Mis Viajes (My Travels)

Helllloooooooo, USA!

La catedral. It's really hard to capture just how massive it is in one shot. But at least this shows you some of the great architectural features.

Over the last two days, I've booked plane tickets for three different trips I'll be taking over the next few weeks. So I thought I'd update you on some travel plans for the future, just in case you're curious :)

Next weekend (Sept. 28-30): Portugal! Lagos, Albufeira, Sagres

Oct. 5-8: Barcelona! We'll be there for El Clásico, which is a huge fútbol game between Real Madrid and Barcelona, who I believe are the two best teams in the world. Well.. they're certainly good, at least. So we'll go to a bar and watch the game in Barcelona, among doing other touristy things

Oct. 10-16: Italy! A few days in Rome, a few in Florence, then we'll spend a morning in Pisa (which is where we'll catch a plane back to Sevilla)

Nov. 2-4 - Morocco! (Tetouan, Tangiers, Chefchaouen)

My friends and I have also made plans to go to some other places in Europe and Spain, but these are just the trips that we've booked. I'm very excited :)

Yesterday I joined a gym, and I tried out a spinning class there. It was awesome! The instructor only spoke Spanish, of course, but he was really helpful if my friend and I started peddling too fast or too slow or had bad posture on the bike or something. It was funny, he kept yelling "Esto es!" which sounded really weird to me. But then I realized that if you translate that, it's pretty much just like when American fitness instructors yell "That's it!". I guess fitness classes aren't that different regardless of which side of the Atlantic you're on...

Today, after weeks of hunting, I finally found peanut butter! SUCCESS.

I also went shopping in a crafty store to make myself a ring. Not just any ring, though. My mom and I made bracelets when we were in New Jersey a few years ago. They were bracelets with different beads on them that each meant something different. And it really meant something to me, since I made it with my mom. When I went to the Real Madrid game a few weekends ago, it broke! Probably because I was cheering too hard... Thankfully, I was able to find and save some of the beads from the bracelet, but I lost a lot of it. So I decided to make a ring out of a few of the remaining beads. And here it is:

My time here has been a little bit up and down lately. I think I'm still kind of adjusting to life here, but I'm sure that'll take some time. I'm very excited for my trips on the next few weekends :)

That's all for now. Talk soon!

El Pueblo Antiguo de Itálica! (The Ancient Town of Italica!)

Yesterday, I went to the ruins of the town of Italica, the first Roman city in the Iberian Peninsula (which is the peninsula where Portugal and Spain are located). The city was founded in 206 BC! It was a great experience, we were able to walk in buildings from thousands of years ago. We saw Roman roads. We saw an amphitheatre that used to sit 30,000 people, where they used to hold gladiator fights way back when. I took lots of pictures and was geeking out the whole time ("Guys, this is so old!").

Itálica is only 20 minutes away from Sevilla, so we hopped on a bus to get there. Only 1,45 euro.

Me and Andrea (from Chicago) on the bus.

Part of the town wall is still standing, that's the stone you see on either side of my friends, haha.

After entering the town, we were able to walk into what-used-to-be residences and other buildings of the town.

El Edificio de la Exedra

El Edificio de la Exedra. Used as a residential building.

A re-creation of the building in the image above. Those columns in the first image are part of the red you see in the photo here. The circle in the foreground of the first image is what they believed would have been an entry-way to the rei

More of the columns from the building above.

House of the Birds

This is from what we'd call "The House of the Birds", which was another residence. This was part of the interior of the courtyard, near the bedrooms in the building. Obviously, the plants are new. Structures are not.

Then we saw some Mosaic's from some of the residences. The amount of detail in these mosaics is not as evident in the pictures, but they're all made with tiny tiny stones/tiles. It must have taken forever. And I think it's amazing that it's been able to stay 2,000+ years!

Neptune's Mosaic

Roman Road

Me&Kaley. On a Roman road. Nbd.

Another mosaic. Unfortunately I don't remember what this one was called. But again, great attention to detail.

Me&Mosaic

A functioning town (Santiponce) just on the outskirts of Italica.

Sculpture of Emperor Trajan

Emperor Trajan was the first Roman emperor who wasn't born in Rome. He was born in Itálica. 

Me&friends&Trajan

Amphitheatre
The amphitheatre was probably the coolest part of the trip. According to my history professor, it and the Colosseum were used to model the amphitheatre in the movie Gladiator. In it's time, it sat 30,000 people, who all came to watch Gladiator fights. It's about half the size of the Colosseum in Rome.

