¡Málaga!

¡Me encantó Málaga! (I loved Málaga!)

this past weekend me and a group of my 7 friends went to málaga (home of picasso) which is a 2.5 hr train ride from sevilla.  we stayed in a hostel named "picasso's backpackers hostel" and the guy at the desk was a little cute french man named pier who we made friends with.  we arrived too early to check into our rooms so we decided to kill some time by getting a beer (obviously).  so we went to an irish pub where they served international beers and this one on the menu sounded delectable:  desperado, a light beer with a hit of tequila (and more that i cant remember). so i ordered it and what do they bring out?  a freakin corona!!! and it cost me 3 euros!  if i had known it was a corona i would have ordered a more exotic beer that i dont drink every day in the states....stupid irish bar!  

anwyways so we finally check in, change and go to the beach.  i immediately passed out.  i was running on 1 hour of sleep because our train was at 7am and i had to catch a bus at 630 and it takes me 30 mins to walk to the bus station.  so we had the bright idea to stay out all night and never go to bed.  that plan lasted until 5 when i couldnt stand up anymore so i slept for an hour.  needless to say i slept like a corpse.  the easiest thing to fall asleep to is the sound of the ocean....

that night we cooked dinner.  we had homemade guacamole, pasta salad, burgers and fruit salad.  it was amazing.  we feasted. it was glorious.  so we went out that night, got kidnapped by some spanish man who said he could get us into the "most exclusive club" in malaga.  i've seen better in sevilla but we still had a blast.  when we tried to leave they locked the doors and wouldnt let us out for a while!! it was funny/scary all at once

saturday was kinda rainy so we decided to pack for the beach and do some sight-seeing until it cleared up.  so we went to the picasso museum (my 2nd - 1st was in barcelona) which was nice as expected.  and then we climbed "the great wall of malaga" as we called it.  its really a fortress or castle or really big wall, i dont know.  but its goes all the way up this mini mountain and you can see all of malaga from it.  it was breath-taking.  i could have spent hours up there just looking out into the ocean, or turn around and look at the beautiful mountains right behind us.  as we were walking down i realized i lost a sandal!!! just one!!! i had put them in the side pockets of my backpack so i could wear them on the beach and one fell out!!!!  bummer!!! so i guess now i have an excuse to buy some new shoes ;-)

lunch that day we found some crazy pita place that in an odd way reminded me of chipotle (but nothing is better than chipotle).  the important part of this restaurant was that i had bbq sauce on my pita....again glorious.  and we met this mexican (yes mexican, not spanish) guy who told us to go to his friends bar (another mexican) where we could get free mojitos!  so of course we went!  but before we went to the coolest seafood restaurant right on the beach!  it was all fried food (yummmmmm)  and the waiters would walk around with plates in their hands, screaming out what it was and you would just point and say "¡queremos este!" (we want that!).  it was all sooooo good and we had no idea what we were eating.  after we botelloned (buy beer/wine/alcohol from the grocery store and drink in the streets - very spanish) on the beach and then got our free mojitos!  our gorgeous mexican took us to a discoteca, and next thing i knew it was 630am and we were still dancing!  on the way back to the hostel we got kebobs and then passed out for 4.5 hrs until we had to check out.  when we finally woke up we got dunkin coffee (its what they call dunkin donuts) and laid on the beach until our train left.

this was definitely my favorite trip so far and has been the inspiration behind my new life plan: graduate college, move to malaga and be a waitress/bartender.....sounds good right?!?!

¡besos!

omg its been over a month since ive last posted! but in my defense my computer crashed about 3 weeks ago!! my roommate let me use hers but i didnt want to inconvenience her too much.  but now my computer is better than new, thanks sooooo much to joe and my dad!  they sent me a new hard drive with more memory, so im up and running again!  so now ill give you a summery (but not quick because its been a month!) of everything that has happened!

