nearing the end.

This week has been a whirlwind and gone by so fast. Last Saturday, I went with Rachel, Erica, and Ali to the gypsy market near puerta de triana but we went and it was closed. We don’t know why… it was just really strange and no one was there. But it was okay, because then Amir and Brian and I woke up early on Sunday morning, after a late night out on C/Betis, and we went to the Mercadillo on Avenida de la paz. I bought a shirt for matt there and some aceitunas (olives) and then we went home for lunch.

My Sunday afternoon was spent in the downstairs of mama t’s cramming for the two Spanish finals I had on Monday with djAmer and LaRea. It was good and I got a lot of studying done while Amer provided for lots of entertainment and distraction, because he was so focused on studying.

Monday, after finals Ali, Erica, and I had tinto de verano in the cafeteria at school to celebrate the fact that Intermedio was over. Then in the afternoon, I met up with Clara and we had icecream in el centro and talked about how no one in Spain uses an air conditioner.

Yesterday, before my final, I ran to the Mercado de Triana to get Ana flowers. Ali and I wrote her notes and gave her purple & white, TCU colored flowers. I will see her again Friday at the Isla Magica final reception but still all three of us were on the verge of tears, that Ana had to tell us to leave because she was about to cry.

Then, I ran off to Spanish Civilization and Culture, and I finished my last undergraduate finals (EVER!!) It was very exciting.

After that, Ali and I caught the metro home and took her last walk through el centro. And then after lunch, we went for her last C/con/L (café con leche… coffee with milk) and then went back to her house. I saw Puri again (whom I previously met at Family dinner) and she said I could come in the house and wait while Ali got the last of her things. We lugged Ali’s bags down the street, took the metro from Plaza de Cuba to Prado, and then said goodbye as we put her luggage on the airport bus. It was so hard even though I’m going to see Ali in two weeks in Texas, it just won’t be the same because we won’t be here in Sevilla together. I definitely came home, layed on merillat’s bed and cried.

It has been a memorable week, just trying to spend our last bit of time with each other in Sevilla. Brian, Amir, and I have gotten a lot of use out of our Sevicis that we rented for the week and have definitely taken advantage of eating our last tapas together. And then we went to bandalai last night to see Amer dj for the last time and to celebrate the end of finals.

And I am prepping myself for an even more difficult day to come tomorrow with saying goodbye to Daniela, Brian, Amir, and Mal especially. Because they live all over the US, in Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and North Carolina, and so I really don’t know when I am going to get to see them next or if we will ever be in the same place together at the same time, ever again. I know that’s really somber and sad to think about but its crazy true too. Also, tomorrow, is our final UPO celebration at Isla Magica (Sevilla’s theme park) and all our teachers will be there to say goodbye too, which of course means saying goodbye to Ana.

I went on a morning excursion with Mer today to go buy t-shirts from UPO and walk around el centro and we were talking about how leaving is sad, but its also so good, because it just means that this adventure is over for now. And it means that we have a whole summer of adventures to look forward to. And that is the way I would really like to think about it, especially tomorrow, because this experience is something I will keep with me forever and look back on with a huge smile on face. So, there will be lots of happy, sad, exciting, crazy, and wonderful moments in the next few days that I am getting ready for.

afternoon adventures and despedidas.

it has been an interesting month so far, just seeing the way everyone is dealing with getting ready to leave. some people are really excited and can’t wait to be home and eat mexican food and live their normal lives again. i have other friends who are like absolutely devastated about leaving and they just don’t want to go yet. It’s definitely a crazy time for us all and emotions are coming out in different ways because we are trying to study for finals, move 4 months of accumulated junk from Europe home, say goodbye, and end this adventure for now. It really depends on the day for me, but I was kind of in denial at first and I didn’t want to talk about it. and when people brought it up, I didn’t want to hear about it ending. But I mean its inevitable and I do have to say goodbye. So there are moments when I get really sad and don’t want leave Manoli, Clara, or Ana and then there are days when I get really excited about spending time in june with Sharlarose, Christine, elise, shane, and Emily. Then I get excited about seeing my dad, kays, mom, and matt in july too. it has definitely been a bitter sweet past two weeks now but here’s some of what I have been doing:

after mom left, hace dos juves (two Thursdays ago), I ran to make it to our UPO fieldtrip – which was riding down the Guadalquivir on a boat/crucero – cruise ship thing. it was fun and good to spend time with my friends after a busy week, but I was sooo tired because I had gone out the night before.

