oops...now you really hate me....

I forgot to mention one other thing about Morocco...don't worry it will be quick. This is purely for my own memory conservation and for others if you care to be interested. :)

While we stayed in the desert oasis, we had seen the sunset from the top of the dune but the next morning we ALSO woke up super early to see the sunRISE! It was probably the most beautiful sight I have ever seen and I forgot to mention it before! Anyways, we woke up around 5:30 to see the sunrise. It was very cold, especially walking in sandals up the dune. I only went about halfway up this time but it was as good as ever. It was so incredibly beautiful to see the sun peak out over all the dunes below us. This time I sat by myself and did a lot of reflecting about myself and how this whole experience abroad has been for me. While looking at something so beautiful like that its hard not to think about your life and where it goes from here. I have been feeling so many mixed thoughts about what I want to do next with my life. I know right....you are STILL in Spain, and you are finishing up a whole semester there, why need to start planning for something else...just chill out right? Right! I am so ready to be home and see my family, friends, teammates, and the Twin Cities which I miss so much too. However after being here for so long, I can't imagine just settling right back into my old routine again so easily (hence the escence of re-entry culture shock, but still). I feel the need for more adventure! But maybe my next adventure IS figuring what to do with my life. Lord knows that no one, especially at my age, is supposed to know where their life is going or what they will end up doing and there is adventure in that. You know, I don't feel rushed to be thinking of these things and my future (long term) quite yet, but I do know I need to be aware of myself and what I need to do to find my way through this life. OKay...just word vomit there, sorry! :) I will add some pics here from Morocco for people without facebook to see the highlights of the trip!

Muévelo en Marruecos

Sal´am (Hello in Arabic)

Wow! Very late on my bloggin again...Sorry! Had 3 6-page papers due the Monday after getting back from Morocco so any writing done was for that. SO here is Morocco! ohhhh....Morocco! It was really amazing! Prepare yourselves for a long blog....Here it goes...

We spent TONS of time in the bus, but without being able to fly, or train it, its the only option. We left last Friday morning at 5am from Sevilla after my school had a fiesta to say goodbye to another group of students so lets just say I only got 1.5 hours of sleep that night! We took off at 5am via bus and before even leaving the city the suspension broke. We were sent a new bus and, although late, we started our drive to the southernmost point of Spain - Tarifa - which is also the port to depart via ferry to Africa. We took a ferry over the Strait of Gibraltar to Tangiers, which is the main entry port into Morocco. Finally I got my passport stamped with something! When we arrived in Tangiers we met Amina who would be our Moroccan tour guide the whole time we were there. She could tell us more about the culture, customs, and history than the other guides.

We drive from Tangiers the entire morning and stop to get our first meal in Rabat for lunch. The restaurante was on the beach so it had an amazing view and we got to play in the Atlantic which was pretty cold! The food was AMAZING! The food the entire trip was amazing! This first meal was Moroccan salad which was red and green peppers and various spices with olives, then the main coures was chicken pastilla - one of the best things I have ever had! It is spiced chicken (wish I remember the spice) that was very tender and put inside a thin pastry and toasted so it was like a little package of chicken and topped off with cinnamon and sugar on top. Who would have thought that all those different spices would go well together?! After lunch we got a tour of the Kaspah - yes, and we rocked it too ;) - which is similar to a Medina but purely residential. A medina is a comercial area that is only made up of small alleyways that have no names or organized manner of finding your way around. So the Kaspah was similar with all the walls and doors painted a beautiful contrast of white and bright blue! They painted it that way because they believe it keeps away the mosquitoes! :) It was very cute and we ended the tour at a beautiful lookout of the beaches. While we were up on the lookout, we heard the Muslim call to prayer from various mosques in the city! It was so cool and the first time I really felt like I had entered into a very different culture and world. Next, we got a tour of the mausoleum which holds the tombs of the previous three kings of Morocco which is a grandfather, father, and son. After these tours we left Rabat and continued on to Fez where we just got a dinner there and spent the night.

We woke up the next morning and drove ALL DAY LONG towards the desert. We made various stops which included seeing and taking pictures of monkeys in the mountains! very cute! Though the drive was long, the views from the bus were great! It was interesting watch the terrain change as we got closer to the desert. It started at green fields with wildflower, farms, and countryside with many trees, then changed as we drove through the Middle Atlas mountains with a lot of fog and trees and green! Eventually it changed to the desert and became very rocky with amazing mountains, canyons with a blue river running through it and lush green palm trees growing there in the middle of the rocky desert! crazy!

We leave our bus at a hotel and meet our desert tour guides - the Berbers! Now this is where the best part of the entire trip starts....They were a wonderful, fun group of guys! We all hop into a bunch of jeeps and drive from that hotel to our desert hotel in Merzouga. We have to drive over a river that flooded over the road, then we hit the open expanse of the desert and its a race! all the jeeps scatter and zoom across this open plane going over big mounds, careening left and right, racing each other! It was so much fun as we sat in these jeeps with African music playing and hitting our heads on the roof of the car! :) A great welcome to the culture of the desert! We arrive at tour beautiful hotel in Merzouga, eat a huge buffet dinner with all the cous cous, meats, salads, and grilled vegetables you could eat! mmmmm....loved the food! After dinner the Berbers threw a little fiesta where they played us their music with drums (the African kind that you hold between your knees) and games. The group of tour guides are actually a musical group as well so they were pretty good. We did some dancing and hanging out on cushions on the ground. It was a great time. The fiesta kinda died out as people went to bed, but a couple of the Berbers took us into the dunes to watch the stars from the sand! :) We all walked out there in the pitch dark and talked about wishes when we saw shooting stars. The stars were so beautiful and we could see the Milky Way perfectly! My roomate Caryn, my other friend Carolyn, and I ended up making friends with two of them named Ali and Cous-Cous....its a nickname he told us to call him. I am very amazed by all of the Berbers that we met. They all speak about 6-10 different languages but never went to school to learn them. They learn them all from the tourists that come to their villages and are the base of their income. Ali told me he spoke: Arabic, Berber, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch, English, and a little Japanese! I felt so foolish when I said I "only" spoke two languages. Anyways, we talked for a long time. Ali suddenly asked us if we wanted to see a secret lake "para escuchar a la musica de los pajaros"...."to listen to the music of the birds". I was a little nervous at first to accept his offer but realized that when I am going to be able to see a secret desert lake in Africa with Berbers again in my life?? Right, NEVER. So off we all went, the five of us in Ali's Jeep! We zoomed through the night desert with the African music blaring from the car and the wind coming in through the windows. It was so much fun! We bounced around and dancing in the back seat! Ali even pulled out a "ghost riding" attempt by himself haha. It was hilarious! We get to the lake and although we cannot see the lake very well we could hear the birds perfectly. It was so beautiful and the stars were even more beautiful being far away from the hotel lights. After a good hour we get back in the car and have an even more fun ride back to the hotel which included more music, dancing, screaming, and laughing! Below is a video of the ride back I captured! :) Enjoy!


Anyways, to keep this blog rolling. We get back to the hotel and hang out with a some more of the Berbers that were just hanging out and get to try on and pick turbans for the camel ride the next day. We get up, eat a big buffet breakfast (so amazing once again!) and go on a tour of the Berber community of Merzouga where we were. We saw how they farm, how they get water, the community bread oven, and the rug shop of handmade Berber rugs. I got suckered into bartering with a man about a small rug and somehow he suddenly said, "okay" to a price and I never even realized that I for sure wanted the rug! ha well, the good thing is, is that the starting price was 150 euro and I got it down to 30 euro! yeah! It felt like a great deal even though I don't think I need it, ha. There were many children that followed us around trying to sell us little necklaces or stone soap dishes. They make you feel so guilty since they rely on tourists for a lot of their income! Luckily I didn't give in but did make a friend out of it. I thought he just liked talking to me but ended up showing me his little goodies in his backpack 4 different times to see if I would buy any of it. Shoot, he really wasn't interested in being my friend afterall...although we did exchange email addresses ;)

The sun was too hot to go on the camels so we had to wait about 3 hours until it cooled down a bit before we took off into the dunes to stay at the oasis! While we waited some of us girls got some henna done on our arms to pass the time. We finally were able to get on the camels and start our trek through the dunes!! The camels were HUGE and...yes....though it didn't spit I did get sneezed on by my roommate's camel behind me...it was not pleasant! haha We had a 2 hour camel ride to the camp which really got your bum to be aching by the end of it. The dunes were so beautiful as we rode through them; the color of gold with bright blue clear sky! We all stayed in tents that were set up in a circle at the base of a huge dune. We immediately all started climbing up the dune to see the sunset from the top. It was tons of work and you barely moved as the sand gave way to your weight with every step. But it was completely worth it which one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen. We could see Algeria in the distance as we were only 5 km away from it. I would have taken pictures but with all the sand and lots of wind at the top, it would have ruined my camera for sure. Although someone did take a picture of me and my friend that I will attach below. Hopefully you will get the idea of what it looked like :) We passed the time that night listening to more Berber music, the sound of the camels moaning, and ate a great dinner inside a large tent. :) I fell asleep not believing that it was real that I was in the African Sahara Desert.

