Venezia

Venice was breathtaking.  Our time spent there was like a dream and I never wanted it to end.  In retrospect I was pretty unprepared for this trip, but somehow everything worked out perfectly.  Luckily Gabby was there to show us around.

Our flight left Sevilla bright and early on Friday morning.  I rode a bike to Puerta de Jerez at 4am to meet the girls I was going on the trip with.  Four in the morning is still early in the night for most Spaniards going out on a Thursday night.  As I was trying not to fall off of the bike from sleep deprivation, people were still partying on into the night.  Taxis were still waiting in droves to take people home from the bars and so we had no problem finding one to take us to the airport.  We flew with RyanAir, an airline known for being cheap, cheap, cheap... as long as they don't trap you into the extra fees they're notorious for adding on.  But we all did a good job of packing light.  There was no way any of us was going to pay the extra 60 euro they can tack on if your carry-on is too big or the 40 euro they charge if you forget to print out your boarding pass ahead of time.

Two and half hours later we landed (very roughly) in Italy!  As I said before, I wasn't very well prepared for this trip.  I knew Gabby planned to pick us up from the airport and that she knew what time, but I had no way of contacting her.  I hadn't thought ahead of time to find out what phone number she was using or if my phone would even work in a different country.  Luckily, we only had a few minutes of sitting in the airport wondering how on Earth we would find Gabby before she walked in.  She got us on the right bus and headed toward Venice.  The bus ride took about an hour (one of the reasons RyanAir is so cheap is because they don't fly you directly into the city) and I was passed out for almost the entire ride.

After getting off the bus we switched modes of transportation again.  Vaporetto (aka the water-bus) this time.  Gabby got us to the right dock and then had to go say goodbye to a friend who was leaving Venice.  We got off the vaporetto in Academia and found our hostel surprisingly easily.  We were all surprised when we were told we would have our own apartment.  We had a room with a nice loft all to ourselves.  I slept right next to the little window looking out at all of the rooftops.  I felt kind of like Heidi, which is strange considering I was nowhere near the Alps.  The breakfast at the hostel left much to be desired but at least they gave us a nice cup of coffee in the morning!

Saturday morning we met Gabby at the wooden bridge in Academia.  Called Ponte dell'Accademia, this bridge is one of the four that stretch the entire way across the Grand Canal.  After more coffee and pastries in one of the cafes she took us to Piazza San Marco.  We took lots of pictures and stayed clear of the pigeons.  It was a whirlwind of a day, but we saw almost all of the famous parts of Venice.  We went to the Rialto bridge (one of the other bridges spanning the Grand Canal), took a gondola ride, saw the Jewish ghetto, and went to Burano (a colorful island off the coast). We ate lots of pizza and gelato and had an all around good time.  That night we went to dinner with one of Gabby's friends, Lea, who is from Croatia but studying in Venice.  

Gabby took a flight home early the next morning.  Two of the other girls wanted to sleep in, so Lisa and I went by ourselves to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum.  Her collection has paintings by Picasso, Miró, Magritte, Max Ernst (Peggy was once married to him), Dalí, Jackson Pollack, Braque, Duchamp, Kandinsky, and so many more.  It was really cool to be able to see all of these paintings by modern artists that I had learned about in my Modern Art History class last semester.  My favorite were the Cubist paintings by Picasso that we had talked so much about, Dalí's wild surrealist paintings, and Magritte's super dramatic surrealist paintings.  The wishing tree in the garden, given by Yoko Ono to Peggy Guggenheim, was neat too.  Lisa and I both wrote down wishes on small pieces of paper and hung them on the branches.  That night Lisa and I went to Vivaldi concert at a concert hall really close to our hostel.  They advertise the concert everywhere throughout Venice, and Lisa who is a music minor really wanted to go.  We sat in the first row, just staring up at them in awe of their talent the entire time.  

