Monday, November 27, 2017

Week 12: Nov. 20th-26th (Naples & Rome, Italy)

(See pics below)

Hi friends! Happy Thanksgiving!!! Hope you all had a great day eating lots of turkey. So Día de Acción de Gracias (Thanksgiving Day) is not a thing in Spain actually, which was kind of sad... but I was in Italy so I can't really complain that much. It was hard not being with family, but I am grateful for the friends I had to spend that holiday with and even more appreciative of the holidays I have had and will have in the future with my family. 


So this past week was just weird because I think a lot of people were traveling the entire week with their families or somewhere around Europe. When I rode the metro to school, it was me and a bunch of Spaniards which was strange because I am usually surrounded by a lot more English-speaking people than that. It just felt empty...but it was a nice change. Then, Tuesday was an eventful day. My favorite teacher, Rúben was sick so that was a bummer, but I bought a cool t-shirt that says ISA Sevilla on it to represent my time abroad here. Those things aren't related but I felt like saying something positive after a random comment on my teacher. So, anyway... I also had a great nap that afternoon during my eyelash appointment. So I get extensions on my eyelashes which takes about an hour or so and they put me in a recliner chair with a blanket and pillow. You have to close your eyes when she puts on the eyelashes, so please tell me who wouldn't fall asleep!? Anyway, she asked me after she was done if I slept well because I twitch when I fall asleep so she could tell I took a little siesta... whoops. She's super sweet though. Her name is Sonya and she's my friend. :) I took a picture with her since it was my last time there and told her goodbye. Since I had just woken up though, the picture turned out horrible and I'm going to go back and get a new picture sometime before I leave... then I'll post it. Hehe. Man, so much happened on Tuesday because then it was also my friend Juanita's birthday. So we went to one of the rooftop bars (one of our regular hang-out spots😉--> I'm trying to sound cool) to celebrate it with her. The cathedral was all lit up and there was no one up there for most of the time except the six of us who were there for her birthday, which was perfect. We of course got some delicious ice cream afterwards. 


Well, Wednesday flew by because I had class all day and then had lunch and then one hour to shower, pack, and leave for the airport. I did it! Go Kellie. I got smushed on the bus to the airport because it was so crowded, but besides that, I had no problems on the travel to the Sevilla airport. I was meeting my friend Mary Jo there and we actually had two other friends that were going to Naples as well and were on our flight. Ryan Air is the airline we flew and they are just so inefficient so our flight was delayed to leave and that was a bummer. But we finally landed in Naples at 11:30pm. Okay, well I'm going to say this right off the bat in case you get bored and stop reading. This is the most important part: DO NOT EVER GO TO NAPLES ALONE. It is so sketchy. So...journey with me. Four young girls arrive at the airport and have tickets for the train/bus to go to Rome at 2:55am. They think, "Oh, we can just wait in the airport for a couple hours--there will be bathrooms, plug-ins, and chairs to take a nap on." Only then do they find out that the airport actually closes... so they go find a taxi and try to ask the driver where they should go...but the driver doesn't speak English or Spanish. The driver starts to drive around and these girls are asking if there is anything open where they could wait for a few hours... a McDonald's? Bar? Club? I am crying because I'm laughing so hard because of the language barrier. Lexi, one of the four girls, who is sitting in the front seat of the taxi tries English first...nothing. Spanish? Nothing. So I bring up google translate, type in what we are trying to say and hand the phone to Lexi who then proceeds to try to speak Italian to this man. No success--just lots of laughter. Finally, we get our point across only to get the response of, "Nothing open." Finally we tell the driver just to take us to the train station and we'll figure it out from there. The driver kept saying, "Not safe. No good." But there was nowhere else to go. So then, four girls arrive to the train station (which is stated as one of the most dangerous places in Naples) and we go inside the train station at 1am and sit down on the chairs. Shortly after, the Italian police start kicking everyone out of the station. This is scary because we literally have nowhere else to go if we get kicked out... Luckily, we show our tickets and the police tell us we can stay but that we needed to sit down and stay. It was freezing so we tried to get up a couple times to move and the police were watching and they came over and said "Sit-a down and don't-a move-a." (That was with an Italian accent in case you were wondering.) Well, 2:30am rolls around and MJ and I had our bus at 2:55am and the bus station was outside... so we decide to make the trip to the bus part of the station. Our other two friends had a train an hour later so they just stayed put. It was about a seven minute walk and the policemen had to let us outside because they had legit locked us inside the building. We go outside and there's tons of people sleeping outside and we had seen prostitutes earlier so we hurried our little booties to the bus station. We ended up walking in the middle of the street because we didn't feel safe on either side of the sidewalk. We finally made it to the big green bus, where there were more men of course, but at least this time they were workers. We got on the bus and sighed a big breath of relief. And then we slept the whole three hours from Naples to Rome and arrived at 6am at the bus station in Rome, Italy. And the second part of our journey began.