The arena of the amphitheatre. The seats are those high things on either side. 

Everything at Italica was in Spanish, but from my understanding, these were underground passages in the amphitheatre that were used by the participants. 

Walls around the arena, entrance to the gallery, seats above.

Shot of the amphitheatre from above. Gives a little more detail on the seating.

Me in the Gallery of the amphitheatre. Where my lions at?

"Tabula Gladiatoria" hanging in the amphitheatre. 

"Venus of Italica"

"Diana the Huntress" Not sure who she was.

I had a really cool day in Itálica. I've never really been anywhere that's sooo old, and that made me feel really appreciative of my time there. I think some of our group got a little bored, since we walked a lot, and essentially we were just looking at rocks. But I think those of us who were able to look past the rocks were able to really appreciate it. I mean, we were walking where the Romans walked thousands of years ago! I've never been anywhere that was influenced so highly by the Roman empire. And idk, maybe the coolness isn't as obvious as it would be in some other places, but I still think this trip was amazing.

This trip also made me realize that I made a good choice with my classes for this semester. I'm taking two Spanish language courses, Spanish history, and Spanish culture. And I would have had no idea that Itálica was even here if I hadn't heard about in in my history and culture classes. So I think it's really good that I'm taking these classes for that reason. Another reason is that my classes helped me to appreciate Italica a little more while I was there. Honestly, I'm pretty naive about European history in general, and just what I've learned over the last week about the Roman conquest and Roman society helped me to really appreciate and understand what we were looking at. I think the classes I am taking will help to supplement my trip even more than I had expected.

Another thing I noticed in Itálica was that I had some difficulty with knowing what we were looking at sometimes. Like.. they'd have a plaque next to something with a big long description of what it was, but it was all in Spanish. And I'm not really used to vocabulary words surrounding gladiator fights and ancient buildings, so my comprehension was a little low. But I think it'll just take more practice and patience :)

The other day, when I was shopping, I paid for something and the cashier handed me change. And I looked at the coins she gave me and one of them really sparked my attention:

1 euro coin with the Vitruvian Man (da Vinci)

When I realized what I had received, I excitedly asked the cashier (in Spanish) if it was from Italy. And she said it was. And I evidently seemed really stoked, because then she added that they saw a lot of them there. But I still thought that was really cool!

Here's what the front of a euro looks like, in case anyone's interested :)

Tonight, I'll be going to a cycling class here for the first time. The class will be completely in Spanish, so I'll probably wind up peddling backwards or something the whole time. But I'm going with my friend Kaley, so even if I'm confused, I won't be the only one. ;)

I think that's all for now. Talk soon :) besos besos.

Dedicado a los Toros (Dedicated to the Bulls)

Well... I went to a bull fight yesterday. My friend Markus came back into Sevilla, and we went to the game together. And it was about as bad as I expected. Even before I bought the ticket, I knew I would hate it. And I was correct, but I'm glad I saw it. A lot of my friends here are now asking me if they should go see a bull fight, now that I've seen one and didn't like it, and I've told everyone who asks that I don't regret seeing it, and that if I could go back in time I would see it again. But I will not be a frequent attender of bull fights. In fact, I doubt I'll ever go see one again. But I think it's an experience to be had while I'm here, and I'm glad I did it. 

In front of La Plaza de Toros

The arena

Arena & people

Markus!

The opening ceremonies of la corrida de toros (bullfight)

EMTs standing by. Necessary.

For those who might not know, in a bull fight, there are 3 matadors, each kills 2 bulls (I.E 6 total bulls die). It's done in a sequence of steps that I won't go into, and the bull almost always dies in the end. In some rare cases, the bull is deemed too "valuable" by the audience, and that bull will be spared and named "el toro de bravo". It happens very rarely, and when it does, it's like.. in the news and talked about. I was hoping for that to happen yesterday; sadly, it did not.

