Last night I booked flights for a friend and I to spend St. Patrick's Day IN IRELAND!! HAHAHA. I cannot wait! It is going to be an amazing adventure...mostly because we could only get really wacky flight times. I definitely foresee some sleeping in airports...it will be grand! (DON´T WORRY - I'll be totally safe.) We're flying from Sevilla to Liverpool England, then from Liverpool to Dublin, then from Dublin we shall get a bus to Galway City where a high school classmate of mine is studying. I'm traveling with a friend from K-State that I met last semester in our [View Full Entry]

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Throughout the semester, I'll be sending little updates of my adventures to the Abilene Reflector-Chronicle. That was arranged just before I left, and I didn't want to post about it in case it fell through, but apparently one was printed yesterday, so I suppose it's now safe to announce it here. I haven't seen the article printed - I'm sure they edited it quite a bit, but here is what I sent to them...just a quick review of our first week in Spain. I arrived in Madrid, Spain on Monday January, 23rd, and was met at the airport by my group. [View Full Entry]

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I went to mass (misa) this morning at the largest cathedral in Spain. I left home half an hour before, giving myself plenty of time to arrive but I was still late! I got to the Cathedral fine, but then it took me about 10 minutes to walk around the building and find the right entrance. There were people everywhere and guards at every door. I had to tell the guard I was there for mass and then they let me inside. The service was held in the middle of the Cathedral and there were guards all around it trying to [View Full Entry]

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Mom told me I should post blogs more often, so I'll try! Let's see...Carmen, my host mom, broke a couple of her toes last night. She and her daughter practice some sort of Martial Arts and somehow she hurt herself. She called home to tell us that we were on our own for supper because she was going to the hospital. It's really hard to communicate in Spanish face to face, and nearly impossible on the phone, but we got the gist of the situation. Oh, also a couple of days ago, I found an Aldi! For those of you who [View Full Entry]

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Our first day in Seville was....well, pretty miserable. We had to meet the API group at the official "meeting place" near the university at 10:00, so my roommate and I left home at 9:25 to give ourselves plenty of time to get there. It took us over an hour. Luckily it turned out we didn't have to be there until 10:30, so we were fine on time, but very frustrated. Also, it was raining. It rained all day. It rained a lot. I like rain. But not on my first day in a new place when I have to walk everywhere. [View Full Entry]

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Hola de España! Hello from Spain! After a VERY long week, I'm finally in Seville and very happy to be here. I arrived in Madrid on Monday morning after a very nice, empty flight, in which I was able to stretch out on three seats and sleep. Monday was a lot of hurry-up and wait, as we were organizing things and people and we all spoke mostly English. The Spaniards use military time - bless their hearts and it´s been fun getting back into that mindset. The "group" is API students, about 100 of us, split into three groups of approximately [View Full Entry]

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There are less than two weeks before I leave! I'm using this time to tie up a LOT of loose ends and to say goodbye to everyone I love. I got information on my host family a few days ago. I'll be living with a woman and her daughter, they are both named Carmen. The elder Carmen, whom I'll most likely refer to as "Senora," is 45 and works at a beauty salon. Her daughter Carmen is 20, (my age!) and a student as well. They live about 15 minutes from the University. I also have a roommate, something I'm very [View Full Entry]

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