We were super exhausted, but we got some coffee and juice and fruit in our systems and decided we had to make it through the most of our day. If we tried to take a nap, we wouldn't wake up. We reunited with our other two friends and headed to the hostal MJ and I were staying at to drop off our bags. The name of the hostal was The Funny Palace. What a great name, right? Well, it said we were supposed to check in at the laundry mat internet cafe. That was literally what it was. We were a little worried what our room might be like but we couldn't get into our room until 2pm. That was good so we weren't tempted to crash so we changed our clothes, put on a little make-up to cover the dark circles, left our bags, and set out on our adventure. Welcome to life as a study abroad student. Sleeping is for when you are dead. Okay, but for as tired as we were, we did great. We had a few more coffees throughout the day, but we saw the coliseum (so cool) and explored the Roman forum. Our two friends lost energy (and they had their bags) for the forum so MJ and I went exploring while they took a nap sitting up on a bench. I loved seeing the architecture...some of the stuff dated back to B.C. That stands for BEFORE CHRIST which means a hecka long time ago. There was also this really pretty view of the city and with it being autumn, there were some really pretty trees that were full of beautiful colors. After that, we got lunch and on our walk there I found a public water station with regular water AND sparkling water. I was so psyched. We had lunch inside this cute place where everyone else was sitting outside so we felt like we had the whole restaurant to ourselves. They had gluten-free pasta so I was a happy camper. Then, we got ice cream afterwards and made our way to the Trevi fountain. Other people, aka disney fans, might know it better as the Lizzie McGuire fountain. We then made our way to the Spanish steps but on the way, we found this cute street with hotels and bars and restaurants that were full of lights and Christmas decorations. We got drinks and dinner around that area as well and then took a taxi back to our hostal. That is where we separated with our two friends because they were headed to take another all-nighter train to Venice. Good on them. I couldn't have done it. Mary Jo and I were in bed before 10pm. The hostal turned out to be super nice and they even upgraded us to a 3 beds room instead of 5 beds. And gave us a free bottle of wine. Europe--it's the best. My friend Claire was meeting us in Rome (she is studying in Lund, Sweden) and I was thinking we should have requested for her to be in our room. I seriously said to myself, "How perfect would that have been if she was in our room with us?" Ask and you shall receive. At midnight, in walks my friend Claire!!!! 