The first bull was a bit smaller than the others, and his matador was named Manuel Jesus "El Cid". I got the impression that the audience didn't like that bull very much, because he was a little more timid and scared than the others seemed to be. And the audience seemed unenthused by it. But from the beginning of the "show", I was on the bulls side. I was like "Go bull, get him!" Of course, it's not a fair fight, so the chances of the bull winning are basically zero. Well, after the bull had already gotten "hit" a few times (there's a sequence of events that occurs to weaken the bull before the matador kills him), the matador was being all fancy with his red cloth thing, waving it around so the bull would charge and the matador could skirt out of the way at the last second to make the crowd go "Ooooooh" or "Ole!".  But then, out of nowhere, the bull hit the matador. Like.. the matador was airborne and then on the ground and the bull was on top of him and .. if his friends hadn't been there to help him, I feel certain the matador would have died. And I have never ever been so happy to see someone get hit by a bull before. Like.. I was cheering for the bull at that point. Here are some pictures from news articles about what happened at the fight yesterday:

Yeah tough guy... without your friends, you'd be dead. Just like the bull.

The guy in the black and white ran over after the matador got hit, and I think that long stick is something he's sticking into the bull to make him back off. 

Maybe you guys think I'm being cruel, but I'm okay with that. But I just couldn't help but feel for the bull. I mean, from the moment he gets into the arena, he's doomed. His chances for survival are nada. And then they pierce him with spears and put sharp daggers in him and weaken him enough so that they can kill him. And the freaking matadors think they're tough! Like.. first of all, you're wearing pink stockings and ballet shoes. And second of all, without your other matador friends, and the little walls in the arena you can dart behind, you would be dead! I would respect bull fighting much more if it was just a man, his sword, and the bull. None of this pomp & circumstance (lol, Mom) to weaken the bull so that you can kill it. Like be a man. If you want to say that you kill bulls for a living, that's fine, but at least do that, instead of this garbage you call "fighting". 

I am really looking forward to my Spanish Culture class that discusses bullfighting, because right now I'm just confused. And maybe I sound judgemental. But I'm not judging the Spaniards, I just want to ask why. And maybe if people from over here came to the US, they would think some of the stuff we do is whacked. Like watching gory movies or something. But I think I'm just being a normal foreigner with a questioning attitude towards this different culture. And I hope I get it explained to me. But for now, I think I'll stay away from bull fights. I realize that it probably has a great history behind it and that many regard it as art, and that's all fine by me, but I don't think I'll go see another one again.

One point I want to make is about the dignity with which the bulls died, namely the first one (the small one that no one really liked), but who actually got a hit on the matador. You know.. this whole fight isn't very dignified for the bull. The matadors are basically like.. playing with it. It's like they're just trying to make it angry so it'll run at them so they can do something fancy to make the crowd cheer. So in general, it's probably rather embarassing to be the bull (assuming bulls have human emotions, which they probably don't.) But when the matador gave his final blow, the bull just kind of stood there. And the matadors waved their little cloths to see if the bull would still charge at them, which he didn't, as his body basically shut down. But then the bull just laid down on the ground, as if to say "Alright. I'm done.". And then, after sitting there for a bit, he rolled on his side, just as gracefully as he had sat down. And that was it. Meanwhile the matador is wearing his dumb pink stockings and thinking he's the man. But I just want to say that I think the bull showed himself better than any of the cocky matadors.

I think part of the reason why I feel a bit irritated by the whole thing is that I've never really seen something die before, and I think that didn't go well for me yesterday. I admittedly teared up when the bulls died. Because they all ran into the arena with so much life and excitement, and then within a few minutes, they're dead. And I think that dramatic transition was rough for me to see, especially 6 times in a row. 

I think that's about all I have to say about the bull fight. I'm glad I saw it, but I don't understand it, and I hope I do soon.

Afterwards, I was feeling a little down about life, haha, so Markus and I went to sit by the river before going to get dinner.

Thanks for listening.

Momentos de Diversión con Nuevas Amigas (Fun Times with New Friends)

Hello, everyone!

I hope everyone's doing well over there, all the way across the Atlantic. I've been doing pretty well, myself. I love my classes (Me encantan mis clases). The professors are all really great, very helpful and knowledgable. And I feel that I've improved a lot, both language-wise and knowledge-wise, just in this first week of class. I've also found that there's some overlap in my classes, namely Spanish Culture with Spanish History, and Intermediate Spanish 2 with Spanish Conversation. Maybe some might find it annoying, but it's nice to hear something in one class and have it reaffirmed in another. I think that's helping with me learning so much, because I hear some things repeatedly.

I also feel that I'm finally getting a bit more acclimated to the city and to life here. I'm going to join a gym (I'll be doing my first cycling class - taught completely in Spanish - on Monday, wish me luck...). I've started to use my map less and less as I get accustomed to where things are in the city. I've also found some good places to shop for clothes! Now I can look more like a local, haha. Or at least try to. 

