Okay, I'm still here...

Today I took one last walk around Sevilla to see my favorite places before leaving. I went to the Plaza de España, the Parque María Luísa, my university, the Cathedral, and one of my favorite plazas with a delicious ice cream place.

The other day, I was thinking about how much I miss the Renaissance Faire. Ironically, there was a "Medieval Market" in the park today on my way home. There were vendors in costume, large birds of prey, little donkeys, and lots of adorable little booths selling all sorts of neat things.

Only 11 1/2 hours until my flight to Madrid and Marc! I just realized that I'm now a college senior. How odd.

Pictures:
1) Avenida de la Constitución
2) the moat next to my school (yes, my school has a moat)
3-4) Plaza de España
5-12) surprise Medieval Market!

Adios, Sevilla

I just finished my last final exam! I'm now finished with my life as a student in Sevilla. I felt pretty good about all my finals, I think I'll manage A's and B's in each class depending on how the grades transfer from the Spanish system to the American system. I now have the rest of today and all day tomorrow to pack and say my goodbyes to my host family. I'll miss Sevilla, but it's hard to be sad when I know I'll be with Marc in two days beginning one of the most amazing trips of my life. I'm looking forward to the weeks ahead.

Spanish goodbyes

This week I've been having my final goodbyes with some people in Spain. Monday night was our goodbye dinner, and I got to spend a couple of hours with all the people who run Geranios. It was very hard to say goodbye to María José. She told me to let her know next time I was in Spain. We got pictures with everyone and parted ways, and the fact that I'm leaving Spain is becoming more real as my last wind winds up.

Yesterday was my last day working with Miriam. We exchanged many hugs at the end before she left. She got me a necklace as a going-away gift, which was incredibly sweet of her. She also told me that I'd been a very good teacher and friend to her this semester. I told her she had been the same to me. I'm going to miss her! We have each other's email addresses, so hopefully she'll be able to let me know if she's ever in the U.S.

I'm going to a secondhand shop in two days to try and sell my internet router, so I will be without internet for a little while before leaving. I can't believe I'm almost done!

Pictures:
1) Geranios group
2) María José and Nuria, my two Geranios teachers
3) Mercedes and Miriam
4) host brother Alex appropriately wearing one of his heavy metal shirts (all my little brothers are taller than me)

Weekend in Cádiz

The Geranios program took us to Cádiz Saturday through Sunday. I sat next to my program director, María José, on the train ride there, and we spent the entire time conversing in Spanish. I realize that my Spanish has come a long way since I got here, and María José agreed. I feel much more comfortable conversing now, especially with people I know about topics that I understand. When someone I know starts talking to me and I don't already know what general topic they're talking about, I usually need them to repeat themselves to understand what they said. María José and I had a very nice conversation. She and her husband are actually coming to visit Pitzer while I'm touring Europe with Marc. I recommended some things for them to do while in Claremont. She now wants to make a reservation at my favorite jazz and fondue lounge!

We got into Cádiz, checked into our hotel (another four star, very nice), and then walked around the city. We visited the cathedral, because you can never see too many cathedrals in Spain. Near the cathedral, we saw an incredible market. Vendors set up little tents and sell fresh fruits, vegetables, meat, bread, and fish. The fish market is particularly impressive, since Cádiz is practically an island and has many fish surrounding it. The market was very crowded, and apparently we were there during one of the less busy hours. The vendors called out to us and tried to get us to buy their products. Even though I don't know how to fix up a raw fish and had no kitchen to use, it was quite tempting.

After wandering through the market, we made our way through the tiny alleyways to the Mudeum of Cádiz. We looked at some art and some pottery, but the exhibit that stood out the most was the marionettes. The third floor was filled with little puppet theaters, and marionettes were set up in each of the little scenes. It was a little eerie, and definitely my favorite display.

We had spots of rain throughout most of our afternoon tour, but the forceful wind was what really sent us home in a hurry. After getting back to the hotel, I waited for the sun to come out before venturing out into the town. The weather improved quickly, and I decided to go for a walk around the coast of Cádiz to see what else the town had to offer. I walked all the way down the beach to the opposite end of town. On the far end of town, there was a little island-building made of stone. It had a stone pathway cutting through the ocean and leading up to it, I'll post a picture. I walked out to the island, and at one point, a big wave crashed against the walkway and splashed all the pedestrians. The blast of cold ocean water against my back was quite a shock. Luckily, the sun had decided to stick around and I dried off quickly.

Continuing along the beach, I passed an outdoor art exhibit and a marina with many, many little boats. I also found the city gardens. In the park, I saw what I thought was a bride in a white dress, but thought she looked a little young to be getting married. Perhaps six, seven, or eight. Apparently it's communion season for the Catholics, and I soon came across many more little white-clad girls.

