The city of lovers is glowing tonight...Paris!

Hey everyone!
Yes, the title of this post quotes a song from Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame. So I just kicked off my month and a half of straight travel (with some school and some Sevillian festivals in there) and I am really pumped. I really can't even think about how quickly my time here will go. This last weekend, I went to PARIS. I should let you know, going to Paris has been a dream of mine for a very long time. I've been to France twice before, but the other two times, I went to the Southern coast. When Kels, Steph and I got together at the beginning of the semester and we were talking about where we wanted to travel to, I said "We can go wherever you want, but if I leave Europe without seeing the Eiffel Tower, I'm going to jump off a cliff." So as you can imagine, we planned a trip. We knew it would be really hard to see all of the city in one day because there are SO many things to do, but at the same time, we feel like veteran travelers by now and we know how to do even a huge city in a few days.

So we left Seville right after school on Thursday and took a non stop flight to Paris. When we got off the plane, we took the metro to our hotel and checked in. Our hotel was located on Grand Boulevard and had a balcony with an amazing view of the busy street below. Because we knew that we had a PACKED day the next day, we went to dinner when we got there, planned out the next day and went to bed. We woke up bright and early and left the hotel with our map, cameras and jackets and set out for our day. By that point, we had made an itinerary for the day according to where it was on the Paris map. One really awesome thing about Paris (among many) is the fact that their Metro system is amazing. It really can take you absolutely everywhere. Also, there was a metro stop literally outside of our hotel. Our first stop was the Sacre Couer. This was the only place that we visited this weekend that I had never heard of and I have no idea how I hadn't. It's a giant white basilica built high up on a hill that overlooks the entire city. You had to walk up about 6 STEEP flights of concrete steps to get up to it, but once you did, you realized it was completely worth it. You could see all of the city from the front steps. The inside was even more breathtaking. Being in Europe, I have seen many MANY churches but this was by far the most beautiful church I've ever seen in my whole life. Whereas many other cathedrals in Europe are very dark on the inside, the Sacre Couer was built with white stone and was full of light. It was so warm, inviting and marvelous. At the front of the altar, this is a GIGANTIC moral of Jesus and other important people from the gospels painted on the domed ceiling. Also, there was a sign at the entrance that said "This is a house of continuous prayer, please don't talk", so it was completely silent as well. The environment inside this church was unexplainable. After we had walked around the whole thing and took a few moments of silence, we left the Basilica and got some nutella and banana crepes before setting off for the next place.

Our next stop was the Lourve Art Museum. As you've probably heard, it is the biggest art museum in the world and it is completely useless to try to see it all in one week, let alone a couple hours. While we knew it would be daunting, we decided to go anyway and see the two most famous pieces: the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa. Thankfully, in this HUGE building, those two works were relatively easy to find. I had heard this before I saw it, but the Mona Lisa is one of the biggest overstatements in history to the untrained mind/eye (aka me). It's smaller than you think it is and they put it on this MASSIVE wall. Yeah, I looked at it, but I was more interested in the GIGANTIC painting of the last supper on the opposite wall (not the one you've heard of, but a similar painting). I really do want to find out what makes this small portrait of a woman so darn important and famous, so I'll have to wikipedia it or something. After the Lourve, we took the Metro to the Notre Dame, which was another sight that was a little different from what I expected. This is a little embarrassing to admit, but the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the disney movie, is one of my favorite movies. In the movie, they make the Notre Dame look like it is 50 stories tall. This is not true in life. It was beautiful, but it was again smaller than I thought. The inside was very dark but it made the stained glass windows looks even more spectacular. Unlike the Sacre Coeur, there was no policy against talking, so it was a little harder to realize the holiness of the building, but it was still really nice to visit. The part that I enjoyed the most about the Notre Dame wasn't even inside the building, it was the beautiful statues and sculptures on the outside. I especially loved the sculpture of the 28 kings of Judah and Israel that were above the 3 huge entrances on the front.

The next thing that we did was by far my favorite part of the day. After the Notre Dame, we found a grocery store where we bought ourselves the perfect French picnic: 2 French baguettes, two wedges of brie, a bag of grapes, a bottle of wine, olives and 3 toblerone bars. With grocery bags in hand, we hopped on the Metro to the Eiffel Tower. When we got there, we found a tree in the park in front of the Eiffel Tower, ate our picnic and took in the beautiful sight. I honestly cannot explain how happy Kels, Steph and I were. We were all smiles for the entire hour and a half we were sitting. After our picnic, we walked over to a plaza where it's really easy to take pictures with the tower in the back ground. It was a little scary because you have to take a couple flights of stairs to get to the platform where you can take the best pictures. When you get up on the ledge, it's literally a two story drop straight down to concrete. I tried not to think about it when I was taking pictures, but I'm really thankful none of us fell. After taking pictures, we walked to the Eiffel Tower so we could actually go up it. Sadly, the very top of the Eiffel Tower was closed. It was about 4:30pm, the elevators stopped at 6:30pm and I cannot even explain to you how long it was to get on the elevator. We probably would have been waiting at LEAST 3 hours. So we decided that it was cheaper and easier to take the stairs. It's hard to say how many flights it is to get to the first and second levels because it's so curvy, but we definitely walked the whole way. But in the end, it was worth it, because I was on the second level right as the sun was setting. We finished off our day with a walk down the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe.