The next morning we woke up and hopped right back on the camels to go back to the desert hotel from the night before. Trust me, the bum had not recovered from the ride the day before and it was pretty brutal to sit on a camel for another two hours straight! Getting back we showered and ate breakfast, packed our things up, hopped back in the Jeeps, and back to the hotel where we left our bus. We spent the afternoon by the pool and bar of this hotel! They really know what you crave after being the desert sand overnight...nice refreshing pool and drinks! :) I didn't think it was really needed but it sure was nice to relax and swim around after being so dirty and sandy. We ate the best lunch I had the entire trip at that hotel which was again a large buffet with an equal size dessert table! :) yay! We drive the rest of the day back to Fez and spend the night in the hotel we were at before.

Our second to last day we woke up and went to the Medina in Fez (remember how I described it before?)....it is an area in Fez that is enclosed with 14 doors of entry. It is made up of 9,500 tiny alleyways and streets. They are so small that cars cannot fit so they use donkeys as taxis to carry carts through the street! They shout something and everyone has to quickly flatten themselves against the walls to not get their toes trodden on! :) Oh Morocco! We spent the whole day in the Medina and I did WAY too much shopping and got carried away with the opportunity to barter the prices! We saw the largest tannery in Morocco for tanning leather, a rug store with some beautiful rugs, a Berber pharmacy with spices and herb remedies, a bronze and metal store, and so much more! Fez is known for its artisans so it was very tempting to buy many things that are handmade. I have some regrets on some things I bought but it is done now so I will enjoy them...plus I bought them in Morocco so how much could I regret them! ha We'll see when I have trouble finding a place for them in my house.

We left the Medina and spent the night relaxing in the hotel, which was one of the first times we didn't have something to do from our schedule or was on a bus. Phew! I slept a solid 9 hours that night..it was amazing! The next day was our last day and we droke all morning long until we arrived in Assilah, a beach town close to Tangiers. It was nice because we basically had free time for a good 3 hours to eat, explore the medina there, and relax on the beach. The medina in Assilah was a lot cleaner and brighter with wine and blue painted buildings and wider streets with less people. Much more pleasant than the dirty, crowded, and sometimes smelly medina in Fez. We finally finished our last stop there in Assilah and drove the rest of the way to Tangiers where we would catch the ferry to go back to Spain. Some interesting things that we were warned about was that if anyone asks us where we are going in our bus (says Sevilla, Spain on it) we are supposed to say we are going into the desert and not back to Spain. This is because people try to climb underneath the bus and hold on the whole way to catch a free,illegal ride into Spain. This didn't happen but they checked under the bus before we got off to make sure there was no one there! While we were driving in Tangiers though, we were warned of children jumping on the back of the bus and riding it! if we were somewhat stopped or going slowly, boys would run into traffic and ride on the back of the bus and look inside at us. It was hilarious! When we stopped they were crawl underneath the bus which made me heart jump when we started to move and they were still under there! Ha but we eventually got to the ferry and made it back to Sevilla around 1:30 in the morning as the streets were filled with people in beautiful flamenco dresses and suits from being at Feria which was going on all week long. :)


If you have actually read this entire blog KUDOS! I apologize it is so long but we packed so much into 6 days and it was all so fun that it is hard to cut things out. To finally wrap up this trip to Morocco, I had a great time and loved the food but the food definitely did not love me back. For the next few days after the trip, the drastic change in type of food from the healthy Moroccan to oily and fried Spanish food did not sit well. Bummer! I will save a blog about Feria for another day since this one is already too long.


Thanks for your interest in my travels and I hope you have enjoyed reading about it! :) I have not finished all my classes and am starting my last weekend in Sevilla soon.

Miss you all but will see you soon! Home on May 18th!

Love,
Betsy

Being Gushy

I have been procrastinating my homework since today is such a beautiful day! 73 degrees and sunny! perfect! I have two 8 page papers due at the end of the week and it has been so difficult to focus on any of it. So I guess you are wondering, well why are you writing a blog then? I guess I have more on my mind than the Muslim conquest of Spain...hmm.

With only 3 more weeks left of my time here, I cannot help but think about what I have done here, what I still have yet to see, how I have grown, and what I have learned (or what I will learn about myself when I come back). My friends and I can't help but reflect and reminisce about good times we have had and become a little sad thinking about it all being over so soon. This semester has just flown by, and thinking about how soon it is going to end really makes me sad. It is so bitter sweet. When I think about leaving, I get sad and wish I could live here forever; but then I talk to my family and friends at home and think about the coming summer and I can't wait to get home and see everyone. It is such a strange feeling. un sentido extrano. I feel like I am getting pulled in two different directions with my feelings and I can't figure out which one will eventually be stronger.

I have been taking mental snapshots instead of just ones with my camera, to be able to "practice" remembering the smells, sights, tastes, and sounds of this beautiful city. I am so glad that there are at least two people that I can show Sevilla to and I know to them it doesn't seem like much, probably just another vacation city on a trip. But to me, it has been home and I keep thinking that I will come back after summer vacation for fall semester, just like any other university in the US. But I am not. The city, culture, and language feels so comfortable to me now. I feel a part of it and it a part of me that I cannot change or will ever forget. I know that sounds so cheesy but I know I will really miss this place, miss the people, the gestures, the language, the food, the feeling of walking at a snails pace through the streets just to soak it up because you can and should. Why must we always be in a hurry? Already I can feel myself tear up when I think about leaving and saying good bye to this life and friends that has become so much a part of me. There is always a chance that I could come back on vacation, but this experience of studying here and creating a personal connection with the people will never leave me. I am not sure if I feel so strongly about Sevilla because I have lived here and it was the first time I have come to know a culture really well, or if I truly feel a special bond with it. I am sure its both and I don't think there is much of a difference between the two. They are both connected.

I am scared to go back to the US a little bit too. I am so excited to see my family and friends again but I am scared to get there and wish I was still here. I know it will be very hard and the re-entry of culture shock is supposed to be so much worse than the first entry into the country. I will definitely need help, not sure how or in which form, but I will need help and support. I dealt with re-entry culture shock when I went to the Texas/Mexico border and nearly flipped my life around due to the strength of it. It will just be surreal to think that I was in Spain when I wrote this blog, that I am in Spain right now. It feels so much like home that thinking about looking at it from the US will be surreal, as if I never left and this whole semester was just a dream. :)

Okay....Back to reality...I know I will be fine when I get back because it will be soooooooooo amazing to see everyone I have missed!!! Its just good to think about this kind of stuff and reflect about what I have done here.

Love you all, better get going on these two huge papers...argh!

Please send me notes and comments if you want! I miss getting them! can't wait to see most of you in MN and OH this summer! :)

Love, besos,

betsy

The Best Week Ever....Spring Break with Andy!

I have a sense that people are getting restless for a new blog update! sorry! It has been a busy last few weeks and not to mention I came back from spring break to find the internet broken! I don´t have too much time now but I will do my best to give as much information as I can.

Andy arrived in Sevilla on Thursday April 2nd. I met him at the train station in Sevilla and was very worried because he came on the train 3 hours later than I thought he would be arriving. It was so great to see eachother face to face (versus through skype) and start a great vacation together. Once we checked into our hostel, we went to my house to get my bags and he got to meet my host parents and my friend Joaquin that works at the kiosk across the street from my house! Joaquin thought he was really tall, strong, and good looking! haha It was weird to have to start translating everything for Andy because I am used to being around other people who also understand Spanish. I didn´t mind whatsoever but I always forgot that Andy wasn´t able to understand them. That night we went out for tapas for dinner....a necesity when arriving in Spain and afterwards I took him to a flamenco show at my favorite place called La Carboneria. He had real Spanish sangria for the first time there! The next morning we saw the Cathedral and climbed the Giralda tower to see all of Sevilla. I had a surprise for him that was originally planned for the day before but had to be moved since he arrived later than I thought to Sevilla. It was an appointment at the Arab Baths that included a 15 minute massage! It was so relaxing and the perfect way to start a vacation together! they had baths of different temperatures with salts in them and the whole place had aromatherapy and only source of light was candles scattered throughout the edges of the baths. How romantic no? We then bought ingredients to make bocadillos, ham flavored chips, and Kas soda and had a nice picnic in Maria Luisa Park! We went for a run and met up with my roommate and her visitors at a rooftop bar then had dinner at Cien Montaditos for cheap! phew!