Geranios provided all our meals for us on the trip. After my day of exploring the city, I came back to the hotel and had a delicious three-course meal. I think we were all fiarly stuffed by the end of the night. The bountiful breakfast buffet was included with our hotel, and for lunch the next day, we also had a delicious three-course meal. As if that wasn't enough food for one weekend, tonight is our goodbye dinner, which I'm sure will also be humongous and delicious.

I spent most of our remaining time on Sunday on the beach right behind out hotel. The water in Cádiz is much warmer than the water in Lagos, and I actually was tempted to go in. I didn't bother wearing a swimsuit, since we had already checked out of our rooms, so I just waded in up to my knees and tried to keep my shorts above the water. María José, a fan of natural remedies, said the salt water probably helped all the bug bites I had. I think I made it up to 16 bites. One I am guessing was from a spider, because it got very large and very red. All the bites are healing now, which is a relief. I am now very paranoid about bugs in my room and am keeping the window closed. Anyway, I had a nice, relaxing weekend, and a great break before finals week.

I had my first two finals today, and I think both of them went very well. I have another one tomorrow, my last one Thursday, and then I am done. It's hard to believe I'll be leaving this Saturday. I'm excited to see Marc and travel this weekend, and I'm excited about coming home and seeing my family and friends, but I'll also miss a lot of things about Sevilla. I'm glad that after a slow start, I've reached a point where I feel like I have connections here, and I'm feeling a lot more comfortable with the language.

Pictures:
1-2) inside the cathedral
3-5) the market
6) the beach right behind our hotel
7) the wall between the town center and the reast of the mainland
8) someone made a Jesus sand creation
9) little boats lining the horizon
10) waterfalls in the gardens at the far end of town
11) town theater
12) the park across the street from our hotel

It's Too Darn Hot

We've broken the 90s. We get some relief at night when it gets down into the 70s. I'm glad I leave Sevilla before it gets too much hotter. I really don't mind the heat that much, it's the bugs that get me. Little tiny black bugs are flying around everywhere, and I keep finding them on me. They stick to sweat, too, which is a little bit gross. Like almost every building in Sevilla, mine doesn't have air conditioning. I leave my window open at night to keep my room from getting too stuffy, but we don't have screens. Two nights ago I got four bug bites, all on my left arm. Today I found four more, two on the left hand and two on the right. I have eight itchy bug bites. Yes, Mum, I'm putting Neosporin on them periodically.

Tomorrow is my last day of regular classes. I give my presentation on Jews in Spain tomorrow, I turn in my seminar portfolio Friday, then all I have to do is study for finals. This weekend we're going to Cádiz with the Geranios program. Cádiz is famous for it's beautiful beaches. I'll bring some study materials with me so I have something to do while sitting on the beach.

I'm very, very excited about seeing Marc in just under a week and a half. I think that time is going to go by very quickly. I've done all my Pitzer essays and finished just about everything I need to do before I leave that I can do at this point. (If anybody knows someone who needs a Spanish cell phone or internet router, let me know, I'm hoping to sell them before I leave.) We've got most of our rough plans for Madrid, Paris, Venice, Florence, and Rome, and I know we're going to have an amazing time. Blog posts may be less frequent during the two weeks after I leave Sevilla.

Next Tuesday is my last day seeing Miriam, the Spanish girl I volunteer with. I've had a really fun time with her this semester, and we plan on keeping in touch through email after I leave. She doesn't want me to go and says she'll miss me, which is very sweet. I'm going to miss her too. I recently started teaching her to play a very fun card game called SET (thanks to a wonderful Hanukkah present from Marc's parents), and she's getting better at it every week. I've enjoyed my time with her a lot, I'm glad I had the opportunity to do some volunteering in Spain.

Lagos, Portugal

I'm back in Spain! I had a great time in Portugal, I'm glad I went. I'm not too fond of the way the DiscoverSevilla program focuses its energy on hard partying, but I did meet a couple of girls who were more like me and interested in seeing Lagos while sober. Lagos is a beautiful town with stretches of beaches and rocky cliffs along the coast. I took over 500 pictures in 2 days, if that gives you any idea of how pretty Lagos is.

We stayed in apartments at a 4-star hotel. Each had a bedroom, a bathroom, and a living room with a fully-equipped kitchenette. My roommates and I didn't do any cooking, but we utilized the fridge and microwave and silverware plenty. The hotel was beautiful, but the layout was pretty confusing. My room was pretty easy to find, but some of the others were at the end of mazes. All the doors were labeled emergency exit, and many of them didn't actually lead to an exit from the building. I hope that hotel never catches fire, the guests in the more isolated parts of the hotel could get lost trying to find a way out.

