Córdoba

View of the city from afar.

On Saturday, our study abroad group took a trip to Córdoba, a city with 300,000 habitants about an hour and a half northeast of Sevilla.  Instead of telling you everything we did, I’d like to share a few photos with you (photocredit: Amelia Smith) since a picture is worth a thousand words 🙂

Walking into the city along the bridge.

In front of one of the churches in the city

Columns inside the mezquita. There were rows upon rows of these columns leaving a large space where the Muslims could pray each day.

Inside the cathedral, which is by far the most beautiful building I have ever seen. There was SO much detail!

The cathedral. Even the picture cannot do it justice.

Everything about Córdoba is just so quaint.  When we walked into the city, there were musicians lined up along the bridge playing their violins, guitars, and accordions.  I love that no one seems to be in a rush, so a crowd gathers just to stop and listen for a minute or two.  We definitely need more of that in the U.S.  The streets are all very narrow and made of cobblestone, making it feel as if I was walking through the set of some rom-com movie.  By far, my favorite part of the excursion was our tour of the mezquita/cathedral.  Since Christians and Muslims have both ruled Córdoba at different points in history, some parts of the building are considered the Islamic mezquita (or Islamic temple) while others are considered the Christian cathedral.  When I walked into the cathedral, I was speechless.  I have never seen a building with so much detail on every inch of its walls, ceiling, or floor.  I wish we had more time to explore, but to really appreciate all of its beauty, it would take at least a few days!

It’s Friday, Friday, Friday!

This week went by so quickly!  But, I’m definitely excited it’s the weekend!  Yesterday, we had our first exam in our culture class, if you can even call it that.  Our professor, Fernando, gave us four themes that we covered throughout the past two weeks.  We then had the class period to pick two of the four themes and write as much about them as we could in an essay or bullet point format.  So, it was very easy!  Of course, I was the last one done…I guess some things never change 😉

Since I don’t want to bore you to death by describing what I did every day this week, I’ll just share some highlights:

• La Copa de Sevilla: Throughout the entire week, there has been a really big professional tennis tournament going on in Sevilla.  So, on Tuesday, a couple of my friends and I went to go watch one of the men’s doubles matches.  It was cool to see!  Although, let’s be honest, given my lack of tennis knowledge, I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

• Sevici: We FINALLY got our Sevici bike passes yesterday!  Sevici is a public bike system that allows you to rent bikes from small bike stations throughout the city.  In order to use a bike, all you have to do is swipe your Sevici card and one of the bikes in the station is unlocked for you.  You have thirty minutes to ride the bike around until you have to lock it back up at any of the Sevici stations located throughout the city.  It’s super convenient and really cuts down on the amount of time it takes to get from one part of the city to the next.  It was SO much fun riding through the city last night on our Sevici bikes and I can’t wait to use them more often in the future.  The bikes are very heavy duty, so it’s sometimes hard to navigate through all the people in the city.  Hopefully, I don’t run anyone over…

• Meeting Spaniards: Last night, I got to meet some Spanish friends at a local bar with Maggie and Elisabeth.  It was really neat to talk in Spanish with them and not be surrounded by ALL Americans.  I spent a lot of time talking to Augustina, a senior from Uruguay who will also be studying abroad this semester at the University of Sevilla.  She was very easy to talk to as we are both in a similar situation being in Sevilla and not knowing many people.  We are going to try to meet up next week, which will be fun!  We also met some international students last night while we were out, which was interesting to say the least.  We were at a bar with a group of Mexican study abroad students, who were LOCOS (CRAZY!).  They proceeded to run through the streets taking pictures (selfies, of course) and chanting CHUPITAS CHUPITAS CHUPITAS (SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS)!

• Crema de Cacahuete: My señora knows me too well already.  For the past two weeks, I’ve been talking about how much I love crema de cacahuete (peanut butter).  Spaniards and Europeans in general are grossed out by peanut butter, so it’s very hard to come across.  But, Cristina has been looking for some for me for the past couple weeks and surprised me today with a jar of crunchy peanut butter! YUM!  She also bought me ice cream and chocolate because she realizes I have a sweet tooth 😉

• Booking trips: I’ve spent a little bit of time this week planning and organizing where I will be traveling while I’m here.  I will be gone most weekends and taking full advantage of the opportunity to visit a bunch of different countries in Europe:

-Córdoba, España (day trip)

-Cadiz, España (day trip)

-Valencia (weekend trip)

-Granada, España (weekend trip)

-Lagos, Portugal (weekend trip)

-Barcelona, España (weekend trip)

-Morocco? (weekend trip)

-London, England (weekend trip)

-Paris, France (weekend trip)

-Madrid, España (weekend trip)

-Rome/Florence, Italy (weekend trip)

-Brussels, Belgium? (weekend trip)

It will be super busy, but I am so excited!  Off to go see  the movie “Las adventuras de Tadeo Jones” with Reyes, Lola y Maria!  🙂 Have a good Friday, everyone!

