Mind the Gap- Reunion in London with the Roomies :)

Not even two midterms the day of my flight to Londontown could bring me down. I was sitting in my cine class writing a two page essay about the role of Franquism in Spanish cinema, oh in Spanish of course. I couldn't help but literally just smile the entire way though. Just the thought of being in a new place and seeing my roommates in mere hours made me absolutely ecstatic. After my cultures midterm, I hopped on the bus and went to the airport. The flight was only two hours and twenty minutes but of course that was the longest two hours of my life.
Getting off the airplane I was instantly surrounded by British accents and signs in English which was an amazing change. I took the underground line to the center of London to meet up with Sam and Caroline, my roommates from UMass. Seeing them at the tube stop was so exciting, I nearly jumped on them. It had been about three months since I had seen them. It was so nice to be reunited again. 250 love forever! We grabbed dinner then went off to Sam's flat. People get ready to go out to the bars soooo much earlier than we do in Spain. It was 8pm and we were already drinking hard cider. I don't eat dinner in Spain until 930 or 10. But we ended up going to Sam's favorite Irish pub in Picadilly Circus called O'Neill's. I soon realized why she loved it so much. They had a live band and it was just a really cool atmosphere to be in. Hearing a live band do Chelsea Dagger, the Blackhawks song literally sent me into a frenzy. But I could not get over how expensive the city was. We paid 6 pounds just to get in and 4 pounds for each snakebite we got. 1 pound is $1.60. Ouch!!! Oh and snakebites are half hard cider, half beer and topped off with black current syrup. 4am rolled around and it was time to leave but since the tubes close at midnight, we were treated to a nice ride back to Sam's flat on the infamous red double decker buses. Getting up in four hours for a full day of sightseeing would be rough.
9am was so rough to us but it was a beautiful day. Looks like I brought some Sevilla weather for us. We grabbed bagels for breakfast. Something Spain unfortunately doesn't have :( We were headed to Buckingham Palace and I ran into my friend Nora from Sevilla on the streets. This world is so small sometimes. We wandered to Buckingham Palace. It turns out we had just missed the changing of the guards but oh well. We continued to Trafalger Square and saw the Olympic countdown. After that we went to the half price ticket broadway booth and bought tickets to see Jersey boys that night! From there, we just wandered getting lost in the streets, finding our way to Westminster Abbey (where William and Kate will be getting married in a month) then to Big Ben. It was an absolutely gorgeous day so we walked along the River Thames passing the London Eye. But the line was soooo long and it cost 19 pounds for a half hour ride so we passed on that. We passed so many street performers and even a little concert on the banks of the Thames. We walked all the way down to St. Paul's cathedral and sat down and were just finally taking in that all of us were in London together. It still blows my mind that I can jet off to London or Africa for a weekend and talk about it so casually. But anyways, we ended the day with a the classic fish and chips dinner before going to see Jersey Boys! The show was so amazing and made Jersey sound a little classier when the British actors tried to impersonate Jersey accents. When the show was over we were so pumped and passed out in Sam's apartment to prepare the next day for another full day ahead of us.
The weather on Saturday was nothing like Friday. It was stereotypical London weather. Cold, dreary and a little misty. So we went to see the Tower Bridge, yep the one the Spice Girls jump over in their massive bus in Spice World :) After we went to this little gift shop and Caroline spotted what would be the newest addition to 250 decor. It was a massive union jack flag and in the middle was a heart with Kate and William. Who could resist? We walked down Oxford street passing some protests about taxes and keeping things public...I think. But we went to this amazing store called Primemark. Its literally Forever 21 meets Target decor products...on crack. It was so overwhelming but a shoppers paradise. I ended up getting two pairs of flats and a cheetah print scarf. The cheetah count is getting a little out of control for me at this point...oops. After Primemark, we went to Harrod's! It blew my mind that the designer handbags were next to the sushi bar. They sold everything here and even had puppies and hamsters on sale! We wanted to go see the famous Oxford vs Cambridge regatta that was happening on the River Thames that afternoon but it was cold and raining so we passed. We went back to rest up and of course that included Mean Girls :)
Our last night in London can only be described as not real life. Sam suggested we go to this American sports bar to watch a little bit of NCAA basketball. We were all down for this idea. So we walk right past the bouncers and think nothing of it. We get in there and are instantly floored at everyone in there. It was predominately men, which didnt bother us but oh yes they were all wearing kilts. Yes like Scottish kilts. We had no clue what we had just stumbled upon. Finally after about 10 minutes we asked someone and it turns out we had inadvertently crashed a Scotish rally party for the Scotland vs Brazil soccer game that was happening the next day. At this bar we also ran into someone who lived across the hall from us freshman year who was studying abroad in Grenoble France. Like literally this world is so tiny sometimes. All of my Europe hockey dreams were about to come true. I look at the tv and the Bruins vs Rangers game was playing. It was on NESN to make it better so during breaks they had pictures of Boston playing. It was soooo amazing to see hockey again and seeing Boston on TV made me miss it so much. Having the daylight savings time switch when we were at the bar really messed us up. Yet again we were told to leave the bars at 4am. People in London don't know to party Spanish style. It was an amazing last night.
Sunday was fairly chill considering I had to leave around 2 to get back to Heathrow for my flight back to Sevilla. I am so in love with London partly because it reminds me a lot of Boston and partly because everything sounds better in a British accent. If my job asked me to move to London for work, I would do it in a heartbeat, no questions asked. But my time in London was just lovely and it was so nice to see my roommates again, especially in a place like London :)

