Better Late Than Never...

Hear ye, hear ye. Here marks the beginning of the tale of Week V, the week when all of us were in plum denial that we only had two more left in this country we’ve come to love SO MUCH. Well, at least most of our group didn’t want to leave. And whether the other ones know it or not, they’re gonna miss the crap out of us and this place. And even if they don’t, we’ll pretend that they do. And yes, I know this is ridiculously late and that there is still more to tell after this one, but I promise, eventually it will all get up here!

Monday was quite the productive and academic day. After class as usual, we had sevillana dance class, which you can all tell from my previous posts are definitely not our favorite parts of the trip. This class was our last one for the summer, and I can’t say that we were particularly bummed. In fact, as Isabel and I were trying to get a step, we laughed (imagine that, me laughing) and home chickie turns, looks at us, and says that we don’t matter to her. And, after that, for the remainder of the class, she would go around the room and ask how every other pair was doing and then skip RIGHT OVER us. So, Isabel and I took that to be a sign that we could cut up all we wanted to, and so, we did. And it was great. But when that clock rolled around to 6 and the final class was over, we were all some pretty happy people. After the class of death, we headed to Rodilla, our favorite cheap little Internet café, to work on our final presentations and study for our quiz. We made ourselves work hard for several hours until dinnertime, and then a group of us went to go eat fried fish, which is a staple of the diet in Andalucía. For a brief geography lesson, Andalucía is basically the state in the south of Spain that Sevilla is in. Back to da food. We ate several pounds of fried fish for dinner and then crossed over our little road to Yogurtlandia, which is basically the Yoguri of Spain for all you Athens people, for dessert that wouldn’t make us feel the 41234 pounds we’ve gained from all of the delicious food over here. Unexpectedly after our sweet treat, we treated ourselves further by calling it quits on our studying for the night and going to see our precious gypsie flamenco show one more time for the summer. How sad. I HATE IT when it gets to the point that everything we do is “for the last time”. How freaking sadddd.

Tuesday was another academically focused day with some fun dispersed in between. We took our weekly exam in our classes (always a delight) in the morning and then went to spend some quality time with our madre, Lina, at lunch. Speaking of which, EVERY DAY AT LUNCH, Whitney and I sit there with our madre and watch the same show, De La Buena Ley, from 2:30 to 3 PM. This show is the epitome of telebasura – for all you English speakers, telebasura = TV trash, aka Jerry Springer, etc. Some of the more popular episodes included two OLD sisters in a legal feud about one of them stealing the other one’s boyfriend, an employee taking her boss to court for damages because he fired her after he found her having sex in the office, and best of all, a young girl finding out that her boyfriend was a stripper who had been using her apartment to host and ‘work’ 2 bachelorette parties a week, and other classy issues such as this. So, we, just like always, watched our show, debated in Spanish who we thought had the reason of the law in his or her case, and if we agree or disagree with the judge’s verdict. When we first started watching the show, I didn’t think I would EVER be able to understand anything that the people said. Their incredibly rapid Spanish, full of incomplete words and lots of “th’s”, was more like a jumble of jibberish to me than a foreign language. But I am proud to say, I have FINALLY been able to grasp the majority of the things that the people and thoroughly enjoy listening to the ridiculous things that the wonderful people of Spain come up with to say and do. Oh I love my new country. After our daily TV fix, Whitney and I went to Charlotte, a French-inspired café near our house, where we got some INCREDIBLE smoothies and worked on our final presentations. People, the presentations needed a LOT of work, because we had two, and each one was for FORTY FIVE MINUTES. I don’t even speak for forty-five minutes in English. So, our two topics of Alaska, who is basically like the Madonna of Spain, and Antoni Gaudi, the baller architect whose work we visited in Barcelona, needed some hot minutes devoted to them. We worked all through that afternoon, and in the evening we met up with some of the group to go play soccer one last time. Soccer was a BLAST – a lot better than the last time we played. I even still have the bruises to prove it, and it’s been a week and a half since we played! We went to this new turf field instead of the concrete death one we played on for our first one, and we went all out. At least everybody else did. My talent was just throwing my body at people on the other team that had the ball. But hey, that counts for something, right???

Now people, brace yourselves, because Wednesday was the day of all days. Seriously. If you can’t handle excitement well, just stop reading here, because Wednesday was the JAM. Whitney and I got up super early, about 6 AM, to work on our presentation a bit more before we presented. We made it through our first one about Gaudi decently enough, and after class we took our bocadillos that our madre made us and went to our little Rodilla’s place where we made friends with some pretty interesting individuals. One was this cuatra-lengual woman from Brazil who had been to just about every place on the planet. We talked to her for a long time about her life in general, where she’d been, her thoughts on America – etc, etc. Yet the best random conversation of the day was yet to come. This old Spanish man comes hobbling up to our table and cracks a joke about how Collin, as usual, is the only guy in a group with 6 girls. The joking continues until we have come up with a story that Collin has a girlfriend for every day of the week except Sunday, because that is the Lord’s day and he has to rest on it. After we continued the horrid joke for about 30 minutes with the perverted old man (and he told Collin that he needed to keep me in line better cause I was sassy), we headed to the school to meet Diego to go watch Spain’s soccer game in the world cup. When we got to the school, Diego was late, which was ironic because tardiness is one of his biggest pet peeves. But apparently, that’s only when YOU are tardy and not him, because we stood there and waited on him for THIRTY MINUTES? How long??? THIRTY MINUTES. When he finally arrives, he explains himself saying that he was waiting to see… CAMERON FREAKING DIAZ who was in Sevilla with TOM FREAKING CRUISE filming their FREAKING NEW MOVIE, Knight and Day. Even though we were still ticked, a) because we had wasted 30 minutes of our precious time in Spain and b) he didn’t even tell us those celebrities were in town doing anything!!!!, we were just so happy that we now had a chance to see them since we finally did know what was up with those fools!!! Lindsay Moore, Whit, and I ditched the soccer game (sorry Spain, you lost anyways) and headed to the center of the city near the cathedral to see if we could catch a glimpse of the ‘shooting stars’. Hahahaha. Bear with me, we all know I’m cheesy or else I wouldn’t even have this blog. The three of us practically sprinted to where we had been told they were filming, and as we were about two blocks away, we hear the screeching of tires on pavement that could only mean one thing – THEY WERE THERE!!!!!!!!! All three of us simultaneously took off running in the direction we heard the commotion, and sure enough, when we screeched our feet to a halt, who should we see in front of us but Cameron Diaz, driving a BMW convertible around and around and around the cathedral area at freaking high speeds like a champ. Just proves even more how much of a baller she is. God blessed that chick something fierce. She’s so legit! We stood there for about 30 minutes, just watching her go around… and around… and around… while her camera crew took about a billion takes of it. The funniest thing was her ‘crunchy’ friends that you always see in the magazines watching her do all of her tricks. They were furry, unshaven, and just all-around Hollywood. And it was awesome. Just sa we thought we couldn’t get happier watching her drive around the city like it was the Indie 500 and gawking at her posse, Cam did the best thing ever – SHE GOT OUT OF THE CAR. And she didn’t stop at that. Sweet Cam Cam got out, walked around and took photos with the movie staff, and then… SHE CAME OVER TO US FANS. She is wondafullll. She not only came around to each of us, she took the time to sign autographs for all of us (even though it looks like straight chicken scratch), including MEEEEEE. I now have the most famous piece of notebook paper in all the land. Hal-le-lu-jer!!! Precious Cameron even had a conversation with us, asked us where we were from (which obviously she knew we were from the US from the oohs and ahhs in our English accents) and once we told her, she called us her Georgia Peaches. So basically, we’re BFF now. No big deal. AHHHH!!! How stinking cool is it that we’re just walking around our city and come across Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. Heck, we even talked to Cameron Diaz. How stinking awesome!!! Thank you, Father God!

After we talked to our new BFF Cam, we continued to walk around the set and stare with our mouths open as we watched the stunt drivers do things that should be illegal to do in a car within 50 miles of human beings. Just by being our talkative, Southern selves, we got to get to know the two stunt drivers, Jimmy Roberts and Rich Rutherford. As we were talking to them, we had no clue how much of a big deal they are. They gave us their names and we were just like… ugh… thanks! We snapped a photo with each of them and then headed out. It wasn’t until we got back to our house later on that night when we searched their names that we discovered how freaking famous they really are: between the two of them, they’ve done more than 300 films – and they are some FAMOUS films. Look them up. I dare you. You will flip. We sho nuff did!!