The next morning it was time to leave, bright and early once again.  We woke up at 4am and made our way to the vaporetto, then the bus, plane back to Sevilla, bus into town from the airport, and then finally biked back to our apartments.  It was a long day and I decided to sleep for the rest of the afternoon rather than go to class.  It was nice to be back into the home-stay where we had home-cooked meals instead of eating another pizza (I lost count of how many pizzas I ate while we were there).  

I get to do it all again starting tomorrow though! I'm going to Barcelona with Lisa, Molly, and Daniel and can't wait!  And although it was nice to be back in Salud's apartment for a little while, I'm ready to leave again.  Yesterday, I got yelled at for eating too much bread (it wasn't that much)! In Barcelona I plan on eating lots of paella, taking lots of pictures, and enjoying getting out of this apartment again.

Oh, and I made sure to get lots of pictures with me in them while in Venice, just like you requested Dad!

Volando

I love how quickly the school days fly by and how it always feels like the weekend here.  Why does it always seem to be the opposite at home?  I also have so much more time to sleep here, and I don't feel bad about it.  I love sleeping, but at home if I sleep in too late I feel lazy and unproductive.   Sleep is encouraged here.  The Spanish siesta which everyone always talks about is real (I always thought of it as some type of wonderful myth)!  All the stores close from about 4-6 every afternoon and people go home and take naps (well, the smart people do anyways)!  

Tuesday was Día de Andalucia, which celebrates the day that Andalucia became an autonomous community (one of the official provinces) in Spain.  We didn't have school that day so Lisa and I went to the river all afternoon to hang out.  The river is usually always busy, but it was even more so on Tuesday because of the holiday.  Sevilla is the capital of Andalucia, so everybody from all the smaller pueblos in the province flocks in to the city to celebrate.  My host-mom was in good spirits and even offered to take Laura and I to Cádiz that day or for an entire weekend later in the month. We'll see about that...I'm not entirely sure whether I could handle an entire weekend with my roommate and host mom. It was a nice offer though!

Although school isn't taking up that much room in my life this semester, I do enjoy it while I'm there.  Every day when I walk into school I can't believe that I go to school in such a beautiful building.  This week the University has an exhibit of really old books in one of the courtyards and a flower show in the other courtyard.  There are always non-students coming in to look at the exhibits and see the building.  Sometimes it feels less like a university and more like a tourist destination.  Or sometimes a high school (but not in a bad way).  I don't know why it just hit me this week, but I just realized that there are no dorms or other facilities like most universities have.  Of course I knew this, I just didn't really think about it.  People have been telling us since we've been here that Spain different than the US in that students stay in their home towns to attend college.  If you are from Sevilla, then you go to college in Sevilla and don't think twice about it.  Young people here also live with their parents until a much later age, usually into their late 20s.  

I should go to sleep, seeing as I have to wake up at 3am!  Our flight to Venice leaves tomorrow at 6:30 and buses don't run that early in the morning, so the four of us are going to meet (we live on opposite sides of town) and take a taxi together to the airport so we can split the cost.  I'm really excited to see Gabby and finally be able to understand why she is so in love with Venice.  

Also, I made this video for an internship I'm applying to.  It was my first time trying to make a stop-motion video and it was a lot of fun.  I might just have to make some more...

:)

Rio y mar

It's been a wonderful weekend with new friends, Roman ruins, and the beach.  I'm trying to remember what I did during the week, but I can't seem to remember much about it...besides using the heck out of my Sevici bike pass.  Sevilla is perfectly flat and being able to use a bike makes everything so much more accessible.

At the end of the week the weather started getting warm and beautiful!  On Thursday night some of us went to the river for "botellón"which is when everyone goes to the river or plazas to drink wine and socialize.  It was around sunset and the banks of the river were filled with people, sitting in the grass having a good time.  We spent the next day at the Maria Luisa park, starting to plan a trip to northern Spain to go hiking in the Picos de Europa (!!!).

