“In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world.” - Federico Garcia Lorca

Since I already wrote about Christmas and New Year´s, then went back in time to Amsterdam, now I´ll fill you in on the rest of my winter break.  One day, my Spanish friends and I packed into a van and took a day trip to a small town called Zahara de la Sierra.  It is one of Andalucia´s many pueblos blancos which means white village. I´ll  give you one guess why they´re called that.  It was a warm sunny day, perfect for travelling and being outside.  Zahara de la Sierra is a beautiful little white village stuck right in the side of a small mountain.  It also has a really pretty lake down in the valley. We walked around took some pictures, and stopped at a restaurant to have lunch.  Then everyone decided they wanted to go to Ronda, which is another pueblo blanco about a half hour away.  I was really excited because Ronda is one of the places I really wanted to go in Spain.  It´s hard to explain in words the way Ronda is layed out. It´s another mountain town, but the way it was constructed is unlike anything I´ve ever seen. So, instead of trying to explain it, I´ll just let you see for yourselves. 

<  View from la Zahara de la Sierra






             


                               




                         Ronda 

The last weekend of break, Alex, Mary, Mary´s sister, her sister´s boyfriend Nate, and I went to Bilbao, in the Basque Country of northern Spain.  I wasn´t really sure what to expect from Bilbao because I had never been to northern Spain, but I was really excited.  Nothing all that exciting happened

But it was definitely a great trip and worth seeing.  One thing I noticed is that there is a very different culture in the north that the south.  The Basque country has their own language called Euskera and the people there are very proud of their province.  The style of clothes there is also very different, and people have pretty edgy hairstyles.  Well, to be honest, edgy is putting it kindly.  Lots of mullets, rat tails, dreadlocks, half shaved heads, and strangely cut bangs.   The city itself though, is really beautiful. It is cut in half by a river – on one side, the old town where our hostel was, and on the other side the newer modern part of the city. 

Our weekend was pretty much a typical weekend of seeing as much as we could by walking around the city, with a few stand out experiences.  First, we went to the world famous Guggenheim museum, which is a really cool modern art museum.  Even the building itself is considered a work of art.  I´m not that really into art, and I certainly don´t pretend to know much about it, but the Guggenheim was really worth the visit. 

On Saturday, we took a day trip to the beach town called San Sebastian, on the recommendations of just about everyone who knew we were going to Bilbao.  It was a really beautiful, relatively small city.  I felt like we were able to walk most of it in the short time we had there.  We made our way through the narrow streets, passing the gorgeous, picturesque cathedral, and to the beach.  It was a really nice city beach on the Bay of Biscay.  I had read online that you can get a really great view of the beach and the city by hiking up a small mountain/hill.  We decided to give it a go, and it really only took us about 15 minutes because the paths, while rocky and uneven, took you up to the top pretty efficiently.  There was a neat old fort complete with cannons and a huge statue of Jesus at the top of the hill, and the view really was great. We had our obnoxious, disrespectful tourist moment by climbing all over the cannons and taking pictures.  After we climbed down, we stopped at a café and got some coffee, well I drank water, and everyone else had coffee, and then we walked around some more.  

Cannon shot!

San Sebastian beach shot

After a while, we got something to eat and headed back to Bilbao.  We had already decided Saturday night would be a disco night, so we came back to our hostel to rest and then get ready for the night.  In case you´re wondering, disco here is not your typical seventies dance club, but what they call clubs here.  We bought plenty of drinks to get our night started at the hostel, and left for the club at about 1.  We hopped on the metro (we were pros at it by the end of the weekend) and followed the rest of the club goers to Fever.  When we got there, it was kind of empty so we sat down and had a couple drinks.  The place started to fill up some more and we were all feeling pretty “happy” so we decided to get up and dance.  This was different from some of the other times we´ve gone to the clubs in Spain, mostly because Nate (Mary´s sister´s boyfriend). Usually if you go out with just girls, the Spanish guys are pretty creepy and aggressive.  But since Nate was there dancing like a maniac…which made us all dance like maniacs, the Spaniards stayed away from us.  I think it was a combination of them being totally weirded out by our dancing, and confusion as to why Nate had four girls with him.  It was really, really fun to just let loose.  I even got up on a stage and did a solo dance to “One way or another.” Unfortunately, some of that was caught on film, but that´s staying in the vault.  We decided to head back home at around 4 or 4:30ish.  The next morning was not too pleasant, but we all made it through enough to get some lunch, see a little bit more of the city, and head back to the airport.  We had a lot of fun, and it was really good to meet Mary´s family.  I think you get to know people a lot more when you meet their friends and family from home.  It was also great to see more of this country that I love so much!

