Uneventful Events

This has been the most uneventful week of my life, which is why I basically forgot about this blog until like an hour ago...because there's not much to write about. My American friends were traveling and my Spanish friends were studying...so it was me and my host mom for the majority of the week. 

Most of this week was spent talking to my host mom about random stuff. I definitely got some serious Spanish practice in with the amount of time I spent talking to my host mom. I also spent a ridiculous amount of time organizing my recipes and searching for new vegan recipes to try once I get back to the states. Oh, and I took a lot of walks this week, and managed to take a couple of pretty pictures on my walks, too:

If you can't tell, these photos were taken from the same bridge on two different days at two different times.

On Thursday, things in my life started to pick up the pace. The new JYS Primavera (spring) group came, and so now I have a new roommate! On Thursday I showed her around Sevilla some -- where the JYS office is, Puente de Triana, Puente de los Remedios, the University, the Cathedral, the Alcázar, Plaza Nueva...and I think that's about it. Toni, our host mom, went with us through Triana to show her lil' supermarkets and other important things in our neighborhood. 

Friday, I went to my internship to finally pick up my certificate with my hours and accomplishments. I spent a little while talking to my internship supervisor getting advice on how to improve in the classroom and stuff. It was a super useful conversation, and I can't wait to get back in the classroom to improve from last semester and to use the new advice I got!

Later on, my roommate and I walked to la Plaza de España, one of my favorite places in Sevilla. I took some pretty nice pictures with my phone while I was there. But you know, even though I love that place, I think it's bad luck for me to go there. Something stupid happens every time. The oficina de extranjeros is there, and each experience I've had there had something go wrong. This time it was super beautiful at first....and then it started to rain and we were trapped there for about 20 minutes waiting for it to stop. It could have been worse, though. I'm going back tomorrow with Calee to figure out what she needs to do to extend her visa...we'll see how that goes.

Here are some pics from the trip:

Ahh, la Plaza de España <3

Saturday I went to El centro to do a little shopping, and things just kept going wrong. I only needed one clothing item and I had found what I wanted, and I was like 290239% certain I had enough money on my card, but I totally didn't. At first, I couldn't remember why I didn't have the money...but I was like, "Eh, just need to transfer money from my savings." Well, then the internet on my phone wasn't working. I thought that maybe my signal was bad, so I went outside of the store, and that didn't help. So then  I checked how much money I had on my SIM card, and my balance was a good ol' 0.00€. It's supposed to recharge itself with 15€ every time I go below 5€ in my account, so I don't know why it didn't do that this time. Whatever, so then I was like, okay let me go creep outside of a Starbucks to use their wifi, but I could only access Facebook with their wifi. After that I was just like:

So I went to an ATM to see if I could withdraw from my savings account, and while I found an ATM that said my bank would not charge an ATM fee (woo!), I couldn't do it. Then I remembered that the reason I didn't have enough money is because I totally made some iTunes purchases earlier in the week that I had forgotten about...and once I got home, I saw that I was literally only 2 dollars short in my account of what I needed. Of course.

I eventually gave up trying to get things situated and went to the vegan bakery because I had like 5 euros in cash and I have really been wanting to try their "blueberry cheesecake." So I got a slice of blueberry "cheesecake" (after standing in line FOREVER), and I ate it that night after dinner. It didn't taste like cheesecake, but it was still súper yummy!

The picture is a little fuzzy, and I forgot to take a picture before I ate it...but w/e. It was gooood. 

After dinner, I went out with my roommate to Calle Betis to meet the new JYS group. It's a super small group this time; only 12 people! Drastically different than the 57 or so from fall semester. 

Then today, Sunday, it was cold and rainy so I proceeded to have a lazy day. Even my host mom had a lazy day, and usually she will at least leave the house to go buy bread, but today she had her son come over to go buy bread for her. That's when you know it's gross outside...

Tomorrow, like I said, I'm going with Calee back to la Plaza de España/la Oficina de extranjeros to figure out her visa situation. Then I need to prepare for Ireland! I leave for Ireland on Tuesday night...taking the bus to Málaga, and then we leave for Dublin Wednesday morning. We would have just taken the bus on Wednesday bright and early (more like dark and early) but the only one available was the night before...so this will be interesting. We're too cheap to get a place to sleep in Málaga because we're arriving pretty late at night, so we're totally just gonna sleep on the bus and then in shifts at the airport, and then probably consume large quantities of caffeine on Wednesday. Will we regret this decision? Maybe. We will regret having a little extra money in our pockets because we decided to sacrifice sleep? No.  

An interesting week, to say the least...

What have I been up to this week? Oh, the usual...got pelted by candy thrown by children, received a scarf from the Tres Reyes, laughed at unsuspecting victims stepping in dog poop, and dealt with rude people with Calee at the oficina de extranjeros.

So, I'll start with being pelted by candy. On Monday night there was a cabalgata (parade) to celebrate los Tres Reyes Magos. 

