Madalascanas and other things!

Hey everyone!
So today I moved into a place for the rest of the semester where I do not have constant access to internet. Therefore, I will not be able to be online as much. Which means that I probably won't be updating my blog much... Not that I do anyways.. Anyways, I have some things that I've done to talk about.

A couple of weeks ago, a bunch of us went to a place called Madalascanas where we thought we were going to be hiking. Turns out, it is right on a beach and we spent most of the day there. It is a place that is very protective of the natural life and the environment. Some of the beach has been developed with hotels and tourism spots, but mostly, it is a beach for locals to enjoy. On one side of the beach, you are able to walk down farther than you could ever imagine, and not pass anything but cliffs. It is so beautiful. That day, because I wasn't expecting to lie on a beach, I fried. After recovery I was very tan and I love it!

Last weekend, I went to a very popular city in Spain, Cadiz. It was a lot of fun and we got to go to this one place where we could go to the highest floor in the building and turn off the lights, and look onto a dome that reflected the entire city at that moment. It was like a mirror for the city. We saw people on the tops of their homes putting out laundry, and birds flying by, and cars driving. It really was cool. Then we spent a good three hours on the beach, but there wasn't much sun.

Yesterday, I went to Madalascanas again to go horseback riding. I had heard from one of the girls in my program here that there were trails that people could ride horses on for two hours! It was so breathtaking to see the ocean on one side of the highest point in the area, and then on the other side, we saw the entire nature park. I can't even explain how goregeous the place is. They have preserved this place very well and are very protective with the nature and wildlife that live there. Then we spent more time at the beach and just relaxed :)

I have 6 weeks left in Sevilla now, and out of those 6 weeks I have two last trips planned. I have the Camino of Santiago (a pilgrammage) planned for the 14th-19th of April and then the first week in May, I am going to the Balaeric Islands! Hopefully I will be able to keep updating, I'm just not sure how often.
This first picture is me in Cadiz... the second is a picture of the beach in Madalascanas, and the third is me and Romero my horse :)

Adios Amigos!

Time in Sevilla

Hey everyone!

So recently I have been spending some quality time around Sevilla. I truly do love this city. However here it is starting to get pretty warm! I am still working on my training for my half marathon so that is going well. The river is probably my favorite place to be these days. We have nothing like this that I have seen in Richmond or Newport News. Lions Gate Bridge doesn't have anything on this. The people here would have to agree. Here, every single night of the week, people have their Cruzcampo beers and spend hours just hanging out. I mean there are always gobs of people everywhere. And because the city pays workers to clean all the streets every night, every piece of trash is left in the parks and on the streets. To me, it is completely nasty and I would hate to do that to my home, however, here it is a part of their life. The workers go around every morning, picking up all the trash and hose down all the streets. Also, people pee everywhere. Men and women. So naturally, I'm glad they hose everything down. Other than that, it is just all fun.

So about school. My classes are going well, but I have actually learned a lot of the students in Spain in general. Here, students are just looking to pass classes. They don't care about grades because college is not something everyone does, and a lot of times, if they do go to college, it is not even close to being as competitive as it is in the US. They just pick the one that is closest to them so it is easier to have fun in the afternoons. My school, University of Pablo Olavide is a good school, but it is not very pretty. Most campus's are lovely and filled with grass... mine, not so much. But, I like my professors, especially Nano, my International Marketing professor. He studied english in Michigan for a good portion of his life, so he knows so much information between the US and Spain. He has such a wonderful life and he has thought about opening a restaurant, but he likes his lazy life too much. This is honestly my favorite class ever and I wish all professors had random knowledge and funny stories like him.

The weather. So some of you know that last weekend, I went to a beach and got really bad sunburn... Luckily however, it is gone and has turned into a nice tan. In the future, I plan on taking more precautions and using sun screen, but I do plan on bein very tan when I come back... especially after I go to the Balaeric Islands. (They are basically the Canary Islands, just a different set) Other than my trip to the beach, life has been pretty calm. Just enjoying it while I can. However, since I registered for classes, part of me is ready to get back to the grind and my normal routine.

Tomorrow I will be going to Cadiz and hopefully get another tan since it is very near the coast. I will definitely take pictures and update everyone on that trip! I hope everyone back home is doing well, and making it through the nasty weather you are having! Miss you all! Oh and today is officially April so I can say I come home next month.... If I decide to come back... Haha. April Fools! Bye ya'll!

Matt comes to Spain and Paris!