The outside of the Guggenheim 
Museum

The whole group in the hostel before our night out at the disco.

“Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.” - John Green

Ok everyone, I have to apologize for the millionth time for being too slow to blog, but this time I actually have an excuse.  My laptop is currently on the fritz so blogging and keeping in touch in general have been a little difficult lately.  However, this weekend I have a computer that my school let me bring home, so I am going to try to catch up.  Where to begin, where to begin…

Amsterdam.  

So, during the second week of December, we all had Thursday and Friday off of school, so my roommates and I decided to take a trip to Amsterdam.  I had already been there before, but I liked it so much the first time, and we found a good deal, so I couldn´t say no.  I could honestly write page after page about the trip, but for the sake of trying to catch you all up, I won´t keep it too long.  And, usually I like to integrate my pictures in the text to make things more aesthetically pleasing, but since I'm stealing moments on my roommates' computers for the time being, I'm just going to stick a few faves in at the end for time's sake. Also, since most of my pictures are imprisoned in my broken laptop, I'm making due.

Our trip started Wednesday night on a bus to Malaga, a city about two hours from Sevilla and where our flight was from.  We had an early morning flight on Thursday, so we decided to stay the night in the airport.   As we wandered around the airport for a few minutes looking for a decent place to make camp, we stumbled across a Burger King that actually had some padded booths.  Perfect.  We each took a half of a booth and got settled.  Unfortunately, not more than 20 minutes pass when a man a couple booths down from us starts snoring like I´ve never heard anyone snore before.  I would describe it as a choking, growling sound.  Another guy in a different booth even woke him up and yelled at him, but as soon as he fell back asleep, he started right back up.  Needless to say, I didn´t get much sleep.  

We arrived in Amsterdam Thursday around noon and we took the train into the city.  Having checked the weather beforehand, we knew it was going to be quite a bit colder than here in Sevilla, but as soon as we stepped out of that train station we were whipped with a cold wind that blew half of my map right out of my hands.  Yikes it was cold.  We made our way to our hostel and got settled.  That evening my roommates wanted to go to the Anne Frank House, but since I had already been there, I decided to check out the fluorescent light museum that was right around the corner.  This turned out to be some kind of house where and old hippie couple lived and had things that glowed in the basement.  I was the only person in this “museum” so I was chatting up the guy who ran the place and he was pretty interesting.  He had a cave type thing that he made himself that was painted with fluorescent colors, different types of rocks and minerals that glowed in black light, and examples of art from artists who were the first to use fluorescent technology.  Now that it´s been almost two months since this trip, everything we did and when we did it is kind of a blur…but here´s a rundown of the places we went and some funny stories.

Things I saw/places I went:

The Fluorescent Light Museum

The Rijksmuseum

The Sex Museum

The Medieval Torture Museum

Madame Tussaud´s Wax Museum   

Vondelpark

Giant chess board

The Iamsterdam letters

Big Christmas Tree in Dam Square

Ok now for a couple funny stories.