Actually, first, let me explain (or better yet, let me let Wikipedia explain) what this holiday is. This is an important holiday that they celebrate here. It's known as El Día de los Reyes or El Día de los Tres Reyes Magos. Here's a rundown from Wikipedia:

In Spain and some Latin American countries, Epiphany day is called El Día de los Reyes (The Day of the Kings),^[115] i.e., the day when a group of Kings or Magi, as related in the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, arrived to worship and bring three gifts to the baby Jesus after following a star in the heavens. This day is sometimes known as the Día de los Tres Reyes Magos (The day of the Three Royal Magi) or La Pascua de los Negros (Holy Day of the Black men)^[116] in Chile, although the latter is rarely heard. In Spanish tradition on January 6, three of the Kings: Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthazar, representing Arabia, the Orient, and Africa, arrived on horse, camel and elephant, bringing respectively gold, frankincense and myrrh to the baby Jesus. Before going to bed on the eve of January 6, children polish their shoes and leave them ready for the Kings' presents to be put in them. The next morning presents will appear under their shoes, or if the children are deemed to have misbehaved during the year, coal (usually a lump of hard sugar candy dyed black, called Carbón Dulce).^[117] Most towns in Spain arrange colorful parades representing the arrival of the Reyes Magos to town so children can see them in their camels or carriages before they go to bed. The oldest of this parades is held in Alcoy, Alicante – Alacant, Valencia, which has hosted an annual parade since 1885.^[118] Sweet wine, nibbles, fruit and milk are left for the Kings and their camels. In Spain, children typically receive presents on this day, rather than on Christmas, though this tradition has changed lately, and children now receive presents on both days. In Spain the Epiphany bread/cake is known as Roscón^[119] and in Mexico as Rosca de reyes.^[120]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_%28holiday%29#Spain_and_Latin_America

Okay, anyway, at first, I was all, "Oh yay parades are fun!" But not this one...it was just dangerous. There were bands, small cars, floods of people dressed up w/ blackface make up, and the floats. 

Those floats...let me tell you something, those floats look cool from afar, but then they get up next to you, and suddenly you're being pelted with little hard candies that children are supposed to be "gently tossing." But no, they're just children so they pummel those little caramelos (lil wrapped candies), and when they hit you they feel like rocks. Here are some pictures and videos I took (with my phone so excuse the horrible quality) so you can see for yourself:

Looks pretty from afar...

People w/ their blackface make up

This float didn't have kids throwing the candy, but still...the flinging of the candy is not the safest idea.

The parade was super intense. Candy was EVERYWHERE. I wish I would have gotten a picture of the car tires that were carting around the floats. They were completely caked in candy that they had been running over. Everyone had candy stuck to the bottom of their shoes and were scraping their shoes off on the curbs, and the roads and sidewalks were just an absolute mess.

At the end, there were about seven/eight people with their balloon bundles trying to sell balloons to the masses.

Tons and tons of balloons. Also, can we just take a moment to appreciate this random girl's face in the bottom left corner of this photo?

So after the parade, Calee and I walked around el centro to look at the aftermath left behind by the parade. The parade went all through Sevilla, leaving from the University around 4pm and eventually making its way back there around 9pm. Here'a a map of their route:

When I got back home, I was in my room when Toni called me and said, "Kari, toma!" (direct translation: Kari, take! Better translation: Kari, take this!) I honestly just thought she was giving me my laundry, and I didn't really feel like putting it away so I just kinda sat there for a few seconds and silently cried on the inside...but when I stepped out of my room to receive what I thought was laundry, Toni was holding a shiny silver gift bag for me!

I obviously was surprised, and as usual when I'm caught off guard/surprised I can't form words, but I managed to stutter out, "¿Eso qué es?" (What's that?) She told me that the Reyes brought it for me. I think it's funny how everyone here, even adults, don't say, "Oh yeah, so and so gave me this gift!" they all seem to say, the Reyes brought me this gift! At least, in my experience. I can't speak for all of Sevilla or Spain. Anyway, it was a super soft scarf. I like it a lot and it's super warm! 

A few days later, I was out and about exploring a different part of Sevilla that I don't usually go to with Genisis and Isis, when Isis stepped in a really gross pile of dog poop right across from a small shop that sells things made from hemp. Genisis went inside to look around while Isis and I stood outside trying to figure out the best way to clean off her shoe. After she finished scraping her shoe on the corner of a building, we looked up to see a man step in the same pile of dog poop as Isis. We didn't even try to hold back our laughter, and we just stood there snickering for a good minute and a half. He didn't notice though since he was across the street. We're horrible people...and before we left, Isis saw one more person step in it! Poor people...why can't people just pick up after their dogs, though?

Lastly, on Friday, Calee and I had a fun time going to pick up her foreigner identity card (aka the card that acts as our visa extension). And by fun, I mean irritating. We thought we were just going to go over there, pick up her card, and waltz away with no problems. But in Spain, nothing's that easy.

****Note to readers: This is where a rant starts. If you don't feel like reading the rant, you can just skip it. No pasa nada.**** 

We got there, realized after a minute or two that we were in the wrong line, changed lines, waited for not too long, and finally got to the lady, who actually was the Spanish woman version of Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation. Calee handed her the papers and told her she was there to get her card, and the lady got her card, but after looking it over, looks up at us and says, "La tarjeta ha expirado," but with the Andalusian accent it sounded more like this: "Latarjetahaehpirao." 

Neither Calee or I knew what she was saying, so when I told her I didn't understand her, she just repeated herself. Now normally, that's okay and I figure it out on the second time...but this time I still had no clue what she was saying. So when I asked her what that meant, she just looked at me, repeated herself, and got all huffy and just made frustrated noises.

What I wish I could have said to that lady...

