Bem-Vindo...

That means "welcome" in Portugese. That's because I spent this past weekend in Lisbon, Portugal. The city is absolutely so cute. It has such an old, worn-in feeling to it, but it makes the city seem like something out of a dream. Most of the buildings look a little run-down/unkept on the outside, but it gives the buildings a certain character. Anyway, my friend and I took the afternoon bus from Sevilla on Friday. It's over a 6 hour bus ride, but we chatted, listened to music, and slept a little to pass the time. We get to Lisbon around 9:30 pm. After a quick metro ride, we met up with 2 other friends who went the day before. After dropping our stuff at the hostel, we went to find a place to eat dinner. Well, let me tell you, Lisbon has an large number of Indian restaurants, at least they did in the neighorhood we were staying in. So, on night number 1 in Lisbon, we ate Indian food :-) It was good, but I was like, "What's with all this Indian food?" Hahahaha! The next day, we awoke bright and early to see the city. We had a full day of sightseeing. Stop number 1 was the Monastery de Sao Vicente de Foro. I GOT TO TAKE A CABLE CAR THERE!!!!! I was seriously so excited, you have no idea (it's really the small things that make me happy :-))
We were able to see some really cool things in the Monastery. Especially when we ventured up to roof of the Monastery, there was a gorgeous view of the city of Lisbon. After the Monastery, stop number 2 was the market. Every Saturday there is a MASSIVE market in the streets of Lisbon. We wandered around for a while buying souveniers. It was funny because some of the things people were selling were absolute junk, like things they dug out of the trash (ex: old shoes, an ancient barbie car, etc.), but some stands were selling cool jewelry, clothes, and artwork. After about an hour there, we were like, "We better get out of here before we spend all our money!" Hahahaha! So, from there we walked to the Pantheon. We didn't want to pay to tour the inside, but we rested on the steps while snacking on some bread. From there, we saw some more beautiful buildings, the Se, and then, to the Castle there. Wow, is all I have to say. The views from the castle were just breathtaking. After a full day of touring the city of Lisbon, we found a cute little restaurant for dinner. And lucky for us, we were able to listen to some Fado there too. Fado is a traditional type of entertainment in Portugal, consisting of a guitarist and just a singer (I think?). It was great, but we were all super tired, so we retired to the hostel, for an early night to bed.


Day 2: Sunday. The group split up and a friend and I went to Belem, which is a neighborhood close to Lisbon. After waiting for at least a day and a half for the bus (hahahaha! jk! it was more like an hour :-)), we boarded the city bus for a 30 minute ride to Belem. There, our first destination was the MASSIVE church/monastery there. We weren't able to tour the inside of the church because there was a huge line due to it being Palm Sunday, but we stepped right into the tour of the monastery. It was beautiful there too. After some time there, and lots of photo ops, we left to find the Tower there (sorry that I failed with the names, but I've seen a lot of towers! hahahaha!). It's right on the water, so with the beautiful, sunny day that we had, we got to enjoy the view of the Tower and the water (again, not quite sure what body of water it was...figures...we know what a geography genius I am!). After a quick lunch, we ventured to the local pastry shop where we tried the local pastry that Belem is famous for. It was quite delicious!! From there, we were on a mission to see the Royal Palace there.
And we were warned ahead of time, but we didn't quite believe our friends when they told us about the steep hill you have to climb to get to the Palace. Like, I'm not kidding, REALLY big. Oh well! We eventually made it up the hill, a little sweaty and out of breath, but we got there. We bought our tickets from a lady who spoke absolutely ZERO english OR spanish, but we got it covered. I think I'm getting good at just gesturing to things with my hands or making motions so people can understand what I'm saying without using words. Sometimes it's easier that way :-) After the tour of the Palace, we enjoyed some time outside in the local botanical gardens, which, to our surprise, we had to pay for (but it was only .75 centimos). From there, back to the bus to take us back to Lisbon. We ate a quick dinner, then left for the bus station, where we took our first overnight bus back to Sevilla. Yeah...overnight. It's not very comfortable to sleep on a bus for that long. But when we got back to Sevilla at around 5 am on Monday morning, I went right back to bed and slept, and I mean really slept for about 5 hours :-) Hahahaha!

