mi vida española

it's almost over...

2009-05-14T13:25:00.000-07:00

alright ladies and gents, this very well may be the last post until june 13... the day i go hooooooome! the only new and exciting thing that has happened recently is, well you know....sistar and mommy were here!! this was sarah's first time to europe EVER and mama's first time to spain. they got here at the perfect time, just as feria was winding down, and just as the hot weather was beginning. we managed to do a lot together, but mostly it was just nice to have a little piece of home here with me.

i took them to meet loli, my señora. she made an AWESOME lunch for us, it was the cutest thing of all time. i had to translate and eat...twas exhausting. it was weird speaking english in front of loli...but i'm glad she got to see that i can in fact be an articulate human being, not a total idiot struggling to speak spanish.

i made sure they did all of the typical sevilla tourist stuff: the cathedral (we went to a mass!), the reales alcázares (a huge fortress), bodyworlds (sarah and i both pissed our pants over this), and the baños arabes (a spa/bath house). we also went to a couple of famous sevilla bars/restaurants including a bar with a badass flamenco show, and i even took sarah out with my friends to play beer pong at our favorite tuesday night bar (we lost). we took day trips to granada and málaga....both weren't quiiiiite what we expected. granada was an absolute fiasco with transportation...but at the end of the day, we got there and back safe and sound and managed to see nearly all of the alhambra (another giant fortress... the most visited place in spain). málaga, as it turns out, has the worst beach in southern spain, but as it is also the birth place of picasso, so there was a kick ass picasso museum there. the highlight of that trip was eating lunch on a small street with a violin player, who was GREAT, playing nearby.

our last day was spent in madrid, where we saw picasso's great 'guernica' as well as the rest of the museo reina sofia (my favorite museum...in the world! dude, i can actually say that!). i was also finally able to see the parque del buen retiro (kicks central park's ass) for the first time in four trips to madrid. time out: ABSURD, i've been to madrid four separate times. we managed to negotiate the stress that comes along with spending 10 straight days with each other, and i can safely say it was absolutely fabulous having them here....shout out to papa and rose for making sarah's trip possible!

but all good things must come to an end....mama and sistar are back in michigan, and i only have one month (exactly from yesterday) here. it's really hard to believe i've spent over 4 months here. it's starting to freak me out that the people i see every day here are about to be, well...gone! the next month is going to be less than fun: three final exams, one project, two papers to write. turns out, i actually have some work to do here.

so friends, i'll top things off with one final post when i'm on my way home. i can't wait to see everyone when i come home!!

and some pictures...not in chronological order...blogger is the bane of my existence.

there were these cute little statuey things all throughout the park in madrid.

parque del buen retiro...only took me 6 years and 4 trips to madrid to get there...

in malaga, dipping our feet into the mediterranean!

pastries from "la campana." i'll mostly likely need a few bypass surgeries when i get home.

for a fancy night out, we ate here. it was friggen awesome. mom and i got "cola del toro" or bull's tail. we ate bull meat off of a vertebrae. and liked it.

the apartment we stayed in was just around the corner, in the santa cruz barrio (the old jewish quarter). needless to say, a little more picturesque than the 'burb that i live in.

surviving in granada

i kid you not, the tour guide told us that this was the room in which the sultan hung out with his concubines (in the alhambra, granada).

me and mommy next to the sevilla cathedral. we lived around the corner from this as well.

feria

2009-05-11T02:29:00.000-07:00

at the end of april each year, sevilla turns in to one big giant party. everyone gathers in los remedios (a barrio on the other side of the river of my barrio) where rows upon rows of tents or "casetas" are set up for non-stop partying. if you´re lucky, you get invited to a private caseta, which nearly all of the casetas are, or you brave the crowded, dirty public casetas. i had the pleasure of experiencing both. inside each caseta is of course, a bar, and an area for dancing where women dressed in flamenco dresses dance the traditional "sevillana" dance. dresses cost about 300 €, so i wasn´t able to acquire one. a few of my friends borrowed or bought dresses on sale, and they looked amazing. i initally thought i would look like a total tool wearing one if i had worn one, but it turns out you stand out more at feria if you DON´T wear a flamenco dress. it is at least absolutely obligatory to dress to impress when going to the feria. inside the caseta i enjoyed rebujito with my friends, a drink made from white wine and sprite....the "other" sangria i´d like to think. when mama and sister arrived on the 1st, i was able to take them to feria for one night. needless to say, it was quite the culture shock. i´m really glad they got to see such a typical sevilla event during their visit! some photos of the madness:

the private caseta we were able to party in....i took the photo on a different night, when there wasn´t as much of a crazy partaaay.

