España: Esto No Es La Vida Real: Sevilla, Mi Amor

So I was thinking how I usually write my blogs on my adventures around the world, but I havent really done any on the city that will forever hold a piece of my heart, and the city I have gotten the pleasure to call my home for the past four months. When it came to doing the stereotypical touristy things, I was always like oh I can do it later, Ill be here for a while. Now with only 9 days left in this amazing city, I can no longer say that. I had a week full of Sevilla nonsense so here's a recap of what I have been up to over the past week.

Tuesday began my week of Sevilla fun. I am taking a cooking class here and as a little field trip, we visited the famous Sevilla cooking school. We got a tour of the facilities, like the cooking prep rooms and classrooms and to end it all we got to eat there as well. The students have to run the restaurant as part of their class so we got really good service at such a cheap price. We had fried artichokes with a garlic sauce for appetizers, mussels au gratin for a meal and then a delicious white chocolate mousse with a mango sauce for dessert! It was to die for. After that we went to my first and last bull fight. The only thing I liked about it was that I got to dress up for it, other than that it was quite gruesome. They kill six bulls in one corrida de los toros so it gets rough pretty fast. The bull comes out and the matador taunts it with a cap for a little bit, then a man on a blindfolded horse comes and stabs it in the back with a massive spear twice. Then after that, the matadors put these pinata like things in the bulls back to weaken it some more. In the end, they have a large sword and are supposed to kill it in one try. I dont know much about bull fighting but this one was awful. It took them like easily 5 or 6 times to kill it. It was a bloody mess. Good thing i was talking the whole time. The spaniards really loved that. They were getting so into it, like pacing back and forth and getting the shakes. Basically like how I get at hockey games, whoops did I make another hockey reference?

Anyways on to dia dos of everything Sevilla. Ever since we have been here we have been meaning to go to Alcazar, which is the old royal palace like ten minutes from my house and right next to my university. For some reason we never made it there until last week. It was a gorgeous Arab influenced castle and their gardens are to die for. We played in the harry potter like maze like kids and I proceeded to chase the peacocks...again. I am so glad I finally made it to Alcazar. I wouldnt have let myself leave Sevilla without doing that. The next activity for the day was a walking tour of sevilla. I have lived here for over three months and feel like I dont know the history behind a lot of stuff so I was so nice to play pretend tourist here and learn where NO8DO comes from and why people from Sevilla have such strong lisps. To wrap up the day, we did the typical botellon with the Spaniards in the local hangout El Salvador! I am having all of this amazing fun of course right at the end of my program. I want to stay here forever...well except I desperately need money. That is the one thing I wont miss about being here. Thats it though!

Back to Sevilla, being the wedding fanatic that I am, I pried myself out of bed before noon on a Friday to watch probably the most hyped up wedding of this decade. The royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. It became a family affair getting my senora and abuelita in on it as well. We crowded around the tv and watched in excitement as the wedding unfolded before our eyes. I spent a lot of the time telling them fun facts I had learned about the wedding and could not stopped reiterating how attract Prince Harry was looking. It was a little annoying watching the wedding dubbed in Spanish but I watched my fair share of clips afterward on YouTube to make it alright.

Anyone who knows me or has read another post from my blog knows I am beyond obsessed with hockey. Like its a borderline problem, anyways, it has been my goal from the beginning of the semester to watch hockey in Spain. You wouldnt think it would have been as challenging as it has proved to be but the unthinkable happened recently. I was walking by the American bar we usually hang out at and I quickly saw the face of Eric Staal, a player on the Carolina Hurricanes. I literally stopped in my tracks and walked right into the bar and knew that I had finally found it. I watched the last 4 minutes and 29 seconds of the Bruins Flyers game one when the B's won 7-3. It was unreal and made me the happiest person for the rest of the night. The next night exceeded all of my expectations. Nora, one of my friends here, is a hockey fanatic from San Jose. Her team, the San Jose Sharks were playing this night and I told her we would for sure find them on tv. We went back to our bar and convinced them to turn on the game. I was in such a zone, and both of us were elated to watch an entire hockey game in Spain. To make things even better, the Sharks won and they even put the Celtics playoff game on. That was the perfect way to kick off Feria week which is something I will explain in my next blog! Until then!! Besitios. See you in 9 days America!