¡Feliz Lunes!

I hope everyone’s week is off to a great start!  (By everyone, I mean the five readers that I probably have haha).  I know mine sure is!

After class, I was lucky enough to come home to my apartment complex and go for a 30-minute swim in our pool.  (Dad—aren’t you surprised that I’m challenging myself to a swim given my Ollinger “drown” genes?!) There was no one else in the pool, so it was super relaxing!

After my swim, I ate lunch with Cristina and Carly.  Today, we had a dish that was some sort of mix of fish, potatoes, and hard-boiled eggs.  It was delicious!  On the side, we had cucumbers and tomatoes with a little bit of balsamic vinaigrette.  My señora also bought me picos, which are little bread-like crackers!  Sort of the Spanish equivalent of pita chips, so they are right up my alley!  I told Cristina that I had tried picos with my tapas at the winery on Saturday, so she bought them for me at the mercado (market) today.  She is so thoughtful!

After lunch, I worked on some homework in my room.  I then walked about 45 minutes through the city to meet up with some my friends in Sevilla’s most-famous shopping district.  This was my first time shopping in Sevilla and let me tell ya, it required some EXTREME self-restraint.  All of the clothes here are so so cute and different from home– more trendy!  I told myself that I have the whole semester to shop, so I didn’t end up buying anything (with the exception of contact solution, which I don’t really count).

After a few hours of shopping, we went to Rayas, Sevilla’s most-famous ice cream shop.  And after tasting it, I knew it was famous for a reason because it was honestly THE best ice cream I’ve ever had.  I will definitely be going back there throughout the semester so that I can try more flavors!  Today, I had a cone with a scoop of vanilla ice cream that had peanuts, chocolate, and caramel swirled in. HEAVEN!

I came home around nine for dinner with just Carly since Cristina went out with a friend.  Afterwards, I finished up some homework and caught up with people from home.

With love,

Anna

Muchas cosas!

Wow! It is so hard to believe that I have been here for a week and a half already.  In some ways, it feels like I have been here for WAY longer than that.  But, then in other ways, the time has just FLOWN by!  I know it will start to go by even faster when I get into a routine, which is scary!  But, let’s not dwell on that 😉

This week turned out to be really busy, which is just the way I like it!  We started our language and culture class (SEVI410) last Monday.  The class is divided into two hour and fifteen minute classes (all in spanish).  I start with the language component with our professor, Angeles, at 9:30am.  This first class only has eight other students in it, so it’s really nice because we get individualized attention and spend the majority of our time talking about contemporary Spanish society.  My second class with Fernando has about twenty students in it.  This class is much more lecture-oriented and is focused on contemporary Spanish history, which is a lot of review for me since I took a class that covered some of the same information this last semester.  Although I thought I wouldn’t have much work to do, we definitely do have homework (rough, I know).  But, I have no actual complaints because it is all relatively easy (compositions, presentations, reading, etc.) and can be finished much quicker than work back at UNC.

I know that I will have more work when this two-in-one class finishes up in two weeks and I start classes at University of Sevilla.  For the past week, all of the study abroad students have been struggling to pick out which classes to take at the university.  The Spanish school system is divided into the different departments and does not function as one whole unit like colleges and universities in the U.S.  As a result, it has been a pain in the behind to try to pick out classes in different departments because all of the departments use different schedules.  Basically, the whole system is super disorganized.  But, I ended up figuring it all out!  Come the end of September, I will be taking: Spain Today, Spanish Literature since the 1700s, 19th Century Spanish Art, and Spanish Semantics.

After being in class all week, I realized how quick the days go here.  By the time I get home from class, it’s time for lunch.  I work on a little tarea (homework) in a cafe with friends and then I usually go for a short run.  Before I know it, it’s time for dinner at nine o’clock.  Maybe it goes faster since I’m less aware of the time here, who knows!

Highlights of the week:

• Exploring: Throughout the week, I’ve spent quite a bit of time exploring the city with friends and on my own.  The city is so beautiful and there is so much more I need to discover.
  La Plaza de España with Laura and Leigh

• Flamenco: There are a bunch of flamenco festivals going on right now in Sevilla.  Last Monday night, a group of us went to a local bar and saw a flamenco show.  It was really neat, but definitely different than I had originally expected.  I thought it was going to be more dancing than singing, but it was vice-versa.  The environment was very intense and much more serious than I thought it would be.  I’m excited to try out some other places and compare it!

