La Tortura No Es Cultura!

"La corrida de toros", literally translated into English as "the running of the bulls", but better know as a bullfight, is known as one of the most popular traditions in Spain. or , has been practiced for centuries and is even depicted in some wall paintings dating backwards to at least 2000 B.C. If you don't know much about bullfighting, I came across this website that seemed pretty informative: http://www.spanish-fiestas.com/bullfighting/history.htm

Although the sport may not have originated directly from Spaniards, Spain is definitely the country that expanded and developed it into more than just the slaughtering of bulls. While the ultimate objective of bullfights remained the same, certain techniques and maneuvers were added in order to form a more regulated practice of a bullfight. A normal bullfight now is comprised of 3 main parts, which are called "tercios": el tercio de varas, el tercio de banderillas and el tercio de muerte. Each stage is distinguished by the sound of trumpets, and all together, each bullfight should only last about 15 minutes in total.

During a typical bullfight, there are 2 "picadores" during each fight (which are men on horseback with spears), 6 toros, 3 "toreros" (the bullfighters--each needs to kill 2 of the bulls) and the "cuadrilla" of each bullfighter. A cuadrilla is comprised of several men that are basically the fighter's "entourage" and help him during the fight and with public relations; the main helpers during the actual bullfight are the "banderillas" and the "picadores".

While I definitely "held my own" during the bullfight, unlike many other study abroad students that left after a couple of the bulls were killed, there are two parts of the bullfight that I decided I can't really stand to watch--atleast not completely. During the "el tercio de varas", the picadores are in charge of spearing the bull's neck several times, in order to try and weaken the bull's muscles, thus making the bull less dangerous to fight--it was disgusting to watch the men basically digging under the bull's flesh, and watching the bull's reaction (obviously it was mad! and in pain!), and watching the horses trying to remain standing up as the bull pushed into it. Though "el tercio de banderillas" isn't pleasant to watch either, it is not as bad as the other parts; this is when the bullfighter's banderillas are in charge of poking 3 pairs of metal poles into the bull's neck to further weaken it (basically making it helpless), in the same place that the picadores previously tore muscle. At this point, the bull's neck is dripping blood, which is kind of gross and surreal to see... I couldn't fully grasp that it was all blood. Although this was the first bullfight I have seen and will probably the only one I will ever go to, based off of lessons about the techniques of bullfighting in my Introduction to Spanish Cultures class, I recognized that it was not a proper bullfight. In between the picadors and before the last part of the fight, the matadors dropped their capes several times; one time, the bull even charged and came in contact with a matador's hand! The banderillas didn't perform their "task" properly either; many of their arrows/poles fell out right after they stuck them in the bull's neck. Lastly, but probably the worst thing that they could have done improperly (which I could even tell by the reactions of Spaniards) was during the last part of the fight: el tercio de muerte. During this stage, the matadors/torreros objective is to finally kill the bull. At this point, it is supposed to be a quick death and should prevent the bull from suffering any longer. The bullfighter enters the ring alone with his cape and a sword and is supposed to stab it... if a bullfighter does a good job, he receives an ear from the bull he fought, if he accomplished his "task" very well, he receives 2 ears and if the bullfighter gives a phenomenal performance, he receives the bull tail; let's just say that NONE of the 3 bullfighters received anything. This was the other part of the fight that I hated to see; the matadors stabbed their bulls several times, and while I think one of the fighters managed to kill his bull with the sword, when the rest failed, they ultimately were required to provide an instant death by taking a dagger to bull's head instead. One of the fighter's even had to poke the bull twice with the dagger! It was AWFUL!

All in all, I am not going to say that I enjoyed the bullfight; I certainly did not. But I am glad that I was able to see into some Spanish culture, especially before bullfighting is completely banned (since it is already banned in much of Northern Spain), as it is a popular tradition in Spain. A few days after we had gone to the bullfight, we also encountered a protest against bullfighting. While I was aware that many people are against this vicious "sport" (or as some Spaniards even call it an art!), I thought that Sevilla, of all places in Spain, had the most supporters. The protesters and my host mom have demonstrated to me, though, that many people are actually against it and similarly view it as animal cruelty. One of the signs that "hit home" for me, was "La tortura no es cultura", demonstrating that the torture of bulls does not really demonstrate Spanish culture. While the bulls are not simply killed to be killed (their meat is sold and eaten, etc), it is still sad that the death and torture of the bulls are a public spectacle.

Yesterday, when I was walking on the street, I also saw a woman walking a HUGE pig down the street. Literally "walking a pig" as if it were a dog! It was really funny to see, but I could only think that she was probably walking it home to kill it! :( While many Spaniards have resorted to simply buying fresh meat at a market, some Spaniards still commit the act themselves, bringing live animals to their home, cleaning and packing the meat, which usually last pretty long. Similar to bullfighting, the killing of animals used to be used as a type of ceremony or festival in the home, and families would get together for this "event" and complete the task together, followed by a feast. While I personally (and I'm sure many others) view these "ceremonies" negatively due to the torture that animals are forced to go through, I know that I need to try to view it differently, because it is just a completely different culture.

La Pascua en España

Semana Santa is literally translated as "Holy Week", and it takes place the week preceding Easter, during which the many different brotherhoods of the Catholic churches perform processions down the streets of Sevilla (and many other cities throughout Spain).These processions are also referred to as "pasos", but are basically parades of men and women with floats of the Virgin Mary and the crucifixion of Jesus, which are carried by atleast 20 men (maybe more?) that can't see where they are going, and the floats are covered with tall candles that sway with each move that it makes--but somehow it is still rare for the floats to catch on fire!! The pasos also include nazarenos (the people that look like the KKK), bands and people that light incense while they parade through the streets. The streets get very crowded, and prior to Semana Santa, I was warned by my professors and host family that if I were to be walking on the streets before, during or after one of the processions, that it may take me a few hours to get to where I want to go!

I promise they're not in the KKK!

Though it is normally always rainy during Semana Santa, the weather was so awful that the processions were continuously canceled--especially the ones that I was told were the best to see, including La Macarena and Los Gitanos (gypsies). Although the weather was awful, I still managed to see the last paso of the entire week, on Easter Sunday. While I was also warned that Easter Sunday is not a "big deal" in Spain, thus the best processions would not take place on this day, I am still happy that I was able to see one since the rest were all rained out. Perhaps this wasn't the "best" paso, but it still demonstrated to me the "basics" of Semana Santa processions, and without the annoying crowds that would have been present, had it been one of the more popular brotherhoods.

Outside of the cathedral after the Easter service.

