So sorry that it's been so long since I've posted something, here's some highlights from the last month, and only a few of the many pictures I've taken (see facebook for more!)
Wow, I can’t believe its march already! So much has happened in a month. And it doesn’t feel like that much time has passed, and it also feels like there’s not much left. My friend Emily likes to remind us frequently that we’re in Spain-and it’s funny, because sometimes I actually do need reminding.
I’ve travelled a little since our last school trip to Cordoba. Andy, Daniel, Emily and I went to Lagos, Portugal for a weekend! What a trip-it's crazy to be able to just get on a bus and be in another country in a few hours! Our ride was a little longer that I anticipated because we stopped in a lot of other cities along the way, but we left Sevilla after lunch on Friday (2/26) and finally arrived in Lagos around 8:30 or 9pm, so it was dark when we got there and then we had to find our apartment and we didn’t have a map. A good combination. We started on our way and asked people on the street for help and finally found the right street. We walked up and could not find it-I saw this door that had this little “sign” (a piece of paper with some typing on it) but I couldn’t read it from where we were so we kept searching. There were no people out on the streets-quite a change from the constant night life in Sevilla. And we finally found someone and again asked for help-he directed us to a little restaurant to ask there. So we went and Daniel and I went inside and a met a super nice, young waiter who told us where to go (he spoke English-practically everyone does because all of their TV shows are in English with Portuguese subtitles and they learn it in school. And for the record, Portuguese is not the same as Spanish.) So where do we end up with these directions? That building with the tiny-not sign (I had seen earlier) that has the name of the hotel/apartments and a phone number for us to call to have someone let us in. So we tried calling, but my cell phone didn’t work since we were in Portugal and couldn’t figure out the country code. So back to the restaurant Daniel and I went to ask if we could use a phone. The waiter called for us-he told us this wasn’t the first time this had happened. Then we finally were let into our apartment-and what a surprise! The four of us had a three-story apartment (granted each floor was about the equivalent of one room, but still!!). The first floor was the kitchen, and had a half bathroom, a couch, and a table and chairs and two pull-out beds; the second floor had a bedroom and full bath; and the third floor was a roof top patio! We had a view of the ocean!!! It was so much fun to be able to hang out in a “house”—the Spaniards don’t do that, they always go out and never invite friends over, and I find that I’ve really missed just going to someone’s house. But we did spend a lot of time outside! We hiked a trail along the
“golden coast”—we were at the southern tip of Portugal. This is really indescribable. Even the pictures cannot capture it. We were walking along the edges of these enormous cliffs that dropped down into the ocean and there were huge rocks out a little ways from shore. It was stunning. I think it might be the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen/been. We hiked for hours—although we didn’t get very far. But it was a wonderful day! It is still winter in Portugal (and most of the world I guess…) so we might have been some of the only tourists, which was so amazing. We pretty much had the ocean 
and the city to ourselves! It was such a nice change to be surrounded with nature instead of buildings and tons of people. I sometimes forget how disconnected from nature I am here—and how noisy and crowded it is all the time—what a difference from Houghton! We also went out to dinner one night to try pollo piri piri—a Portuguese specialty that Mercedes (one of our school’s receptionists) recommended us. It was delicious! She told us it was really spicy, but what she really meant is that it had flavor! I think that Spaniards think salt is the only form of seasoning. We really enjoyed the live music in the restaurant too—there was this man playing really electronic, polka sounding songs on a keyboard and each song somehow seemed to get more upbeat! We e
xplored the city a little—it’s a lot smaller than Sevilla, but so pretty-lots of white buildings and the ocean. We found a playground! And enjoyed joking about all the things we could do in Portugal that started with “P”—it was a fun scattergories game! It was a great weekend and I’m still kind of in disbelief that it really is that easy to travel to a different country-we didn’t even have our passports stamped, which we’re a little disappointed about.
Wow, I can’t believe its march already! So much has happened in a month. And it doesn’t feel like that much time has passed, and it also feels like there’s not much left. My friend Emily likes to remind us frequently that we’re in Spain-and it’s funny, because sometimes I actually do need reminding.