so about a week after my last post i went to granada with my program for the weekend.  its a 3 hour bus ride from sevilla.  it was a gorgeous city, right on a mountain, so the entire city was hilly (the exact opposite of sevilla which is all flat).  the city is filled of narrow roads that cars wont fit on, walled with houses/apartments with potted plants in the windowsills.  we got to go to the cathedral where ferdinand, isabella, philip and juana are buried.  our guia (guide) told us the "true" story of juana la loca (the crazy).  this is how i remember it (but its been a month, and some parts are probably a little wrong):  ferdinand and isabella were king and queen when their daughter, juana married philip el hermoso (the handsome).  when ferdinand, isabella and their son died, juana was the next to rule spain.  her and philip ruled together for a while until he died suddenly.  juana's son was very ambitious and wanted to be king so he told everyone that his mother was so in love with philip that when he died she became crazy.  he sent her off to a monastery to be imprisoned until she died...pretty cool right?  so anyways we got to see their tombs and walk underground to where they are buried and it smelled horrible lol.  that night we went out to a popular night club and didnt get home until 530AM!  it was horrible because we had to be up at 830 to go to Alhambra.  once i got past being tired la alhambra was pretty cool.  its this HUGE (many acres) fort/palace.  you can see a lot of arabic influences in the architecture with the mosaics and fountains in the courtyards.  and i can imagine that during the summer it is beautiful with all of the gardens....my memory of granada ends here!

what else have i done?  i started my regular classes!  i am taking a class about "spain and european integration" aka about the EU.  the concept of the class is interesting but my professor is pretty boring.  we went over the same information for 3 weeks straight:   european communities the pillars of the EU.  that information could be hard, but we are barley skimming the surface.  it just gets old pretty quickly.  but my other classes i really like.  "spanish for business" is my favorite! my teacher, antonio, is great.  he is so energetic and add that he moves all over the room all the time.  and its information that i want to be learning.  it is exactly like my IB (international business) class in the states, just in spanish.  we are learning business terms, how to conduct business in the spanish world, and the global financial crisis (in spanish!)!  another class is "contemporary spanish film" but "contemporary" means all of film because in reality, cine (film) hasnt been around for that long.  so we are learning about the early spanish films, films made during francos rule and the censorship, and how the industry changed after franco died.  my last class is "flamenco" (but about the history and culture, we dont actually dance).  its pretty cool to learn the origins: gitano (gypsy) andaluz (andalusian) and otros (others).  i just had all 4 of my mid-terms today.  for the most part i think i did ok, but the spanish grading system is completely diferent from the US, so who knows how everything will turn out...pray for me!

im still taking flamenco dance lessons with maria rosa.  its very fun and we are getting better.  we are preparing to dance during feria (end of april) and its good taht there are 3 boys in our class because then we have someone to dance with!  and the other day maria rosa made me try on all her flamenco dresses and she picked one out for me to wear during feria and she kept saying "que guapa, como una modela" (how pretty, like a model).  its great living with her because everytime jacquelin and i leave the house she always tells us how guapa (beautiful) we look...such a confidence booster haha.

ok last thing before i sign off!  

andrew and i went to barcelona weekends ago.  our friend who is studying in rome, randi, was on her spring break and traveled there, so we thought it would be a good weekend trip for us.  we flew there, took the train and the metro in to our hostel.  it was our first real traveling experience (becasue everything else has been with our program) and we were pretty impressed with how well we did.  so we experienced the barcelona night life, which is a lot more expensive than sevilla.  we had to take taxis everywhere (which we never do in sevilla) and pay 2-3 euros for beer (when we normally pay 1-2). lol we are so cheap.  we went to this one bar named chupitos (shots) where there were over 200 different types of shots, may of which involved fire!!  i had one where the bartender lit my finger on fire then i put it out in my mouth.  another was called the "boy scout" where they set the bar on fire and you roast a marshmallow and use it as your "chaser" to your shot.  it was a fun night.....anyway....we got to see gaudi's casa batiló which was amazing.  definitely has to be the coolest place to live in.  and we also saw gaudi's sagrada familia (his cathedral) which is still under construction.  and the last thing of guadi that we saw was park guell with all of the mosaic animals.  the best part about barcelona was being able to see my roommate from psu Randi.  she is studying in rome and was on her spring break and went to barcelona, thus was the whole point of my trip to barcelona.  it was sooooo nice to be reunited with one of my girlies and also horrible to say goodbye to her again :(

ok....really the last thing now:

last friday my friends and i were feeling impulsive so we bought a bus ticket to cádiz (1 hr away) and went to the beach for the day.  it was so nice to hear the ocean and lay in the sun....dont worry i used protection!! i love that 30spf!   we were there from 9am to 9pm so we got a full day of relaxation.

ok now im going to relaxxxxxxxxx

besos!! steph

how much do i love my señora?....let me count the ways!