Saturday I went with some friends to Itálica, an ancient Roman city located right outside of Sevilla.  It was built for the wounded soldiers at the Battle of Illipa during the Second Punic War and is the birthplace of the Roman Emperors Trajan and Hadrian.  Built in 206 BC the ruins are now some of the best-preserved Roman ruins outside of Rome.  The layout of the ancient city is still intact and as you walk the "streets" you can see the bases of buildings, pillars, mosaic floors, statues, and aqueducts.  Most impressive was the amphitheater that was able to sit 25,000 people, one of the largest in the Roman world.  As you walked into the amphitheater it looked like some futuristic war zone, with giant boulders tossed to the sides of the entry path.  Apparently when Sevilla was later being built, they removed a lot of stone from the amphitheater and used it for building.  You can still walk through the tunnels underneath the seats of the amphitheater and see the dens where lions were kept before gladiator fightings.

Today we went to Matlascañas, the closest beach to Sevilla, about an hour and a half south.  Everything was going wrong at the beginning of the trip.  It was cold and rainy when we woke up (unusual for Sevilla), I fell off my bike on the way to the bus station and hurt my shoulder, and the bus we were supposed to get on was full.  Everyone was in good spirits despite the unlucky start and we got on a bus to a different town close to the one we were trying to get to.  It was a pueblo bus, and it stopped at all of the small pueblos between Sevilla and the coast.  It turned out to be a cool way to see the smaller towns in the area instead of the bus hopping straight on the highway.  Once we got to the end of that bus line that we had about an hour until the next bus came to take us to the beach.  We wandered around the pueblo a little bit and bought some more food for our picnic.  The fog burned off and it turned out to be a beautiful day.  We got to the beach and ate lots of good food on our blankets, told stories, and relaxed in the sand.  It was a really fun day, and although my shoulder still feels messed up, it was one of the best days I've had so far in Spain.

¡Carnaval!

Carnaval was...wild.  Cádiz definitely lived up to it's reputation as one of the craziest places to celebrate Carnival.  Carnaval is a two week celebration characterized by excess, right before they begin fasting until Semana Santa (Holy Week).  The period of fasting is no longer very common, but Carnival just keeps getting bigger. 

I went with We Love Spain, a program here in Sevilla that takes students on excursions around Andalusia.  We met in Triana (on the other side of the river from me) at la Plaza de Cuba that evening around 8:30.  There were tons of people en disfraces (not costumbres!) flocking to the plaza, all college students heading to Cádiz that night.  There were fifteen buses full of students just with We Love Spain. Thousands of people from all over Andulusia, the rest of Spain, and other parts of the world swarm into Cádiz to celebrate.

Cádiz is only about an hour and a half bus ride from Sevilla and we got there around 10:30 with strict instructions to meet back at Plaza de Tierra around 5:30am or we would get left behind.  We started out as a big group, about ten of us sticking together, completely unsure of where we were or where to go.  But it was pretty simple, we just followed the crowd and soon enough we were in the middle of a huge plaza filled with thousands of people.  There were so many awesome costumes that night.  Matadors, a bunch of bananas, a group of jazzercise-ers(?).  One group of people was pushing around a giant paper-mache volcano (like one of those you make for a science fair).  We came across a dance party in the middle of the street, a car was blasting it's stereo and people were dancing all around it (including me) and then when the song finished it just drove off.  But the best part was just talking to tons of people all night.  I met a lot of really nice Spaniards who offered to help me with my spanish.  They would just correct me while we were talking and help me say what I was trying to say.  I definitely didn't mind the help!

Before we knew it, it was almost 5am and time to head back to the Plaza to get on the buses.  By this point it was just Lisa (my best friend so far here in Spain) and I.  On the way back to the Plaza we could see out into the darkness, where the buildings stopped and the ocean was.  So we ran out on to the beach for a little while.  Lisa took off her shoes and walked out into the water, forgetting she was still wearing tights (hah).  That was one of the best parts of the night, running around on the beach at 5am with lots of people in costumes. 

