The End.

Well, I'm home. I can say that in my last days in Sevilla, I really didn't want to leave. I was really excited to go home during exams because everyone is finished with school and I was getting annoyed by them, but once those were over...I didn't want to go.

As apart of my last days in Sevilla I went to get Rayas with Candace, my favorite ice cream in Sevilla and one of the contenders for best ice cream I’ve had in Europe, and it’s a field of tough competition. I finished off my Thursday night with a botellon by the torre del oro next to the river where we met some really great, genuine Spaniards that we talked to in a mix of Spanish and English for a long time. One of the guys introduced me to his female friend beside him, and then she said she recognized me from getting on the metro every morning at Plaza de Cuba– so we had a fun interaction and then she gave me dos besos – and it’s that kind of encounter that I’m going to miss so much about study abroad, just the wealth of people that you get to meet from everywhere.

I got home at 6 am and woke up in time for a flan lesson from Ana - that kind of sentence I’m going to miss so much as well. I brought Ana some gorgeous yellow flowers and I thought she was going to cry, it broke my heart, but she got excited again and told me to grab some paper to take notes with and she showed me how to make flan and I scribbled the directions down – not only that, she bought me and Syd our own box of flan mix to make at home. So, I won’t write the recipe down here, instead you’re going to have to come hang out with me and I’ll make you some authentic Spanish food. After the flan lesson she walked us through gazpacho which we’re having this afternoon, I loved scribbling down a cooking lesson in Spanish and understanding the entire thing – my language skills have come so far this semester it’s unbelievable, even if some days were more frustrating than others.

Friday afternoon was spent at Isla Magica riding rides and then enjoying tapas and drinks, and then I had to say goodbye to everyone for real, and I have to be honest, I cried. Especially when saying bye to people I won't be seeing for a while - like Claudia or Antonio. Yes, Antonio made me cry.

At 4:30 in the morning we left for the airport and Ana saw us off, I didn't cry saying bye to her because I think my body was in shock at the early hour. Traveling home was NOT fun, of course. My flight to Miami was delayed over two hours, missed my connecting flight, and the next one out wasn't until 9 PM - when I was supposed to BE HOME long before then. I eventually rolled into Charlotte around midnight and it was about 3:30 before I was finally in bed - the cake my family had ready for me to come home was forgotten on the table and my dad's girlfriend had to go home for work the next morning so couldn't see me come home. BUT, I am home, and there's plenty of time to see everyone.

I hope to have another reflection or some final pictures up soon. It's hard to believe it's over and sitting at home it's almost hard to believe that it even happened, but it did, and will remain the best semester I've EVER had.

La Ultima Semana!

Well, I'm officially down to my last days in Spain - this is the part where I say "for the last time in Sevilla" as it relates to anything. At dinner on Sunday our senora told us that this time next week, we'd be eating with our own parents, and I got really sad. Not because I'm sad to see my dad and my sister - I'm quite excited, I just want to take Ana and Antonio with me. Do host families count as carry on?

I was sick all weekend, which was a little disappointing because it's my last weekend here and I had plans to do more than lay in bed, but I actually can't complain that much. I got to talk to Ana a lot while I was home sick, and she took awesome care of me.

I think I would have had an entirely different study abroad experience had I stayed in an apartment or dorm instead of with a family, and while there are definitely some advantages to that, I wouldn't trade staying with my host family for anything. I feel like Ana is another grandma to me, and she spent all weekend bustling in and out of my room giving me tea and taking my temperature and giving me medicine - just above and beyond anything I would expect. I know some people got bad host families or have had just mediocre experiences, but my time living with Ana and Antonio may be what I miss most.

I don't know what I'm going to do without having the opportunity to speak Spanish every day, eating Ana's lentil soup and flan while watching Pasapalabra or De Buena Ley!

I guess it's just time to enjoy it, I'm feeling better just in time for exams and I have the week ahead to do the last of everything I want - though I don't feel like I'm leaving Sevilla unfinished, Im so happy with the time that I spent here and I can't wait to tell everyone about it when I get home.

I'll have a final reflection posted at the end of my trip, and hopefully I can word everything as eloquently as I wish to convey what this experience has been for me.

Let's Go To Africa!

So, going back to last week - Thursday was Christin’s 21^st birthday. We met with Elisa at Horno de San Buenaventura for a short meeting, and then from there Christin, Candace, and I went for some celebratory Rayas – the best ice cream in town. Christin and I got Napolitana – an awesome flavor, and a new favorite – I don’t know how to describe it, maybe a mix of cinnamon and graham cracker, but it was good.

