Lisbon Trip!

This weekend I went on a great trip to Lisbon, Portugal with my school! Lisbon was sooo beautiful and we had such a great time! We left on Friday morning at 8AM and it was about a five hour drive from Sevilla to Lisbon. So on Friday afternoon they took us on a walking tour of one of Lisbon’s main neighborhoods. That afternoon we also went to the Castillo de San Jorge. The views from the castle were amazing because it overlooked the ocean and downtown Lisbon. That night a big group of my friends and I went to a small, local restaurant with “fado” music. Fado is a famous type of music in Portugal…the style of music is very slow and emotional. On Saturday we went to another neighborhood right on the Atlantic Ocean. There we saw la Torre de Belem (a large fortress on the ocean) and El Monestario de Los Jeronimos. I keep on saying that everything was so beautiful or amazing, because it is ALL really is so beautiful, I don’t really know how else to describe it! In the same neighborhood, the tour guide also took us to a really famous bakery that makes Pastel de Belem. They are these little custard tarts that are only sold this particular bakery. They have 3 locations around the world…in Lisbon, Paris, and New York. Apparently it is a really secret recipe that McDonalds and Coke have both attempted to purchase. We all got to try one and they were delicious! On Saturday afternoon we had free time and about 9 of us decided to go to this little town outside of Lisbon called Sintra. There is an amazing 19^th century castle in Sintra that all of the guidebooks said is a “must see.” I will let the pictures do the talking for this one! On Sunday morning we went to a really pretty botanical garden. It was HUGE and even had cactus :) Here are some pictures from the weekend...

Me at the fortress along the Atlantic...


Playing Uno while we are waiting for the bus!


The AMAZING castle in Sintra...It was so colorful. Being from Arizona I don't get to see "autumn" very much so I loved it!


Me at the castle!


The whole group in the castle!


I have more pictures to post from Lisbon and also from the soccer game (which was also really awesome!) I don't have time right now, but I will do it later on today :)

Oops!

So, it turns out that soccer game is actually tonight!! Haha, for some reason we all thought the game was last night...it turns out that the other team in Sevilla, Betis, had their game last night and Sevilla's is tonight! Sooo, I will be going TONIGHT :) I probably won't be able to get pictures up until Monday though because we are leaving for Lisbon first thing tomorrow morning!

Also, I have another THANK YOU to give to the MOSER'S for sending an awesome package! The package was brought to our house on Saturday, but no one was home so I had to pick it up at the post office. So yesterday I had a little bit of an adventure finding the post office :) The people at the post office probably thought I was really weird...When they handed me the package I went and sat down on a bench in the post office and opened it. Then I took everything out and looked through it all. And THEN I started eating some of the candy they sent...Haha, I was probably sitting there for a good 10 minutes before I left. But it was SUCH a nice surprise!! Ms. Brenda was soo nice to send me some candy (even remembered that I love Swedish Fish!)...perfect timing b/c we have a 6 hour bus trip tomorrow!! AND she also sent me Uno...which Liz and I were just saying that we wished we had brought some games with us so it was a PERFECT gift :) But not only did I benefit from the Moser's thoughtfulness...so did Marta, my host sister! Sarah and Rebecca thought it would be nice to give some Hannah Montana and High School Musical stuff to her (which she loves both) and Marta thought it was very "chulo" (aka cool). I told her she was "muy famosa en los estado unidos"...very famous in the U.S. Haha. She especially loved the candy bracelets! I don't think she had really ever seen those before! Anyways, THANK YOU SOOO much!!

So, like I said yesterday I had a little bit of an adventure getting to the post office. Roads here are NOT like Phoenix...it is actually impossible to give directions to someone here because there are soo many little streets and alleys and half of the time they aren't named. So I was kind of guessing as to where the post office actually was. The really nice thing about Sevilla is this amazing bike system that they have. It is called "Servici"...it is hard to explain, but there are basically bike stations all over the city. You have a Servici card (5 Euro/week) and you can check-out a bike from one of the stations. After you are done with it you just drop it back off at another one. It is really handy when going longer distances. I used it yesterday when I went to the post office and took some pictures so you all could see what I mean. I also included a couple of other pictures...

This is my Spanish class playing a verb game!


Me in our room with the package :)


These are the bikes! Each bike station has an automated computer thing you use to check-out the bike...

This week so far!

This is the first chance I have had to update all week! I have been really busy studying and working on various group projects! I took my two midterms yesterday (International Marketing and Spanish) and they both went really well. Now I am working on my two projects, they are both due next week. So yeah, not too much excited happening. However, tonight I am going to a Sevilla soccer game!! I am REALLY excited because I have heard that the games are a blast! Tomorrow I will post pictures from the game!