After smoozing with the stunt men, we headed out to enjoy the revelry of the best day ever. Little did we know as we strolled the streets and went over the events of the day in our head, our day would just get better and better. As we walked down the main road in downtown Sevilla, La Avenida de Constitucion, we stopped to talk to the illegal African immigrants that sell janky products on the side of the road. In fact, these guys are so illegal and their products are so janky that they keep them on blankets and when they see the po-po (aka the police for those of you that don’t speak Cordelian) they grab their blanket, wrap those suckers up, and RUNNNN. And I mean sprint like they have a stick of dynamite in their… mouths. So funny to watch! Reminds me of good memories from back home in Cordele. God bless the South. From there, we kept walking down the Avenida and found the most precious homeless man you ever did see. Truly, he was WONDERFUL. Instead of being like the majority of the other homeless people in Sevilla, just wandering around and interrupting your meals by asking for money, he was DOING SOMETHING to fix his situation. He had gone to dumpsters and gotten out aluminum cans to cut and form into ashtrays, coasters, containers, and just all kinds of snazzy little doodads. Lindsay, Whit, and I were floored. This is RARE form for the homeless of Sevilla. We took a gander at his stuff and were sold instantly. It was just so unique! The other two girls found what they wanted right away, but I really wanted one of his creations made out of a Coca-Cola Light can, since that is so “European” and all. I went up to the artisan himself to ask if he would have more made out of Coca-Light cans tomorrow – and at this point speaking in Spanish to locals STILL made me nervous!!!. The little working man gruffly responded, “Not tomorrow, now!”. He gets his bottle of water and pours some of it on the window ledge he was sitting on, grabs an old grungy rag, and then CLEANS the section of window ledge next to him. Then, as if that wasn’t precious enough, he gets up and unfolds his blanket so that I will have a CUSHION on my clean windowsill. How wonderful is that???? Boys these days barely even open a car door anymore, and here this old homeless man is cleaning his ‘home’ and giving me all that he has to sit on. Ah. It was just the most heartwarming thing ever. Then, to just continue his goodness, he let me pick which cans I wanted and which pictures I wanted to put in them. All for the price of one, he gave me three of his creations and even sent me away with some extra postcards just for the heck of it. People, it was absolutely wonderful. Encounters like that make me realize that it’s the people you encounter during your everyday activities and how you treat them that really show God’s kingdom on Earth.

Our encounters with wonderful, everyday kind-hearted people continued when we met Julio and Marcos. These two men, yet again, more street vendors, had moved from Mexico to follow the loves of their lives here, but once they made the move across the world for their girls, both of the women ditched their Mexican guys. How incredibly sad. In the terrible Spanish labor market, neither of them could find jobs or afford a plane ticket back home, so they took to the streets to learn a trade to make some bucks. Despite all this, it worked out quite well for the two of them. Cuz they learned some TALENT. Julio and Marcos could make unique silver jewelry, from rings and earrings to bracelets and necklaces, all twisty and turvy and with different colored stones in them. Whit got a turquoise ring made custom for her and Lindsay bought one, too. I, being the broke collegiate that I am, couldn’t afford one, but because Julio loved us all so much, he gave us free bracelets that he had made. I picked out a little hemp one, and to this day it is gracing my right arm. Every time I look at it I think of precious Julio and shoot up a prayer for him that he can earn enough money to return home soooon.

After this jam-packed day, the revelry continued. We hiked back home, all the way across the city, to put our things up before our big night out. We rushed in the door and gushed all about meeting Cameron Diaz to our sweet Lina, who was almost just as excited as we were for ourselves. What she was more excited about though was the fact that her best friend, her daughter, and the daughter’s little boy were in town to visit (Esperanza, Esperanza the daughter, and Javier). It was SO EXCITING getting to meet them. It felt like we were meeting celebrities since we had heard so much about them from Lina! Lina has no children of her own so she lives her motherly side through her friends’ children and her grandmotherly side through those children’s children. After we got to know the fam and pretended like we were family too, we left our dear road of Luis Montoto to go to Cien Montaditos to get cheap Euro meals for dinner. Whit and I quickly chowed down and then headed over to Hotel Doña Maria, one of Carlos’ (our professor) recommendations of the day. Carlos swore that the bar on the roof of the hotel offered the best view of Sevilla at sunset, and boy was he right. It was INCREDIBLE. We saw the prettiest colors up there, not only from the sky, but from the lights on the cathedral and the barrio too. It was captivating. The group of us hung out and chatted the night away for a while, but eventually we had to head home and focus on the ridiculous amount of school work that we had looming over our heads for our final projects. Whitney and I got home and then forced ourselves to work until 3 STINKING A.M. Yuck. What a terrible hour. But hey, as much as we got to do during the day instead of working, it was WELL worth it!

Thursday morning came VERRRRRY quickly. Since we didn’t go to bed until 3, when our alarm went off just a mere 3 and ½ hours later at 6:30 AM, Whit and I were barely functioning. But, we had to push through our grogginess, because we were going to see… TOM CRUISE! We had spoken to some people who worked on the set the day before and they told us that Mr. Cruise would be getting to set around 7 AM. We, being the intelligent stalker/fans that we are, decided that when set people say 7, it generally means 8, so we planned it out that we would get to set around 8 AM to see dear old Tom before the rest of the crazier fans showed up (since we’re so normal and all). Well, tragically, when we arrived to set just as planned, there wasn’t a SOUL there. Literally, you could hear the roosters crowing from the country fields outside of the city it was so quiet. Wah waaaaah. That man the day before sho had lied to us. We stood around looking like dumb Americans for a hot minute (what else is new) and finally we gave up the ghost and started heading to school. As we were walking away from the Catedral area, we ran into one of the set people who was guarding the props and stuff while people were gone. We seized our opportunity to ask the man what was going on, aka, where the heck was Tom. He looked at us like we were plum crazy. He said Tom wasn’t going to come until around 11 but that he would be there until around 5 PM that day. So, we grudgingly gave up on seeing him for the morning and decided we would come back to see him that afternoon. We headed to a café to get some ‘caffeination station’ in our veins before our presentation. The coffee somewhat worked, because with a little bit of luck and a lot of Jesus, Whit and I pulled our presentation out and somehow managed to stay awake while we were presenting it.

After class, Whit and I wolfed down our new bocadillos of tuna (pretty darn good, thanks to Lina our madre) and headed back to the town center to get some glimpses of Mr. Tom Cruise himself. We even convinced Manuel, our TA, to come too! On the walk there, he even stole a little kid’s ball from the park so that he could convince Tom to sign it for his little girl. How sweet, right? Wrong. That man was just going to pull the ‘daddy card’ so that Tom would give him his autograph. How stinking hilarious! Unfortunately, we didn’t get Tom’s autograph that day, but we did snap some pictures from not to far away. During the time that we could be on set, Tom and Cameron were having to do a billion interviews with the press to promote the new movie. Lucky for us though, he did come out and wave to the crowd a couple of times, and we had a BALLIN location right next to his trailer so we got some great shots of that beautiful, beautiful man. People, I’m not kidding, I do NOT think that man is attractive in movies and stuff. But honeychild, in real life, that joker is fiiiiiiiiine. Like, it is ridiculous. He doesn’t even look like a normal human he’s so pretty. The most unfortunate thing about him is the fact that he’s WHACK, worshipping the aliens and all of that junk. I asked my friends if it would be out of line for me to go up to him and ask if I could babysit his kids even though I loved Jesus and not little green people. They told me that might be a bad idea. So I had to leave myself to being content to staring at his beauty from afar and praying that one day he stops loving the aliens.

We couldn’t stay on the set as long as we wanted to because there was a mandatory excursion that afternoon to Cartuja, an area on the outskirts of Sevilla where an old monastery had been turned into a modern art museum. It was pretty cool, but I’m not going to lie, the whole time we were there, we were mostly thinking about what Tom and Cameron were probably doing at the moment and if we could have seen them if we had stayed. Still, the museum was pretty interesting. It had several exhibits on Africa that were AMAZING. The first one was framed pictures of Africans at work, and one of them really spoke to my heart. You wanna know why? Because it was a picture of a man holding a watermelon, and the quote underneath was “Black Man With A Watermelon”. Reminded me so much of home in good ol’ Cordele, GA. I shared a moment with the man and then moved on to the next African exhibit. Now this one was LEGIT. The room had multiple printed sheers hanging from the ceiling with images of Africa on all of them. As you walked through the maze of sheers, a recording was playing of an African women discussing the hardships of life in Africa. It was SO MOVING. You couldn’t help but get tears in your eyes as you physically walked through the maze, which represented not only the physical entrapment of daily African life, but also the maze of emotions that the woman was retelling over the recording. I’m not one to get emotional without a legitimate reason, but folks, this was reason enough. Despite the fact that we were missing out on some awesome star-gazing of Tom and Cameron, it was still a pretty interesting experience that I am glad we got to have while we were over there.

After the museum, we drug our exhausted bodies home to take a quick power rest (not even a power nap, what a rip-off), eat some dinner, and then drag our bodies out of the house again to head to salsa night. Remember the salsa lessons that we all loved so much? Well, our instructor told us about this discoteca that has salsa night on Thursdays and Sundays. The group of us decided that this Thursday was THE night for our salsa experience. We caught a cab and headed across town to the area where all the ‘cool, late-night’ experiences happen. We got out at Tabata, the discoteca that we were soon to have one heck of an experience in. When we walked in, there was quite a few people there, but it seemed like it was a very exclusive group of people. Well, it turns out that in fact it was quite exclusive – it was someone’s birthday party that we were CRASHING. Haha! How embarrassing. However, as you now must have learned from all of the stories from our group, that didn’t stop us from staying there and being creepy enough to just stare all of the INCREDIBLE SPANISH SALSA DANCERS downnnnn. They were the JAM. They were out of this WORLD they were so good at salsa. It was insane. If we thought our little professor man was good, these folks were almost at his level or even right there at it. In my next life, I will be Spanish, and then I will be the jam at salsa. After we had been there about 30 minutes, just awkwardly sitting in the corner and creeping on people, we had the best surprise imaginable: in walked our salsa instructor!!!!! Guys, it was AMAZING. He came in, just walked around the corner, and when his eyes locked on the group of us, he dropped his bag!!! That sweet man was too pumped to see us there. He obviously ruled that place because after he got over his shock of seeing us and came over to give us dos besos (the two kiss thing on each of our cheeks), he went over to the DJ station and just took it over. He put in the same CD that we practiced to in class and then stalked his way across the room – to our group of girls. He proceeded to grab the majority of us by hand (of course, he did NOT choose me, but hey, I’m okay with that) and take them for a spin across the dance floor. Best of all, once all of our instructor’s local friends that were there saw us groovin’, they came over to us too and started dancing with people! It was absolutely hilarious. One old man even came over to Nickki to give her personal salsa lessons. It was so funny. Sweet Bahar humored me and grabbed my hand to dance with her, but we hadn’t been going very long when I had a Janet Jackson-esque ‘wardrobe malfunction’ that made me call my dancing career for the night quits. I can’t say that I was super bummed. Maybe embarrassed a little, but … nah, who am I kidding? It takes a LOT more than that for me to get embarrassed.