After watching the paso for awhile, we attended the Easter service in the cathedral, which although Easter is not a "big deal" in Spain, was very crowded--mostly with tourists, though, I presume. The service was two-and-a-half hours... in Spanish of course... and it was a Catholic service, so I barely followed what was going on, but it was still a cool experience, especially being able to hear the beautiful, gigantic organ that only plays on very special occasions, like holidays. (We were warned before we entered the cathedral that the service would be 2.5 hours and that we had to stay for the entire thing, also.. we debated it for awhile, but I decided that we might as well go, because while there was another shorter service; only 30 minutes; afterward, it would not include the organs... plus, we were already there, and would've had to wait 2.5 hours for the next one anyways!) To be honest, I don't have too much to comment on the service, except that I loved hearing the organs; especially Beethoven's 5th as the first piece!... and that other than that, it seemed like a "normal" Catholic service (according to Michaeline, who I went with, whom is a religion major and a practicing Catholic), with hymns, glorias and kyries and all.

The Start of La Feria

The entrance and masses of people

Tonight, at midnight (or I guess you could technically say it was this morning), la feria de abril began! I had no idea what to expect when I went to see "el alumbrado" tonight, which is just when they light up the entrance to feria and marks its beginning at midnight on the monday of the week of feria (which is normally in April, but this year is only the 2nd time in history that it occurs in May!). To be completely honest, I wasn't impressed at all by the lighting, but once we got inside, thanks to Vicky's ability to weave through the crowd, I was amazed by how many casetas (basically tents, which I will explain later) and people there were inside... and that there was an amusement park and food stands just like any other fair in the U.S. too.

Vicky and I inside feria!

Our new Turkish friends, Vicky, Ryan, Kelsey and I

Some adorable little girls all dressed up!

Based off of the information that I was given before feria, I was under the impression that there would just be rows and rows of casetas... no amusement park or food stands or anything else. Before going, we were also warned that there are "private" and "public" casetas, and that the private ones are better than the public ones, but you can only enter them if you know someone. The majority of the hundreds of casetas are private, while the rest are "public", supported/paid for by the government, including political party casetas and neighborhood ones. We were told to stay away from/be careful in the public ones, especially at night, because this is where things "sometimes get violent/rough".We unintentionally steered clear of any public ones tonight, and Vicky and I also actually managed to get into a private one so that she could use the bathroom! (which I'm assuming is kind of a big deal..?)

Inside a private caseta (thanks to Vicky's weak bladder haha)

While some people still decided to wear flamencowear tonight, the majority of people were dressed more casually--I chose to wear jeans, boots and a nicer blouse/collared shirt, as my host mom had said that if she had been going tonight, she would be wearing a nice shirt and jeans because it's "not a big deal". After walking inside a little and realizing how overpriced everything was, we decided to walk out of feria and down the street to a little cafe for Alex and Kate to get churros con chocolate...which didn't end up being any cheaper since they decided to hike up their prices for feria! After they finished, we all decided to head home since we figured we would go back during the day and night tomorrow. Overall, I think the lighting of feria was not all that it was hyped up to be, but I am still very excited to party and dance there this week!

Semana Santa Traveling Adventures :)

Our first destination: Amsterdam

Day 1:

On Thursday morning Elena and I went to our cultures class at 11 for about 20 minutes before meeting up with the 5 other girls we traveled with; Eileen, Amy, Randi, Tayler and Brittany. Our flight left Sevilla at 2pm, but we had a connecting flight in Barcelona... Which happened to have a 6 hour layover! While we had to wait around in the airport for a long time, it wasn't all that bad; Barcelona has a huge airport filled with so many shops that it's practically a mini-mall--clothing stores, souvenir shops, duty free goods, various restaurants and more. While we waited, we walked around, ended up eating both our lunch and a snack, relaxed and planned our plans for Amsterdam.

On board the flight, most of us decided to get a soup and sandwich for dinner (they actually were pretty cheap!)... Though this sounds like an odd detail, I thought the sandwich was absolutely delicious; something that is probably not very typical of "airplane food". I must say that the "cup of soup" that consisted of some sort of powder and hot water didn't exactly hit the spot, but I was pleasantly surprised at how delicious the sandwich was (whole grain bread, lettuce, roasted red peppers and pesto--from a homemade bakery from Amsterdam)--I had been expecting the worst for airplane food.

Our flight took off at 9:30 at night, so we didn't arrive in Amsterdam until 11. We then wandered until we finally were able to find the right train to take us to central station, found a nightbus and followed Elena's GPS to our hostel, "Hotel AnnMarie". I wasn't exactly sure what to expect at this hostel since a) I had never stayed in a hostel before and b) their rating on hostels.com wasn't that amazing. The only thing that sketched me out a little was that the guy behind the desk first told us when we walked in after 1am that we came too late, and that he had given our room to someone else...but then when Randi mentioned that she had talked to someone on the phone about our late arrival on Tuesday, everything was all of a sudden "okay" and we paid the rest we owed and got our room key. Odd. After that, we made our beds and got ready to sleep as quickly as possible since we were so unbelievably exhausted and anticipated a busy day on Friday.

Day 2:

On Friday, we accomplished visiting and completing most of the tourist attractions in Amsterdam. After eating our free breakfast (just cereal and bread with peanut butter, jam, butter cream cheese or a Dutch version of nutella), our first stop was into a coffeeshop. Everyone that wanted coffee already got a weak cup at breakfast, therefore coffee was not what we went to buy; in fact, I'm not sure if they even sold any coffee there. If you haven't been to Amsterdam to see it or you weren't aware that "coffeeshop" is just a code word for the hundreds (270, I believe) of places that you can go to buy and smoke weed or countless baked goods with weed in it. As our tour guide later explained to us, weed is not legal, nor is it illegal in Amsterdam... Basically it's fine if you smoke, as long as you adhere to regulations, and coffeeshops need to be certified in order to sell the weed (the funny thing is that it's also technically illegal to grow weed... But once again, it's something they don't bother checking up on). After smoking a couple of joints together (we had to do it for the experience!) we headed to a free walking tour of the city. During the tour, we also learned that it is very common for people to mistake the coffeeshops for their literal meaning, only realizing it's a code after they walk in, ask for a cup of coffee and then realize their typical/reasonable mistake they made.