After ice cream we went for some birthday shopping and then met Sydney to go for tapas. We went to an awesome tapas place in centro and had chicken in an almond sauce along with crackers with a sweet cheese and blueberry jam - delicious.

That night we met up with everyone around 11:30 for a botellon by the river, where we were greeted by 4 Spanish men who had a Flamenco guitar and were singing and clapping. They kept telling us to dance, and Aurora kept getting proposed to, but two of them were really nice and apologized for their crazy friends. The one with the guitar said he was majoring in Flamenco, and he let me play his very nice Flamenco guitar, which was a ton of fun.

I got in at about 5:30 AM, and then tried to get a little sleep before leaving in the afternoon for Morroco – and that is the kind of sentence that I’m going to miss being able to say, once this experience is over.

We left for Morroco Friday afternoon and the entire day was pretty much devoted to travel and border crossing – we stayed in a hotel outside of Tetuan and had a typical Morrocan dinner made up of a vegetable soup, really good bread, and a chicken made with lemon and olives. We had flan for dessert, but I didn’t eat it – nothing can compare to Ana’s flan, it’s just a waste of time.

(I'm rich in Moroccan currency.)

That morning we drove into Tetuan and had a tour of the Medina, the historic Arabic part of the city (Medina means “city” in Arabic”). Morocco is 98 percent Muslim and their official language is Arabic with their administrative language being French, but in North Morroco many people speak Spanish as well.

Walking around the Medina was one of the most authentic things I’ve ever seen – men and women set outside of shops, and our guide explained that they were looking for jobs, and people knew which places to go to hire certain kinds of workers – for instance, if they needed a painter, they would go to a certain bar to find them, or if they needed a house cleaner, they would know where they usually sat.

Many people were outside vending fruits, vegetables, and bread.

Doors that are decorated represent residential homes – in each “neighborhood” there’s a Mosque and there’s a place to go to bake your bread – all of the bread is homemade, and people pay a few cents to go down to the closest bakery and bake it to get the wood fired taste, we saw a lot of women carrying boards on their heads with dough on it.

(Neighborhood with Mosque at end)

We had a spice demonstration and were told about different medicinal benefits of saffron, eucalyptus, and various spices.

We also went to a place where carpets are hand made and were given a demonstration as well. Afterwards, we went to have a typical lunch. We started with more delicious bread, a vegetable soup, a mixture of fresh vegetables, and then couscous! It was delicious.

A lady was there doing henna, and I had my name written in Arabic – which, apparently, is actually accurate, which I was surprised to hear from our guide, I expected her to just make something up because I certainly would not know any better.

After lunch we got on the bus to head to Tangier. On the way, we stopped at the Hercules caves, which provides a window to the Atlantic in the shape of Africa.

We also got to see the meeting point between the Atlantic and Mediteranean oceans. Aaand ride some camels by the ocean. Camels are kind of disgusting animals and make some really intereting sounds.

I was obsessed with this baby camel, but it almost bit my face off….

Upon getting to Tangier we walked around a little bit – Tangier is a lot different than Tetuan, its more metropolitan because its such a popular tourist destination for its beaches. After a pretty average dinner, we went to a floor show, and while I don’t think it was the most authentic thing, it was certainly the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time.

We kept getting pulled up for audience participation, and got to run around with these crazy guys who kept jumping and spinning their hats and playing drums. Aaand Claudia and I were given things to balance on our heads. She was good.

Obviously, this man had never met me, if he wanted me to balance lit candles on my head….it didn’t last long.

The funniest part of the entire show was when a crazy woman pulled Sydney C. onto the floor and tried to get her to follow along in her dances, which included enthusiastic chest shaking. When Sydney tried to cover herself, the woman kept slapping at Sydney’s boobs to get her to stop.

Apart from the actual show, our group included a Spanish man who is the funniest person I think I’ve ever met. He kept getting up and dancing and between acts he would go on the dance floor and dance – eventually he pulled enough people up there dancing with him that we completely interrupted the actual show and instead made an impromtu dance club. I should mention that this man was about 60, at least. He eventually got a hold of the mic and tried to sing along. And then he picked up a chair to use as a drum. I wish I could accurately describe it, but it’s probably one of the funniest things I have ever experienced….

The next morning we left for ChefChauen, a tinier village about 2 hours away from Tangier. Our guide in Chauen was Habibi – the cutest little Moroccan man you could ever hope to meet. He had the funniest way of speaking, and the closest I can think of a comparison is yoda. He told us that he’s been featured in Lonely Planet, but not in the books, just “on TV and videocassette.” Everyone in the entire town knew him, and he kept referring to himself in 3^rd person, and really wanted to make sure we enjoyed the city, I loved him.