Lesson #34: There are scouts in Spain too! I forgot to post this earlier, but when we went to Cadiz, our guide told us that they have scouts in Europe, but they aren't divided into boys and girls like in the U.S. Also, they don't sell cookies, which is really unfortunate for them. And, another difference is that they don't earn patches like our Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts. I'm not sure what they do, but they were playing games when we saw them! It's quite funny because they are called scouts here too, but it sounds different with a Spanish accent :-)

Lesson #35: People in Sevilla are crazy good on bikes! You see people riding with one hand, and holding an umbrella in the other; or riding while digging around in their pocket; or riding while talking on the cell phone. Seriously! With the amount of people/cars/buildings/metros here, I would run into someone/something or get hit by something if I tried that!

Lesson #36: On long bus-rides, wait a little while longer before using the dark bathroom on the bus (the light didn't work), because you never know when you are going to stop at a rest area :-) [just my luck that I finally break down and use the bathroom on the bus and seriously, not even 10 minutes later we stopped at a rest station...story of my life! hahaha!]

Two Cities in Two Days

Bueno, now that I have finally caught myself up from the last couple of weeks, I want to stay caught up :-) Wednesday of this past week was the first day of my finals. All of my classes here are so different from my others at Hope, that it makes it a little hard to study...plus I get easily distracted :-) The weather was nice, so it was relaxing to sit outside in a park and read for my class. I hope the exam went well. It was for my Academic Writing class, which is actually fun...the only interesting class I have here. Plus, at Hope I have so many accounting classes and here, none! I feel like such a nerd, but I kind of miss my calculator! Hahahaha! Anyway, my history class was fun on Wednesday because we got to go on a field trip! Yay! It was pretty interesting, AND we didn't have to sit through 2 hours of class :-) Thursday, some friends and I got bocadillos (sandwiches) for lunch, and sat in a plaza after class and ate lunch outside because the weather was gorgeous. After that, we toured the Alcazar, which is basically the gardens/palace for the royals. It is so pretty inside there. Also, it's really cool because the King and Queen of Spain actually stay in the Alcazar when they come and visit Sevilla. It was so awesome to spend so much time outside, enjoying the beautiful things that Sevilla has to offer. That night, some friends and I went to the Carboneria, which is this hole-in-the-wall bar/flamenco show thing. We were a little late, so we didn't see much of the flamenco show, but it was so cool! We were just sitting around, chatting, and watching live flamenco dancing at this bar. The atmosphere felt very Spanish.

Saturday, I went to Cadiz with my program for a day trip. The weather wasn't the greatest, but at least it didn't rain! We took a tour around the historical parts of the city, and then we had 3 hours of free time (which was awesome). Cadiz has a beautiful beach, so we ate lunch on the beach, walked in the water (though it was freezing), and generally enjoyed being at the beach. After that, we walked out on this pier thing and snapped some gorgeous photos of the coast. Then we wandered around the city, where we shopped a little and stopped at this medieval market. When I got home, it was pretty much straight to bed for me because we had an early morning on Sunday.

On Sunday morning, some friends and I took the 7am bus to Malaga. Yes, 7...in the morning. It was actually quite funny because as we were leaving, we saw people that were just going back home or were still out in the streets after a night out. And we had a little fiasco with the bus. We had a general idea of where the bus station was, but we didn't know exactly. So when we got close, we split up (there were 3 of us) to look for the bus. We started to get a little desperate because the time is approaching for the bus to leave and I, at least, didn't find the bus. So I find my other friend and we call Catherine and she's like, "Run! Run! The bus is leaving!" We, of course, start to freak out because we don't want to miss the bus. And we look over and we see our friend standing on the bus as it's leaving. Long story short, my friend was able to stop the bus driver so we could get on. We were, literally, running (for only a short while...but still) to the bus. The bus driver was a little angry with us, but at least we made the bus :-) Hahaha! What a story! Anyway, after a 3 and a half hour bus ride (at least, since we stopped in like EVERY little pueblo along the way :-)), we arrived in Malaga, Spain for a day trip. Unfortunately, it started raining while we were there, but not much. We went to this really sweet Castle there and the Alcazaba (garden thing) there. Overall, the day went well. Malaga isn't my favorite city that I've seen, but I'm glad that I was able to see it. Luckily, on the way back we had a direct route, so we arrived back in record time. And, if I do say myself, I'm getting a lot of practice sleeping on buses :-)

