Carolinelisa

Amanda and I finally found a cheap flight to Barcelona and decided to head up just the two of us. We arrived late Saturday night and had to take the night bus from the airport into the city. The one hour bus ride was spent listening to the other passengers on the bus and trying to understand what they were saying. Catalan is a different dialect of Spanish that is spoken in Barcelona and it's got some odd sounds. I was worried that everyone would speak to us in Catalan and I wouldn't be able to understand but once you approached someone speaking Spanish (castellano) they would reply in Spanish as well. When we got to our stop, the center of the city, we realized the scale of the city. One of the main streets, La ... read more

Phil came to visit me for almost two weeks here in Malaga. We were able to travel around a bit and got to do a lot of fun things. It was the best vacation. We called it our honeymoon vacation because it was just so perfect. We completely spoiled ourselves, going out to eat, taking naps, giving/receiving massages, chilling on the beach, etc. I feel like we deserved it though because this long distance thing is really hard. He arrived on Thursday, the 15th of May in the afternoon. The next day we took a bus 4 or 5 hours northeast, up the coast from Malaga to the Natural Park called Cabo de Gata. The first bus took us to Almeria and then we got on a second bus that brought us to a little resort ... read more

The family came to visit me and we drove all up and down the Costa del Sol! We got to see a lot of the neighboring towns and villages and the countryside... it rained for most of the days but we lucked out with a few beautiful days in Malaga to do some sightseeing and relaxing on the beach. We visited the caves in Nerja, which were incredibly huge. ... read more

The study abroad program had organized an excursion to Madrid for this past weekend. We left early Friday morning via bus. It had been rainy all week in Malaga so the 6 hour long bus ride was melancholic, periods of drizzle interspersed with random sunny spots. The countryside was beautiful, we passed through all kinds of terrain. I liked the mountains the best, although the goats in the prairies were quite amusing. I napped for part of the time... I knew I had a packed weekend ahead of me. Once we arrived in Madrid we immediately took the metro to our hostel, which was in the center of the city. More like a hotel, we divided up into groups of 3 for our room assignments. As usual, Amanda and Jamie and I roomed together. We went ... read more

Today I rode a motorcycle for the first time. My intercambio Juanfra, the policeman, picked me up to go get lunch/tapas this afternoon with his motorcycle. He gave me his helmet to wear and I hopped on the back and we were off! It was incredibly fun, I don't know why I was so afraid before! We had lunch at this tapa place my friend told me about, Tapa Loka, and he explained things on the menu that I didn't understand. We talked about the difference between living in northern Spain and Andalusia... I haven't kept up with my blog in a while but today (2 weeks or so after the previous intercambio) I found myself walking to school... not so out of the ordinary. But on my way, I get honked at so I look ... read more

Some updates: My friend Tiffany is no longer in my Literature class, I am now alone. However, I have found comfort in knowing that the professor is very understanding. I also have my friend Fran who helps me when I don't understand something in class. He's my partner for our group presentation and we met outside of class to put it together. We finished the whole thing even though we kept getting distracted by talking about more interesting things like our travels and Semana Santa plans... I ended up talking to the professor and he agreed to let me write a paper in place of speaking in front of the class. So I didn't really have to work on the presentation but it was a good learning experience anyways. This week is Semana Santa, which is ... read more

Saturday - our program organized an excursion to Ronda for us. Ronda is a small town in the mountains behind Malaga, with traces of its Islamic influence still present. It was raining but we made the best of it... Even in the rain I could see the beauty of the landscape. The entire city is built on a cliff and the gorges are... well, gorgeous. The city is also a lot bigger than I had expected (I was looking forward to dirt paths and donkeys...). I'd love to go back some sunny day in the future because it's only about an hour and 1/2 bus ride away from Malaga. The rest of the week was filled with classes and organizing several trips. This week only had 3 school days because Thursday is Andalucia Day... conveniently enough ... read more