Okay, Friday... we started out our morning with the coffee and pastry that was included with our hostal. I enjoyed my soy latte but was lacking in some protein or some fruit or something to carry me through the day. I looked on my phone for a gluten-free breakfast place and, with low expectations, typed in this place called Beehive into Google Maps, which supposedly had great breakfast. Side note, a good, hearty American breakfast is very difficult to find because most Europeans simply eat a pastry and coffee for breakfast, which is a challenge for those of us with celiacs. Well much to my pleasant surprise, the Beehive was located a one-minute walk from where we were. It was in a hostal and it was just a cute little cafe down below the hostal. We were the only ones there and our chef, a lady from Romania who spoke really good English, was able to fix me an omelet with vegetables and cheese and I had a huge, perfectly ripe banana instead of toast. I also had some delicious tea in my favorite kind of tea cup. I'm weird... I have a certain tea cup I like to drink from. So our breakfast in the Beehive cafe was definitely a highlight of the day. After that, we went to Vatican city and saw the Basilica where Peter from the Bible is buried. That was cool. We were going to go to the Sistine chapel too, but the day seemed to go by so fast, and we were practically there. So we called that good. I'm proud of myself for getting the names right because in Rome, I kept saying the Pristine Chapel and Prisilica or something like that. After spending the morning in the Vatican city, we went to get lunch. I had found this gluten-free restaurant and we were walking through this part of town called Campo de' Fiori. It was so wonderful... I can't even describe it. #moviemoment When I am at a loss for words, I am going to use that hashtag. It felt like I was in a movie that was filmed in Italy so I guess it fits quite well with my hashtag. Okay and then it keeps getting better because that gluten-free restaurant didn't just have gluten-free pasta, they had pizza and not just one but TONS!!!!! They also had gluten-free desserts, salads, all sorts of different sauces and toppings. I was in heaven. We met a couple from Arizona who were just the darnest thing. Is that a phrase? I wanted a word different than cute.... Anyway, after that we got MJ her ice cream since she's obsessed with gelato. We decided to walk back to the hostal since we needed to burn off all our lunch/dinner calories. Rome is much safer than Naples, don't worry. Well, along the walk, we found a palace with Roman horse statues on top (official name = Piazza Venezia),  the Trajan forum, and a cat sanctuary. #WhenInRome right? That's a movie--fun fact. Which ties to my other hashtag😱 Sorry, I'm getting a little carried away. Focus. So we found a supermarket on the way home, of course, because I have to go to a supermarket everywhere I go. On our way there though, we found another gelato place but this one said "homemade" on the front. I asked my friends if we could just go inside. We step inside and they have so many options but the fruity ones catch my eye. They had kiwi and banana which are not normal flavors. I sampled the kiwi and it is incredible. Then, he tells us we can get three flavors in the small and I was sold. I got kiwi, banana and strawberry. I go, "This is amazing" and the Italian man working there goes, "You know why?" and I went, "Because it's homemade!!!!" and he goes, "Exactly!" True to their sign. Good people. So, the rest of the night we just snacked on the groceries we got from the store along with our bottle of wine, which we had to open with a key because we were too cheap to buy a five Euro bottle opener that we couldn't take home on the plane with us. Which, I just looked up and apparently if the wine screw doesn't have a knife, you can bring it on a plane with you.............. 



Moving on to Saturday, we woke up and had to check out by 10am. Luckily, they let us store our bags there all day again so we could explore the city more. I had looked up this park called the Villa Borghese which I thought would be fun to visit and then also Piazza Navona and the Pantheon were two other top sights to see in Rome. The park was another #moviemoment. The leaves were just the right colors and they were falling off the trees so Claire and I played in the leaves a little bit. Flashback to being a kid... there was always a little pond/lake in the middle of the park that was pretty to see. I also highly recommend the Piazza del Popolo. We kept just stumbling across these wonderful places. It was full of lights and restaurants and cute shops. We walked through it on our way to the Pantheon. After touring those sights, we got lunch and then headed back to the hostal. We started to run short on time but we were dreaming about going back to that gelato place from the night before which was called Wonderful Ice Cream, in case you were wondering. We got a move on and took our ice cream to go and made it back to the hostal at 4:26pm. Our bus was at 4:55pm and it was going to take us at least 20 minutes with the metro. We decided to start walking towards the stations and to try to hail a taxi on the way. We were cutting it close but we finally hailed one down and he took us right to where we needed to go. We found our lime green bus and then almost cried having to say goodbye to Rome and go back to Naples... at night... again... We arrive three hours later and decide right away we need to get a taxi ASAP. Well, language barrier/miscommunication became frustrating once again. So, apparently our Airbnb was located "out-of-district" and wasn't technically in Naples even though it was only a 15 minute drive. So our taxi cost us 50 Euros for 15 minutes, which is insane. We finally arrive in the general area... and used almost all our cash to pay the taxi driver. We were down to 40 Euros cash between all three of us and we refused to use an ATM in such a sketchy city. A nice couple ended up helping us find the exact spot of our Airbnb but they kept telling us to be careful and doing the universal eye symbol that says "Keep an eye out." We get to our Airbnb finally and then the lady tells us that it is a private room and not the entire apartment like we thought we had. Then, we find out that, because she knows it's expensive to pay for a taxi from the train station, that she drives to pick her "clients" up for half the price of a taxi. I don't want to talk about it. We made do with what we had. It was a nice place but at that point we just wanted to go home and get out of Naples. We still had a bottle of wine and we tried to open it with a key but it was a rubber cork and so it was not working. I felt awkward asking her for a bottle opener, but I face-timed my parents and they gave me confidence. They were super nice about it and we opened it, but by that time, we were so tired, we didn't feel like having wine. 


