Here I am, sitting in my room on New Years Eve dreading to write this final post. I can't believe I'm already home. The last week abroad was bittersweet; filled with hugs, goodbyes and TONS of packing. I managed to fit everything I came with and then some in my luggage without having to pay extra. That's a true victory right there! Nonetheless, the 12 hour plane ride back wasn't too bad. I was sitting next to a girl who had studied in Madrid but didn't learn Spanish....Don't ask me how.
After the plane ride I was greeted by my wonderful family and we headed home for a delicious dinner together. As soon as I opened the door to my house, I ran to my room and jumped on my bed. It felt so good to be home. My first week home was mostly consumed by catching up on sleep and fighting terrible jet lag. I still haven't gotten over it yet. But, I did have time to spend with my family and friends before the semester starts again. Instead of boring you all with a long post about how awesome study abroad is, just do it yourself. Yes sometimes it's scary, hard and you feel alone, but there's nothing like it. It's so rewarding because of the experiences you have and the people you meet. Plus, you have a new city to call home. But one of the most important lessons you learn is to enjoy the little moments in life. Everything you need is around you, just open your eyes because you don't really know what you have until it's gone. Happy New Year! :)
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Again, let's ignore the fact that I haven't posted in like 10 days. Life happens. Actually, most of the reason I didn't post was because I couldn't! I didn't have my laptop on my last vacation and have been finishing final projects since I got back. Kelly and I left for Granada on Friday (December 4th) and landed with just enough time to get into the city, meet up with Olga (who took a 12 hour bus ride, God bless her soul), check into our hostel and make it to the Alhambra in time for our entry. Unlike the rest of Spain, the Alhambra is the only place you have to be super punctual because if not, you'll miss your entry and there goes your money. The weather was FANTASTIC. So fantastic that we were all walking around in our t-shirts while everyone else was wearing winter coats, hats. gloves and scarves. On our way into the Alhambra we even got stopped by a security guard asking us where we were from that we weren't cold. She looked like she was about to go sledding in -20 degree weather while we were in our t-shirts. It was pretty funny. Anything I can say about the Alhambra would not be enough to describe how beautifully captivating, detailed, romantic, and gorgeous this place is. If only I was rich enough to have a palace like the Alhambra. Well, we can dream can't we! Check out the pictures! Besides the Alhambra, there's not much else to do in Granada except explore neighborhoods and visit little sight seeing things. We ended up doing a ton of shopping and exploring the next couple days before we went to Sevilla! Our 3 hour bus ride to Sevilla was actually not that bad, seeing as I slept for 2 hours out of the 3! We arrived and were automatically amazed with the scenery and theme park like walk to our hostel. Thanks to my expert navigating skills we managed to get to our hostel within 10-15 mins. We stayed at La Banda Hostel and it was more like a hotel than anything! It was really great! Sevilla was a lot more touristy than Granada but I have a lot more history on it since we went on a tour with our hostel. Me-dee was our tour guide and he was absolutely awesome. He had so much energy and made learning about the history of Sevilla much more entertaining than just pointing this out an talking. Instead of boring you with the day to day activities (mostly because I can't remember what happened on what day) I'll share some interesting facts along with photos from Sevilla! As promised, here's the little facts! -A metro can't be built in the center of Sevilla because everywhere they dig they find Roman ruins! -The highest temperature in Europe was recorded in Sevilla at 53.9 degrees celsius. That's more than 129 degrees fahrenheit! -Bull rings weren't always circles, they were actually squares and the bull ring in Sevilla was the first one to change! -Bull fights are fixed. The bull is kept in complete darkness at least 24 hours before the fight, drugged, beaten, and sprayed with chemicals (to make them scratch their legs). When it comes out onto the ring it is speared and slashed with "banderas" that have little knives on them. This is where most of the controversy from bull fights comes from. Poor bulls :( -Flamenco is NOT Spanish, it's actually Gypsy. Las Sevillanas is the traditional Spanish dance. -There are 36,000 orange trees in Sevilla, mostly for decoration though as their fruit is pretty sour. -Charles II is what happens when you interbreed for 9 generations. He was really ugly. If you don't believe me here's a picture. And remember, painters altered their paintings to make them look better! -The University of Granada actually used to be a tobacco factory. -Plaza de España was part of 20th century exhibition created by Spanish government officials to attract more tourists and generate more money for poor Spain. It's a half circle because they ran out of money. -A lot of movies were filmed in Plaza de España including Star Wars Episode 2, the Dictator, Night and Day, etc. Well, I'm entering my last week in Spain and I'm sad to be leaving the place I've called home for the past 4 months but I'm very excited to see my family and friends back home! I'll be back in the U.S. on Sunday, which makes this week finals week. Because I'm awesome I was able to power through most of my final projects and finish them early so I can enjoy my last week here!
Until next time! Obviously, I haven't posted in over a week and that is because I've been too busy (lazy). Instead of doing my usual daily posts I'm just going to touch on the most important aspects of my week since most of the time I was either doing homework or deeply invested in binge watching Gran Hotel. Since coming to Bilbao I have transformed into a master procrastinator, something I'm not very proud of. I stall as much as I can to do my homework but somehow, in the anxiety that comes with procrastination, I am able to power through vast amounts of homework at one time. Thursday (Day 84) was Thanksgiving day, which turned out to be one of the hardest days since I've been here. Well, kind of. I woke up that morning 5 mins before my only class of the day and reasoned with myself that it would be pretty pointless to try to get ready and go to class. Instead, I spent my morning talking to Bobby while I was working on creating my study guide for International Business. Most of my day was consumed by Netflix and Facebook. Not good, but sometimes you just need days like that. A running goal of mine has been to finish my final essays/projects early so finals week I won't have much to worry about. After writing a sentence of my Econ final paper, I was distracted by talking to family back home. I also spent quite a while with my conversation partner, Silvia. Before I knew it, it was time to leave for the CIDE Thanksgiving Dinner. I was fortunate enough to be able to walk only 10 mins and arrive at the restaurant. The entire program was there, even some teachers and we all sat around round tables awaiting our food while reminiscing of our favorite Thanksgiving traditions. Our dinner started off with a Crema de Calabza (Cream of Pumpkin Soup), followed by turkey with stuffing and dessert. Of course, there were 2.5 portions of hot bread! Everything was really great and much more than anything I expected! This past weekend I slept ALOT! It was really nice to be able to catch up on some sleep.
Friday I went out shopping with my friends Kensie and Jasmine at the mall for a while. Black Friday here definitely is different than in the States. No one is punching or pushing anyone else and the sales aren't more than 25% off. It was nice to walk around the city though and see all the Christmas decorations. Later that day we met up with Kensie's conversation partner at the only cupcake shop in Bilbao, Mami Lou Cupcake. I only planned on buying one but my stomach persuaded me to try two, a caramel cookie cupcake and a strawberry cheesecake cupcake. First, the frosting was AMAZING. Hands down awesome but, a little excessive with the quantity. The cake of the caramel cookie cupcake was pretty dry and was not impressive, especially since I paid 2.60 euro each. The strawberry cheesecake one was a little better but not good enough to redeem the place. Other than that my weekend was pretty uneventful. I went for some walks, spent a lot of time watching Netflix and talking to family back home. On one of my walks to the park I saw a peacock! So that was pretty cool. :) |
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