Lesson #31: Walking with I-pods is the BEST way to walk long distances. I saw lots of people walking around the city with I-pods, so I decided to try it, and I have to say...it's great! It totally makes the time pass quicker on the long treks to class.

Lesson #32: Pretty much nobody here walks alone. What I mean is, many times people walk with their arms linked. I have seen all times of people arm-in-arm on the sidewalks of Sevilla: couples, girlfriends, older couples (so cute!), elderly lady friends, and mother/daughter pairs (including me and my host sister and host mom). How cute!

Lesson #33: I have seen more people peeing on the street in these past 2 months than I have in my WHOLE 20 years of life! I'm serious...and I wish I wasn't. But it doesn't matter, during the day, at night, in public places, on the stairs, in a random street, whenever, wherever, there is someone peeing on the street. Que asco!

Lessons Learned

This is just a list of lessons.

Lesson #20: I don't care what anyone else says, Camelback waterbottles leak. I put my faith in the brand when my instincts told me to stick with Nalgene brand, and it let me down. Now I know! Nothing beats Nalgenes.

Lesson #21: I really missed peanut butter. Last week I received a package from my Uncle Keith with a huge jar of Jif peanut butter (my favorite brand) and 2 boxes of peanut butter Girl Scout cookies. Pretty much made my life. Thanks Uncle Keith!

Lesson #22: The power of coincidence is really amazing. For example, when I was in Granada, my friend and I were walking around the city during our free time, and who did I run into? A friend of mine who goes to Hope too, but who is studying abroad in Granada (which I didn't know until I saw her)! What a coincidence that I would happen to see her in Granada, Spain!

Lesson #23: Young Spaniards don't really listen to Spanish music (at least the ones I've talked to). Last weekend some girl was talking to one of our Spanish guides who is 22 and a student at the university here about music and he told her that he didn't think that he had any Spanish songs on his I-pod. That is so interesting to me! I mean, can they understand the lyrics, or do they just like the song?

Lesson #24: Laughing is an international language. Last week there was a slight accident with falling, sliding, glass shower doors. It's kind of a long story, but in the end, my Senora and I were laughing so hard about it! Even if I can't always understand all Spanish, I understand laughter.

Lesson #25: That I practically live on buses. So far, I have already taken about 10 buses to and from different places. By the time this semester is over, I am going to have spent seriously so much time on a bus it's not even funny. I'm definitely improving my ability to sleep on buses though, which is a blessing. The smooth rhythm of the bus just lulls me to sleep :-)

Lesson #26: Touring cities and sites with a group is kind of like being in Kindergarten again. No joke. We walk around in a clump, usually led my a tour guide (who=teacher), we bring sack lunches with us when we go (=lunch boxes), and we have to wait to go to the bathroom until we are told we can go.

Lesson #27: If you want to learn lots of languages, you should have been born in Europe. On the Morocco trip, we met a French student who is in Spain too studying Spanish. And let me tell you that this boy not only speaks French and Spanish, but English, German, and some Czech too! How crazy to know 5 languages!

Lesson #28: Bring small bills when you know you will be bartering. It's a really big hassle to try to get change. And you can't lie and say you only have 5 euro to pay for something and then whip out a 10 and ask for change. Eso no vale (that's not okay).

Lesson #29: How I take for granted the ability to drink water out of the tap. All the time at home and here in Spain and in Europe in general it is safe to drink out of the tap. But when we were in Morocco, it's not safe to do so, so we had to buy these obscenely large water bottles to drink from and use to brush our teeth. I would go broke there buying so much water!