Sunday, Mary Jo and my flight was at 4:25pm. My friend Claire's was at 10am. After paying for the Airbnb, we had 20 Euros cash between all three of us, and it was 15 Euros to get to the airport and so I was trying to weigh our options when I realized we had no options. We all had to go to the airport together at 8:30am. Then, MJ and I could at least get more cash from the ATM and decide from there. Well, once we got to the airport, we decided we should just stay there until our flight that afternoon. At least this time, it was early in the morning so the airport didn't close. MJ and I were in the airport for almost 10 hours because our flight got delayed. Yay. I finally made it home at 9:40pm last night.


SO.... moral of the story: Naples is awful (sorry for anyone who loves/lives in Naples) and Rome is amazing!!!! 


So that was my Thanksgiving 2017. It will definitely be one to remember. I have lots to be thankful for--including you--for reading my post. :) 


Hope you have a wonderful week!!! 




Our Airbnb in Rome...laundry mat internet cafe... that's exactly what it was.


Coliseum.. so powerful to be there


Those trees were much taller than they seem.. who knows how many years they've been there?


A Kellie sized palm tree!! 
This seagull was not afraid of humans but was kinda blocking my view!!



Rome was full of old bridges and structures like this one!


This was a hair salon--but it had a grand piano so I had to take a photo!


Christmas:)))


Preach.
The Beehive Cafe

My amazing breakfast...notice the teacup:) 


Vatican city!


YUMMMMMMMM. The flag means it's really gluten-free!

My gluten free restaurant! Yes, i said "my"


Cats from the cat sanctuary


Explorin' at night


My last bite of the "Wonderful" ice cream that I accidentally dropped on the floor:((((


We were a diverse group of wine drinkers:)


Ready to go home....

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Week 11: Nov. 13th-19th (Lisbon, Portugal)

Hello everyone! Can you believe it is Thanksgiving week already??? That is crazy to me. I am going to miss being with my family very much but I am excited because I am going with my friend MJ to Rome and hopefully we will find a good turkey (or Italian) meal there.