Best of London in one picture

Caroline, Sam and I in front of Big Ben

Love London

Kilts, kilts everywhere

Tower Bridge

250 loves royal weddings

typical London phone booth pic

Westminster Abbey

Someone Please Remove the Word Study from Study Abroad

So midterms week is upon us at the Universidad de Sevilla. This is the first bit of work I've had to do since being here so I can't exactly complain. Knowing that UMass has made all abroad classes pass/fail makes my level of motivation that much weaker. I just need to get higher than a 75 in my class to receive credit which shouldn't be terrible. I have a five page essay in my Arab class due about the Nasserist movement in Egypt during the post world war II era. Thrilling I know. On Thursday, I will have the busiest/best day of being here. I have two midterms, one on Spanish cinema and the other on Spanish culture studies. After that, I need to catch a bus to the airport to jet off to LONDON!!! My roommate Sam is studying their for the semester and my other roommate Caroline, who is in Paris, will also be there for the weekend as well. Yeyy for a little 250A reunion. London won't know what hit it. I am equally as excited to speak English as I am to see familiar faces. I just need to get through these next 48 hours then I am off to the land of British accents! The London Eye and Harrod's await me. Sorry this post was boring but I am positive I will have some epic stories when I return from the UK on Sunday. Until then, muchos besitos xo

Waka Waka Eh Eh, This is Time for Africa! - Marrakech, Morocco

I don’t exactly know what I was expecting of Africa and all I knew about Marrakech was what I saw on the Amazing Race. Half of our group went to Morocco the week before we did, I tried soooo hard not to look at everyone pictures and ruin the surprise of it all for me. Friday morning came and I still could not believe we were really off to Africa. The Sevilla airport is rather small compared to all other airports ive flown out of so we walked onto the runway to board the plane…in the pouring rain might I add. That was a fun touch. We had a quick 90 minute flight and we were in Morocco!!! We landed and were greeted with a nice Moroccan thunderstorm.  We were bombarded with Arabic and French. I forgot that Morocco was at one point a French colony which would explain the French everywhere. After we all cleared customs we made our way to the hotel we would be staying in. In was only a short ten minute drive from the airport but we were all floored by the sheer number of people in the streets and the amount of people Moroccans can fit on mopeds. They legit can fit entire families on there, dogs and all. All of the buildings are made from this reddish clay so everywhere you looked, you saw red.