So if Friday was our French, brie-eating, Eiffel Tower visiting day, Saturday was definitely our corporate, "I'm an American tourist" day. We had been in Europe for so long that we had no shame in doing all American-things that day. We woke up, got our starbucks and hopped on the Metro to Eurodisney. Many people asked us why Kels, Steph and I would think about going when we have the same park at home, but they have no idea how obsessed with Disney the 3 of us are. As I could have guessed, Eurodisney is almost exactly the same as Magic Kingdom in DisneyWorld Orlando, with a few differences. First of all, the characters on all the rides speak French, which made our "Star Tours" (the star wars ride) pretty interesting. Also, the Space Mountain goes upside down and is A LOT more extreme than the one at home. We went on all the important rides: Space Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean and Indiana Jones. It was also really nice because we had a good friend from England, Jack, meet us. We met him in Lagos on my birthday and he decided to meet us in Paris. He worked on Friday, so he met us at Disney on Saturday. That night, the four of us continued our American journey (along with our British friend?) and ate dinner at Hard Rock Café Paris. It was really awesome to sit with Jack and compare common sayings from our countries. I called Jack an alien because he kept saying such weird things. He responded by calling me a cow, which I thought was hilarious. While in America "cow" usually means you're fat, "cow" in England means "catty". I told him that he should be careful to never call a bigger girl a "cow" because she won't take it as easily as I did. After Hard Rock Café, we ended our night and our trip with a return to the Eiffel Tower. At night, the Eiffel Tower sparkles every hour on the hour. Please forgive me, but for lack of a better word, it was absolutely magical. I was in Paris watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle with my two best friends and an awesome British guy; I couldn't have been happier.

Please forgive me if I haven't said this enough in my other blogs because it's always on my mind, but I cannot even explain how blessed I feel to be able to do all the amazing things that I've been doing. I didn't think that feeling could be made stronger until I saw the Eiffel Tower. In my prayers, I am constantly thanking God for these amazing experiences and this amazing opportunity to do these things. Not only has God blessed me with these sights, but he blessed me a long time ago when he gave me 2 parents who would support me in all my dreams, including this one.

Anyway, that's my update of my Paris weekend. I am back in Seville going to school this week until I leave for Barcelona on Thursday. I'm trying so hard to soak up Spanish culture on the weekdays now that I'm leaving every weekend. Yesterday, in between classes, I sat in the Jardines de Murillo, which are the gardens outside the Alcazar, (the old king's palace) to read. The weather has been flawless every single day for the last 2 or 3 weeks. It’s been about 70 degrees without a cloud in the sky. Once again, I truly am blessed. Thanks for reading, you guys! I know that these blogs are long but I keep telling myself that people who really care (like my parents) will read the whole thing so congrats on making it this far, cause I don't know if would read someone else's blog if it were this long! Love you all!

Here's a link to more pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2375057&id=10235591&l=855d8cdb2a

It's the half way point!

Hey guys!

So tomorrow, I will have officially been in Seville for 8 weeks out of my 16 week semester. I don't really have a lot of write about in this post the time since I wrote last has been pretty uneventful. We didn't travel anywhere this weekend and we didn't even really go out to bars or clubs either because we were still recuperating from our sleepless, crazy Lagos weekend. When we got off the bus from Lagos last Monday, I went directly to class so I never really had a day to get back on track. So as you can see after Lagos, a weekend of sleep and sightseeing sounded amazing to me. On Friday, I woke up and met Kelsey to do our weekly bible study. After the bible study, Kelsey took me for a walk around Triana, her "barrio". Seville is broken up much like New York City is broken up into boroughs. Triana is the "Brooklyn" of Seville. It's on the opposite side of the river from downtown and it really is charming. We walked down all the small, old streets. We walked by cathedrals, took pictures on the bridge and even went to a market which was really similar to farmers' markets in the states. Also, that day (along with almost every single day for the last week) was about 75 degrees and sunny. That afternoon, I spent a lot of time in my bedroom and around town just relaxing. I just started "Twilight" (yes, I gave into the fad), took a nap and worked out, 3 things I never get to do in the States. That night, Steph, Kels and I met up to go to a bar that has a terrace that overlooks the river and the city. We had a drink, talked and walked back home to our host families. Even though the 3 of us just went to sit and have a drink, because it's Sevilla and it's not normal to go to a bar before 11am, I still wasn't in bed until 2am. 2am is an "early night" here; isn't that crazy?

