Friday, June 18, 2010

Cordoba y Granada y mucho mucho MAS!

Ahhhhh, sorry again this is SO late... super procrastinator!!!

June 12th-June 13th, 2010

Last Saturday we took a bus to Cordoba. It was absolutely gorgeous ofcourse! What isn't in Spain?! We got a tour of the famous Mezquita de Cordoba. It was indescribable!! Absolutely huge with hundreds of moorish arcs alternating between tan and red bricks making a fabulous pattern. The architecture was all of moorish decent and the christians who conquered the muslumes just built off of the building. Seeing the two ancient civilizations meshed together into one beautiful place was amazing! The main room where mass is held was MASSIVE with tons of gold artwork that was so intricate. After the Mezquita we had free time in the town. I purchased a ham and cheese bocadillo, delish, and ice cream of course! THEY ARE LITERALLY ON EVERY CORNER... its awful... dulce de leche of course :]. Got back on the bus and started heading to Granada!!!

Checked into a 4 star hotel of course, ISA treats us very well! We got settled in our room, I changed into a cute skirt and we walked to the FALMINCO SHOW!!!! I have been looking forward to that night FOREVER! It was this tiny hole in the wall place, the chairs were awful, but the dancing was AMAZING! For those of you who dont know what falmico dancing is, it is like tap dancing but so much more INTENSE and awesome!!! There were 4 women, and 1 guy, and a guitarrist along with a singer(they sounded like the gypsy kings!!!) One of the younger womens tots were popping out but she was a great dancer, this woman in a brown dress was by the far the best, her feet moved SOOO fast!!! The old women used these little clapper things and that was cool within itself. A larger woman came on later, she looked like a cross dresser because of all the costume makeup she was wearing but she had an AWESOME voice!!! Overall an amazing show!! After the show we walked the tiny streets of Granada and went to an amazing spot where you could see the Alhambra and the city so we took a bunch of pics!! After that we went on a search for food because we heard wherever you go in granada, you get a free tapa with any drink you order!! Couldnt pass that up!! We found this cute little outside cafe and sat right down. Ordered a bottle of tinto (red wine) with that we all got a tapa whcih was delicious. We were way hungrier than that so we ordered the variety tapa plate to all share. On that it had tortilla de patata, "potatoe salad" which is actually a seafood salad, this amazing cheese, ham, and a few other items. After we were finished, our waitor gave us this coupon for 4 free shots at the bar Baracuda right down the road. Of course, we couldnt pass that up either!! Went to Baracuda (tiny ass bar, but so trendy) of course tons of ISA kids there haha. Our free shot was by far the BEST shot I have EVER taken! It was limon vodka and some other crazy concoction that just made yummy goodness!! After that shot court & I ordered a Long Island, & car got a sex on the beach, then the bartender bought us another shot of that yummy goodness!! After that we went back to court & cars hotel room and cracked open my 1,75 euro Sangria & had deep conversations. What a blast!!

The next day we went to THE ALHAMBRA!!! It is the most visited place in Spain, and I could clearly see why. It was at the top of these gorgeous green covered sierra nevada mountains. It was HUGE. It was at one point the home of the Sultan and was decked out with mosaics and intricate carvings. My favorite part was his garden! It as well was massive and was at the other end of the alhambra it was like his "get away from everyone spot" The garden had thousands of different kinds of vibrant flowers, bushes that were cut into perfect shapes and it was just so amazing!! Granada was by far my favorite place to visit so far! I would go back again and again and again and AGAIN.. etc :]




June 16th, 2010

Lyssa & I went to the ALCAZAR & CATHEDRAL! So absolutely amazing! The Alcazar had moorish influences and was gorgeous! The Cathedral was even better!! ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE INSIDE! The outside and the architecture is so amazing, so much detail!! We went to the top where they ring the bells [34 floors] nice work out!! and soo worth it! You can see all of Sevilla from up there!! I loved every seecond we were in there!!

