Katie Gnadt

As you may know, my mom and brother are here in Spain this week, as it worked out that we all had the same spring break this year. On Saturday I boarded a bus at 2:30 p.m. and took it to Madrid to meet them. The bus ride was 6 hours , and I was traveling by myself so it was a rather long and boring ride. I at least had a good book to read, so I was able to keep myself somewhat entertained. Saturday night I stayed in a hostel by myself. That was also rather uneventful. My family’s plane arrived at 7:30 a.m. the next morning, so I had to go to sleep early Saturday night. The next morning I took the metro to the train station. I knew the flight number of ... read more

This past weekend my roommate Jenny and I traveled to Barcelona via airplane. Barcelona was absolutely gorgeous! We arrived at the airport on Thursday night and took the aerobus to the city center, and from there we hopped into a taxi to find our hostel. Once we did find our hostel, we were a little freaked out. First of all, there was no sign or anything out front so that we actually knew we were at the right place. Then we attempted to open the door, but found it locked. After knocking and waiting outside for a few minutes, someone finally opened the door to let us in. Inside, we noticed that there wasn't even a front reception desk, only a small room with a few chairs. The hostel employee started explaining to us that what ... read more

It was a pretty calm weekend for my last weekend in Seville. That makes it sound like my time here is almost over, but in reality I have over a month before my program ends. It just so happens that I have plans for every weekend I have left. On Saturday some friends and I went to Plaza San Salvador. This plaza is absolutely packed on Saturdays with Spanish friends and families who stand around drinking for the better part of the afternoon. It was really nice to sit down in the warm sun and people watch for the afternoon. Saturday night we finally made it to Calle Betis, possibly the most popular street to go to on a Saturday night. The reason we hadn't made it there earlier is that it is located all the ... read more

Two of the boys in our program, Will and Lupe, came to Seville partly for the opportunity to play soccer (or as Spaniards call it, the real football) in Spain. They practice with a Spanish team 3 nights a week after school. They aren't allowed to play in real games here as it interfere with rules about playing with their colleges at home, but they are allowed to play in what they call "friendly" games, which I guess is sort of like a scrimmage. They had one of these friendly games last night, so my roommates (Kia and Samm) decided to go. Kia and Will are dating, and he actually lives two floors down with us with Lupe and our other two friends, Josh and Mike. Kia and Samm are also in the soccer program here, ... read more

Hello everyone! Last weekend I didn't do anything too exciting, because I'm starting to run low on money! And when I say run low on money, I really mean low on money. As in I don't know how I'm going to get through the rest of the semester. Yikes! I don't know what I'm going to do about that problem....maybe start a "support Katie in Spain" fund? We'll see. I would have liked to go to the Canary Islands as it was 2 of my friend's, Alex and Alina, 21st birthdays. They went from Friday through yesterday and came back nice and tan, but also said they spent a lot more money than they intended to spend while there. In the end, I'm glad I decided to save money and stay in Seville for a weekend. ... read more

Unfortunately, Carneval was not all that I had hoped it would be. I ended up getting a pirate costume with my roommate Kia, for only 10 euros. I thought that was a pretty good deal, and the best part is that I can wear it again next Halloween if I want to. Anyway, we went to Carneval through a travel agency called "We Love Spain". The trip was only 10 euros and included a sandwich, a soda, and a shot. A pretty good deal. The only problem was that everyone from my program was put on the very last bus, bus 14, which also contained the man who was in charge of the other 13 buses. This meant that we weren't able to leave until all the other buses had been taken care of. We were ... read more

Yesterday I volunteered at a high school called Padres Blancos for the first time. I woke up at 7 a.m. (which is early for me) and walked the 50 minute walk to the school with 3 other friends. I was assigned two classes that were an hour each. The classes both had students who were about 16 years old in age, and both were enlgish classes. The students were reviewing for an exam that they took today, so I mostly just helped with grammar excercises. The kids were curious about me, but very friendly. One of the girls said that she had been studying english since she was 6, so their english was okay, but still far from perfect. Since it was Valentine's Day, we also made Valentine's cards with sayings about love on them. They ... read more