Next morning we were a little rushed to make our bus to Granada but we made it there and how fun it was! Our hostel was in a central location (thank goodness!) and had a georgous view of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the distance. It wasn´t all that nice and the other people staying there were definitely characters that we had some discomfort dealing with. Since we arrived on Palm Sunday, that night we saw a lot of the Semana Santa processionals which was really cool to see. To explain the tradition: Holy Week is HUGE is Spain, and throughout the whole week each church has a float with sculptures on it that depict a different part of the Passion. The floats are carried by the brotherhood of the church it came from and I heard that each guy carried 250 pounds on his shoulders while carrying it. They carry it very slowly and to the beat of a band with drummers and other musical instruments. It really looks like a parade. There are people EVERYWHERE and its nearly impossible to cross streets when it is going on. There were vendors of baked potatoes on the streets with a whole line of toppings to add on your potato while watching the processionals. Aside from this aspect, we went to the Alhambra that night (it was not as crouded since we didn´t have a reservation). It was beautiful to see at night in comparison to seeing it by day when I went to Granada with my program. We also tried more middle eastern food such as shawarma and other gyro type food from the old Arab neighborhood. It was so good!!! The next day we watched the sunset at the Mirador de San Nicolas (St. Nicolas viewpoint). It was absolutely so gorgeous with a view of the whole Alhambra and the sierra nevada mountains in the background! The mirador had a lot of hippies selling homemade items and music to dance to. It was so fun! We spent a total of 3 days and 2 nights in Granada and caught an overnight but to Lisbon, Portugal. :)

The bus ride was pretty miserable but we both did our best to keep a positive attitude since, after all, we are in Europe, ha. We arrived in Lisbon at 6am with about 45 minutes of sleep total. When we arrived at our hostel, they didn't have a room ready for us until 2pm however they were nice enough to let us leave our luggage in a storage room and sleep on the common room couches for a few hours. After getting some more sleep, we met up with Joao at 9:30 for breakfast. Joao is a former riding student of my mom's from Lisbon who was an exchange student in MN for a year. He is in his second year of college now. It was fantastic to have such a great tour guide such as him! He drove us all over the whole city, telling us as much as he remembered from history classes about the monuments and such. We spent the whole morning with him until our room was ready at the hostel. It was great to have someone who spoke the language and offered his services for free! :) He was such a gentleman too! After getting some lunch and taking a well-deserved nap, the staff at the hostel recommended a tiny little restaurant for dinner. We arrived and were put in tiny little tables, all pushed together so that we were each sitting elbow to elbow with complete strangers. Really makes you realize the American perception of personal space! It took a while to figure out what the menu said and I ended up ordering something that had pig ear in it!! by accident of course! Luckily I just thought it was fat and didn't eat it but found out later from some Spanish women sitting next to us who told me what it was. yikes! fun experience though! Our whole meal was only 16 euro including a bottle of wine. Great deal for sure. The next day we met up with Joao again and he took us on a coastline tour where we saw all the little villages that are on the coast and saw some beautiful beaches! He left us in Cascais and spent the day there on the beach. We loved the beach so much that the next day we spent the entire afternoon there! In the morning of our last day in Lisbon we saw the huge open market and toured the Castle de Sao Jorge. We saw a 360 degree real-time view of all of Lisbon through a periscope that was originally invented by Da Vinci! It was the only one in Portugal at is at the castle in Lisbon. We spent the rest of the day at the beach in Cascais and had our share of icecream stops along the way. :) We spent two nights and three days in Lisbon also and took the night bus to Madrid after that. This bus ride was A LOT better and we were able to sleep pretty well.

We arrived in Madrid and because we were staying in a hotel instead of a hostel, they had a room ready for us! We took a nap and set out to explore the capital of Spain! We went to the Prado Museum first but since it was Good Friday is was closed, instead we opted for the Thyssen Museum which is across the street and though all the Prado traffic went there instead, it was still great to see again for me and Andy loved it. We then got some lunch and tried to go see the Royal Palace, which was also closed because of Good Friday! ha who would have thought! It was cold and rainy all day that day so we just went back to the hotel to rest before meeting up with my friend Cathy from St. Thomas who has been studying in Madrid for 8 months now! We met her cousin and her cousin's friends who none of them speak any English, only Spanish! We watched some Semana Santa processionals and had a beer with them. It was fun for me to finally speak Spanish again! Cathy, Andy, and I left them to have dinner at an AMAZING Mexican restaurant and get gelato at an Italian icecream place. We ended the night sharing a jug of Sangria and chatting for hours! It was such a fun time and great to see another friendly face! The next day we hit up the Prado Museum after standing in line for over an hour, had lunch at a place called El Museo del Jamon (the Museum of Ham) and had amazing bocadillos and fanta for lunch. We went for a run through Retiro Park, which is a HUGE beatiful park in the middle of Madrid with a lake and street performers everywhere. It was how I imagined Central Park in New York to be like. We ended our evening getting a romantic dinner at a restaurant to celebrate the end of our amazing vacation together and also our six year anniversary which is actually tomorrow! :) It was a sad goodbye the next morning at the Madrid airport where we departed but it is only about a month before I am coming home for good!
The trip was everything I thought it would be and fun for Andy and I to have our first real vacation together. We will always remember it and can't wait to for more to come in our futures!

My internet is finally working again which is why I have been able to catch up on this blog. This past week was a shock to be thrown back into school. Next week I have two 8 page papers due but leave for Morrocco on Friday! Can't wait for that! :) This weekend is my first weekend in Sevilla in about a month and a half! It feels good to not be traveling for once and stay put a little bit. Marathon training has been kind of struggling but I hope to be picking it up soon and getting some real long runs in this weekend! wish me luck!

Sorry all this info was just dumped in here so fast! I tried my best to update with everything since it really has been almost a month since I last updated! sorry!

Hope everyone is well and I should be updating more now that my internet is working again.

oh yeah!! My dad is coming for sure to visit me now! : ) He will be coming the last few days of my program and going to Barcelona together! Its so fun to get visitors!

Okay, gonna go do a long run now! Thanks for your patience!

love you all,
besos,

Betsy

Un Paseo por Madrid

This past weekend I went to Madrid with my Art History class to see 3 famous museums there: El Museo del Prado, El Museo de la Reina Sofia, and El Museo Thyssen. The trip was organized for Saturday and Sunday, so a friend and I changed our train ticket to Madrid to arrive on Friday so we could have an extra day of traveling. We had planned on going to Avila and Segovia which are two smaller towns outside of Madrid. After finding our hostel and taking the metro to the bus station, we came into a little bit of a time crunch. I won't go into too many details but in the end we felt forced and pressured to pay 8 times as much as we planned for a ticket (one way) to Salamanca, not Avila or Segovia. Ha! We walked away, not really realizing what had just happened, and found out only shortly after than Salamanca y about two hours further away than Avila. We weren't able to exchange or cancel our tickets soo....off to Salamanca we went! It was an adventure and we definitely made the most of it since we "accidentally" paid way more than we thought for the tickets, it was the only way to keep a positive attitude about it! It ended up being a good trip, we saw some buildings we had been studying in our class and had coffee and churros in a small cafeteria. So! Back to Madrid we go!

Saturday we met up with the rest of the group at a great hotel across the street from both the Prado and the Reina Sofia. We saw those both on Saturday and it was pretty incredible. We saw so many that we had been studying and to see them up close was surreal. El Prado had many works by Velazquez, Goya, El Greco, Juan de Ribera, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Rubens (The 3 Graces!), Brughel, and thousands more! El Reina Sofia has Guernica by Picasso, which was incredible to see in person since I have studied it before. They also had a large surrealism floor but it was sadly closed to reorganize the gallery :(. I hope to go back in a few weeks to see their huge collection of Dali paintings with Andy. That night I was able to meet up with my friend from St. Thomas, Cathy, who has been studying in Madrid since August. It was great to catch up with her and see another friendly face in such a big city!

Sunday we walked through the city and saw the Palacio Real where all the Kings of Spain lived and Plaza Mayor which had a stamp collecting fair going on :). Sunday afternoon we saw the Thyssen museum which was my favorite of them all. It is a private collection of the Thyssen family who was VERY VERY rich and over two generations collected 800 pieces of art! I saw Dali, Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Itten, Cevanne, Goya, and thousands more! It was incredible! We only had an hour and a half before we had to catch our train back to Sevilla so I felt rushed but would love to walk through it again sometime and really be able to see the more contemporary stuff!

