The Week that Felt like a Year

Oops! A late post. I tried to write my blog on my iPad on the way home from Madrid to Sevilla, but my nails are getting long so it makes typing a struggle. I gave up after a while, and then I was too tired to do it when I got home. So here I am, writing it now... 

So, I didn't do anything out of the ordinary on Monday, but Toni had her daughter, Carmen, and her kids (aka two of Toni's granddaughters: Nuria and Aitana) over for a couple of days. It was kind of fun to have them over. I came home for lunch on Monday and everyone said "hola," and then Aitana (the 6 month old baby), kind of jumped and waved her arms in the air and yelled baby noises that sounded like "hola." It was literally the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life, and we were all super impressed since she's so young. 

That night, Genisis told me about a Semana Santa ensayo (Holy Week practice/procession), so we headed over to the La Iglesia de Esperanza de Triana (Iglesia = church) around 8:30pm to watch the procession. We ran into some random Australian dude and he stuck around and talked to Genisis and I for a while. He didn't understand what was happening so we explained it to him, and right after he left, the procession finally came along. It was super cool, but they didn't have the Virgin Mary out, just the Jesus. I don't really know how to describe the procession very well, so if you're interested, you should just Google it...but it's basically this giant elaborately decorated Virgin Mary statue that 40 men carry on their shoulders through the streets of Sevilla with lots of people following it around, crying/being emotional, and yelling "guapa" at the virgin. Oh, and there's a band that follows the processions. This stuff happens all throughout the week of Semana Santa, which isn't until March, but people are practicing now, because this is a big deal. Super religious, super cultural, super important.

You should Google "Semana Santa Sevilla" to learn more about it/to see pictures because it's cool.

Monday night after the ensayo, I was eating dinner with the family, and suddenly Aitana somehow fell off of the sofa and bumped her head on the marble floor. I don't have much experience being around babies, so seeing a baby do a summersault off of the sofa was super terrifying. She had a big knot on her head but she was perfectly fine. Babies are durable, I guess.

Also, Monday night I found out I am royal. My aunt does a lot of genealogy research, and she found out that King James Stewart the IV of Scotland is like my 14th great grandfather. So, I'm also part Scottish, which I didn't know before. Oh, and to add more gas to this genealogy fire, I am also apparently distantly related to Abraham Lincoln, who has always been one of my favorite presidents for some reason. You learn something new everyday!

My 14th Great Grandpa, King James IV of Scotland

Good ol' Abe Lincoln...I'm somehow super distantly related to him!

Tuesday morning was pretty great. Why? Because I started my day off by going to the vegan bakery. I got a napolitana, which is basically a croissant with chocolate inside and it's the best thing in the world. 

Then when I got to my creative writing class, I was irrationally angry at this girl who took my seat. I have sat in the same seat for every class, and then today this girl just decides to get up and take my seat. I don't have a good reason for that making me mad, because after all it's just a seat. No big deal, right? Well, tell that to my Tuesday morning self. I was not a happy camper about having to sit somewhere else. Also the people in the class were being obnoxious and I wanted to leave really bad. 

I'm not the only one who suffers from this problem.

My day was salvaged when I got home for lunch and got to sit next to this cutie:

Cute lil' Aitana <3 :)

My host mom has the cutest little granddaughter in the whole world.

Tuesday night Vanessa and I went back to the intercambio to see if the bomberos were back, but they so weren't. No big deal, I ended up talking for a long time to some old lady named MariCarmen. I made it my goal to only speak Spanish at this intercambio to make up for last week when I basically only spoke English; it was a good goal. I feel like at intercambio once the people realize that you're from the USA, they only want you to speak in 

English. It's kind of annoying because I go there to practice Spanish. Anyway...the lady spoke to me in English and I responded in Spanish, and she said I speak Spanish really well! I was really trying hard to pronounce things as close to correctly as I good using stuff I've learned in my phonetics class (which is my favorite class, by the way), and I really can feel my pronunciation improving. I feel like I can speak pretty well when I try, but when I'm just like at home talking to Toni or Vanessa or in a more casual situation, I sound pretty American because I am more focused on getting my ideas out. I'm slowly improving...but I can definitely see the difference from last semester.

Wednesday I had a meeting with Giulia at the JYS office. It was about my learning plan that I wrote at the very beginning of last semester/a check-in. It was a good meeting, and it actually made me reflect on how far I've come with everything. My listening has improved 375837384%. Also, my accent has improved a lot, and it's definitely improving more with my phonetics class. I need to revise my learning plan, but I'm going to leave my ultimate goal the same, which is to learn enough Spanish to be able to actually teach it back in the states and know what I am talking about. I feel like that's pretty reasonable.

Thursday was a good day because I had my two favorite classes, creative writing and phonetics. My creative writing class was so fun because we talked about metaphors and similes, and in case you didn't know, creating those things is my secret talent. We also did this super fun thing where we listened to a song on YouTube and wrote down all the things that came to our mind, and then we shared what we came up with. I love doing that, and that was the first time doing that while thinking in Spanish. I think I will do that more often because it's a really good way to practice Spanish. 

