who knew open car doors could be so entertaining!

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So on the second day of sevilla we went on a walking tour of the city which was amazing. we even stoped and took a picture by the Becquer monumnent for Lourdes(a famous spanish poet we are learning about in class). we are officially obsessed with our teacher Lourdes--she is so hilarious. we all know she speaks english but she is still pretending not too...

anyway that night we went to this underground flamanco show in sevilla. in order to get there we had to walk through all these back alleys and shady streets and then when we got there, we wern´t even sure it was the right place because there was no sign on the door. anyway, we walk in and its this little hole-in-the-wall bar with a basement. the stage is about 6x6 and painted red. we sit down and a man with a guitar, a singer and a female dancer in flamanco atire come out. none of us really knew what to expect but when the show started (for free--even better!) we were all falbergasted. it was the coolest piece of art i have seen here yet. i can´t even decide which was better because all three were individually amazing at their particular talent. it was really, really exactly what i wanted to see here. i was very pleased

the next day we left to go to granada. this town is about 2 hours away but when we got there, the hotel was absoulutely gorgeous. it was like something out of a movie...the rooms even looked like little palaces. we had a walking tour of granada and then went to the alhambra which is an arabic castle, the only preserved arabic castle in the whole world. the castle itself was really nice but the gardens were the most imprssive. walls and walls of moss, vines, flowers, fountains, trees you name it, it was there. then we got back the hotel and rested and ate a delicious (finally) dinner. then Budd and Amanda and I decided we wanted to go out and experience Granada lifestyle...

clearly we were walking in the wrong part of town and i will admit, i was a little scarred. we came upon a car that had the passenger door wide open. this looked sketchy from the beginning but we decided to walk past anyway. now WARNING what i am about to tell you is pretty disgusting, BUT, it actually has a happy ending. the man in the car was sitting in the seet facing the street COMPLETELY NAKED AND WACKING OFF. yes, it was the most disgusting thing i have ever seen in my life, but apparantly it is commonplace here in spain since about 5 other people on the trip have seen the same thing. the happy ending comes now. in front of the indecent exposure man these two girls were walking and saw it too. they turned around and started talking to us in spainsh about how disgusting it was and how its kind of normal. then we asked them if they knew of any good places to go out and they told us the club Mae West. since we didn´t know where it was they decided to take us there. we talked the whole way and when we got there there were a ton of people in this club and it looked like it was going to be a ton of fun. we bought them drinks and the girls decided to stay. the 5 of us danced and mingled with a bunch of these college-aged spanish guys (spanish men, if you can´t tell LOVE american girls...so we are always the hit of any club here). we all talked to them for about 3 hours (in spainsh!) and had a BLAST. when the girls left, we hailed a taxi so we didn´t have to walk back through creepsville and went to the hotel. i love how we´ve been making friends in spain...it is such a cool thing to just meet people and imerse yourself in the culture...its the best practice of spainsh too. so anyway, the night started off disgusting, but ended in the best time out in spain yet.

today we drove home for 8 and a half hours and now we are back in salamanca. we have three days of classes then PORTUGAL for the weekend! say hello to laying on the beach and celebrating Budd´s birthday. i love all these girls on the trip and can´t wait for an amazing girls weekend!

more later!

love you all

oh and i also learned alot about the south (alabama in particular) but ill write more about that later!

alli

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