After we had caused a significant enough commotion for one night salsa-ing, we said our goodbyes to our new friends and our instructor and headed out for home. However, when we walked outside of Tabata, our eyes locked on another discoteca just a block down that we had heard about. It had just opened again for the summer – how strange that the Spanish summer starts at the end of June after its been 110+ degrees every day for the whole month already – and was having quite the fiesta that night. We went down the block to check it out, and we were NOT disappointed. It was the type of club that normally doesn’t let ‘gringos’ (aka, not Spanish people, particularly Americans) in, but for some reason, after sweet talking by Bahar, they let all of the seven of us in! This place was AHHHHH-MAZING. The name of it was Aqua, and man, it sho was full of some aqua-ness. The floor was glass that was on top of, you guessed it, WATER. There were waterfalls in the corners, a massive pool in the “VIP” section – yeah, we didn’t go there, and best of all, a man-sized fish tank at the front of the place. Oh, and don’t worry, a legit MAN swam in that dang thing! We called him our merman. As we are dancing with multiple Spanish men closing in on us, this incredibly jacked and muscular Spanish dude climbs up a ladder and dives right on into the fish tank. It was hilarious! But, still, oddly enough, strangely beautiful. He had on these flowy linen pants that made him look like a straight-up merman when he swam. It was captivating in the creepiest way possible. We couldn’t believe what we were watching. Only in Spain, my friends, only in Spain. Geez I love that country.

I apologize for the fact that this entry is not only over a month late, but it is 8 pages of a Word Document for only 4 days of happenings. But, guys, I can’t help. Everything that happened was just so much fun and so magical that I just have to document it all. So, get ready for the next installment to come soon, just as late (probably later), and just as long (let’s face it, probably longer). Love you all. Miss Spain like junk.

Lagos Means 'Lakes' In Spanish But In Portugal It Means Heaven

I’m so so so so so excited to tell all of you wonderful individuals about this next part of my journey abroad. Because, just saying, this part is the JAM. God blessed America, God blessed Spain, but He sho NUFF blessed Lagos, Portugal!

Our wonderful journey began last Friday bright and early. Because of our impending journey, we had class an hour early, which meant we had to get up even earlier to pack in the daylight because we can’t have the light on at night. Therefore, since we had to do all of this in the morning, naturally, we were late to school. But, all was bien, and we blew through our classes as quickly as possible and before we knew it we were on the bus eating our bocadillos (even though we weren’t supposed to eat on the bus, shhh, don’t tell) and headed to Lagos. About 5 hours later, after we got lost on the windy rounds of Portugal for an extra hour and I thought I was going to vom all over da bus, we made it to destination number 1 – the most ‘occidental’ point in Europe, also known as the Western-most point of Europe. People, it was balling. There were these astounding cliffs with jaw-dropping views of the bright ocean below – something I feel like people should only be able to dream about, not see in real life. The usual photo shoot lasted about 30 minutes even though Diego was trying to be hard and only give us 15 (we showed him – NOT). However, the biggest adventure of our brief stop there was the handmade bathroom? What’s a handmade bathroom, you ask? It’s one you make yourself, wherever you might be. And since there’s not much of a toilet on the rocky western point on Europe, you just gotta get creative. So, just so you know, there are several of us on this trip that are now the proud owners of little portions of land on the Western point of Europe. Be jealous.

After we conquered some beautiful territory, we climbed back aboard the bus and finished the last leg of the journey to Lagos. When we pulled up to our hotel, we were shocked. That junk was SNAZZYYYY. Like cinco estrellas fancy. Our room had a living room, full kitchen, and a banging bedroom, which sweet Whit and I got to share. We felt like royalty. And the darn sheets had to be like 5000 thread count. Cause they were like little pieces of Jesus. We gawked at our abode for the weekend for a few minutes, took a quick power nap, and then got ready to meet the group for dinner at some local restaurant that the directors had picked out for us. Well, when we got there, we were in for a treat. We should have known that it was going to be too good to be true when we got there and saw that there was bottomless water. Which, btdubs, always be SO GRATEFUL for free refills, even just with water. Cause they sho don’t happen over here. So after the endless water and the delicious salad that followed it, we were CRUNK for our main course. And when it came… WOW. The only words we could say were ‘wow’. Not because our mouths were watering or our eyes were popping out of our heads, but because the mouths of our FOOD were watering ooze and their eyes were popping out of THEIR heads. Yep, that’s right. We got some appetizing full bodied sardines. Not talking about the teensy ones you see on pizza and stuff. These suckers were some good sized sardines. We had to learn how to rip them open and dig out the good meat within with out the bones, which was nearly impossible to take a bite out of it and not receive some prickly parcel in it. After about three of these fights to get some moderately sized bites, we gave up and turned the meal into, you guessed it, a photo shoot. What else would you expect our group to do?

After our not-so-filling meal of fish bone scattered with a few slivers of meat, we headed out to take some pictures during sunset, which was, might I add, simply breathtaking. We did our usual photo op for about 15 minutes, with the boys snapping photos left and right like we have trained them so nicely to do here. We were taking them on top of this canal-type thing that the boats float through to get to the ocean, and eventually, I got bored with that landscape and convinced Collin and then Isabel to crawl down with me to the edge of the water in the canal. Neither of them were all too thrilled, but I convinced them that great pictures could be had and that it wouldn’t be dangerous to walk on the moist, moss covered stones. Liessss. They both ate it and tore up their hands trying to catch themselves while I made it through unscathed. Schwoops. But hey, beauty is pain, and our pics sho are beautimous from that excursion.

Later that night, a group of us headed out to explore the beaches around the city. We perused through the streets for a while until we found where we needed to be, and it was definitely a sight to behold. In the dark, we could make out these HUGE rock formations looming out of the water, with the nighttime ocean reflecting it’s patterns on the sides of them it. It was truly magical. Our brains could scarcely even take it in. When you look at such beautiful things in God’s creation, it truly does make you realize how small you are and how BIG and talented He is. He is one creative Papa! After frolicking on the rocks and singing every song from The Little Mermaid that we could recall, we did one of the coolest things that we have done all trip. Hillary, Jack, Belle, and I all stood in one of the cave-like structures between the rocks and sang worship songs to God. It was truly one of the best moments of my life. Standing there under the stars, enveloped by God in His true glory, and praising Him with all of our hearts with people that I dearly, dearly love was astounding. I could have stayed there with Him and them forever. But all good things must come to an end, so we hummed our songs the whole way home and then crashed into our bajillion thread-count sheets and slept like queens the whole night.

Saturday morning began with an insanely delicious breakfast that we had for FREE at the hotel. I don’t know which word in the previous sentence is more important, the FREE or the delicious, so therefore I will combine them to express the true power and might of that breakfast – it was FREELICIOUS. My newfound love, Brie Cheese, ham, the best fruit ever, unlimited fancy coffee, and much more all made an appearance at the freelicious breakfast and my heart was happier than a Spanish futbol player after winning the World Cup. However, that joy was short lived, because when we relocated to the swimming pool to start catching some rays, all we got were bad cases of goosebumps and raindrops falling on our heads. We tried to prevail outside for as long as we could, but after about 30 minutes of wind and rain, we couldn’t take any more and we all fled inside to retreat into the warmth of our fancy pancy hotel. When we got inside, none of us wanted to stop hanging out, so we headed into one room, where about 15 of us all piled onto one bed and had a cuddle-fest and back massage train. People – IT. WAS. AWESOME. We all just blobbed our bodies wherever they decided to sit, legs jumbled up all over the place, and just laughedddd and laughedddd and talked and laugheddddd some more for two hours. It was wonderful and completely took away the thoughts of the lack-luster weather that was outside. I’m telling you people, we have a BALLIN group. The simplest and silliest activities give us SUCH joy. But don’t get me wrong, we do a LOT of fun stuff too, as you will read about very shortly.