Other random things:

Had my first salad since ive been here and it was TOO GOOD FOR WORDS! My senora made one for me tonight because she saw how much I loved it. I even ATE TOMATOES! Omg I usually hate them, but I love them in my salad now!! I will continue to make salads like that when I get back to the states because they are just too good: Lettuce, tomatoe, cheese chunks, white onion, APPLE, olive oil, vinegar, and salt! So simple and yet so amazing!!

We are headed to Costa Del Sol tomorrow for our last weekend together :[ sad, but bittersweet!!

Look for more updates later!!

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

WHOOPS! A week later...

Hello all!!!

I'm sorry this took so long, I've been slacking!! Well lets start with last week thursday...(06-03-10 ... 06-07-10)

This weekend was a holiday known as Corpus Christi celebrating the body of Christ. Car Court and I decided to attend the parade that thursday morning. The streets were lined with mostly older folks waiting for the annual parade to begin. Once the parade started, a small child walks out of the church with a bell [looking like he hates his life]. I took a video of the kid don't you worry!! So we watched the parade for about an hour. It consisted of tons of people holding these huge long candles, a few men carrying these extravagent silver and gold staffs, and of course the huge statues of the virgin mary and the three wise men, and the HUGEST of them all, the body of Christ of course!! The body of Christ could not be revealed under the sunlight so it was kept under and awning across from the cathedral. We only saw it because we got Starbucks and walked around the cathedral and there it was!! The path that the parade took place on was lined with what looked like evergreen branches.. as Carly was picking one up all of the sudden a GYPSY takes her hand and starts telling her her future... as I kept saying keep walking she wants your money Carmander was digging for some centavos she could give the old prego gypsy.. good lord. She gave her 70 cents and the gypsy said NO... we jsut kept walking. Went home after that and decided to go see The Writer in theaters that night. They didnt end up having it so we saw Robin Hood instead. We walked in the theater kind of late and boy let me tell you... theaters in Spain are WAAAAY darker once the movie has started than in America.. we couldnt see ANYTHING.. Courtney ended up touching someones face... carly and court both had their phones in peoples faces because we couldnt see themm.. we finally sat down hesitant to squish someone. The movie was pretty good, and when they turned the lights on the theater was practically empty, we just so happened to pick the seats that people were in and to distrub them. After the movie we went to McDonalds and go the BEST McFlurry EVER. Here you first get to choose from three different kinds of syrup.. chocolate, vanilla, OR CARAMEL!!! Omg I was in heaven.. I of course chose carmel with kit kat! So delish.. We were sitting outside and noices this crazy black homeless guy... I felt like I was in Chicago again.. He started singing to himself and started fraking out this family that was near us.. he then ventures over to our table... He had a rolling suitcase and a nice glass filled with beer in his other hand. He started singing to us... the manager of Micky Dee's came out and told him to go away.. Hahaha... Best part ever... He turns around AND WACKS COURT IN THE HEAD WITH HSI SUITCASE... bahaha then tries to comfort her... and she says NO... and he walks away singing.. Us three holding back our laughs so that we dont give him any attention bursted out laughing.. poor Corky!!!

Went home after that and packed for the UniteD Kingdom!!!