Lesson #30: The price of make-up here is outrageous! I went to the store today to look at mascara. I don't need anything fancy, so I was looking for something cheap. The cheapest I found was 9.80 euros! That is about 11 or 12 US dollars...for a tube of mascara! I was like, forget it, I don't need it that bad! I'll just use what I have!

The Art of Bargaining...

Well, I officially failed at updating this weekly, like I had intended. So now I have a lot to catch you up on! School is school is school, so the week flies by with classes and such. Friday, the 5th, I decided to be ambitious and try to run. It felt so good to go running again in the sense of being able to run, but MAN am I out of shape! How quickly you lose all athletic ability :-) And I was definitely feeling it the next day! Hahaha! The next day, Saturday the 6th, I traveled with my program to Granada, Spain. We left super early on Saturday so we could have a lot of time to sight see in Granada. When we arrived at the hotel, we gorged ourselves on all of the delicious food at the buffet there! It's really amazing how great plain salad seems when you are used to it being drenched in oil and vinegar here to the point of ridiculousness. Needless to say, it was delicious! The rest of the day, we spent touring the Alhambra, which, according to Wikipedia, is a Christian palace and fortress complex used for a residence for the royals. It is pretty massive, so it took us the good part of the afternoon to tour it. It's really awesome because our program provides guides for our tours that are specifically for us, so they speak slowly and clearly so we can understand. I am really amazed to see how much more Spanish I can comprehend then before. After that, we went to a Teteria for tea and cookies, which were delicious!!! And after we had some free time to wander the city and buy souvenirs.


Sunday we had to wake up early to start the day off with more sightseeing in the neighborhood of Albaicin. Unfortunately, it rained on us during most of the day, but at least not hard and it wasn't cold. It was really cool because we were able to see the tombs of Isabella and Ferdinand, Los Reyes Catolicos, who were VERY important rulers in Spain. I am learning about them in like 3 of my classes, so to actually see what you are learning about makes it WAY cooler. Normally, I find history pretty boring, but I was so intrigued by what I was seeing and hearing from our guide. After a little more free time, we had to board the bus again to head back to Sevilla. It was an awesome weekend!


Last week, during the week, I had more class. My weeks here usually consist of class, lots of walking, getting cafe (coffee) with my friends, reading for class, and going to bible study on Tuesdays. Pretty much the same each week. One thing I realized that week was how frustrated I was at myself for my lack of confidence in my Spanish. I have this fear of speaking Spanish with native speakers because I don't want to look stupid in front of them. It's like this wall that I just can't seem to get over and it's so frustrating!!! Especially because all of the Spaniards I have ever talked to are so nice and patient when you are trying to talk to them and they know that you are learning. So, really, I have nothing to worry about...but I still do. Ughh!!!!! So, from now on, I am really trying to get over that hurdle because it's the only way that I'm going to learn.