Before we knew it, it was time for lunch, so we lazily picked up our sleepy, cuddly bodies and headed down to the lobby to meet the rest of the group. We had a group lunch planned for us by the great Diego and Manuel at “Linda, The Beach Bar.” (Yes, yes, we all greatly enjoyed the name of this restaurant for some reason.) And oh man, dearest Linda did not fail to provide. We got FRESH salad (which I can count on one hand the number of times that we’ve had that over here), mouthwatering barbeque ribs, French fries, and, to top it all off, ICE CREAM. All for how much, you ask? Oh you know, the low cost of FREE. Unbelievable! Well okay fine, not free since it was included in the cost of the trip but still, I didn’t have to fork out any moolah at the moment! One of the best amenities of our free meal was the incredibly wonderful sparklers that came stuck in our ice cream. Blue, yellow, red, green, silver – you name it, we probably had a sparkler that color. So, what do you do with such beautiful decorations? If you’re me, you for some reason stick them all in your hair and let other people do the same. I looked like a living Christmas tree. But hey, I love Christmas, so it wasn’t a problem in the least. So all in all, one stinking awesome success of a lunch.

After our delicacy at lunch, my sparkly headed self headed out with about 10 other people to explore some of the beaches in Lagos. We were told that they were ‘right around the road’, but after we had been walking uphill for about 40 minutes, we slightly doubted that. Yet when we finally rounded the corner and saw the majestic abyss of the Portuguese ocean awaiting us, the memory of the everlasting hike quickly fleeted our minds. People – it was INSANE. Picture this: the clearest ocean water imaginable, with blue and green tints mixing together, crashing into reddish-orange massive boulders sticking out from the ocean, and we were up above, watching it all happen from our trail on top of one of the cliffs that ran the length of the beach. We hiked for probably about 40 minutes, trekking through the mountainy thing we were on until we found a beach that looked just right for us to spend the day at. We headed down the precarious stairs that led to the shore, and from then on, it was pure magic. The giant rocks rose up around us on all sides, the soft sand blended perfectly into the clear ocean waters – basically, Jesus decided to really bless Portugal. We explored several of the caves in the immediate area, but then, we spied another beach that was around one of the rocks. Very carefully and against the warnings of the locals, we crept around the rock and arrived at the adjacent beach, which was completely secluded and PERFECT. As we explored it, we came across a precious hidden treasure – a rope hung down the side of one of the rocks on the side, almost enticing us to us it to climb up and check out what was on the top. After brave Whitney led the way (literally, the chick has no fear. She just hopped right on up, grabbed the rope, and then headed up for the tippy top like she was simply just walking down the road. Seriously???), I forced myself to swallow my fears and just try it, especially once several of the other girls showed up to give me a boost – both emotionally and physically. After a ton of screaming and dramatic gasps, I finally made it up to the top, and holy cow – breathtaking. Over the edge of the rock was a lower cave type thing that had an opening that led to the ocean. And of course, Whitney had already scurried on down, smiling like a beauty queen waiting for me to do the same. Let’s just go ahead and put it out there that, as most of you know, I am NOT as talented as The Whitney Keith. I tried to come down to her, but I couldn’t make myself repel backwards like she had, so I attempted to scurry down it frontwards. This did NOT work. I was shaking uncontrollably, very similar to a crunchy autumn leaf in the wind barely hanging on to the withering tree. You are welcome for that description. So halfway down the rock, I had to give up and climbed my way back up to the top and then used to rope to go back down to our original secluded beach. However, after seeing the paradise that awaited down in the cave below where Whitney was, I couldn’t not make my way over there somehow. After my dearest Jack also tried and failed to lower himself down to the cave, he and I were desperate for a Plan B. Which was probably not the most intelligent thing, but hey, desperate times call for desperate measures, and getting to that cave was DEFINITELY one of those times. So, back to our plan. We decided that instead of taking the five-minute climb over the rock, we should take the ten-plus minute swim AROUND the rock in the freezing Portuguese waters. We got our bodies used to the water (well, as much as possible), and then took off swimming. People – this was no joke. The water was INSANELY COLD, with big waves, and a hefty boulder protruding menacingly from the ocean to our right. And it was AWESOME. Awesome awesome awesome. So stinkin cool! However, that cool-ness quickly turned into absolutely freezing when we stood up to walk in the shore. The sensation that you always read about in books when people are freezing to death or have hypothermia or some other terrible fate due to coldness was EXACTLY was happened to Jack and I. It legitimately felt like a billion little knives were stabbing into us all over our bodies. I cannot say that this was a comfortable feeling. However, as we looked around and saw the absolute majesty of what was around us in that cave and all of the surrounding grottos, every bit of fatigue and pain was worth it and quickly forgotten. We found hidden grottos (including one that looked like the one that Harry Potter and Dumbledore have to go into in the 6th book, where Dumbledore has to drink the potion) and beauty galore that only God Himself could be talented enough to create. It was truly astounding and really gave us all such a great perspective on life and Who is in charge and why.

After our day in the caves, we headed back to the resort to get ready for dinner, where we celebrated WHITNEY’S AND ROBERTO’S BIRTHDAYYYYS!! WHoo hoooo! Whitney’s finally not a teenager anymore!!!! The group of us went to this precious little pizzeria that was super quaint and delicious in the ‘downtown’-ish area of Lagos, if you can even call it that. On our way home from the restaurant, we ran into Diego, Manuel, and our slightly sketchy Eurotrash-lovin’ bus driver, and from this conversation came our darling Zach Wright’s quote: Don’t Tell Me How to Vivir!!!! When we got back to the Marina, we had other people distract Whitney and Roberto while I decorated our room and other people got their little surprise cakes ready for them to walk into a room and us surprise them. And just so you know, those little chocolate cakes that we got them were the JAMMM. Best darn things ever. So we sang, we took photos, and just chilled out and laughed all night long until we tucked in for bed to get ready for the next day. Basically, our group rocks, and that’s all I have to say about that.

Sunday we got up bright and early once again to take an ocean bout tour of the grottos, those beautiful cave-like-things that we had discovered during our mighty adventure the day before. We paid our money and then entertained ourselves for about 40 minutes while they prepared their bigger boats for our group of about 20 people. We split up into two groups, and my wonderful group got put on the pimp boat, complete with rotating seats, ladders to get in the water, AND even a baño on the boat. Just saying, it was pretty fly. Not to mention our ballin’ boat driver/tour guide extraordinaire, Luige. He was wonderful and funny to boot. In fact, when he drove us by the nudist beach, the only thing he said was “Be careful with the zoom, ladies”. He did a good job of channeling Demetri Martin if anybody knows who that is. So basically, all morning we just gawked at God’s creation (including God’s creation of the human body with all of the naked old men on the nudist beach) and took pictures that more or less looked like something from another planet it was so beautiful. It was AWESOME. And, best of all, Luige stopped the boat and let us go SWIMMING in the PORTUGUESE OCEAN. So. Stinking. Cool. Also, so stinking freezing, but it was a lot warmer than it had been the day before. We all jumped off the sides of the boat into the icy clear water and splashed around like we were living the dream. Luige was legit, Lagos is legit, and God is FO REAL legit.

By the time we got back to the marina, docked the boat, and said goodbye to our new friend Luige, it was time to chow down for our last Portuguese meal. Fran, Sarah Glasgow, Hillary, and Lindsay Moore all came with me to explore the Marina area and find some awesome food. We found this restaurant that was PRECIOUS and had Piña Coladas, so we hit it up for our mid day grub. We made friends with our waiter, who LOVED US. In fact, he loved us so much that he gave us a discount on our meal AND a stinking free dessert. He clearly knew that the fastest way to a woman’s heart is with postres, and he didn’t play no games with our whopping chocolate cake thingy that he presented to us. In fact, he won us over SO MUCH, that between the five of us we left him a 9 Euro tip. He definitely knew what he was doing with that dessert and discount. After we said goodbye to that little man, we headed back to the resort to spend our last Portuguese hours (I really like making things sound cooler by putting ‘Portuguese’ in front of them: Portuguese cats, Portuguese cheese, you name it. Anything’s cooler when it comes from Portugal) by the insanely beautiful pool at our resort. We caught some rays for a quick minute, and then desafortunadamente, we had to leave out, but it wasn’t too sad cause we were going back to the best city in the world – SEVILLLLLLLLA.

K. I know I’m so far behind on this blogging. I’m even on my way home to America right now, but I am going to be diligent and finish up this blog so I can remember EVERY DETAIL OF THIS TRIP!!! Cause it rocked my world. K. Hasta pronto with a not so current update.

Events of the Past Week

To the tune of the Life Alert commercial announcement -

ALL. AMERICAN. CITIZENS. SHOULD. LIVE. ABROAD.

No joke, this trip is the best thing ever. It just keeps getting better and better!!! I feel as if soon my face will simply fall off of my body from all of the amazing things that I have seen and experienced in just this past month. Wow, a month. When did that happen???

So, even though I just got back from Lagos and all I want to talk about is that trip, I will do as promised and back track from last Saturday until now, one week and a day later.

So, last Saturday after our night out on the town, the majority of our group headed out with our fearless leader, Diego, to the small city of Carmona about an hour northeast of Sevilla. All day long, we toured the incredibly old city (parts of which were built by the Arabs thousands upon thousands of years ago) and took about a billion photos, just like we normally do. Seriously, I think our group should look into pursuing professional photography. We sho nuff know how to use a camera. We had lunch overlooking the beautiful rolling countryside, and afterwards had yet another photo shoot before we headed to cool off with some much needed ice cream and slushies. And I had a BALLIN Piña Colada slushie fo reeeeal cheap, so I was a happy woman.

As we were getting ready to head out to catch the bus back to Sevilla, several very interesting things occurred. First, as I went to take a sketchy creeper picture of this dog laying in the doorway of this restaurant, this random Spanish man jumped out and forced me to take a mini photo shoot of him in the doorway with the dog. Random. Yet even more random was after I played photographer, a group of about 12 of us college students stood around a rock and watched an army of aunts carry a dead worm up the rock and into a hole for a precious, precious snacky poo. It sho don’t take much to entertain us. Give us a dead worm and an army of ants and we’re happy for hours. Oh, and to top it all off, the little Spanish not-so-model man came outside and made fun of our infatuation too. Everyone just loves Americans.

While Carmona was beautiful, it didn’t hold a candle, heck, not even a match, to our journey on Sunday. Bright and early Sunday morning, a group of 13 of us met at the bus station and headed out to Jerez, about 2 hours south of Sevilla, to visit the Tio Pepe Bodega – aka, vineyard. Tio Pepe is a very, very famous wine in Spain, whose advertisements I’m quite obsessed with, so I was VERY VERY excited to head to a place that was full of them. And then, of course, I took a photo with every one of their mascots in the bodega, just because I could. My sweet friends, always so willing to help me out and take photos of my random likings.

We weaved our way throughout the streets of Jerez and found our way to the winery and waited with people of about 32 other countries for our tour to start. And people, you’d be proud to know, that we stuck true to our academia and got our tour done in Spanish rather than English when they were both an option. We are dedicated individuals, that’s fo shizzle. We started our tour on foot and looked at all of the rooms where they store the MASSIVE barrels of wine for many, many years before they dish it out to us guzzling people. In these rooms, I felt straight up like Lindsay Lohan in the modern version of The Parent Trap when they are in the dad’s vineyard in California (don’t judge me for this description, I just want all of y’all to grasp the legit-ness of this place!). After a tour of this part of the bodega, we hopped on board the most precious little train/trolley thing and rode throughout the rest of it, stopping to look at the area of the winery where they make the brandy and to watch a mini movie over the history of Tio Pepe. One of the places we stopped was another room full of – you guessed it – barrels, but this one had been signed by all of the important people that had visited in the vineyard, ranging in guests from Chelsea Clinton to Manolete, a famous Spanish bullfighter. Yet best of all were the barrels there signed by 1) Steven Spielberg 2) Winston Churchill and 3) STINKING PICASSO!!! I even got my picture made by that talented little man’s handiwork. So legit. After our tour was over, we got to try two of good ol’ Tio Pepe’s wines, one of which was a dry one and one of which was a sweet one. From this experience, I can tell you what I learned – wine is not my favorite beverage of choice. Phew! It was so strong I think I could have had a gushing wound and it would have cleaned it up so nicely the skin would have healed instantaneously. It was some STROOONG junk.

Another bonus about the winery was the fact that, for once, not everyone was staring at the little Americans as we did all of our various activities. Why is this, you ask? Because this random group of older adults was walking around, dressed in outfits like the one the Tio Pepe mascot wears in all of those advertisements I love so much. Now, when I say a group of older people, I sincerely mean a GROUP. A big ol’ honkin group. Easily over 50 people. All wearing about the same outfit – black pants, white shirt, and a black vest with a red hat. Yeah, it was something else. And they thought they were too. At the wine tasting at the end of our tour, those folks put DOWN some of that wine. They are avid Tio Pepe supporters. Once they had gotten even more ‘loosened’ up, we asked where they were from, expecting some far away city that they admired Tio Pepe from and were just really excited for this trip that they had waited for forever to take. So, when we received our answer, we were quite shocked to find out that they were from JEREZ. For those of you not keeping track, that’s the poopin city we were in! Ridonkulous. How hilarious. A group of older people just chilling at home one day decided to put on ridiculous outfits, walk down the road, and cause a scene at the local winery. Hahaha. How awesome. I admire them greatly.

After our visit to the winery had sadly come to an end, the group headed to get some lunch at a restaurant where we found this ballin deal for bread, a beverage, two courses, and dessert for 10 euro. Folks, that can’t be beat in this country. We enjoyed some Coca Lites, paella, tortilla, and natilla for about 3 hours – meals take quite a while here – and just enjoyed spending time with one another. And the best part of spending time together is that with our group, being together always leads to hysterical laughter. We just rock like that.

Monday snapped us back to reality with class, but at least we got an exciting treat that afternoon with another salsa lesson with our favorite little rolly polly of a body Spanish man. After sweating profusely once again, we headed to Café de Indias, one of our favorite spots in the city to get great food and drinks, WiFi (they see Weee Feee over here, it’s so precious), and best of all, AIR CONDITIONING. We studied for our exams the next day (well, they studied, I uploaded pictures of Carmona and Jerez to Facebook – what else is new, me on Facebook). Since I didn’t exactly use my time wisely in the afternoon, the rest of the night I spent seriously brushing up on all of my Spanish history and pop culture for my weekly tests the next day – how fun.

Tuesday after class, a group of us went to the floating bar, a bar that, you guessed it, floats on the river. It was SO PRETTY. We just sat around, talked, and enjoyed the cool breeze (which is so stinking rare here). After our precious little afternoon out and about, a group of us girls went to get ice cream – a tradition over here these days – and then went into a few little shops in downtown to waste time before dinner. It was a wonderful, chill evening that just made me appreciate my city and my friends so much more! After dinner, Whit and I headed out to meet up with the group and we went out and about throughout the city for quite a few hours. I can’t believe we stayed up as late as we did, but we promised ourselves we would do it at least once. Folks over here don’t sleep, so we thought we’d give it a shot too. It all worked out and was well worth it, because in the end, it turned out to be one of the most fun nights of the whole trip. And that’s saying a LOT. The best part of it was, as Whitney and I were walking home delirious with exhaustion, she sees something blowing in the wind down the road. She takes off after it, catches it, and then squeals – it was a 10 euro bill! We couldn’t believe it! What luck she had! The sweet thing offered to split it with me too. So then, we are continuing to walk down the road, and next thing you know, now I see some moolah flying down the road in the wind. After trying to stomp on it several times unsuccessfully due to my lack of coordination, I finally caught a hold of it, assured it would be another 10 euro. Nope. What do you think it was? …… Ok. Ready for the answer? Hold your chair. IT WAS FIFTY FREAKING EUROS!!! How does that happen? Oh wait, I know, JESUS!!! And His absolute everlasting provision. So, between the two of us, we each got 30 euros just walking home on our night out. Halleluuuuuujer!!! Thank you, Sweet Lord!

Wednesday, yet again, was another great yet chill day. All afternoon Whitney and I worked on our essays until dinner and then after we headed out to meet the group at Cervecería 100 Montaditos, a chain tapas bar type-thing that has a special deal on Wednesday nights where everything they have is only 1 euro. We all know I’m not going to miss out on a bargain! I got a dessert montadito (which means little sandwich) with a chocolate bar melted inside of it and almonds sprinkled on top. Kinda like the Spanish version of a Hershey bar with almonds stuck inside a biscuit, more or less. After we scoured up our comida and received a shout out to the “Americanas” over the intercom in the bar, we headed to another place that our BALLIN professor recommended to us in class. We went to another local bar to try their fruit wines, the flavors of which were strawberry or orange. Both flavors were pretty good, but if you thought about either of them too much, they ended up tasting like cough syrup. But it was still nice, fun, and cultured, made us feel like swanky, swanky Europeans, and made our professor proud. If only it were that simple back in America to make a professor proud.

Thursday afternoon we had our dreaded Sevillana classes, the type of flamenco that is specific to Sevilla. These classes very well could be a lot of fun if our little instructor lady had a bit more of her wits about her, but each lesson is always an adventure. She will teach us a move to one set of counts and then count it differently each time we dance it with the music. Always provides for quite the bit of comic relief. This past lesson, I had the honor of being our teacher’s partner. Want to talk about some pressure? I was feeling the heat. And so was she. Heat from anger. Cause I just am not the natural at Sevillana. Maybe one day, maybe one day. After our joyous class, we went on an excursion with Diego to see this photography show about life in Nicaragua. It was breathtaking. That artist, whoever he was/is, is really gifted. Such beautiful yet sad photos about the way that life has been over there in the past 16 years. We took our time appreciating each photo before we left and then started meandering through the center. During our journey, we came across another art exhibition, but this time it was for jewelry. We perused through the place in a few minutes, and then were back on the street headed to get, you guessed it, ice cream. However, as we were walking in the middle of the road, Diego suddenly stops and just stares off into space. We are all thinking, oh man, he’s finally lost it. Ha. Chistes, D, if you are reading this. But finally he speaks, and he asks us if we want to go see the store where Manuel’s sister works (Manuel is the TA on the trip if you’ve forgotten). I’m pretty sure you are hearing the word ‘store’ and chalking it up as some little chick boutique or something, but no no. It was WAY more intense than that! The store was named Pedro Algaba, named after the precious yet slightly strange man that is the artist and owner. What is he the artist of, you wonder? No big deal. NBD at all. No, he’s simply just the only custom maker of torero – bull fighter – outfits in all of the world that has a shop that is open to the public. People, it was LEGIT. Manuel’s sister is probably one of the coolest and prettiest people ever, and she works in such a BALLIN shop. She’s even so sweet that she let us take pictures with the torero outfits that you aren’t even supposed to touch. She also gave us a first hand look at all of the weapons and capes that the toreros use to fight and kill the bulls during the bull fights. Neatest of all, as we were in the store being shell-shocked Americans, in walk two toreros. They stood in the store for about 20 minutes and picked out the best red capote for each of them to tease the poor precious bulls with. It was so awesome. We stood in the store for over forty minutes, simply enraptured by what Manuel’s sister and good ol Pedro had to tell us about the world of bull-fighting, and both of them have a wealth of knowledge for sure. Such a blessing!

After our little lesson in the world of animal killing (slight chiste), we continued on our journey to get ice cream and then killed time before we met up with some of our group to get tapas at a really well-known restaurant in the center of the city. As we were walking around the heart of Sevilla, very far away from our humble abode with our madre Lina, we look over and spy with our little eyes a MASSIVE and incredibly dark black cloud looming over the sky. A beast that comes in rare form over here in España during the summer. So, caught without an umbrella or anything, Whitney and I dashed from store to store hoping for the rain to pass before we met up with the group, which, thanks be to God, it eventually did and we were able to find our sweet people, each some great tapas of almond-glazed chicken and stuffed eggplant, and then head home for a night to prepare for our impending journey to Lagos!!

People, just wait til you hear about Lagos. It will blow your mind. I would like to go back… umm… RIGHT now. But alas, that will have to wait until at least tomorrow, because I am delirious with sleep exhaustion and I’m not really sure what I’m writing anymore at this point. But slowly and surely I am catching up to current dates of adventures in this little humble blog! Who’s proud!?!?

LAGOS TO COME SOON. Over and out my loves. Sweet dreams, peaches and cream, you’re my queen, sunshine beams.

I'm baaaaaaaaaack!

Oh well hello there all my precious ones.

Yayyyyyyyy for Spain. Yay, yay, yay, yay, YAY for Spain. That’s about as perfect of an introduction as I can have for this precious country. Especially for the precious people that are here on this trip with me and the precious little things that we do all of the time. Gosh, God sure did bless the world when He gave us the people that are on this trip and the beautiful country of Spain! So basically, if you can’t tell, I really stinkin love it here.

This past week has flown by faster than Ricky Bobby in his Wonder Bread Race Car. At the same time though, it feels as if it has been light years since we were in Barcelona, and that was only last weekend. Time is a whole different concept to grasp over here in Spain.

The last time I wrote to you, all of my amazing followers who for some reason love me enough to read my random thoughts and happenings over here across the ocean, I was headed out to go to a bull fight. Well, people, now I can officially say that I have been to an authentic Spanish bull fight. When I will return is the question of the day, however. It was quite the experience to say the least. Just being in the arena was exciting enough, with all of the beautiful yellow and red stucco-y stuff making me feel like a straight up Spaniard. After another one of our many photo shoots, the ceremonies began. First came out a parade of horses, on which were riding the ‘referees’ of the fight I guess you could say, as these were the ones that stabbed the bulls in the back to get them weak so that the humans could win. If you ask me, it’s a bit ridiculous to call it a bull ‘fight’, when it’s obvious who is going to win. If you stabbed anybody in the back mercilessly several times, you’d more than surely take them down. And take them down haaard too. Kinda like the fate these poor bulls experience in a bull fight. After the mean pokey people riding their horses left, out came all of the toreros, or bull fighters. Yet best of all was the torera that was there – yeah, that’s right, a chick bull fighter! And get this – the girl is only 19 years old! Insane in the membrane. No way I could ever handle that. When I was nineteen (granted that was only a year ago and conditions today are no different), I didn’t even know how to cook a meal, much less slaughter a bull in front of thousands of people. So anywho, the chick and the other hombres came out and presented themselves, and then the bloodbath began. There were three toreros for the six bulls, so basically, each torero got 2 bulls each and fought the first one in the first half and the second one, yep you guessed it, in the second half. The first bull was a SHOCK. In some aspects what happened was just like I had guessed it would be, and in others, it was contrary to everything I had pictured. It was crazy to me how much they manipulated and toyed with the bull, and like I said before, you’d have to have some pretty terrible luck to not win the bull fight. First, they drug the bull before they even come out to the arena, then stab them from the horse, then stab them with six banderillas, and finally , after all of this, the torero comes in and finishes the bull off. And he/she stabs them with a big sword and then watches the bull collapse to the ground, go rigid, and then a team of cleaning people would come out, hitch the bull to their carriage, and then drag it out and clean up the sand. Then, the next torero would come out and do it all over again. As sad as this is to say, by the sixth bull, you are quite desensitized to the whole process. The sweat, the blood, and the loss of life just becomes routine and you almost find yourself encouraging it to progress even faster so that you can go home and eat dinner. Which often times might be bull meat. Yummmm. Appetizing. So appetizing, in fact, that over half of our group left when the fight was only halfway over. It was definitely eye-opening, and at least we all agreed on that much!

Monday was a lot calmer than our chaotic weekend. After class, several of us headed to an air-conditioned coffee shop (what a treat over here, especially considering our houses don’t even have air conditioning!!!) where we talked, enjoyed each other’s company, and studied for our exams the next day. Yet an excursion to a coffee shop is not anything exotic for me, as most of you know. So, to throw a curveball into my normal pattern of life, I went and played, for the first time in my whole 20 years of life… FUTBOL (this is soccer for you not-so-European-minded individuals)!!!! I donned my new neon pink Lionel Messi jersey and headed out with most of our group to the Spanish Intramural fields to whoop some athletic tail. However, as most of you can guess, I kicked my own tail seeing as how I am not athletic with anything involving a ball at ALL. I got picked last and had no clue what I was doing, got pulled out after 10 minutes to be substituted, but man oh man, did I have a blast!!! It was so much fun. I wasn’t the only one that struggled either, although I was mighty terrible. Perhaps the two worst highlights from the game where when Whitney kicked herself in the head with the ball and when I missed the ball during the last play of the game FIVE TIMES. Yeah, us roommates are the best at sports, but hey, at least we have a TON of fun! Our directors Diego and Manuel, both of them Spaniards, got so intense into the game and were really legit, so I just left them alone and let them do their thing while I transformed by old football cheers into futbol cheers on the sidelines. Who says I’m good for nothing at sporting events???

Tuesday was another chill day for us Americanos. After siesta (God bless siestas), we all headed back to the institute where we have class to take sevillano lessons. Sevillano is the type of flamenco unique to the area of Sevilla. They were fun, but they were harddddd. And our little instructor lady probably didn’t make it as fun as it could have been. So yeah, even though now we have a little bit of basic knowledge on Sevillano, I don’t think any of us are looking to further than knowledge in our next class this upcoming week. To treat ourselves right after such an intense class that we forced ourselves to power through, a group of us headed to get ice cream and slushies to refresh not only our bodies but our souls too. My soul was particularly refreshed with my cheap yet legit kiwi slushie – hallelujah for cheap cold things. We all made plans to meet back up later that night, and when we did we just simply went and sat in a plaza beside La Catedral and La Giralda, gazed up at the beautiful buildings and night sky, and got to know each other with great conversation and big hugs. Man, I love it here.

Wednesday was another great day. After lunch, Whitney and I headed out to a park where we sipped pineapple juice and read all afternoon. It was a much needed respite to our incredibly busy schedule over here. We read on these precious benches in a park, and like my typical narcoleptic self, I was soon passed out asleep on the bench with my book on top of me. The best part of the story is how I wake up. The sound that awakens me from my slumber in the great outdoors isn’t the singing of a bird or the rushing of the water in the fountain – no, my noise was the grunts of a homeless man asking if he could have some of my pineapple juice. I was so out of it from just having woken up, I simply said, “Si, zumo (Yes, juice), grabbed my things, and bolted. Oops. Oi vay. That bench I was sleeping on was probably his home. What a terrible person I am. After I left the man and his house alone but with my juice in tow, Whitney and I headed to meet the group and go to the Museo de las Bellas Artes with Diego. It was nice with some mildly interesting things, but the two best things about it were that it was a free activity to see all of the group and that it was air conditioned. Even still, most of us only went to the museum so that we could go to the famous churro stand with Diego afterwards for chocolate con churros. Churros are basically fried sticks of flour similar to a funnel cake but not as good in my opinion. There is no sugar or cinnamon or any other kind of flavoring on the churros, so to make up for their ‘lack’ of calories, the Spanish dump them into cups of warm chocolate syrup. I’m quite the chocolate connoisseur and don’t turn down any kind of sweets, but even I have to say that I don’t think I ‘ll be getting churros again any time soon. I’d rather stick to my ice cream or my kiwi slushie from the other day – cuz it be mo cheapah and mo bettah.

Now Thursday, oh my, Thursday was a GREAT day as well. That morning, Whitney and I got up super early (which was super unfortunate but super worth it in the long run) to meet up with some of the other people in our group and go see Corpus Christi, a religious ceremony that is very famous in España but especially Sevilla. The celebration is a big deal that all of the town shuts down for to celebrate the life of Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church. We got there early, took some photos in front of the model of Jesus that they parade up and down through the streets and then made a pit stop at the best place in the world for my favorite drink. Yes people, we stopped at Starbucks, and I am darn proud of it. I sipped my fancy café as we watched the processional march on. Corpus Christi is basically centered around a parade in which all of the churches of Sevilla participate in and carry their flag to represent them. Spontaneously dispersed throughout it are relics of saints that the people truly equal them in worth and respect. The end of the parade is culminated with the relic of Jesus, but we didn’t get to see him being carried down the road in action because we had to leave early to get to class in time. If you miss a class over here, you are automatically suspended from the program. How much would that suck??? But yeah, Corpus Christi was pretty legit, and we got awesome pics standing in front of a very Middle Eastern Jesus, which made me proud, because being the son of Joseph and Mary would not have made Him Caucasian. Just saying. Rep the real history, Sevilla. Bien hecho.

In the afternoon, we had probably the best activity we’ve had all trip, at least as far as planned ones go. Despite the ridiculous hour of 5 PM in the middle of the hottest hours of the day, we had… SALSA LESSONS at the school! Holy cow people, they were the jam. And I mean fresh jam, without preservatives kind of jam. We tore that junk up! We had a ball and swapped partners constantly so it kept the flow going along right nicely. Our instructor was this tiny little Spanish man that was so teensy and precious, and man, could he move his body! I’ve never seen anybody move the way he could move, and he’s a short male!!! Incredible. And not only is he talented himself, you know he is talented in patience if he can stand to teach uncoordinated Americans how to salsa. After we salsa-ed, we all pretty much thought we were the bomb dot coms so we headed out to get a little snacky snack to reward ourselves for all of our sweat and hard work, to both of which there was a LOT. After our great success at a hot new Spanish dance, we figured hey, why not branch out from our normal snack of ice cream or postres and try something local? So we did. And we tried one of the most local things you can imagine. Caracoles – aka, snails. So, we went in a bar that had them and ordered them, not quite sure what to expect. When they came out, they came hot and fresh, with out 50 snails boiled in their shells in a small bowl with a toothpick to dig them out to eat them. Needless to say, I was a bit apprehensive at first, especially when I saw the HEAD and the ANTENNAE of the darn things still attached. But after a few pre-game photos and a deep breath, I took the bait and chomped down on the little slimy things. And you know what? They weren’t too shabby. With the aid of my dear friend Francesca that I can just about to convince to eat anything, we quickly put down all of our snails before any of the other people finished their food. And, just when you thought that snails were the grossest thing we could have ordered, I tell you this. A guy, Collin, ordered some tapa that was the special of the day even though he had no idea what it was. As a result, once we consumed the funky textured and funky looking delicacy, he went home to check and sure enough, he had eaten a big, warm bowl-ful of cow stomach and intestine. Yummmmmm.

And then, to top off the whole week of wonderfulness, came Friday. Sweet, precious Friday. After a late-night hang out session that our group had had the night before in a random playground in Sevilla, an EPIC siesta was much needed that afternoon before we met up with the group to do a walking tour of the Barrio de Macarena, in the northern border of the city. Let me just say, when they say ‘northern border’, they ain’t playin. It’s across the stinkin world. So we walked and we walked and we walked some more (but what else is new) until we got to where the city formerly ended and saw the Puerta de Macarena and the old wall that contained the city. Then we went inside the museum and saw all of the coronation things for the queen and the random relics and float type things that they use during Corpus Christi and Semana Santa. And boy, they must have to find some men that are HOSSES to carry those things around, cause they are some HUGE chunks of gold! After we took pictures pretending to be queens, we went to yet again do what we do best – get desserts. After some delicious postres, we went to have the most American meal we have had in a month – TEX MEX! By the grace of God, sweet Caroline (bum bum bum) had spotted in small blue neon letters this Tex Mex restaurant near the Cathedral in the center of the city, and it was LEGIT. I got a sketchy Spanish hamburger – pretty stinking awesome. And we had some GREAT juice concoction for only 1 euro. Yes please. Bargain shopper in all areas of my life.

Okay, so here comes the good information. After dinner, we all headed down to hang out around the river before we went with one of the guys to this one certain bar that he really wanted to go to. What kind of bar? One guess… THAT’S RIGHT! It was a poopin GAY BAR! People, I highly recommend them, at least if you are a straight girl. Cause you can dance and dance and dance some more, and it SHO don’t matter, cause don’t nobody in that room want you! And people over here LOVE American music, so we sang our lungs out to the songs we love and miss oh so dearly. We even got the pleasure of watching a drag show, which was quite the thrill. Two people in our group, Jack and Yatri, got called up TO THE STAGE, and she/him/it/shim - whatever you call the performer at one of those things – gave them a HARD TIME. Please enjoy those videos later on when I post them. You will die. But, it was all worth it when the Drag Queen gave us her awesome rendition of “Halo” by Beyonce. Oh yes. I lost it. It was wonderful. It’s recorded as well. You will be able to hear my delicious singing voice in the background.

Another highlight of the night at the gay bar was the approximately 70-year-old homosexual grandpa that was there. At first, he was dancing around, being his cute little old man self, so we thought, hey, what’s the harm? He only likes boys and we’re a quarter of his age. So, we begin to dance with him, and at first it’s precious. But then he gets a little touchy. And then he grabs my butt. So then I politely SPRINT away and hide on stage behind the boys. Well, maybe that was a bad idea, because then his attention got turned to the boys. And so he grabbed them. Tried his absolute hardest to get them to come to the floor and dance with him. But the poor straight guys of our group were a little weirded out to say the least. Especially Collin, because soon after he denied the poor old man, grandpa got feisty and decided to not take no for an answer and grabbed the poor fella by his neck. Collin got the scare of his life last Friday to say the least. And his joys weren’t over, because from the stage the drag queen called him out about his ‘beauty’. Gotta love gay bars. I know I sure do now.

So yes, more or less, I am a week behind on blogging. Pathetic? Yes yes. I know. But somehow I will catch up soon. So much happens that it’s impossible to document all of these funny moments. They just rock too darn much. My fingers might fall off if I did this more. But I will fill you all in shortly. Because last weekend and this week ROCKED, and this weekend will rock even more, because… WE’RE GOING TO LAGOS, PORTUGAL!!! WHooooo HOOOOOoooo!!!

Last Weekend Blew My Face Off. And That's a Good Thing.

Holy guacamole, Batman. It’s only been a couple of days since I wrote the last time, and already SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED. Which is SUCH a blessing, but also is SUCH curse, because that means this thing will be forever long again. And all of your eyes will hate me for reading such an intense novel. But I promise, life in Spain is just TOO DARN GOOD to not document every detail of it.

Last Thursday was like a Friday to us because we didn’t have class on Friday – hooooorayyyyy. So Thursday night, a group of 11 of us packed our bags for the weekend and headed to the airport to fly to … BARCELONA. From the moment that Whitney and I stepped out of our house, it was an adventure. After first finding our way to the train station, finding the correct bus stop there to get to the airport, and then actually catching the bus to the airport, we felt as if we were on a roll and doing GREAT with our punctuality, because typically, we fail at being on time. However, not only were we punctual at the airport, we were REALLY punctual. Our madre told us it would take an hour to get to the airport, and it really only took like 15 minutes. Therefore, the group of us was FOUR HOURS EARLY for our 10:45 flight to Barcelona. Now, maybe in the Atlanta airport you could entertain yourself for that long, but we’re talking the Sevila airport here. There ain’t much going on there. And, unlike the great ATL, you can’t check in for a flight ahead of time. Instead, you wait until the name of your flight pops up on the screen. So, we sat in the lobby for a few hours and waited for our precious flight. Lo and behold, eventually the name of it does come up, so we go and stand in line for them to collect our passes. We wait and we wait and we wait some more, only to realize once one of us makes it up to the counter, that we’re in the wrong line. And the other line has been open the whole time. With no people in it. Oh, let the games of the Barcelona weekend begin.

So eventually after going through the proper line, the group of us headed through security, which we were able to get through various liquids that faaaaaaar outweighed the 3 oz. rule, one of which included Whitney’s pepper spray. So if by any chance you are ever in the Sevilla airport and don’t feel safe, it’s probably because you’re not. Just a little heads up for ya. Once we snuck our contraband in, we head to our gate for our flight to Gerona. Why Gerona, you ask? Yes, you are correct. We were in fact traveling to Barcelona, but the airline we took (Ryanair) is quite ghetto and doesn’t have an airport in Barcelona that it can fly into. Therefore, we had to take the 2 hour plane ride to Gerona and then from there catch the bus that drives the one hour from Gerona to Barcelona.

So, when we approach our ghetto gate, we read that our flight has been delayed. No big deal, right? Wrong. As we sat there, just chilling and hanging out waiting on the flight, one of the girls in our group, Paige, runs into her hermano, the son of her madre for the summer. He, being the rebellious Ryanair employee that he is, pulls Paige over to the side and whispers sweet-nothings in her ear. What are they of, you ask? Oh you know, he just tells her that the French have gone on STRIKE and that the delay is going to be pretty stinking intense. So intense, in fact, that at 10:45, the time that our flight was supposed to take off from Sevilla, it still hadn’t even left the city it was in before!!! With all of the extra time on our hands, we used our optimistic natures to make the best of the situation. And by best, I mean we all put our nerdy caps on and classified EVERY member of our study abroad group and our directors into the different Harry Potter Houses at Hogwarts. Be proud – yours truly made it into the best house of them all – Gryffindor!! We took this activity so seriously that we all voted on the different character traits of each person to get a majority rules decision on which house they best exemplified. We’re hardcore, our study abroad group. God bless America.