                We got to our hotel and it was such a nice room with our own balcony which looked out over the gated entrance to the hotel and out onto the city of Marrakech. We all wanted to head to the coveted markets we had all heard so much about but we had to change money into Moroccan Dirhams before we could go anywhere. The conversion was for sure in our favor. 1 Euro was more or less  12 dirhams. After converting 50 euros, I felt like such a baller with just about 600 dirhams. With our new Moroccan money, we were off to the market. In true style, the skies opened up and we were yet again treated to African rain. Trying to find the market in Marrakech was nearly impossible. All the street signs were in Arabic and trying to cross the street was like playing in traffic. They had no stop lights or crosswalks and motos, bikes, horse and buggies and vespas ruled the roads. After getting directions in Italian we had finally made it to the market. I have never seen anything like this. All the shop workers would try and get you to come into their store with promises of handcrafted goods at cheap prices. We soon learned you needed to barter for everything and immediately offer half of whatever price they first offer you. I ended up buying these beautiful scarves, one purple, one pink and one teal all for 170 dirham. The original price for one was 150 dirham haha Not bad if you ask me! Once dusk hit we wandered back to the hotel. We wanted no part in being out past dark in Morocco. When we walked back, we heard the calls from the tops of the towers calling all Muslims for prayer. Nightlife in Morocco is very uneventful especially for women since drinking is severely frowned upon plus its not like I want to be out making African friends in a place where I don’t speak the language. Bedtime every night was 11 or 12. Such a huge difference from Sevilla where 11 or 12 is when we usually go out haha

                Saturday may have been one of my favorite days since being abroad. We started off the day with a city tour with a local guide. She spoke French, Arabic, English and Spanish! We were so impressed but she took us first to the royal tombs. When we were trying to walk in and we were haggled by multiple people to buy random knick knacks and jewelry.  We were clearly uninterested but they didn’t get that. Once we finally got inside, we were congregating into a line, then some jerk behind us felt it necessary to yell, “Queue up properly” like take it easy buddy! After that we were off to another arab palace. It reminded me of the alahambra in Granada, but seeing these ornate houses never gets old.  Our final stop was this all natural pharmacy where they had remedies for everything from snoring to allergies. It was so cool to see how they preserved such an old tradition and how it was still such an important part of life to them to this day. During our walk to the main square, we passed though a typical meat market. This was absolutely flooring. They had whole cow carcasses hanging as well as headless chickens in the front of the store but then live chickens flying around in the back. Having the meat unrefrigerated and just in the front was totally unsanitary but oh well. The most shocking thing I saw either was the heads of cows just hanging there along with the other meat or someone carrying a dead peacock away from the market. I was in total shock and awe that I didn’t take pictures but this might be one of those things best left to the imagination. After the scaring market trip we had an hour of free time before our camel rides! We attempted to shop but shocking, it started to rain again so we headed back to the hotel to prepare for the camels. The camel ride was totally worth every penny of the 200 dirham I spent on it. We got picked up at the hotel and taken to this little village 20 minutes away. Side note, Moroccan driving is borderline insanity. Anyways, we got to our camels and mine was one of the first ones to stand up. Not knowing what to expect, I’m sure everyone looked on in sheer horror at my face as it tried to get up. I literally thought I was going to fall off but it was fine once it was on all four feet. We were like five minutes in and people were already making camel toe jokes which kept the mood light. We ventured into this little village and stopped half way though for tea and classic bread. After our two hour ride, I had never felt more sore doing nothing in my entire life. But I can now cross riding a camel in Africa off of my bucket list.         