some dancing sevillanas in the typical flamenco garb.

the entry way to feria. they construct a new one every year and this year, it was smaller than usual (???)
we all know who these people are!

semana santa (which was a thousand years ago, i know) and the canaaaaaries!

2009-05-04T07:54:00.000-07:00

i do realize i've been a bit delinquent on my blog posts. things are getting crazy here. firstly, momma and siiiiistar are currently here!! i've been dragging them around everywhere with me, and tomorrow we'll be in for a little r&r as we're going to the baños arabes for a little spa treatment.

but more on them later. after my colossal euro trip, we got back to sevilla during semana santa (holy week). every year, the city is transformed into a giant religious frenzy, filled with pasos. pasos are...floats, i guess you could say...really old religious floats. i'm talking renaissance old. men carry them throughout the city for a whole day at a time, so they can be viewed at different points of the city all day. this goes on for the whole week leading up to easter. let's not forget that with each paso is a huge procession of scary hooded men, or penitents. thankfully, not kkk members.

two weeks later, my trip to gran canaria. i went with 7 other girls from the program, including my roommate, kate. this was actually the first typical 'spring break trip' i've ever gone on. most of my spring breaks have been with family or at home. we stayed in playa del ingles, apparently the gay capital of europe. we didn't get a taste of this until our last night when we ate dinner in the yumbo center, which was filled with plenty of drag queens and cabaret shows. our first day was spent on the beach, and we were accosted by several men trying to sell us tickets to bar crawls and other tourist traps. we caved in and bought tickets to two bar crawls and a boat excursion. as usual, we were not given exaaaaactly what we were promised, but they were all fun. my favorite part had to be our near death banana boat ride on the boat and the (several) free bottles of champagne we won during our bar crawls. last two days on the island were spent sunning at the pool at our apartment complex - it got soooo windy that the beach was no longer enjoyable! we came back to sevilla, freshly tanned and even a little burned, and geared up for feria. more on that later....

prague pictures!

2009-04-15T03:24:00.001-07:00

the john lennon wall. this is just a fraction of this friggen sweet piece of collective artwork.

st. vitus' cathedral...part of the prague castle, which happens to be europe's oldest medieval castles!

birthday in the family birthplace.

vltava river and the charles bridge

BOHEMIA BAGEL!!

rome pictures!

2009-04-15T02:05:00.000-07:00

inside the vatican...sorry folks, no pictures of the sistene chapel :(

outside the vatican...me, kate and adrienne...my travel buddies!

the roman forum

10 years later, it still looks the same!

this time, i made sure to drop another coin in the trevi fountain to ensure another visit to rome! here with kate, peter, adrienne and katy (and gelato!)

venice pictures!

2009-04-11T13:43:00.000-07:00

san marco square! complete with pigeons!

me and kate on the rialto bridge....the gran canal behind us

i thought this building was perty, so i snapped a picture with it.
ahh, the first gondola sighting. after the rain finally stopped, they came out to play.
the weather was poopy, but we still had fun.

euro trip!

2009-04-11T02:55:00.000-07:00

ahhh, the great euro trip has happened: 8 days, 4 cities, 8 planes. we arrived back in sevilla on thursday and needless to say, i'm a little tired. shall i begin?? be prepared, there's a lot.