• Las Reales Alcázares de Sevilla: On Friday, our study abroad group took a little field trip to visit las Reales Alcázares de Sevilla, which is a giant palace and garden.  I’ll let the picture speak for itself:

• Tío Pepe: On Saturday, a group of us took an hour bus ride to Jerez de la Frontera to visit the second most-visited winery in Europe, Tío Pepe.  We got a two-hour guided tour in Spanish, followed by tapas.  Although I wasn’t able to understand everything the guide said, I still learned a lot about how wine is made.  The winery was absolutely GORGEOUS!  After we finished our tour, we walked around Jerez for a few hours, which was probably the strangest thing we’ve done thus far in Spain because there was literally NO ONE on the streets other than us.  This town takes their siesta very very seriously.

• Un intercambio: Today, I went to Burger King (yes, they have these all over the city) to meet up with Reyes and her daughter.  This is the family that I met when I asked for directions last week while I was running.  We talked in Spanish for about an hour and a half, which was amazing!  Reyes (the mom) talks a little slower than my señora so I have no problem understanding her.  I’m going to try to spend time with her three kids (Reyes-14, Lola-11, and Maria-5) twice a week so that I can work with them on their English and they can help me with my Spanish.  It was seriously the perfect accident asking for directions last week and they live really close to me, so it is very convenient!  Reyes is a private pilates instructor, so she told me she teach me some pilates throughout the semester 🙂  The kids are planning to show me the river area of Sevilla this Friday afternoon and take me to their favorite heladería (ice cream shop).

I’m really looking forward to another week in Sevilla!  I have much trip planning to do!  I’m trying to strike the right balance between staying in Sevilla for some weekends throughout the semester and traveling throughout different cities in Spain and the rest of Europe during the other weekends.  So far, I have booked a trip to Portugal for the 5th-7th of October, Barcelona for the 11th-15th of October, and Paris for the 16th-18th of November.  I will keep you all posted on what else I plan!

With love from Sevilla!

Anna

P.S. Did I mention that my señora is AWESOME?!

Hilarious!

Itálica y la playa

The weather in Sevilla has been absolutely gorgeous!  It has been 95 degrees and sunny since I got here and that is the forecast for the next ten days.  Hey, I’m not complaining!  I’m currently sitting out on my señora’s porch as I blog 🙂 

The other day, I decided to run to EUSA, the building where I will be taking classes with the rest of the students on my program.  It is not a very far run, so I decided to continue running straight past EUSA and turn around when I got tired. I thought that this would allow me to find my way back home easily, but me being me, I got lost…again.  Unlike Chicago, Sevilla’s street are very curvy.  So, when I decided to turn around and go back to EUSA, “straight” was hard to define when the road kept curving.  Okay, that’s probably just a lame excuse for me getting lost.  But anywho, after looking clueless for too long, I decided to ask a woman who was biking next to me for directions.  She was very nice and told me that I had to turn around again and then take a left next to a Chinese restaurant.  I thanked her and talked to her two kids a little bit about studying abroad.  A few minutes later, I got a tap on my shoulder from her daughter who asked me to stop because a) i had already made a wrong turn and b) her mom wanted me to babysit for her and her two sisters.  Her mom caught up with us and told me that she was moving in a few weeks to the same area of the city that I live in, so it would be very convenient for me to watch her kids.  It was so unexpected, but I definitely want to do it (maybe not on a regular basis or for pay) so that I can work on my Spanish and help them with their English!

Yesterday, we went to the Roman ruins at Itálica.  One of our professors, Fernando, gave us a tour of the ruins, which was very neat!  Let me tell ya, some of the Roman traditions are brutal!

 

After Itálica, we drove an hour to Matalascañas, the beach closest to Sevilla.  Mom, you were right, the sun is much more intense than back at home!  I loaded up on the sunscreen, so luckily I didn’t end up turning into a tomato.  It was nice to just relax on the beach for a few hours and get to know other people in my program. 

After we got back from the beach, I took a late hour and a half siesta! 🙂 I ate dinner with Carly and Cristina and then, I met up with some friends to go out along the river, which was fun!  We stayed out until about 4am and went to a bunch of different bars.  We were going to try to go la discoteca, but the boys didn’t know where it was, so we decided to just go back home.

This morning, I had breakfast with my señora and we talked for about two hours.  It was so great to talk about Spanish politics, television shows, and her family.  She showed me pictures of her family and told me a bunch of stories (her days when she did yoga, her dog, past family trips, her husband, etc.)  I also went through some of my pictures on Facebook and told her all about Chicago and my family and friends.  This was the first time that I felt like I could understand everything she told me and I felt that I was better able to express what I was trying to say.  So, my Spanish is definitely improving!

It’s almost two o’clock already, but I have much to do: explore the city, pick out classes, go for a run, pick up some shampoo and other necessities!

Until next time, adios!