The old quarter of ChefChauen is full of white and blue houses – the blue is supposed to keep away mosquitos and other bugs, and if a walkway is painted blue – then you know that it leads to a dead end.

After being shown around on the walking tour, we were given time in the market to shop for souveniers. In Morroco, you have to bargain, prices will start out ridiculous and you’re expected to bring them down – it’s a little intimidating, but a lot of fun, and certainly a new experience. They started out saying something was 7 euros, and I left paying less than half of that. Once I was told that the price I asked for was “undemocratic” but when I turned to walk away, he just handed it to me. I ended up with quote a lot of loot and I only spent the 10 euros I had converted to the local currency.

We had another great lunch before saying goodbye to Habibi and ChefChauen to head back to the border. Our ferry was late and I got car sick on the bus ride, and we rolled into Sevilla about 2 and a half hours late, BUT, Morroco was so much fun and completely worth it. Definitely an experience I will never forget.

El Primero de Mayo!

The Saturday following our Ronda trip, Sydney, Candace, Christin, and I decided to rent a paddleboat on the Guadalquiver river.

It really could not have been a more gorgeous day!!

We got chased by a boat full of male, Spanish teenagers....

But thanks to our legs of steel, we escaped!

Sunday, Christin and I went to encounter, a contemporary Christian church here led by a missionary from Spain. His Spanish is clear enough to understand him perfectly, and I love getting the chance to worship in Spanish - I recognize the songs as translations of ones that I know, but singing in another language just reminds me how universal and big God is.

It's also a great reminder of how much my Spanish has improved since getting here. I watched Pan's Labyrinth this weekend as well and watched it in Spanish without subtitles and followed the entire thing - that wouldn't have happened four months ago - no way.

Ronda!

So yeah, I’m about a week behind on events, but we can do a quick catch up…

Going back to last Sunday evening, Feria went out with a bang…literally (ahaha, I’m so witty). There was a HUGE fireworks show beside the river, and the best viewpoint is the Los Remedios bridge, not too far from where we live. The fireworks began at midnight, to mark the official end of Feria, and it was quite an awesome show. I felt way too close to the fireworks, and we commented that the fire safety standards are probably different here than the US – but it made for a more fun time!

The rest of the week passed fairly normally and went by VERY fast. Friday was our last ASA excursion, and we took a day trip to Ronda. Elisa, our director, is sick with the flu, so we went as a group alone and met our guide there.

We got there around 11:30 and by the time we walked around a bit and found a great plaza to sit in, we had our lunches at a normal lunch time, sitting in the sun and enjoying some awesome background music from a woman playing the harp.

Once we met with our guide, we walked around the city and went to the Arab baths.

He pointed out to us that since Ronda was a Muslim city, all of the windows with gates on them belonged to women, who were “locked in” to prevent gossip and “peeling the turkey” with the guys in the neighborhood.

We walked around and got a great view of the famous bridge of Ronda that Hemingway wrote about.

We also got to peek inside a typical Andalucian mansion and the bullring of Ronda.

9 Bulls are selected before a fight, after being inspected by a doctor. Six bulls will fight and 3 are just for reserve .Once a bull is sold from its farm it HAS to go into a bullfight and die, there’s no way it can go back since bull farms are regulated by laws and can only have a certain number of bulls at a time – once a bull is sold, that’s it, it’s fate is sealed.

I don’t think I can go to a bullfight…the way that its described and hearing from people who have gone…I think it would just be too bloody and brutal for me.

I do enjoy pretending to be a bull though!

FERIA: As Spanish as it gets...

Feria has begun! I can’t believe its actually here, thinking to this week in January it seemed like such a long way off – and now it’s here and halfway over!

For those of you who don’t know: The Ferias de Abril are the “April Fairs” here in Sevilla. It’s a festival that’s only in Sevilla and it’s about as quintessentially Spain as you can get – and we have the entire week off of school for it.

So much preparation goes into this week I can’t even explain. The feria fairgrounds are really close to where we live in Los Remedios, maybe a 10 minute walk away, and they’ve been building the “gate” to the fair (which is a different design every year) since we got here, as well as doing construction on all of the adjacent streets and bridges to make them look good as new – people flock in from all over for this festival (Yesterday we met a woman from Argentina, this is her 3^rd Feria.)

The basis of Feria is built around the casettas: basically, little houses. I thought for the longest time these were just tents, but these things are so elaborate you basically have to see them to believe it. Casettas are owned by families, businesses, political parties, etc. There are a set number of them and each has their own “address” at the fairgrounds, so as you can imagine, to have one is a BIG DEAL. People pay thousands of dollars for them, and that’s after they’ve waited on a waiting list for probably around 10-20 years to even get one.