VENICE

so, kate and i woke up at 4:30 am to catch our 8 am flight out of sevilla. we made one stop in barcelona, and arrived in venice at about noon. we were welcomed by a healthy amount of rain. this wasn't the only obstacle. we had to find a way to get from the bus station on the main island to our hotel on lido, which is another little island of venice. after going to a few information desks, we find that our best option is to buy a boat ticket for 24 hours at a mere 18 euro. (and the expenses begin to pile up...) the public (boat) transportation is kind of a boat version of a metro. a bunch of different lines, but on water. after a mere hour boat ride to lido, we check in, the rain stops, and we begin to explore. because we only had one day there, we just chose to walk around mostly. you couldn't get lost in venice if you tried...you always end up back at the gran canal. we visited san marco square, visited the basilica, ate pizza, then explored some more. there were gondolas everywhere once the rained stopped, but at 80 euro a pop, we had to pass. we did have one man yell at us "hey spice girls, want a gondola ride??" interesting....because of the whole wake up early, one hour boat ride thing that we had to do all over again the next day, we at an early dinner (pasta, of course) and called it a night early. the next day, we woke up at 3:45 am (horrifying), hopped on the boat, took a bus to the airport and got on our 8 am flight to rome.

ROME

immediately after getting off the plane friday morning, we took a bus to the central termini station, walked 10 minutes to our hostel, dropped off our stuff and booked it to the vatican. there we met up with our friend adrienne who made the rest of the trip with us. basically everything we did in rome i've done before, but it was a lot nicer to do it 10 years later as an adult. i think i appreciated things a lot more. the vatican was of course, gorgeous, as was the sistene chapel. although, i do remember it being a great deal larger last time. probably because i was a wee 12 year old. we then went immediately to st. peter's basilica, rubbed the statues foot, explored the surroundings of the vatican a little more, and then stopped in a cafe for more pizza and gelato. by now we were in contact with two other students from our program that were staying in our hostel and decided after a quick walk to the river, we'd meet them at the hostel and check out the spanish steps. the river proved to be a little complicated...we got slightly lost on the grounds of a castle nearby, and it took us roughly twenty minutes to find our way across its moat. but then we jumped on a bus and were back at the hostel in no time. there we met up with katy and peter. after catching up quickly, we headed off to the spanish steps. peter stayed behind because he was still finishing a paper due that day (whoops!). we took the metro to the center of the city, saw/climbed the steps and even made our way to the trevi fountain and had more gelato. we found a cute little restaurant for dinner, ate more pizza, took our leftovers to stash in the hostel, and then relaxed in the hostel drinking wine and watching a movie. we all were a little too beat to brave the roman bars that night

saturday, kate, adrienne and i got up early to see the colosseum, roman forum, and....all of those other ruins in the same area. this time i actually made it into the colosseum (for a mere 12 euro). the weather was absolutely gorgeous. we totally lucked out. after exploring the ruins for a couple of hours, we met back up with katy and peter for lunch (more pizza) and then basically wandered around for a good 3 or 4 hours. we saw the pantheon, the piazza del popolo, the eternal flames at altare della patria, ducked into a church that was having mass, drank cappuccino, shopped...you name it. i'm still amazed by all we were able to squeeze in two days. we basically saw all of rome. hungry and needing rest, we went back to the hostel to eat our pizza. unfortunately, some unfriendly vultures had eaten it. poopfaces. i'm still angry, it was such good pizza! we made do with what the vultures left, had a couple of drinks and headed out to a bar. before getting there, we stopped at the trevi fountain one more time to throw coins in (and ensure our return to rome), and ate even more gelato. we were planning on walking to campo di fiori, where the best bars are apparently, but we got lazy and stopped in at 'trinity college,' another recommended bar that was closer. it was alright, besides the astronomical 6 euro we payed for our beers...we then walked allllll the way back to our hostel (at least an hour i think!) and got in a few hours sleep before our plane to prague the next morning.

PRAGUE

bright and early sunday morning, we left katy and peter in rome and headed off to prague with one stop in milan. at this point, we started to get a wee bit tired. i've never slept so much on planes...usually it's impossible for me, but in this state of exhaustion, it was easy. we arrived in prague in the early evening, and took a cab from the airport to the hostel. this was easily the nicest hostel we stayed in. it was more like an apartment that let out rooms. huge kitchen, huge room, huge bathroom, and free internet. beautiful. that night, we walked around wenceslas square a little bit, and realized how impossible it is to make anything out of any czech word. italian is close to spanish, but czech is impossible to read or pronounce. we made up our own little words for what we thought street names sounded like...elaborate czech street names became "pacman," "jambalaya," and my personal favorite, "slap cat." after wandering a bit, we arrived at the beer factory, a bar/restaurant with 15 tables, all equipped with their own tap. the food was decent, albeit nothing like italy, but we poured our own beer, which was fun. the music was loud, and about 30 minutes after being there, two very large groups of young tourists piled in and started dancing. it was great people watching to say the least. we turned in early again so we could get up the next day and cram all of our sightseeing in.