One evening after having dinner and some drinks at an Irish pub, we went out in search of the skinny bridge.  It was once a bridge that was so narrow only one person could walk down it.  It has since been broadened, but we figured we´d check it out.  We knew we were close and had stopped to check our maps. All of a sudden, two of my roommates, Alex and Hayley, started looking at their map and shouting “we found it, we found it”, and starting running.  I looked at my roommate Mary, and said “since when did this become the Amazing Race??”  We started running after them, but stopped after about a block, and continued walking.  Then Mary said, “well they may have one this leg, but if we show up to that bridge with two hot Dutch guys, I think we´ll really win the Amazing Race.”  No sooner than the words left her mouth, two Dutch guys about our age start shouting at us in Dutch.  They realized pretty quick that we had no idea what they were saying and started explaining to us in English that we shouldn’t go that way because there were cops on the other side of the bridge giving drinking tickets.  We ended up chatting with them until our other roommates realized we stopped following them and came back to meet us.  Then to a bar with them for a few beers and had a great time.  They had already been drinking for what had to be a substantial time so they were saying some pretty funny things.  A couple of my favorites were "We love America because you guys saved us from World War II, so now we just go along with whatever you guys say," and I got in a argument with the other guy because he asked me if my 16th birthday was on the show "My super sweet sixteen" and I said no that it was actually kind of boring, and he went off in a rant saying, "that´s what´s wrong with Americans, you think that just because your birthday wasn´t on a TV show that it was boring!"  I tried to explain that was not what I meant, but there was no convincing him.  All in all, it turned out to be a really fun night.

Saturday night, we were pretty tired because we had taken a day trip to Antwerp and Brussels in Belgium (which was really cool) but we still wanted to get some dinner and go out for a few drinks on our last night.  We went to this fast food place called Febo, which is essentially a giant vending machine for fast food.  You put a couple of euros in whichever box you want and pull out you burger, fries, or chicken sandwich.  It was really good actually, and it was cool to see the people working behind it putting new food in after you take it.  Then we walked around a bit and did some souvenir shopping.  After that we decided to find a nice place to sit down and have a beer or two before we went back to the hostel.  We stopped at this place that had a nice homey pub feel, nonethewiser that we were about to end our night in a really interesting way.  Our first red flag was that when we walked in all the guys in the bar started cheering.  One quick look around told us why: we were the only girls there.  We let out some uncomfortable spurts of laughter and sat down at a table.  We ordered a beer and chatted for a while.  Then, Mary realized that the guys were pointing at here and motioning for her to go over to their side of the bar.  Against our urging not to, she decides to see what they are doing.  Then the bartender, who was a prototypical buxom, blond Dutch girl, hands Mary a giant wicker flyswatter type thing. So she´s like…ummm what am I supposed to do with this, and the bartender told us she had to spank one of the guys. We were all staring in awe thinking what the heck is going on.  But apparently it´s some kind of tradition at that bar or something.  So she wound up, took a swing, and landed one right on the guy´s tush.  We all laughed hysterically at the ridiculousness of what was happening, and then we realized that they wanted us all to do it.  So what do we do? We all take turns spanking this guy with a giant flyswatter.  Later we found out that they were some guys from a Belgian soccer team in Amsterdam for the weekend.  I got the whole thing on video, but we´ll save that for when I get home because it´s just a little embarrassing for the whole internet world to see.    Ok I think that´s enough about Amsterdam…so much for keeping it short. 

This is me in front of the Atomium structure in Brussels. Right before I went to Amsterdam, I was talking with my mom and she told me that the contestants on the Amazing Race were in Brussels and I should try and find this thing called the Atomium...well, here it is.

Only in Amsterdam can you find a bronze sculpture of a hand touching a boob in the cobbled-stone sidewalk surrounding a church.  There actually a cool story behind it too.  The artist who put it in the ground did so anonymously and without anyone knowing.  The Amsterdam government thought it was distasteful so they had it removed.  There was such a public outcry at the removal, that they eventually decided to put it back right where it was.  What's the first thing we do...take a picture of us touching it too, duh!

Just a typical snapshot of the completely awesome and unique architecture of Amsterdam. Go ahead, marvel in my amazing photography skills, haha.