Moving on, this past weekend (12th-14th) I went to Morocco with a student travel agency. We even got to take a ferry to get there!! That was really sweet. It was really cool, also,to travel with this group because we had the opportunity to meet and talk with other international students who are studying Spanish too. And what makes it even more unique is that we communicated in Spanish, which was the only common language of all 15 nationalities represented on the trip. It was kind of a long ride to get there, but it was worth it. This was the first trip that I had to cross a country border (because we entered Africa through Ceuta, which is on the continent of Africa, but is part of Spain), so that was pretty exciting to see how that system works. We immediately started sightseeing, but mainly on the bus. That would be one of my complaints about the trip was that we spent a LOT of time on the coach buses, but I guess that's to be expected because we visited 3 cities (Chefchaouen, Tetuan, and Tangier) in Morocco in about 3 days. It was really interesting though to see a lot of the Moroccan countryside in between the cities. Morocco is an absolutely beautiful country, that's for sure, but I couldn't live there. The style of life there is completely different from what I am accustomed to, so it would take a long time for me to adjust. And I kept forgetting that we were in Africa, so of course things are going to be different! We were able to wander around in the cities to shop and let me tell you, how different of a shopping atmosphere it is there! This is where the name of the blog post comes in. All prices of souvenirs are negotiated. This means that the seller tells you some ridiculous starting price (What?! I'm not paying 20 euro for that scarf!), you tell him no thanks, he lowers the price, again you try to walk away, he asks you how much you have, you lie and tell him something low like 5 or 10, he thinks it over...and accepts! Pretty much this is how it's done. It's a little annoying though because you can't even look without them hounding you to buy something. So then, before you have even decided you really want the item, the seller bargains with you and before you know it, you have bought something you didn't even really want in the first place! Also, if you end up declining an offer, the salesman WILL FOLLOW YOU!!! Out of the store, down the street, at another store, wherever. It's a little annoying. Anyway, I did purchase some cool gifts while in Morocco and I got a Henna tattoo while I was there too! It's pretty cool, but it's fading fast due to the INSANE amount of times that I wash my hands during the day. Another cool thing we had the chance to do was...pause...ride CAMELS!!! I was so excited! Even though we basically rode them in a circle for like 5 minutes in a parking lot, it was sweet. I felt kind of bad for the poor camels though because they have to spend all day getting up and down and walking in a circle. They were pretty cute though :-)


On Sunday we headed back to Sevilla. When I got back home, my Senora's oldest daughter, her 2 granddaughters (ages 3 and 7), and her son's girlfriend were all over at my house. It was a little overwhelming to come home to a full house after a weekend away, but whatever. Right when I get inside my Senora introduces her granddaughters to me. At first they were shy, but soon they wanted to be with me 24/7. They were awfully cute! They showed me their sticker collection (which included Hannah Montana, Winnie the Pooh, High School Musical, and others), I let them listen to Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers on my I-pod, they put stickers on the back of my phone to decorate it (I let them...my phone is ugly anyway), and the oldest gave me her autograph to keep (it's precious...especially since she spelled my name Eren :-)). I'm definitely not used to being around kids so young for such a long time, because I was going a little crazy with everyone in our apartment. I still don't know where everyone slept on Monday night! On another topic, the weather this week has been absolutely FANTASTIC! It's been sunny and warm. Today it even reached about 72 F, but you would never guess because the Sevillan people still are wearing sweaters and warm jackets. I, however, was rocking a short-sleeved shirt :-) Unfortunately though, today was day 1 of my mid-term exams. Booooooo. So not fun, but I guess it's a fact of life. More exams to come next week too. Well, I think that's all for now (which is quite a lot of information to read). Because this is already so long, I am going to post another entry with the lessons :-)

Parlez-Vous Francais?

Two words: Awesome weekend. Our program never has classes on Fridays and we had Monday (Feb. 1st) off school, so my friend and I decided to travel to someplace where we wanted to spend a lot of time at due to the extended vacation. And I'm sure you can guess from the title of this where we decided to go :-) Our first flight left Sevilla around 10:30 pm on Thursday night and we arrived at the Barcelona airport a little after midnight. Since our next flight to Paris wasn't until 6 in the morning, we definitely slept in the airport. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't too bad. I'm sure that I didn't get that much sleep, but we definitely weren't the only ones sleeping. It's kind of crazy, because I don't think that I would be doing weird things, like sleeping in the airport, in the States. But hey! It's all in the name of cheap travel, so it's worth it :-) When we finally got to Paris on Friday, we had about half the day to go sightseeing. We headed to see the Sacre-Coeur. I'm not sure what exactly it is, but it's gorgeous. It is set on a hill, so there is a great view of the city too. Then we headed over to see some of the art and artifacts at the Louvre. It is a little overwhelming because the museum is so HUGE and there are like a bizillion things there to see, but we didn't stay very long. We were able to see some really cool things like the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and the Code of Hammurabi, which are all things that we learn about in school, but you never know how cool they are until you see them in person. After, we found a cute little place to eat dinner. Lucky for us, the waiter spoke English, so we had no trouble ordering. I even tried Escargot (sp?)! My friend ordered it, but I tried it too. It wasn't bad tasting, but it has kind of a rubbery texture to it.