monday. the birthday. started off with a bang and BOHEMIA BAGEL. my first bagel in months, and it was bohemian. i was happy as a clam. we then visited st. nicholas' church (old) and the prague castle (even older). we then made it to old town square for some good old fashioned czech wieners. (bratwurst). we also tried some hot wine, and it was GOOD. i now have a bohemian contribution of my own for uncle ed's christmas dinner. should go good with the kolaches. there was some easter fair going on as well, so we enjoyed that. there was a stage with children singing...a little creepy because it was in czech, but cute still. we then made it back to the hostel, got pretty and went out for a nice birthday dinner. food in prague is pretty cheap if you know where to go....we found a very nice place called 'cafe savoy,' each had basically a three course dinner with drinks, and i think it came out to roughly 10 euro a person. nice. except in czech crowns. (most confusing currency ever). i had a 'traditional czech meal' of ham, horseradish, mustard and gherkins. i enjoyed. i looooove me some horseradish. adrienne had a friend she wanted to see, so she and kate went out, and i got some beauty sleep. i need it in my old age now.

AMSTERDAM

ah, the last city. we got up early, again, and took a cab to the airport. we had a loooong day ahead of us with a 6 hour layover in london gatwick. we pondered venturing out into the city, but london has weird passport control issues, so we figured when all was said and done, we'd have roughly an hour at most to explore. not worth it. so we sat in the airport...read...ate....i purchased myself a birthday present (new bag, very happy about it). and finally we were on the plane to amsterdam. we got there around 7 pm, took a train into the city and walked to the hostel. this city is by far the most different city i've ever been to. if you've seen it, you know what i'm talking about. bikes have their own traffic lanes, you can walk down the red-light district and pick out a prostitute, and coffee shops are NOT a place to buy coffee. it was pretty rainy the next day, but luckily most of our activities (van gogh museum, heineken experience) were all indoors. both were quite expensive to get into, but at least we all got a little tipsy from the 'free' beer that we got in the heineken experience. my other favorite moment had to be when we were walking through the red light district, which was conveniently around the corner from our hostel, and one of the ladies standing on the street sprayed us with a water gun. the women of the night even have senses of humor! after a day of major sensory overload, we headed back to our hostel and enjoyed the xbox in our room. (seriously, all rooms had an xbox. and games. nice).

the next morning, we dragged our tired bodies back onto the train, and onto our last flight. we were all pretty happy to be going home...even if it involved a flight with VERY annoying toddlers with sticky apple eating fingers and seat kicking feet. kate and i came home, were warmly greeted by loli and dos besos, ate lunch, and passed out for 5 hours. and don't worry your pretty little head. the pictures are coming next.

go bluuuuuuuuuue!

2009-03-22T12:13:00.000-07:00

this blog won't be much simply because nothing too exciting has happened recently, but all i have to say is thank god for 'espn america.' we were able to watch the wolverines win and fail live here, thanks to an tex-mex (random!) bar that's offering a march-madness party thing. but on a sappy note, this was the first time in a long time that i felt the pangs of home-sickness. as cheesy as it sounds, i would have loved to be in a bar in ann arbor with my michigan friends, or even on the couch at home eating popcorn with the fam. and then, while my mind was on ann arbor, it also hit me that a lot of my friends at u of m (and elsewhere!) will be graduating this year. not only will i not be...but i won't even be able to be there to celebrate with them, and i'll even be missing my best-friend's own grad party! yes, i know there are worse things in life, and i will be totally distracted from these thoughts in two weeks when i'm touring europe, but...i miss you guys!! that is all :)

monkeys and beaches

2009-03-16T02:22:00.000-07:00

As you may already know, about a week ago, I was bitten by a monkey. For those of you who didn´t already know that...I shall explain. A group of us ventured off to Gibraltar for a day, where we saw Africa, explored a cave, took a bus tour, and befriended some monkeys. At the end of our tour, we visited the "Ape Den." Macaque monkeys are quite plenitful in Gibraltar, and the den is supposed to be the place where you can visit slightly more domestic monkeys. Or so I thoooought. To make a long story short, we all were able to intice monkeys onto our shoulders, and my roommate and I left Gibraltar as the only two people with monkey bites. We still have the bruises to prove it.

This past weekend proved to be a little less...toothy. The actual warm weather has arrived, so on Saturday a large group of us took a short bus ride to Matalascañas to spend the day on the beach. Needless to say, it was preeeeeeeetty nice. The water was a wee bit cold, but really not any worse than a cold-ish Lake Michigan swim. A few people from the group climed this massive rock thing that was in the middle of the water (in water deep enough to jump into!). I was a little tired and cold at that point, but now I have a reason to go back to the beach. Other than the fact that...it´s the beach.

I might have another trip to Madrid in store for this weekend - my friend Janelle from elementary/middle/high school is in Europe this week, and will most likely be making a trip to Madrid. She lived and studied there for two years, so it´ll be nice to see Madrid through a veteran´s eyes. If not, i´ll still be one weekend less away from the grand Venice-Rome-Prague-Amsterdam trip....

if you look hard enough, africa is in the background

the not so friendly monkey

cave exploring

PARISSSSSSSS

2009-03-04T12:25:00.000-08:00

holy crap. i can now say i've been to paris. i've basically waited my whole life to say that...or at least since i was 15 and i was supooooosed to go to france with my suzuki group. now that it's over i'm a little sad...my life no longer has meaning! just kidding. it was amazing though, definitely worth the almost 7 year wait. i've uploaded pictures for your viewing pleasure...

the hostel we stayed in was in montmarte, the 18th district of paris. upon getting there, we finally realized how friggen huge the city is. the last picture is the view from our hostel, in which you can see the sacre coeur, a roman catholic basilica that's about 100 years old... relatively new, i would say! took us about 15 minutes to walk/climb there. later when we got to the top of the eiffel tower, we could see it in the distance...verrrry far away. like, ridiculously far away. if it weren't for the very efficient metro system in paris, we would've been screwed.

you can probably figure out that two of the pictures are in front of the eiffel tower (!) and the louvre, where mona lisa resides. i'm sorry to say, she was a little disappointing. there were sooooo many people there when we went (we went friday evening when it's free), and on top of it all the painting is behind a friggen foot of bullet proof glass or something. later that night we ate at le refuge de les fondues...or something like that. i've also attached a picture. and yes, those are baby bottles. for 20 euro, we got a giant plate of appetizer yummy-ness, two giant pots of fondue, and all of the wine out of baby bottles that our little hearts could desire. i've never seen a restaurant like this place...a tiny hole in the wall with two very long tables right up against the walls. if you wanted to get out and you were on the inside...you were climbing over the table. the interior was also covered with graffiti of previous happy customers. we then made the mistake of paying 15 euro to get into a club, which although it was inside a bridge, only played silly euro house music. we didn't stay long.

saturday, the weather was beautiful. that's when we made it to the top of the eiffel tower, for a mere 12 euro. the view was quite spectacular. then we did a little shopping...i accomplished my goal of buying french underpants. it had to be done. then we got back to the city center, and saw the arc de triomphe at sunset and then made it back to the eiffel tower to see it sparkle at night. we then made our way to the latin quarter, had a faaabulous dinner (i had steak! first time in months, thanks to spain's obsession with pork), and went to another little hole in the wall for a couple of drinks.

sunday, kate and i remained in paris while the others went back. we managed to squeeze in the museé d'orsay, notre dame, and macaroons at herme pierre. please see the pictures. holy crap, some of the best pastry thingies i've ever had. they had all sorts of flavors...kate got a rose flavored macaroon, i tried a wasabi flavored one. and of course, we both got chocolate ones too.

before i leave you with this novel, i must also comment on traveling by train: something i will NEVER be doing again. sleeping/sitting in a reclining chair for 13 or 14 hours is not how i like to travel. not to mention the crying baby on the way there, and the people that were smoking in the bathroom on the way home. and of course, on the way home, our seats were in the back, next to the bathroom. i woke up monday morning feeling like i had chain-smoked an entire pack. i'm pretty sure i'm getting bronchitis.

traveling, traveling, and more traveling.