 

Orientation

I’m finally starting to adjust to the time change and everything here.  I think what’s harder to adjust to than the time change is the different schedule of the Spaniards.  The Spanish are so laid back, so I usually have no sense of what time it is.  Even today, it took me a few hours to realize that it is Friday already!  Everyone here goes to work/school in the morning after breakfast.  When Carly and I were walking to orientation today, it was so interesting to see how much more relaxed everyone seemed to be as they were walking to work.  Definitely different than the morning rush of commuters in Chicago.  Then, everyone comes back home around two for lunch/siesta.  During siesta time, basically everything shuts down and the streets are virtually empty.  Then, everyone goes back to work/school until they come home later for dinner in the evening.  It’s a nice change of pace and it’s nice to live in a culture that isn’t so fast-paced.

Last night, a big group of us went out to the bars along the river.  Carly and I (along with many other students) live relatively far away from most of the nightlife in Sevilla, so we all split a cab there and back.  Taking a taxi is relatively cheap, especially when we all split the cost.  We went to four different bars and sat our by the river, which was absolutely beautiful at night!  It was really laid back and it was nice to get to know a few of the other people on the trip.

This morning, we all had orientation at EUSA (the building where we will be taking some of our classes).  Carly and I got lost on our way there, so we were about 15 minutes late, but I think I know how to get there now.  Throughout the morning, the program directors gave us more information about the first class we will all be taking together at EUSA during the first three weeks and then told us how we can go about selecting classes to take at la Universidad de Sevilla come the end of September.  The process sounds quite confusing, but I think I’m going to look more into it on Sunday so that I can figure out what seems interesting and what credits will get transferred.

After orientation, Carly and I came home and ate lunch with Cristina, Miguel, Miguel’s girlfriend, and her two-year old daughter (who is SO cute!).  I just woke up from my siesta and am about to go for a run to try to learn my way around the city more!

We are going on a field trip tomorrow to the beach and Roman ruins in, so I will be sure to post pictures soon!

I’m here!

It’s hard to believe that I’m in Sevilla!  Since I was home for four months this summer, I kept telling myself that my semester in Spain was super far off.  But, by my last week at home, with all my friends back at school, I realized that my semester in Spain was coming up quickly.  Right now, it sort of feels like vacation, but I think it will set in soon that I’m going to be here until the middle of December.

Deborah and I at the airport in Chicago!

I flew out on Tuesday from Chicago and then landed at 7:30am on Wednesday in Madrid.  A bunch of us met up at the Madrid airport and took the same flight from Madrid to Sevilla at 12pm on Wednesday.  I split a taxi with Gabby, one of the girls on my program, to the hotel and we got to the hotel around 2pm, dropped our stuff off, and got tapas at a local cafe, “Catalina.”  I had a greek salad that had hard boiled eggs, olives, and tomatoes with olive oil as dressing along with a rice/cheese/mushroom tapas dish.  It was delicious!  We walked around the city and then Carly, my roommate, and I went on a run/walk through the city.  It was a great way to explore the city, which is beautiful!  We ended up getting lost and had to ask multiple people for directions.  Everyone is so friendly here and willing to help out!  I noticed that there is hardly any local traffic as most people are walking around outside, on bikes, or using public transit.  I guess the fact that August is the month that many Sevillanos go on vacation also contributes to the lack of traffic.  After our run, I relaxed for a little bit in my room and then went to dinner at a restaurant with everyone on my program.  We all had salad, grilled chicken, french fries, and a little scoop of ice cream for dessert.  Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and I tried to go to sleep, but had a hard time do so since I was still on Chicago time.

This morning, Carly and I took a taxi to our host family’s household.  We are living with an older woman named Cristina.  She has four children and one of her grown sons, Miguel, lives with us.  One of her other daughters is an actress that lives in Madrid and supposedly she does muchos comerciales de la Navidad (Christmas commericals).  She is very sweet and made us feel really welcome.  According to the program director, Cristina has been having UNC students live at her house for the past 18 years!  She talks a lot and very quickly, so it’s often times hard to understand her.  The apartment is very nice and relatively spacious (we even have tennis courts, a garden, and a pool in our apartment complex).  We were able to unpack everything in our room and then we had lunch.  Cristina was surprised to find out that Carly is a vegetarian and also allergic to gluten.  She has not stopped bringing it up throughout the entire day.  For lunch, we had fried fish, vegetables, salad, and bread.  It is tradition for the señoras to cook a big meal to welcome their students to their home.  After lunch, Carly and I met up with a couple other people on the program to get pay-as-you-go cellphones so that we can communicate with other people while in Spain.  We had a couple more hours of free time, so I went on a nice, short run around the city.  I was careful to stay relatively close to home so that I wouldn’t get lost.  Dinner is in about twenty minutes and then I think we are going out to the bars tonight.

I’ll try to post again soon! Hope everyone is doing well at home; miss and love you all!

¡Adios!