I’ve literally been horrible about blogging lately, before and after feria and now before finals. Gosh, its been like 3 weeks since I’ve written a new blog. Sad story. Anyways, I’m procrastinating studying for my lola lago oral exam tomorrow because I figure I speak Spanish everyday and so if I don’t know what I am talking about then I’m just kind of out of luck. But in true Spanish fashion… no te preocupes, todo esta bien, no pasa nada. (don’t you worry, all is well... it doesn’t matter)
I haven’t been writing lately because i went on my second spring break and coming back from the first one, i had to catch up on life. Also, because my mom was in town and now because finals are beginning, time is nearing the end, and I haven’t got a moment to spare because I’m trying to take in every minute of everyday spending time with friends, soaking in Sevilla, and continuing to vive la vida (live the life).
SOOOO much has happened in the past few weeks, where to begin. Well, the weeks before feria were really very busy, On Wednesday ali, Jacob, Rachel, Erica, brian, amir, and I went to una corrida (a bull fight). It was definitely different from anything I had ever been to. Before i left the house, I was like, - Manoli what do people wear?- and she told me that most people dress up, like in fancy clothes, kind of like going to a horse race. But we just wore sun dresses and nicer clothes. Some people were really dressed up like in suits and dressy dresses but for the most part, not really. La corrida (the bullfight) was really interesting though. I thought that I would just get really grossed out and sick but it was a very cultural experience. It was like if we had all gone to a dodgers game or something like that. Well, anyways yes there were 3 bullfighters and 6 bulls and all the bulls died. But it was crazy bc one of the bull fighters almost got gored, and then another messed up and the bull ran after him so he was rolling on the ground like how you learn to stop, drop, and roll in elementary school. Also, there was one bullfighter that won an ear, (you can win two ears and a tail, that’s the highest). Oh, another highlight of the week was learning to dance Sevillana from Penelope in our intermediate class and then learning all 4 parts of the Sevillana from Ana in Spanish Conversation as well. SO MUCH FUN. and Ana was like if i see yall at feria, i will make you dance with me! haha, it was great.
After that week, was feria. Yes, I had another ‘spring break’ vacation next week! lucky me!! Sevilla is also famous for Feria de Abril, it is the 2nd largest fiesta in all the world. And I’m really not just saying that, a girl in my class told me so. It’s where all the people have casetas (tents) and go socialize, dance flamenco, eat tapas, drink rebujito (sheryy+7up), and spend time together, OH also, they go to feria in horse and buggies. Yes, the epitome of a typical Spanish fiesta. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in Sevilla for a lot of feria because my mom came to visit and we went traveling. But we got to see Sunday of Feria and I came back and watched the fireworks with my friends too (and it was probably one of the best fireworks shows I’ve seen).
Barcelona and rome were so much fun with mom. We both loved all the art and architecture in the Barcelona, especially Park Guell and all the rest of Gaudi’s works. We were there three days and we went on a bus tour, saw Sagrada Familia and went up the elevator to see the view of Barcelona from there, went to Park Guell, went to the casa museu – gaudi inside the park, we went to casa battlo, and actually ended up running into Amir and Brett at casa mila – where amir tried to scare me and made a great first impression with mom. Then, we went my the beach, the Olympic stadium, las ramblas, mercat de la boqueria – which was like an outside, farmers market, and it was so cute and we bought strawberries there!, the gothic cathedral – where we ended up buying some jewlrey for me and kels in the outside market in front of the cathedral. We both talked about how Kelsey would loveeeeeeeee Gaudi architechture so we for sure have to bring her back there one day.
Rome was a lot of fun too. I have already been there, but mom wanted to go and I just love the city so much that I didn’t mind going again at all. the first day, we did a lot of stuff in Vatican city… went to St.Peter’s square, went inside the basilica, and then we walked around the Vatican city market place – where we just so happen to run into my roommates Merillat, Traci, and friends Matt, Madison, and Jacob. The next day, was Wednesday and we had reserved tickets before hand to have seats to see the pope, which was a lot of fun. He rode around in a car for a while everyone took pictures and then he sat up and had a service on the steps of St.peter’s basilica, later that day we took a bus tour to Tivoli, which is something that we had really wanted to do. Jason and Uncle Martin had recommended this place to both of us so we figured we HAD to go, and it was so worth it. Tivoli is a small Italian town 30km outside of rome and it has these gorgeous villas. We took a bus tour there and went to Villa Adriana – which was a retreat home for Roman Emperor Hadrian in the early 2nd century, and it reminded me a lot of the trip we took to italica with UPO. It was very neat and it had a lot of roman castle ruins, and ruins of the old palace there. Villa d’este – oh my gosh, one of the most gorgeous places ever. I absolutely loved it. So its this gorgeous renaissance architecturally built palace with garden design and fountains. Yes, I would love love love to live there someday, or ya know, I can settle for getting married there someday. Anyways, so we got back to rome and went to the trevi fountain that night. Yes, I love the trevi fountain probably more than anything as well. So it was a great day. Oh but then, that night when we got back to rome, we ate a nice restaurant across the street from our hotel in Vatican city. But that night, and early the next morning I got really sick. Like food poisoning sick. It was so sad and miserable. I was in bed all the next morning, thinking that I was going to die/never eat again. But mom went to the pharmacy and got me some stomach medicine, and that helped. so later in the afternoon, we went to the roman forum, palentine hill, and the Coliseum, which was fun, but I literally had to stop every 10 minutes to sit down because I was still having stomach pains. So sad. But I was better the next day, I just couldn’t eat very much. We took a bus tour the next day – yes because mom likes those, and they are always fun. And we went to the trevi fountain again, boca de la veritat, the pantheon, piazza venezia, spagna – the Spanish steps, piazza del popolo, and piazza navona, where we debated about buying an oil painting for the house. The last day we were there, we went to the Sistine chapel and waited in line for 2 ½ hours!! But it was well worth it because it’s so enormous, even though I’ve been there before I still loved it again. Then on Saturday, we flew back into Barcelona, stayed the night at a hotel near the airport, and flew out in the morning to Sevilla.
Mom really liked Sevilla because of the ambiente, (feeling/atmosphere) there were a lot less people than Barcelona and Rome, a lot less tourists, and its just a lot slower paced. On Sunday, I took her to eat at Mama Terra (a shwarma place – like with pitas/falfel/and kind of like rotisserie meat, hard to explain..) and then we went to see Feria and walked around a bit. Monday, I went back to school while mom rested and she met Manoli, then we went shopping and she bought me two new dresses. Tuesday, we went to plaza de espana, parque maria luisa, and we ate lunch in the park. Wednesday, we had lunch at my house because Manoli invited her over and Manoli cooked a special fish plate, and tortilla de patata for mom. We also had special postres (desserts), one was flan, another was strawberries and chocolate, and then the other was a special semana santa postre that kind of reminds me of French toast. That was really fun too because Manoli asked traci how to say como estas? But in English and so when Manoli busted out and was like “hooow areee youu?” to mom I was like OMG> you speak English, and we all laughed. Before lunch, I also wrote down some phrases for mom to say to Manoli in Spanish so that was fun too. after that we went to the cathedral and walked around town a bit, the weather was real nice last week and its continually getting hotter in Sevilla. Thursday before mom left we went to rio grande for lunch and had paella, which is my favorite. We also worked on packing my bag to send it home with her and mom bought me the harry potter books in Spanish. It was a really good two weeks with mom and we had lots of fun sight seeing/relaxing in Sevilla together because mom never goes on vacation, so it was a fun treat!!
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