This week I have two midterm exams before Andy comes on THURSDAY!! I cannot wait! :) It is going to be so great to see him! :) However my mind is NOT set on studying for these mideterms, so hopefully I can get through them okay! We are going to be in Sevilla, then Granada, Lisbon, then Madrid. Sadly my professors are expecting me to read two novels for when I return...not sure how that is going to go!

This semester is just FLYING by and I cannot believe I will be home in two months! :( I miss my family and friends but will miss Spain soo much too. It is going to be hard for sure to come back and readjust to the American culture again.

Well my procrastinating should probably come to an end now....ugh! Time to study!

Besos,
Betsy

Living The Life

So, I apologize again for not writing as often! I have just been getting caught up in life and school and traveling. It gets difficult to sometimes just sit down and think about what is going on. Soooo....school has been good! I have midterms this week and next week which are no fun at all but I am glad to get them over with before Andy visits next week!!! yay!! :) The professors are much more laid back than anything I have experienced, even than high school! They realize why we are here, what kind of lives we are living and what things we want to experience. They know we are traveling on the weekends and really don't have school too much on our minds, so they have that taken into account for the exams. For example, for my history exam we have covered history from around 1500 BC to around 700 AD and its only midterms! Its a ton of information and basically our exam on Thursday is a series of 5 broad essay questions about certain social groups....muy facil!

As for traveling, last weekend I went to Granada and had a great time! It is a smaller city than Sevilla sitting right at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains...loved it! Sevilla is in a pretty flat area of Spain so being able to see mountains and climb hills for amazing views was just what I was craving! The culture of Granada was so different that Sevilla too. It has had an enormous Arab and Muslim influence from history so while walking through the Albacyn (an old Arab neighborhood with tiny pathways, stores, and cafes) I would walk by tons of little cafes with Morroccan food, hookah, stores selling genie pants, and handmade scarves. By the way, genie pants are IN for the youth in Spain. Not sure if it is the hippie, rebellious kids trying to be different, but girls where them with heels! Pretty crazy! Would be very surprised if they make it to the US. Granada is much more of a hippie town, with a lot of character. Sevilla is more of the fancy, shopping, and richer kids town, even though there is a lot of character either way! I was actually looking at a program in Granada before I came here and decided on Sevilla since it is a bigger city. I am really happy where I am but really think I would have loved a semester in Granada too. Andy and I are going back there during his trip here so I cannot wait to show him around. In Granada there is also a great Arab fortress that was lated conquered by the Christians called the Alhambra that sits on top of a mountain overlooking all of Granada. I have pictures on Facebook to see the amazing views I got from there. Definitely a city with character and personality!

This weekend I am going to Madrid with my Art History class to see a lot of famous artwork and buildings. We are seeing El Museo del Prado, el Museo Reina Sofia, el Museo Thyssen, and the Palacio Real. I am going a day early with a friend to visit the small towns north of Madrid, Segovia and Avila. Should be fun and really fun to see such amazing works of art by Dali, Picasso, and many more! :)

Just like at home, I sometimes get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the things that make up my life. I have to stop myself and really think about how lucky I am to be in such a beautiful place, with the opportunity to better my Spanish speaking skills everyday. I don't always realize where I am because I have learned to call this home. I have become so comfortable in this culture that I forget that I have to leave it eventually and this life is going to be in the past. I must "stop to smell the orange trees" more. I realized this this morning and want to share with you what my morning was like before class...

This morning, it was drizzling a little. The first cloudy day in about a month so it would seem a little dreary. Everyday I pass my friend who works at the kiosk across the street from my house. Everyday he greets me with a smile and "Hola Guapa!" or "Buenos Dias Guapa!" Not in a creepy or sexual way whatsoever, but in a friendly, familiar way. Even if he is helping someone else he always greets me as I walk by his kiosk and I always leave with smile. What better than to leave your house and to be immediately greeted by a friendly face as you enter the social world! :) Gotta love it! Anyways, that was a side note, so I just got this great book for my literature class called "Beatriz y los cuerpos celestes" by Lucia Etxebarria that I absolutely love even though I have only read a few pages. (Translated to: "Beatriz y the celestial bodies") Its an existentialist theory novel about how the world is a big solar system and we, as individual people, are like stars, planets, and galaxies that have aversions and attractions to each other and interact with each other in different ways. Very interesting! Well, I rode the bus to el Centro and was walking down the main road Avenida de la Constitucion. I was early for class and a little hungry so I stopped in a cafeteria for a capuccino and a bolleria (little breakfast pastry). The place was packed as it was still morning with expresso machines buzzing and people chatting to eachother. I sat there, drinking my coffee, reading my book, and just stopped to look around me. I smiled to myself at how much I love Spain. How much I love the culture, the food, the people, the fact that I can have a conversation with a complete stranger next to me about my opinion of the bolleria. The fact that the group of women next to me ordered straight shots of expresso but took their time to enjoy them and eachother's company. Instead of just throwing it back and rushing to their next appointment. It just felt so perfect to be there, reading this book about relationships and human interaction and realizing how I was interacting everyday with this new culture that I never had appreciated or knew before 2 months ago.

Though it was drizzly, cloudy, and the cobblestoned streets had so many puddles that by the time I made it to school my shoes and socks were soaked through, I arrived at class so happy to be here and to be living a life so full. I don't want you to think that I have completely forgotten about the good ol' USA. HOWEVER, I think the only thing I miss about it is my family and friends. I really have no desire to return to the US except for incredibly missing my family and friends and the things we do together. I miss the moments and memories of my relationships with people I love in my life. I miss the familiar things, the traditions, and good home cooking. I know by the time it comes around for me to go home, it will be so incredibly bitter sweet. I love this place so much but at the same time miss my family and friends. I will definitely need some help because thinking about serving and dealing with stuck up Americans this summer at Via Cafe, kinda makes me rethink my summer job choice.

Well, sorry I wrote an essay! I just needed to get you all up to speed with my thoughts, my travels, and my life here! I hope that since I am telling you a lot through this blog as I go, I won't bore you with stories when I get back. Cross your fingers!

Gotta go prepare a presentation about literature of the realismo era in Spain! :) Wish me luck tomorrow! And for all of you who asked before, yes, we do have Daylight Savings Time...its this Saturday! I am looking forward to Andy's arrival next Thursday more than anything and its the only thing getting me through these next two weeks!! Can't wait!!! :)

With lots of love and kisses,
Con mucho amor y besos,

Betsy

Spanish Children = the cutest things alive!

So I know this is the third time I have blogged today...I guess I am making it up for not doing much the last few weeks. oh well! I just had to write about how excited I am to be tutoring again! I signed up to tutor Spanish children in English and tonight was my first night with the kids I was given. Their names are Reyes (girl) and Gonzalo (boy). Its funny because reyes means kings in English, but she's a girl, haha. Anyways, Reyes is in 3rd grade and absolutely adorable! She told me how she loves English grammar and speaking English and wants to be an English teacher when she grows up. ha She speaks English well just struggles on the pronunciation. She likes to quiz me on how much Spanish I know by asking me how to say the names of different animals! Gonzalo is in 5th grade and such a gentleman! I quizzed him on his notes because he has a test tomorrow which had some things I never learned in English class growing up. I had to read the directions and figure it out myself before I could help him! Crazy how they are using so many different methods now. The two kids were so cute and loved speaking English to me, and to eachother. Their mother doens't know any but I could tell she was so excited for me to be there and loved asking me about where I was from and about myself. Reyes kept giving me hugs as I left and said she thinks I am a good teacher...after just 1/2 hour with her! What a confidence booster! :) I had such a great time and it felt so great to be able to interact with children again. It just reenforces my excitement about teaching! Maybe I can start working in their school.....maybe. On top of all of that, which I am so excited about, I get paid too! 7 euro per hour ...I am loving this!

