sintra that we took during our free time on Saturday afternoon.  We took the train to the town Sintra which is a small town full of palaces and Castles.  We hiked up a huge hill to a Moorish Castle and saw so many great views along the way.  It was a little cold and rainy, but we had a splendid time.  I was a little reminiscent of Ireland because everything in Sintra was rolling green hills.  There were several moments where I just breathed in the air and pretended to be in Ireland-- I miss it so much!  But Portugal was pretty great, and cheap!! We had several 1 euro pastries (something Portugal is well-known for) before we headed back to home sweet Sevilla (:

Fun Fact! I can't actually find my camera at the moment, sooo here is a google image picture from the Moorish Castle we were at overlooking the town.  Not very legitimate, but still a pretty beautiful sight (:

Tomorrow marks one month left until the last day of classes here in Spain.  I'm sure I say this every time, but I seriously can't believe how fast time is going by here!! I'm not ready for it to end yet!!  Hasta Luego (:

Cumpleaños, Suiza, Marruecos, y más!

Hello friends!! As you all know by now, I am a terrible blogger!! But I will try to recap the last month (I can't believe it's been a month already since my last post!) without making it superrrrr long and boring! Here goes!!

First off--Birthday Weekend!!

Thursday night was Lindsay's birthday (another girl in my program) so we went to a Flamenco show to celebrate, it was my first Flamenco experience, and it lived up to the name of being very "interesting and cultural" for sure!  

Then, on Friday, we went hiking!! I was really feeling pretty crappy that day, but thankfully Spain's mountains are no Rocky Mountains so the hike was easy, and I survived (:

For my birthday, we went to the beach at Matalascañas and rode horses on the beach! It was so much fun! It was a great day that I got to spend with 10 of my best friends from studying abroad and an experience I will never forget!  

Me and my horse Niebla (:

None of us had swimming suits, but somehow we thought it would be a good idea to jump into the ocean anyway... 

 The after effect: me soaking wet, but it was the best decision we made all day (:

Next Stop--Granada! (I warned you this would be long....!)

The following weekend we had our next ISA excursion, which means we went on a trip with the other people in our program, and the staff organized everything for us.  It was super nice to not have to be worrying about paying for hostels and such as we went along and to not be worried about anything happening because if something went wrong we wouldn't have to take care of it for once!! 

Our first stop on this trip was Córdoba where we saw La Mezquita.  It was not my first time in Córdoba, because my trip to Spain in high school stopped there, but it is a charming little town and it was nice to see it again (:

 A typical flower pot-covered street in Córdoba 

La Mezquita: Catholic Cathedral built inside a Muslim Mosque, gotta love Spanish culture (:

After spending most of the day in Córdoba, we migrated on to Granada, which I would say is basically like the Boulder of Spain.  It is basically in the mountains, and has a lot of hippies.  We even found a hippie hang-out place while we were there, and after observing the gente and feeling way out of place for about a half hour, we moved on.  While in Granada, we saw the Alhambra, an old palace, and the most visited site in all of Spain.  It really is a beautiful place, but way too crowded by tourists (including myself!) for my taste. 

 Inside the Alhambra

 One of the views looking out from the Alhambra

In our free time we decided to just hike around and see what we could find.  Along with finding the hippie hang-out place, we found some great views like this one: Granada's pretty (:

The rest of our time in Granada was spent touring one more Cathedral, hiking around a bit, hanging out in a park playing Psychiatrist, and enjoying free tapas, that's right, I said FREE! One of the best things about Granada is that if you go basically anywhere and order a drink, they will bring you tapas for free!! Such a great system, I think all of Spain should adopt that! 

Stage Three: Suiza! (aka Switzerland!)

The following weekend my friend Deirdre and I went to Switzerland.  We covered two cities in our little weekend including Zurich and Basel.  When we got there, we were met with a little surprise--turns out Zurich doesn't have mountains!! What a bummer! Guess we should have done our research! haha BUT lacking mountains does not mean Zurich is an ugly city by any means.  Deirdre and I rented bikes and rode around the Lake and throughout the city--for Free!! (Are you noticing a theme? We really like free stuff!)  

 Zurich at night!

 Switzerland speaks German, which means my last name was EVERYWHERE!

 Along the bike path (:

 No, we did not steal this child, she is the daughter of the family we stayed with CouchSurfing!

 The largest clock face in the world, pretty cool huh

 This is how Switzerland drinks out of water fountains...que guay

 We payed two franks and sprinted up multiple flights of stairs for this view, so worth it (:

 Basel is pretty (:

The Rhine River

After spending a very long night in the Basel airport to catch our very early flight, we returned to Sevilla at around 11:30 the next morning where I took a very long nap before going to meet MY PARENTS!!

That's right, my parents came to visit me this week!! It was so much fun! I realize now that I don't have any pictures of their visit (que pena) but I assure you it was lovely.  Things got a little interesting because of the Huelga General (General Strike) that Spain had on the Thursday (March 29th) that my parents were supposed to fly out of Sevilla to make it to Barcelona for their cruise.  Their flight was cancelled so I snagged them tickets to the only train going from Sevilla to Barcelona the entire day.  After making a couple of trips to the train station, we had tickets in hand and I was sending them away.  I realized that it is a lot harder to be the one sending someone off on an adventure than to be the one leaving for an adventure!! My time with them went by WAY too fast after how long we had been looking forward to it, but it was nice to show them my home and have them meet my Spanish family (:

Whew! We're almost done, hang in there! 

Exactly 12 hours after my parents train left for Barcelona I left for Morocco! Take out your maps people, because Morocco is in AFRICA! Pretty sweet, huh?  I could type forever with stories about Morocco, but I will just let pictures tell the story (: Here we go!

 This (to the left) is the view from the Ferry on the way to Morocco, welcome to the land of the Arabic!

Our first stop in Fes was at a huge arabian palace.  This is a picture of us in one of the doorways.  Arabians sure know how to decorate!

Our first day in Fez, we wandered through La Medina which is basically a HUGE (the largest in the world) market place with tons and tons of shops.  We stopped at a few of them to see how Moroccans make their items and to see a bit of how they live life.  It was a really interesting little culture lesson! To the right is where they die leather.  If you look closely, you can see people standing in some of the little wells where they put in and take out leather all day to die it.

This is our tour guide, Fued (I really have no idea how to write it, but it's pronounced foo-ed).  He was pretty much the coolest, we had the best group.  

That night we went to a traditional Moroccan show (aka cool Moroccan music and belly dancing). Here's a picture of one of the performers!

The following day was another day of travel as we headed toward the Sahara Desert!  We stopped for lunch in the middle of an oasis. SO. MANY. PALM TREES!!!! I could hardly contain myself!! Here is us looking down on the oasis we were heading toward!

When we got to the place we were supposed to leave our buses and get into 4x4s to head into the desert, we found a huge sand storm waiting for us.  This is how we protected ourselves from the sand..scarves have so many uses!

When we got to the desert we had a full day ahead of us, including:

RIDING CAMELS!!,

 Hiking through some dunes,

Playing with some niños,

And chilling with some locals (including several marriage proposals).

The next morning, we woke up early to watch the sun rise over the Sahara Desert.  It's kind of one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments that a picture really can't capture, but here's the best effort we got:

Finally, we had to head back home, but only after a couple of stops, including one stop where we saw some wild African Monkeys!!! They were so cute! (well, at least the baby ones were).

After countless hours on the bus, we were finally on the ferry that would take us back to Spain.  While riding the ferry, we saw some dolphins jumping which was a first for me!  It was a beautiful ride filled with great conversation, and some beautiful scenery (: