¡19 DAYS AGO!
IF I remember correctly on Tuesday nearly three-weeks ago, was a whirlwind of classes and homework and being completely overwhelmed and frustrated with my clase horible. So nothing too exciting there.
Baloncesto
On Wednesday, I went to a basketball game with Juanma. He's a referee and I was able to tag along. The game was in the city of Écija, which was a good hour and a half (with all of the taxi stops Juanma made on the way) outside of Sevilla. We carpooled with the two other refs Bélen (which means Bethlehem) and Txime (pretty sure I spelt that wrong... I guess that's the price he has the pay though when your family insists on naming you something like "Juan" or "José" or well... another variation of something ridiculously common and Spanish.) The car ride was quite an experience - I understood about 70% of what was said, which everyone else seemed to find entertaining. The "pop-quizzes" that happened when someone would stop in the middle of a conversation and ask me what they just said to see if I was listening/paying attention were a ton of fun... Not. The game itself was more or a less 2 hours of vocabulary. Luckily the teams weren't very good so it went pretty slow which was a huge benefit for me since I was trying to learn Spanish rules and the language.
Viaje a Barcelona
On Thursday night my friend Calli and I headed north to Barcelona. My wonderful taxista Juanma brought us to the airport (and carried my bright pink bag through the terminal- sadly I did not get a picture...). Our flight was supposed to leave a little after 9 pm but we ended up being delayed until 11-ish and arrived in Barcelona around 12:30-ish. After trying to figure out the bus into the city from the airport and then the metro to our hostel it was close to 4 am when we finally were able to lay down to sleep.
We met with my best friend Laura and Calli's best friend Kristen at 10 am for coffee and croissants. Then we had what felt like a whirl-wind tour of the entire city. We took pictures of the Arc de Triomf:
Then walked through the Parque de la Ciudad (where I met my pet elephant):
Next we saw where Laura and Kristen go to school, ate lunch in Barrio Born (where we wear entertained by street musicians play songs by the Eagles), admired La Sagrada Familia: (we skipped the tour because the church isn't complete and it was 12€)
... and then explored Parc Guell.
After all of that Calli and I went back to the hostel to change clothes and start Phase II. That started with an amazing dinner of excellent tapas and a fantastic light show at the fountain of Montjuic, and my first experience in a disco... Let's just say there is a reason I've been avoiding it and will continue to do so.
On Saturday we took a train to Montserrat.
(This was probably my favorite part of the weekend, especially since Kristen brought us all Dunkin Donuts coffee!)
Montserrat is a beautiful mountain just outside of the city and it is home to the Benedictine abbey, Santa Maria de Montserrat. It was absolutely beautiful. A wonderful church built in the early 1900's... which made it even more amazing since it was a a breath of fresh air from the many other churches we've been walking around, touring, and worshiping in.
That night we meet up with a whole bunch of British people, I got to watch curling and sing "O Canada" and witnessed a trans-sexual prostitute get asked "How much?" (... in English.)
Sunday was study day – Laura and I spent nearly six hours at Starbucks:
Then I played in the sand on the beach..
After that Calli and I adventured on our own through the streets of Barcelona to find a place to eat for dinner. Our walk was fantastic! We heard a man singing beautiful opera songs in the middle of a plaza, spun around on the wet stones in the street, and managed to find our way to the restaurant without getting lost! (Even though we had Juanma on the phone doubting our intelligence every step of the way.) Our dinner was fantastic! We went to a place suggested by the wonderful Mr. Rick Steves- (Many Thanks to D&D for the wonderful guide book!).
It was a Mediterranean restaurant and I got to eat Pizza Fondue! It was delicious. A fondue pot full of melted cheese and tomatoes and then I had little pizza-crust-pita-type chips to dip into the sauce. Yummm :) After dinner Calli and I hung out on the beach with the other people that were staying in our hostel. We had quite the mix. 3 Australians, an Irish-man and his French girlfriend, a guy from Czech, someone from Upstate New York, and a guy from Chicago who was studying in Versailles.
Our last day was started by eating a semi-real breakfast of fried eggs with bacon and toast :) (I ate the whites... Calli ate the yolks since I'm afraid of them.) After that we visited the church, Santa Maria del Mar and the cathedral of Barcelona
And then I spent the rest of the day on the beach with Laur studying:
Tuesday’s return to Sevilla was far from pleasant. Thank you to some delightful errors on my plane ticket I got stuck in Barcelona until 3pm on Tuesday afternoon. That meant I spent more than 10 hours in glorious BCN since my original departure time was set for 7 am. On the bright side I was able to have an extended stay in Barcelona.
Once again Juanma came to the rescue and picked me up from the airport – in an attempt to return his kindness I joined him to pick up his new suits from El Cortes Ingles… since we were shopping I really won both rounds :)
The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming! …Actually, the British Came.
Last Wednesday night Juanma and I adventured back to my 2nd home aka the Sevilla Airport (SVQ) to pick up Laura Poczatek and her friend Jamie Lane for them to begin their wonderful Spring Break adventures in Spain! Sadly, it was rainy pretty much all weekend so their Spring Break was far from warm and sunny and they returned to London just as pale as they were when they left. The pick-up at baggage claim was rather amusing. Juanma asked why I didn’t make a sign to welcome them (since that’s what they do in the movie “Love Actually”). I told him it was because Sevilla doesn’t sell poster board and that the best signs were made from poster board. That “excuse” wasn’t good enough. So off we went using the back of my lecture notes and an array of pens and highlighters that were floating in my purse to write, “LP y Jamie: ¡Bienvenidas a Sevilla!” After “arts & crafts” Juanma and I played a game of: “Guess Where They’re From!?” and we said “Sevilliano” o “Extranjero” for each person who walked through the door from arrivals into baggage claim… My judgment was way off and I lost, but once LP & Jamie came I got 2 points!
On Thursday I had to spend the day in boring classes and LP & JL explored La Catedral. Afterwards we walked through El Centro and met up with Juanma and Juan y Medio at Plaza de España for a tour of the plaza and Parque Maria Luisa. Between LP & JL’s audition video for Amazing Race, playground equipment, mud puddles, singing Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” to prove to our Spanish friends that the rain was NOT the angels crying in pain because of our singing), scaling a small mountain to enter the gazebo instead of just using the stairs, and my “translator” job it was quite the night.
Our tour guides:
From there I dropped LP & JL off at a restaurant for dinner, and went to eat with mi familia… then for dessert we joined forces for a FREE FLAMENCO show at La Carboneria (I dragged my roommate Kendra along for the fun). Now the last time I saw a Flamenco show I nearly feel asleep – it was on our second day in Sevilla and I was still jet-lagged and the day’s adventures of “Gymkhana por los Guias” (A scavenger that required us to find various CIEE staff members in different locations in Sevilla) left me dozing off to the guitara in the dark patio we were sitting in. That was definitely NOT an option in La Carboneria. First off, the place is packed every night. Secondly, it’s essentially a bar with a stage and benches…. There are a ton of locals that go making it a very loud and smoking environment. Thirdly, a true flamenco seems to consist of three phases, the guitar, the guitar and singing, and then the guitar, singing, and dancing. You can most definitely NOT sleep or in anyway really relax through the singing and dancing portions. The dancing is a march/tap type routine and the singing… well, it’s unique and sadly the voices of men that I have heard sing for Flamenco shows have made me want to cry (I found out who was making it rain so much!) – and not in a good/happy way that the Dzubay men and or really good contestants on American Idol and performers on Broadway make me want to… but instead in the bad way. After Flamenco we walked to the river and ate churros con chocolate for dessert. Yum.
Friday was a day for firsts – my first trip to Real Alcazar (the Royal Palace of Sevilla).
Alcazar was amazing, and since my first visit I’ve already returned 3 times. (Since I’m a “student” at the Universidad de Sevilla I’m technically considered a “resident” of the city and therefore have free admission!) Honestly I have yet to set the entire palace though. On our first visit, which was supposed to serve as my official tour (complete with commentary by Rick Steve’s) but LP & JL needed to use the bathroom, so Nikki and I decided we were going to wait in the gardens and play with the ducks. (I’m going to try to upload a video of my conversations with the ducks).
While LP & JL struggled with their lack of Spanish vocabulary and took nearly a hour and a half to find, use and eventually return from the bathrooms, Nikki and I made friends with a peacock:
And then climbed a tree, walked on a ledge that gave a pretty good view of the building I live in, and ran into a girl who I went to high school with (Taylor Esau). Since Nikki and I got bored with the whole “waiting” thing it took us awhile to actually find LP & JL but we did it! That night JL & LP took it easy and watch Friends in their hostel. (I was supposed to join in the fun of Central Perk but due to some frustrations with the dinner schedule of mi familia I ended up missing out – luckily Juanma took mercy on me and invited me and my friend Nikki over to his house to eat pizza and play air hockey/ping-pong/pool/darts and poker. Sadly I lost 3€ but I got free pizza and 2 new Spanish friends, Jamie y Rafa. I was also able to meet 2 of Juanma’s sisters and am working on plans to make them become my intercambio instead of him since they both speak English and have more clothing in my size than he does!
Saturday started slowly and we didn’t actually get moving until 1 in the afternoon. We started a bit earlier at Starbucks where I studied for my horrible exam that I had the next week and the girls ate some muffins. After that we separated for lunch so I could eat with la familia and then got back together to visit El Museo de Bellas Artes Now, for any of you reading this- if you decide to studying and/or live abroad for awhile definitely have friends of yours who have absolutely no knowledge of the language and/or culture come to visit you. It’s the best – it forces you to not only learn enough about it to share it with them but it encourages you to go visit all the silly touristy things you might not actually do. For example, El Museo de Bellas Artes. It’s the THIRD MOST IMPORTANT in Spain and while I had been meaning to visit I never actually went (probably because it’s a bit far away) until LP & JL came – now I’m planning on going again and again (Thank you CIEE/Universidad de Sevilla for free admission!). We went a little bit later in the afternoon than we would have liked to and were therefore only able to see a the first set of rooms which all contained variations of paintings/statues of the Nativity, the Virgin, Jesus as a Child, and some saints but it was wonderful. Afterwards we did a little bit of shopping and I bought a pretty cute purse for 5€. That night after I returned home for dinner I went back to the hostel and hung out with JL & LP. JL wanted dessert so we ran across the street to a Starbucks (How American of us!) and arrived at 10:56 (they close at 11 so just in the knick of time!). Well, after spending a few minutes entirely amused at JL & LP’s feeble attempts to order in Spanish I stepped up and took over. The guy at the counter then wanted to know what I wanted which was nothing since coffee late at night a bad idea, I explained I was only along to serve as a translator for my silly British friend. Somewhere in the process of ordering we forgot to mention that LP didn’t want whipped cream on her Frappuccino. So when she got it I asked the guy for an empty cup we could use to scrape the whipped cream off. Something must have gotten lost in my translation-abilities though because next thing I knew he took her frappuccino and began flicking the cup over the sink to get rid of the whipped cream. Now that would have been perfect but he didn’t stop there. Next, he grabbed a Grande sized cup and took out the whipped cream and began filling it. I tried asking what he was doing but he just responded with “No preocupes.” (Don’t worry.) Naturally it made me worry even more. The first can of whipped cream ran out about half-way through filling the cup so he grabbed another and topped it off. Then he grabbed caramel and squeezed about half the bottle on top of the whipped cream, and asked if I wanted chocolate. I said no. Next thing I knew, I had a huge cup of free whipped cream and was getting “shooed” out the door so they could close. I took about 8 bites and that was all I could stand.
On Sunday we walked along the river, saw el Torro del Oro (Golden Tower), toured la Plaza del Torro (Bull Ring), had lunch in Alameda, and the best orange juice and desserts ever, and then called our taxi (aka Juanma) and adventured back to the airport to say goodbye. The time at the airport was entertaining as always. We argued with Juanma, laughed at him speaking English (in all fairness he started it by laughing at our attempts to speak Spanish), had an arm-wrestling contest (I BEAT JL!) and explored YouTube- I shared The First Semester of Spanish Love Song and LP & JL shared Charlie the Unicorn (episode 2 since it includes some very necessary Spanish vocab.) Finally we had to say Farewell and sent the girls back to the land of Fish & Chips and ___ .
Comfort Food: KitKat McFlurry.
On Monday, except for the 2 hours I spent walking to/from and attending a Bible study, I spent all of my free time studying for the exam on Tuesday in mi clase horible. On Tuesday I took the exam and well, it was horible. It was based on the all of the material we’ve learned so far and consisted of 10 multiple choice questions. Now considering I’m the only American in the class we’ve gone through everything rather quickly, and in all honesty, I’m not quite sure I had all of the material that the test covered. BUT I studied extremely hard and felt okay about it… Okay, I felt extremely nervous the night before but after calling Juanma freaking out the night before the exam and listening to his “father-like” advice and attempts to calm me, I decided I really did know the material and since my professor was going to take mercy on me for my disadvantage of being a foreigner and let me use my dictionary I really did feel okay. Unfortunately, the test didn’t go very well for me. We were given the 10 questions on a piece of paper (which had ridiculously small font) and had 10 minutes to read all of the questions and answer them. Then we were shown all of the questions on a Powerpoint and had to use our remotes to enter our answer for each question. Honestly I think I would have done fine if I had more time, but I was only able to read the first 7 questions in the 10 minutes. Making matters worse I tried to read the last 3 questions in the time that each was up the screen and depended on “Female Intuition”… Not my best plan. Turns out, Spanish exams work like the SATs and you lose a quarter of a point for each incorrect answer… so with the 3 questions I guessed on, and another question that I got wrong I failed the exam. Oh well…? I talked to the professor immediately after and she told me not to worry, that she had confidence in my Spanish abilities and felt that if not for the time issues I would have been more than fine… Hopefully the next one will go better.
After my exam on Tuesday I enjoyed some sunshine in a park with Sarah, and then thought I was going to get a celebratory McFlurry with Juanma to comfort my broken heart from my awful exam. Well, we started on our way to McDonalds (with Kendra in tow) and ended up making a detour to help Juanma’s best friend Juan and his two business partners Miguel and Laura pick out and transport furniture for their new office. We ended up staying there until it closed without buying anything – I tried making an “executive decision” but since I’m not actually a part of the business I wasn’t taken very seriously. By this point McDonald’s was closed and we ended up getting dinner on the other side of the river from where I live at a delicious place I had never been to before. It was great – delicious food I rarely get to eat (since my Señora seems to only know how to cook frozen meals/items and salads with lettuce, cabbage, and corn) and I made more Spanish “friends.”
Wednesday marked Try 2 for my comfort-McFlurry but instead it resulted in another trip to Ikea and 3 hours of following instructions to put everything together. In all honesty I only put two table legs together and then bothered Laura with questions about what I should do with my family when they come to visit (since I had received about a trillion e-mails earlier that day/week asking what the plan was) and then asked the group for grammar-help with the note I was writing to my professor about my exam (asking for more time on the next one.) The night ended with a cardboard fight using Ikea boxes as weapons.
On Thursday I had a day full of classes, studied and read my Bible at Starbucks (my sanctuary) and went on a hunt for sunglasses with Nikki. We failed. Well, she failed, I still have Mama Juve’s glasses that I borrowed the summer after my freshman year of college so I’m set!
Money and Monkeys!
On Friday my International Finance class took a Field Trip to the self-autonomous British territory of Gibraltar. We visited the European Finance Center of Gibraltar and I’m completely confused as to how exactly Gibraltar economically survives. After our visit we had a few hours of free time to see the sights – aka panoramas of the Mediterranean Sea, the coast of Morocco along the horizon (only 16 km away) and the south of Spain which surrounds the peninsula, a cave, and MONKEYS. Because we were short on time we took a tour van up the mountain to hit each site and end up at the monkeys. Our driver’s name was Alaster, and is Irish by heritage and has lived in Gibraltar his entire life. Our tour was great – and his commentary about everything was even better. Plus, he had a pocketful of peanuts he used to get the monkeys to climb on all of our heads so that made it a lot more fun. After we returned to Seville, Nikki and I join Juanma, Juan y Juan y Medio for the Long Sought after McFlurry! After going through the McAuto we went to Juanma’s to eat, play darts, ping-pong, air-hockey, and SceneIt (in Spanish… not EASY at ALL!)
…. And NOW I’m only 2 days behind! BUT it’s late and I need to get some sleep so I’ll have to write about Saturday in Aracena, and Sunny Sunday tomorrow!
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