Really excited to go back on Wednesday night! :)

I'll try to get some pics with them. Maybe next time!
Besos,
Betsy

More reflection on Rome

So I had to cut my last post a little short before because I had to go to class, but now I have returned and I want to say a little more about what I have thought about since I got back from Rome. As you could tell, I absolutely loved the city for its art, history, and food. But now that I have been back to school, walked through the city, and interacted with the people of Spain again, I have realized a few things. I was so excited about what I had seen and done in Rome, that it didn't really phase me to think about the two different cultures in depth. I was definitely ready to be back in Spain at the end of the weekend because though it was a beautiful city, the people and the culture didn't really seem as beautiful as I had imagined. Since it is such a popular city there are thousands of tourists and I can imagine the Italian people would get annoyed with so many people that cannot speak their language. The cars nearly ran us over in the street in Rome, sometimes took aim, compared to Sevilla where you can just cross the street and any car will stop for you to cross, even with a nice Midwest-type courtesy wave with it. I don't think I talked to any Italians or interacted with them while I was there except for ordering food or buying museum entrance tickets. When we had to ask directions to find the Vatican Museum in Rome, we asked some Vatican workers and they told us it had already closed when it was supposed to be open for another 3 hours. We were upset but checked it out anyways just to make sure, and what do you know, its completely open. I've realized that they lied to us because they were American, no other reason and they just didn't care.

The hospitality in Spain is magnificent. People will strike up conversations with you on the bus, at restaurants, are more than willing to help carry bags, or explain a concept for you. I never really understood how generous it really is until I went to Italy. I am sure the customer service, the restaurant workers, and the people are very nice and I probably shouldn't make any generalizations that Italy is antiAmerican or less hospitable after only being there for two days. However, I was just happy to be back in Spain where I felt comfortable and actually a part of the culture. When I was in the airport in Rome about to come back to Sevilla, I was so excited to see the Spanish people in line with me and hear the language. I guess Italy was just my first experience being in another country where I couldn't communicate and it was difficult. I felt like such a tourist and in Spain, I feel like I actually understand and am a part of the culture.

Please don't get me wrong, I absolutely adored Rome and cannot wait to go back to Italy and travel more, but the trip definitely made me realize how much I have become a part of the Spanish culture already and how much I really love being here. :)

Thanks for reading my thoughts and supporting me!

Love you all!
Besitos,
Betsy

When in Rome, do as the Romans do....and I did!

Bonjourno! :)
Well this weekend was absolutely amazing! I went to Rome for the weekend and stayed with my friend Lindsay from St. Thomas. My flight was very early Friday morning and my alarm got me up at 3:30am! woo! My senora still hadn't been to bed yet. haha but I arrived in Rome and got connected with Lindsay just fine. Since I hadn't eaten all morning, the first thing we did was get pizza!!! It was so great! The pizza that I have had in Spain has been pretty pathetic (microwave style) so a legit Italian pizza hit the spot! We walked around the city all day long looking at sites and taking in the sun. We met up with another Tommie, our friend John, who ended up knowing almost everything about the Roman Empire and the significance of almost all the buildings we saw! pretty great! The first day we saw the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Coliseum, Roman ruins, and Circus Maximus which fit 250,000 people! It was a completely packed day but absolutely amazing. My favorite of all of them was Trevi Fountain. The water was so blue and the sculptures so incredible. We threw coins in to make sure we come back to Rome someday! I know I will be! Afterwards we got my first gelato!! It was soooooo good and creamy! Now I understand what everyone is talking about! That night, we all went to a restaurant and I got the fettucini with meat sauce. I wanted just a simple meat sauce dish to try to compare it to the kind of spaghetti I eat at home. It was really good and the wine was amazing too! Later we went to an Irish Pub to see a Rolling Stones cover band named The Stoners. They were such a hoot and very entertaining even though they weren't very good. The lead singer, Mick Jagger if you will, spent a majority of the time without a shirt on and wearing fake black leather pants. His preferred place to sing was on top of the tables or bar and people had to grab their beers to make sure he didn't kick them over. It was pretty funny.

The next day we woke up early and did the Vatican...ALL DAY. Lindsay lives across the street from it which was so fun to be able to see St. Peter's Basilica from her building. We first did the basilica. I was completely floored when I first walked in. I couldn't even walk or shut my jaw. It was the most beautiful building I have ever seen. As soon as we walk in, and after the initial shock was gone, Lindsay says, "Oh and here is the Pieta." !! Oh just Michaelangelo's Pieta, no big deal. haha it was absolutely amazing to see the incredible architecture, paintings, scuptures, mosaics, tombs, altars, everything. I believe we spent over an hour in the basilica itself. There was so much history, symbolism, and meaning behind everything we walked upon. I am still blown away by what I saw! Next we waited in line to see the Cuppola at the top of the dome of St. Peters. We could see all of Vatican City, of Rome, and the mountains too! It was so breathtaking. Next we went to the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. The museum in itself was so extensive and now I understand how it can take a whole day in itself to complete! We only did it for 2 hours I think. I loved Raphael's rooms. He had 3 or 4 rooms right in a row with frescoes covering every bit of the wall and ceilings. It was so incredible. I walked into one of the rooms and turned to look at the wall behind me and nearly screamed! It was the School of Athens by Raphael. I had no idea it was in that museum and I couldn't believe I was looking at the original right then! I still can't believe it! We continued and eventually got to the Sistine Chapel. No one is allowed to take pictures inside but it was so incredible. The fact that it took so many years to complete and it was so detailed and perfect just amazed me! Our necks were a little sore afterwards from looking up so much! It was so incredible and I have no idea when I will be able to see such a masterpiece again in my life. I feel so blessed to have had that opportunity to see some of the world's greatest pieces of artwork, sculpture, and architecture.

The whole weekend in itself was something that I probably will only get one chance to do in my life. Hopefully I will be able to return to Italy someday because I absolutely fell in love with it. The food, the hospitality, the art, the beauty, the history, all of it is so incredible!! I love Spain, don't get me wrong, but they are quite different cultures. I am pretty sure that Italy gained some serious brownie points this weekend in my book. I wish I could have had more time in the city, especially in the country. I really hope to return and be able to see more of the country including Florence, Venice, Naples, Assissi, Cinque Terre, and much more. That is definitely a tall order and not many people get the opportunity to see so much of their own country, let alone another one. I just feel blessed to have had that opportunity and I can't wait to go back and share it with more people I love.

Chao!

Betsy

Personality Type! :)

Okay! Well I saw Mollie´s blog about her personality type and thought I would do it too! Turns out it is pretty accurate for me too!

Extravert, iNtuitive, Feeler, Judger (ENFJ)
ENFJs represent between 2 and 5% of the U.S. population

Vivacious, warm, compassionate, and articulate, ENFJs are among the most skillful communicators. Tactful and diplomatic, they are patient listeners and have a rare gift for making personal connections. ENFJs are concerned with global issues, exceptionally attuned to others’ needs and passionate about finding creative solutions to help people in long-term ways. They are happiest when they have a plan and can work cooperatively with others to realize their goals. Being naturally orderly, ENFJs prefer an organized world and like to have matters settled, even if someone else is making the decisions. ENFJs radiate sympathy and understanding and are nurturing and supportive of others.

If you want to take it too!

http://www.personalitytype.com/quiz.asp

Rock of Gibraltar

Hello all! Well yesterday I took a day trip to Gibraltar and boy was it great! It's on the Iberian Peninsula of Spain but is a colony of the United Kingdom. It has a ton of antisentiment from Spain since the land was Spanish and England somehow calls it their own. Marilo had a lot to say about that when I returned...phew!

The drive down was absolutely georgous with many more mountains and lakes than there are around Sevilla. After going through customs and immigration, we connected with a tour company with buses to take us through the city and up the rock. We all packed into this tiny bus and started up the rock. The area used to be, and I believe still is, one of the biggest ports since it connects the rest of the Mediterranean, Europe, and Asia to Africa, North America, and South America. It is a huge industrial and port city. Anyways, we started up the rock up these tiny roads that our bus barely fit through. We had to go through many tunnels carved right out of the rock to wind up through it. Our first stop was going to the lookout point, pretty much at the top, but on the southern side that looked out towards AFRICA! We could really see it pretty well from across the Strait of Gibraltar even though it was a little cloudy. There was also a beautiful Mesquita (Mosque) at the top of the rock and a lighthouse. This lookout point was just georgeous and was the first time seeing the ocean since I got to Spain!

We then continued up the mountain to meet the MONKEYS! We saw St. Andrew's Cave first that was pretty amazing and millions of years old....but I would rather talk about the monkeys! ha....The rock is occupied by hundreds of Macaques that are usually only found in Africa and are the only group of wild monkeys on the Iberian Peninsula. They probably came over from Morrocco somehow. They live in a reserve on the rock and are protected but are so incredibly accustomed to humans that they are master thieves. We were warned by our guide to be careful with them because they WILL steal whatever is in reach. A girl in our group had her bocadillo for lunch stolen by one who broke the plastic bag it was in then ran to the top of a building to eat it. We were able to take pictures with them and be so incredibly close too! I wanted to hold one so bad but I didn't have any food with me to feed it :( I still got really close and the babies were fun to watch!