The weed "menu"

A warning sign on the window of "Dampkring", a famous coffeeshop

 During the tour, we walked throughout the city; through the red-light district, to the Dutch East India Trading company, to the Jewish neighborhood ... I didn't realize until walking around on the tour how many canals the city has; apparently they have more canals than in Venice--the only difference is that Amsterdam has actual streets on the sides of their canals and their canals are circulated better and therefore do not smell bad like in Venice either. When we walked through the red-light district, we were told a story about why there is a church smack dab in the center of the area. Apparently the district began as an area for the priests' mistresses to live, but then the area began to attract sailors. Just as sex out of marriage is a sin nowadays, it was back then as well; the idea behind the church was that the sailors would be able to confess their sins immediately after, in case they died at sea. (many priests charged for a letter that stated their forgiveness). I guess that Amsterdam really is a business-oriented city as our guide explained: supply in demand is present in both the red-light district and represented through the proximity of coffeeshops and fast food restaurants throughout the entire city. The other thing that somewhat shocked me about the red-light district was the girls that were actually behind the windows: while I had been expecting to see gross, fat and unattractive women working their windows, they were all in pretty good shape (not too skinny or fat) and were all pretty looking. Our tour guide explained that similar to the regulations for weed, prostitution is also regulated by the police, which allows them to work on their own, not be pushed onto drugs or deal with pimps and can work safely and independently (since they can report anything to the police). Our tour guide also told us that after World War 2, the Jewish community was completely destroyed and burnt down, but the city didn't bother to fix it up until the 1960's, when new architect students were assigned the plan.... Hence the reason the Jewish district is smothered with hippie colors and styles. An additional spot that we saw on our tour (with the exception of the countless bikes--there are almost as many bikes in Amsterdam as people!), we also entered into an old secret Catholic community with a church inside and everything. It seriously looked like an ordinary door.

Later on that night, we had a quick dinner at a Mexican restaurant (which was a COMPLETE rip-off) and headed off to a pub crawl. We went to six different bars/clubs (we skipped the last one because a couple people wanted to go back and sleep) and got a free beer/wine or sometimes a shot at each place... and got a free T-shirt to remember it. It was a pretty fun time!

Day 3:

On our last day in Amsterdam, we tried to do anything else that we still wanted to do, but mostly ended up walking around since our flight was that night and we didn't want to chance being late for our plane. The only "big" thing we did that day was visit the Van Gogh Museum, which was interesting, but after awhile was just too much and got repetitive.. which I'm sure is normal after having visited so many museums and cathedrals during the semester!

Complete photo album: 

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.1828357543824.2087779.1086870495&l=a4276f8ce4

Destination Number 2: Prague

When we finally got to Prague, it was already dark. Our flight landed around 9 PM and we found the night bus and got to our hostel by 11ish. Although there may not have been as much to see in the dark, I was in awe of the beauty of the city when we arrived. To be honest, Prague was unfortunately the city that I was least excited for (even though I have Czech heritage!); while I would probably travel anywhere just for the experience, it was not a place that I had expected to love and enjoy as much as I did. One of the biggest reasons why I think I loved it so much was the medieval "vibe" I got from being there. While the city has been renovated and can be considered modern, the architecture still gives off the feeling that you are stepping back in time--especially when you look at the gorgeous, ancient Charles Bridge over the river, with the castle in view... or the famous astronomical clock on the bell tower in the center of the city.

Day 4 :

view of one of the markets

The next morning, after having arrived late, settling in and calling it an early night, we headed off to another free neweurope tour at 11 (after eating the free breakfast they offered.. nothing special).  We walked around the city and were brought to some historical and famous places, including the astronomical clock, the Charles Bridge, the Jewish neighborhood, the only example of Cubist architecture in the city and saw the concert hall where Mozart used to perform. We were also introduced to an amazing bagel shop, called Bohemia

at the top of the hill

Bagel, which reminded me of the place in Boston that Tante always takes us to (I forget the name!). After the tour was over, we were on our own for the rest of the day. As I am looking back at my photo album from Prague, I'm actually a bit shocked to see how much we actually did in just one day; after the tour, we walked to the castle, saw the chang
ing of the guards, walked to the top of a huge hill (possibly the tallest in the city?) and saw the beautiful view over the city, walked to the John Lennon wall, shopped a little, and headed to their AMAZING Easter market for dinner.

John Lennon wall

the bridge, river and castle!

Seriously, one of my favorite parts of being in the city was probably the market. Although the Easter market is only around for about a month every year, I am so glad that we happened to be there during it. I love markets! It had traditional Czech foods and pastries, hot wine (which I had never tried before and LOVE) and homemade "craft" goods such as jewelry and hand-painted egg ornaments. This, of course, also gave the city a more medieval feel. That night, I ate some Klobasa and dark bread in honor of Dad and Opa, who I wish could have been there with me to enjoy it! (and after had some kind of fruit cobbler/tart pastry that was delicious as well) After dinner, we headed to their "Beer Museum", which was basically just a restaurant with a menu offering numerous types of beer (with descriptions), and you ordered which ones you would like to taste... I had a few sips of my friends' beers, trying to enjoy it, but unfortunately still really can't call myself a beer drinker at all. It was a cool experience though! On a side note about the beer, while I was there, Dad had told me to be sure to drink some Stella Artois and Pilsner Urquell for him, which are abundantly offered in the Czech Republic... later when I got back to Sevilla, one of my friends that had studied marketing told me that Stella is really the equivalent of BudLight in Belgium... AKA, it's not their best beer, but the reason it is so well-known and loved internationally is due to the way it is marketed! If you were to go to Belgium, it would not be the beer that the "locals" would drink! Interesting, huh?

After finishing up at the beer museum, a few of us headed over to another recommended bar, called Harley's...as in Harley Davidson... let's just say we were almost the only girls inside, other than the bartender! Also, there were 2 bachelor parties going on inside, we found out. The one comment I have on our visit to this bar is that there must not be any law, or atleast enforcement of it, to public exposure. There was a guy that decided to strip down to a suspender-thong, dance around, re-dress, and repeat... almost constantly! It was interesting that he was never stopped or anything. We stayed at the bar until we realized how drunk everyone else seemed to be...

Complete photo album:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.1828504027486.2087852.1086870495&l=ddbb7f5f55

Final Destination: Paris

Day 5:
On our last day in Prague, we bought tickets to see inside the Jewish region of the city (the temple, cemetery, etc) since the Jewish community in Prague was so significantly impacted by Hitler and the Holocaust. We walked around for awhile, ate dinner in the market again and had an early night since our flight to Paris was at 6 AM (and we were leaving the hostel at 3 AM)...