I was thinking, "Okay excuse me, lady, for not being freaking perfect at Spanish. Let's see you go across the freaking world and communicate in a foreign language. Let's see how easy you think it is after that!" Finally, after Calee and I just stared at her, she showed us the card, pointed at the expiration date, and said, "Mira." (Look.) When I saw what she was pointing at, I said to Calee, "Ohhh, expired! The card's expired!" The rude lady then proceeded to look at us and with the most mockingly annoying tone of voice said -- in English --, "Yessss, EXPIRED!" 

oh no she didn't.

What I was thinking: Oh really?? You're going to sit here and mock us about something you couldn't even figure out how to explain to us? Seriously???

What I said: Ohh, okay, but she needs a visa extension...what do we do?

What she said: No sé. (I don't know.)

Hold up, say what?

What I was thinking: Okay, how does she *not* know?? She works there, this is her JOB, how is she going to sit there and tell us that shE DOESN'T KNOW? 

What I said: ........................................

Nothing. I said nothing.

After a few seconds of Calee and I freaking out and trying to figure out what to do since this dumb lady was of no help, she finally told us we should go talk to the police across the hall. We said thank you and left, and we actually decided to head over to the JYS office first because they were closing soon and we thought they'd be a little bit more helpful at least in terms of who we should talk to or what we should do. 

Our walk back to the office was full of questions. How is it expired? Why is it expired? We filled out the same paperwork and went on the same day to turn it all in, how did this happen? Who screwed this up? Why was that lady so rude? 

When we got there, Calee tried to explain in Spanish what had happened, but after a few minutes they switched to English so nothing important would get lost in translation. This isn't really something you want to mess up, especially since it's already messed up. Basically, they told her that she just had to go back there and try to talk to someone else since the first lady was clearly unhelpful. Then they told her that it totally wasn't her fault, and that she didn't even need to worry because luckily, her actual visa doesn't expire until March. 

So, we reluctantly walked back over to the Oficina de Extranjeros, and I explained our situation to the security guards who direct you where to go. Unfortunately, he directed us to the first lady we talked to...ugh. Our reluctance was noticeable, as he had to keep ushering us towards the line and telling us, "¡pasa, pasa!" because we kinda just stood there like, "but whyyyyy???"

When we walked up to her, she just stared at us with her unblinking cold emotionless death stare. If she could have done this, she would have:

There was a tense awkward silence until Calee broke it by explaining the situation. She just stared at Calee, so I tried elaborating a little, and then she cut me off mid-sentence to tell us that we weren't in the right place and that we needed to go to the lady who was on the other side of the room. 

So since there wasn't a line for that lady, we just walked over to her and explained the same thing. This lady was just straight up confused, and didn't seem to understand why we were even talking to her. She was like, "Yeah, the card's expired, so what?" We weren't being unclear, so I don't understand why this was so hard for her to understand. This lady asked us stupid questions like, "When did you get the card? Who gave you the card?" Then she started pretending like she knew what was going on, printed out a ticket, and told us to go in the waiting room to wait to talk to yet ANOTHER lady, who ended up being almost just as clueless. 

We waited for about 15 minutes (not too bad, not too bad), where we discovered they also got Calee's birthday wrong on the card as well. Way to go, Oficina de Extranjeros. Finally we went in and saw the 3rd Lady. This lady asked more stupid questions like, "When you got your fingerprints done for the card, did they give you a paper?" Our answer was "yes." Then she asked us where the paper was, and we told her we gave it to some lady. She asked us, "Which lady?" When I told her it was the first lady we talked to and pointed in her general direction, she just told us to hold on. Then she did some searching on her computer and was like, hm, I don't know about this stuff/I'm not in charge of this stuff...looks like you gotta talk with the police on the other side of the building. 

So, we got up so 3rd Lady could take us over there when we passed the new lady, 4th Lady, we needed to talk with. 4th Lady was the smartest and nicest of them all. We explained to her Calee's problem, and she listened, only asked like one dumb question, and then told us to wait in the hall while she went to talk with 3rd Lady. After she was done, she took us over to her desk and sat down with Calee's passport, and within 10 seconds 4th Lady was like, "Ohh, I see why it's expired. They weren't even supposed to give you this card. Your visa is a 6th month visa, so you don't need this card! I don't know who made it, but they shouldn't have. You're all good, nothing to worry about here!"

Whoa whoa whoa, not so fast 4th Lady, it is not "all good." We told 4th Lady that she still needs an extension, and she was like, "Well then she has to ask for a visa extension." So I was like, "...but you just said she didn't need a card...?" (this card serves as the visa extension -- for me and everyone else at least), and she was like, "No, she doesn't need a card, but she still has to ask for a visa extension." Then she explained to us that because Calee's visa lasts for 6th months, she doesn't need a card (still doesn't make that much sense, but whatever). Then she got up to double check what she was telling us, and when she came back I asked her what Calee would receive instead of the card...like what would the visa extension even be? 4th Lady didn't know. Then I asked her who she needs to talk to to get the extension, and she was just like, "The guy who deals with education/students." Then she told us that Calee needs to come back on the next day that she's available to go talk to the education guy for more information, because...like everyone else, this wasn't her "area" and they guy who deals with student stuff was on vacation. Then, she just reassured us that everything was okay, the card was just a mistake, Calee's not going to be in trouble with the law, etc etc. 