The next day (Saturday) we decide to go to the beach. The nearest beach from Seville is about an hour away by bus. The only departing times for the bus were 8am or 11am. Because we wanted to get the most out of the day, we took the 8am bus, meaning we had to be at the bus station at 7:30am. The bus was absolutely packed with people wanting to get to the beach and the drive through Spain's Southern countryside was beautiful. We got to the beach, which was named Matalascañas, went to a café for some breakfast and headed to the beach. This beach was the biggest beach I had ever been to. Every single beach I've been to in my whole life has had some sort of curved land or marina that cut off some of view of the ocean, but this beach was like a straight line and there were no marinas in sight so when you stood at the shore line, the ONLY thing you could see was blue water. Obviously, we did all the cliche beach things; we played in the waves, took in the sun, etc. We also had a really nice lunch at a restaurant on the beach. We took the bus home at about 6 pm and got back to Sevilla with enough time to catch a movie. We saw Gran Torino with Spanish subtitles (good flick, love the symbolism). We were all exhausted from the sun and the night before, so we all went home around 10pm. I got to bed and slept for 13 hours. Finally, today is the first day I've felt well rested since Lagos.

This week, I have midterms so if you send me emails, please forgive me if I don't return any of them this week, because I will be studying. I know this post was pretty uneventful, but get ready for some big news and stories coming up in the next ones. Here's my schedule for the rest of my semester here:

March 19th-22nd (Next Weekend): PARIS!

March 26th-29th: Barcelona

April 1st-9th: Italy (Rome, Florence, Venice)

April 9th-12th: Semana Santa Events in Sevilla (these are a HUGE deal here)

April 17th-19th: Madrid

April 23rd-28th: Palma de Mallorca

April 29th-May 3rd: Sevilla's "Feria" (This is Sevilla's annual fair, people flock from all over the world to visit)

As you can see, I am incredibly blessed/spoiled and I will have a LOT to write about over the next month and a half. This also means that I will be busy busy busy, so again, please forgive me if I don't respond to emails as quickly or as frequently as I have been. Next weekend, I am going to see the Eiffel Tower, which is one of my life goals (1. Be happy, 2. Have kids. 3. See the Eiffel Tower...). I can't wait to tell you all about it!

more photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2372487&id=10235591&l=14f87d3022

How do you say "It's my birthday" in Portuguese

Olá! Bom dia! Fala inglês?
That means "Hello! Good day! Do you speak English?" in Portuguese, a language that I don't speak a word. I had to look up what I wrote in my Let's Go: Spain and Portugal guidebook. This weekend (the 6th, to be exact) I turned 21 years old. I don't usually make a big deal out of my birthday. I like to spend it with people I love, but I usually don't need a lot of things to make me happy. Even though I am so blessed to be in Europe, I was a little down because I knew that I wasn't going to see many of my BEST friends on my birthday. I also knew that I will never have the cliché Boulder birthday where you go to Pearl Street with all of your friends, you don't pay for a single drink and you kiss the buffalo (it's a Boulder thing). Obviously, if I had to pick between spending my 21st birthday in SPAIN vs. Boulder, I would pick Spain. Before I left for Spain, the study abroad office taught us something called the "Cultural Awareness Curve". It basically showed us that it is normal to have highs and lows while you are abroad. I am rounding the half way point and I think that I was in one of the lows last week. I was walking around the city and I just didn't appreciate it in the same way that I did the few couple weeks I was here. I'm getting to the part where I miss certain things about home more than I used to and find certain things that annoy me about Spanish culture that didn't bother me before, even though Seville is still breathtaking. For all of these reasons, I wanted to have a good birthday. I decided that it would be nice to take a bus down to the beaches of Southern Portugal and spend my birthday on the beach.

That's right, Steph, Kels and I went to a beach town called Lagos, Portugal, which is located on the Southwest corner of the Iberian Peninsula. It's known for its beautiful beaches, breathtaking cliffs and lively nightlife. It's about a 4 hour bus ride from Seville so on Friday morning, we woke up and caught the 7:30 bus to Lagos. Most of the bus ride was along the coast so it was so beautiful to see the ocean. When we arrived, we took a taxi to the hostel I found online. We stayed at the International Youth Hostel and it was amazing. It was 12 EUROS a night including breakfast. It was really close to the center of town and only a short walk to the beach. The people that ran it spoke English and it was clean and neat. Also, because it was the off season for the town, the 3 of us got a 4 person dorm all to ourselves. Overall, it was an awesome pick. Unfortunately, the weather on Friday was not that good and too cold to really go to the beach. We were going in a weird time of year, so it was a toss up of whether the weather would be nice or not. Just because it's on the beach, doesn't mean that it's warm and sunny all year.

We got there, settled into our hostel. I went to go check the internet and I came back and Steph and Kels had set up a little surprise birthday for me, complete with a cake and a birthday card (somehow they snuck a cake onto the bus without me noticing). After singing and eating a little bit of cake, we went to the center of town where we had a drink and a snack. It was here that Steph and Kels bought me my first beer as a 21 year old. After that, we walked around town a little bit and walked down to the beach, just to see it. That night, we got all dressed up and went to dinner. We went to a place that the guy at the hostel recommended and it was amazing. We got 3 HUGE plates of food for cheap cheap food and a cheap cheap bottle of wine. We had pasta, prawns and filet mignon and potatoes (it was unbelievable). After that we went to the bars. A few funny things about that night: First of all, we didn't know that there was a time change between Spain and Portugal, for the first 30 hours or so of our trip, we thought it was an hour later than it really was. Second of all, Lagos was in its off season. So we out that night and not that many people were out. We also knew that all the bars closed at 2. So we left at "2" to go back to our hostel (it was really just 1pm). Plus we didn't find out until the next day that the bar were at closed at 4, not 2, so the bartender must have thought we were crazy when we said we were leaving cause it was too late. We went to a few bars and had a few drinks that night, which was nice but we definitely could have stayed out a lot longer.

