So, the telenovela started with the amicable discharge from Mercedes’ house. She had family coming in for the boda and needed the space in her quaint, little piso. I found myself in the palace of María José, whom I thought was just an acquaintance, but turned out to play a much larger role in my own personal telenovela. The Spanish boda was incredible. Antonio (sexy host brother) and I left a little late from “our” house, on the day he finally fully moved back in. We were barraged with phone calls about our location, Antonio and his “hermana americana”, as we [View Full Entry]

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For Hallie’s last weekend in Europe, we decided to do a five-day trip to Lisbon and Lagos, Portugal. We took the midnight bus from Sevilla after saying goodbye to Donny and Julia for the last time. As we found our seats, a redheaded boy in the back of the bus gave us a knowing nod, acknowledging that we were all Americans. Ben, as he calls himself (Benji, as I took to calling him) approached us immediately upon descending the bus in Lisbon at 6 am Portugal time. We decided that we would make the journey from the bus station into the [View Full Entry]

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So due to some family complications, Mercedes had to kick me out onto the street. Take your glasses-wearing redheaded butt OUTTA HERE. But I’m still invited to the wedding, so all’s well that end’s well, don’t you know my little scissors legs? So María José de Soto Sierra lives in an apartment right outside the Feria by herself. She has a grown son, Antonio, (who is actually the business associate of Mercedes’ son) and a grown daughter. Antonio comes by all the time with his two-year-old hija Eva to eat and stay over because he is having problemas with his mujer. [View Full Entry]

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So, before coming to Spain, I imagined the Feria being a bunch of Spaniards dressed in Flamenco outfits riding horses and drinking rioja. Upon stepping into Feria, I realized that it was any-town-USA County Fair, but with young Spaniards clad in Flamenco wear speckling the crowd rather than white trash wearing wife-beaters. The first night, Gubba, Mom, Auntie Gail and I rode the carnival rides, leaving us fearing for our lives. While riding the "Ratón Vacilón", Gubba nearly had a heart attack, Mom feared for the stability of Gubba, and Auntie Gail and I were in stitches laughing on the other [View Full Entry]

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So our Semana Santa journey started with a short flight from Sevilla to Milan. We landed with a full day left and met up my friend Heidi's friend who volunteered to herd us around all day. Milan is a pretty big city with a deep passion for animal skins and money hoarding. I'm glad we saw the duomo (cathedral) and then peaced out asap. Our next stop was Génova after a decently long train ride. We struggled to find our way from the train station to the hostel by speaking at Italians in Spanish but we were eventually rescued by an [View Full Entry]

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Our trip to France started with losing one of our compatriots due to poor planning. Originally, we had intended to take the 8 am bus from Sevilla to Madrid. Due to every student in Sevilla leaving for the four day weekend, we were only able to get the 1 am bus THAT night before our 5 pm flight. This is when we lost the weak. The bus ride was miserable, no surprise there, and we sat for six and a half hours behind a terribly smelling, breast-feeding mother and baby combo. We arrived in Madrid ten hours before our flight and [View Full Entry]

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So we finally finished our three-week angst-fest that was the Intensive Session and now I have time to write something other than an unnecessarily long analytical journal about each cultural visit we made around Sevilla. Our intensive session was probably the best thing yet. Ángel, our 5’5”little-ball-of-history wrapped in a stylish sweater and scarf, has now replaced Zac Efron in my heart as my most unattainable, unrequited love affair. Each day we had an hour and a half of classroom lecture followed by an hour and a half of clase en las calles. We visited awesome places around Sevilla like la [View Full Entry]

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Wow. The long anticipated first blog entry. I have been thinking about writing this since before I even got here, and now that my laziness has subsided, be prepared for a verbose summary of things I have experienced as of yet. The language is tough. People speak insanely fast and the times are not few that I have stared blankly after someone tries to say something to me. In addition to speaking like 12-year old girls on crack, Sevilla is also home to the most ridiculous accents imaginable. The letter “s” at the end of words is eliminated (los gatos= lo- [View Full Entry]

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