2009-02-23T08:13:00.001-08:00

since my last post, a few very good things have happened. yes, classes started. and yes, they're hard. one of my classes requires 6 novels about the spanish civil war. and this isn't even a class that is taught at the university...it's taught at our center, geared towards american students. fair? not so much. luckily all i have to do is pass...

but, the good news is, we went to granada this weekend, and it was beeeeeeeeeautiful. it's a very mountainous city, and we managed to climb to the top of it the day we arrived. well, not the top top, but as you can see in the picture, we got high enough to get a pretty sweet view. the food was also phenomenal...i've never eaten so well for so cheap. as many of you may know, i adooooore middle-eastern food, and saturday night i ate one of the best falafel sandwiches of my life. for 3 euro. yesssss. we also visited 'la alhambra,' an old arab compound thats nestled in the hills of granada. the architecture was pretty similar to the other arab/muslim buildings we've seen, but on a much grander scale. it's said that if you're a spaniard and you die without seeing la alhambra, then you haven't lived.

also good news: plans have been made for both of the spring breaks that we get here. the first is semana santa, or holy week, and is the week leading up to easter. this year it falls on the first week of april, which lucky me, is the week of my birthday. with two other friends, i'll be traveling to venice, rome, prague (birthday night in the country of my ancestors!), and amsterdam. how is this achieved, you might ask?? skyscanner.com. cheap cheap flights. probably not the most legit way to book flights, but we found flights from venice to rome for 25 euro. i don't care how sketchy it is. that's darn cheap.

the second spring break is feria (april fair), which i'm almost positive is exclusive to sevilla. it's at the end of april. for this week, my friends and i have planned a true spring break trip (one that involves a beach). we shall be going to the canary islands. this was also absurdly cheap to book. the cost of the flight and lodging was less than my plane ticket to florida last year for spring break. and when i return, rested and tan, i shall be greeted by my mama and siiiiistar! april is going to kick ass.

the next adventure however, is to paris this weekend. i still don't think it's settled in yet, because as i write this, i'm pretty calm about the whole idea. but, paris is probably one of the places in the world that i want to visit most, and the fact that it's three days away is quite thrilling. hopefully during the 12 hour train ride, i'll finally get pumped!

futbol/cordoba pictures

2009-02-22T12:42:00.000-08:00

for the first time in kajillion years apparently, the national teams of spain and england met in sevilla. we were lucky enough to find tickets, and of course, decked ourselves out in the appropriate attire. and along with soccer, comes a lot of alcohol. the beer picture is a taste of a spanish 'botellón,' which basically is a large gathering of boozing in the street. this happens not only before soccer games, but basically any day of the week after classes. they love their cruzcampo here (the spanish budweiser...). and finally, a few pictures of córdoba. the famous site in this city is 'la mezquita,' another very old church that was first build by muslims and then added onto by christians after they kicked all of the muslims out of the country. this mixture of muslim and christian art/architecture is known as 'mudéjar,' and is unique to spain. i think i remember the tour guide saying that 'la mezquita' is the only structure in the world that has two altars pointing to each religions' respective 'meccas.'

picture explosion!!

2009-02-22T11:39:00.000-08:00

get ready folks....i know it's been a while. classes started, which means along with my budding social life, i now have to keep up on my studies, and unfortunately, the blog has suffered. so...here comes the first of a few photo installments, and because i know you're dying to know...an update on my life.

this first group of photos is from cádiz. we went a few weeks ago...it's located in the southern tip of spain, and enjoys 300 days of sun a year. february is carnival month for them...we visited right before the party started. even though we did the usual touristy stuff, we did have enough time to frolic on the beach and take the cliché jumping picture. the second photo a lovely view of the ocean and the city from atop the torre de...something. a tower. followed by a street picture that i took, because it was purrrrty. anda finally, the exterior of the cathedral...the tiny man can give you an idea of how huge this thing is. like most of the stuff in spain, it's really old. you can tell that i pay massive amounts of attention during our tours...i have to admit, i really don't like guided tours. i like to look at stuff at my own pace....and if it's sweet, then i'll read up on it! two hours in one cathedral: a little overkill.

PAELLA!