maria rosa has to be the best señora sevilla has to offer...

this morning i had to finish a paper about the museo de bellas artes and i couldnt figure out how to say "cut off his head" (i was talking about john the baptist) and so i tried to describe it to maria rosa and she told me the verb was guillotinar and helped me spell it and then checked other parts of my paper :)

and later she took me and jacquelin shopping for our carnival costumes.  carnival is a holiday in february where everyone is dressed up in crazy costumes, goes to cádiz (a town an hr outside of sevilla) and parties all night.  i think its a week or 2 long but we are going feb 21.  we have a private bus that will take us from sevilla 930pm saturday and bring us back sometime sunday morning!! anyways, so maria rosa took us to the most well known costume shop in sevilla.  its a costume shop year round and is for adults (but isnt the kind of "adult" costume shop we know in the states!).  so i bought a short-red-hair wig, huge crazy sunglasses & a blue boa.  ill probably wear a white tank with tight back jeans and boots to pull off the crazy punk rock chick look.  jacquelin bought a really intense mask (like the kind at masked balls) and a purple boa.  when we got back the 3 of us (me, jacquelin & maria rosa) took turns trying on our costumes and taking pictures (dont worry, ill put everything up in a day or 2!).  we had such a laugh, i think maria rosa wants to be young again and come with us to cádiz! ooo and before we got home we stopped at corte ingles (department store) to get a present for her friend, and the grocery store and the fruit store.  jacquelin and i felt like little girls following our mother around while she does errands, it was great!

and tonight after dinner i helped her with the computer.  she wanted to know how to spell check her mail because she saw my computer fix my spelling.  so me and her sat there for 10ish minutes while i tried to figure out what everything meant in spanish and then finally i got the bright idea to change her hotmail settings to english so i could figure it out.  of course i got it in 2 seconds, changed it back to spanish and taught her how.  she is like grandpa when it comes to computers, she needs step by step instructions, but she was so happy that she could spell check her emails before she sends them out!  and after we just sat there and looked at pictures of the SIMOF (Salon Internacional de Moda Flamenco - high fashion flamenco dresses) show.  i was thinking about going out tonight but i had so much fun looking at the beautiful dresses with her (and it was raining) that i decided not to.  maria and oscar just like having us sit around with them.  its why they host girls every semester, its like having daughters again (well not again, because they have 2 sons, but you know what i mean).

i really did luck out with my living situation.  i live in the center of the city (perfect location),  i have a great roommate that im friends with and i have great padres who want us around and enjoy us being here :)

oo and i finally got the courage to email my intercambio (a native who i speak spanish with and they help me and they speak english with me and i help them)!  and juanfran emailed me back and wants to meet up!  hopefully hes cool and i can have a spanish friend!!! xoxo

the next day!!

guess what?! i am writting the next day!!!

so i think maria rosa wants to make me and jacquelin fat!  she always puts sooo much food on our plates (think the amount that eric eats!) and i feel bad not eating it all because whatever we dont finish, they just throw away!  and even after we finish what is on our plates they offer us even more food and we have to repeat "¡estoy llena! ¡estoy llena!" (im full! im full!)  maria rosa is such a mother, so much like the jewish mothers i know (cough cough!)

oo and lunch today was interesting.  their son nacho (erics spanish name!) was supposed to come and visit this week (he had doctors appts) but got snowed in in London.  apparently they got a meter of snow and none of the public transportation was running!  but maria had started to prepare his favorite dish yesterday (what a good mother!) before we found out he was snowed in.  so today for lunch we at his favorite food.  it was a garbanzo bean soup with onions, chicken and some other stuff in it.  that was great.  but in the middle of the table was a huge plate of what looked like meat.  so after i finished my soup maria rosa takes a piece of what looked like chicken (but it was probably pork), and started to shread it up on my plate.  then she added a few pieces of chorizo that started to crumble.  to top it off she blobbed on something that was maybe gelitin, or a hunk of fat, or an egg...we couldnt figure it out lol.   she told me to cut it and mix it all up and enjoy.  so i did, and it wasnt bad until i ate a blob of the gelly thing that i didnt mix in properly.  the second it entered my mouth my nostrils flared (mom you know what that means!) and it was all i could do to swallow it and follow it by a piece of bread.  needless to say, my stomach had the mcgurgles all afternoon!