The next morning we woke up REALLY early to head to Versaille for the day. The weather was gorgeous, so we were able to walk around the massive palace at Versaille all day. You can seriously spend forever touring the multiple buildings of the palace and discovering the many fountains in the expansive gardens. Let's just say that I want to live there because it's so pretty. When we got back to Paris, we went out to eat at another cute restaurant. This time, I made a complete fool of myself because I was talking to the waiter (in English) and he gave me change, and I meant to say, "It's fine," to let him know that I didn't need my change, but instead, I started speaking to him in Spanish! Oh goodness! What was funnier was that he started speaking back to us in Spanish. What a contradiction we were: Americans...speaking Spanish..in France. Hahaha!

We had another early morning the next day so that we could see more of the city. Our first stop of the day was the Museum de Orsay, which houses a lot of contemporary art. Here we saw many works by Van Gogh, Monet, and Degas. This style of art is more my style, so I really enjoyed this museum. From there, we walked to the Centre Pompidou, which is called the inside-out building because all of the pipes and such are on the outside. From there, we found this bakery that had the most delicious-looking pastries, so of course, we HAD to buy something. We both ate beignet nutellas, which were fabulous. Unfortunately, it rained most of the day and it was cold and windy, but we still walked around to see more sights. We made our way to the Arc de Triomphe, and from there went to the most touristy thing to see in Paris...the Eiffel Tower!!! It was awesome because the weather cleared a bit, so we were able to get some really great pics of it. We went up to the second floor, which was plenty high enough in my opinion. You hear about the Eiffel Tower, but it is really so much prettier and cooler when you see it in person, and it was absolutely gorgeous to see it at night, which was when we went.

Waking up on Monday was a little sad because we knew that we would be leaving soon, but we still had some things that we wanted to see. First on the list was the Pantheon, followed by a tour of Notre Dame, which was breathtakingly beautiful. It's really moving to have the chance to visit and pray in such a majestic and historic cathedral, just like people have been doing for decades. The next tour of the day was of the super cool Opera house. How pretty the building is! And of course, now I want to watch "The Phantom of the Opera" because I will appreciate it so much more now. That basically concludes our tour of Paris. Though we were constantly on the go and my feet were perpetually sore, I wouldn't have it any other way, because we were able to visit so many cool and beautiful buildings/things in Paris. The city is absolutely amazing.

Getting home from Paris was quite a complicated task, though! I won't go into details, but let's just say that it involved a metro ride, 4 bus rides, a taxi ride, two flights, and switching airports in Barcelona! Hahaha!

Lesson #16: I have never really considered them before, but I learned about the fabulousness of student discounts! For example, a ticket to get into all of the buildings at the Palace of Versaille and the audio tour costs 18 euro, but because we are students of the European Union, we got in for FREE!!! How awesome!

Lesson #17: Eating crepes, though they taste delicious, is a SERIOUSLY messy task! The last day I bought a Nutella crepe from a little place on the street. It was so good, but the Nutella oozes everywhere! I'm pretty sure some of the people that passed us were laughing becuase I had Nutella all over my faces and hands :-)

Lesson #18: It's true. French people really do eat baguettes :-) We would know, we basically ate fresh baguettes and fruit for lunch every day too.

Lesson #19: Always keep your metro ticket handy! Paris is a big city, so we took the metro a lot, and I was in the bad habit of stuffing the used metro tikets in my back pocket of my jeans, in my coat pocket, or in my purse, so I had a lot of used tickets. One day, the metro "cops" came around asking random people for their tickets and they happened to get on our metro, in our car, to ask us! And here I am, scrambling to find which ticket that I had just used. I gave the lady 2 wrong tickets before I found the right one. How embarassing! I was seriously freaking out too because I knew I had it and I was like, "I don't want to go to French jail!" Hahahaha! But I would never overreact or be dramatic :-)