semana santa. jason & miya’s visit. and the week after.

Pictures: 1) Miya, Jason & I by the Guadalquivir. 2) Amir, Daniela, Mal, Brian and I at Amir's apartment. 3) The paso of La Macarena. 4) The Virgin from La Esperanza de Triana. 5) Nazarenos from La Esperanza de Triana. 6) Look at all the people on the Triana Bridge!

We came back from morocco on Wednesday night and I was sooooo tired. I slept in on Thursday because we had no school for the rest of the week because it was Semana Santa (Holy week) so we were on vacation. Another reason we had the week off too is because Sevilla is the most famous place in the WHOLE WORLD for Semana Santa processions. – that’s what Ana Claudio says anyways, and she isn’t just saying that because she’s a Sevillana. it really is true.

We all planned our trips perfectly so that we would be in Sevilla for the end of Semana Santa because that is when the best processions go on & the most important part of the week is. Thursday night was la madrugada – which literally means ‘early morning,’ but it’s the night when the most famous processions happen and people stay up the whole night to watch all of the processions. Let me explain the whole Semana Santa processions before I tell you about my experience with La madrugada though. --- so during the entire week there are these things called Pasos – which are like floats that the churches spend the year building, they are ornate and beautiful and they are made of gold. and “most brotherhoods carry two floats: a float with a Christ, representing the distinct stages of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and a float with a Dolorosa (Mary the Virgin in pain) under a canopy. Some brotherhoods even carry three floats. Resuming, in the eight days of Semana Santa, a total of 57 brotherhoods, carry their 116 floats from their church to the Cathedral and back, in the company of around 60,000 brothers participating in their different appearances: Nazarenos (Nazarenes/Penitents), Costaleros (float carriers), acolytes, bandas de musica, saetas, and women who wear el traje de mantilla. During holy week the Cofradías (Brotherhoods or Fraternities) process in penitence through the (many narrow) streets of the city, from their church to the Cathedral and back, taking the shortest possible route, as decreed in the rule of the ordinances by Cardenal Niño de Guevara in the 17th century. Starting on Domingo de Ramos (Palm Sunday), and ending on Domingo de Resurrección (Easter Sunday), there are 57 brotherhoods that pay the religious visist to the Cathedral of Seville, the third largest Cathedral in the world.” http://www.sol.com/semana-santa/

The Nazarenos are the men in hooded (KKK-look alike) outfits. The KKK actually copied Semana Santa processions and Spaniards were not happy about it. But the Nazarenos wear the outfits/hooded masks to show anonymity in their walk of penitence. There are 20-40 costaleros that actually carry the pasos from underneath and they carry them for hours on their backs, which weigh over 2,000 pounds. Each procession can last from 4 to 14 hours, and have 3,000 nazerenos. Seatas are flamenco singers that take part in the processions but they sing flamenco music acapela from balconies near the churches that the pasos are going into. also, there are women who wear el traje de mantilla - it's like a black lace veil. they wear them on thursday/friday/saturday to mourn the death of christ. The processions last hours and hours all that partake in the processions – cross bearers, float carriers, acolytes, music bands, and nazarenos do it so that Jesus will save their sins. It was a very different cultural experience to watch and be a part of. I can see how many Americans are set off by it and don’t really understand it. But for Christian/Catholic people, it is a really big deal. It reminded me about what Easter really is for, so I think that was important to me. It was good that Jason came and visited this week too because it reminded me of Good Fridays/Easter Sundays at church when we were younger.