I have this friend, Amer, that DJs in New Mexico (that’s where he’s from) and so he was talking to some Spanish people at on of our UPO intercambio mixers one day and he was telling them that he DJs, then the guy like hooked him up and gave him a DJing job at Boss and so we would go to there every Wednesday night to see him pinchar (DJ). And so he’s met all these DJ friends, who are giving him jobs at other discotecas/clubs…. which means that we get to go on his guest list and get in free, which is so awesome. So in the past two weeks, all our friends have had a lot of fun going out to Abril and Bandalai too.

so in our final weeks here ali and i decided that we are making the most of our time and going on afternoon adventures everyday. saturday night, ali, erica, carla, and i went to an FC sevilla soccer game, in nervion plaza against mallorca. it was great because Sevilla won and everyone was happy! the crowd was singing the whole time, and we even joined in by ripping up random advertisement papers and making confetti, while ali blew her whistle horn too!

On Sunday, ali and i had a Sunday funday. we went to real alcazar and just walked around, and illegally fed the fish, then we went to mcdonald’s and got icecream for one euro, then we went to parque de los principes (the park in los remedios) and we sat on the swings for awhile and swung, then we fed the fish in that park. But funny story, so I didn’t have any bread type deal except goldfish that mom brought me so I brought those and we fed cheddar goldfish to real goldfish. ahaha and this old man in the park was like you want some bread? or uncooked cuscus rice to feed the fish? And I was like a little wierded out by him at first but then he was just like there. It was funny. after that, ali and I found a tree that reminded me of teribithia, so we climbed it.

Tuesday, I took a twenty minute siesta at amir’s house on his couch, before we went souvenir shopping for friends and family. he made me go to a smelly china bazaar (china bazaar’s are like dollar stores) with him to look at cheap luggage. Then, we met up with ali in el centro, and we found the smoothie place… sooooooooo exciting!! We sat and had juice/smoothies for awhile then we walked around buying gifts. I got a 5euro No-Do shirt so I was happy.

Wednesday, ali and I wanted to jump BUT the trampolines in the nervion plaza were closed, even though the guy told us on Saturday when we were there (but I was wearing a dress, so we couldn’t jump then) on Saturday, he said that they were open everyday of the week from 10am -8pm… but we went after school on Monday and just got off early at the nervion stop, but it was closed!! well, that’s spain for you. But instead we went pedaling down the river in pedal boats, which was so much fun. We have been wanting to do it for a really long time too, so I’m glad we finally accomplished our goal. Wednesday night was so much fun too because we had our TCU family dinner. where all 24 of us went with mary alice and our senoras to Abades Triana, a really nice restaurant by the river and had dinner with each other, so we finally got to meet each other's senoras!! and i got to meet Puri (ali's senora!).then, we went to Abril and almost all my friends were there so it was just wonderful to go out with everyone.

Thursday, after lunch, I took another siesta on amir’s couch because they are doing construction in my apt building and they hammer, so I can’t sleep… ali was too sick from going out the night before, so, amir and I hungout at his house and he played his guitar (that he bought here in spain) because he is selling it on Saturday and he wanted to get some more use out of it. Thursday night, we also had our last hoorah dinner. mal and i had our usual tuesday bonding time on the bus and decided that we should all have dinner together and celebrate before everything gets crazy with packing, finals, and leaving so that we could have a proper despidida.(goodbye) so we all went out together for tapas on Thursday night at this place by the cathedral and it was good, just to all spend time together. Then we went to an outdoor concert in Plaza San Salvador, which was okay, it wasn’t great because I was really tired. But then Jen (brian’s gf who was visiting), brian, amir, and I got week sevici passes (like communal rental bikes strategically located around the city), and rode home on those. Jen and Brian were tired so they biked home. and Amir and I rode around a bit on bikes by the river and in los remedios because it was a nice night.