After all that excitement, we continued and got a bus tour of the city and ended up in the main plaza of the city to eat lunch. Luckily I left my bocadillos on the bus while we visited with the monkeys because I still had them available to eat for lunch later! We had free time and explored the city a little bit. It really was like a little Britain. There were telephone booths like those in London, English fish n' chips, and they accepted pounds (euros too but it was really expensive).

The whole trip was by far worth the money and really exciting to see such beautiful ocean, playful monkeys, and see, technically, another country other than Spain! This Friday I head to Rome! I can't wait!

School has been good and pretty interesting. There is not too much work to do but just a lot of reading. We only have one paper for every class due at the end of the semester and one oral presentation too. Those get piled up especially if they are all in the same week. So I have been trying to work on them a little as I go. The weather is turning officially into Spring with a high today of 72 degrees! Marathon training took a little dip last week but hopefully I can pick up the miles again this week and continue running every day.

Hope you are all well! I want emails and updates of your lives!

Also a big CONGRATULATIONS to my the Tommie Track ladies who got the MIAC Conference Title for the 10th time in a row! Miss you all and wish I could have been there to cheer you on!

Besos y Abrazos de Espana!
Hasta Luego!

Betsy

Mis Viajes

Hola todos! Cómo están?
No puedo esperar porque tengo muchos viajes preparado para las próximas fines de semana! Esta fin de semana voy a Gibraltar para ver la Piedra de Gibraltar, explorar cuevas, y oler el oceáno. Creía que eso punto era el fin del mundo antes de Cristóbal Colon zarpaba el oceáno azul. Gibraltar fue un candidato para Los Siete Maravillas del Mundo! También, el próximo fin de semana después de esta, me voy a Roma!! Voy a quedarme con mi amiga de mi universidad Lindsay quien está estudiando allí por el semestre también. ¡Solo estaré allí por dos días pero no puedo esperar! También despues de Roma, el próximo fin de semana voy a Granada con la programa, y entonces, el próximo, voy a Madrid para ver las obras magificentes en los museos grandes allí para mi clase de historia de arte. Y, ENTONCES, Andy llegará y vamos a muchos lugares en Portugal y España también. El mes de Marzo está lleno con viajes pero estoy tanta emocionada! Espero que tengas paciencia con mi español aquí porque quiero practicar más, y, por qué no! Si quieres, hay inglés debajo.

Gracias y escribiré sobre todos mis viajes tarde y poner fotos en mi facebook a ver.

¡Besos y Abrazos!

Betsy

Hello everyone! How are you all?
I can´t wait because I have many trips prepared for the next few weeks! This weekend I am going to Gibraltar to see the Rock of Gibraltar, to explore caves, and smell the ocean. It was believed that this point was the end of the world before Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue. (Yes his real name is Cristóbal Colón but we Americanized his name to make it a better story, and more of our own. hmmm). Gibraltar was a candidate for the Seven Wonders of the World! Also, the next weekend after this one I am going to Rome!! I am going to stay with a from my university Lindsay who is studying there for the semester also. I will only be there for 2 days but I cannot wait! Also, after Rome, I am going to Granada with my program and then the next, I am going to Madrid in order to see great works of art in the huge museums there for my Art History class. THEN, Andy will arrive and we are going to many places en Portugal and Spain. The month of March is full of trips but I am so excited! [I hope that you are patient with my Spanish here because I want to practice more and why not! If you want, there is English below].

Thanks and I will write about all my trips later and put pictures on my facebook.

Kisses and Hugs!

Betsy

too good not to write about...

Pues, there is a recent development happening that I am very excited about. The frustrating culture shock part is OVER! I have noticed myself getting more and more wanting to speak Spanish and over the last few days, especially, my roommate and I have been speaking constantly to each other in Spanish! ALREADY my Spanish is a lot better. This is even a little tough to write! I have gotten over the fact that some people in the program just aren't going to want to speak it all the time, which is fine, but I shouldn't be one of them. This experience is for me and I want to leave this country with near or full fluency and the only way I can do that is by actually activly taking part in it. This afternoon some of my friends from my school came up to me and started talking to me in English, but then I answered them in Spanish. Eventually, they switched from English to Spanish and we continued our whole conversation that way! I felt so much better that even if they weren't thinking that way at first, they still want to practice it. They just need a little nudge, just like I did. I am happy my roommate is on the same page as me now. It took a while and I knew she wanted to speak, she just needed to get through it too. I don't think I have spoken more than 10 sentences in English today! :) Anyways, that is very exciting news to me!

Also, tonight my roommate and I went to an heladeria down the street to get some icecream and the whole place was filled with men watching a Real Madrid vs. Liverpool futbol game. They were the only place open with icecream, so that's where we went. We couldn't find anyone who worked there because it was so packed and these men were laughing at us and asking us which kind we wanted. Eventually someone, who knows if they work there, scooped us icecream and these men ended up paying for it because they wanted to talk to us longer. They talked to us for almost 20 minutes, they wanted to practice their English with us and we spoke Spanish. It was a little creepy since they were in their 60s and really excited to talk to us but it was fun to talk to locals so went along with it. They invited us to come every night to the same place and practice English and Spanish. Who knows if we are going to but it was fun to talk to some locales instead of just eachother and our host family. One thing that they said was for us to speak Spanish all the time, todos los dias, because we won't get better at it even though we are living here. We need to speak it to eachother and everywhere to improve it. Que ironico! (How ironic!)

Anyways, just wanted to write a little something about that. I am very excited and can't wait to speak more Spanish and get better everyday. With these new classes I am going to have to start speaking in a totally different context than I am used to. I think I am going to have a hard time coming back and not being able to speak Spanish to everyone all the time. It is going to be different and frustrating, but I think I will be able to find a place where I can practice it.

Gracias,
Buenas noches,

Besitos y Abrazos,

Betsy (todas las personas aqui llamame Elizabeth porque es mas facil a decir)

Clases

Well...this week we started my next period of classes! It has been fun having a new schedule. Especially since Mondays and Wednesdays I only have one class in the morning. I don't start until 11:40 everyday. By the time I have class I usually don't need a coat which is so nice not to carry around after class. My Women's Writers class is by far the hardest. It is a 400-level course and not only are we reading 16th century literature in Spanish, we are critically analyzing and discussing the literature in Spanish as well. Phew! It is an exhausting 2 hour class but it is going to be very interesting concerning Spain's history with women's rights. I also have Art History which is going to be my favorite class I think. We are doing many cultural visits to see real works of art and architecture, instead of just pictures. We are taking a weekend trip to Madrid to see the Prado Museum, Reina Sofia Museum, Thyssen Museum, and Palacio Real (architecture). I am very excited since those museums hold works from Dali, Picasso, Muro, Valazquez, el Greco, and thousands more including many famous Italians like Michaelangelo and Rafael. :) I can't wait! I am also taking a course on the history of the religious groups here in Spain (Jews, Muslims, Moors, and Christians). I really don't know anything about this course yet because when we showed up for the first day of class yesterday, the Director of Studies came in, gave us a note packet and DVD and told us to watch it and take notes. Apparently our professor is in Morrocco for the rest of the week....I am really wondering how many students are going to show up for class tomorrow? Probably not many, or any!

In other news, the weather is still beautiful and my senora made a potato salad (potato, onion, hard boiled eggs, olive oil) and fried swordfish for lunch today that she said she makes in Spring...yay! It is a glorious 70 degrees out and my roommate and I have been walking to the park by our house a couple times a week in the afternoon to lie in the sun and do homework...or not. Usually just listen to music, sleep, and talk. What a great life right?

Must finish some reading, then going to get some helado. :)

Sorry it was so quick! Catch up more soon!

Betsy

UPDATE

Un Buen Dia a Todos!

What a beautiful day it is today! I hope it is just as beautiful where you are reading this blog as well. I just got back from a wonderful 7mile run through Sevilla, through parks, past the large outdoor mall - Nervion Plaza, past the hospital Virgen del Rocio, through Parque Maria Luisa, and across my bridge into my neighborhood Los Remedios. :) It's a perfect 64 degrees (Farenheit) for running. I got a little lost and went further than planned, what a great plan that was though! It feels so great to be running far and in beautiful weather again. For those of you who don't know, before I left, I signed up for Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, MN on June 20th! Andy, Jennie (his sister), and Luke (his brother) will all be running it too so the support to make it through to the finish will be great! So depending on how well I motivate myself to run on my own here in Spain (and we all know that isn't my forte), I might be struggling at the end of that marathon. Yikes! Good thing I will have some great friends to keep me going. :) So far I have been good and running at least 3-4 times a week. It could be better, and next week we start our next set of classes and I don't start until 11:45 everyday. I am planning on getting into a schedule to run EVERY morning! Wish me luck with my training!

