08 March 2010

February 18, 2010

I'm going to try to write a quick update. Things are moving very quickly now, because from now on I don't think I'm going to be home for an entire weekend until mid-May when I have final exams. I wrote out my entire itinerary for while I'm here, and right now it looks like this:

Jan. 18-20: Madrid, Spain (study abroad orientation and sight seeing)
Jan. 21: Toledo, Spain (arrival in Seville, Spain to semester residence in the evening)
Feb. 12-13: Cadiz, Spain (beach with study abroad group and Carnaval with friends)
Feb. 19-20: Granada, Spain (sight seeing with study abroad group)
Feb. 25-Mar. 1: London, England (sight seeing with a friend)
Mar. 6: Mulva, Spain (hiking with study abroad group)
Mar. 12-14: Extremadura, Spain (sight seeing with study abroad group)
Mar. 19-21: Berlin, Germany (to visit Nathalie, my friend from high school who studied in Lincoln!)
Mar. 26-28: Barcelona, Spain (sight seeing with a friend!)
Mar. 29-30: Dublin, Ireland (sight seeing with a friend!)
Mar. 31-Apr. 1: Paris, France (sight seeing with friends!)
Apr. 2-4: Barcelona, Spain (sight seeing and Barcelona futbol game with friends!)
Apr. 9-12: Fez, Morocco (sight seeing with study abroad group)
Apr. 17-18: Venice, Italy (sight seeing with friends!)
Apr. 19-20: Rome, Italy (sight seeing with friends!)
Apr. 21-22: Florence, Italy (sight seeing with friends!)
Apr. 30-May 2: Lisbon, Portugal (sight seeing with Mama, Meredith, and a friend!)
May 7: Donana, Spain (sight seeing with study abroad group)

Obviously the trip I was hoping to go on to Egypt didn't work out, but that's alright. I would love to get to Poland, Austria, Amsterdam, Prague, and Greece as well but I will have to wait until later on in life to get to all of those places. That's alright, because by the time I'm through with this trip I will have been to 5 of 7 continents which means that I only have to get to South America and Antarctica to meet one of my life goals (traveling to all 7 continents). I have the entire rest of my life to travel around the world!

In the past couple of weeks I have been mostly working on school, but have also spent some time getting to know Seville better. I also got a chance to go to Cadiz, Spain this past weekend twice. One time was on Friday and it was with my study abroad program. First we went to a winery, had a tour, and did a wine tasting of various Sherrys (I don't know how to spell that, so I'll spell it like my mom's name). Then we went into the city of Cadiz, which seemed nice except that it was very cold and rainy that particular day (apparently it's very unseasonal for it to be so cold and rainy here, but it's almost all I've experienced thus far). We were supposed to go to the beach and have a nice day on the shore, but it was so cold and rainy that we only spent a few minutes there. Then we didn't really know where to go but had a few hours left in the city so we explored various candy shops (for some reason there were quite a few candy shops) and got some coffee/hot chocolate. All in all, it was alright but I think I would've enjoyed it a lot more if the weather had cooperated. On Saturday, we left for Cadiz around 8 pm to go to Carnaval, which I can only describe as something like Halloween on steroids. There were about 350,000 people in the streets of Cadiz, all dressed in costumes of every variety and all having a great time. People were everywhere! It was a lot of fun to see all of the different costumes (some groups of people dressed as fun things, like Catholic priests and nuns with a pope, families of chickens, three guys dressed as pop singer Beyonce and her back-up singers - they even did the song and dance to her single "All the Single Ladies", it was very funny!) There was a stage with different music going on, which was cool as well. We got back to Seville around 5 am and slept for most of Sunday.

Because Sunday was Valentine's Day, all of the girls in my residencia put together a "Secret Cupid" event in which we each picked one name out of a hat and got them a Valentine's gift for 7 Euro or less. Before we did the gift exchange, we all went out to dinner and included the guys we live with and two other people who come over to our residencia quite often. We ate at a really good Italian restaurant, and I had pizza for the first time here. Everyone wrote a little funny poem for the person they were Secret Cupid to, which we each read out loud before we opened our gifts. The gifts were great. I got three chocolate bars and a little scarf! It was a good time.

I don't remember too many exciting things happening week before last, so there must not have been too much going on besides school and exploring Seville with friends. But this weekend our group is going to Granada, which will apparently be really nice but also very cold. I'm excited to see it, though, as well as to get to spend some more time with the people in my program. I am beginning to feel much more comfortable with the people in the program and am making a lot of friends.

I will try to write more when I get back from London in a couple of weeks, because I think that will be the next time I'll have exciting updates. I am excited to go to London for many reasons, but most recently because I was able to book tickets to see the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Twelfth Night in London's west end. I am very excited about that! I am trying to decide if I would like to see a musical while I'm there, as well. I am also looking at the best/most cost effective way to get to the sites that I want to see. I will be going with my friend, Tracy, and she told me that she doesn't care what we do so I should plan everything. I always ask her if she is interested in doing something before I book it, but it will be a great trip partially because I get to plan out exactly where I want to go with pretty much no exceptions!

Everyone have a good next few weeks!

Sarah