I've also run into some things that have surprised me. For example, I went out on Thursday night to a Spanish club, and all I heard was American music. And it shocked me! On the radio, in stores, in the clubs - it's all American music! And not even good American music. I was rocking out to "Call Me Maybe" when I shopped the other day. It just baffles me because Spain has real quality music. I asked some local Spanish guys about it, and they said that unless you go to a bar that has flamenco at it, all you're going to find at bars here is American music.

Another (minor) thing that has surprised me is that I can't find peanut butter anywhere. And that's a pretty key staple in my diet. But I've hunted and hunted and all I can find are cacahuetes (peanuts) - which I love! - but you can't spread cacahuetes onto bread or an apple. Maybe I'll just have to wait to get my peanut butter fix when I get back to the States... Or, I've heard you can order food online through Amazon. I'll wait to see if I get desperate enough to do that.

Another surprise over here are websites. Netflix, Hulu, Pandora ALL don't work over here. When you try to go to their site, you get an error message that says "We're sorry, but this website has not been made available in your country." I think I'll ask around to some Spaniards and see if there are Spanish equivalents, so that I can still keep up with shows while I'm here. And maybe that sounds silly, like "Amanda, why would you watch The Office when you're in Spain?" but it's quite relaxing to watch TV shows - especially when they're in your native language - and I do really care about what happens with Jim and Pam this season. Also, about Modern Family, Gloria is pregnant (according to the last episode of the last season) and I will have no idea how that turns out until December. So please don't tell me :)

I have additionally been surprised by the public transportation. I feel that, unfortunately, in the US the public transportation is a little sketch. Like.. there are always people there who look a little "not well". But here, everyone uses public transportation. It's very efficient and clean. That's great for me, because I take a bus and a subway to get to school everyday. I'm such a commuter over here, haha.

Some of the "surprises" I talked about might sound like bad things, but I'm certainly not complaining. I absolutely love it here, and I'm just observing some differences between here and the US. 

On Wednesday night, some of my friends and I went to a bar for dinner because they offer everything for 1 euro every Wednesday. We also wanted to get together to plan all of our weekend trips for the semester. And now we have a great plan :) I don't think I'll see much of Europe while I'm here. The only real international trips we have are to Morocco, Portugal, and Italy. And I plan to go to Finland for Christmas after my program here is over. But that's what I'd prefer. I've learned a lot already about all of the history in Spain. And the diversity! The north differs greatly from the South. So instead of spending all of my time in countries around Europe and hardly getting to know Spain as a nation, I've decided to spend the majority of my weekends travelling within my "home" country. For instance, tomorrow my friends and I are taking a bus to Itálica, which was the first Roman City in the Iberian Peninsula (which is the peninsula where Portugal and Spain are). It was founded in 206 BC. I mean... I just don't find history like that in the US, and I want to make sure I explore it while I'm here. So I've decided to hold off on exploring every country in Europe for another time. 

Mug of tinto de verano for 1 euro. 

Drinking wine out of mugs. Classy ladies.
Lindsey, Kaley, Marcela, me

 On Thursday, as I mentioned above, I went out to a Spanish club. It was a fun time; we left at 4A, which is "early" here. The Spaniards all party until like 7A.

Before going out, Marcela (one of my roommates) and I went out to dinner at an Italian place that Marcela knows and loves. And I gotta say, I loved it too! It's walls were made out of stone, and it had a nice guitar player setting the mood. I felt like I was in Italy (not that I'd have ANY idea what that'd feel like).

The Itallian place we ate at. Called San Marcos

Raviolis al pesto

At the club (Buddha).
Katie, Kaley, me, Andrea

Gabby, me, Amanda (same name!)

On Friday (no school on Fridays!), I had a relaxing day. Kaley and I walked around the city, checked out some shops, checked out the gym, etc. At night, some of us went out to dinner (at the same Italian place) and then had some drinks in Triana near the river. It was a much-needed slow day.

San Marcos again

Our table, it was kind of in it's own room, which very high ceilings. Really cool! Also those blue bottles on the table is what water comes in - they don't give you free tap water here. 

My dinner: salmón con crema de espinacas(spinach). Really tasty.

 Today, my friend Markus (from Finland) is coming back into town, and we're going to a bull fight, eeek! Then tomorrow my friends and I will take a trip to Itálica. I'll be sure to take pictures.

Talk to you soon. Besos!