As I mentioned, we just had our final for our intensive language course on Friday. In that course, we studied more colloquial Spanish language such as vocab for traveling, clothes, tapas, family, traditions, health and diseases, the movies, jobs, and many more. Along with the vocab were a lot of expressions and colloguialisms which I have never learned before. My favorite one is "ser tu media naranja" which means literally "to be your orange half" and figuratively means to be someone's soulmate! :) Andalucia is the region best known for its oranges and when you cut one in half...you get the idea. haha Another one which I like is "Cada oveja con su pareja" which literally means "each sheep with its pair" and essentially has the same idea. I loved the class but I am very happy to be starting a new schedule.

The next period of classes I am taking Women's Writer of Spain, Art History of Spain, and Mosaic: Jew, Muslims and the Spanish Experience. I will also continue taking the Cultural Realities course once a week to discuss cultural differences and adjustments to the Spanish lifestyle as well as the Flamenco dance class twice a week. I am seriously struggling with my coordination of the arms and the feet doing two totally different things. Thank goodness its a pass-fail course! phew! Here is a professional doing her thang....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrSjGht2Ei0&feature=related
Anyways, I am excited to get a solid schedule going with running every morning, going to class, then traveling on the weekends. :) I still can't believe this is my life! Already it has gone by so fast and I have counted only 13 weeks left! Anda!

Well, I am going to get my costume ready for los Carnavales de Cadiz this evening. Being thrifty, I only bought some sweet polkadot tights and a furry headband with stars flying out of it. I'll think of a name later when the whole thing is put together. :)

Miss you all por supuesto,
Besos!

Betsy

In the News...

SO...there has been a girl missing from Sevilla for the last 3 weeks or so named Marta de Castillo. A little after I arrived in Sevilla, posters started popping up EVERYWHERE. Posters of pictures of Marta in every store window, on every light pole, on walls, in car windows, everywhere. Some don't have pictures but just say, "Todos somos Marta" Signifying the incredible amount of support there is from the community to help find her. It has been highlighted in every news broadcast for Andalucia probably 4 times a day and has been a region-wide search for her. It has been amazing to see how much effort, money, and support there is for one missing girl. You would think, of course, there should be this much support and effort to find a missing person, but thinking about the U.S. where hundreds of people go missing every year, its not the same. Everyone receives those cards in the mail saying, "Have you seen me?" and after glancing at the faces and feeling sad for a moment, everyone just throws it out. I really don't know what else you can do to help, other than looking at the picture and hope you see the person. But here, it has been heads down, solid effort by the whole community for 3 whole weeks to find just one girl. How amazing!

Just today, the ex-boyfriend of Marta confessed to killing her and throwing her in the river (Rio Guadalquivir) in Sevilla. There has been protests all through the streets by the community yelling, "Asesino! Asesino!" meaning Asassin and calling for justice. For now he is being held at a jail before his trial. The hard thing here, is that in Spain, someone can only be put in jail for up to 30 years, and that's it, except for extreme circumstances where you might get multiple sentences of 30 years at a time. No one knows how he will be charged or if he is even telling the truth. Protests outside of the jail when he was brought in were out of control and police had stand guard and hold people back from attacking him. The amount of community support and calls for justice for this poor girl are astounding and its all anyone can talk about. They still haven't found her and since the river is pretty cloudy, and it rained all last week, it might be a while before she is found.

I apologize for the negative and sad news, but it is what has been happening in this community lately and I thought I should share it since there has been such a turn of events as of today. The whole situation really makes you think about how much time you take to care about other people instead of just focusing on your own life. When I first got here, we were watching the news during dinner and noticed how much time they were spending on Marta and thought....well that's weird, what's so special about this story, its just a missing girl. I am a little ashamed that I thought that and after seeing how much her disappearance has affected the community I live in it makes me think more about the difference. I was just thinking like most other Americans, oh another missing person, that's too bad. Then turn around and try to forget about it. Here, the community wouldn't let me and it has made me think....A good thing!

I'm not sure what else to take from this. In all reality, there really isn't much one can do in a situation like that other than keeping a keen eye out for the missing person. But it does make you have a different point of view.

Okay, soppiness is over.
Wish me luck on my test tomorrow morning,

send me emails!

love,
betsy

Jerez and Arcos

Yesterday I went on my first trip outside of Sevilla to Jerez de la Frontera and Arcos de la Frontera. Jerez is the location of the Bodega Gonzalez Byass where the wine under the marked name Tio Pepe is made. The region is known for producing the best sherry in the world. We got a tour of the grounds with history included and then sat down for a wine tasting. We tasted two different sherries. The first was sweet and called Croft, very good! Then the second was very dry, called Palomino Fino and I could barely take one sip down! It was definitely something you would have to get accostomed to.

We also went to la Yeguada de la Cartuja, a reserve for the Spanish purebred horses located on the outskirts of Jerez. There is a lot of pride, history, and tradition that accompanies the purebred horses. We watched a show/presentation of many different traditional forms of working with the horses. Some included carriage racing and dressage (I have pics of more on Facebook). We were able to walk around and look at and pet the horses in their stalls. Above each stall there was a plaque with the horses information on it. It would have its name, date of birth, then its parents names underneath it. The horses were usually named after one of their parents, similar to Spanish last names (children's last names include the last name of his/her father then the last name of his/her mother and never changes when a woman marries). For example, my name would be Elizabeth Lauren Hupp Stevens for my whole life.

After the horse reserve, we took the bus to Arcos de la Frontera, a typical pueblo blanco (white hill town) in Andalucia. It is a small town but was absolutely beautiful with all the white buildings and located on the top of a cliff. The views were great, but sadly by camera battery died once we got to the best lookout point and I didn't get a chance to take any pictures of it! However, stay tuned for tagged pictures of me that other people took :) We had a lot of free time in this town so we had lunch in a park and walked around for an hour looking for icrecream (no where to be found!) Since we were there over siesta, nothing was open so we really had nothing much to do but walk and explore. Sometimes that is the best way to see a city though. We ran into great little parks and found an old church and castle.

It was a great trip and the views from Arcos were just amazing! Next weekend I am going to the Carnavales in Cadiz (on the coast). It is a two week long carnaval and my program is taking a group there for the last night. Should be a blast! It is a requirement to dress up crazy in costumes or anything weird you have. I will have to spend some time this week thinking of a costume to wear :)

Hope all is well at home,
thinking of you all,

Saludos,
Betsy

History Lesson by Pepe

So....Pepe is my host father here in Spain. His real name is Jose Ignacio but the nickname for that is Pepe. So that's who he is! I just have to talk about him because he is so great to me and my roommate! He loves asking us questions about America and the English language since he knows a few words. Tonight at dinner he asked us the meaning of Ketchup or if the name had any significance to what was inside the bottle. Funny to think of Ketchup as such an American condiment but it really is. They only had it in the refrigerator for the enjoyment of the Americans living there.

He always explains things very slowly and clearly for us so we can understand and is always laughing about it. Tonight he talked to us about what it was like during and after the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.

HISTORY LESSON: When Franco wanted to be the government of Spain, there were people who supported him, and people who didn't; therefore a civil war that lasted 4 years. Franco-side won and since he was German, he allowed Spain to trade with only Germany and no other countries. So for the next 30-40 years, until the 60s, life was very difficult. Pepe was born the year after the war ended in Valencia and grew up not being able to eat many things that are available now. The people were allowed very little food and since there was no trade, they only had potatoes, vinagre, oil, oranges, and rice (among a few other things). There were food stamps to get your portion of food and no/very little meat or fish to eat. Marilo was from Sevilla and since her father worked in the transportation area of the city, he had access to the ships that came to port on the Rio Guadalquivir that runs right through the city. So her family had it a little better than most, even though it was illegal for her family to have that food. There were no jobs available, no food, all the clothes were the same because it had to be made here. Women didn't have any rights until the dictatorship ended in 1975 when Franco died and Spain was made into a democratic monarchy (more or less) since there is a King still. Not quite sure the correct term since the U.S. isn't quite a true democracy either. Bottom line: Spain went through a

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed that, though it may be a bit dry! I thought it was super interesting that there was so much hardship for so many years. I would probably compare it to our Great Depression but lasting twice as long with a dictator in charge of it all. Pretty rough! And to think that women here didn't have any rights to get jobs without their husbands approval until 1975! It is amazing to think how different life is over here. Not just the culture, but the development of the people in general. To think that this country is so much older than the U.S. with such a deeper history involving a Roman reign, the Spanish Inquisition, and such a depth in art with Picasso, Dali, and Velasquez. It is so interesting to think that there were some things that just didn't get a chance to advance like everything else, like women's rights, until only 40 years ago. Well, just needed to reflect about that story and make sure I remember it for later. Hope you enjoyed that extra bit of information as much as I did!