I appreciate being healthy so much more after I have been super sick. I finally felt better this week and could do things again. My stomach is still pretty sensitive but my doctor emailed me with some advice and I’m hoping that will help. So, Sevilla has become very cold during the nights and in the mornings so I decided I should invest in some sweats and a cute European jacket. I was on a mission this week. Monday, my roommate and I spent three hours at the mall and we came out empty handed (except we did buy snacks because supermercados are my weakness). Oh, I also purchased some sweat pants to sleep in because I no longer can wear shorts to bed due to the freezing (50 degree) nights. I wore my new PJ pants to dinner and told my host mom I got them to sleep in and she goes, “Oo, tu culo parece muy bien en esos pantolones. ¿Los compraste para salir o para dormir?” (Oo, your butt looks good in these pants…did you buy them to go out or to sleep in?) She’s not afraid to say what she thinks… Okay, so on Tuesday, Carly and I were going to go shopping downtown but we went to study at Starbucks (I know, I know) first and it ended up getting too late. Pause—I just love Tuesday mornings. I’m not always a fan of having to wake up early on a day where I don’t have class until noon, but it is worth it every time. I got to work with a new group of kids along with the group that I have been with the last 4 weeks or so and they are seriously the cutest. All of them warm my heart. So Wednesday, I went to a different mall area than on Monday and found one soft sweater but I still didn’t find a coat that I liked. I was determined to wait to buy one until I found just the right one. On Thursday, I had tutoring in the morning and then class and then I was feeling sleepy and ended up taking a 2-hour nap. Thursdays are great because they are practically Fridays since I don’t have class on Fridays. P.S. When I have a 40-hour/week job, 5 days a week, I might struggle… Ahem, so it was pretty late when I woke up from my siesta but there are these cute boutique-type shops in my neighborhood. I told myself it’d feel good to get out of the house and so I just went exploring by myself. I walked into one of the stores and saw a lot of great sweaters, which was also on my “to-buy” list. I touched them and they were super soft—even better. See, there’s a lot of great stores like H&M, Zara, Pull&Bear, Bershka, Stradivarius, etc. that have cheap sweaters but the thing is, everyone goes there and buys sweaters/clothes from there and then we go to class and everyone has the same sweater on. Therefore, I was feeling good about this decision to try somewhere “unique.” I found the coat section and immediately spotted a grey, longer, soft, coat with a zipper and hood. That is exactly what I wanted. They only had one size in the grey and I tried it on and loved it except it was too tight in the shoulders. They had a red one that was a size bigger and I thought, why not? I’m trying to add more red to my wardrobe right? I tried it on and it was like Cinderella! The shoe (coat) fit PERFECTLY!! I had accomplished my mission. I was so happy. So, this little adventure was fabulous, not only because I found the perfect coat but then… okay, well I was the only one in the store. There were three workers: two Chinese—an older lady and then a young guy—and a Spaniard about my age. I had called my mom in the store (cause all week-long I was sending her pics and asking her questions so I could pretend/act like she was shopping with me). And so of course I spoke in English to her and since it was quite quiet in that store, they overheard me. I was looking at some of the clothes when the Chinese man asked me “You speak English and Spanish together?” or something like that, which I didn’t quite understand at first. Then, I realized he was asking if I spoke both English and Spanish, which I liked that he was asking me that because normally when people hear us (Americans) speak in English, they just assume we don’t speak Spanish. He started asking me questions and translating to the Spaniard girl and I was like, well hey… I can talk in Spanish. So I was talking in Spanish to them and the Spaniard thought I was so smart since I was studying abroad and could speak English and Spanish (somewhat). I told her, “Mi español es muy malo.” (My Spanish is very bad) and she told me that it was really good which was kind of her. Both her and the Chinese boy were super nice and they had so many questions for me which I thought was adorable even though it made shopping difficult. It was worth it. I finally looked around some more and found another zip-up jacket just for around the apartment and an adorable/soft, long, dark green sweater to buy along with my coat. As I finished checking out, the Chinese guy asked me if I liked the earrings they had. There were some diamond ones and then some pearl ones. I told him I liked the pearl ones and thought he might try to get me to buy them but he goes, “Gift for you” and literally just hands them to me. I was so overwhelmed with their kindness. I told them bye but I definitely want to go back to that store before I leave. A little dangerous for my bank account, but I felt like I made some new friends and I just appreciated talking to them and I got a lot of clothes I wanted and then a pair of free earrings. It was a win-win-win situation!

