Fam is coming!

So tomorrow my parents and little sis are coming to Spain! So exciting! I haven't uploaded my pics from Malaga, but I will soon. Malaga was fun because I was with all my friends, and we ate some delicious food, but the people there were weird. Just because I am an American trying to learn Spanish doesn't mean I want to talk to you, creepy Spanish guy. But it was good to get out and travel and see some more of the South of Spain.

Yesterday I spent most of the day in Madrid walking around, and I got my nose pierced! I've wanted it for a while, so I'm glad I finally did it! It will be the best souvenir from Spain for myself. Here are a few pics from Malaga I stole from other people!

Entrega de diplomas

The time has now come-classes at Alcalingua are over! We had a nice little breakfast with some of our teachers, and then we had a cute diploma ceremony at the old universidad. The diplomas had our grade for the three classes averaged out- and I got a 9/10! Not too shabby. I thought I would post a few photos here if you care to see what my teachers looked like. After we got our diplomas we went outside to take pics with our teachers and classmates.

I'm going to Malaga with some girls tomorrow-bright and early! We will be there until Monday morning. I'm excited to explore a new city and have some more warm weather. Malaga is in the southern part of Spain-Andalucia and is a beach town! I can't wait to see the Mediterranean and perfect my Andalusian accent.

It's been really sunny and warm here, and I hope the weather is here to stay! The best thing ever is just sitting outside enjoying a tapa with some friends and loving the warmth and I hope to do that a lot this weekend. The weather says cloudy- but I have faith in the sun.

I need to go to bed to get to my autobus in the morning. 'sta Luego!

Me gustan los long weekends

Last week was our last week for real classes at Alcalingua, so the week was largely spent doing oral exams, reviewing for tests, and taking our final exams. None of them were too hard, and I ended up doing pretty well on both exams. To celebrate, a few of us went out for tapas after class on calle mayor.

Friday I took it pretty easy, and on Saturday I met up with Meg and her friend Amanda and showed them around Madrid! It was cool to see one of my best friends from home here in Spain! We went to El Prado, Starbucks, Sol, Plaza Mayor, El Palacio and Plaza de Espana. It was a really nice day to walk around and I'm glad I got to show them around a bit. After I came back and ate, I returned to Madrid to go to a HUGE discoteca called Kapital. It was so ridiculously nice inside and it reminded me of walking into a really classy prom. There were 6 or so floors and even more dance floors. Everyone was really friendly and we met a lot of cool people to talk to. We left at around 6 to get the morning train back to Alcala, and I took a little nap on the train. My feet were killing me so I took a taxi home and went back to bed right away. I slept for the better part of Sunday.

It was Eugenia's, a girl in my classes, birthday party so a few of us walked to her apartment to celebrate with her. Her and her roomies are all Chinese, and they made some delicious food for us! Definitely the best dumplings I've ever had. It was so nice! Everyone was speaking a hodge podge of languages, but we communicate surprisingly well. I got back at around 10, chatted with my fam and some friends, and got really excited that every weekend from now on is a four day weekend! WOOT.

I went to class today, even though we had nothing to go over. We got back our exams and played Taboo in Spanish. My prof Laura caught me off guard by telling me it was a pleasure for her to read my critique of the book we read. Que extrano!

It's finally getting warmer here, and I wish I wasn't dying of a second-hand smoke cough thanks to the great people of Spain b/c I wanted to go for a run. Here are some pics from when Meg and I went into Madrid. More will probably follow.

Cordoba y Sevilla segundo parte

So last Friday, we left from Madrid at 8:30 AM and took the Ave train to Cordoba. The AVE was really cool and there was barely anyone in our car so we got to all spread out. It only took a little over an hour, and we had a bus waiting for us to take us to Al-Zahara, a really old Arab city that used to be the capitol of Andalucia, which back then was basically all of Spain. It was a bit rainy and foggy, but it added a nice effect to the creepy-ish ruins. Antonio, our guide was really good and made sure to speak clearly b/c the average Andalucian tends to leave out random syllables.