2009-02-08T14:08:00.000-08:00

So it's been a while, and I don't have that much to say except - seafood. Since Madrid, we've taken day excursions to Cadiz and Cordoba (pictures to follow). I'd hate to sound lame, but they were the typical touristy trips, with visits to cathedrals and historical areas of the cities. Cadiz was by far my favorite. We spent a good amount of time on the beach, enjoying the city that receives 300 days of sun a year....

But the most striking news I have to report is my consumption (and sort-of enjoyment) of seafood. As you may know, I HATE FISH. For real. I think it's disgusting. Fishy tastes and smells make me yak. But, being practically on the coast here, fish is fresher and therefore, not so nasty. This past Wednesday night, Loli sat two fried filets of what I thought was chicken in front of us and declared "es pescado." Translation: it's fish. I'd told her that I don't eat fish, but I would try, so this was her first attempt to ease me into the whole fish thing...and I must say... a little fried fish with lemon...not so bad! I ate two of those suckers!

Clearly because I was brave enough to try that, she deemed me brave enough to try paella (In case you're wondering, my roommate, Kate, loves seafood so all of this has been fabulous for her).

Paella is a classic Spanish dish. It's a big pile of saffron flavored rice with veggies and an assortment of seafood sprinkled throughout. Our paella yesterday was complete with hunks of squid, mussels, clams, and a very large, very much still in its shell shrimp. With eyes.

I looked at Kate, with fear in my eyes, and dove in. I didn't dare tell Loli that I was pretty positive I was going hate it. Which was a good thing, because I didn't! I ate that entire thing (save a clam or too that looked a little too snot-like)! And yes, I pulled the head of my shrimp, peeled its little shell away, and ate that sucker. I didn't absolutely love it, but I think I'm finally becoming a little accustomed to eating sea-creatures. I did however lose my appetite when Loli pulled the head off of her shrimp, and then sucked on it. No thanks.

madrid

2009-01-29T14:55:00.000-08:00

ir

tadaaaah! pictures from madrid: 1st) me, kate, and terry in the courtyard of el palacio real (royal palace). apparently, this place has thousands of rooms, one of which is filled with stradivarius instruments. you can imagine how excited i was compared to everyone else....

2nd) madrid is waaaay more crowded than sevilla. throngs of people crowded onto the main drag to benefit from the rebajas (country wide sales)

3rd) my favorite of the street 'performers' we saw. free hugs!

4th) a picture of the gals. metro station on the way to the discoteca. while we were in madrid, there was a gimongous wind storm all over andalucia, and in fact, the lights went out while we were waiting for the train to arrive. don't fret, we got there safely and in the light!

socialized medical care

2009-01-28T12:26:00.000-08:00

only two and a half weeks in, and i've already gotten a dose of socialized medicine (pun, hahaaaaaa). both my roommate kate and i have gotten what seems to be the sevilla flu. things got so bad (runny nose, head ache, sore throat, etc) that we decided we needed to seek medical attention.

the main trick was finding a facility that would accept our international student health insurance. this was no easy feat because contrary to the popular belief, all europeans do NOT speak english. calling a bunch of clinics wasn't very easy, but kate finally got on the phone with the insurance company, and we nailed down a private hospital whose 'urgent' department we could visit.

the receptionists were NOT nice, the doctor did NOT speak english (he told me he would write down a 'recipe' for me to take to the pharmacy), and there were NO nurses.

however, i must say, the care was very prompt and efficient...i was a little unnerved of not having my temperature taken, but whatev. i was also able to describe my symptoms in spanish, which resulted in a prescription for several flu-symptom-helping medications. which, drum roll please....only amounted to 10 euro. not to mention the fact that after showing my i.d, there was absolutely no discussion of payment at the hospital. a country where medical attention is next to free...how refreshing...

to madrid and back

2009-01-26T04:55:00.000-08:00

last night, we arrived back in sevilla from our weekend excursion in madrid. and i must say, i'm a little relieved. i've been to madrid before, and i was really excited to go, but after this weekend i can honestly say that sevilla still kicks madrid's ass. madrid is crowded, dirty, filled with street performing bums, and NO PALM TREES.