The casettas are decorated to the brim – wallpaper, chandeliers, tables, chairs – even pictures hanging on the wall. All of them have a bar and a restaurant in them that serves food and drinks to those that are there, and each casetta has security, of course, because you have to have an invitation to get into one (except for a few “public” ones that are super crowded and not as cool.)

All of the women wear the traditional flamenco dresses, and buying one of these is probably a mixture between picking out a prom dress and a wedding dress – they cost hundreds to thousands of dollars and are fitted to a T.

So, when you show up to your casetta in your elaborate flamenco dress – what else is there to do? Besides eating tapas, drinking, and talking with your friends, everyone dances Sevillana – a structured dance with 4 parts. I know the first part…kind of….but haven’t gotten a chance to learn the rest – but I really like watching people who know what they’re doing. There’s also specific Sevillana music to dance to, and many people sit around and do the traditional clapping that goes along with it, as well as playing the castanets and other instruments.

The drink of Feria is called a “rebujito” – it’s made of a sherry white wine and sprite or 7 up. Pitchers are bountiful and everyone just sits and drinks, eats, dances, and sings with their friends all day. Horses and carriages line the street and people just flow into the fairgrounds all day and into the night.

As if this wasn’t enough – at the end of the Feria fairgrounds, there is an actual fair, full of rides, games, and fair foods. But don’t look for funnel cakes – instead you should look for Gofres, or waffles, served hot and recently made with whatever flavor syrup you could imagine, complete with whip cream upon request. These are like no waffle you have ever tasted or could ever dream to try.

Feria celebrations begin Monday at midnight when they turn all of the lights on, and then everyone proceeds to dance and sing in the streets and in their casettas. We stood in the crowded streets and saw them switch on all of the gorgeous lights, turning the fairgrounds into an atmosphere that’s kind of impossible to describe, and that was only the beginning.

Tuesday is really when everyone comes out dressed in their flamenco dresses, and we did our best to dress up as well – we had an invitation first to our site directors casetta, and after spending a little time there and downing a few pitchers of rebujito between the group, we went over to a second casetta we had an invitation to (Since we’re so cool like that.)

This casetta was a lot bigger than the first and had an outside porch (Seriously these things are like houses), which was a welcome relief because it was hot. We had an invitation to this one thanks to Claudia’s senora, who also got a few of us hooked up with a carriage ride.

In the evening, when we were sitting watching people dance Sevillana, a group of older women and men beside us in the casetta were playing castanets and clapping Sevillana as a few others danced – they noticed us watching them and some of them showed us how to do the traditional clapping so we could clap along. Before we left they all told us goodbye and they’ve spoken to me since when I see them – I was worried that with all of the tradition in this week there would be an exclusiveness to outsiders, and while that’s possible with how exclusive the casttas were, I felt completely welcome around this group of people who went out of their way to share their culture with me.

I’m just in love with Feria because of how unique this experience is – sitting in a casetta watching horses go by and around you are women dressed in Flamenco dresses dancing a dance that is only for the city you’re currently living in…it still doesn’t hit me, if that makes any sense. It feels almost like I’m in a costume party because everything is straight out of a Spanish fairy tale.

The Sevillanas have shown me time and again this semester how much they value their culture and preserving it, and I’ve noticed as I’ve traveled around Spain that no where feels as authentic as here, even if its stubbornly so. The people dress nicely to go to work, most of them only speak Spanish, the food has been completely authentic, and my house froze me during winter – but all in all I wouldn’t want to experience Spain another way, and Feria has been an exclamation mark for that.

Lisbon: You Won't Believe How Fast You Get Here

This weekend, Sydney and I planned a day trip to Lisbon. We figured we wouldn’t really come back to Portugal next time we were in Europe, so we should go now while we can take a day trip to another country.

We took an overnight bus in Friday night and got there Saturday morning. Our bus was supposed to get in at 7:45, meaning we would have a quick breakfast and then have plenty of day left to get things done. Well, our bus driver apparently drove like a freaking maniac, because he was an hour and a half late getting to Sevilla, but got us to Lisbon at 6:45…except in Lisbon it was 5:45…because there’s a time change that we didn’t know about until we got off of the bus and all of the clocks were an hour off.

So after a quick laugh at the realization that we were in a different time zone and that our bus driver is on crack, we decided to hang around the bus station until the sun came out and we could get a map and get oriented. The café in the bus station didn’t even open until 6:30, so we sat around and watched The Daily Show, which happened to be on TV. After killing some time and having VERY necessary coffee and a croissant, the sun started to come out. The weather forecast for that day was completely wrong, we were expecting rain and maybe a few breaks of sunlight, but it was mostly sunny all day with a few threatening clouds that didn’t do anything. Don’t believe weather.com.