****If you skipped the rant, you've finally reached the take-away.****

As we walked away, we complained about how annoying this all was, but we also tried to focus on the positives. Everything happens for a reason...the first time Calee and I tried to pick up our tarjetas together, the line was out the door and we had to leave before we could get the cards because we had class. I ended up going back the next week for mine, but Calee never bothered to go back to pick hers up. However, if she would have picked up her card before it expired, the person who was giving out the cards probably wouldn't have said anything about the expiration date, Calee probably wouldn't have noticed the expiration date, and then things would be bad if she would have either noticed too late or never have noticed at all. So even though it was a really annoying day filled with lots of shuffling around to different clueless unhelpful people, this was probably a good way for it to go. Rather go through all of this than to possibly get in huge trouble for staying in Spain w/ an expired visa and expired visa extension. 

And that is my week, folks. The upcoming week is looking pretty chill. Isis and Genisis are traveling in Paris and London, and Calee is off traveling to Tenerife, and most of my Spanish friends are swamped with school and work and other responsibilities. That's okay, though. I'm an only child -- I'm used to this. Chill week it is! But...on Thursday, the new spring JYS group arrives. I haven't decided if I'll go to the office on Friday to meet them all for their first day of orientation. We'll see how I feel...on Thursday night.

Adiós 2014, Hola 2015

Where did this week go? Wait, no, where did last year go?

Not having class makes me completely lose track of the days...and now it's a whole different year? Yikes! It seems almost impossible that it's 2015.

One of the last things I did in 2014 was get a haircut. I was soo nervous for two reasons:

1. I would have to describe what I want in Spanish, and my hair salon vocab is practically non-existent (well it's better now)
2. My last haircut was horrendous and I figured since I was speaking in Spanish this time, my hair could only turn out awful due to lack of communication

Well, that was a backwards experience. Yes, the communication in the salon was kept to a minimum, but my haircut was on point. How is it that in America, where I can communicate perfectly, the hairdresser screws up my hair, but here in Spain where I had to use vocab that I Googled 30 minutes before getting to the salon, where I almost forgot out to say "layers" and had to use my hands to help get across what I was trying to say, and where I'm not even fluent in the language, my hair comes out wonderfully? I don't understand it, but I'm not going to argue with it. I'm just gonna have to find Spanish speaking hairdressers back in the States, hahaha. No but really, look at this:

That's some nice hair.

I was going to compare this haircut with my last haircut, but I just can't. The last haircut was just too bad to even put on my blog. So let's just rejoice with how not-horrible this one is.

Also, let me tell you all about my interesting New Year's Eve. On New Year's Eve, my friends' host mom let them invite me to their New Year's Eve dinner. Before I begin, I want to say I really had a good time and it was super cool getting to see how they celebrate New Year's Eve in Spain...but that night was quite the patience tester.

Soo, on Wednesday, I got dressed up and moseyed my way down San Vicente de Paúl, took a left on Ronda de Triana, and about five minutes later I was waving at Isis who was going to show me up to where her and Genisis live. I had already met all of their host family except for their host dad and their host grandparents, so when I got there I greeted everyone with dos besos and made small talk (ugh) with their family. At one point, Isis and Genisis left me alone with their host grandpa, Javier, who (while very nice) has a very thick accent Andalusian accent. He was talking to me about the weather (of course, the most typical small talk known to man), but I could only catch about 75% of what he was saying. While that sounds pretty decent, the important parts of the conversation were included in the 25% that I didn't understand, such as questions he was asking me. Once I finally understood a question, I took that and ran with it. I started talking about how the weather here was different than Virginia and that lasted me until Isis and Genisis came back and saved me from the small talk nightmare.

The actual dinner wasn't too bad. Genisis made me a yummy tofu dish since her host mom had no idea what to feed me. All in all, though, the dinner was quite the learning experience.

Anyone who has known me for even five minutes knows that:

1. I am quiet.
      1.5. I am an introvert.

That being said, I didn't say much at dinner. I didn't say much because I didn't think there was anything for me to say. I'm more content listening to the conversation. In group situations, I don't typically speak up unless someone directly addresses me or unless I really feel like I have something important to share. However, lil' ol' Granny (the host dad's mom) thought I wasn't speaking because I didn't know/understand Spanish. I mean, seriously, even if they were talking in English, I still wouldn't have chimed in. The granny asked me something, and I didn't hear all of what she had said because I didn't realize she was speaking to me for the first half of the question, so when I asked her to repeat, she proceeded to turn to Isis and said, "Ohh, pobrecitaaa, ella no puede entender nada que he dicho. *clucks her tongue* Ella está sentando allí con ni idea de qué está pasando..." Translation: Ohh, poor thing, she can't understand anything that I've said. *clucks tongue* She's sitting there with no idea of what's going on." My reaction was something like this:

I do not like people assuming I do not understand them. Mostly, I don't like people talking about me when 1. I can in fact understand them and 2. When I'm right there. I literally sat right across from her. I was trying to tell her that I just didn't hear the question, but Isis and Genisis jumped in before me to explain to her that I actually do understand Spanish, but lil' ol' Granny didn't seem to listen or care. The granny ignored me for the rest of the dinner...not making eye contact with me once. She literally would look at Javier on my left, skip over me, and look at Genisis on my right. 