The next day I consider my real birthday because it was absolutely perfect. We woke up to an impeccable blue sky and 72 degree weather. We ate a quick breakfast and headed down to the beach. We got there and there was the cutest little bar/restaurant on the beach. Before actually going down to the beach, we stopped and had a margarita (my first). Then we stayed on the beach for the rest of the day, listening to music, reading, sunbathing, relaxing and talking. At about 3 o clock we had an AMAZING meal at that same restaurant. We still the whole sha-bang: appretizer, meal, desert and coffee; All of it with an amazing view of the Atlantic ocean. That night, we went out for real (we had changed our clocks and everything). We got dressed up and went to the bars. This night was a lot more lively than the first. The first bar we went to, we met some Americans and a British guy who we spent the rest of the night hanging out with. We went to probably 4 bars that night all around the center of town. We also did everything you would do on your cliché 21st birthday. We sang, danced, drank, played pool, laughed, etc. I also had my first Long Island Iced Tea. After this night, I felt like I really had celebrated my 21st right.

We had planned to leave the next day but realized that we just couldn't. The only bus we could take would be in the middle of the day on Sunday. We didn't have class until later on Monday and the hostel was only 12 euros, so we decided to stay and take the bus home early on Monday. Sunday's weather was even better than Saturday and we decided to go to a different beach this time. The walk to our beach was amazing. We had to hike upward and as we did, we could see the whole ocean sprawled out before us. They call the town "Lagos" which means "Lakes" in Portuguese because there are almost no waves. It isn't even located in a gulf or a cove; It's situated on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and the water is as calm as a lake. The beach that we went to on Saturday was Meia Praia, which was big and flat. On Sunday, we headed to the beaches that were west of town. These beaches were divided by large cliffs and huge grottoes. We went to Praia de Pinhâo, a beach that we had to take a huge stone staircase built into the cliff in order to get to. The beach on Meia Praia was beautiful but this beach was BREATHTAKING. Because it was situated between cliffs, the wind couldn't get to us so it was nice and warm. We stayed there for the day just relaxing. We finished the day with another meal on the beach, but this time, the restaurant was on a cliff, not just on the sand of a flat beach. That night, we went out again to many of the same places with the same guys that we met the night before. We stayed out until 3 o clock in the morning and got back to the hostel with just enough time to sleep for about 2 and a half hours, pack, clean up our room and head to the bus station for our 6:30am bus ride home. Needless to say, when we got back to Seville and I had to go to class, I was DYING, but I think that's expected after the weekend of your 21st birthday.

By the time this semester ends, we will have traveled many places in Europe. Some trips will be more culturally based where we see how many museums and landmarks we can fit in one day. This weekend was not like that at all. My wish was to have a RELAXING beach weekend with no rushing or worries. That is exactly what we did. We ate, drank and completely relaxed. Not a single museum or landmark was seen. We just took in the breathtaking atmosphere that Lagos has to offer and I cannot think of a better way to spend your birthday. Hopefully for my 22nd birthday I can take a plane back with all my friends from the states. That won't too expensive, right ;)? This upcoming weekend, I am staying in Seville which is good because I have midterms next week and I will be studying. Also, I just checked the weather in Seville for the next 10 days and, no joke, it is supposed to be between 70-75 degrees and sunny EVERYDAY. I am so thankful that spring has finally come to Seville, because the rain and the clouds were really beginning to bother me. Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes I received! Thanks for reading and I'll see you guys next week!

Here are links to better pictures:

http://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss239/kelseymcwhirter/DSCF3581.jpg

http://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss239/kelseymcwhirter/DSCF3554.jpg

http://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss239/kelseymcwhirter/DSCF3592.jpg

40 días y 40 noches

Well, not exactly. So Lent just started and Steph, Kels and I made a decision to give up English. Steph, Kels and I spend a LOT of time together. We are always on the phone, doing cultural things about the city, sitting at a café or going out for the night together. We all spend time with Spaniards too, but for the majority of the time, it's only us. You can imagine how much English we are each speaking when we hang out so much. Plus, our program made it sound like you couldn't even speak English in school, so I assumed that when you weren't in class but you were still in the building everyone would be speaking Spanish. Unfortunately, no one enforces this rule and most of students don't care, so they all speak English anyway. Even though we are in Spain, it's really easy to completely avoid the language if you want to. You can hang out with your American friends, never meet Spaniards, speak English all the time and only hear Spanish when you go to your classes (all the classes are in Spanish). The program makes it sounds like you will be completely immersed in the language, but you really do have to work at it and put yourself out there. Kels and I are both Spanish majors and Steph might as well be because she has taken all of the same classes. We all came here with the goal to perfect our Spanish, so we all started feeling a bit anxious when we noticed that we were spending a lot of time together and we were only speaking English. So a few days ago, everyone in our program got an email from one of the heads our of program telling us that many people who are studying abroad give up English for Lent. This was just the kick we needed to take our begin taking our Spanish more seriously.