I’ve travelled a little since our last school trip to Cordoba. Andy, Daniel, Emily and I went to Lagos, Portugal for a weekend! What a trip-it's crazy to be able to just get on a bus and be in another country in a few hours! Our ride was a little longer that I anticipated because we stopped in a lot of other cities along the way, but we left Sevilla after lunch on Friday (2/26) and finally arrived in Lagos around 8:30 or 9pm, so it was dark when we got there and then we had to find our apartment and we didn’t have a map. A good combination. We started on our way and asked people on the street for help and finally found the right street. We walked up and could not find it-I saw this door that had this little “sign” (a piece of paper with some typing on it) but I couldn’t read it from where we were so we kept searching. There were no people out on the streets-quite a change from the constant night life in Sevilla. And we finally found someone and again asked for help-he directed us to a little restaurant to ask there. So we went and Daniel and I went inside and a met a super nice, young waiter who told us where to go (he spoke English-practically everyone does because all of their TV shows are in English with Portuguese subtitles and they learn it in school. And for the record, Portuguese is not the same as Spanish.) So where do we end up with these directions? That building with the tiny-not sign (I had seen earlier) that has the name of the hotel/apartments and a phone number for us to call to have someone let us in. So we tried calling, but my cell phone didn’t work since we were in Portugal and couldn’t figure out the country code. So back to the restaurant Daniel and I went to ask if we could use a phone. The waiter called for us-he told us this wasn’t the first time this had happened. Then we finally were let into our apartment-and what a surprise! The four of us had a three-story apartment (granted each floor was about the equivalent of one room, but still!!). The first floor was the kitchen, and had a half bathroom, a couch, and a table and chairs and two pull-out beds; the second floor had a bedroom and full bath; and the third floor was a roof top patio! We had a view of the ocean!!! It was so much fun to be able to hang out in a “house”—the Spaniards don’t do that, they always go out and never invite friends over, and I find that I’ve really missed just going to someone’s house. But we did spend a lot of time outside! We hiked a trail along the
“golden coast”—we were at the southern tip of Portugal. This is really indescribable. Even the pictures cannot capture it. We were walking along the edges of these enormous cliffs that dropped down into the ocean and there were huge rocks out a little ways from shore. It was stunning. I think it might be the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen/been. We hiked for hours—although we didn’t get very far. But it was a wonderful day! It is still winter in Portugal (and most of the world I guess…) so we might have been some of the only tourists, which was so amazing. We pretty much had the ocean 
and the city to ourselves! It was such a nice change to be surrounded with nature instead of buildings and tons of people. I sometimes forget how disconnected from nature I am here—and how noisy and crowded it is all the time—what a difference from Houghton! We also went out to dinner one night to try pollo piri piri—a Portuguese specialty that Mercedes (one of our school’s receptionists) recommended us. It was delicious! She told us it was really spicy, but what she really meant is that it had flavor! I think that Spaniards think salt is the only form of seasoning. We really enjoyed the live music in the restaurant too—there was this man playing really electronic, polka sounding songs on a keyboard and each song somehow seemed to get more upbeat! We e
xplored the city a little—it’s a lot smaller than Sevilla, but so pretty-lots of white buildings and the ocean. We found a playground! And enjoyed joking about all the things we could do in Portugal that started with “P”—it was a fun scattergories game! It was a great weekend and I’m still kind of in disbelief that it really is that easy to travel to a different country-we didn’t even have our passports stamped, which we’re a little disappointed about. Then we had two days of class and then went to Toledo as a “field trip” (3/4/10). The art classes were required to go, but all the students came. Toledo is about an hour from Madrid and is basically right in the center of the country. We had to meet at school at 6:20am!! But we had about a 6 hour bus ride, so I tried to sleep unsuccessfully. On our way to Toledo we stopped to see the famous molinos (the windmills)
that don Quijote attacked in his first adventure! WE really only stopped long enough to take pictures, then we continued on to Toledo. We checked into our hotel and then were free to go eat our bocadillos and then met at this little museum/church to see “El entierro Del Conde de Orgaz,” a really famous painting by El Greco. It was so big, and it’s crazy to think that it’s really the original! I feel that I didn’t really appreciate it as much as I should have, because we studied it in class, and well, it looks the same as it does in the pictures…it's not quite the same feeling as going inside the churches, cathedrals and mezquita after studying the architecture in class, but it still really cool to have my art professor Carmen explain everything to us—she studied that painting for an entire year! So she’s an expert. Then we went to a monastery—which we’ve also been studying in class. It was pretty cool—especially the claustro (the main/central outdoor patio). Also, some of the doors inside were really little because people back then weren’t as tall. We took a fun picture of three different sized doors with an appropriately sized student for each (Andy, Evelyn, and Rebecca). 
Then we were free to explore and hang out for the evening! Kat, Emily, Andy and I went out to dinner and got pizza-it was the first time I had any since we’ve been here! It was actually really good—the service in the restaurant however, was typical Spain and was really bad, but it’s because the tip is already included in the bill so the waiters aren’t trying to really serve you because there’s nothing for them to gain from it…And we went to McDonald’s after and go McFlurries—McDonald’s truly is everywhere! And it’s really popular here-children have their birthday parties there, and it’s always packed on Friday and Saturday nights. It’s pretty ridiculous. The menu is basically the same, but there are a few things such as the Cono Kit-Kat (our favorite because it’s on the 1 euro menu-it’s just a vanilla ice cream cone with one bar of a Kit-Kat stuck in it) and café con leche (half coffee-half milk, which isn’t anything new to me since Zach Adams always got his café ole from the java cart before Secondary Education and American Culture J ). We went back to the hotel and got a big group of us together in one room and played Fishbowl (a catchphrase, charades mix). It was so much fun and reminded me of Kat, Houghton, and 3rd Old. The next day we had breakfast at the hotel—that was the first time I’ve had more than just toast for breakfast. 
Then we went to the catedral de Toledo-a huge gothic cathedral from the 13th century. Now, these cathedrals look ridiculously enormous from the outside, but you kind of just think to yourself, “wow, that’s a big building.” Then you go inside and realize that the people who constructed this monstrous building must have been practically insane, which the builders of the cathedral in Sevilla actually said about themselves (we’re going to build a cathedral so big they’ll think we’re crazy-something to that effect). It’s true! You walk in and suddenly you feel that you’ve walked into a giant’s house (really lame and cheesy, but the best I can do). The columns are just enormous (both tall and in diameter) and the ceilings-and the decoration is just mind-boggling, I have no idea how you do any of this-and it’s all made from stone! Plus, the stained glass windows and the other artwork that is inside are just incredible. It’s so cool to tour the cathedrals after we’ve studied them; I still just love the opportunity to go out and SEE what I’m studying. After our tour of the cathedral we headed back to Sevilla. It was a nice relaxing weekend—which was so need to rest after so much travelling. I love seeing these new places and am constantly reminded of how big this world is—and how much is out there!
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