So about my experience with la madrugada… well, Thursday was the day that everyone got home from their trips. Mal/Daniela got home from Italy/France/Switzerland and Brian/Amir got home from Madrid/Toledo and so we were all reunited!! It was good that I got to rest on Wednesday night/Thursday day before they all got home. Anyways, so we hung out at Amir’s and we were all so happy to be back together again also, we swapped stories of our travels and just enjoyed spending time all together. So we were there until 1:30ish in the morning because La Esperanza de Triana (one of the most famous processions of la madrugada) started on the Triana Bridge at 2. Amir and Daniela were really tired so they didn’t come with us but Mal, Brian, and I went to get a caffeine fix before the night began… my night began at 1:30am. After I got my coffee, we went over to the Triana bridge and waited for the pasos to come. We were there for a good while and we saw the paso with Christ but we wanted to wait and see the Virgin also. Merillat, Traci, Brett, and a few of our other friends were in a bar down the road so we went to go meet up with them. Then with our whole group we were looking for a good spot to watch the Virgin come by.. mind you, there are like millions of people out and its hard to move in the streets because everyone is crowding to see this procession. Anyways, so I got split up from Merillat, but Mallory and Jacob were next to me and all of a sudden the people started shouting and running the other way. Then at once, we were all running too. I heard Merillat and Mallory screaming and trying to grab on to me as people were trampling Mal and I. Mal ended up falling and cutting her hand open but Merillat grabbed me before I hit the ground. Apparently a fight broke out and people were pushing and running the other direction because they didn’t want to get hit, and it caused a huge wave of running. NOT GOOD. it was really scary and not fun. But other than that our madrugada experience was just fine, after the running happened we waited from afar until we heard the music of the paso coming. Then we also went and saw La Macarena, which is another really really famous paso. I liked them both but I think I liked La Macarena more (it was just prettier and in the bandas de musica – music bands the players were wearing outfits with feathery hats = so pretty). By the end of the night, my feet were killing me because we were standing and walking for 6 hours straight!!

I went home and slept until lunch the next day because I was so tired! Then we all met to get sangria @ brown sugar (at 4:30 on Friday, April 10th - insidejoke we had to remind everyone when/where/what time to meet & we had to make plans ahead of time bc mallory had no phone) but it was closed bc of the holiday as well. So we just ended up hanging out in the downstairs of mama terra. We ran into Amer, Jeffrey, and Justin and spent the afternoon just talking. It was time well spent.

The week of Semana Santa was also the week of Jason’s visit… it was really good to see him & Miya. We tried to see each other while we were both in Florence but it ended up not working out. On Wednesday, I took them to Plaza de Espana, Parque Maria Luisa, and the museums in the park too – but they were closed bc of Semana Santa holidays, and we also sat by the river and enjoyed the afternoon. Then, I saw them on Saturday and took them to Alameda where we went to a little café and on the way home we ran into a Semana Santa procession. And when we finally got out of the crowd, we went to go have churros by the Triana bridge. Saturday night, we tried to go to a Flamenco Bar but Jas and I both ran out of saldo at the same time so it was kind of crazy getting a hold of each other. But on Sunday morning, Jas, Miya, Amir, and I went to the mercadillo and I got some aceitunas for merienda (olives for snacks) and made sure they tried them because Sevilla is famous for olives, ya know. It was a great weekend with them and they were wonderful visitors. I was just sad that they didn’t get to see Sevilla when it wasn’t so crazy with millions of tourists for Semana Santa.

Last week was good too. Going back to school was difficult after being gone for so long but I got back into the swing of things easily. Highlights of last week: trying to explain to Manoli who zach efron & miley cyrus are – they came on the television during lunch one day and I was telling her how much I love miley cyrus. Also, I love being one of manoli’s niñas – Manoli has given us so many sopresas (surprises) in the past weeks! Oh my gosh, it’s amazing and I love it! when it’s just me, Merillat, and traci she gives us strawberries & chocolate or icecream, or éclairs, or little chocolate muffins for merienda (afternoon snacks!) and even on Friday, when I had breakfast by myself before I left for Portugal she gave me a kiwi with breakfast (fue un secreto grande porque Isabel fue en la casa todavía!–it was a big secret because liz was still in the house!)

Adventuring with ali – Monday we went to El Corte Ingles (a big department store with imported products – so if you want anything American you will most likely find it there) bc I wanted to buy brian peanut butter for saving all my italy pictures, then we got like the best ice cream ever and enjoyed the afternoon walking around Sevilla, then on Wednesday, ali and I went to puerta jerez and we read Sabor a Chocolate, which is this book that we are reading for Ana Claudio’s class, but I love it because it’s a book that I actually enjoy reading and its difficult enough for me that I learn new words/grammatical structures while reading it but its also easy enough to where I understand so much of what is going on that its not frustrating. Anyways, so Ali and I sat in puerta jerez and read but it was really windy outside so we went into this cute café by the University of Sevilla and we had coffee. It also started to sprinkle a little so we moved inside. Then when we were done reading, we went and explored Parque de los principes (which is just another park, but its in Los Remedios, near our houses). It was a good day. On Thursday, we just sat by the river, walked around, and chatted in puerta jerez.