It's very rare when I just straight up don't like someone without getting to know them with concrete reasons to not like them, but I did not like her. I can usually get along with just about everyone. I have been told that I have a "neutral personality," but if you're going to not even give me a chance to understand you and then just ignore me for the rest of the time we're together, that's going to get on my nerves and my "neutral personality" will become a sassy personality.

And then, the whole freaking time at dinner, about 90% of the dinner table conversation was about vegetarianism and veganism and the big question of "Why do you do that????" Don't get me wrong, I really like Genisis' and Isis' host family a lot, but good lord...the ignorance and lack of respect was getting on my last nerves. I got asked several times about cheese, eggs, and other stuff. I didn't go into detail about it. I spent most of the time just listening to Isis and Genisis defending their points (they're vegetarians btw). They were being completely respectful about it, but their family was just like, "But animals are to eat. Animals taste good. I think you're wrong. I don't care if I'm eating a dead animal -- me da igual. You wan't some of my lamb or shrimp or crab??" My face during the dinner went through several levels of "unimpressed." I'll illustrate these levels with some nice hand selected gifs:

Level 1: The Unimpressed Emotionless Staredown Face

Level 2: The "Yes, please go on telling me about how you need to eat animals to survive" Face

Level 3: The "Did that tontería (nonsense) really just come out of your mouth" Face



Level 4: The "I'm listening, and I think you're wrong, but I'm not going to say anything" Face



Level 5: The "Well they're never gonna change their mind so I'll just tune out" Face




In the whole time I've been in Spain, I have never encountered someone who gave up talking to me on the first interaction. Seriously, every time I don't understand someone, they literally just repeat themselves, which is what I prefer. Sometimes I just need to hear something twice, and I expected that from the lil' granny too, but nope. She just assumed I had no idea what was going on and refused to talk to me for the rest of the time.

I also haven't encountered anyone, not just in Spain but in the States as well, so insistent that meat is so vital to life and that if you don't eat meat you'll get sick and die/if you don't eat meat then it makes you some weird freak. Not even my dad was that annoying about it, and I thought he hit like the top of the top of annoying. I think it's worse when there's just a table of 6 people all with the same opinion that meat = life -- which is quite the opposite. Meat is actually death, and eating it can contribute to a shorter lifespan...just saying.

Now don't get me wrong, I respect others' choice to eat meat. Yes, I think it's wrong, but they have the choice to do that just like I have the choice not to. It's not the fact that they're meat eaters that gets on my nerves, it's the lack of mutual respect. I don't sit there questioning why they're eating meat, throwing all kinds of facts at them about how bad meat is for them and how veggies are way better. I literally just sat there and ate my food, and somehow the existence of a vegan or vegetarian is enough to provoke the unnecessary avalanche of questions and comments. I know this is just one of the many times in my life that this will happen, so I really need to just learn to be less bothered by this kind of stuff. It's just extremely annoying that I try to be respectful of others but they don't have the same respect.

And honestly, I feel like I'm pretty good at shutting down any possibly avalanches of questions, but Genisis and Isis were more quick to explain themselves which kept the conversation fueled, while if I sense that I'm with really non-understanding people, I go straight for the, "I'm not going to discuss this with you" response. I think it's better to just not discuss that kind of stuff until I really have a good grasp of how I think the person will react, and if I think they're not going to react well, I simply avoid it.

Anyway, before I go on even more of a vegan rant, I'll move on. After dinner, we all picked out 12 grapes out and each put them on our own cute lil' baby plate to consume when the clock struck 12AM. In Spain, everyone watches the clock in Madrid on TV (or wherever they happen to be if they're not at home watching it being broadcast on the news) just like we watch the clock in NYC. However, in Spain, the clock in Madrid chimes, and with each chime, you eat a grape. You eat one grape for each month, and the grape is supposed to represent good luck. It's harder that it sounds, but I got all my grapes down (even if towards the end I slightly resembled a chipmunk). It was actually really fun. :)

This is everyone after we got all of our grapes down and were celebrating the first few minutes of 2015:



So yeah, my NYE was pretty interesting. Overall, I enjoyed it a lot, and I'm so glad I went. Annoyances aside, they have a wonderful host family!

The rest of my first week of 2015? Ehhh...not too eventful.

On New Year's Day I walked all the way to Nervión with Calee to help her find the house that she's going to be tutoring at. It was really fun to catch up with Calee and to explore a part of Sevilla that we both hadn't been to before. The directions she had took us through all these little backroads and made things kinda confusing, but on our way back we just stuck with the main roads and found a much easier route. All in all it was pretty successful.

Yesterday I got to witness Aitana, my host mom's 7/8 month old (not completely sure how old she is) granddaughter, try her first yogurt. Her face was sooo adorable! I love watching babies try foods for the first time because their expressions are always so priceless. Also, Aitana seems to like me. She always smiles/giggles at me for no reason haha. Maybe she just thinks I look funny, who knows. But when she was eating her yogurt, she was watching me the whole time, and in between bites she'd kinda reach toward me and giggle, and my host mom was like, "Aww she likes Americans!" Lol, because a 7/8 month old is able to sense that I'm American.

Also, yesterday, I went to a new restaurant with Isis, Genisis, and Calee that I haven't been to yet with vegan options called Habanita. It's a cuban restaurant with lots of vegan and vegetarian options (which are clearly labeled on the menu). The food was soo good, and I think this place is my new favorite here in Sevilla. I got falafel w/ coconut sauce and it was tasty, and the falafel was nice and moist, unlike the other falafel that I've had here. It was also pretty nice to have all the JYS SBC girls spending time together.