Our 5th day traveling clearly had an early start. With our early flight, and the long conversation with the man that was in the same room with us in the hostel (he was French-Canadian, so we were asking him what to see in Paris since he already visited, etc), I was running on virutally no sleep... I got about an hour worth of a "nap", I guess. We arrived in Paris and took a train to the center of the city, found our hostel pretty easily and arrived there before 10 AM. We couldn't check in yet, so we dropped our bags off and found a nearby cafe that our hostel manager (?) recommended to us before we headed off to another free neweurope tour.

I am going to be completely honest now; I have been getting lazy with writing my blog, therefore I have no motivation to mention every single thing we saw and did in Paris.. It was a LONG day. Our tour was the longest one out of the 3 cities we visited, starting at 11 and lasting until about 3:30, where we then headed over to have a lunch/dinner until 5ish. Afterward, we headed to the Eiffel Tower, took pictures below, climbed as high as we could, and Randi and I ended up buying tickets to take the elevator to the top. It was about a 45 minute walk back to our hostel... had we known this and not thought that we were located reasonably closer, we may not have decided to walk all the way home, after an entire day of walking and no sleep! We were starving by the time we got to our street, so we each grabbed something to eat, and went to bed, planning another early start the next day.

view from the tower!

Here is the link to my first album for Paris, I basically documented everything we did/saw:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.1830317312817.2088498.1086870495&l=2774683db7

 

Day 6:

the hall of mirrors

outside the Palace of Versailles

The next morning, we woke up early and grabbed some breakfast (I got an egg and cheese crepe!) and were off to see the Palace of Versailles. Having been exhausted from our week-long traveling adventures, we "only" spent a few hours there. We walked around the crowded palace (I can't imagine how crowded it is in the summer...), tried walking through as many gardens as we could and even got some sorbet. After Amy and Tayler decided they were too tired to walk around anymore, we took the long walk back to the entrance, through the city, to the train back to Paris. Our plan was to walk around the city a little bit, but after attempting this for a little, we decided it was best to just take the metro back to the hostel until we went out for dinner and a riverboat cruise later that night. The riverboat didn't really help me learn anything new, since the lady's accent was almost impossible to understand, but it gave us another pretty way to view the beautiful city.
Day 7:

my idea of the perfect French breakfast :-) with the exception of crepes!

It was finally our last day of traveling... while I was loving everything I was seeing, I feel like I wasn't getting much time to relax, let alone breathe.. I was excited to be able to go back to Sevilla and relax. We woke up early again, headed to see Notre Dame and then went to another region of the city, Monmarte (?), where we saw the famous basilica, Sacre Coeur, an art market and Moulin Rouge. We walked around and ended up getting lunch at a delicious bakery that makes everything fresh (Randi works at a cafe based off of it in Wisconsin) and then headed back to the hostel to grab our suitcases and catch our flight "home".

Here's the second album for Paris:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.1830434915757.2088528.1086870495&l=d8eca4a879

Our trip was really fun and while I wish I were more descriptive, the pictures show everything we did. Some day I hope to go back to these places with friends and family, as I thought of many people specifically when I was in each city. I am glad I took the opportunity to travel to these places, even if my wallet is more empty due to it :-P

Happy, Thank You, More, Please!

After cooking class tonight, a few friends and I decided to go see a movie at the only theater that plays English-speaking movies. As odd as it might sound, it was almost a relief to just watch a movie in a theater...and have it in English! Haha. Other than the fact that the movie was really cute (although the title was very odd-- "Happy, Thank You, More, Please"--at first, when I had been seeing advertisements for the movie all over the city, I had thought that maybe it was just a really bad translation... I had no idea what the movie was about...or that one of my favorite people from my one of my favorite TV shows, Josh Radnor, would be in it!)... one of the characters in the movie reminded me about something that I think I will really miss when I leave Sevilla; walking to get from place to place. 

Although I've mentioned this before, I hate it and I love it. I do get really lazy here sometimes and not want to go places because I think about the walk I need to take to get there (well, technically I could also use public transportation but I never really bother; I figure that I might as well walk because it will only take a little more time since buses have to stop so much, it's free, and I'm burning calories haha), other times it's just nice to go for a leisurely walk to get to places... It can be relaxing. Anyways, the girl in the movie was talking about how she didn't want to move from NYC because she wouldn't be able to walk everywhere anymore...which got me to wonder if I would possibly want to live in a city some day. I never really pictured myself as a "city girl", but after being here I have noticed all the pro's of city life: free or cheap transportation (I get to look forward to rising gas prices when I get home... Yay!), exercise, proximity of shopping, restaurants, gyms and other places...cities have it all! It's still something I can think about, of course, but an interesting new insight that I think will be important to think about some day :)

La Extremadura! and Memories of Grampy

 I started writing this yesterday, but here it goes...

Ok, so I know I should be finishing up my Arab paper and presentation for Wednesday (since my professor was nice enough to understand that my stupid Dell computer is a piece of crap so I couldn't finish it for today)... but I don't know, I'm just not in a very focused mood. I also am very unmotivated and didn't go on my run yesterday or today :/ BUT, one thing I know I still need to and should do is write about our weekend in Extremadura a couple weekends ago:

On Friday morning, we met up with the group at 8:15 and were off to Mérida. The drive was about 3 hours long. When we got there, we walked through the city a little (it wasn't that big), visited an old Roman amphitheater and theater and then an archeological museum that had objects from Roman times also. The amphitheater was really cool to see after already visiting the old Roman city of Itálica with my class the previous Thursday. Although Itálica was really interesting to see, since it was the Roman's first settlement in Spain, it was mostly just ruins, whereas the ones in Merida were ruins, but were more intact. The museum wasn't too interesting since we were told that most of the sculptures were just random people, but what I enjoyed most at both Itálica and the museum was seeing all the mosaics. At Itálica, there were mosaics in each house originally, and they were themed. For example, one house contained a room with a bird mosaic built into the floors, therefore it was referred to as "The House of the Birds". The coolest mosaic was probably at one of the other houses though, that had an image of all of the Gods and Goddesses that represented the days of the week.