Friday we left for lagos, Portugal and you will hear more about that trip in my other blog. But last week was really good and I can’t believe it’s the end of April already!! My time here is going by so fast, that I never want it to end!! Alright, I am going to go take a siesta and then afternoon adventure with ali, I will write more later. Hasta luego!

morocco - rabat, fez, & assilah.

I’ve been really bad at updating my blog so here’s my post on morocco!! More posts will be coming about semana santa, jas&miya’s visit, and lagos, portugal!

Going to morocco was unbelievable. I can’t even describe how amazing of an experience it was. Africa is actually really close to Sevilla because of its southern location. It is the fourth continent I’ve been to now (how cool is that?!?)! I went with discoversevilla, which is a travel agency/group in Sevilla that does trips all over Europe& to morocco as well. Almost our entire tcu program went with too, out of the 24 of us, 20 people went. Crazy! Anyways, we went all over morocco. We took the ferry over there on Friday morning and left from Tarifa, Spain to go to Tangier, Morocco. We took our buses on the ferry with us, and so that’s how we got around all week. Then, we had lunch in Rabat and we took a tour of Rabat. After that, we headed to Fez and on the way we stopped and saw some monkeys and fed them too!! so much fun. The trip to Fez was a pretty long drive in the bus so we stopped again to watch the sunset over these cliffs. It was gorgeous, but a different kind of gorgeous from watching the sunset in the andes (while I was in chile). We had dinner in Fez and left for the desert hotel after dinner (and this was only the first day… so much traveling already!!). Then we left our bus and we were picked up by berbers (like native Moroccan people) and they drove us to the desert hotel in 4x4s where we stayed the night.

Carla, Ali, Rachel, Alo, Liz and I were all in one jeep/4x4 and we had the coolest berber driver ever. He literally was so much fun, he turned up the music real loud and was singing and talking to us the whole time. He was really funny and kept asking us questions, he also took a road that no one was on and drove crazy but it was tons of fun. At one point, we met up with the other cars and he turned up the music really loud and made us all get out of the car to dance. Dancing in the desert was for sure a great way to start our sahara experience.

Then we stayed the night at the desert hotel/had dinner there. The food was awesome. I was really worried before hand about the food bc Manoli was saying don’t eat any fruit or anything with out washing it with bottled water before hand. Also, to only drink bottled water in general. But I only ate like cooked rice/veggies and they were like so good. and I didn’t get sick at all the whole time I was there.

The next day, we had breakfast at the hotel, which had amazing freshly squeezed orange juice by the way. And then we toured the desert town and went into a rug shop. It was really fun and I took some good pictures. We saw this lady who went to a community well and she was filling up big water bottles with water, and filter it with this make-shift bottle/piece of cloth filter. her small children were with her too. then she put all her water bottles in this cart and they had to wheel their water home. our berber guide was saying that everyone in the town has to do this to get clean water, it was really different seeing how hard they had to work for clean water. also, the entire time that we were walking around the town with our tour guide children of like all ages were following us around trying to get us to buy small bracelets, necklaces, and figurines from them for like a euro. Some of them didn’t have shoes either. it was so sad. then we went to the rug shop and ali and I tried to barter with this vendedor but he wouldn’t barter so we gave up and went back to the hotel for lunch.

After lunch, we checked out of the hotel and got ready for our camel ride/sahara adventure. there was literally like a hundred camels for our whole group, have you ever seen a hundred camels before??? ah it was crazy! Ali, Erica, and I rode in front of chris, brett, and corey so we chatted the whole time. also, we named our camels. so funny. Ali rode sancho, I rode henry, ali was falling off sancho the whole time and henry was sneezing (of course, I would get stuck with the sneezing camel.) anyways it was such an adventure, we ended up arriving to the desert like an hour before sunset so by the time we got all our stuff settled and chose our tent, we had like 45 minutes to climb this huge sand dune, which actually didn’t look that bad but it was so incredibly difficult to climb. I was sinking with every step I took, so hard. Also, like 5 people got sand in their cameras and broke them from the sand getting into it. I had the dslr and I was literally carrying it on my shoulder so that it wouldn’t get sand in it. we made it to the top just as the sun setting and enjoyed the view and we took lots of pictures too. we got to hang out in our desert oasis camp for the rest of the night, have dinner with the berbers, and enjoy the sahara for a little bit more.