so after lunch i went to class and my teacher had someone come in and talk about the bull fights (corrida de torros).  and we learned that there are 3 matadators and 3 parts to the fight.  the first part is when the bull just runs under their cape-thing.  the second part is when they stab them on the shoulders, and the 3rd part is either when the poor animal dies or they decide he put up a good fight and let him live in a pasture with lots of cows to make love with.  we watched a few videos, and the first part was cool, but the 2nd and 3rd got a little violent and disturbing for me.  i just have to keep reminding myself that its another culture over here and its not the violence that they go to see, but rather the dance, and passion and tradition of it all.  regardless of how i might look at it, i still want to go see a bull fight when they start in april.

and lastly today i went to the museo de bellas artes which is right down my street.  i went because i have to write a paper on it for my class.  it was a beautiful building (check out the pics once i upload them) but the art wasnt amazing to me.  it was all very religious (very catholic) with lots of virgins and babies with wings and people being crucified.  some of the paintings were beautiful and intriging, but it was a little much.  one thing that was really cool was a statue of the head of john the baptist (i didnt know who san juan bautista was until my friend told me it was john the baptist and he was decpitated).  the head was laying on its side so you could see where the neck should have connected to the body, and then you saw the inside of the neck, what it would have looked like if someone was really decapitated.  i thought that was cool.

anyways mis amigos, its about 12:30am and i still need to write a paper!  te amo!

Catch up on my life!!!

Oyyyy I need to write more often in my blog!! I swear I will be better after this post! 

So what have I been up to since the last time I wrote??

 Well, I moved into my homestay, and I absolutely love it!!  I live right en el centro, off a cute street name San Vincente. I have to go through 2 gates to get to my courtyard, then another door to get to the stairwell to take me to the second floor where I have to use yet another key to get into my apartment.  It’s a very nice 2 bedroom 2 bathroom place with a modern (but small) kitchen and a living room/dining room area.  Maria Rosa and Oscar are my Spanish parents.  They are probably in their late 50s, early 60s.  They have 2 sons who have grown up and moved out.  One lives in a small town right outside Sevilla and is married and has a adorable 3 year old son.  The other is a DJ at some famous club in London.  Maria and Oscar let us do as we want, and our only time restrictions is meal times, which we all eat together.  There is a couch and in front of it a dinner table with 3 chairs around it.  Oscar has his chair that faces the tv and I sit next to him on the couch with my roommate Jacquelin next to me and Maria across from me.  There is no central heating in the homes here because it is only cold for about 2 months out of the year therefore impractical.  There is a heavy tablecloth over the table and a heater under it, so we put our legs under the tablecloth to keep warm while we eat.  I have liked almost everything that Maria has cooked so far.  Whenever we wake up we have breakfast, which consists of bread and jam.  I brought them my local black raspberry jam and they absolutely love it!  We have only been here 2 weeks and are about to be scraping the jar.  They particularly love it on cheese.  M&D when you come be sure to bring at least one more jar for them!  Anyways, lunch is around 2-230 and is the heavy meal of the day.  We have had soup and some kind of meat, or a rice dish, or paella.  Dinner starts between 945-1030 and we always have this great salad.  Lettuce, carrots, tuna, pears, apples, hard-boiled eggs and the corn with a light dressing made of oil, vinegar and salt.  And then they usually make me and Jacquelin something else to eat, like a tortilla de patatas or fried chicken, or a sandwich, because they think we need more food lol.  Maria is the easiest to converse with because her accent is not as heavy as Oscars, but slowly our conversations are getting more and more in-depth as our Spanish improves. 

Anyways, the cool excursions I’ve been on:

Itálica - roman ruins right outside of sevilla.  Check out my pictures, it was really pretty.  My favorite part was the mosaics that were on the ground in the houses (or what is left of them).  They were so intricate, that you can only imagine the kind of wealth one must have had to enjoy a house with mosaics on the ground.  Also the theater (mini coliseum) was amazing.  Only the lower seating sections were left, but it could hold 20,000 (pretty sure) people!  There used to be the traditional theater events like gladiators, but also in the middle was a huge empty pit that they would fill with water and have reenactments of maritime battles.  We got to walk around inside the theater and go underneath the seating where the gladiators and performers would wait to come on.  Very cool trip.

