Birthday Week!

This week wasn't too eventful, but I definitely turned 21 on Friday. I'm old.

Soooo...

Monday was pretty normal, but that night I went out to eat with Genisis, Isis, and Giulia. We had Indian food, and then we went to Giulia's apartment to watch a Bollywood movie. I've never seen a Bollywood movie, and I have no idea what the title of the movie was, but although it was super freaking long and I felt really restless by the end, it was actually pretty good. I'd probably watch another someday...if I was immobile. I am the worst movie watcher.

Also, I almost didn't see my host mom Monday. I left the house before she got up, she wasn't home during lunch, and then I saw her for like 30 seconds before I walked out of the door to leave for dinner. I don't even think I saw my roommate at all that day. Weird. 

Tuesday was pretty good. I decided not to take that 5th class, so I used my free time to go buy a tooth brush. Weird use of free time? Maybe, but I needed to buy a new one. Then I went by the river and read some more of my book, went home for lunch, took a nap, went back to the University for class, and then after class, I met my roommate outside the University to go to an intercambio in Nervión. Intercambio was absolutely not a waste of time even though we definitely spoke English most of the time, but that's because Vanessa and I totally found our media naranjas (orange halves, aka soul mates). We spent the whole time talking to two highly attractive Spanish bomberos (firefighters). We may not have spoken as much Spanish as we wanted, but we definitely spent like two and a half hours talking to Spanish firefighters, which is clearly the most important thing to ever come out of an intercambio. We didn't even like the same bombero, so obviously it was destino (fate). 

(http://consulting.schofferconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/mi_media_naranja_by_vectorhugo-d574sqz.jpg)

That night at dinner, we obviously told Toni what happened, and when we told her we met two bomberos, she practically jumped off the sofa, started clapping, and yelled "¡¡¡OOOOIII, LOS BOMBEROS TIENEN EL MEJOR CUERPO DE TODO!!!" Translation: Ohhhh, firefighters have the best body of all!! Obviously, Toni shared our excitement. Actually, I think she was more excited for us than we were. It was freaking hilarious. She chatted on about how much she loves firefighters for the next like 30 minutes. She also told us if we get them to be our boyfriends, we'd all go out for a beer so she could meet them, even though she doesn't like beer? Gosh, my host mom couldn't be any funnier. She ended her little spiel with how she met her husband on the bus when she was like 16. It was the cutest story on the planet, and it sounded like she just took it right out of a movie. 

Wednesday was so uneventful that there's nothing even worth writing, but I feel weird just skipping over it without saying anything because I don't want my future self to read this and think that I accidentally skipped something good.

Thursday I also did diddly squat nothing. I went to my classes, read some of my book, went home for lunch, went back to class, went back home...yeah. Let me tell you about my Phonetics class, though. It is a super helpful class. I've only had two classes (or 3??), but I can already tell it's helping. We're learning about how to pronounce vowels, diphthongs, triphthongs, and this thing called a hiatus in English (hiato in Spanish). I found out I'm not too great at telling the difference between diphthongs and hiatuses. A diphthong is when there are two vowels that make one syllable, and a hiatus is when there are two vowels that are pronounce separately (The "ia" in hiato is actually a diphthong, while a hiatus is like the "oe" in poeta). When explained, it sounds easy enough, but when I have to circle the hiatuses and underline the diphthongs in a word bank, I get kinda lost quickly. It's actually harder than you'd think, but definitely not as hard as if I were learning English. I feel so bad for people learning to speak English as a second language, because uf, it seems difficult. Look at the difference between vowels here:

Vowels in Spanish (this is a chart of where vowels are in your mouth when you say them; the left is the front)

The vowel chart for English. Those poor, poor English learners. What even are those symbols??

Friday was my birthday! Like I wrote earlier, I turned 21. I went to Málaga for the day with Genisis, Isis, and Vanessa. Genisis and Isis got me a vegan birthday cake from the vegan bakery, so we carried it to a park when we got to Málaga and ate it for breakfast. #noshame

This used to say "Feliz cumpleaños" but it suffered a little during transportation, so it ended up saying "feliz mpleaños." No pasa nada. It tasted amazing. It's a vegan black forest cake, aka "selva negra." 

Me and my first vegan birthday cake :D

The aftermath...

R.I.P.

After we stuffed our faces with cake, we walked around the center. We walked around the cathedral, which was beautiful.

Then we walked up and down Calle Larios:

Calle Larios has lots of shops, kinda like Calle Sierpes or Calle Asunción in Sevilla...but better.

Then we were on the hunt for the house where Picasso was born, when we happened to pass by the church he was baptized in, so obviously we entered, and boy was it beautiful.

Then we found the house we were looking for in the Plaza de Merced, and lucky for us, it was free to enter for students under 26. #score

After that, we decided to walk up to this giant castle looking thing we saw on the way to Picasso's house. We didn't realize we were about to hike up a mountain, but hey, there goes those cake calories from earlier!

Málaga is too beautiful. Also, this is winter. Blooming flowers and green grass. I'm definitely bragging right now. No shame. I'll suffer next winter back in America, though. Karma will come. I'm still going to soak up every once of warmth here, though. 

This looked steeper in real life, I promise. 