 First of all, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!! After being homesick on Thanksgiving, I anticipated that Christmas would be even worse; however, I actually had a really great holiday season here so far.  One of my roommates went home to Wisconsin for break, another when to Wales to visit family, and my other roommate had her family come here to Spain, and they arrived Christmas afternoon.  So, Christmas Eve my roommate and I had dinner together around 8:30 and headed into the center to check out the lights.  It turned out though that the center was totally dead because everyone was still at home eating with their families. The only people out were tourists with their maps and cameras looking for a place to eat, except pretty much everything was closed.   So we decided to go back to our place for a few hours and try going back out later.  We invited a few other Americans over to our place to have some drinks.  Then around 1:30 -2 am I got a skype call from my family.  It was pretty funny because my friends and I were a bit tipsy by then and they were trying to talk to everyone too. Being with friends and being able to actually talk to my family made being away for Christmas so much easier.  Then after the skype conversation we went out to the bars and had a great time.  As usual, we stayed out until about 6am Christmas morning and I didn’t wake up until about 1.  Later that afternoon, my roommate’s family arrived and they all left to spend the week traveling around Andalucia.  After they left, I sat myself down on the couch and opened up the presents from my parent’s package and then bummed around for a while. At 7, I went to see a nativity play at one of the local elementary schools with some of my Spanish friends. It was actually really great and well done. After that I had dinner with some of my American friends and we went out for a little bit.  I started to feel kind of crappy so I went home early and went to bed. Unfortunately, I spent the next few days laying on the coach all day because I caught a really bad cold and cough.  My guess is a little too much partying and not enough sleeping.  So we’ll fast forward to New Year’s because I doubt any of you are interested in the quantity of mucous coming out of my nose and lungs or how many rolls of toilet paper I went through blowing my nose. But first, here are some pictures of the lights in the city and just some other randoms from my holiday season here in Sevilla:

My roomies and I in front of our stockings and mini tree. 

Great view of the lights from the center of Sevilla

Christmas lights in front of the cathedral

 

Ok, so a typical New Year’s here in Spain consists of a big dinner with your family at around 9:30ish, then the eating of the grapes and cheersing champagne, followed by a party at a club or a bar.  My friend Carmen invited me over to her family’s house for dinner, and I had a great time.  We started with a huge round of appetizers consisting of things like chorizo, ham, cheese, different kinds of bread and pate, shrimp and crab legs, and potato salad.  Then, we had a palate cleansing course of one of those creamy fruit salads, which was really delicious.  The main course was cordero lechal, which is basically a lamb that’s somewhere between 4-6 weeks old and has only been fed milk. I was a little weirded out by this, since I don’t like to eat veal since I know it’s baby cow. But then again, I ate suckling pig in Madrid, and that’s essentially the same idea.  So I pushed aside that pesky little moral dilemma and dug in.  It was really good and tender, but to be honest, I don’t think I like the flavor of lamb that much.  Slap it on a gyro with some tzatziki sauce and I’m a happy camper, but that was my first time eating regular lamb and I wasn’t too excited about it.  Overall all though, it was a really great meal.  As midnight drew closer, we flipped back and forth between different TV specials.  There didn’t seem to be a go-to like the Dick Clark Times Square ball drop, but various different programs.  The tradition is that at midnight, the clock strikes 12 times, and on each chime, you each a grape, and for each grape you make a wish (or just one big wish for the whole thing).  Then, if you don’t keep time with the chimes and finish all your grapes by the end of the chiming you’re said to have bad luck for the whole year.  This is actually harder than it sounds because a clock chime is pretty fast, especially when you have to eat another grape every time, and when you add the fact that I was trying to video tape this happening, it was pretty hard.  But I succeeded in eating all my grapes and getting it on tape, so good luck for me for 2012.

Getting ready to eat the first grape!

  After the grapes, we toasted the New Year with champagne, just like at home.  We stayed at her house until about 1am, and then Carmen, her cousin, and I all went to her cousin’s apartment when some more of his friends were meeting us. 

Cheers!