That friday we left on Ryan Air to the UK. W e flew into Liverpool at John Lennon airport and got some pounds... which were REDICULOUS by the way... Great Britain freaking robbed me... but its okay!!! Totally worth it. That night we stayed at Florence Nightengale Hostel. It was prettttty shady. We had our own room, but the sheets looked a bit janky.. as did the stains on the floor and the bathroom. But we roughed it! We walked around Liverpool that night and found a Chinese resturant. I ordered some sweet and sour chicken, apparently they dont know what LO MEIN noodles are in England.. whatever! After dinner we decided that we needed a drink before we slept in those nasty beds.. We found that liverpool had an extremely awesome night life! Tons of people dressed up, or in costumes for theme parties and everyone just in the streets have a blast old people and youngins. Of course I was dressed in athletic clothes so we didnt go into any of these places.. We went into a sports bar cause dress code wasn't necessary. We ordered these fun looking blue drinks WITH ICE! Oh how I've missed ice in Spain... they just don't do it.. All of a sudden this ginger comes and sits with us.. looks like he's about 18 years old. I was right, his name was Adam, directly following Adam were Daren and Danny.. they reminded me of little brothers.. they were absolutely hilarious. We spent an hour just talking about sports in the UK & US and of course how well we could imitate eachothers accents. I won the best British accent :] We went home after 1 drink and hesitently fell asleep in our jank beds.

The next morning we took a cab to the train station, bought our tickets to London for 23 pounds and an iced latte. We got on the first train and luckily found a 4 person table, we had to take a connecting train so once we got off the first train and onto the second train we had to find another 4 person table.. well one lone fellow was sitting at a 4 person table, so I of course asked him if we could sit with him. We played Rodrigo [awesome card game] for a verrrry long time while he ignored us the entire time. We asked him to play, and he denied. It wasn't till the the last stretch that he took his ehadphones out and told us how much he hated Liverpool.. haha poor grumpy fellow. We then had to swtich trains AGAIN because ours was broken. Carly and I ended up sitting together and court was right behind us. Carly & I played moooore Rodrigo of course! We got to London!!

London- it was their first time, & my second time there. Still gorgeous as ever. We walked around for a bit, saw Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, St. James Park [layed down there in the grass for a bit], & tons more! We were staying in an area called Hyde Park, and had to walk through this gorgeous park in order to get to our hostel. It had an amazing flower garden, and tons and tons of people rollerblading! It was so much fun! Then we checked into our hostel. I believe it was called Hostel 63. We had our own room AGAIN! Hardwood floors, our own bathroom/shower, clean looking beds, AND A BALCONY!!! It was awesome! We were getting hungry for dinner and didnt want to spend a lot, so we went to this cute grocery store called Sara's right down the street from us. We bought: Pita bread, NUTELLA, apples, and 2 bottles of wine!! All for about 10 pounds. The guy at the store even opened the cork in the bottle for us! Hahah so sweet. So we cut up the apples at the hostel went back up to our room plopped down on the floor and spread teh nutella [which is sooo GOOD] on pita and ate the apples with the delish dip as well. We had a deep meaningful talk about family, boys, and just life! It was soo much fun! We were determined to se Sexo en el Ciudad 2 [sex and the city 2] that night. We started venturing towards the theaters down the street. The two we found only had early showings of the movie, so we walked all the way to the huge mall. We bought our tickets for a midnight showing at Vue Theater. It wa sonly about 10:45 when we bought our tickets so we went window shopping, watched some previews on a screen outside the theater, and then sat ad waited for our theater to be cleaned haha. As we were sitting otuside some "up and coming rapper" and his "producer" came and talked to us. They were acting like big shots and it was annoying.. Saw the movie, and it was AWESOME! Definetely worth the wait!! Went home, showered and went to bed