"The Struggling Friends"

The view from halfway up

I really love this photo. It just looks so Spanish. 

Just chillin' after climbing halfway up a mountain.

After a good while, we finally made it up to the top, where we found the Castillo de Gibralfaro. It was .60 cents to get in for students, so we definitely went in. After using the bathroom, we climbed to the tip top of the castle and walked around the castle walls, where I tripped and almost fell down a flight of giant old stone stairs. I didn't get hurt, thankfully. My pinky toe felt kind of numb for a while, but it's all good now.

Flags at the top of the Castillo 

The view from the top

Málaga

Castle walls

We also found almond trees! I love almonds so much so this was pretty cool. 

After climbing back down the mountain (my poor granny knees sure were tired after that. Those years of horse riding left their mark!), we headed out to get lunch at a place I found on Happy Cow (like Yelp! but specifically for vegetarian/vegan places). I was really pleased with our dining experience. I never know what to get when I actually have more than one option on a menu, so I opted for something different. I got empanadillas de maíz, which was the best thing I've ever had in my life. I might be exaggerating, but it seriously was so good. I haven't had corn since America (okay, well I haven't had *good* corn since America. The only corn I eat here is gross canned corn that Toni puts in our already gross salad.) Also, they tasted weirdly familiar, like something I've made before...so it was really nice to have such a familiar "new" food on my birthday!

The restaurant

View of the Alcazaba (I think) from where we ate

The best bread in the entire universe which equally amazing spread made with soy milk and some other stuff that I can't remember.

Birthday lunch! Corn empanadillas, some kind of thing that tasted amazing but I had no idea what was in it or what it was (it was vegan for sure though), rice (which I normally hate but I was hungry so I ate it anyway and it was good), and some other weird stuff that I have no idea what it is, but it was vegan and it was good (it had broccoli...). 

After lunch, we just happened to pass by the some Roman ruins, which included this Roman amphitheater.

After that, we decided to make our way over to the beach to end our day, where we ran into a cat. Me being the cat whisperer I am, I just walked toward the cat and it totally ran up to me, meowed, and super wanted to be petted. Here's my new cat friend from Málaga:

And here's me petting him, taken by Genisis. So now I have a cat friend in Bruges, Belgium and a cat friend in Málaga, Spain. I really miss my own cats, though. :( But hey, I got to pet a cat on my birthday in Spain! Cats are seriously my favorite. I'm such a cat lady...

Soo then, we walked through a pretty park to get to the beach. 

A fountain in the park

Finally, we made it to the beach, where I tripped once again, because I didn't see a step. I probably have tripped over 1,000 times since being in Spain, no joke. Anyway, the beach was beautiful and that's where we spent our last hour before heading back to the bus station to head back to Sevilla.

At one point, I started to wonder if I could take a picture that would illustrate what it's like to see with glasses (clear through the lens, blurry everywhere else). It's not as dramatic as real life, but I think I kind of got close to what I wanted to do.

Here we all are sitting on the beach! (stolen from Genisis!)

So yeah, then we headed back to the bus station. Stopped at a café on the way there to pass a little bit more time, got on the bus, and rolled on back to Sevilla. While waiting for the bus, I "officially" turned 21 at 19:42 Spain time (1:42pm American east coast time), so I took a screen shot to commemorate the moment:

My phone's battery always dies so quickly when I'm traveling and I really am unsure of why...but today when I did nothing it stayed charged! Weird.

I actually slept on this bus ride, and at one point I was completely knocked out...until our bus went over this super bumpy part of the road, which woke me up. At first I didn't realize where I was, I wasn't where my glasses so everything was blurry, it was pitch black outside so I couldn't see where we were...so I was super convinced we had run off the road and we were rolling to our death. Turns out we were just going over a really bumpy part of the road...but still. I definitely thought I was going to die on my 21st birthday. 

When we got back to Sevilla, we headed to a restaurant that was supposed to be haunted, but it was packed and didn't feel haunted, so we left. Super eventful.

Saturday I had some intense blisters on my feet, so I didn't leave the house. That was a good idea, because today my feet definitely felt better (although still blistery).

Today I went to meet up with Mercedes and we went to a café because it looked like it was going to rain. We spent a lot of time working on pronunciation, which is when I decided I am sooo glad I'm fluent in English/English is my first language because I never would ever want to learn English otherwise. We have too many weird rules and pronunciation is hard for foreigners. It was a lot of fun, though. I really like helping people learn! 

Also, I finally reserved a place on Airbnb for when Megan comes to Sevilla. Since she can't stay with me because #1. There's no room #2. I don't think Toni would be the kind of host mom who's up for having random strangers (other than the random strangers that she gets from JYS haha) chill up in her house, we're splitting the price of an apartment on Airbnb. I found a pretty good studio apartment in el centro near the El Corte Inglés, so yay! Less than a month till I finally get to see Megan! :D

I have no significant plans for this upcoming week. I start my internship up again on Friday. Then this weekend the JYS group has a trip to Madrid! Woooo! This time I'll have all the free time since I won't have to do the lil' museum trip things that they do since I did them last time. I'll be free to explore la ciudad. Definitely plan on finding this famous churros place there that people keep talking about...so we'll see how that goes.