Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Hola

Greetings from Seville, the hotest place on earth. Today, it was about 100 degrees. I currently have a nice heat rash spreading up both of my ankles. It´s very exciting. Tomorrow it will be 97 degrees. WOHOO! Cooler than it was today at least. I can´t wait to come home to cooler weather. Never thought I would say that...

I´m actually very excited to come home. I can´t wait to eat the stuff I want to eat. I miss Symphony Sushi Snow Mountain Maki, PF Chang´s dumplings, Regina´s, huge breakfast sandwhiches... the list goes on and on. What should I make my first meal be when I get back Friday night? Darren said he´s taking me out!

I also miss driving, Dunkins, getting 8 hours of sleep at night, watching tv, and my friends and family.

Sorry this blog isn´t so exciting, besides the heat rash. I´m very tired. Tomorrow we have another busy morning. We have a lecture in the morning, then we´re volunteering with the University of Seville. After lunch and nappy tomorrow, we have a free afternoon. I´ve been looking for a bathing suit for myself. I hope I find one!

Until next time folks!

Monday, June 13, 2011

Sevilla

Greetings from Sevilla!

Let's just say, it's 11:11 PM right now and I think it's still 70ish degrees outside and maybe 80 in this non air conditioned apartment. Despite the heat, everything has been A ok, mostly! The only bad thing I have to report so far were the happenings of this morning slash early afternoon. My group and I were at Projecto Hombre, which is a drug and alcohol rehab place getting a tour and a talk on what they do there. In the middle of the lecture, I felt like I was going to pass out, so I had to leave the room to get some air. Luckily, I have an alternative medicine professor on the trip with me, Professor Menique (Dorette Hope AKA Pinky), and three nursing students, Amanda, Lauren, and Katie. My friends Amanda, Marcela, and Pinky got me soda, bread, water, a granola, and had me calm down. After about 30 minutes of feeling like I was going to pass out slash throw up, I was sent back to mi casa with Lindsay, Amanda, and Katie to rest. I felt much better after I rested, had lunch, and took a siesta. It also doesn't help that I'm getting my period tomorrow. Right now, all is well with me. My friends went out tonight, but I stayed in to rehydrate and relax because tomorrow we're going to a beach in Cadiz. I'm getting to know my other house mates while staying in tonight, so it's a win win... I get rest and new friends.

My 4 other house mates are all from the US. There's Alex, Naomi, Lexi, and Meredith. Naomi is here on an internship, and the other 3 are all taking classes here. I'm still sharing a room with my friend Lindsay from NU. My house mom has three children, all in their late teens. My house mom is very nice. She's also very young looking, maybe in her late 30s, early 40s. She's smaller than me and very beautiful. Her cooking has been great so far! No complaints what-so-ever.

Sevilla is beautiful! Yesterday and today we've walked around a lot touring the city. There are palaces and a huge cathedral we're touring the inside of later this week. Tomorrow we're headed to the beach! The weather there for tomorrow is 88 and sunny! Just look at the weather for the rest of the week in Seville, Spain on weather.com... enough said.

I do have computer access in my casa because of my great new house mates, so hopefully I can blog tomorrow after Cadiz. I hope everyone had a great weekend! Email me what you've been up to! I'm home this Friday and spending the weekend in Boston with my love Darren, Aly, and friends. Can't wait! GO BRUINS!!!

Friday, June 10, 2011

Audios Salamanca!

I´m leaving Salamanca tomorrow and traveling to Sevilla. I´ve done so much in the past 3 weeks. It feels like I´ve been in Spain for months. Some of my favorite things have been... (not in any sort of order)

1. The Carrefour brand nutella that I put on my 3 pieces of toast every morning for breakfast. I liked it so much I bought a bug jar of it for home.

2. Learning Spanish with my professors Nacho y Jorge. They were very understanding and patient. I learned more from them in 15 days then I could have in 2 years in high school.

3. My senora!!! I love her to death. She´s very chill. She loves to talk to Lindsay and me. She cooks us big lunches and dinners and just wants us to be full and happy. I have to admit, I haven´t enjoyed all of her food, but I have tried most of it. Most of you know I´m a veryyy picky eater.

4. Siesta!!! I love naps. ¨5 min nap¨ turned into 1 hour nap everyday. I don´t know how I´m going to adjust without it working at MPDC. Can we have Rest Period actually be nap time please?

5. Gelato in the Plaza Mayor. I´m going to miss my ¨varrina vanilla por favor.¨

6. My senora!!! She irons my thongs. What more can I say...

7. Taking dance and cooking classes at Mester. I loved actively learning about the Spanish culture.

8. Buying different kinds of clothes here. Can´t wait for people to ask me, OMG where did you get that!? And I´ll respond, Spain.

9. Cafe con leches a Mester.

10. My senora´s fruit basket filled with fresh bananas, apples, kiwis, and yucky oranges (Lindsay likes those and my senora knows).


I don´t think I´ll have computer access next week in Sevilla because I´m not studying at a school. I´m doing day trips to here and there and volunteering. Until I get on a computer... caio

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Examen y project de stupido...

Hola!