We woke up in the morning, had Moroccan tea (which is really good by the way), and then we left the Sahara by camel. The second camel ride was fun too. Ali, Jacob, Erica, and I named our camels again – ali rode Pablo, and I rode oliver. We hung out by the pool and got some sun after lunch, then we got on the bus and traveled to fez (so much bus-ing). We got to the hotel in Fez and had dinner.

In the morning, we went to the medina in Fez, toured it, had lunch there, and shopped a little too. The medina is like the city center, where the schools are/people live/and all the shops are. It was really interesting. We went on a tour and saw the tannery (where they make leather) – the tannery was fun but it smelled like dead cow, they gave us mint leaves to sniff while we were there, the spice shop – where they sell like all kinds of natural teas/herbs and what not, the scarf shop – where we saw this guy weaving scarves of vegetable silk, and the rug factory – where we saw these ladies making a rug, so cool, this one lady even let me sit down next to her and she let me try to do it too. it was really fun. Then we had 30 minutes of free time to go buy things/barter with shopkeepers in the plaza. That part might have been my favorite bc ali, Erica, and I bartered and walked away from lots of shopkeepers but then they would like chase us down the street and be like no no no, how much do you want it for? it was so fun. and I bought lots of earrings for cheap.

The next day, we mostly traveled the whole day to get home. but we stop in assilah for lunch by the beach and to shop in their medina too. the medina in assilah was sooooo different from the medina in fez. It was a lot less crowded and more open. Also, the vendedors didn’t want to barter very much either, but the stuff was a lot cheaper too, so it was fine. I bought cute new shoes & new sandals so it was a successful day and ali/Erica/and I bought pink friendship bracelets too. on the way home, while the bus was driving to the ferry, young Moroccan boys were jumping on our bus at the border. It was heartbreaking to watch. they were trying to like open the bus compartments and hide in them, even if they got hurt. benni (our discoversevilla guide) said that they will do anything to get to spain. really just anything at all.

But overall the trip was amazing and I absolutely loved it. I would love to go back again someday and bring my dad with me (he would have loved the whole sahara adventure!).

florence. florencia. firenze.

This is my much needed update from the past two weekends bc I’ve been traveling so much I really haven’t had all that much time to blog. So here goes… Florence was so much fun. I got to Livorno and met up with Dustin on Thursday, we rented a car, and went along the north eastern coast of Italy. It was gorgeous, a little cold but still a much needed beach trip. We got some sun and spent a good portion of Friday at the beach. The whole rent a car thing was interesting trying to maneuver ourselves in a vehicle in a different country, but Dustin knows how to drive stick shift so we got by just fine. Friday, after we got back from the beach and returned the car, we hoped on a train to Pisa (home of the leaning tower). Friday evening/Saturday morning we saw Pisa – climbed up the leaning tower, went into the Cathedral, and went into the baptistery. Saturday afternoon, we left for Florence. It was a really busy four days. We tried to do as much as we could outside, on Saturday in Florence because we knew it was going to rain on Sunday. So we went to Piazzale Michelangelo, Neptune’s fountain, Ponte Vecchio (the first bridge in Florence across the Arno river), Piazza della Signoria and Palazzo Vecchio, and Pitti Palace. Then we had dinner with Allison on Saturday night and I got to catch up on life abroad with her. It was so good to see her!! We talked a lot about grad school/florence/sevilla/school/and traveling.

Then on Sunday, we did the Duomo and the Galleria dell’ Academia, which has Micheangelo’s David in it. We tried to meet up with Jason/Miya who happened to be in Florence that weekend too, but the line was really really long for the Galleria dell’ Academia and they had to catch a train back to Rome, so it didn’t end up working out. But that’s okay because Jas/Miya are in Sevilla this weekend to see Semana Santa processions! Florence was amazing. I'm so glad i got to go, it's a lot like sevilla and a lot like rome at the same time... which are both very different cities, but two of my favorite cities in the world. It has the best of both worlds, it has a river like sevilla, and its slower paced but still really busy like an italian city. and of course it has italian food/roman history, which i love too.