Obviously, I am writing in English right now so you can see that we have a few regulations about this time. First of all, when we are communicating with people at home, we can use English. Obviously, my dad doesn't speak Spanish and I can't assume that everyone that reads this blog speaks Spanish, so my blog is in English. Also, if we leave the country to travel, we can speak English. Obviously there is no point of 3 American girls going to Paris and speaking Spanish; that's just confusing. But other than that, every time we hang out, every time we text each other or talk on the phone and every time we talk to another Americans in our program, we're only going to be speaking Spanish. We have been doing it for 3 days now. The first day was very very frustrating, but it has gotten easier and easier. It's to the point where I don't even notice it anymore. Yesterday, I didn't speak a word of English because I didn't go online to email or call anyone. It's also helping us to learn even more vocabulary. Each of us have our Spanish/English dictionaries on us at all times so that we can explain things better. For example, in the last 3 days I learned "anxious", "annoying", "to be in a bad mood", "sketchy", "awkward turtle" and other very common words. I cannot even explain how happy I am about using my Spanish. I have absolutely no anxiety when I talk to a stranger in Spanish. It's also amazing to know that I can say basically everything I want to say. I want to say that I'm fluent, but it's hard to say because there are still times when I meet someone with a thick accent or someone who talks very fast and I can't understand a word they're saying. My señora for example, is really hard for me to understand.

Sense my last blog, things have been pretty uneventful. We stayed in Seville last weekend and we stayed in Seville this weekend. I did win that free day trip to the beach, but I didn't end up going cause the weather was bad. On Friday night, I met a Spanish guy who knew the CU fight song. It was the most random thing. He said that he had friends in Boulder. I took a video of them on my camera singing it. Kels, Steph and I went to the Parque Maria Luisa yesterday. This place is a lot like Central Park but not AS big, but still pretty big. It's probably about a half mile by quarter mile in area. It has two museums, a HUGE plaza, trees, fountains and beautiful ceramics. I took pictures, but I'm going to come back and take more soon because it was pretty cloudy and I can tell that the park will be STUNNING when the weather gets better. My classes are still going very well. I really like the way my school is run. Because they know that we all want to travel and get to know the city, we spend more in the in the class room and less time doing homework and assignments outside the class room. I go to school for about 4 hours a day and the rest of the time, I have no worries! We also don't have school on Fridays. It really is a dream for me, especially after a busy, busy semester with all my activities at CU. It is such a relief to have time to sleep, read, work out and RELAX. I know that I'll come back so refreshed and ready to take on school in the states when I come back. I'm still spending time with both Daniel and Alejandro. I also spend a lot of time with the girl that Steph lives with, Maria Angeles, who is 19. Daniel and Maria both have been taking us out with their friends, which is a lot of fun.

Also, one more thing I wanted to tell you guys. The schedule here is unbelievable. They wake up at 10, eat lunch at 2 or 3, and eat dinner around 9-11. It is not unusual at all to see an elderly woman or a mother with her 3 year old out at 10 or 11pm. Also, they really do have a siesta. I had heard about this before I came here, but I thought it was just something that they did 100 years ago. Every single store and business closes from 2-5pm so that people can go home and eat lunch or take a nap. Thank God I have school during this time or it would be pretty difficult to run errands. It's the same with the night life. People don't even go to bars until 12, bars don't get busy until around 2 and people don't go home until 6 AM. Kels, Steph and I went to a dance club last night at 1 in the morning and NO ONE was there. We left at around 4 and it was packed. As we were leaving, some Spanish guys that we had met there were asking us why we were going home so early. A couple nights ago, Kels, Steph and I were out and decided we wanted it to be an early night so we were going to go home. We looked at our clocks, it was 2 AM. In Spain, all the stores and businesses are closed on Sundays, so many of the young people (and some of the old people) stay out until 6 am on Saturday nights (or is it Sunday mornings?) and then sleep all day Sunday. Surprisingly, this is getting more and more normal to me every single day.

Well that's all I have for now. My birthday is on Friday so we're taking a bus to Lagos, a beach town in southern Portugal. I'm praying that the weather will be nice because I've heard that it's beautiful.

¡Hasta Luego!

It's sunny in Seville! Catedral and Cadiz Carnaval

Hey guys!