Another random thing: I just want to comment on how nice the weather has been here lately. Look at all of that sun! I tok a walk today along the river and I had to take off my jacket at one point because I was getting pretty toasty walking in the sun.

Also these warm temperatures are niiiice. I'm not looking forward to going back to a Virginia winter next year. Good thing my host mom is knitting me a scarf ;D

Lastly, I just want to write the typical "New Year's" blah-de-blah junk. I don't really have any "New Year's Resolutions," because I feel like if you want to do something, you shouldn't wait until the new year to start. This is just going to be an eventful year, and I hope that I can continue to grow as a person as much as I have towards the end of 2014. Almost half of 2015 will be spent in Spain for me, and then the other half will be me starting my senior year at Sweet Briar. I can't believe I'm going to be a senior! It feels like everything's coming to a close and while on one hand I don't like that feeling at all, on the other hand I love knowing I still have lots of adventures lying ahead of me!

I petted a black cat in Belgium this week. What did you do?

I spent this past week in Belgium. It's a country known for its waffles, chocolate, and fries. I knew we were in a good country when we were walking through the airport and they had waffles in vending machines. However, during my stay, it was cold. And rainy. And cloudy. And dreary. And a little snowy. Oh, and Christmassy. But mostly just cold and rainy.

My journey started out leaving my piso and having my host mom, Toni, exclaim, "¡qué pronto! :(" She then proceeded to interrogate me as I was trying to walk out of the door: ¿Tienes todo? ¿Tu pasaporte? ¿Toda tu ropa? ¡¡¡TEN CUIDADO, HIJA!!! ¿Vale? Ten cuidado...'ta luegoooo, cariño! 

I met Isis and Genisis outside of their building, and from there we walked to Plaza de Armas to catch the bus that goes to the airport. As we were walking over one of the Bridges of Death (we call the bridges that go over the Guadalquivir River "Bridges of Death" because it's always windy, cold, hot, humid...some kind of somethin' going on. The main Bridge of Death is el puente de Triana). Anyway, as we were walking over the bridge, we said our goodbyes to Sevilla and fantasized about our fun adventures we'd have in Belgium...little did we know it wouldn't be quite as fabulous as we had imagined. 

Getting to the airport, getting through security, and waiting forever all were pretty seamless. After a couple of hours chatting in the airport, complaining about how expensive airports are, and taking a ton of stupid selfies, we finally boarded our flight to Belgium. The flight felt really short, but that's probably because I definitely slept through most of it. 

Getting through the airport in Brussels, catching the bus to the city center, and getting a cab to our hostel were also really easy...except when we arrived to our hostel...the name on our reservation and the actual place at the address were different, so we were confused and slightly nervous. Our cab driver was like "uhh wtf???" which didn't help us feel any better. Then we just went in and asked and it was still the right place, which it was. Just some kind of weird name change game they were playing. It was a little after midnight when we got to our hostel, so we just decided to hit the hay and wake up early the next day to start exploring! 

So, like I said earlier, while we were in Belgium, the weather was rainy and gross about 90% of the time. On the first day, we weren't influenced by it at all. Even though it was rainy and gross, we walked around the city and saw a lot of the famous parts, learned our way around, explored some really neat Christmas markets, found some cute cafes, found an Asian market that was really neat (but smelled kinda like death), and just had a good time. Our dinner was probably my favorite part of the day. We went to an Ethiopian restaurant called "KoKoB." I've always wanted to try Ethiopian food, and it was just as good as I thought...but eating it was quite strange. The food came in little bowls with a giant pancake type thing and little bread pieces rolled up like a fruit roll up which served as our utensils. Our waitress showed us the proper way to eat the food. She spooned food from the bowl onto the pancake, unrolled some bread and ripped off a piece, picked up some food with the bread, and tried to feed it to me. I froze up because suddenly this strange lady was trying to shove food in my mouth which caught me off guard, and when I am caught off-guard I freeze up and make things awkward, so since I just stared at her like she was insane, she ended up feeding it to Isis instead. I should have taken a picture, but we were all so hungry we devoured everything before I even thought about taking a picture. If you're ever in Brussels, I definitely recommend this place! Here's a picture from Google of what it basically looked like:

I got this off of the TripAdvisor website's reviews of KoKoB
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g188644-d778285-Reviews-Kokob-Brussels.html

This was also the day I discovered Speculoos, the best thing I've ever had in my entire life. I didn't take a picture of it, but here's a picture from Google:

Don't know what that is? Think it's peanut butter? You are incorrect. If you have ever had cookie butter from Trader Joe's, this is basically the same thing -- but the original version. It's basically ground up speculoos cookies (kinda like gingerbread) mixed with oil and sugar to make a really unhealthy, yet extremely tasty, spread. It kinda has the consistency of peanut butter, but a little bit more sticky. We definitely consumed waayy too much of this stuff, and honestly, the thought of it now kinda makes me want to throw up.

Oh, and Genisis could literally never remember the name of speculoos. She called it 93203 other names, though: spuffleloos, spuffleluss, specluff, spooklus, scuffle-us... 