After walking around and trying to imagine how huge the city used to be, we saw a movie in the adjacent museum which reconstructed the city digitally. It was actually pretty interesting. We took a bus back into the main city of Cordoba and had some free time where we ate our bagged lunches and got some delicious gellati ice cream. Then we went with Antonio to the La Mequita, which is a giant church Spaniards made from an old Mosque. It had a lot of empty space where the people used to pray on floor, but then they converted the middle section into a regular Catholic Cathedral.

We got back on the train to Sevilla, which was late, and took the 2.5 hour ride. When we got there, we checked into the hotel and walked to dinner. This dinner was the best dinner I have had in recent memory. It was friday, so I only ate fish, but it didn't matter. We had fried fish, veggies, shrimp, bottomless bread, and some other delicious things. After the huge meal and long day I went right to sleep.

We got up early, had breakfast and took the bus into the historic center of Sevilla. We had a new guide, Francisco who Merce left us with. It was raining, but it wasn't too cold to walk around. We went to Alcazar which is a funcitoning royal palace with moorish architecture and beautiful gardens. Fran talked our ears off, but it was a beautiful place to see and get to explore.

We then headed off to the Cathedral, which is by volume the largest in Europe. There are over a hundred little chapels off to the side, Columbus's tumb, and a huge steeple bell tower. This also used to be a mosque, and then they added onto it when all the Arabs were forced to leave Spain. We climbed up the huge tower to see the view and take some photos, and left for lunch. We went with Merce to get some free paella at this little bar we barely fit into, and then to another tapa place where I had some local tomato soup I didn't care for.

After that, we were left to our own devices, so we split up into a few groups and explored the city and bought some souvenirs. We made our way back to the hotel, got some classy alcohol with the hopes of "botelloning" with later and took a nap. I woke up at around 9 and got ready for dinner. We ended up going to this restaurant where I got some more really good fried fish, and we watched the Real Madrid-Sevilla game on the TV there. Also, they had whole, intact, feathered DEAD birds in the freezer along side the wines. We expressed our interest/concern to our waiter who gladly let me hold/pet one. We headed back to the nearby hotel and kind of relaxed and made drinks before we went out. Some people decided to not even attempt to go out, so four of us had the front desk guy get us a taxi to where we heard was good to go. Calle Beatriz is where all the college kids go out, and we were not disappointing. We saw a bunch of Americans, even people other girls knew from UMD. We basically just went between a few places and met a lot of friendly Spaniards.

Sunday, we were scheduled to go with Merce to the museum of bellas artes. We took the weirdest route to get there, and took this cool tram that cruises down the middle of the street. We also stopped in a random chapel for reasons no one understood. At least I can say I went into a church on Sunday. The museum was pretty cool, and it used to be an old convent.

We were all starving around 2 and we went to another fabulous restaurant with WHAT? more fried food! It was so wrong it was right. The sangria could have tastes less like children's cough medicine but what do I know? We got a bunch of plates to share so we all tried a lot of new things. YUM.

After that we got our bags and headed back to the train station. This time we went straight from Sevilla to Madrid. It went pretty fast, and I was home around 10:30.

That was my weekend! A lot of moving around but so neat and beautiful! I want to go back to Sevilla, it is muy bonita and everyone is friendly. We had a good time trying to perfect the Andalucia accent...no pa'na??

Now its Wednesday, and I still need to load my fotos! On Tuesday in dance class we learned "reggatone" dance which basically was just learning new ways to shake your booty. But still fun. In a little bit I am going to a flamenco show, even though I have a ton of homework and two tests on Friday. Hence, me taking the time to write a lengthy blog entry. OH and Megan is coming on Friday! WOO.