I have soo much work due in the next few days...
Today (Wed.) I have a group presentation on how immigrants affect the Spanish healthcare system. I´ve been working on it for a about 2 weeks now. It´s so stupid because we were supposed to finish most of our work on the leadership healthcare course before we left for Spain. That was the whole point of having 7 days of classes in Boston before Spain! Sorry, I´m ranting a bit. I´m just fustrated because we are also responsible for the work we have do to in our grammatical, conversational, and medical spanishes classes here. We got homework sometimes, but now the big assignments for those classes are studying for our exams Friday. In grammatical Spanish, we have a written exam that has 2 parts. In conversational-medical Spanish, we are going to have a 5 minute role play conversation. My friend Sarah and I are going to be partners. One of us is going to be the doctor and the other will be the patient. Haven´t started preparing for any of my Spanish exams because of the damn project due today that we have to present for 20 minutes each group. Can´t wait to sit in a classroom for 3 hours this evening listening to everyone´s projects.

I will not be going out tonight...

Luckily, in Seville we don´t have any classes or homework!! Can´t wait until Saturday! The weather is going to be in the low to mid 90s the whole time in Seville. YAY!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Naked-ness

I´ve noticed that it is alright in some places in Spain to be completely nude... 1-outside a dressing room infront of a mirror & 2-on the beaches in Barcelona.

1-
My friend Lauren and I were in H&M yesterday doing a bit of shopping. Lauren was trying on a few dresses, while I waited for her outside of the dressing room. Another girl, I assumed was Spanish, decided not to wait for a dressing room, but instead got ass naked infront of the mirror in front of a line of people waiting for the dressing rooms. Some of the people waiting were an abuela (g-ma) and a young girl, probably 8 years old. Everyone was a bit appauled, but apparently, the naked girl didn´t care too much. Saw her tetas and everything...

2-
This past Sunday, Lindsay, Lauren R, and I went to the beach in Barcelona. While we were laying out catching some rays, it was still relatively early in the morning, so not too many people were on the beach. Those people who were on the beach were fully clothed. For lunch we met up with Lindsay´s 2 friends from home, then after lunch the 5 of us walked down the beach back to the hotel. On the way back, we past several people butt naked. I mean nothing on their bodies, not even bottoms. This was not a topless, but naked beach. Most of the people enjoying the hot sun were old men... It was quite a sight. We all tried not to look, but it´s hard not too when you´ve never seen anything like that.

Spain won´t be seeing my goods any time... I´m interested to see what the beaches near Seville will be like.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Luz, sangra, y free dinner

Hola chicas y chicos! I´m back from Barcelona safe and sound! Had a great weekend with Lauren, Lindsay, y Katie. Here are a few highlights...

Lauren R´s favorite part of the trip was how the street lights (luz) were timed so that when driving down the roads, all the lights were either all green or red. It was perfect for all the taxi riding we did from our hotel on the beach to the city center and out to dinner and clubs.

Saturday night was a little weird. After our delicious dinner (I had veggie pizza and ravioli with Lauren haha), the four of us tried to find a different part of the city to go out to for the night. We walked around forever, going into bars and clubs but not finding anything to our liking. We literally spent most of the night walking around. I had one drink the whole night and was super tired. Finally, we just went back to the Olympic port 5 mins from our hotel to go out. We had gone there Friday night and had fun. The olympic port was also a bit of a bust. While walking along the strip of bars, Lindsay and I saw this puddle of red liquid... it was a pretty big puddle. I joked around and said OMG look at all the blood (sangra)!! Then, all of a sudden, a guy being escourtned by police, was holding up a tshirt or something to his head. He had blood all over him and was bleeding from his temple area. I tried to walk past him without touching him, but the street was so crowded I got a smudge of his blood on my forearm! Luckily, Katie had purell and tissues, so I was all set, but definitely freaked out.

To end this blog on a good note...haha
Friday night, we went out to dinner around the Olympic Port area. We got delicious seafood paella and sangria. We were enjoying our dinner, while the people sitting near us kept staring at us Americanos. There was more cat calling than normal, and older men tried to buy us drinks, but we politely declined. At the end of meal, the 4 of us were paying for the bill, when the owner of the restaurant comes up to our table. He spoke English. He wrote cancel on the bill and had the waitor bring us over a shot. We accepted, not wanting to be rude. And then politely declinded his offer to go out to his fiesta in his limo with him for his bday.

Overall, Barcelona was quite an experience. Much more to say, but for now it´s time for lunch and seista.
Ciao

Friday, June 3, 2011

Barcelona!

Buenos Dias! I'm off to Barcelona this weekend because my program has a free weekend. I'm going with 3 other girl friends, Lindsay, Katie, and Lauren R. We're staying here...GBB Hotel Front Maritim Barcelona. It's essentially right on the beach, so I'm excited! Katie speaks Spanish pretty much fluently, so I'll be just fine. I won't be blogging over the weekend, unless the hotel has computer access, so this will be my last post for a few days. I hope everyone has a nice weekend. I'm already half way done my trip... so crazy! I'll be seeing you all soon! Love and miss you!