Our first night there, DiscoverSevilla had a party for us at a bar/club. There was a lot of dancing, and at one point the bartenders lit the bar on fire. I had a nice time, but I think I was one of the first people to leave, along with Natalie, Alex, and Stephanie, my group of level-headed ladies. (I wish I'd met these girls earlier, they're wonderful people.) On our way out, we saw two other girls from our program also trying to make it back to the hotel. One was fairly drunk, the other was downright plastered. We tried to help the more sober girl escort her friend safely back. Then yet another drunk friend of hers emerged from the bar, and that one was crying. Natalie and Stephanie went to help the friend attend to the new drunk girl, while Alex and I took over the first one. We walked her back to the hotel. We had to support her while she walked, she was very wobbly and wearing heels. I asked her lots of questions and tried to keep her talking and distracted enough to keep from going back to the bar, which she tried to do several times. Once we finally got back to the hotel, it took us about 15 minutes to find her room in the maze. Alex and I came in with her to make sure she was okay before leaving. Apparently she and her roommates had a party of their own before going out, there were four empty bottles of hard alcohol in the living room. The other roommates came back, so Alex and I left and went to bed. My other nights were, thankfully, much less eventful.

The hotel provided the most delicious breakfast buffets. In Spain, eggs are unheard of, everyone eats toast for breakfast. Our hotel had eggs, bacon, sausag, fruit (including oranges as big as grapefruits), meat, cheese, cereal, and a wonderful selection of delicious breads and rolls. I used the breakfast buffet to make my lunch sandwich and grabbed some extra fruit for the day, whih probably saved me a good amount of money on lunches.

Since it was our first full day in Lagos, my roommates and I went to the beach. Modesty is a very different concept in Lagos, apparently. I had never seen (female) topless sunbathers in public until this weekend. Up until my hike the following day which led me to places with views of some of the more secluded beaches, I had never seen a nude beach either. It was pretty shocking. The roommates wanted to go take a walk along the beach and they wanted me to stay behind and watch all our things. I wasn't too excited about sitting on a beach alone with nothing to do, but they told me they'd "be right back," so I waited. Apparently, "be right back" means two hours. I learned that my roommates were not the best people to go on excursions with after that.

That night, DiscoverSevilla took us to Cabo San Vicente, which was once believed to be the end of the world. The edge of Cabo San Vicente is made of these huge cliffs towering over the ocean. When you look out toward the horizon, the water stretches as far as the eye can see. We watched the sunset from the cliffs, it was beautiful.

On our last full day in Lagos, I decided to take a hike by myself over to the lighthouse at the far corner of the town. I planned on following the main road, but I instead found some very appealing side trails, so I took those instead. I found some gorgeous cliffs, beaches, and views I would not have seen otherwise. What could have been a 30 minute walk was instead 2 hours. I didn't mind at all. I finally made it over to the lighthouse, and from the cliffs I could see all the beaches on the east side of Lagos. I could also see up part of the west side. I hiked all the way to the bottom of the cliffs to take some pictures of the rocky caves, then made a grueling hike back up. I made it all the way around to the other side of the lighthouse and was wrapping up my hike when my camera stopped working. The lens wouldn't come out when I turned it on, and it automatically shut itself down whenever I tried to start it up. To relieve the suspense and make a long story short, it magically started working again two days later, after I got back to Sevilla. Luckily, I'd already taken almost all of the pictures I could have wanted in Portugal. I'm guessing the wind and sand in the windy and sandy lighthouse area caused the problem, and it seems fixed now. I turn on my camera every once in awhile to make sure it still works, and it's doing just fine. Hurray!

That night, I hung out with Natalie, Alex, and Stephanie. We went out for Chinese food for dinner, which I haven't had since I was at home. It was delicious, and very cheap when split between the four of us. Natalie invited us to her apartment in Sevilla next weekend for dinner and a movie, so hopefully I'll get to hang out with this group again soon.

The next day was our last day, so it was pretty relaxed. I hung out with Stephanie while Natalie and Alex went to take surfing lessons, and we walked around the town center. Stephanie bought t-shirts from the Rising Cock hostel for some friends, and we took the walk over to the lighthouse so that she could see the view. At some point during that walk, my water bottle leaked in my purse and onto my iPod and camera. The camera screen fogged up for awhile and I was worried that it was broken for good, but everything turned out okay. Both still work, and they function just fine. Another relief.

Pictures:
1) one of many beaches near our hotel
2) the water was very clear that day
3) our first dinner in Lagos
4) one of the streets in the center
5) the main plaza
6-8) Cabo San Vicente, end of the world (it was VERY cold and windy)
9-15) gorgeous views of the coast from my long hike