Select fotos will be arriving soon. 'sta luego

Cordoba y Sevilla

This weekend was Cordoba and Sevilla-SO pretty. I loved Sevilla and really hope I get to go back sometime in my life. It rained a lot over the weekend, but it didn't dampen our plans too much. The pictures, from bottom up are the the ruins of Al-Zahara in Cordoba, a statue of some really important Arab guy in Cordoba, la plaza de america in sevilla, la catedral in Cordoba, and the catedral in sevilla. The one in Sevilla is one of the biggest in the world, and both of the Cathedrals were converted from mosques, so they had a cool mix of architecture.

I just wanted to post a few pics here, but will write more about our trip tomorrow, and put up some of my own photos, b/c these are all from other people's collections. I also got some cool souvenirs from Sevilla I'm pretty happy with, and we checked out the nightlife a bit on Saturday night and even saw some people who also went to UMD.

We have our final exams on friday for class, and I did my oral section of my conversation exam today b/c my teacher "randomly" selected me to go second out of everyone. I need to do some work, but will write more tomorrow! Hasta manana mananita.

Retiro

I forgot to mention we went to el parque del retiro too...so here are some pics! it is basically Madrid's version of Central Park. Even though it was kind of cold, it was still cool. There is a glass palace and a lake where people can rent little paddle boats! So cute! I will definitely return here when the weather is warmer.

I'm leaving for Sevilla tomorrow so I will update soon with some stories from Andalucia.

"Sick" week

See what I did with the title there? This week I was both sick (ill) and had a lot of fun (a sick time).

Anyways, Monday I woke up with the worst sore throat so I decided I probably had strep. I had to take a midterm first thing in the morning, so I went to class, took the test, and then went to the doctor. I wasn't really sure how it was going to work here or where it was, but I heard it was really easy to do and close to school. I followed my nose and found the doctor's office, where I was greeted by a friendly nurse who could tell right away I was foreign and had no idea what I was doing. She shuffled me into the office where I saw the doctor and told him my name and address. He wrote it down on one of those big yellow pads of paper and didn't bother checking any kind of ID. I told him what hurt, and the nurse stayed with me because I don't think she was convinced I could understand Spanish.

They started with the most basic questions like, do you eat well? and do you drink enough water? The doctor then looked in my ears and mouth and said I had an infection. He prescribed me some antibiotics and I was on my way. It was all very painless. I left, filled my prescription, and went back home to sleep.

The next few days were uneventful because I wasn't feeling well, but my throat feels a lot better now. The weekend was pretty eventful, we went to Madrid for a few hours after class on Friday because it was so nice out, but then I started to feel sick and had to go back and went to bed. Luckily I felt better the next day, so I went to the Residencia with Kristin and Krissie to get our midterm for our UMD class done. We hung out there for a while, and I hung out with my familia for a while because I was planning on getting up early the next morning.

Sunday, we went to Toledo. We took the Ave from Madrid which was a nice ride. We didn't have much of a game plan, so we basically walked around and looked at the amazing views and buildings that were 500 years old. We also got a great workout going up and down all the hills. We didn't stay that long because the train schedule was kind of weird. We barely made the train back, but it all worked out in the end. The day was super sunny and beautiful, so Hannah and I walked around Madrid with the intention of going to El Prado, which is free on Sundays, but there was a huge line so we peace out and just strolled through the street vendors and looked around. We headed back to Alcala for Celia's birthday party. She's a Chinese girl who is in my classes at Alcalingua and lives with a few other girls from various countries who are also in our classes.

The party was fun, and there was soo much good food! She also has the cutest little dog ever named little cherry! Everyone was really nice, and most people there I knew from school. We all basically spoke Spanish to each other the whole time so we were getting good practice in too! We left around ten that night and I went back to my casa for the first time since 9 that morning. It was a good time and a good weekend!

Now its Monday and I have a lot of work to do for my classes, but I am also excited because we are going to Sevilla on Friday! Its already been 2 months here which seems crazy!

Here are some photos from Toledo and Celia's party