Here I am again for my weekly update. I still cannot believe that I am so blessed to be here. I know that I didn't do anything to deserve this but I walk around this city and constantly think "HOW am I think blessed? How am I THIS lucky?" I've been here a little more than a month and I can tell you that I have not been homesick at all, which is really good because I really thought I would be before I left. It's not that I don't miss Colorado or people at home (because I do), but I am delighting in everything here. I am doing my best to soak up this place and this culture and I am loving every single minute of it. I know that I haven't talked about this in a while, but things with my host family are really looking up. In one of my first posts, I said that I was disappointed because they don't make an effort to get to know me, no matter how much I try to get to know them. I never ever see my hermanos or my senora and when they are home, they stay in their rooms. Things haven't changed, but I'm beginning to really like my living situation. First of all, I LOVE the alone time that I have here. After living in the dorms, living in a sorority house and living with friends, it is so nice to come home to my own room and do whatever I want. I have so much time to read, which is something I NEVER had in the states. Also, because I don't get to practice my Spanish at home, I'm encouraged to find places to practice elsewhere. Not only do I find people to practice with every single time I go out at night, I have two people that I have been meeting with a couple times a week to just sit and practice with. One of them is my friend Daniel (pronounced like the American "Danielle"). About two weeks ago, he walked right up to my on the street and asked if I was American. I said yes and he told me that he wanted to meet up practice his English. I told him that would be fine, as long as we could practice Spanish also. Since then, we meet up every couple days and walk all over the city just talking to each other, eating tapas and learning things about each other's cultures. He's 24, just graduated from the university and is studying for an exam that will get him a job with the Andalusian government. I've also been meeting with a guy named Alejandro. Alejandro was actually assigned to me by my program. He's 26, just graduated and is working on learning English. His English is not nearly as good as Daniel's, but he helps me out just as much with my Spanish. While my Spanish has a lot of room to grow, I really think that my Spanish is getting better every single day. Also, because my classes are all in Spanish, my listening it getting better too. I'm a lot more comfortable to speak to people I don't know and yesterday I was in a cafe watching the news and I could understand absolutely everything they were saying!

On Saturday afternoon, I met up with Steph and went to La Catedral. I honestly have no idea how I've been in Seville for almost a month and haven't gone inside this place. It is probably the #1 thing to visit while you are Seville. I said in another blog that I walk by it every single day on the way to class. It's the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and it the 4th biggest catedral in the world (I think when I wrote about it before, I was incorrect about the information). It was built in 1402. Attached to the Cathedral, is a huge bell tower that towers stories over the city. You can see absolutely all of Seville from this tower because nothing else in the city is remotely as tall. Here's a link for more pictures that I took from the top. These pictures start on the 2nd page of the album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2357567&id=10235591&l=332f4

Saturday night, I went to one of the most famous events in all of Spain. I went to the Cadiz Carnaval: the Mardi Gras of Europe. Cadiz is on the southern coast of Spain and it holds probably the biggest party in the whole country every year before Lent. On this night, hoards of people from all over to Spain take planes, trains and buses to this city to meet up, dress up, parade, drink, dance and sing. It's a lot like Halloween in the fact that you have to dress up. I decided to dress up like a Mexican because the costume store had the costume set and I thought it would be funny. It was pretty hilarious because I kept trying to explain that I wanted the Mexican costume and the lady kept telling me there wasn't a female mexican costume. I told her I wanted the MALE Mexican costume and she did not understand at all. I finally got it thought. Not only did I have a poncho and a sombrero, I also bought a huge, hairy, ugly bigote (mustache). I didn't really think my costume was THAT funny, but people seemed to think that it was a HIT. For example, on my bus ride down to Cadiz (it's about 2 hours away) they had a costume contest and I won. I won a free trip to a pretty popular beach town in Spain. Also, when I was walking arounf, people kept wanting to take pictures with me because of my costume. My bigote fell off after a while, so I had to draw another one on with an eyeliner pencil. Anyway, Cadiz was just as you could imagine. SO many people, all of them drunk. It was crowded and there were people as far as the eye could see. It was difficult to move around or see what was going on simply because there were SO many people, all of them drunk or on drugs when I was completely sober. Overall, I'm glad that I made the trip down there to see it, but it was a little bit too much for me. By the end of the night, me and Steph sat down in a grassy area and ate churros and just watched all the crazy people walk by. I did get some awesome pictures. The costumes that people had were insane and clever. There were too many drag queens to count, Waldos from "Where's Waldo", soccer players, ninjas and hundreds of others. My bus left to return at 6 am in the morning and I didn't "go to bed" until 9 am in the morning. As you can probably guess, I spent all of yesterday sleeping.

So next weekend, I'll be going on that free trip to the beach, which I'm really excited about because the weather is getting better everyday. My birthday is in a little less than two weeks and I'm working on planning a trip to Portugal on that weekend. Steph, Kels and I also bought plane tickets to Paris, Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca. In the mean time, thanks for continuing to read this!

Until next time!