                API loves underestimating our little hiking adventures. When they said to bring comfy shoes because we were doing a hike, I brought my sneakers, sid shirt and hoodies and hoped for the best. They should have included a little asterisk advising leaving all coach bags at home.  Little did we know we were in for a four mile hike/rock climbing of the Atlas mountains. It was like being on the stairmaster for hours but we had some of the most amazing views I have ever seen. Seeing cactus, palm trees and snowing mountains all in the same view is very hard to grasp. Also knowing that if you slipped you’d basically be done for was also less than comforting. But all in all the hike was amazing and Kepa, our API leader said it was perfect practice for Extremadura which is our excursion in two weeks. I am slightly worried. Oh well but when we got back to Marrakech we headed to the market for one last go. But this time instead of rain we were treated to a HAIL STORM! Yep that’s right, we were trapped in a hail storm in Africa. Who would have thought? I ended up getting earrings with the hand of Fatima on them which is supposed to ward off all evil. We were absolutely drained for the busy day and I didn’t even stay up for my 21^st birthday. How lame? But I wouldn’t have even been allowed to drink anyways.

                Monday morning bought our last breakfast buffet and a surprise serenade session from the entire wait staff of the restaurant. It was kind of embarrassing but I was glad to see all the fellow APIers join in in song as well. They gave me this candle and lilies as well. It was so sweet of them. I tried to check my email/Facebook before I left and facebook didn’t work because the Moroccan government had blocked it!!! How crazy. But anyways we were off to the airport hoping to get back. I noticed they had spelt my last name wrong on my boarding pass which would mean bad news at home but thank god for lax African security as I breezed right on through to head back to Sevilla!  I had started to get some really bad allergies in Africa from all the pollen so my nose was all stuffy and due to the shitty air pressure in the cheap flight, my ears and sinuses had never felt worse. Landing had to the be one of the worst experiences ever. My ears were popping non-stop and when we finally made it, they wouldn’t unclear and it felt like I was underwater trying to hear things.

                I had never felt more excited to return home to the Sevillan rain. Sevilla is starting to feel like home more and more every day. I know I get home sick about home, but once I am home, I will be getting homesick for certain things about Sevilla! If home is where the heart is, I think I have spread some of my heart all over the world, leaving a little bit in Norfolk, Sevilla and most of it in Amherst! In two months, I will be home. This program is flying by. I feel like I just got here and now its half over! There is still so much I want to do and see. I know that there is no way I will get to do it all. Love and miss you all. See you soon! Besitos! xo

We have a building just like this in Sevilla :)

So much Arabic and French

Just what we hiked up. No big deal.

Village at the base of the hike

Snow at the top

Us near the top

Crossing the street is like playing in traffic

Camel ride in Africa...check

Classic shadow shot

Marrakech airport

Just Packing for Morocco. No Big Deal.

Anyone that knows me, knows that I am such an overpacker. I was overweight with my luggage for Paris and Berlin before we even left. Whoops. So now I am packing for AFRICA which one would think is easy but not so much. I do not want to be that American girl attracting the bad attention for wearing dresses and skirts. I surprised myself with how little I ended up packing for four days in Morocco. It still hasn't hit me that in 24 hours I will be on a totally different continent. I thought that coming to Spain might be a bit of a culture shock, but I honestly have no idea what Africa holds. It will literally be a whole new world. I have tried to teach myself Arabic but thats not going so well since their words are pronounced like one is hitting a keyboard. For example, this is how to say hello...al salaam a' Laykum. So simple right? Not!! I have never been anywhere where I didn't know the language and there I can't even read it if I tried. I will make an epic blog once I return home to Sevilla on Monday.

Monday is more than the day I get back from Morocco, Its my 21st birthday yeyyy! I feel like I hyped up turning 21 so much at home and here it is just another day. But oh well. I will have to celebrate back in Sevilla and even back in Amherst. There is no way I am touching alcohol in Morocco. It just isn't part of their culture and again. I don't want to be that girl.

Another exciting thing that happened this week, I finally booked my spring break plans. Kelly and I are headed to Copenhagen, Denmark, Budapest, Hungary and the Amalfi Coast in Italy!!!!! Probably the three most random places but I am beyond excited. I'm quite certain I sent my bank account into serious shock when I paid for them but never again in my life can I just go off to Denmark for the weekend.