Sunday night, I traveled home and got back Monday morning… funny story… I took a train to Milan from Florence to fly out of Milan on ryanair bc it was cheaper. So I got on my 8:15pm train and went to go sit in my seat and then the guy want like you made this reservation for 8:15am, not 20:15pm ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I wanted to cry, seriously it was a val-freezeface moment (bridge-ies will know what that means). But I didn’t cry, I just turned bright red and I was all upset because it was like 8:10 by then and I was like well this is probably the last train to Milan for tonight, and if I miss this train then I will miss my plane home to Sevilla. it would just be a really BAD chain reaction. So I stayed on the train and I was like I don’t care, I have a ticket. And I just sat in another seat. The entire time though I was like freaking out that the conductor would come over and kick me off the train or something, or fine me like 1000euro. But he never came to check my ticket, which turned out to be sooo lucky. Anyways, all was well and I made my plane.

Merillat and Jacob were on my same flight home that got into Sevilla on Monday morning at like 9am. And so we rode the airport bus back to Prado together. Merillat and I decided to sleep the rest of the morning and go straight home instead of trying to catch another bus to UPO with all our belongings, just to make it to Ana Claudio’s class. And Manoli missed us so much, she gave us breakfast even though it was like 11am with chocolate éclairs too!! And she gave us even had a surprise for us at lunch, chocolate/strawberry icecream Sundays!! It was such a wonderful welcome home.

The week went by like a whirlwind. I got into ASU, then heard just the same from TCU the next day. I was suffering from another bout of the cold before Morocco and trying to sleep it off to get better. I had SD card problems with my florence picts bc I dropped my canon camera on the leaning tower of pisa, so Brian (who is my hero now) saved them ALL, somehow. The metro opened on Thursday so Brian, Ali, and I had a great day adventuring and making history as we took the metro for the first time and wandered around Sevilla more. Then we left for Morocco early in the AM on Friday morning. I’ll write more about my Moroccan/African/sahara desert adventure later this week! Hasta luego!!

grad school update.

Currently, all my dreams are coming true. I got into amazing amazing amazing grad schools. And I’m getting to chase the sun around the world and have wonderful adventures. Life really couldn’t be better than this!!

Florence was so so so much fun this past weekend. It was amazing, I love italy. I have to write a long blog entry about it later, but for now no tengo mucho tiempo ( I don’t have a lot of time.)

I got into Arizona State University this weekend (they rank 18th!!) and I couldn’t be happier. So I thought I was going to go there until last night. BUT Dr. Watts, chair of TCU’s department of communication disorders, emailed me and offered me acceptance to TCU’s program as well, which includes full tuition (yes that is $80,000 gratis = free). Ah!! I still can’t believe it!! I still have the option of choosing CSUN (Cal State Northridge) also, to be close to home, to live in Southern California, and maybe work at John Tracy? I am so so so stressed out now though because I have no idea what to do. The official deadline I need to decide by is April 15th but my schools want me to decide earlier because I am holding someone else’s spot if I’m not going to go. I don’t like being rushed. SO STRESSFUL. It’s such a good problem though because I have amazing options and I couldn’t ask for anything better.

highlights of last week:

last week went by so fast. i was busy with catching up on hw, going to tcu dinners/events, making sure i took a siesta, and getting ready for florence.

Clara and I had coffee on Monday so that was really fun. I met her boyfriend too for a little bit and we got to chat at Café de Indias en el centro.

For lunch on Monday just Merillat and I were home, so Manoli was just loving on us the whole time. She even brought us out dessert!! It’s supposed to be our little secret, but I will share with my blog followers of course. She brought us a plate of fresas y chocolate (strawberries with chocolate syrup!), oh it was wonderful! And Merillat and I just laughed the whole time about how she loves us so much.

CSUN gave me an extension on my decision deadline so I don’t have to decide by Friday, but instead I can email them by April 15th.

Glory Robinson, from TCU, is in town so Mary Alice and Glory took the twenty five of us to tapas on Monday night to a really cute place called El Colmaito de Cai. And as vegetarians Ali and I were better fed than the last time we had tapas with Mary Alice on our TCU outing. On Tuesday, they took us to coffee and a flamenco show, which was really good.