Friday morning, I rode my sevici to amir’s. and jen, brian came over too so that we could have breakfast/mid morning snack. We just spent the morning together, which was nice. After lunch, we met up to go to this medieval fair that they are having in the park next to Prado. It was fun I bought some earrings and a bracelet. Ali bought a new ring too, and amir ate a schwarma. But it was too hot and so I went home and siesta-d. Then we went out later to bandalai and saw DJamer, so it was a great night.

Also this week I had three oral exams, one Tuesday with ana for conversation class over la comida espanola, which went really well and corey asked me “te gusta jamon serrano?” (which is like a tapas ham) and only ana, corey, and I got the joke because only they know that I am a vegetarian, haha very funny right.. anyways, and then on Wednesday I had my lola lago oral exam with Penelope which was really easy, and merillat and I studied for it the night before, so it went really well too. but Thursday I had my individual conversation oral with ana and I had to talk to her for 11 minutes about life. Before hand I was really nervous about it because I don’t like oral exams, especially in Spanish, but since I had, had so many this week already the nervousness wasn’t as bad. But I was also worried because Ana is like one of my favorite people in Sevilla and I really just wanted to do well because I wanted to show her how much Spanish I have learned from her, it’s a world of difference really, it is. I’m going to be so incredibly sad to say goodbye to her.

I have to go study a bit now for the 2 spanish finals I have on Monday morning, but I will write more later. Hasta luego! (Until later!)

pre-feria fiestas. la corrida. vacaciones de primavera: barca y roma, y después.

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!!

lagos, portugal. to the end of the world & back.

Let me tell you about my trip to Lagos!! It was a great weekend. Mallory, Daniela, and I went with discoversevilla to lagos, Portugal. The weather ended up being not so nice on Friday and it sprinkled a little on Saturday, but the sun made up for it on Sunday. We left Sevilla, at 10am on Friday and got to lagos by noonish. The girls and I settled into our hotel room and went into town for some lunch. We explored a little and followed the shoreline to walk into town. When we got there, we found a really cute café that had outside seating with heaters and umbrellas so we decided to stop there. After our lunch break, we explored town a little more but lagos is really not that big and there are not a lot of things to see – it really was just a beach weekend. So we went back to the hotel and decided to take a nap before dinner. Daniela wasn’t feeling well so she slept right away. But Mal and I went to venture out in the rain to find a market. We actually missed the one right by the hotel and ended up finding one that was kind of far away – and it wasn’t that easy to get by, ya know because we speak Portuguese and all… but we found it and bought some food for dinner/snacks. Then, we made dinner in our little hotel room kitchenette, which was really cute. We watched TV (yes, in English!) and then Amer and Jeffrey came over to hangout before going to bars later. We heard noise from next door and realized that Kathleen, Jen, and Suzanne were in the hotel room next to us and they had people over so we went to join them. Around 8ish we left for Joe’s Garage, which was this bar that DiscoverSevilla rented out to throw a welcome to Lagos party for us and they gave us free drink tickets too, which was fun. After we were there for a few hours we went bar hopping and enjoyed the night life in Lagos.

Saturday, we got up at like 9ish to eat breakfast at the hotel before our boat tour. The boat tour left at 10:30 and we took the busses to the docks. The boat trip was actually really fun. I wish I had brought a heavier jacket though because it was a little cold with the wind. Amer, Daniela, Mal, and I hungout on the boat all morning and drank free sangria. Then we took smaller boats on a cave tour and got to see lots of neat caves that were carved out by the tides. Some of them were so awesome. Later that day after the tour, Daniela and Mallory took a nap in the room and I layed out by the pool to try to get some sun but it was a little windy. The sun would literally come out for like 30seconds every 5 minutes. So bipolar. Anyways, at 6:45pm the whole group met in the lobby to go to the end of the world. Now you think I’m kidding but I am really not.