Pictures of Cadiz: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2365562&id=10235591&l=8cb62

I'm known to be long winded...GERMANY

Hey guys!
So I just got back from Munich, Germany today and I am so happy that I went. I was a little apprehensive about going to Munich, because the only reason we bought tickets was because they were cheap. Neither Stephanie, Kelsey nor I came to Spain with intentions of going to Germany, but because it looked convenient, we ended up buying them and going. It was also a little bit of a stretch because we knew that we would be leaving sunny, 70 degree, Southern Spain to go to snowy, 30 degree Munich. We also were arriving with absolutely no idea what to DO in Munich, because we were so unfamiliar with the city. But I figured it would be a nice adventure to try out. We flew out of Seville right after school on Thursday (we don’t have schools on Friday), got in at about 10pm that night and checked in to our hostile. Nothing was really open by the time we got there so we decided to have a seat at the bar in the hostel and chat with the guys that ran the place. Pretty carelessly, I asked the bartender “What stuff should be we do tomorrow?” I thought maybe he would rattle of a few suggestions, but then he got out a pen and paper and made an ITINERARY by the hour for us, complete with a circled underground (like the subway) map and city map. So we woke up bright and early the next morning and began to do everything on his list.

We had breakfast at Café Beethoven and then took the underground to Marienplatz, the main square in Munich where the Town Hall is located. After wandering around a little bit and sight seeing, we hopped on the free walking tour of Munich. The guy who led it was absolutely hilarious and I think that Steph, Kelsey and I were a little sleep deprived because we kept saying the most random things to him. On the tour, we got to learn a lot about German history and saw some pretty cool things. One of the main things that we saw was the Glockenspiel, which is the town hall which has a giant bell tower. Every day at 11 and noon, the bell tower goes off to reveal dancing mannequins and a bird that sings. Even the tour guide said that it was the most overrated thing in all of Munich. But the 3 of us were still excited to see the biggest cuckoo clock we’d ever seen. We also saw the Peterskirche, which Munich’s oldest church, and The Rauhaus, which is the old town hall which now is a toy museum.

After the walking tour, we took the underground and another bus to visit the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. This memorial was built of the former site of the National Socialist’s first concentration camp. This concentration camp is unique in history because not only was it a concentration camp, but if was the place where Nazis were trained on how to run other concentration camps. The model for prisoner treatment was invented here. We knew that this would be a very depressing trip, but at the same time, we knew that we had to go witness what was there. Our tour guide was incredibly helpful; he is actually writing a book right now about the Holocaust so it was interesting to have long conversations with him about its history. It was a little ironic that it was so cold when we visited it, because it looked like a cold, snowy, waste land. While a lot of it was destroyed during the liberation, there were still original parts, like the work quarters and the gas chamber. The 3 of us left that place with changed hearts and a better understanding of the extent of human ability.

Fortunately, our emotions got a little better as the night went on. After the concentration camp we went to the Hofbräuhaus, which is a huge, historic beer house in downtown Munich. It was here that Hitler and the Nazi party held functions and declared policies. Despite its negative past, today, it is very lively with world-famous beer, German music, German food and traditional dress. The food was AMAZING. This was probably my favorite place to go. Sadly, our time got short when 3 older German men would not leave us alone until we moved tables to hang out with them. They also spoke hardly any English so we couldn’t tell them that we didn’t want to go with them (How do you say “leave us alone” in German?). They kept harassing us and hovering around our table, so we left. After some dessert and some wine at another cafe, we took the underground to an area called Kultfabrik, which is a street that has 14 bars and night clubs. You pay 5 euros and you can go into every single one and yes, we did go to every single one. Of course we did not drink at every single one (I actually didn’t even drink at the clubs) but we danced to a song and took a picture in every single one. We back to our hostel at around 3 am, just enough time to rest up before our trip to Salzburg.

We were all really happy that our day in Munich went so smoothly and that we had so much fun. We hoped that our day in Salzburg, Austria would be just as successful but sadly, it was a little unlucky for us. We had planned to go on the sound of music tour when we arrived, but we literally got to the hotel minutes after the only tour of the day had left. I cannot even explain how disappointed we were. We didn’t really have anything planned besides the tour, so we got some Austrian food (amazing) and walked around the town. We did take a cable car up to the top of a mountain and got to visit the church where the Sound of Music wedding was filmed, which were incredibly beautiful. It was snowing and SO cold, so even walking around was literally impossible. Plus, for some reason, all the shops, museums and landmarks closed at 6am. It seemed like the entire town shut down at 6. The hotel website told us that they show “The Sound of Music” nightly, but they said it was broken. We literally went out and BOUGHT the Sound of Music. The hotel was nice enough to let us use one of their conference rooms to watch it because there weren’t DVD players in the rooms. So we bought some chocolate, got in our PJs and watched “The Sound of Music” in our hotel.

The next day, we took the 2 hour train back to Munich, got on a plane and came back to Seville. Going to Germany was one of the most random things I have done in my whole life. We went on a complete whim, but looking back, it was one of the most fun weekends in my whole life. This was my first weekend trip to another European country this semester and I don’t know if any of my future weekends will top this one. I’m excited to find out though. Now I back in Seville, attending classes. Next weekend, I am taking a trip to Cadiz to go to the world famous Carnaval. This is the Mardi Gras of Europe. I’m a little nervous to see how crazy it is because I’ve heard it’s insane, but I am planning on being a respectful, intelligent person while I am there. But you all will hear about it in my next blog! Thanks for reading! Sorry this is so long again!

