La Huelga (Strike)

Hey everyone!

Today was my first day back at school in a week. It was nice to be back :) all of my professors were super cool about me missing a whole week of class since I was sick.

A major topic of conversation in class today was about la Huelga General (Strike) on Wednesday. It's across the entire country in response to budget cuts. Hopefully it won't affect my life here too much. One major effect will be with public transport. The metro - which I take everyday to school - usually runs about every 5 minutes. With the strike, it's predicted that it will only run every 30 minutes, which will affect me getting to school, obviously. I have two classes on Wednesday. One professor told us that he will be participating in the strike and thus will not be lecturing. My other professor said that he will be lecturing and expects us to be there. Although the public transit might be a little stressful, I'm just going to tomármelo con calma (chill out, relax) and accept that I might be a little late to my class.

I get a newspaper everyday before getting on the metro. Today, along with the newspaper, they were handing out these flyers calling everyone to stike. It goes through some of the reasons for the strike. I know it's in Spanish, but I thought you guys might like to see it.

I've asked my professors what they advise us to do on Wednesday to stay safe. I've never been in a country during a strike of this magnitude. All my professors said that you can leave the house, of course, but that we should expect delays with public transit and we should expect stores/restaurants to be closed due to the strike. They also said that we don't need to worry about safety, except to exercise common sense - like, if we see a large group of people protesting, we should steer clear. Pretty obvious, but it should make for an interesting day.

As of today, I have 39 days left in Sevilla (until I go to Sicily for 5 days, then head homeee). As part of an effort to make sure I continue to live it up during my remaining time here, I've decided to venture to new and different places to eat. In the last few weeks, probably mostly due to being sick and tired all the time, I kind of got into a habit of eating at the same places. Well - no longer! Thanks to the guide book Laur and Pat got me, it's pretty easy to find new spots to eat. 

The place I ate at today is called La Locanda.

Had grilled lamb, beef, and chicken (with a curry flavor, yum!), grilled veggies, salad, and some rice. Also, Laur, check out the wine bottle! It had a candle in it, and it was one of those candles with colored wax. It's like what you used to do in Jersey! Thought of you when I saw it. 

After lunch, I stopped by DiscoverSevilla (travel agency) to get some help with going to Nice, France. I think that'll be my last out-of-country trip for the semester (other than Sicily, of course). I'm working on planning it, but I found that it's a little complicated because flying from Sevilla to Nice requires 2 layovers, which amounts to a lot of flying time.. too much for just a weekend trip. I went to DiscoverSevilla to try to get some advice on the easiest (and most efficient) way to get to Nice, and like always, they were very helpful. Hopefully I'll get that trip planned soon. I'm planning on going the first weekend in December, because we have a long weekend. Average temperature in Nice in December is 50F, so my Floridian butt will be cold, but I'll survive. I've read online that it's very nice (ha) in December. My Europe guide book has Nice in it, so it'll (again) be very helpful in figuring out this trip. (:D Luckeys)

In case you were wondering were Nice is, there it is! Veryyyy close to the France-Italy border.

That's all for now. Thanks for listening :)