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!!!!!
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| My new cork bracelet!! |
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| Roomies |
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| "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" |
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| I always have to find something to climb |
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| Kelly & Kellie |
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| Look at that view of the city--beautimus |
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| The view from the top of the castle ruins |
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| The buildings were so cool. They look fake but I swear this is real! |
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| The parking garage that was actually a bar |
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| My gluten-free "pastry" while every one else had these incredible pastries |
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| My lovely ISA director, Marta |
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| The city with the shadow of the tower |
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| The walk up to the palace--so gorgeous |
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| My face when I saw the view for the first time...... |
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| 10 min later... |
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| Umm...wow |
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| Top of the world!! |
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| Thanksgiving anyone? |
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| The living room--think it's big enough? |
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| Study Abroad: 5 new friends from 5 different states |
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| The sunset...unreal |
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| Got bones? |
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| The "pep-band" |