My phonetics class was fun too, and no one really showed up, so we played a lot of games which I definitely will use in my future classroom. We played this one game where we were divided into two groups and we made a chart that said "first name, last name, object, food, animal" and we were given the syllable (we are learning about how to separate Spanish words into syllables) "sa" and we had to come up with five words that began with "sa" for each category. The first team to finish was the winner. Then we played a game where our teacher gave us a word (I think it was "mesa," which means table), and we went around the room and the first person had to take the last syllable of "mesa" and make a new word that began with that syllable, and the next person had repeat the first word, the second word, and say a new word with the last syllable of the new word. It didn't have to make any sense, it just had to start with the last syllable of the last person's word. By the time it got to me, I had to say something like "Mesa sabe bella llena" and I added "nacimiento." When it was done, this is what it was: "Mesa sabe bella llena nacimiento toro robar..." actually that's not all of it, but it's all I remember. 

Nothing else really happened on Thursday, but that's okay, because my weekend was quite eventful. 

Friday was...not my favorite day. My internship started. I like my internship, but as usual, there was crazy stuff going on and miscommunication. Here's a summary of what happened:

First class: They're doing things differently than last semester, so instead of teaching, I'll be holding small group conversations and grading students on their oral English. I'll be doing this every Friday in my first class of the day.

Second class/third class: My second and third classes of the day are with Marga, Genisis' and Isis' hostmom. She teaches infantil (preschool). I've never worked with preschoolers before, let alone preschoolers who don't speak the same language as me. I mean, yeah, I "speak Spanish," but I really don't feel confident enough with my Spanish to be able to manage, or even help manage, a class of 26 four year olds. I feel like I don't have the vocabulary for that -- but I guess I'll learn this semester. This class makes me super nervous, so I wasn't feeling my greatest. And the cherry on top? Marga left me in the class by myself with a class of 26 four year olds who I don't even know for the last 20 minutes of class. It was pretty terrifying. She didn't tell me what I should do when they were done with what they were working on, and of course, the kids were bickering, tattle tailing, getting up and running around, falling out of their chairs for fun, getting snot everywhere (true story), pulling down their pants BEFORE going into the bathroom, asking me questions that I didn't know how to answer because I don't know if they're even allowed to do what they were asking to do..oh goodness I don't know how anyone works with preschoolers. Maybe by the time this semester is over, I'll be an expert with preschoolers...who knows. I think best case scenario is that I'll not feel like the world is ending every time I walk into the class.

Fourth class: Not even a class. It's this thing called "English Corner." I'm still unsure of what it is, but I think it's like this period where I just do errands. I took all the stuff off of the English Corner bulletin board, and Soraya told me I had to draw a big map and email everyone in JYS who is doing the internship so that I can collect their biographies, so I went down to the staff room to look up a picture of the USA to use as a model. I used two different computers before asking my supervisor, Julia, who happened to be down there too, how to use the internet. That's when she told me that it wasn't working. So then I just asked her if she had a list of people who are in this internship so I could email them from my phone, and then she was like, "Why?" and then she literally just told me the opposite of everything Soraya had. I don't need to email the students because apparently that's the responsibility of the mentor teachers, and I apparently don't need to draw the map because SORAYA IS SUPPOSED TO ALREADY HAVE IT. It's a good thing there wasn't internet. So I went back to Soraya's class to let her know there wasn't any internet, and then I just helped her with her class until it was time for my next one. Maybe next week people will actually know what's going on and will be able to give me an actual job.

Fifth class: A class I had last semester!! I have the same class as I did last semester with Sofía. I love this class so much so I'm super excited to be in there again. What I do in this class will be similar to what I'm doing in my first class, except I'll be giving students practice tests of a Cambridge English test to help them prepare for the real thing that they'll take at the end of the semester.

Sixth class: This class is just like "normal," so I'll just be helping Carlos teach his English class. I never have been in this class before. My first impression is that they're pretty rambunctious, so it'll be interesting to see how this semester goes. I think it'll be a fun class!

And that's it! Then I go home, eat lunch, and take a siesta to recover. 

Saturday morning, bright and early, Vanessa and I met Genisis and Isis at the bus stop to take the bus to the train station. We had a JYS group trip to Madrid!

Since we took the Ave (the high speed train), we arrived in Madrid around 11:30. Only a three and a half hour trip instead of the normal 6ish hour bus/regular speed train ride. When we arrived to the hotel, I found out I was rooming with Vanessa and another girl from the program, Laura. We were also right next to Genisis' and Isis' room.

After eating our bocadillos because we were starving, we headed out to explore Madrid. We went to this Chinese New Year celebration in a plaza nearby the hotel, then we wandered around, eventually heading to La Chocolatería San Ginés, aka the most famous place to get hot chocolate and churros in Madrid.