While we were at the museum on Friday, we also visited the old crypt. My friend, Alex, immediately asked me when we got inside, "How many people in here are dead?" which brought back funny memories of Grandpa because he always used to ask me that. It's nice to know that even though he's gone, I still think about him and nice memories or even corny jokes like that come back all the time; they help me smile a little when I remember him. It's still very surreal to me that I will never see him again though--I almost cannot believe that. Almost every place I have gone to, especially those where we go on hikes or are in nature, I think about how much he would love to be there and wonder if maybe he has been there already. While I wish he could still be alive to be receiving my postcards and hearing about all the cool places I've been visiting (and know that he would enjoy to know that his granddaughter has become more of a "world traveler" like himself), I'm a little happy that since his time was coming that I had time to spend with him before I had to leave--and that he didn't pass away while I was over here in Europe. Another girl on the trip said her grandfather just passed away on Sunday, which I can't even imagine how hard that is for her; she said her mom has been hysterical and of course she can't go home...if that happened to me I would feel so helpless. Sometimes I suddenly have the urge to cry, but have mostly been remembering the good times with Grandpa. Lately I have also been wondering if God chose to make me strong the day he passed away and throughout the entire time I was home to support my Grandma and Mom. Before he died, we constantly reassured him that we would all be okay and that he could stop struggling, but I also asked him to promise to watch over me and show me that he was with me when I came to Spain.  I have still been looking for signs that he is here with me and wonder if it's enough that certain things I see or hear remind me of him; or if there may be a bigger sign that I am missing. Maybe it's as simple as the fact that I haven't forgotten him that matters, though, which is something I was a little scared of happening.

After we left Merida and went to another city in Extremadura, Trujillo, we walked around the city, saw an old castle/fortress and also visited a medieval type/themed market outside our hotel. Trujillo was beautiful and reminded me of what I would think Ireland would look like (except less hilly)... It looked like a cute little antique town, and our hotel actually used to be a palace. The market was probably one of the coolest things though--it had traditional foods and pastries/desserts, unique gummies (like vodka and mojito flavored ones) and various different stands with nice jewelry (better quality than in morocco), toys, pottery, dried fruits and nuts (and dried kiwis, which I have never seen before and actually got to taste one of my friend's). The funniest thing that we found there that also reminded me of Grandpa (which I would have gotten for him if he were here and I'm sure he would have loved) was a little ceramic bird whistle that sounds exactly like a bird. My friend Alex got it and whistled it outside our friend Mary's door that night (she wasn't there with us when she bought it), and Mary thought it was a real bird--once again, this simple prank reminds me of something he would also do if he had one. I am just beinning to realize how similar my friend Alex and I are; she also loves soccer, is a Christian, is just as sarcastic as me, and right now is dealing with a similar problem with her dog that I dealt with Persia a few months ago. A few weeks ago, the vet found a rare cancer in her dog and said she only had a few weeks to live... but I'm glad to say for her that her dog is still with her mother (who shares a special bond with the dog like my mom did with Persia...)

Most of this post I had already written on my iPhone while on the bus ride home to Sevilla, and since it was a couple weeks ago, I'm not exactly sure what I should add. If you'd like to check out the pictures I took; there are many of the hike and some in each of the places that we visited, follow this link to my facebook photo album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2084630&id=1086870495&l=1d628ae07b

Let me know if you have any questions about the trip, or comment here and I will answer :)

An Eventful Weekend

By the beach in Cadiz

My weekend began on Thursday night, technically, since we do not have classes on Friday here, so I guess if you wanted to get technical, that particular night wasn't very eventful as the title of this post describes. I decided to stay in that night (although Thursday nights are usually the best and most fun nights to go out here!) so that I would be well-rested for my field trip with my history and mythology class the next day. The day began at 7:15am when I had to wake up in order to get ready and walk to the university for the bus (I unfortunately didn't sleep too well, but better at least than it would have been if I had gone out, I think). Our first destination was Cadiz, which made it my third time in the beautiful city; although it is the only city other than Sevilla that I have visited more than once, I have never done the same thing while there (the first time carnaval, the second was a beach day and this time all we did was walk through the city a little bit and visit the museum). I loved Cadiz and wish that we could have stayed there longer...it is definitely a great place to visit!

Can you spot Morocco's mountains on the horizon?!

After Cadiz, we headed to Bolonia, which is one of the most southern points in Spain. It lies on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and has beautiful beaches. It is also VERY close to Africa; so close, as in you can see Morocco over the horizon, like when you are on the Long Island Sound and can see NYC--so close, that people's phones changed their network and time to Morocco settings when we were sitting on the beach!!! Bolonia was beautiful and definitely did not appear to be as touristy as other destinations in Spain; the place that we went was literally Roman ruins that were inches away from the beach... the Romans sure knew how to pick the perfect location! The water was so clear and clean and REALLY blue from far away); it was a bit cold, therefore I didn't go in past my ankles and when the wind picked up and blew the sand it was painful. Other than these minor details, Bolonia definitely had one of the most beautiful beaches that I have ever seen.

 "El Foro de Baelo"-- used for Roman court trials mostly.

On the beautiful beach in Bolonia!

My lovely sunburn. See the "stripe" from my purse?

When we got back to Sevilla, it was almost dinner time. I realized that I had gotten sun burnt; the worst thing about it was that I got a sun burn on my neck where my purse strap was--it looks ridiculous, as if my skin is striped! On the walk home, I quickly stopped into a supermarket to pick up some moisturizing lotion (my sunburn is almost gone now, and turning into a tan, only 2 days later) and rushed home. Carmen and I ate dinner right away and I showered and got ready to go out, met up with some friends, and after a couple hours 3 out of 5 of us decided we were way too tired to stay out any longer... it was maybe 2am... not even close to late here. I was in bed by 3 and although I had planned on doing a lot of things Saturday, I ended up "locking" myself in my room in order to try and do my Arab paper/presentation that is due Monday... as much as I worked on it, it wasn't very successful.

Saturday night, I went out to see another concert with Carmen Maria. We met up with her cousin and her cousin's boyfriend and Maria (Carmen's friend that went to the other concert with us last time) came too. The concert was really good, we saw a more modern rock band, called "Gritando en Silencio"... it was funny because the singer had a very deep voice, but after the show, when he signed Ara's (Carmen's cousin) CD and my ticket, I saw that he was really short. I had a great time last night with everyone, the music was great, and I got to practice some more Spanish. I decided to be good and come home after the concert; we were home by 1:15, so that I could discipline myself into getting my work done today. 

Unfortunately, when I woke up this morning and began to work on my paper, my computer decided to freeze repeatedly--I restarted it countless times and even shut it down to 'rest' a few times! I hate this computer. I wish I never listened to Quinnipiac and got the stupid Dell laptops they "required"! Other than that, I haven't done too much today... I am hoping that I can finish off this paper quickly so that I can go for a run before dinner again today. Yesterday I noticed how much better I felt after going for a nice jog and working out and relaxing a little bit after my shower. I will have to try to do that some more, because relaxing is not something I do very well.