So after my Morocco trip, I was finally able to get excited about Matt coming to visit for a whole week!!!
But the day before he got here was the day my entire wallet (which included my passtport) was stolen... Before I begin, know that in the end everything worked out alright. So in the beginning of the week Matt literally had to pay for everything because my debit card had been in the wallet as well. While I was getting wachovia to ship my new card here, we also had to visit the American Consulate here in Spain to explain my predicament. Now, you need to understand that the Consulate was closed all weekend, and on Monday because it was a holiday in Sevilla. So we waited til Tuesday. It wouldn't have been a problem waiting, however, I had planned a trip to Paris two weeks later, and I was worried I wasn't going to be able to go! However, I got all my information sent out to Madrid and was able to get an emergency passport to me within a few days. All I have to do now is apply for a regular one before 3 months is up. Everything, like I said, worked out perfectly. I was just lucky that Matt was here to tell me to calm down and make me stop hyperventalting! Then we officially started his vacation here. We went out to several different restaurants, including one called Carmela, which Matt loved because they had a dish called Chupa Chups. It was a meatball dish with cold mashed potatoes in the middle HAHA. Anyways, he loved the sauce and I think he ended up getting that dish 3 times he was here. On Tuesday night we went out for Chenoa's (a friend of mine here) birthday. She turned 21 and although it's not a big deal here because you can drink at the age of 18, we wanted to still have a good time with her. I took Matt around to see the Cathedral, and the river, and the Alcazar Palace... all wonderful places that are primary to visit if you are in Sevilla. Mainly though we just spent a nice relaxing week together. On our last night we went out to a goregous restaurant and had a great night! I really wish he was still here :(

Then after my week with Matt, I went back to reality of school and had to study for my midterms. It really was the hardest week I have had since I've been here and compared to my usual work load at CNU, it was nothing. Anyways, after I was finished with midterms, I looked forward to my trip to PARIS! Let me tell you now, it was probably the most beautiful city I have been to. I love the atmosphere and the people in Sevilla, but Paris just has a life of it's own. The first thing we did when we got there was go and see the Eiffel Tower! It was so awesome. And I don't know about the rest of you, but for some reason I always thought the Eiffel Tower was green... Well it's not, it's actually brown. After admiring it, we went in line to climb it. No, we weren't able to climb the whole thing, but we climbed as high as we could and the sights were amazing! The city is amazingly breathtaking. After spending lots of time there, and seeing the Paris armed forces standing around the tower with semi-automatic guns (lol) we decided to head on. We were heading to the Catacolmes, but ended up going in the wrong direction, so instead we headed towards the Louve/our hostel for the night. While we walked, we looked at all the wonderful statues and plazas. We finally came to a street called Rivoli, which we ended up calling Ravioli the whole trip, and walked down that same street for like an hour and a half. No joke. After and hour we finally found the Louve. By the it was dark and we were exhausted so we took a couple of pictures of the giant triangles out front and then headed on to find the hostel. FINALLY after a little bit of searching and our feet in much pain, we found the hostel only to be greeted by a man behind the desk looking at us and then continuing to talk on his cell phone for 20 more minutes. We waited there impatiently and when he finally gave us his attention, he informed us that we had to pay 1 extra euro for a sheet and that the people already in our room had the key... LOL Yes, we had no idea we would be with other people or that all bedding would not be provided.. I was so exhausted that I didn't even eat dinner. I went straight to bed... Apparently neight Erica nor Chenoa could sleep and it was awful for them. I enjoyed my restless night. The next night was much worse.. but I'll get there.

The next day, we went to the Notre Dame (no Quasi was not there), the Louve (which was so big and had so many artifacts I though my head would spin. Art really isn't my thing, but a lot of it actually was interesting. And honestly people could probably spend 12 hours looking at everything that is in the museum), and then we headed back towards to Eiffel Tower. After a little rest, we decided to head to the Catacolmes, in the right direction this time, only to be part of the group that just barely missed the time cut off. :( So then we sat in a cafe while it consistently rained and tried to figure out what we would do the rest of the night. That night we went to an Italian restaurant so that Chenoa could get some pasta, and then we headed towards the Moulin Rouge. By this time, it was raining a lot harder and I was pretty exhausted. However, we did not have a hostel booked for this night. My friends had decided it would be fun and adventurous to find things to do all night. We did not know it would be raining, and FREEZING. Eventually, we sat in a McDonalds until 1am and then headed towards our bus stop where we would ride that to the airport at 5am when our flight wasn't until 1pm. Then we all found a dry corner (ironicly in front of a hotel) and sat and waited. Neither of the other girls fell asleep, I managed 1 hour on the cold ground. Finally, it was 5am and time to leave. We waited/slept in the airport for our flight and then came home and got showers and just passed out. Needless to say it was a wonderful/interesting trip!!!