Anyways I need to try and get some sleep but I think I'll be just too excited! Until Monday...besitos xo

The Most Out of Control Five Hours of My Life- Carnival in Cadiz

Carnival is one of those events that you look back on and are like, "Was this real life?" There is nothing I can compare it to back at home, except for possibly Mardi Gras. I really had no idea what to expect when I booked my bus ticket to carnival a few weeks ago, but I wasn't about to turn down a trip to a beach town and the opportunity to dress up. After doing a little research, I found out that Carnival in Cadiz was the third largest in the world, only behind Rio de Janiero and Trinidad. I later found out that pictures would not do it justice.

We got to Cadiz on Saturday around 9:30 and you would have thought we entered a world of Halloween. Every single person was decked out in full costumes. I felt kind of under dressed in my little sailor costume but oh well. The Spaniards really go all out on their costumes. We saw a lot of farm animals and babies which I didn't quite understand. Also, there were a lot of groups of people wearing the same costume, which made it easier to find people in the masses.

But we literally just wandered around the town of Cadiz for five hours. We would stop and chat every once and a while but basically it was just wandering around and pulling each other through the herds of people trying not to lose each other. The streets were literally with so much glass, empty cans and plastic bags. It was so slippery to walk on the cobble stone. I had little white sneakers on that turned a nice shade of brown by the end of the night. I don't want to know what was on them but I have a feeling multiple peoples urine was for sure part of it. Cadiz didn't think one through very well. Having 300,000 drunk people in one small area and not having ANY bathrooms is going to turn into a disaster real quick. I have never seen so many people peeing outside in public in my whole life.

The night was basically a blur of colors and crazed partiers. Around 3:30 we were ready to go. It was freezing being right on the water but getting back onto the buses back to Sevilla would be as chaotic as Carnival itself. What I can compare getting onto the buses to, would be a mix of trying to get onto the life boats on the titanic and some sort of civil rights protests. Having 500 drunk American kids trying to get onto coach buses with no order was out of control to say the least. There was so much shoving and the Cadiz police definitely had it out for us. When we had finally forced out way onto the fourth bus, we got the pleasure of sitting in traffic for two hours on the way home and an impromtu accapella jam sesh from the people in from of us. Yeyy anyways Carnval was an experience to say the least.

But this upcoming weekend I'm going to MOROCCO and it happens that I will turn 21 there. No one else can say that they turned 21 in Africa so I am so pumped. I need to practice some Arabic before I go but this upcoming weekend should really be once in a lifetime!!! :) I'll try and blog before I leave Friday morning. xo

Us with some rando pirates

Massive crowds

and again

So. Much. Trash.

What To Expect When You Don't Make Plans

the beach had this massive rock in the middle

Me horseback riding on the beach

The lighthouse

Randi, Kelly and I on the top of the sand dunes

Matalascanas

This past weekend didn't exactly turn out like we had expected. We made the most of it though and still had a blast. So Friday morning 4am comes around and Kelly and I are grabbing the last few things around the house before we to the airport. I grab the bocadillos out of the fridge and we head to the airport. After we got out of the elevator, I went to put my purse into my rolling carry on and the zipper totally broke on it. This was only the beginning of my bad luck to start off this weekend. I had to rush back upstairs and throw all my belongings into my duffel and hope that it was Ryanair size approved. After that slight delay we were off to grab the airport shuttle. When on the bus, we were hungry, so we went to go eat the bocadillos that our senora packed us. We were horrified when we opened the paper to discover we had accidently taken Maria's raw meat and animal fat instead of our sandwiches! Once at the airport, we needed to wait for the ticket counters to open at 6am to see where we could possibly be off to.