Anyways, this was a decent break from my paper, but I better get back to it for an hour or so... perhaps I will get to writing my blog on Extremadura later! I will try my best! :)

A couple random last minute comments:

• Ara's boyfriend had a conversation with me about how smoking marijuana here isn't a big deal... and we also had a long conversation about curbs, yes curbs. I couldn't understand what he and Carmen were asking me (they were trying to describe it to me in Spanish and just wanted the translation in English)... It was kind of funny.
• I just found out that the time of my return flight was changed... and now I have about 8 hours to wait in Madrid's airport if I can't change it as I asked! 
• I just realized that the stupid QU Registrar's office didn't register my classes as they assured they would do for me on Friday since I was on my fieldtrip.
• I have only a little over a month until I'm home! I can't wait, even though I know I will miss some things about being over here.
• If you are curious about the band I saw, they really were good! I want to download their songs eventually. This is their website: http://www.gritandoensilencio.net/ and you can click on the tab "Media" to watch a couple videos they have... or simply type their band name into youtube :) Let me know if you like them!

The Technically Challenged Spanish Speaker Helps the Technologically Challenged?

Haha. So, I was trying to be creative with the title of this blog, which I am basically writing just to mention my experience helping Carmen out with some computer problems. Today, she was talking about how she wanted to check her email and it wasn't working (I had suggested to restart the computer, thinking it may have been the internet or something; this was without looking at the computer at all, just going by what she told me). Later, at dinner, she mentioned again that her computer still wasn't working. I told her that I could take a look at it if she wanted, which she seemed to appreciate.

When I was looking at the computer and realized that everything was working fine except the keyboard, I attempted to explain that there was nothing wrong with anything except the keyboard (which I learned was called "el teclado"). She tried to show me that she couldn't sign on to her windows messenger program and kept pressing the "sign on" button. She looked very confused when she kept getting an error message, which was basically saying that you need to put in your password, which, once again, I attempted to explain in Spanish that the reason it wasn't working was because of the keyboard, because you obviously can't type in your password without a working keyboard! (...but she still didn't understand! haha)

Even though this may have been a simple problem and not the big of a deal, it felt nice to be able to help Carmen out. It also reminded me of my Grandma and when she asks me to give her computer lessons when I visit... she even said that I "know a lot about computers" (probably because I knew to restart the wifi one time that the internet wasn't working also) and asked me how I learned. While Carmen may have difficulties figuring out technology sometimes, it is clear that I struggled to try to explain the problem to her in Spanish. I guess it just goes to show you that no matter how simple you think a task may be, it may not be as simple to somebody else :)

A Weekend in Barcelona

After several things not going as planned/as I'd like leading up to Barcelona, it was a great trip and I am very glad that I still was able to take the opportunity to go. Although we only spent Friday and Saturday there, we made the most of our time and packed in as much as we could while also relaxing.Arriving to Barcelona was actually not as tricky as I had expected it to be, and I think that this experience was actually very helpful in making me more independent. I traveled alone to the airport in Sevilla and although my friends Dong and Mary had agreed to meet me at the airport, it became too confusing so we had to take separate buses into the city center anyways. (I also had separate plane rides there and back, therefore figuring out where to go for my flights and where to wait was a good experience, though annoying and tiring, for the future). The only stupid thing that I would like to comment on that I did while alone in either of the airports was that I told Mary and Dong that I was trying to find them and that I was at M4, which after a little while I realized I still didn't exit the gate area... so they wouldn't have been able to find me, even if they were at the same terminal as me (which they weren't... the two terminals in Barcelona are like 10 minutes away from eachother by shuttle)... haha oops.

View of Sevilla from the airplane.

Barcelona from the plane! Notice the mountains and gorgeous beach :)

When we all met up at the city center, we headed toward our hostel/hotel/apartment... whatever you'd like to call it. I think it is called a hostel, but it is more like a fully furnished shared apartment with separate locked bedrooms. It was SO nice. I will post all the pictures in another album (just because it is easier and you can see all of them!) On top of our place being so nice, it was also perfectly located right off La Rambla, a few minutes away from the port (also very beautiful) and right in the center of lots of shopping and dining (and bakeries.. yum!) and the old market (with lots of fruit and smoothies... and also REALLY expensive chocolate... like 30 euro/kilo chocolate!) and easily accessible to the bus to the airport and the two metro lines.

Although I had already eaten my bocadillo for lunch that Carmen Maria had packed for me, Brian and Scott hadn't eaten yet. There was a cute little cafe beneath our apartment that we went to (and Scott's cousin is friends with the man that runs it). Scott ended up trying a pre-fixed meal that included shark for the main course, so I tried a little bit... it was really good! The rest of us ordered smaller things just to hold us over; Dong had some tea, Maddy had a muffin, Mary had a huge strawberry smoothie that looked delicious and I had some coffee with liquor (which tasted like Bailey's but I'm not quite positive... but it WAS delicious of course). Afterward, we went to visit La Sagrada Familia, the huge cathedral in Barcelona that Gaudi designed (and it was closed, so we couldn't go in, although I kind of didn't feel like touring another cathedral anyways!). It was very beautiful though. After taking some pictures around, we headed back on the metro and browsed and shopped around the center of the city until dinner. For dinner, we decided to go to this decent (not cheap looking but not ultra expensive) restaurant that was offering a pre-fixed dinner for 10.95 euros, including soup, an appetizer, main course and dessert! The food was delicious, except for the fish eye that I was told I should eat since the fish skin, head and tail were still on the "monkfish" that we had for our main course. IT WAS GROSS. But, now I can tell Michael (my cousin's Jamaican dad for those that don't know him) that I have eaten a fish eye and maybe he will be proud since he always tried to get us to eat them when we were little! The one thing that was annoying about dinner, although it was reasonable considering the amount of food we got anyways, was that they did not have tap water (or just didn't give it to us when we asked) and also charged us a euro extra for bread (which we didn't even ask for)... it's apparently common that they charge you for the bread they serve but that is the first time I've experienced it. After dinner we just headed back to the apartment; we were all pretty tired and decided if we relaxed then maybe we could get a lot done the next day if we had a good night's sleep since we did not plan on sleeping the next night before our early morning flight. We played a few rounds of rummy (not the way that we've always played, Dad, but it was really fun) and then went to sleep.

Me in front of La Sagrada Familia

The back of La Sagrada Familia

The menu of our dinner

the soup.. it had an egg in it... still tasted good though!

my salad (with tuna too)... looks like a face!

monkfish and potatoes... still tasted good, but I had to try SO HARD not to scrape any of the skin off by mistake!

eww.. about to eat the fish eye

my dessert.. kinda like creme brulee!