They took us to Cabo de San Vicente, which is the southwestern most point of Europe and in days before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, people thought this was the end of the world. They really did. So we went to the end of the world to watch the sunset but the clouds and the rain didn’t agree with that. It was really windy, overcast, and started to sprinkle right as we were leaving. It was a really neat place to see though. Once you are there you can understand why people thought it was the edge of the earth. It was just an awesome place to visit, another one of those life goals checked off my list. After we got back to Lagos, the buses dropped us off in town and we had dinner at this Portuguese restaurant where we had fish, which is suppose to be excellent in Portugal – Daniela had sword fish and Mallory and I had bacalou – cod fish. It was really good. After dinner, Jacob, Mal, Daniela, and I met up with Chris, Brett, and Corey who had schwarmas for dinner, of course. Then we went and hungout at a couple of different bars and went home later.

Sunday was a fabulous day. We got up, had breakfast at the hotel, and then went to the beach. We went to a beach called, Dona Ana. The beach was walking distance from our hotel and it was probably one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever been to in my entire life. It was so gorgeous and it had these huge giant rocks in the water and cliffs surrounding it, it was amazing. I spent the afternoon hanging out with Mal, Daniela, Jacob, Brett, Jen, Marisa, Brittany, and Suzanne. It was a lot of fun. We even ran in and out of the ocean a few times even though the water was freezing cold – even colder than the Pacific!! And then Jacob and I walked up and down the beach a few times and I collected seashells. It was just a really nice relaxing day and calm weekend overall and it was a much needed rest, from my crazy life as an adventurer/traveler.

life update. grad school news. summer plans.

I forgot to mention something very important in my last blog. Well, yes to summarize the blog I posted yesterday - I had the week off for Semana Santa, ali and I went on lots of afternoon adventures, and Jas/miya were here. On Sunday, Amir and I also ate hard boiled eggs to celebrate Easter. Then we had a study party to catch up on hw from the vacation. BUT that’s not the important part --- my big news is that I decided to go to TCU for graduate school for the next two years. I am really excited about my decision and I think it’s the right thing for me and plus that means I get two more years in Texas with Sharlarose, Christine, Elise, Shane, and Emily. But that also means I have to move everything back, ah!! that’s okay, because most of my stuff is in the girl’s outside closet anyways. But everything seems to be working out PERFECTLY for summer plans. I am going back to Texas on May 30th for summer clinic/sharing sharla’s room with her for the month of june. Then, I will be heading back to California, July 4th weekend to start working at John Tracy Clinic for their Spanish Summer Session. And that means I get to work with Spanish deaf babies!! = my dream come true. Also, on Monday I heard from the AGBell Association about the Listening and Spoken Language Symposium Scholarship that I applied for in March. And they gave it to me, so it looks like I am heading to St. Louis this summer too!! Elizabeth also received the same scholarship and so I will be going to visit her at Fontbonne when we are there for the symposium. I am so excited! I emailed Dr. Morrison to let her know and she was so excited for both of us too.
She sent me an article she wrote about us for the Harris College of Nursing and Health Sciences Newsletter:

"Valerie Lew and Elizabeth Boschini, undergraduate COSD students in speech-language pathology, have each been awarded scholarships from the AG Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing to attend the AG Bell Listening and Spoken Language Symposium July 23-25, 2009. Valerie and Elizabeth's essays were placed in competition with students from across the US, including students at the graduate level. The AGBell symposium is a bi-annual meeting that presents current research topics pertinent to intervention with children with hearing loss. This year's topic is the impact of executive function on education and developmental outcomes.

Valerie Lew will be joining the TCU graduate program in speech-language pathology in Fall, 2009.

Dr. Helen Morrison will be presenting one of 2 invited short courses at the symposium with Dr. Jane Madell Co-Director of the Cochlear Implant Center at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, titled Renewed Perspectives in Listening and Spoken Language."

Anyways, so there has been good news all around and I couldn’t be happier! I will post my blog about lagos tomorrow.

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!).