Day number two, aka Christmas Eve, was a different story. Even though we had a good first day, we definitely weren't happy with the weather. It was cold, rainy, and windy on the first day. On the second day? Cold, rainy, windy times 29302834. It sucked. The rain wasn't even bearable at some points. We spent a lot of time in cafes and in our hostel because the weather was just that gross. We even nicknamed this one part of Brussels "The Bridge of Death" of Brussels. It wasn't a bridge, but we had to cross this one street into our sketch neighborhood where our hostel was, and the wind was completely insane every day no matter what time of day. I actually had tears running down my cheeks at some points just from the wind. It was ridiculous. Basically, Christmas Eve was pretty uneventful. In the...like two hours...that it was only sprinkling, we managed to look at more Christmas markets. This was also the day that I decided to throw my veganism into the wind to try an authentic Belgian waffle. I wasn't about to go to Belgium and *not* eat an authentic Belgian waffle. I can see that kind of sounds like a dumb thing to make an exception for, but first you have to understand how much I love waffles, and second...when in my life ever again am I going to be in Belgium? Probably never again. Plus, the waffle had melted speculoos on it...it was so worth it.

Day number three, aka Christmas Day, Santa came by Belgium and left us the greatest present of all: the sun!! You read that right my friends, the sun came out on Christmas day. Hallelujah thank da lawd, we could finally see the blue sky. As soon as we saw the blue sky, we all jumped out of bed to get ready as fast as possible to get in some good exploring before it would start raining again. I finally could break out my camera without fear of it getting wet, too! We were all happy campers. We were planning on heading out to find the Manneken Pis statue, which Brussels is famous for, but we decided to go towards this giant fancy building that looked like it wouldn't be too far of a walk. We were feeling pretty ambitious.

If you look reeeaaalllyyy closely, you can see the building we were headed for. 

 We found some cool stuff on the way there, like "the mothership:"

As soon as Genisis saw this, she yelled, "Oh my god!! The mothership!!"

So...turns out the building we were headed for only looked close. I swear, as we kept walking, it kept getting farther away. (I just looked it up on Google maps, and it is 4.5km (2.8 miles) from where we were.) We were kinda hungry, so we stopped at a little convenience store on the way to get coffee, and I picked up paprika chips, which are my new favorite kind of chip. Here's a picture of Isis and Genisis snacking in the park close to the building.

Then we continued on to the building (which ended up being a church). 

So once we got there, we took some pictures in front of it, and then walked around to figure out how to get inside because Granny Bladder Isis had to use the bathroom. 

Well turns out the church was extremely beautiful, and for 5€ you could ride an elevator to the next few levels, with the top level being a panoramic view of the city. So we went up to the top where we had a series of unusual events.

First, we were overwhelmed with just how big Brussels was. Take a look for yourself, it's giant!

Then we made friends with this Asian guy and his mom. His mom was super impressed that Genisis & Isis could speak a little Chinese, and when the guy was taking a group picture for us, his mom wanted in the picture too...so we have a group photo with a really nice Chinese tourist lady on top of a church in Belgium.

After that, as we were taking more pictures, we spotted a (chunk of a) rainbow!

As we were looking at the rainbow, the church tripped Isis and she fell and ripped her new pants at the knee. She was quite sad about that...and she still hadn't found a bathroom. :(

Once we finally found a bathroom, we headed out with the intention of finding a ferris wheel that we spotted from the top of the church. On the way to the ferris wheel, we found this interesting statue:

We definitely got stared at for taking that picture...oh well, #worthit.

After a while, we finally made it to the ferris wheel, which turned out to be the best Christmas Market yet! We spent a while exploring the market, munching on more waffles, and of course riding the ferris wheel.

Don't be fooled by that smile. I am actually afraid of heights and was freaking out. 

Isis and Genisis on the ferris wheel!

View of the Christmas Market from the top of the ferris wheel

I thought this was super Christmassy...a game where you fish for ornaments!

After this Christmas market, went walked to the Grand Place (giant beautiful square) to see the  Christmas lights around the city and to see a light show that was spectacular.

It was a pretty good Christmas, but that night Genisis wasn't feeling too well, so because of that we watched Christmas movies on tv in our hostel and went to sleep kinda early. We were tired from such a long day anyway!

The next day we woke up and Genisis still didn't feel very good. I went down to a pharmacy to pick her up some Ibuprofen while Isis was showering. The first pharmacy I went to was a fail. I tried to open the door and couldn't get it. I pushed, I pulled, I pressed the little doorbell looking thing...nothing. There were clearly people INSIDE, but lawd only knows how they got there. I even tried staring the people down, but I got nothing. Eventually I gave up and walked around the block until I found another pharmacy with a functioning door. The lady inside was super nice and thankfully spoke English, but man that Ibuprofen was expensive. It was almost 10€! It helped Genisis, though.

Since the next day was another day with sun, we made a spur of the moment decision to travel to Bruges for the day. That was quite the experience, but totally worth it.