Something a little off topic, but yesterday my program took a quick trip to an area in Sevilla called Italica for a tour. It is the site of Roman ruins from when Spain was ruled by the Roman Empire. There were buildings built in the 3rd century with remains of the houses of very important people. I will put pictures up from it very soon. It was quite interesting and exciting to see something so old still standing and imagine the kind of gladiator-type fights that occurred in the ampitheater. I guess that's my cue to head to Italy next....hmm. Maybe another year!

Tomorrow I head to Jerez and Arcos! Jerez is the region known to make the best wine in the country so we are going to a bodega (winery) for a wine tasting...can't wait! Also in Jerez we will see the horses that are bred very specifically here Pura Raza Espanola (Pure Spanish Breed). I'll be thinking of you Mom! Then we head to Arcos for a view of a typical pueblo blanco (white village) which is very well known for this region of Spain.

I will let you all know how it goes and post pictures on Facebook. :)

Saludos,
Betsy

Culture Shock

Buenos tardes,
I am just about to lie down for my afternoon siesta but I thought I would write quickly about how the whole culture shock aspect has been going. The first week or so was definitely honeymoonish. Everything was new, exciting, and different. I was eager to try so many new foods, try the wine, explore the city, and speak Spanish as much as possible. However, now that I have been here for two weeks (as of today) my point of view has shifted a little bit. "Stage 2" of culture shock is classified as when you start getting upset at the cultural differences, wish you were in your home culture, and become irritable with the people. I have stepped into this culture only a little but and have noticed the change already.

I have begun to be eager to speak English to my roommate since I get so tired from speaking and listening to Spanish and frustrated when I cannot understand everything.

I have started to get annoyed at Spanish people for doing things that are inherently a part of the culture (things I awed at when I arrived) such as the after-siesta stroll through the streets. People link arms, dress in nice clothes (many older men and women where their very best such as long fur coats with collars and men in suits) and stroll, chatting, and stopping to look at things. It is merely a time to, in a way, be social with the rest of the city, make an appearance, say hi to people, share some tapas or a cafe. I still love the concept of simply taking time to visit and relax, but recently I miss the hustle and bustle of the U.S. and people moving at a faster pace.

For those of you who know my eating habits, I have never craved a burger more but I refuse to go to any Burger King or McDonalds whatsoever. For the lack of a cultural experience and also just because I rarely eat there when I'm in the U.S. anyways. And days like today, when you don't have much sleep and you have to go to class early, the appeal of throwing on some sweatpants and a sweatshirt is almost too much to bare. However the thought of standing out as an American even more than I already do, makes me actually have to try a little harder to come up with a coordinated outfit (everyone dresses up, wearing heels, skirts, hair done, everything).

These things aren't hardly enough to knock me off my feet and love for Spain, however, I have noticed other people in the program really sinking lower into this stage. Comments referencing the food as "bad," the music not being as fun, and preferring to pay to see a flamenco show at a touristy hotel when you can go to a traditional flamenco bar for free on an unmarked street.

I know I will get more accustomed to the culture and the differences the longer I am here but it is interesting to see such differences between cultures that I have never experienced before. I will write more about the cultural differences later. However, I am late for my siesta this afternoon and have to prepare to watch the Spain vs. England soccer game tonight. (My friends and I tried to buy tickets only to find they were sold out...however scalpers tried to take full advantage of us unknowing American girls, they did not win! :)

hasta luego,
saludos,

betsy

Cultural Runs and Family Dinners

Sooo....when I last posted it was Saturday morning/night and I was really not sure what I was going to do with my weekend...Here is what happened...

Saturday morning my roommate went to Cordoba. I was excited to have the whole day to do as I please, check out some museums, shop, go running, many things! Well I woke up to go running and went for a good 45 minutes, however I was gone for well over an hour. I wanted a route that I could see things I hadn't seen yet, but still not get lost. I ran across our bridge (Puente de los Remedios) and into the large park called Parque de Maria Luisa. It is very nearby the large building of Plaza de Espana ( I have pictures of it on facebook at night!). It is a beautiful park with dirt trails, stone sculptures, geometric tiled fountains, large 100 yr old trees, bridges over ponds filled with fish, TONS of orange trees, and tons of little surprises! I was so enchanted with the park that I ended up walking through most of it because if I ran I would surely miss something wonderful. As I was wandering, I started hearing a beautiful opera voice and music! I was so excited and eventually found a clearing surrounded by tall hedges to keep the sound in that area. There were speakers set up solely for the enjoyment of others; with scattered lawn chairs in front of it for sitting. There were two men sitting their with their dogs at their feet, reading the paper, and listening to this music. I was just enchanted and sat down to listen to it for a few minutes. I want to go back another time to spend more time there. The rest of the park was beautiful and when I return I will take many pictures for everyone's enjoyment! :)

On the rest of my run, I ran down the river and saw so much activity that you get see during the week! Many crew teams (rema in Spanish) were practicing in the river as well as a kayak polo league game! I had never seen/heard of this before at all and it was quite interesting to watch. It seems there is an actual league and this game was between Sevilla and Malaga. It is a mix between water polo, kayaking, and quiddich (for those Harry Potter fans out there!) Quite a spectacle. As I continued, I ran past parks with children playing, groups of teenagers sitting in groups on steps and chatting (some sharing a bottle of Cruzcampo ;), lovers on benches snuggling, picnics, many dog walkers, pick-up soccer games with children and teenagers at little parks, and street cleaners picking up trash so more people could enjoy the area. It was so beautiful and I felt that I finally got to see the "behind the scenes" part of the city!

When I returned home, I showered and did some journaling as I waited for lunch to be prepared. Turns out we were having some special guests that day and Marilo made a LARGE pan of paella with chicken and.....RABBIT. haha It took me a while to figure out what "conejo" was and when I looked it up in the dictionary it was definitely a surprise! However, it didn't taste that much different than the chicken, just looked different. We first had Ensaladilla rusa "Russian salad" with tuna, lettuce, tomatoes, and a red dressing...I really love it! Then the paella came out and everyone got a huge plate-full. I was stuffed! The guests were Marilo and Pepe's son, also Pepe, his wife Teresa, and Teresa's father (whose name I have forgotten already...oops!). Pepe and Teresa have the baby named Augustin (in my pictures). It was such a fun lunch and they all talked to me and asked me questions about America a lot. It was great to be forced to speak Spanish and really try to convey my thoughts as best I could. Teresa's father has a very deep Sevillano accent (doesn't pronounce S's and mumbles, so he always had to be reminded to speak slower for me). After we finished the paella we had a yoghurt for desert and cafe con leche as well. Then Pepe (my senor here) offered me some vino de Moscatel, made in Valencia (where he is from). He said it was a sweet, sipping wine from Valencia made from the grape name Moscatel. It smelled very strong but tasted sweet. I would not be inclined to order this at all from a restaurant but it was a good experience.

Pepe and Teresa's father and I stayed at the table while everyone else cleared it. They drank some kind of liquor and water, then offered me the Moscatel. From his liquor cabinet he also grabbed a bottle of maple syrup! haha I laughed because they didn't know what it was. He had received it as a gift from another Americano who stayed with him before. They didn't know what it was but it was the color of the liquor so they figured it should be stored there. Then I continued to try to describe to them what it was, how it was made, and how it was used. It was quite interesting and I guarantee they won't be using it on anything. They said it had too many calories, haha.

All in all, it was an absolutely wonderful lunch but after 2-3 hours of speaking and listening intently in Spanish, I had to return to my room for some rest and mindless Facebook. It was definitely tiring but very satisfying to not be tempted to speak English to my roommate for the whole day. After I said goodbye to Teresa's father (not without a kiss on each cheek) everyone laid down for their siesta. It was a wonderful, family-oriented, and cultural afternoon that showed me how much I still have to learn to be able to convey my ideas concretely and correctly in Spanish.

A ditzy moment here: I just realized that you have all been commenting on my blogs! THANKS SO MUCH! I got so excited when I figured that out and read them all twice. haha It feels so good to know that people have been reading it and are interested in my time abroad! :)

Sorry this was so long, a great weekend and I wanted to share it with you! Keep the comments coming!

Love you all!
Betsy

PS- If you were wondering which Sevillano futbol team (Sevilla FC or Betic Club de Futbol) won the game on Saturday night.....Betis won! Pepe was very proud and it made the front page news the next morning :) Gotta love this city!