 

 

 There we listened to music and drank and danced and all that fun stuff.  One of my goals this year is to learn how to dance the sevillanas, which are the 4 typical flamenco dances of Sevilla, before the Feria in April.  As a result, my friends like to sing flamenco songs and dance with me when we’re drinking.  I keep telling them, though, that it’s going to take more than that for me to actually learn the steps.  We stayed there until about 4:30, then we went to a bar/club where all of our other Spanish friends were.  That was really fun because I got to see some more of my friends from last time that I hadn’t seen yet since I’ve been back.  We stayed there dancing until 7, right as you all were ringing in the New Year, and I made it to bed by about 8.  Needless to say, a fun time was had by all. 

 

Well I think that’s about all the excitement for the holidays. I felt really lucky to have such great friends because being with them combined with being able to skype with my family made these holidays really great.

"Thanksgiving was never meant to be shut up in a single day." - Robert Caspar Lintner

Thankfully, (no pun intended) I had the chance to talk to some of you about my holidays, but for those of you who I haven’t talked to personally, time to update.  Let’s rewind a month and talk about Thanksgiving.  My roommates and I decided that we would attempt the most traditional Thanksgiving dinner possible under the circumstances.  So what was on the menu? Cheesy potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, broccoli casserole, biscuits, and a red velvet cake for dessert. Unfortunately, (or fortunately for me) our oven is much too small to cook a turkey so we got a couple of rotisserie chickens to substitute.  I didn’t mind this one bit seeing as I don’t even really like turkey.  Sounds pretty basic right….wrong.  Here are just a few of the challenges we ran into.  The broccoli casserole was my dish.  That turned out to be the easiest because the only ingredient I had to substitute was cheddar for Velveeta cheese, no big deal. (I was shocked that I found Ritz crackers, though!)  The cheesy potatoes were made by my friend Hayley.  Two challenges:  1) You can’t just buy a big bag of frozen hash brown potatoes, so they were all cut and cooked by hand. 2) Sour cream does not exist in Spain, so she used plain yogurt.  Next, my other roommate Mary decided to do the green bean casserole with, again, two challenges:  1)No Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup.  (we later found out that they do sell it at one store, but it was too late by that time) So, she had to use this powdered soup and it took us a couple times to get the consistency right.  2)  No French fried onions – the key ingredient.  However, this was a blessing in disguise because she ended up frying onions in corn flakes, and they were absolutely delicious.  Lastly, don’t even get me started on the red velvet cake because that was a HUGE pain in the butt.  I had to go to about 4 different supermarkets and spend way too much money to find all of the ingredients.  The red food coloring was really weak, even with two bottles, so the cake turned out this weird mauve color, and I couldn’t find buttermilk, so I made my own.  Yes, I made my own buttermilk, be impressed.  On top of that, they don’t sell frosting, so I had to make that from scratch too.  Oh, so in case you try to contact me, I’ve changed my name to Betty Crocker.  So after slaving away in the kitchen all day with my roommates, I now know what all you parents go through every Thanksgiving and I appreciate it so much more.  I will say, the hard worked definitely paid off.  We had a few Spanish friends over, as well, to show them a real American Thanksgiving, and everything tasted sooooo good.  I couldn’t find my camera that day on account of my room being a pig sty, so here are some pictures my roommate, Hayley, took of our quaint little Thanksgiving away from home.

Me with the food - haven't even had time to take off the oven mitts!

Creepy pterodactyl shaped bone I pulled out of the chicken after "carving" it.

 

Bon Apetit! I took a page out of my Dad's book and served myself last : )

Everyone at the table, ready to eat!

And the grand finale!

So there ya have it.  And although our dinner was really great and so was the company, I still missed home like crazy.  I was able to skype with some of you for a little while, but the connection was terrible.  I was so frustrated by the end of the conversation that when I hung up I started crying. Not to worry though, just a wave of homesickness, but I realized that I have a lot to be thankful for on both side of the Atlantic so I let it all out and regrouped.  Next post will be a little out of order, because I'm going to post Christmas stuff, then Amsterdam.  Stay tuned!