We finally got to the plaza where the buses were supposed to be. We were bus #9, and it wasn't there at 5:30...it wasn't there at 6...not at 6:30...nor at 7am.  We tried to get on different We Love Spain buses but they kicked us off.  It was really cold outside by this time and none of us had jackets.  So we huddled together like penguins for two hours until the bus finally got there around 7:30.  We got on the bus and all promptly fell asleep until we got back into Sevilla.  Let's just say, walking home at 9am still covered in face paint and glitter is not the most fun thing in the world.

Overall it was a fun night, but I won't be ready to go back to Cádiz anytime soon.  I saw some awesome costumes, met cool people, and had a great time with friends...but I also so how filthy Carnival really is.  Streets strewn with ridiculous amounts of trash, borrachos (drunks) everywhere, and lots of other things. I was happy to be back in Sevilla on Sunday.  

Some other things...my bike pass came in the mail today! Sevilla has an amazing bike system, with large and safe bike lanes going almost everywhere in the city.  You just check out a bike from one station and drop it off at another.  And there are stations everywhere, it's never hard to find one.  There's one on the corner right outside our apartment and several around the university so I can ride to school no problem.  Also, I've booked a few trips!  The first weekend in March I'm going to Venice to see Gabby!  Lisa, Andrea, and Amanda are also coming with me and Gabby is going to be our official tour guide, since she lived there for six months last year.  And then the weekend after that I'm going to Barcelona with some friends.  We're learning all about Gaudí in my art history class right now, so I'm really excited to see the Sagrada Familia Cathedral, Parque Guell, Casa Míla, and others. 

Here are a few pictures from Carnaval.  Seeing as I didn't see Cádiz in the light of day at all I don't have any great pictures of people in costumes or anything...but this is what I have!

Los Dos.

I keep forgetting what month it is and how much time has passed since I've been here.  The weather is getting a little warmer and today I noticed that all of the oranges are getting picked off the trees.  They're being put in huge sacks and sent off to be made into marmalade.  Everything still feels very surreal when I'm out walking around, especially when I'm exploring by myself, which is what I like to do best (not at night, of course, Mama Jackie :p).

After school one day I wandered into the park adjacent to the University and found a new entrance into the Santa Cruz neighborhood, which is a laberinto (maze) of narrow streets.  The streets were built extremely narrowly to provide shade from the sun during the sweltering Sevillan summers.  I'm pretty certain I was walking in circles for most of the time I was exploring, but there's so much to see I didn't care.  I had to do several double takes while walking down seemingly unimposing alleyways.  I would pass a window and behind the wall would be the most beautiful courtyard I had ever seen.  Ornately tiled patios, fountains, exotic flowers all behind a bland wall.  And the same goes for the numerous plazas scattered throughout the maze of streets.  I would be walking on a street which I thought could not possibly get any smaller and then all of a sudden it would it would open up into a sun-filled plaza. I'd stop a moment to enjoy it and promise myself that I would come back.

As I was trying to find a path out of the maze I stumbled upon a church (which is not hard to do in Sevilla) and decided to go in.  Bare and quaint-looking on the outside, I expected the same for the interior.  The doors squeaked as I walked into the dead silent church, and I was immediately overwhelmed by the large and ornate interior.  A woman was sitting on one of the pews facing the left chapel, and looked like she had been sitting there praying for hours.  I immediately felt bad for the squeaking I made and the backpack I was carrying, being a tourist in her place of worship.  But I took a moment to sit down and take it all in.  It was a beautiful church, the altar a massive piece of artwork and the chapels on each side equally overwhelming.  After some researching, I'm pretty sure it was the Iglesia San Bartolomé, originally a synagogue, and then converted into a church in the 18th century. But I'm still not entirely sure.