We soon learned that showing up at the airport to buy tickets for Spains equivalent of Memorial Day Weekend, would not end well for us. We had the option of going to Barcelona for a mere 144 euros...one way. We passed on that option quickly and needed a new game plan. We decided we would rent a car and drive to Lisbon for the weekend...we were soon told that you needed to be 25 to rent a car. We had stuck out everywhere. We headed back to Sevilla to go to the bus station to see what it had to offer us. We ended up getting a bus ticket to this beachy town in the south of Spain called Matalascanas. We had no idea what to expect but we were off. 

We got off the bus and were instantly floored at the amount of elderly people we saw. What had we just gotten ourselves into. We knew we needed to find somewhere to stay for the weekend. We ran into this nice train driver who suggested we stay with this women who had 8 rooms in her house. We went there and it was so nice and cheap. We changed and headed right for the beach. Thinking it is only February, I stupidly thought there was no possible way I could get a sunburn. Three hours and a perfect bow imprint on my back later, I realized this was so not the case. We were all a little crispy to say the least. After the beach we went back to take a nap before heading out to dinner. Along the way we realized that it was opening weekend which helped us understand the lack of people that were there when we first arrived. 

Saturday was filled with more hours at the beach but this time dousing myself in my usual SPF 85 (seriously). We made a little picnic and attempted to frolic in the freezing Atlantic. It is crazy to think that it is the same water we bravely try and master in Wellfleet. After that we went on this amazing two hour horseback riding adventure along the sand dunes and beach. Horseback riding with a wicked sunburn on your calves and back is not for the weak. But then again my little retard horse Niebla wasn't helping my situation at all either. He loved to stop and graze on flowers and take his sweet time going anywhere, but then randomly decided to gallop at the most inopportune moments, like going down steep hills and what not. After the horseback riding adventure we were walking back into town and we ran into like 10 APIers. They were equally as surprised to see us as we were to see them. 

For dinner on our last night there, we went to this amazing seafood place and basically ordered blindly since we could barely understand the menu. We had this great appetizer dish of clams and mussels. Dinner consisted of a mix of shrimp, mushrooms and ham in a wine sauce. Sooo yummy. All in all we had a successful weekend. It wasn't what we has expected but then again what can you expect to do when you have no plans :)

Being Spontanous For Once In My Life

As I sit on my terrace writing this blog, I am wearing only a skirt and tank top (sorry I have to rub it in :)) I realize how lucky I really am to be here. Not only for the amazing weather that Sevilla brings but for everything that Sevilla has brought to me. I have challenged myself in ways I could never even dream of here. Setting up a Spanish pay as you go phone is nearly impossible but somehow I managed to make it though. Everyone here as been more than accommodating and speaking in Spanish all day, everyday is getting easier and easier.

When one of my best friends from home returned from her study abroad in Copenhagen last semester, I asked her what she missed most while in Denmark. She said the thing she missed most was signs being in English. I found that to be a strange response at first but now having been in Spain for four weeks already, I know exactly what she means. Being completely surrounded bu the unfamiliar is a huge challenge. I miss being able to read newspaper headlines and understanding the humor or understanding menus totally. I go through phases of having sever Amherst withdrawls or crusing around in tori, I wouldnt trade this for anything. Everyone needs to study abroad if they have the chance. I am going to do everything I can to ensure that my younger sister and brother do!

One of the amazing perks of being abroad is that it is sometimes easier to get to a different country than it is to get to a different state at home. I am currently in the midst of packing for my great adventure. My roommate Kelly, our friend Randi and I are all going to the airport first thing tomorrow morning and buying the cheapest ticket out of Sevilla. I dont know where it will lead us, so packing, especially for me, is disastrous. Who knows if we will end up in a beachy location like the Canary Islands or someone a lot colder like Austria. This is so unlike me to not have a perfect plan for this weekend. When I told my friends, I am quite certain they thought I was joking. I am majoring in event planning so having a back up for everything is what I am good at. Not having a Plan A is absolutely flooring me, but in a strange way, it is exhilarating. I'll update my blog when I get back to detail my grand adventures!! Europe awaits :) xo