Basically, none of us knew how to navigate the train station. It was only 5 minutes away from our hostel, but that was the only convenient thing about it. We got in and had no idea where to go, we couldn't read the dang signs, and it was huge! Finally after asking someone at the "Textile Expert" stand, she pointed us to the "Travel Centre." We got in line, bought our ticket (only 11€), asked where to go, and headed to platform #9. Almost as soon as we got there, our train arrived...but we weren't sure if that was our train. So we asked one guy and in broken English he told us it was this train, but it seemed more like he was saying that it was this platform, so we were confused. We asked like 2 other people and after being like 89% sure that this was in fact our train, we hopped on and found a seat. We still had doubt since everything was in a different languages (two different languages to be exact: Dutch and French), but we figured the worst that could happen is that we'd end up in some random place that could potentially be cool. Well, we were on the right train and everything was perfectly fine.

Our "we did it!" pictures after we finally were on our way after that stressful chain of events!

After about an hour on the train, we finally arrived in Bruges. We followed a giant group of people to the city center, but on the way I spotted a black cat in a parking lot. OBVIOUSLY, I immediately went over to the cat to try to pet it. The cats in Sevilla don't like people, so I was kinda expecting this cat to run away from me, but it totally didn't! It wanted to be petted and was purring and being adorable. Then Isis and Genisis came to pet it and it tried to walk away, so my sassiness came out and I was like "GET AWAY I HAVE TO PET THIS CAT IT DOESN'T LIKE YOU."  So Genisis just took pictures of me petting the cat.

New cat friend

Highlight of my entire time in Belgium -- first cat I've petted since September when I was home with my own cats

So after my whole cat freak out episode, we went on our way to explore Bruges. It was such a beautiful city. We couldn't have picked a better last minute thing to do while in Belgium. It was so quaint and cute and I loved it so much! Here's a ton of photos because words can't describe my time here very well:

Genisis and Isis on one of the many bridges in Bruges

...and me on one of the many bridges in Bruges!

Cute lil' hummingbird 

on another bridge!

Apparently Bruges is the chocolate capital of the world...so they made a nativity scene out of chocolate! 

More waffles! These were cute with little Belgian flags on them, too

I'm including this picture because it cracks me up/my sass is showing. I was staring down someone for walking into my photo (right before they walked into the frame).

Okay, a better picture!

Overall, I'd recommend Bruges before I would recommend Brussels. I enjoyed my entire time there, and I'd love to go back someday!

After exploring the city for the entire afternoon and buying our host families some chocolate, we made it back to the train station to purchase our tickets back to Brussels. Our return tickets were only 6€. Why can't travel be this cheap in America...? Ugh.

Upon our return to Brussels, we went to a Korean BBQ restaurant that Isis and Genisis saw earlier that they really wanted to go to. I was still full from that waffle from earlier (that had normal milk chocolate on it), so I wasn't feeling too good (the waffle was so good though, still no regrets...but I definitely prefer dark chocolate to normal chocolate now). They got some really awesome kimchi fried rice (well it smelled good; I didn't have any), and I just had a small bowl of miso soup.

Now this is where I got super mad at myself. After we ate, we went back to the hostel. When we got back, I looked at the chocolate that Genisis and Isis got for their host family, and I went to grab mine to put it away when I REALIZED I DIDN'T HAVE IT. I stupidly left Toni's chocolate in the Korean restaurant! What is with me and leaving stuff behind in restaurants?! I was sooo mad. It's such a stupid thing to be mad about, but this was the SECOND time time two weeks where I had left something behind in a restaurant! I can't believe it. It made me even more mad because AS WE WERE LEAVING, I mentally checked in my mind if I had everything. I was like, "Okay...phone, wallet, camera, bag...I'm good to go!"

So I pouted about the chocolate for a good 15 minutes until I forgot about it and went to bed so I could get up early and get ready to go back to Sevilla the next day.

The next morning, we set out early to get to the airport, but first we couldn't leave Brussels without seeing the Manneken Pis statue. Once again, it was lookin' kinda drizzly outside, but we made it to the statue without getting rained on.

 It was kind of a let down. We were expecting some kind of big ol' monument, but it was just this tiny lil' baby on a street corner. Ehhh. Luckily, there was an open chocolate shop next to the statue, and I went in and bought Toni MORE chocolate that I definitely was NOT going to lose. This time I got her some truffles. Turns out that losing the first box of chocolates was for the better, because truffles are actually her favorite (the first box was just an assortment of different chocolates from a neat little chocolate shop), and I even heard her bragging on the phone about the truffles to her friends today. #success

My time in Belgium ended with snow. Yes, you heard that right, snooowwww. I had wanted it to snow while I was there, but not necessarily on the day I was leaving. Actually, especially on the day I was leaving...I wasn't trying to get my flight delayed. We were super worried we were gonna get delayed because they were calling out delayed flights left and right, but luckily the one to Sevilla was still going on time. When it came time to board the plane and leave, I was totally convinced we were going to slip off the runway and die. I've never been so tense during take off. Obviously everything was fine because here I am writing all of this, but still...I was terrified.

A crappy picture of the snow outside of the airport...when it was just beginning. When we left there was at least two or three inches on the grass, and slush everywhere else!

So we finally made it back to Sevilla, and as soon as we stepped off the plane we noticed the giant weather difference. It was still cold, but we called it warm. Also, I felt sooo much better being back in Spain where I could actually understand people/signs/etc (never thought I'd say that!!).

When I finally got back to my piso, Toni was super glad to see me. I was super happy to eat dinner, change into my pajamas, and go to sleep in my own bed with clean sheets that didn't smell questionably dirty.

It was a really good trip, and I'm super glad I got the chance to go, but I sure hope that my next trip (Dublin!) has better weather...