On a completely different note, I'm going to Cádiz for Carnaval this weekend! The city is about an hour and a half south of Sevilla, on the ocean.  It's supposedly one of the biggest celebrations of Carnival in the world, right after Rio de Janeiro and Trinidad.  I went out costume shopping today with Lisa and Andrea and got some feathers, beads, and flowers.  I plan on just throwing together something completely wacky and then pouring glitter on myself.  I can't wait!  I'll be sure to add lots of pictures after I get back.

Las Setas

I finally saw the Metropol Parasol tonight, and it's amazing.  It's said to be the largest wooden structure in the world and looks like a giant waffle.  They also call it Las Setas de La Encarnación which means Mushrooms of the Encarnación Square.  I was telling my host mom recently that I wanted to go see it soon, and to my surprise she had nothing good to say about it.  Like a lot of other Sevillans, she feels that the enormous modern structure has ruined the area, one of the most historical areas of the city.  She said she didn't like that the modern structure was placed right in the middle of the medieval streets and buildings and that it was a disgrace.  Apparently a lot of residents feel this way, and don't like the fact that a huge mushroom has been placed in the middle of their very old and very traditional city.

I thought it was beautiful, and one of the coolest things I've seen in Sevilla.  It was designed to offer shade from harsh Sevillan summers and make the square more accesible.  La Encarnación used to be a parking lot, and in my opinion this is a whole lot better than a parking lot.  You can go underneath the structure and see carefully preserved Roman ruins, and then you can walk on top of the structure and look out at the city.  The architect drew inspiration from the vast vaults of Sevilla's Cathedral and wanted to make a "cathedral without walls".

Caminando

This first week of classes has been the most relaxed first week of classes I've had since...the fourth grade? Classes starting after 1pm every day, and no class on Fridays definitely helps.  I usually sleep in, then wake up and have breakfast (toast with olive oil and sugar is my new favorite breakfast)/lunch then walk to the University.  Walking to school doesn't take long, and is always beautiful since you walk through a park and past the Plaza de España to get there.  The school itself is beautiful, built and used in the 18th century as a tobacco factory.  It has a moat, drawbridges, and a most confusing floor-plan I've ever had the pleasure of being lost in.

After school I usually head into the Santa Cruz neighborhood, to the river, or into Plaza Nueva rather than go straight home.  I like to sit in Plaza Nueva, one of the bigger plazas in El Centro, to watch little kids play soccer and watch the protesters outside of the city hall that appear every afternoon.  I've still got a lot of exploring of Sevilla to do.  Friends and I were walking through the city a few nights ago and came across the giant waffle/mushroom!  It was dark and cold so we didn't spend much time there, but it's called the Metropol Parasol, and I really want to go back soon during the day.  

Today, we went to Ronda, a sleepy little medieval town in the middle of the Málaga mountains.  Maybe not sleepy, but I felt like I was in some type of fairytale picture book.  We went to the Plaza de Torros first, the largest bull fighting arena in Spain (the building isn't that big but it's famous for the large diameter of the actual fighting circle).  We then went to the Puente Nueva, Ronda's famous bridge that connects the town across the Tajo gorge.  The bridge was built in 1741, took 42 years to build (the bridge they built in the same place before this was completed in only 8 months and collapsed).  It served as a prison for a while and then during the Spanish Civil War, prisoners were thrown off of the bridge into the gorge (they say).  We took a little hike down around the town into the gorge, and found and explored some remains of old stone structures built into the side of the cliff.  We went as far as we could toward the bottom of the bridge and walked along some cool trails built into the side of the cliff.  We found one side of a little cliff-house that we saw from the top of the bridge, but to make it through to the rest you had to squeeze through a dark and damp stone tunnel filled with spider-webs.  Our journey stopped there, but we decided that as soon as we got home we would look up more places to go hiking and explore during the weekends, even if it was just a short day trip away from Sevilla.  It was a beautiful afternoon and so nice to be out in some fresh air with the open skies.  The sky definitely seems a lot bluer here.  

Plaza de España

Walkin' home!

Afternoon beside the Guadalquivir River

Puente Nueva in Ronda

It was a pretty hike