I feel as though all the pictures are self explanatory... If anyone has questions please comment!!!

OK... I just got lazy before...

Ok so I have a lot to update on I know. I had actually considered not continuing updating my blog because I honestly didn't think anyone was reading it... However, I seem to have a lot of complaints about not having been updating. So I believe I left off right before I went to Morocco... Well to start off it is actually really cool to be able to say I've been to Africa! However, the trip itself was not as exciting as I had hoped. For those of you who have seen my pictures, the first place we went to was a town of blue... Literally everything was painted blue. We did a lot of bargaining and dealing down prices with the shop keepers because it is considered rude there if you pay the first price they offer.. weird right? Anyways, there I bought this beautiful green handmade blanket... It's not really a warm blanket, but more of decoration and to show off that I have it lol. Then we rode on a bus forever to get to another place that looked almost exactly the same... We spent most of our time on the buses. The food wasn't really any different than what I've had in Spain. Just a lot of soup and meat. The last day we were there we had kuskus (sp?) Anyways its an authentic dish... Obviously because my family doesn't really eat anything out of the ordinary, I had never even heard of it before lol! In one of the other villages that we went to I was looking at a painting of Morocco and the guy had offered it to me for 60 euros and I said no way... Eventually we got him down to 20 euros. The bargaining was probably one of the most fun things we did. But, by far, the most fun thing we did was ride camels for about 5.5 seconds!! They have camel rides everywhere for the tourists... I had a strange experience because the guy told me to basically jump up on the camel... And I told him my legs were too short to get around the camel so he had to help me jump up. Everyone laughed at me... And then! The camel behind me way trying to eat the cloth underneath the saddle of my camel... I was just a bit scared because it was so close to my leg and eventually I just wanted to get off so the camel wouldn't eat my foot. Then we had more bus driving.. we went through a creepy market where they sold live hens everywhere... and honestly I know the culture is different, but it was just kinda gross. Anyways, I think overall it was a great experience, just had to travel a lot to do only a little.

(The two pictures above are of me and our tour guide and me almost falling off my camel lol. Our tour guide carried tobacco snuff with him on his thumb the whole time we were with him and had to constantly remind us that it was not cocaine. He told us that no, this stuff would take you to the moon. An intersting tid bit about him was that he spoke Arabic, French, English, Spanish, and German and he learned them in that order. He was so cute!)

Alright that is it for this one, and I am going to go take a break by the water, but I promise I will update more today because there is a lot for everyone to be updated on! Hasta luego!

Take 2

So I wrote out an entire new update and it got deleted. :( So I will write it again.
I know I haven't updated in awhile and I apologize for that. I will make sure to keep it updated at a more respectable time from now on.
To start off, I will talk about where I have been traveling. Two weekends ago, Erica, Chenoa and I all went to Cordoba which is a city about an hour and a half away via bus. We spent the day wandering the streets and just enjoying the time there. We also visited the cathedral, La Mezquita is the name. It was so wonderful to just take time and enjoy a different city. Last weekend, we did the same, just in Sevilla. I absolutely adore this city and everything it has to offer. Today we took a trip for our Mundolengua program to Italica (Little Italy in Spain). For those who are history buffs, it is all in ruins because of how long it has been here and the streets and buildings (what is left of them anyways) are so old and we were there for about 2 hours. Tomorrow, Chenoa, Erica, and I are hoping on a train at 7am to go to Granada. It is a gorgeous city in Spain and we will return at about 11pm tomorrow. A long day is ahead of us. Next weekend, we are going to Morocco from Friday to Sunday. I am so very excited about this trip. The weekend after that, I will be staying in Sevilla, and Matt will finally be able to visit for a whole week! :) And finally, the weekend after that, we are going to Paris from the 11-13th of March.
As for classes, I changed up my schedule a bit and I now am taking 4 classes all back to back from 9 am to 3 pm every Monday and Wednesday. Hello 4 day weekend :). But don't worry, I have homework to keep me busy on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Our midterms are going to be in 3 weeks. Also, the native Spanish students have been off from school for two weeks because when we got here they were just finishing with exams. They will start back on Monday and we will have more opportunities to meet some new friends.
As for everything else... I have developed my run route which starts out heading towards the river, then running along the river for awhile. I absolutely love it. As well, the food is getting better. We eat so much bread that I feel like I might turn into a loaf, but when you walk about a gazillion miles everyday it isn't bad to eat. I do miss Panera at home!!! Also, we eat a lot of soup. Most of it isn't so bad, but I will never eat another chickpea in my life once I return to the US. I despise them. We have had pizza a couple of nights, and although it is different, it is still good. For those of you who know how picky of an eater I am you would be proud to see how many different things I have tried. I really just learn to eat what is in front of me if I don't want to go hungry :)
When I talk about walking everywhere, I do mean everywhere. We have been to see the bullring (we plan on getting tickets in April), the soccer stadium (Matt and I plan on attending a match when he gets here), and we searched for a school for about 2 hours yesterday that we never found. We asked so many people and no one had even heard of it. We had to get our "host brother" to get a bigger map and show us the direction. My feet hurt so badly after that adventure. I really love our host mom and her son (32 yrs) is really very kind. Although it does seem that every morning we hear her yelling at him to get up to go to work. Yes, it is common for people in their 30s to still live at home here. Don't worry mom, I'll be out way before then! It is all so very lovely and the next 13 weeks that I have here will be wonderful! For some reason I have tried uploading my photos on here, but it will not let me. If you are someone who cannot see my Facebook, if you have one just friend request me and I will add you.  If you do not have a Facebook and would like pictures by email, just send me a message to let me know! In the mean time, I will try and figure out what the problem is. Ok I think that is all for now! I hope you enjoyed reading! I promise I'll post again within a week!