Friday, we left for Lisboa (Lisbon), Portugal. This was our last trip with our ISA program…it blows my mind how fast it has gone. So, Lisbon was horrible. Remember how awful my last trip to Portugal was when we went to Albufeira? Hah, JUST KIDDING. Literally, I love Portugal. Albufeira (week 6 of my blog) was one of the best weekends of my life and Lisbon was definitely one of my favorites/probably my favorite trip with ISA. I have been to so many amazing places so it’s hard to choose but there is something about Portugal that I absolutely enjoy. I obviously can’t speak the language so that’s a downside, but it is quite similar to Spanish so, if I read it, I can usually translate it pretty well. Lisbon is about 4-5 hours from Seville, which isn’t too bad. So we took a bus there and arrived in the afternoon and were able to just walk around and explore the downtown part of the city. Cork is very common in Portugal. They have almost anything you could want made out of cork. We also found a Christmas store which made me excited to listen to Christmas music and see all the cities decorate their streets with lights as the holidays are rapidly approaching. There were stands with roasted chestnuts outside and we bought some to try and started singing “Roasting chestnuts on an open fire…” I was the only one who actually liked the roasted chestnuts, but hey—more for me! I refuse to listen to Christmas music until after Thanksgiving at least. So, a little later, we went on a walking tour of Lisbon. It is a very hilly city so we got our step-climbing goal in. We went to the top of the city where there used to be a castle and now it is just ruins but enough of it was intact that you could climb up the towers and walk around. Up there, we had a view of the entire city, including the sea and the bridge that looks exactly like the San Francisco bridge. We got to watch the sunset go down from the top of the castle towers…no big deal. We took millions of pictures, of course. That night we went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Okay, so I think another thing that added to this trip and made it so great was the fact that, since it is more towards the end of our program, we have found our “friend groups” and I have met some really awesome girls that I just love. My closest friends are all from different Universities than me of course, and so I realized during the weekend what my personal definition of study abroad is: where Kellie makes five new friends from five different states. Well, I’ve made more than five friends, don’t worry. But I hung out with these five girls this trip and it was so fun and I just was in my happy place every time I realized how blessed I was to have them in my life. Okay, sappy moment over…ahh so much to tell. Friday night after dinner, we got some ice-cream (of course) and then MJ’s friend had recommended this parking garage bar. Um, it was literally so cool. It was an actual parking garage where you arrive and go, “hm, guess I’m gonna park my car,” and you do, but wait… then you take the elevator to the fifth floor and bam, it’s this super cool bar that looks out over the city. It felt “hole-in-the-wall” and just sneaky. I felt like we had found a secret door…like Chronicles of Narnia maybe?! Where you walk through the wardrobe and then BAM, it’s a whole new world. Maybe I’m getting carried away, but hopefully you get my point—it was AWESOME. After that, we tried going to this other bar, but it wasn’t near as cool and it ended up being an empty bar that had horrible music (indie/folk/no words/bad). We wished we had ended the night with our cool parking garage bar, but hey…it was still a great night.