The next day we had planned on all waking up at 10am to leave by 11am since we stayed up till about 2:30 playing cards, but I unfortunately woke up at 8:40, for some reason thinking I needed to be awake in 20 minutes anyways, and decided to have a quick shower before everyone else woke up.... after my shower when I was getting ready I realized that I would be waiting a long time and packed and read my book until they all woke up. We grabbed some pasteries at the bakery that was on our street and walked around La Rambla, taking pictures with soms street performers (and I also stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts for some iced coffee, of course.... who knew they had DD's in Spain too?! It was also much better than the U.S; much stronger and delicious!). We also walked to the port to check it out, which had an amazing view and it's funny because we passed this food stand twice while we were there, and Maddy and I passed it again a couple times when we walked there later on that night, and each time we all commented on how amazing the "gofres" (waffles) smelled that they were selling. We then headed back to the apartment for a few minutes and separated into two groups: Scott and Brian went to see the soccer stadium and Mary, Maddy, Dong and I went to El Parque Guell and the Chocolate Museum instead. The park had a very scenic view of the city, but let me tell you, it was a workout in itself to get up the hill to go! It also had some cool looking building and statues that Gaudi designed. The Chocolate Museum was so cool too! I thought that I simply would just want to eat the chocolate and leave, to be honest, but it was really interesting to read the history of cocoa and chocolate in ancient times. It was also amazing to see the pieces of art that were made out of the chocolate; there were several different types of scenes made out of chocolate, like the Sagrada Familia, Don Quijote and even SpongeBob and Patrick!! (I posed by them for you, Dad and Kim!!) After the museum, we went to Dia, one of the cheapest supermarkets I have been to in Spain, to buy food to make for dinner. We bought SO MUCH for the 6 of us... it ended up all being eaten, but I was in doubt that it would be finished. Our meal consisted of 3 big loaves (similar to baguettes but fatter) of bakery bread (that Maddy and I went and got after Dia when everyone else wanted to nap), 3 bags of tortellini, 2 frozen spinach packages, 2 big bags of frozen mixed veggies and chicken, garlic and olive oil... plus over a kilo of fresh strawberries and a huge bunch of bananas that we used to make smoothies (and I made some delicious drinks with some fresh fruit for Mary, Dong and I with some vodka and juice that we bought too) In total, it all came out to be only 3.33 euro per person! That was insane! The food was delicious and it was nice because everyone tried to help and we had a nice family style dinner.

One of the street performers.. haha

at the top of the ginormous hill we climbed to go to El Parque Guell

He was one of my favorites

Down by the port

We wish we could eat that! :) It's real though I believeeeee

Don Quijote Chocolate

Kim, Dad and Minnie haha

Our meal we cooked :)

After dinner, everyone made sure they were packed and ready to go the next morning (really only a few hours later that we were leaving, though) since our flights were at either 6 or 7am. We met some other people from API at this bar called Dow Jones and stayed there for most of the night. The bar was kind of interesting because they had their drink menu on computer screens, and every so often the "stock market" would crash, and the drink prices would drop lower than their normal prices. In reality, though the drinks and shots weren't even cheap when the market crashed... everything was CRAZY expensive in Barcelona. It was still a cool concept though. The entire night (and weekend) I had been bugging everyone to go to another bar called Chupitos, that so many people had told me that I needed to visit when I went to Barcelona because it was amazing. They have hundreds and hundreds of different shots, and each one is themed; you have to do something, wear something, etc to drink your shot... it's very entertaining to both do it and watch others at the bar order theirs. One of the shots tat had been recommended to us several times was called the Boy Scout Shot; first the bartender lit part of the bar on fire for us to roast marshmallows that she had given us, then we dipped the marshmallow in the shot she poured us (I have no idea what the shot was), ate the marshmallow and then took the shot. It was really fun, but it sucked that everyone was so annoying about going that we had no time to spend there since they wanted to be back by 4am to go get taxis to the airport (there really was no time at all considering that the clocks changed an hour ahead also).

 

Singing on our way to Dow Jones Bar... hahaha

Looking Back On My Adventures in Africa

A Little About the Flight:

A couple of weekends ago, I had the opportunity to visit Marrakesh, Morocco in Northern Africa. Africa is so close to Spain that the plane ride ended up being just over an hour long. The "adventure" began when we stepped on board RyanAir's plane, which, if you have not heard of them, is a very cheap Irish airline that most study abroad students end up using when they come to Europe. Here are some of the reasons the flights are probably always ridiculously cheap: they cram as many seats into the plane as possible (you have barely any leg room when you sit), you are not assigned a seat (it's first come first serve, and apparently they overbook and if you are there late you can sometimes be out of luck and not have a flight!) and lastly, but certainly not least, you will be sure to have a very bumpy ride! While we were taking off, I became so lightheaded that I felt like I could faint (and maybe would have if I weren't sitting down.. haha)--they take off and land SO FAST! My friend Ryan recently told me that the reason that the pilots do this is to save RyanAir money... the faster they take off and land = less time the plane spends flying in the lower altitude = less gas the plane uses. I asked couple of my friends my theory, "Do you think all of these pilots are inexperienced?" We all debated the question, because it seemed evident that they do not know how to keep their passengers comfortable, nor feel safe while aboard. Apparently, Ryan also said that my theory was correct! Almost ALL of RyanAir's employees JUST graduated flying school (even the stewardesses!). The one thing that you can count on, if necessary, is that RyanAir's flights are on time almost 100% of the time, beating almost all airlines (and all major U.S. airlines also)... but they also make you board the plane about 45 minutes early and stop accepting passengers earlier than other flights. Although there are a lot of ups and downs with RyanAir flights, they are still overall a decent airline, are cheap, and hey, I survived just fine (I've been on 3 of their flights so far and will be taking a few more over Semana Santa).

MOROCCO: 

Day 1: After the flight was over, we headed to the hotel and had the rest of the day to ourselves until dinner later that night. We spent the day visiting the market and relaxing around the hotel (we were not about to try and go out, as we heard that Morocco can be more dangerous at night, atleast for females). The hotel was very nice; it was very nicely decorated and their staff was very attentive. In the hotel lobby, they served mint tea and cookies until night time, and if you sat down near the table, a man would bring you some tea.While at the market, I realized that I have awful skills at bartering immediately; although I have had experience trying to bargain on Canal Street in NYC, it was very difficult for me to persuade the shop seller to allow me to purchase a large leather purse and two scarves for the price I wanted. He originally was asking 350 Durhams for just the two scarves (about 35 euros, or $50), and over 400 Durhams for the purse. All of the items were very nice quality, but I felt like he was ripping me off a LOT. I tried getting him to give me all three items for 350 Durhams, but the lowest he would go is 400.

