tori’s visit.

Last weekend, tori and I were in Madrid. We went all over Madrid on a free walking tour with Sandeman’s New Madrid (http://www.newmadrid-tours.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=26) that turned out to be really good. Then, we went to Museo Reina Sofia, which has Picasso’s Guernica (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(painting)) in it. Afterwards, tor and I saw this pasta/pizza place outside of the museum and decided to eat there. Sunday before we left, we went inside Palacio Real and inside the cathedral. We had seen them on Saturday during the tour but we really wanted to go inside so it was well worth waking up early to do so.

Sunday afternoon, we took a 6 hour bus back to Sevilla. Ah, so long. But we came home and Tori got to meet Manoli, Antonio, and all my other roommates. I took her sight seeing this week and we went to Catedral, Real Alcazar, Museo de Bellas Artes, Museo Archleogico, Parque Maria Luisa, Plaza de Espana, the Mercadillo, La Carboneria for a flamenco show, y Museo de Artes. We ate tortilla de patata at Casa Monolo and it was so good. I also took tor to mama terra for kebabs – bc the falafel is so good there. And we even ran into the hamburger truck man on C/ Betis on Friday night – wonderful eggs in a hotdog sandwich! We also cooked pasta with butter and parmesean at Amir’s one night, which was lots of fun too. Also, to celebrate her last night here we went to Rio Grande (a restaurant on the river) for paella and the churro stand for desert. We did lots of laying by the river this week and just walking around el centro because the weather was wonderful. She left for the airport this morning at 4:30 for her 7am flight. It was a good week and midterms are finally over. I only had one midterm for Spanish Conversation with Corey and a quiz for Spanish Civ/Culture this week while most people had more this week than last. Lots of visitors are flooding in to our lives lately too, tori came to visit me, brian’s whole family was here last week and this week, and Merillat’s best friend from tcu is visiting this coming week too. March/April are going to be crazy busy with visits from friends/family and traveling all over too. Jas&miya are coming for semana santa, dustin comes the week after, and then a few weeks after that my mom comes too.

It was a relatively slow weekend in Sevilla because it was a stressful week with midterms at UPO and all. On Saturday, Lola, Jacob, Amir, Tori, and I went to the gypsy market which was really neat but it was a lot like the mercadillo near Avd. De La Paz. Amir and I bought strawberries at the gypsy market and they were really good.

Also this weekend, Dustin and I finally figured out plans for tuscany and we are going to hit Livorno, Pisa, and Florence while I am there. I’m really excited for this weekend because I’ve never been to Florence before and I can’t wait for the beach/to get tan.

This morning I woke up and Amir and I decided to go to the mercadillo because he wanted to get more mandarinos. But he ended up buying the world aka lots of things besides mandarinos. On the way there we ended up running into some kind of march/protest of some kind. Obviously, Sunday is a day for marches/protesters to be out. It happens frequently and it’s kind of strange. The mercadillo was good, we spent a few hours there and I ended up running home for lunch because we always leave too late. I didn’t think I wanted to get anything but I actually got acietunas (olives) at the mercadillo. They were really good. Sevilla is famous for olives so I had to give in and get some.