Love,
Michelle

here are pictures: http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2363886&id=10235591&l=0e27b

Wait...I'm gonna have to STUDY while I'm here?

Hey guys!
So it's been a week since my last post and I'm here once again to give an update. This will be a little hard because there isn't really one huge event to talk about because I haven't traveled anywhere in the last week and I didn't go on any excusions. The only things that are coming to mind to update you on is a variety of small things that have happened to me this last week, so I'll try my best to make this as interesting as possible.

So last week, I finished my "intensive spanish course" which was a 3 hour a day class that was supposed to be solely Spanish grammar.. To tell the truth, I didn't really like the class. It was a little discouraging because I really needed a intense review on my grammer and I feel like we spent the majority of the time in class discussion talking about estereotypes, spanish customs and spanish/american relations. But the class did require me to visit some museums and cultural sites around the city and write papers on them, which was interesting. But overall, I feel like the class didn't really strengthen my ability to speak Spanish. Yesterday, I started my regular session classes. I am in love with them and I think that they will be A LOT better than my intensive session class. I am taking 4 classes total. Two of them are at my study abroad center and two of them are AT the University of Seville. This building used to be a tabacco factory like 200 years ago. This building is older than the United States! It's beautiful though. I'm so excited that every single one of my classes, no matter the subject, is taught in Spanish. Even my economics class. Right now, I'm having a little trouble understanding EVERYTHING that they're saying, but I usually get the jist of it. My teachers are awesome and I am really excited about what I'm going to learn this semester. This semester, I am taking an economics class, a religious history in spain class, a spanish film class and a contrastive grammer class. All of my teachers are teachers from the univerisity and I love them. The really funny thing about Spain is that EVERYONE smokes. Today in my religion class, the teacher was smoking a cigarette while he was lecturing and I heard that that is very common.

So as for fun, I didn't travel anywhere this last weekend, I just spent the weekend in Seville. On Friday night, I went out with Steph, Kels, Steph's hermana, Maria (the girl she lives with), and Maria's boyfriend. It was so nice to go out with Spaniards, because it can get really easy to hang out with Americans constantly. The two natives took us to some Flamenco bars. Now, let me tell you one thing: Flamenco is HUGE in Spain. Before coming to Spain, I assumed it was more of a tourist thing and Flamenco was only something that foreigners would pay to see in a show. While you can pay to see it in a show, Spaniards go to Flamenco bars and dance Flamenco, much like Americans go to a swing club to dance swing. But while only a few Americans can swing dance, ALL Spaniards can dance Flamenco. I'm pretty sure I'm going to try to find a class here. Even though the places that we went to were a lot of fun, I didn't know how to do a thing so I felt like the tall American who was just staring at other people. I stuck out like a sore thumb because I think we were the only Americans in the bar. But at the same time, I LOVED the atmosphere of the live music and all the Spanish people dancing.

The next night (Saturday) was the Real Betis vs. Sevilla soccer game. Seville has two soccer teams and this was the night that they play each other. It's interesting because the rivalry between the two teams is VERY intense. You are either for Betis, or for Sevilla; there is no middle, you must choose. From what I've heard, this choice can tear families apart and ruin friendships. Think of it as the CU and CSU of Spain. So I went out with Steph, Kels, Maria and about 5 of Maria's guy friends (all Spanish). I cannot even tell you how much I loved hanging out with Spaniards and being able to practice Spanish. We went to a bar in the centro of Sevilla and ate tapas and watched the game. Betis won that night so I told them all that I'm for Betis. It's amazing to see how excited the people are about soccer here. Not only do they cheer, but they sing and dance. Each team has its own song (much like a fight song) that they sing when they score. After the game, mobs of people were in the streets waving their team's banner. I really really hope that I can make it to a soccer game while I'm here because they look like a state college football game on speed.

One of the biggest lessons that I've learn from being here is the importance of relaxing in life. The lifestyle here is so different than in the United States. Here, there isn't a rush to do anything. They walk slower (honestly), eat slower and do things based on what they feel and not "what is correct". For example, a LOT of people live with their parents until they're 30, even if they have a good job and a girlfriend of 4 years. When you ask them why they don't get married and move out, they say "what's the rush?" Also, it's hard to find anywhere where you can get a coffee to go. It's normal to sit and enjoy your coffee, not grab a coffee on the way to work. There really isn't a rush to "find the right job" or the "right person" or the "right lifestyle". They can go through life very carefree. While I think that there are pros and cons to this lifestyle, I really am learning the importance of enjoying where I am, no matter where that might be.

Because I've been meeting and hanging out with more Spaniards each week, my Spanish is continuing to improve. I'm so excited to see how it is when I leave because I feel like I've learned so much while I've been here. I'm beginning to feel more comfortable asking questions and using my spanish. I also joined "tuente" which is Spain's facebook and I actually have a few spanish friends on it! This weekend I'm going to Munich with Steph and Kels! It'll be our first great adventure while we're here! I'm sure you'll here about it in my next post...

Thanks for reading, guys!