Just a sidenote on the man that sold me my purse and scarves: he was a creeper. I didn't feel extremely uncomfortable, I feel like he was trying to be friendly but in the wrong way.. and I was also with a bunch of people. But, he kept kissing me on the cheek (which might be common around this part of the world to say hello or thank you, but he just wouldn't stop) and then asked how long I was going to be there and if I was going to a discoteca that night... I simply avoided the conversation and started talking about buying the items though.

Later on, I realized that I didn't like the purse too much unfortunately, and decided I would try my luck at returning it to see if I could get another one instead. I luckily convinced one of the shoptenders to let me exchange it for a nicer purse, but had to pay 50 more Durhams since it was homemade... which kind of sucked, but atleast I like it a lot more than the original one I picked. One of the things I learned from Morocco (or relearned?) is that I need to stop impulsively buying things when I think I will like them--it would be better to only buy things when I'm absolutely positive I want and like it!

Day 2: On the second day, we woke up early to eat breakfast in the hotel and then meet up as a group to tour the city. We walked through a different market, saw a couple of palaces (which were really boring, to be honest... they're getting kind of old since we see them all the time), visited a pharmacy, had free time to get lunch at the markets and then went back to the hotel and left to ride camels! At the pharmacy, they sold plenty of spices and herbs; for medicinal, cooking and cosmetic purposes. Here is a great excerpt about pharmacies in Morocco to summarize what we saw, for the most part: "Even if you're feeling perfectly healthy, don't miss the chance to visit a Moroccan pharmacy. Like a witch doctor's den, these mysterious shops tucked in the souk's alleys, offer local residents cures for everything from toothaches to arthritis to broken hearts. Powders and potions, concocted of local herbs, not to mention dried lizards seen hanging on the walls, provide a cure for whatever ails you. Travelers will be especially interested in the spices and perfumes. Saffron can be purchased for about US$2 per gram (minimum of five grams). Moroccan curry, a different blend than Indian curry, and a heady mix of Moroccan spices called "Head of the Store" are popular choices. In the natural pharmacies, you'll also find stencils for henna designs (US$1), kohl eyeliner (US$3), musk (US$3 per gram) and numerous oils."

For lunch, I decided to just grab a mixture of almonds, figs and dates (since Colin said he was jealous I could try fresher dates and suggested I try them). It was all very good and reasonably priced. I didn't originally want to go, but it was worth trying it since we went for atleast an hour and a half ride and also got to see different areas of Marrakesh, like the urban homes, etc. I personally don't think it's something I will ever need to do again... plus, it really hurts your butt sitting on the camel's back after awhile.. and I also kept trying to readjust because I was scared I was hurting the camel.. I also felt really bad that the camels were tied so tightly to eachother in the caravan-- they could barely move their heads, and if one didn't want to go, another one would get tugged on, etc. I felt bad for them because it seemed like they were getting choked. Later that night, after dinner in the hotel, a group of us went to the market again, which is when I convinced the guy to take back my purse.

Day 3: On the third day, we once again ate an early breakfast and then were off on a bus to the mountains. On the way, we stopped and toured a Berber house and drank tea and ate a Berber style breakfast. After that, we were off to hike the Atlas Mountains in a "mountain village" and after ate a traditional Moroccan lunch: bread, couscous with veggies and some chicken, followed by orange slices sprinkled with cinnamon.  That night, API did not cover our dinner as the two nights before, so we were on our own. Randi, Amy and I decided to go to the market later on to eat from some stands and then shop around the market a little bit more. We ate some typical Moroccan dishes: bread (what's with this side of the world and bread?! haha), olives and spicy sauces. I also had the "spinach salad", which was really more like a strange concoction of pesto. Randi and Amy had veal; one with prunes and almonds in a sauce and the other on kebabs. In the tent/stand that we were eating, there were two Moroccan boys sitting next to us. The first thing they said to us was "Would you like to try some brain?" Amy reacted very excitedly, obviously mishearing their question (she thought they were offering her brie cheese), so both Randi and Amy dipped their bread into the plate they offered. Until I said, "Wait, you guys know they said sheep brain, right?", they were about to put it into their mouths without hesitation. They both were uncertain after that, and the two kept saying stupid things to try and convince us to eat it: "Oh come on, it's really delicious... It will give you more brains too!" Although we were all scared of the thought, especially me, after dissecting one last year in Anatomy... we decided, "Eh, when in Morocco, right?!" Bad choice. GROSS. It was so slimy and mushy and I can't even describe the texture! But whatever...another strange thing I can say I've tried! It's all about the adventure :) But, thank god I did not try the other sheep part that they tried to get us to eat, one that they did not know how to say in English (and even said that we didn't want to know what it was, we just "had to try it")... that they finally described by saying that it was something (singular) that boys have and girls don't. Amy and I looked at eachother, whispering aloud to one another what it must have been, but Randi blurted out, "BALLS?!" It was hilarious. We couldn't stop laughing. But they actually nodded and laughed when she said that... so there must have been some confusion, because after that they said guys had two. Sorry if this story is strange, but it was funny and I had to share it :) After our authentic Moroccan style dinner in the market, we decided to try and shop a little bit more. Within not even 10 minutes of walking around, we decided that it was a horrible idea to be in the market at night as a female. We were practically the only ones inside, and the rest were males...it was just creepy... sketchy.. I can't even describe it very well. It made us feel very uneasy; while we are often stared at in Sevilla for being different or any other reason, it is not to the degree of being uncomfortable like this situation. There are almost NO women out at night there. After a few minutes, we hailed a taxi and headed back to the hotel (and even in the taxi we became a bit nervous when the driver picked up one of his friends who started talking to us and then asked us our ages and if we liked music and kept asking weird questions).

Just some general information:

Morocco was a very interesting country and had API not planned to take us there, it is probably not a place that I would planned to go to on my own. While there, we were able to see into the eyes of a completely different culture. Although it was sad how many beggars there were on the streets, it became annoying to the point where you just had to ignore them; they could start bothering you anywhere, asking you to buy tissues (though we also have a couple black men that do that here in Sevilla..), umbrellas, leather camels, jewelry...or you could get harassed and drawn henna on like Kim, who was also forced to pay the woman (and gave her 100 Durham... 10 euros!) and then was told that it "wasn't enough"... when she didn't even want it done in the first place!

Pictures: As you know, I broke my camera a few weeks ago, therefore haven't been able to take pictures of my own. But, I copied a bunch of pictures from my friends' cameras and made and album on facebook with comments describing everything. If you want to check them out, here's the link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2083875&id=1086870495&l=0b6e2c72db