I’m going to Florence on Thursday and meeting Dustin there and seeing Allison Ollre. Dustin & Allison are friends from TCU. Dustin is studying abroad for the year at Oxford and he has a month break to travel in between the semester, so he’s currently doing his Italy trip right now and I decided to tag along. Allison and I are old frog camp friends and she’s also an SLP major who is studying abroad in Florence this semester. I’m probably going to have lunch with Allison Saturday or Sunday. I’m sooo excited because I’ve never been to Florence, and I’ve always wanted to go!! Estoy deseando!! (I can’t wait!!)

Things to look forward to: My 6 day Morrocco trip is coming up and Ali, rica, & I will be roommates for that and we are sooo excited to have more adventures together. Jas/Miya are coming to Sevilla for Semana Santa, Dustin will stop here too the week after, and April will be full of tons of adventures. Estoy ilusionado! (I’m excited!)

londres with daniela.

Life is offering me absolutely wonderful experiences and adventures that I am just taking in and loving every minute of it. Sevilla is continuing to be wonderful. School is good and the weather in Sevilla couldn’t be better right now. It’s sundress and flip-flops weather, which is absolutely amazing for my California soul.

Last week, Merillat and Traci had a friend in town, and Liz’s mom is in town still and so they didn’t eat with Lola and me all week. Also, Lola has school all day on lunes/martes (mon.wed) and so I was the only one eating at home for some meals. BUT this was excellent because it served at great bonding time with Manoli aka proceeding to be her favorite even more & more practice with my Spanish.

The whole graduate school thing is continuing to be stressful as decision deadlines are coming up and I’m getting more impatient waiting to hear from more schools. The past weeks have been filled with skype calls from mom&dad about news, chats with kaysabeth, and emails with elizabeth on what to do. I just don’t know where I’m going to go yet. We’ll see.

But about londres… Daniela and I went to London this weekend and we stayed with her friend Mawuena who is studying abroad there. I’ve been to London before with Jenna and so it made me miss eurotrip round1 a lot. But there were things that Jenna and I didn’t do while we were there, so Daniela and I finished the London adventure for now. It was a great weekend and we did so many things. Also, it was cold but it wasn’t as freezing as I thought it would be. Thursday, Daniela and I went to the Tate Modern, which is one of the best modern art museums ever. It has Monet’s Water Lilies and Jackson Pollock’s Summertime in it, which are some of my favorite paintings so I was just happy sitting and staring for a while. Then, we went to changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, St. Paul’s Cathedral, London Bridge, and the Tower Bridge. We also climbed up the Monument, which is this huge pillar/monument in London that was built in memory of the people who died/places that were burned in the great fire of London. It has 311 very small, narrow steps up to the top but it was really fun because Daniela and I were laughing at each other the whole way up. It had a great view from the top, even though Daniela was scared of getting too close to the edge (even though it had a gate..hahaha). On Thursday, we also tried to get into the Tower of London but we got there too late so we went back and took a tour/went inside to the Tower of London on Friday. Thursday, before heading back to Mawuena’s apt. we went to Harrod’s for sweets. I had a cupcake it was sooo good and it made me miss Sprinkles.

On Friday, we went and took our London Eye flight, which was lots of fun. Before getting on the guy was like no sharp objects or mase in there right?? He was joking but of course with Jenna & my history with London/heathrow/mase I was not amused. Ahahaha, that’s a story for another day… Friday, we also went by Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey before heading to Abbey Road. Literally, Daniela and I were at Abbey Road trying to get the perfect picture like the Beatles cover, for over an hour. It is still a legit street that people drive on and we went around 4/5pm ish and so there were tons of cars and other people trying to get pictures too. We actually ran into Maria and Iman while we were there. They are friends of Mawuena’s and they were staying at his dorm with us too. What a coincidence, right? They jumped in our picture and we got a semi-ok picture but settled for that because it started to get cold, and we were tired so we left. Saturday, we adventured around and went to TopShop (a store based out of UK) kind of a mix between H&M and Forever. But it’s super cute and I was like way excited to go. I got a new green dress and a new bathing suit to wear in Italy next weekend.

Another highlight of London was seeing Marie B!! Marie is visiting Kelsey Tudor (not to confuse Kelsey with my sister) this week because Kelsey is studying abroad in London this semester. She got in on Friday afternoon but I left on Saturday so it wasn’t for sure if we were going to see each other. But we were chatting/planning to meet sometime and it turned out that Mawuena’s apartment was literally like 3 minutes walking from Kelsey’s dorm. So we met in the middle at a pub called Gloucester Arms. It was soo sooo soo good to see B. I was so happy!! It literally made my week, I was so excited to see her. Marie and I caught up and got to chat about life over Strongbow, which is like cider from London that is really good. We also talked about being in Europe together again. Last time we were in Paris together on Marie’s first night in Europe too! ca(b.o) in Europe, again! And how next year, we are going to go to Mardi Gras & Cabo together, so exciting!