Saturday, we took the bus around the city and did a bus tour and we got to visit this massive church with a beautiful courtyard. The architecture of the buildings in Europe is so incredible. Then, we got to go up in this tower building that was literally on the water that had really cool views and then, afterwards, we took lots of pictures on the little “beach” area. Then, some friends had recommended taking a train to this city called Sintra because there is a colorful castle that’s pretty cool. Hint, hint, “pretty cool” is an understatement. It seemed like a lot of work to get there because we had to take the train to a different town, take a bus up to the top of the hill, and then either walk the rest of the way up or get a shuttle. But, OH. MY GOODNESS. It was seriously amazing. It reminded me of the castle that I went to with Amanda and Peter in Munich, Germany…but it was also very different from that. The hike up was so fun because the view just kept getting better and better. We were “oo-ing” and “ahh-ing” the entire way but then, when we actually arrived at the castle…words cannot do it justice. Photos will not even do it justice. But, just trust me—it was amazing. I’ll put some of my favorite photos in the blog at the bottom, but wow-zee. It was just breathtaking. We were in a castle on top of this mountain with this incredible view of the city on one side and the sea and nature on the other side. The “colorful castle” was actually colorful—it was painted stone grey, yellow, red, and had some purple tiles on it too. We had probably taken at least 100 photos just of the outside before we even went inside. Inside was cool because it was a more modern castle so I could actually picture a King and Queen living there. *Whistle high pitch to low pitch (like an impressed whistle)* The queen had a different room for pretty much everything. She had a green room, a tea room, bed room, parlor room, living room, study room, etc. Yeah, it was quite nice. So, after our jaws finally closed and we pulled ourselves together, we took our time exploring the palace and then right as we finished, the sun was setting. So, we watched the sunset from the top of the palace. *Jaw drop* And so, who wouldn’t like Portugal when you spend two nights in a row watching a beautiful sunset from a palace or a castle? We were all in love. Well, it got real chilly real fast so we made our way back down and then had an hour before our train back to Lisbon. Well, I hadn’t eaten since breakfast since there hadn’t been any restaurants without gluten, and so I went into this Chinese restaurant and was able to order some curry and rice to go. We had planned on getting a genuine Portuguese meal for dinner, but once I ordered some food, everyone else decided they were hungry too so we ended up getting a to-go order and then sitting outside (in the cold) of the Chinese restaurant eating our food. Good times… we are in Portugal where you can get all this really good cheap food, and we end up eating Mexican food one night and Chinese the next. Go us! No judging, people. All right, so then when we got back, we talked about doing a wine night in Carly and my room. Portugal apparently has some great wine so we all took a trip to the grocery store (I always have to go to a supermercado) and bought cheese, salami, prosciutto, wine, hard ciders, soda, bread, cuties (like a clementine), peanuts, and peanut M&M’s. Classy, right? Oh, and a deck of cards. Then, we went back to the hotel…turned on some music and feasted and were merry. Honestly, this was another one of my many favorite parts of the trip. I had so much fun, but our night doesn’t end there. At 1am, MJ and I decided since we were in Portugal, we should go out again. So… we did. We took a taxi to “Barrio Alto” which was a part of the city where night life is supposed to be great and the driver dropped us off at this place with a magnificent view of the city at night. We got to see lots of views of the city on this trip, apparently. All of them were worth it. We went to this bar and ended up meeting two American girls who were studying in Rome, Italy. It was ironic because MJ and I are going to Rome this week and we actually might meet up with them. That is just so cool to me…small world. They were so young! Both of them were 18 (so Freshmen in college) and this was their first semester in college. I’m afraid they’ll have a rude awakening when they go back for their second semester, but anyway. We stayed with them all night and had a really good time! We also met some very guapismo (handsome) men from New Zealand who were Rugby players. They were pretty dang muscular. MJ fell in love with their tour-guide who was Israeli. I talked to a guy for a while who had a jaw bone as a necklace. I tried to say I was from Australia, but that didn’t work out too well since they were from New Zealand (which I didn’t know at first, I’m not dumb). There were lots of cops around too and tons of people so, don’t worry, we were safe. MJ and I are convinced that all the cops in Portugal are babes. ¿Qué más? (What more?) Hmm, ohhh! Yes, so since we had started our night so late (or early?), the bars closed at 3am, which is way too early. We were bummed. Somos españoles. Estamos acostumbrados a bares abiertos hasta seis en la mañana. (We are Spaniards. We are used to bars being open until six in the morning.) Well, we finally got back at 4am and got in bed just in time to wake up at 8:30am.

Today, we visited a city called Évora in Portugal on our way back to Seville. Since it was Sunday and it was a pretty small town, there wasn’t much happening. But one thing that totally made my day was a “pep-band” sort of group that was dressed in suspenders and bowties, that was just walking around the city playing music for people. There was a group of kids that were walking behind them with sweatshirts on that said, “Just to make you smile” or something like that. It totally made me smile! We also got to see a chapel of bones which was really cool because, in Paris, all I wanted to do was see the catacombs, but we didn’t get the chance to, so this sort of made up for it. It fascinates me. Some people think it is creepy and morbid but I personally thought it was awesome. After that, we finally got a traditional Portuguese meal, so-to-speak, and then headed back to Seville. I am now home and not ready to go to classes tomorrow…but, that’s okay. Three-day week and then off to Rome!!! 

P.S. Exciting news alert: I get to see my parents in a month from yesterday!!!!!


My new cork bracelet!!


Roomies

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas"








I always have to find something to climb


Kelly & Kellie


Look at that view of the city--beautimus 






The view from the top of the castle ruins


The buildings were so cool. They look fake but I swear this is real!




The parking garage that was actually a bar




My gluten-free "pastry" while every one else had these incredible pastries


My lovely ISA director, Marta




The city with the shadow of the tower







The walk up to the palace--so gorgeous




My face when I saw the view for the first time......

 

10 min later...

Umm...wow







Top of the world!!


Thanksgiving anyone?


The living room--think it's big enough?






Study Abroad: 5 new friends from 5 different states


The sunset...unreal




Got bones?




The "pep-band"