Barcelona

A group of me and 5 other girls flew to Barcelona for a weekend. This is one of the only known cities in Spain that we do not visit as a school, so we wanted to see it on our own. Our first day there we decided to just take in the city and walk around. We walked to their main plaza and visited the shops. We came across and amazing food market that had every kind of anything you could ever want. It was fabulous! I bought a dragonfruit. If you have never tried one before, don't be fooled by their looks. It is a bright pink fruit with a white speckled inside. So you would think that this tropical looking fruit would taste good...wrong. It had no taste at all! We ate some local Barcelonian food for dinner, and it was fabulous! Our hostel was kind of in a shady neighborhood, but the hostel intself was really nice.

Because Barcelona is so huge we decided to dedicate the next day to taking the Barcelona tour on those double decker tour buses. This was the easiest and quickest way to see the city. We saw cathedrals, the FC Barcelona futbol stadium, Olympic games museum, the marina, and lots lots more. We were not able to go to the beach because time just got the better of us.

The frustrating thin about Barcelona is that they don't speak Spanish. They speak Castilian. It is similar to Spanish...but definitely not the same.

We booked our flight with Ryanair, which is one of the discount airlines here in Europe. That being said, there is not always the best choices of flight times, and they usually fly into the small airports on the outskirts of the cities. The airport we flew into was about an hour and a half away from the actual city. This was not as much of a problem when we arrived in Barcelona, but it was on the way back. Our flight left at 6:40 am. So we had to catch a bus at 3:45 am to get to our flight on time. We made it, but were definitely not in the best of moods. :)

Barcelona is definitely a city that needs to be seen over the course of a week; as are most of the cities in Europe :)

Last Weekend in Seville

This last weekend was pretty much my last weekend here in Seville before I come back to the states. I have one more at the beginning of December, but it is just before finals, so I wouldn't be able to travel anyways. This weekend I will be in Barcelona, then to Paris, then Tangier, and then Madrid. I will also be spending about 4 or 5 days in London before my flight home.

We had several birthdays this past weekend that we celebrated. So a lot of our time was just spent chilling by the river. It is the most beautiful sight at night. On one of our outings we met the futbol team from Betis as well as some Seville basketball players. We tried to speak our best Spanish and get free tickets...but so far we have come up empty handed. Darn it :).

Spain has just recently started celebrating Halloween. The only thing is that they understand it as a scary and gory holiday. They don't know that it can be happy as well, and that you can be clowns, and princesses and animals. Everyone that dressed up were either zombies, witches, or bloody in some way. But they are getting the hang of it. None of us dressed up to much. I bought a princess crown...but that was the extent of my costume.

My classes have been pretty tough lately. My literature class just requires a lot of reading and translating. In my culture class we have had several presentations about events and celebrations that take place in Seville. We also watch movies, and then interpret and discuss them...in Spanish of course :).

However, I finished my internship last week!! 70 hours!! So now I will finally have my afternoons free to explore the city and do all the things that I just didn't have time for!

Since I can see the finish line ahead, I get more homesick everyday. But at the same time I know that as soon as I step foot in Dallas, I am going to want to come right back. So I am trying to take every opportunity to make my last 5 weeks amazing!

Ronda

I cannot believe that it is already November!!! I just have a little more than a month left in Spain, and since I am traveling nearly every weekend until then, the time is just flying by!

2 weekends ago me and 2 friends traveled to the small city of Ronda for a day trip. We left bright and early on a 7 am bus and arrived at Ronda at about 9:30. Ronda isn't very well known throughout Spain, but if you ever get the chance to see it, you must!! I think cute little cities like Ronda are the heart and sould of Spain. Ernest Hemingway called Ronda one of the most romantic cities of all time. Several of his books were inspired by his travels there.

We wanted to do as much as we could in the 8 hours that we were there. We started off just walking the streets of the city. We soon ran into El Puente Nuevo - the New Bridge. This bridge was built in the 19th century to replace to old bridge. The town of Ronda is split in the middle by a river and is at the top of some amazing gourges.

We soon found ourselves exploring and hiking in the gourges. We climbed up waterfalls and mountains, walked down into mines, and strolled through several gardens. The weather was absolutely perfect! A little hot, but there was a constant breeze that kept us cool.

We also visited a museum that had an Inquisition exhibition. It was very creepy but interesting to see all of the instruments like the guillotine that were used.

In most of our school trips we spend so much time in catherdrals and museums that it gets a little overwhelming at times. I loved that this little trip was completely unplanned and we just walked around and saw what we wanted to see.