Here are some pictures from around Sevilla that I took this week...

This is the cathedral in Sevilla. It is the 4th largest in the world!


Plaza de Espana...

Weekend!

This weekend I spent a lot of time exploring areas of Sevilla that I hadn’t been to. On Thursday my Economics professor took our whole class out to show us some cool spots in Sevilla to go out at night. It was kind of funny to have a professor showing us around outside of class, but in Spain stuff like that is completely normal…but being American it is strange! On Friday I went over to the opposite side of Sevilla from where we live and saw the Jewish quarter, a really famous hotel (there was a fashion show going on), a really beautiful park, and the public library! On Saturday I woke up early (9AM…which is super early for me here) and went to a big market that goes on every Saturday morning. The market had lots of cool jewelry, clothing, shoes, different food stands, etc, etc. Spaniards go CRAZY over shoes! They love buying new shoes…there is this street in Sevilla that has tons and tons of shoe stores. Also, they have AMAZING churros here…they dip them in hot chocolate and sugar…what’s there not to like?! :) I try to stay away from them as much as possible, but they were selling them at the market and I had to get some. Haha. This weekend is also the start of a film festival in Sevilla. It is called the “Sevilla Festival de Cine Europeo.” A professor at my school gave us free tickets to see up to 6 shows so last night we were planning on seeing one of the films. Unfortunately the theatre was full so have to go back another day. We ended up seeing “The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas” or “El nino en los pajamas de rayas.” It was such a good yet sad movie…I think it is in the U.S. too, but we saw it in Spanish…I actually followed along pretty well! Liz and I are going to try to make it to some of the other movies in the festival this week! I have two midterms and two projects due this week so I will be busy, but then this weekend our program is taking us to Lisbon, Portugal! Hope everyone else had a great weekend too!

I seriously think I have THE best Grandmas in the world…so yesterday I get home from a long day of school (had a midterm yesterday) and found a package on my bed!! It was SOOO exciting! My Grandma Clark sent me a package full of great things…lots of candy and snacks from the U.S. AND it was SO awesome because she sent me a bunch of other little things I was meaning to get at the store anyways. I literally ran out of toothpaste TODAY and guess what??? Tooth paste in the package!! AND…last week I got a letter in the mail from my Grandma Warren with some Euros!!!! With which I bought myself some awesome boots! Sooo, thank you to both of my AWESOME Grandmothers :) You guys are the BEST!!! Okay, I have to give one more shout-out to my friends at the hospital. Today I ALSO received another letter from my gift-shop buddy June :) She told me that all of the ladies that volunteer the same time I do on Saturdays have been keeping up with my blog. June prints them out and brings them in. I thought that was soo neat…So shout out to Cheryl, Marsha, Kathy, and of course, June!!! Actually, I should say thank you to everyone who reads my blog…it is really fun for me to blog, especially knowing that you all are reading it!

So my midterm today went really well and I have two more next week. Actually next week I have two midterms and two projects due so I will probably be busy doing school work this weekend! I shouldn’t really complain though because I know all of my friends in the U.S. are much busier with school work than I am here!

She even sent Reeses in the package :)

A video from the camel...

Here is a video that Liz and I took from the camel. I forgot to post it before! It isn't the best quality b/c I was afraid of falling off!



Not much new so far this week. Lots of talk today about the election in the U.S. I voted a couple weeks ago with an absentee ballot. A bunch of students are talking about getting together to watch election coverage at a bar that is going to have CNN in English...at our homes it is in Spanish. I'm not sure if I will go or not because it is going to be the middle of the night for us! I have a midterm tomorrow so I better get off the computer and go study!

Weekend recap...

I hope everyone had a good Halloween weekend! I had a really good, but pretty laidback weekend. On Thursday Liz and I ended up going to a discoteca really close to our house for a Halloween party thing that they were having. It was really cool b/c they had the place totally done-up for Halloween…they even had a violin player playing along to really creepy music. On Friday we got dressed up for Halloween…I ended up being a cat and Liz was a gypsy. It was funny b/c I went to the Halloween store around the corner from our house to get cat ears and it was absolutely PACKED with people at 8PM on Halloween night…guess there were a lot of people getting last minute costumes! We hung out with all of our Spanish friends and some other friends from school for Halloween…only about half of the Spaniards were dressed up. Everyone in Sevilla was dressed in the same costume...a witch or a vampire! It was easy to spot the Americans b/c they were something other than a witch or a vampire. Actually, we asked Marta what all of her friends were for Halloween and they were all a bruja (witch). It was hilarious because all night people were either meowing or barking at me :) Here are some pictures from Halloween…