Daniela and I flew home Saturday evening and got back to Sevilla, around 10:30ish. Showered, got ready, and then had a wonderful welcome home to everyone – Mal, Amir, Brian, Daniela, and I; hanging out at Amir’s. It was a good way to come back and it has been a while since we’ve all been together because of traveling, visitors, and midterms. We ended up going to Plaza Alfalfa to a bar called Robotica which has bomb mojitos and then on the way home Brian & Peter got hotdogs from the burger/hotdog truck. So it was a night out, well spent.

London was just wonderful. It was a really different city because, well, for one, people speak English, and second of all, it has a lot of American people/products/culture but it also has a lot of European culture. They have a Whole Foods in London (how amazing) and they had ziplock bags at Sainsbury’s!! Ziplock bags are like gold. Literally. I can’t find them anywhere in Spain and Tori even brought me some, but my worst fear is running out of them. Also, London another big city too, I feel like a lot of the places that I’ve been traveling like Madrid & London are so much bigger than Sevilla. Plus they have metro systems instead of walking/busing to get around, which totally makes me appreciate the fact that Sevilla is so much smaller. People say Sevilla is a big city, but it really doesn’t feel like that a lot of the time. It just has a different pace of life and maybe that’s the Spanish culture coming play and maybe that’s just how Sevilla is but I just love being around it. Ana Claudio says that it’s el ambiente (like the ambience- the people/the feel/the environment of Sevilla) that people love. I really think she’s right, it’s what I love about it. It’s just so different from everything else. Being here just fits me really well. And to be honest, I really lucked out because before coming I had never been to Spain. I love love love traveling to other cities and chasing the sun around the world but it’s just very comforting and fitting to come back here. And it makes me so happy to come back to Sevilla and feel grounded.

language learning.

so one of my main goals coming to Sevilla included becoming fluent in Spanish, other goals included traveling parts of Europe I haven’t seen before, meeting other study abroad students from all over the US, and learning about and embracing Spanish culture. I feel like I’m doing really really well in all areas. BUT the fluency in Spanish is coming along a lot slower than I thought it would. I’m learning so so so so much from my classes with Ana Claudio and Penelope and it’s definitely being reinforced and ingrained into my mind because I get to use the language everyday. I try to learn something new everyday. And grammar points/new words that I learn I try to use them right away whether its en los calles o cuando estoy hablando con Manoli (in the streets or when I am talking with Manoli). But the problem is that it is such a slow process. I thought I would be fluent faster I guess. And it’s hard not to compare myself to other people whose Spanish is much better than mine. It definitely gives me new insight as an SLP on learning language and how frustrating it can be to not be able to communicate everything that you want to say. Also, it has taught me a thing or two about learning language and being on the other side of the therapy table, I guess. But more and more it is becoming more difficult to have the motivation to really struggle through with Spanish and keep going with it, just because it is hard when I have English to fall back on and it makes my life a lot easier to just speak in English (now, don’t I feel like a deaf child that knows sign and is trying to learn to listen and acquire spoken language – Elizabeth will totally get this). Also, the fact that there are so many American study abroad students in Sevilla doesn’t help when my language goal gets rough. It is also really hard for me because I’ve always done well in school because I work hard, I just want this to come easy with hard work too. But really it’s more than that, it’s not just memorizing and knowing information but it’s about incorporating it into my life and using it. I was talking to Amir about it yesterday and I think it’s really about having the motivation and proactive-ness to keep going with it. Amir has like 4 intercambios. I have one, I need to step up my game on this Spanish language learning business. In a few weeks, we decided that between our friends that we are all going to speak only in Spanish all the time. We’ll see about that, I don’t know. Anyways, I had coffee with Clara (my intercambio) today, which was really good. We talked for a while and the time went by really fast and I had to run home for dinner. I see myself slowly progressing and learning, we help each other a lot so it’s really really good to meet with Clara. But sometimes I wish it was just a faster process and that it would come a lot easier.