yes, madrid does have some of (in my opinion) the best art EVER, like picasso (guernica!), dali, etc. which, we didn't even get to see this time due to our already planned cultural excursions to the prado and the palacio real, and some very long hangover naps. we did make it to the thyssen-bornemiza museum which has a pretty large range of art, including some really old religious art (you can tell i'm interested in that...) to some good stuff like pollock, picasso, and kandinsky.

the most interesting part of this trip had to be the night life. the first night, part of the group went to a seven level discoteca with an 18 euro cover (no thanks), and the rest of us tried to get into another discoteca with some other students in madrid (failure) and ended up at a smaller bar/club with a lot of viejos verdes (dirty old men). in retrospect, i kinda wish i had shelled out the money, after the rave reviews from the rest of the group. the second night we all made it to a bar named chapandaz, with an interior designed to look like a cave. not only a cave, but a cave with milk bearing stalactites that assist in making the bar's famous milk based drink, leche de pantalla. i had one....interesting, surprising, and not bad! and we thought they partied hard in sevilla - in madrid, basically EVERYONE stays out until about 6 am, and doesn't arrive anywhere until about 1 or 2. probably because the metro shuts down from 1:30 to 6.

it was fun, but i was incredibly happy to come back to the apartment, greeted by loli and some delicious tortilla española and yummy croquets (little fried balls of yummy-ness). pictures shall arrive later...

side note: this weekend for sure kicked me on to my butt, and i've spent today at home instead of in class. no fever, but i must say being physically sick here does make me a little homesick - no mom or dad to nag me to get to the doctor :( although, i'm sure loli will make me a bomb-ass lunch, and maybe some warm milk with honey to help me go back to sleep...

a serving of culture shock

2009-01-21T10:47:00.001-08:00

obviously there are a lot of things that are different here than in the u.s...

but i thought i'd share one of my favorite bits of culture shock thus far...

water and electricity are limited and thus, very expensive here. so expensive, you really really can't leave anything on or running if you're not using it at that very moment. case and point: the shower. if we're not rinsing, the water has to go off. this can be rather problematic for girls with long hair to wash and other hairs to shave. it can get pretty cold in that shower during the minute and a half it takes to shave.

however, i do have one person to thank for my previous experience with un-fun showers: robert korson, and his fifth wheel trailer. through the years of trailer showers, i've developed techniques useful in multitasking and conserving water. so thanks, papa.

it's easy to make friends when all of you are freaked out in another country...

2009-01-19T16:48:00.000-08:00

me with my roommate, kate. for some reason i seem to flock to the tall pretty girls (for those of you that know lisa...)

yep. we live here.

2009-01-19T13:49:00.000-08:00

so, we have the incredible opportunity to live in the center of a bunch of really old buildings.

the first two fotos are from La Plaza de España, a gimungous park really near our apartment. It's kinda like the central park of Sevilla, and lucky us, it's a 10-15 walk away from our barrio.

The next fotos are from the city center - the cathedral, a window from the jewish barrio, and a lovely orange tree - they're absolutely EVERYWHERE. i don't think you'd want to eat the fruit...most people just pick them up and throw them :)

1st semana en Sevilla

2009-01-19T04:41:00.000-08:00

It´s been one full week in Sevilla, Spain. The first few days here were in a hotel, but now we're settled in to our actual homes. I have a roommate, a friend from U of M, se llama Kate, and we live with una señora, Loli. She has one older son that lives at home with here. In Spain, it's very common for the ¨children¨ to remain at home during college and until they're married. Loli´s son is in fact, 36 years old. Altough he´s quite a bit older than us, he´s still been able to point us in the direction of some good bars!It's also very cold in the apartment - there's no central heating here because most of the year it's quite warm. Right now it gets down to the 30s at night, so it's about 50 in the apartment all day. Cooooooold! I've already tried and hated some seafood here, but I ate some salmon, and that wasn't too bad! The fish here is really fresh, so it's quite tolerable...even for me, a seafood hater.

The city of Sevilla it's actually quite large - our apartment is on the outskirts of the city, and about a 30 minute walk to the downtown area. Sevilla is a realllly old city, so a lot of the buildings are very old and beautiful. The streets are basically a labyrinth, so it's been a little hard to adjust to. But, in a few weeks, I'm sure we'll be pros!

More to come with photos, as soon as I upload them on to my computer!