The next day, we woke up and went to Harrods. We took the TUBE to get there! So much fun. The girls enjoyed seeing all of the AMAZING designer shoes and clothes. We went into H & M & decided that it was a must that we visit the one back in Spain and make some purchases :]. We then had to catch our bus ride home. So we took a bus to the bus station and hopped on our Megabus and headed back to Liverpool. We were wuite exahusted from walking LITERALLY 8 MILES on Saturday in London, so we fell asleep on the bus back for alot of the time. It was a 5 hour bus ride, but soo cheap that it was worth it. We got back to Liverpool around 8, and checked into our 3rd and final hostel. The Everton Hostel. It literally looked like we were in a ghost town, but once you walked into the Everton Hostel it was like a different world. It was soo clean and had tons of fun Beatles artwork everywhere. This time we had to share a room with 3 other people but we didn't mind. Our room was as fabulous as a room in a hostel can get. Cleanest sheets we've seen, our own bathroom/shower, our own kitchen, a tv, annnnd a computer!! We checked in and left our stuff in our room and went to go find a BURGER.. it took us a bit, but we ended up back at the sports bar we went to a couple nights before. We ordered a much needed burger, and got a free drink with it. Vodka cranberry, and the other two got vodka pepsi. It was a fun time. We took a cab back to our hostel and met our other roomates. We were in bed when I couldn't take it anymore! I had to know what language they werre speaking, I sound like my mother! They were speaking ITALIAN! So gorgeous!! It was one lone traveler from Barcelona who didnt talk at all.. and then a girl from Malaga who was speaking Italian to her boyfriend and her friend that was from Italy! After some small talk we went to sleep . We woke up at 4 am to get ready and leave for the airport. Got checked in, everything went smoothly. Some guy ripped off my scab on the back of my heel and I stared gushing blood but Court came to the rescue with a tissue. Got some souvenirs and boarded our plane. We were so tired that I could literally feel my head falling and bouncing the whole time and kept realizing that my mouth was wide open.. haha. We finally got back. I had two blisters and like 3 different cuts on ym feet. My body was sore and I could barely move, didn't go to class on Monday, took a 3 hour nap instead. Then I finally got to talk to Ry for the first time in like 3 days! Yayyy, we talked all night. I miss my family & Ryan and America in general, but I'm trying to make the best of my trip :]

Yesturday June 8th, 2010

Yesturday I was lazy all day until I had to go to class. Senora made Tortilla de Patata again so I was quite excited to eat lunch! I wasn't brave enough to eat a full serving of the carrot tasting soup she made, but I did taste it.. So isntead of that I jsut had a ham and cheese sandwich. Class was awesome. In cultural/civilization we watched the movie Juana la Loca, which was pretty interesting. It was about the daughter of Isabel & Fernando of Spain. She was pretty psychotic.. then for our next class Literature, we took a walking tour of Sevilla and found a bunch of stuff that Miguel Cervantes made an impact on. Which was allll over Sevilla, it was quite itneresting. On our walk home, Lyssa and I walked through this gorgeous shady park that has these marvelous trees with these orangy yellow flowers that fall everywehre. Its such a gorgeous sight to see. Well of course I walk through the largest deepest dirtiest puddle in the entire park.. the walk home was a blaaaast. I ate the same thing for dinner as I did for lunch... Baruk keeps eating all of the food.. dammn it..

Today June 8th, 2010

HOLY CRAP ITS RAINING IN SEVILLA.... This never ever happens.. it only rains 30 days out of the year here... damn.. I didnt bring any rain appropriate clothing, so lyssa let me borrow her umbrella. Woke up pretty early this morning and finally went to the museums in the park across from our house [el parque de maria luisa] First we went to the Architectural museum, and then the Customs of ssevilla and old old statues and such. They were both pretty unique and amazing! Im so glad we went! I took tons of pictures, so keep on the lookout for those!!After that we went to a bank and asked to exchange my pounds for euros.. but apparently I have to go to a specific exchange place and not jsut a bank.. ughh. So after that we walked to MAS [local grocery store] and bought snacks.. yummm

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Oh lord it's HOT

Sevilla has been ROASTING these past couple of days. 101 degrees yesturday and today was only 98.. no big D. Nothing too big happening except for the fact that the town looks GORGEOUS for the holiday Corpus Christi. Today there were flowers everywhere and an outdood symphony orchestra playing the most beautiful exciting music! Court Car and I are going to see the parade tomorrow morning at 8, and then planning our trip to the UK for this weekend!

We are leaving friday night for Liverpool, Great Britain!! Can't wait!! Super pumped =] Stay tuned to hear about our adventures. Cheery Oh!