My next excursion kept me inside the city.  Los Reales del Alcázar - an old castle/fort with many different architecture styles.  It has many Arabic influences such as the mosaics and gardens with fountains in the middle for tranquility.  But then some of the architecture is gothic, with the crossbeams and carvings on the walls.  One of the rooms is where Columbus got permission to find another route to India (but instead found the Americas).  I thought that was pretty interesting, because I didn’t know that event took place in Sevilla (all you history freaks, don’t cut my throat if you think I’m wrong, that’s what my audio guide said!).  There were rooms with gold ceilings and huge tapestries coving the entire wall.  At the back was a huge garden with a really pretty fountain (estanque de mercurio).  Check out the pics, because a picture is worth one thousand words!!

Quick overview of my life here:

I am now in the middle of my 2 week intensive Spanish class, which is 3 hours a day, 5 days a week.  Next Monday I start my regular classes!  Every tueday and Thursday Jacquelin and I have flamenco lessons with Maria Rosa.  She is a dance teacher and put us in her class!  It’s a lot of fun, there are 3 other guys in the class.  Maybe when I see everyone I will give you a performance!

My friends here are great, over ¼ of my program is from PSU, so I have a good number of penn staters that I hang out with, but also a lot of other friends from Illinois, Wisconsin and other schools.  I go out almost every night around 11:30 or 12.  During the week, I will just relax in a bar with some friends, because we cannot have people over at our house.  Its very uncommon for Spaniards to socialize in the house.  On the weekends we go to the discotecas or flamenco bars and don’t get home til at least 5, and even then the locals think we are sissies and stay out much later than us.

All and all, I love my life here.  There has been only one other time that I have been to a place and felt that it was where I was supposed to be, and that was the first time I visited PSU.  I got that same feeling the moment our bus took us from the airport and into the city.  It’s a great feeling to know that I made the right choice. 

Love you all (and I promise I will write more frequently from now on!!)

¡Hola mì familia, amigos y amores!

¡Estoy en Sevilla y me encanta este cuidad!

The flight over was so much quicker than I expected.  When we arrived in Sevilla we met up with other students and then a bus took us to the hotel.  The streets en el centro of the city are so small that the bus dropped us a few blocks away and we had to carry our luggage on the cobblestone streets.  Lol those of you who saw how much i packed (2 large suitcases each weighing 50-60 lbs, a small duffel bag, a backpack and my purse) know that i had some trouble, but then one of the cute spainsh guides came and helped me :)

So the first night we were in the hotel we didnt have anything planned so i went out with a group of 20 to some bars.  andrew and i had the bright idea to try absinth (the famous blue drink) and as you can see, it was not the best tasting!

the next day was packed with orientation stuff and walking around the city.  at night we went with our groups for tapas (small snack things that you eat while you drink) and cervesas.  We went to a traditional tapas bar (as opposed to modern).  the walls were covered in holy pictures and there was a video playing about semana santa, which is the week long festival right before easter and its a very deal in spain.  anyways, we had little bocadillas (sandwiches) with different spreads on them (tuna, chorizos, shrimp, etc).

After tapas we went to a flamenco performance...it was amazing.  I was so hypnotized by the story and emotions portrayed by the performers.  It began with one guy and his guitar, and he was incredible.  his fingers moved so quickly and the tempo would go from slow and soothing to fast and passionate in a second.  then another guy came in and sang along with the guitar and then they were joined by a girl.  the singer and chica had various beats going with their hands and feet.  their  clapping styles changed as the guitar changed from a muffled clap to very loud.  as those 3 sat behind a square wooden stage another man entered in very tight pants and did his dance.  the girl had so much emotion on her face as she watched the dancer it it was as if all 4 performers  were telling a story.  While the girl sat, I saw her longing for the dancer, almost a hidden love.  Then later she joined him to dance and the story changed from a hidden love to a forbidden love.  Their faces were so intense and tortured that you could see their passion for eachother, but then they would 

catch themselves and turn away.  At one point the music got very intense as did their dancing, moving so quickly that they got so caught up in their love that they let it go “too far” and touched each other!  That dance ended as the woman left, and the man sadly followed.  The final dance was happy, they smiled and touched and laughed.  It was the most amazing thing that I have ever seen and I was so caught up in it.

anyways, i move into my homestay today, so my next post will be about that!! i love you guys and miss everyone so much! i cant wait for people to come visit me so i can show them this amazing city! ¡adios!