Side note: the hot chocolate is not vegan (contains milk), however, since I make certain travel-exceptions for things that I might not be able to try ever again/for things that are specific cultural foods (such as the most famous hot chocolate in Spain's capital from a bar that's been around since the late 1800s -- 1894 to be exact -- or like in Belgium when I tried the authentic Belgian waffle), I took the risk of an upset stomach (after not consuming milk for a while, your body stops making the enzymes to digest it), temporarily threw my vegan label out of the window, and got a cup of hot chocolate to go with my churros. Just like the last time I tried the chocolate on the Puente de Triana with my very first batch of churros, I was kind of unimpressed with the chocolate at first. I seriously think after not eating milk chocolate for a long time, you lose taste for it. If that chocolate would have been made with dark chocolate...it would have been perfect. It honestly kind of tasted like melted Hershey's Kisses or off-brand chocolate pudding...However, after a few bites, I began to think it tasted pretty good. Over all, the experience was worth it, because by the time I finished my churros and hot chocolate, I might have been hooked except for the fact that I was never going to by that ever again.

After the churros and hot chocolate, we headed towards the Parque de Retiro, a giant park in Madrid. When we got there, we all unanimously decided that we had to rent a boat in this little lake-but-not-actually-a-lake thing. It was only 7.50 euros, so we got two boats for the four of us. I shared my boat with Genisis, and Isis and Vanessa shared the other boat. This is when I discovered my talent of boat rowing. Basically I was an almost-expert. I say "almost-expert" because at one point, Genisis was rowing and she got us stuck in a corner (it wasn't totally her fault; the wind was intense), and I could only almost get us out of the corner before a new boat would come and push us back into the corner. There was at least 6 boats up in that corner. Luckily, some guys were pulling people away from the corner and they happened to grab our boat too. As soon as we were free, I rowed like a mad woman until we were back in the middle. Isis and Vanessa weren't as lucky, and they were trapped in the corner and no one helped them...so they eventually abandoned ship...

This is where we were rowing our boats.

Here I am gracefully exercising my newly found boat rowing skills.

After the boats, we stopped in a café to use the bathroom. Then we headed back towards the hotel, and on the way back we stopped a lot so I could take pictures with my "real camera" since I didn't do that last time. Here are some pictures I took:

This is a photo of the stupid goat I hate, which apparently is all over Spain and not just in Sevilla. It's like a dead goat head thing with a guy underneath all of that tinsel, and the guy makes the goat head snap it's mouth and make loud obnoxious squeaky noises. It's so freaking weird.

Once we got back to the hotel, we sat around for a little while until dinner, and then we went back to our vegan Chinese buffet we found last time. It wasn't *as good* as on my Veganniversary, but I think the only reason it wasn't as good is because it wasn't my Veganniversary. I wish I could take that restaurant back to the states. :/

Sunday, we went to this awesome flea market that was spread out over tons of streets in Madrid. I ended up fueling my earring addiction and buying new earrings. No regrets, because they're super cool. They're hand made out of porcelain and it reminds me of a painting I did once. After that, we walked around Madrid, stopped at a café, then headed back to the hotel. A little while later, we went to go eat lunch (we didn't eat at the hotel because they're not good at feeding vegans/vegetarians), and we went to this restaurant called Loving Hut. Good food, worst service of my life. We asked for bread...and everyone around us got bread except for us. It took them 20 minutes to get our order in, only to have our waitress come back to tell us our food wasn't even available. We were there for at least an hour or more. We left as soon as we could. After lunch, it was time to head back to the hotel so we could take the bus to the train station to go back to Sevilla. The train ride was painless and I was happy to get back home. I was not happy, however, that the next day was Monday and I had to get up early, but that's okay because I'm in Spain and nothing is as bad in Spain.

I can't believe all of this stuff happened in one week. It seems like this week went by sooo slowly, but that's okay. I realized I have less that 100 days left in Spain, and they can drag along as slowly as they want.

This week should be good. I don't think I have my internship this Friday because there's supposed to be a long weekend, but I'm still not 100% sure. This weekend, Genisis and Isis and I are making a trip down to Cádiz (aka da beach). I've never been to Cádiz so I'm pretty excited. We also got a good deal on an apartment on Airbnb, my new favorite thing. Forget hostels, I'm all about those apartments on Airbnb. It's apparently 200m from the train station, 5 minutes from the beach, and it has a rooftop terrace. The pictures look nice and I think we really lucked out. The weather is looking like it'll be nice, too. I'm so excited! Also, the weather is supposed to get up into the 70s by the end of the week. Hallelujah, this will be great. 

Also, side note, my host mom got a tablet today, and I was telling her how she can play games to improve her memory, and she got super excited, so I went to help her make a Luminosity account, and she didn't have an email address. So I just helped her set up her very first email account and it was hilarious and my host mom is basically the most adorable host mom that there ever was. The end.

 

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.