We tried to find a map with no luck, it was still very early in the morning. Despite the bumpy start, we worked things out. We went to the metro station and figured out how to get into the city center, and from there we walked a little and got our bearings – I had looked at a lot of maps and read up on Lisbon before coming so I knew where we were and where we needed to go. We walked down to the port and found a tourist information center that was closed, but it opened at 9, so we thought we needed to kill 15 minutes before it opened…it only took us 10 minutes to realize that we needed to kill an hour and 15 minutes – freaking time changes…so we just decided that without a map, we could do okay for the morning based on what I already knew about the city.

We wandered up to the old Alfama district where the castle is. Lisbon is spread out over seven hills by the ocean, so over each hill there are awesome views and specific places called miradours are marked off for vantage points, so we wandered this old district which was the old Jewish quarter and we went on a miradour hunt all morning.

Lisbon is a gorgeous city, all of the houses are pastel colored with the same kind of roofs and from each of the miradours the city just impressed me more and more. The entire place has such a Charleston like feel but on a San Francisco type level (complete with its own Golden Gate Bridge, apparently), and it seems so humble for a capital city.

We took our time as well as we could and appreciated the views, it was maybe 10:30 when we wandered over to the Castlo de San Jorge for our first “tourist attraction” type site. It’s only 2.50 for students so we felt it was worth the investment to go check it out – its definitely the most “castle” type castle I’ve been too so far.

Around noon we left to eat lunch at an Indian restaurant we had already picked out…but it was closed…despite saying that they opened at noon. We stood outside for a while and tried to kill time hoping they were just late, but we finally gave up and wandered to a sandwich shop in the center of the city. I thought I wanted to try seafood while I was here but walking past the restaurants and seeing people eat fish drenched in olive oil…I really just wanted something simple and healthy, and a bocadilla did the trick.

After lunch we FINALLY got a map and then took a bus over to Belem, an area of town about 6km outside downtown. This whole district is really pretty, just more pastel colored houses, parks, and the big monastery, discovery monument, and tower of Belem.

We saw each of these and managed to see a Contemporary Art Exhibit

(I don’t get it.)

In Portugal, the typical pastry is called Pasteil de Nata, and in Belem they have a place that supposedly makes the best in town. This place was really crowded but served us extremely quickly – we ordered one and took it outside in the beautiful day to eat.

I have to say, it was different than what I expected, I heard “nata” and thought it would be this cream filled, rich thing, but it actually had a really subtle taste on the inside and reminded me almost of an oatmeal like flavor. The crust around it was delicious and really warm and flakey, and they gave us cinnamon and sugar to put on top.

At this point of the day, I was completely exhausted - that 5 am morning and “sleeping” on a bus was catching up to me. We wandered up go to the Bairro Alto after coming back into downtown, and once we found another miradour we sat and rested for a while, just talking. After getting somewhat of a second wind we walked around some more before making our way to find some dinner.

I would say that the Bairro Alto was my favorite district and I wish we could have spent some more time exploring here or stayed the night to try a nice restaurant or bar – they seemed to have a huge variety of them.

We were looking around at restaurant menus when some man told us that in this building there was a mall type thing with tons of restaurants, so we just followed a bunch of people into elevators and indeed there was like a 6 story shopping center/food court type thing that we stumbled into. I had Isreali food for the first time in my life and had a pita with Tahini, Hummus, and something else I’m not even sure.

We walked around for a bit and then made our way back to the bus station in plenty of time to catch our bus home. We found our bus company and asked what platform our bus would be at, when the lady at the desk just told us “These aren’t tickets.” Ummmm…what? I kind of started to get a bad attitude with her because that’s all she kept saying to us “These aren’t tickets” and I was trying to explain that those were the tickets I was given that got me HERE, and now I really needed to get HOME with them, too.

I have no idea what the problem was with them, she never told us, she just kept saying they weren’t tickets and then grabbed a bunch of things around her desk and kept typing at her computer. Eventually, she printed us new tickets, that didn’t look any more legit than the ones we had, but whatever. I was just upset she let us stand there and try and justify our tickets while she clacked at her computer – who does that? Why wouldn’t she say the words: “It’s okay, I’ll print you new tickets.”

Ugh, Oh well. We got back into Sevilla fine with our new “tickets” and had a very, very successful trip. I loved Lisbon, I really recommend it, I don’t think it’s a city people think of often but its absolutely gorgeous and full of things to do.