My first day of classes

Hello again everyone! I have just finished with my first two days of classes today! I have thoroughly enjoyed everything about them including my professors! I am taking two literature classes and two business classes (one of which is in English). We will see after a couple of weeks how I really like them :) They are only Monday through Thursday which means I have no class tomorrow! Hello weekend!
So I've made several observations while I've been in Spain. The music here other than flamenco is what has already been popular in the US. As of right now, I am in my apartment listening to Bad Romance by Lady Gaga... outside my window! Her songs are everywhere! In most of the stores, I always recognize the music. Justin Bieber is very popular as well. I have also noticed that people who drive her are insane! It is also common knowledge that people need to watch out for cars and not the other way around. Just this morning a man walked straight through the middle of an intersection trying to dodge cars. Also, the people on bikes will run you over too if you are walking in the bike paths... Haha.
I ride the metro everyday to and from school and it is really interesting to listen to everyone talk. So many people think that foreign countries like Spain are so different from the US, but it really is not.
One of the things I absolutely love here, other than the siestas :), is the fact that everyone goes outside to shop and go to cafes and restaurants so you get to see everyone in the streets! It is such a wonderful experience to see so many people around enjoying one others company. I don't have plans for the weekend yet, it looks like its going to be a wet one so we will play it by ear. Hope everyone in the states is having a good time with the snow!!! Let me know if you want me to answer any of your questions!
-Heather

Mi adventuras primeras en Sevilla!

So I have been in Sevilla para dos dias and I am completely in love. People always say that all of Europe is so beautiful and so different from the US and it truly is! I cannot begin to describe the amazing things that I saw! But... I'm going to try! When we first got here... (when I say we usually I will mean Erica and I because she is my roommate here in Sevilla)... we were fed so much food I couldn't get it all down! I believe it was spinach and chickpeas and I wasn't very fond of it... But the next morning we had pan y cafe con leche... bread and coffee with milk... and that was delicious... again so much food. Then we set off to explore different parts of Sevilla! We met up with Cathy from CNU and a bunch of other students from William and Mary and set off to see Reales Alcazares which is an enormous castle in Sevilla! It is goregous beyond believe! Oh and there are trees with oranges all over the city! I mean they are everywhere. It is such a popular fruit BUT! it is not suggested to eat them right off the trees. Most of them on the trees are bad because all the good ones have been picked off! After the castle we came back for a siesta and then went back out later to take a tour of the city. The streets are very small and a little difficult but if you really pay attention it is easy to get around. At night, Erica, Cathy and I set out in search of our first bebidas in Sevilla at the local bars! Erica and I had mojitos and Cathy had a Cruzcampo... Spanish beer. Then we went to another place and all got a sangria! This morning we went and toured the third largest cathedral in the world... The Cathedral of Sevilla! It is nearing the end of our siesta today and tonight we will warch flamenco dancing and do some other things!

Trees with oranges!!! 

Part of the castle! It was all so beautiful!

Part of the Cathedral

A second part of the Cathedral!

All other pictures are on my facebook!

Enjoy!