Eventually, at 1 AM, after being in the airport for over 6 hours, our plane arrived and took off for Gerona – hallelujah. When we arrived in Gerona, we made a mad dash to the bus, rode the hour and a half to Barcelona, and then got a sketchy, sketchy cab ride to the middle of nowhere before we asked a precious little Spanish popo how the heck to get to our hotel, which was no where close to where the home-skillet cab driver dropped us off. Imagine. As we walked through a few less than comforting looking streets, we couldn’t help but laugh hysterically. This was the epitome of a European vacation. Carefully thought out but completely against everything we had planned on. We arrived at our sketchy looking hostel (which looked EXACTLY like the one in Just Married – rest in peace, Brittany Murphy) and tucked in for the night. Or should I say morning. Seeing as how it was, oh you know, 5:45 IN THE MORNING before we finally rolled over in our beds and turned out the light. Yah. Que triste.

A mere four hours later, we woke up to begin our day of intense sightseeing around the city. Conveniently for breakfast, there was a little café that had coffee and other breakfast foods. We bolted inside, and to our immense joy, what did we behold on the menu? STINKING WAFFLES AND PANCAKES. Spain is great, but they SHO ain’t got enough waffles. When there is a lack of all things waffle, including Waffle House, I have a problem. But luckily Bready, the best café ever, solved that problem with their delicious banana-nut-honey-ice cream waffle with clumps of sugar dispersed throughout. Yeah, be jealous. It was pretty much the jam. So after my heavenly food and cup of needed joe, we headed out to explore of all of Gaudi’s architecture throughout the city. Call me ignorant, but prior to this trip, I had had no poopin clue who that man was. But man, was he talented! His buildings literally look like something out of a fairy tale. Our first stop to admire was El Parque Guell, an amazing and immense park designed by him over a century ago. It was beautiful, and of course, with any beautiful place, we took lots of pictures, which will be sure to be uploaded soon. Best of all the park, we encountered a tucked away little gem that we would have NEVER expected to find. Drum roll please… down these stone steps, we found, to our shock and awe, THE LOCATION FOR THE FINAL RUNWAY SHOW FOR AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL: SEASON 7. Please just imagine our elation. We went nuts, absolutely nuts. And, as absolutely appropriate, we had ourselves our own little fashion show and photo shoot Tyra style. Those pictures are AWESOME. Fierce like Tyra baby. After our glamour shots at Parque Guell (and the HOURS we spent exploring it), we headed to La Segrada Familia (which they are STILL building and have been since the 1800s) and afterwards walked back by all of his hotels and gawked at Gaudi’s ingenuity some more. It truly is insane the things that Gaudi thought to create. From looking like sand castles to make-believe palaces, his work is just unreal and truly does take you to another world. And the best part of it was, we didn’t have to spend a single CENTIMO to see any of it. Hallelujah for cheap activities.

Despite how awesome Gaudi was, the joy of the day came later that night. We decided to hit up IceBarcelona, one of the three bars in the world. What is an ice bar, you ask? Oh, no big deal, just a bar that is completely made of ice. And boy, let me tell you, it was straight UP made of nothing but ice! The tables, the cups, the chairs, the decorations, heck, even the bar – ICE. Most of you know I HATE being cold with a passion, but this was so worth it. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced (get it, coolest??? I know, I know, I = cheesy). When we walked it, the temperature was at negative 13 degrees Celsius, and by the time we left, it was even colder than that. When we arrived, they gave us parkas and massive gloves to keep our poor little Georgian bodies warm. We donned our apparel and headed in and had a BLAST, but after about 30 minutes, our bodies were pre-hypothermic and we HAD to make an escape.

Overnight in our sketchy hostel (owned by one incredibly sweet lady and one grouchy old man), our bodies had time to recuperate for the next day. We got up, put on our comfy shoes, and started our journey – of shoppingggggggg, God’s gift to women. All day long, we meandered through store, after store, after store, and made some pretty darn good and cheap buys along the way. God sho did bless me with the ability to find and appreciate a good sale. All day long we walked, shopped, ate, and walked some more until it was time to go get dinner, for which a group of us girls found a delicious Chinese restaurant with four courses for 8,45 Euros. Now people, especially those of you that have been to the incredibly expensive land of Europe, this is a STEAL. So we loaded up on carbs there, headed to the market and bought local, fresh fruit smoothies for one Euro, and then started the hike to find this fountain that Yatri had been talking about all weekend. We walked and we walked and we walked some more until we finally found it. And boy, was it ever worth the hike – and all of the sketchiness. It was incredible. In fact, it was one of those blow your face off moments. Cause seriously, it was mind boggling. When we walked up, we could hear the rush of water. Better yet, when we rounded the corner, it was other worldly. The most beautiful patterns of changing colors, lights, water pressure, water designs, and music that accompanied all of this. Every so many minutes, there would be another coordinated show with a melody of a certain genre of music to go along with the insane lights and water. And, don’t you fret, because as Spain loves American music so much, there was DEFINITELY an American section, to which we all danced and sang obnoxiously. Such a beautiful moment!

After the Aurora-Borealis-like light show, we walked halfway back to our hostel and killed some time at a café and had coffee and desserts until 1 AM. Why so late, you ask? Oh you, only because we had to stay up ALL NIGHT and not sleep. We had kept our things in the lobby of our hostel, because we couldn’t pay for another night but also couldn’t tote our belongings all over the not-safest-city of Barcelona. We went back to the hostel where we got our stuff and met some wonderful and caring individuals from Georgia Tech (fancy that, NICE people actually going to that school! Only kidding… slightly), and then caught the metro to the bus station. We arrived at the bus station super early and waited there for an hour, but it was much better to be early rather than late and panicked and evil to one another. At 3:45, we got on a BALLING double-decker bus to drive the hour to our airport in Reus (God bless sketchy Ryan Air). I can’t even describe how cool that double-decker bus was. I felt just like Harry Potter riding on the Knight Bus in Book 3. Yep, I went there. I seem to always involve Harry Potter. Maybe that’s a bad thing to you, but in my world, you can never have enough.

At the ridiculous hour of 5:30 AM, we arrived at the Reus airport and waited to board our 6:45 AM flight back to Sevilla. We got back in the city at 8:15 and rode the bus to our house, which we arrived at at 9 AM, and after breakfast and showering (using all of those liquids we didn’t even try to attempt to sneak on the plane to get ourselves clean from our never-ending journey, we finally went to bed at 10 AM. Alas, we didn’t sleep for long, as later on that night, we went to… A BULL FIGHT!!!

But you don’t get to hear about that yet. Cause this thing is already 4 pages on a Word document. I’ll save that for my next one when I recap this week. Which is sad to say, that will be soon, because it’s already Thursday. Ahhh where is this summer going??? Can I please stay here longer?? Please??? Please?????? Oi vay. Me encanta España!

Yo quiero montar en tu bicicleta.

I laugh so hard on this trip it shouldn’t be legal.

Everybody knows it doesn’t take much for me to laugh, but I promise you, the people that are on this trip with me are HYSTERICAL. And so are the encounters that we have over here across the planet.

Sunday night after my last post, the group of us headed out into the city to brace the madness of - dun dun dun – public transportation in a foreign country. I feel as if the entire city of Sevilla attempted to wedge their bodies into the bus that we took to get to the soccer stadium. In America, this would situation would be bad regardless, but especially combined with the intense heat and unavoidable B.O. it would just push you over the edge. But here, it’s normal, because everybody walks, sweats, and smells, and I appreciate that.

When the 50 billion of us bus riders exited, we were greeted with even more mayhem. Thousands upon thousands of people were waiting to get into the stadium for kick-off or whatever you call it in the world of soccer just 20 minutes away. For our entertainment as we waited in line, we were greeted with a mosh-pit of middle aged Spaniards chanting all sorts of things for Real Betis (the other soccer team in Sevilla, whom we were cheering for that night) that none of us could understand.

We finally made it in and climbed to the nose-bleed section to find our seats. Keep in mind folks, this was my first soccer game – ever. In my whole wide life I had never even so much as been to a 4 year old’s game of soccer, so starting off in a massive stadium with 60,000 ish other people was a BIG STINKING DEAL for me. It was awesome and best of all – BETIS WON! Hooray. Despite the fact that there were two obnoxious old men behind me that hated American girls (aka Paige and I), there was the most precious physically-challenged man in front of us that loved us blonde-headed girls and wanted to know where we were from. And obviously, that man LOVES Georgia, because when we told him where we were from, he grinned from ear to ear and said, “The A-T-L!”. Except for the fact that in his precious Spanish accent it was more like “Ah-Tay-Ele!”. We still understood.

Basically, the game was awesome madness. It was so much like Quidditch from Harry Potter to – made the night for me. Each time has the same little scarves that all of the houses of Hogwarts have – I wanted one so badly. Except for the back that Betis’ colors are green and white, which all too closely resemble Slytherin. That is NOT acceptable. Therefore, I will have to hunt for a burgundy team so that I can represent the real deal – Gryffindor!

Monday was back to reality – classssssss. Yuck. We had our first test and, man, it was a doooozy! Tons of dates and random history facts that I don’t quite feel it is possible to keep straight in an individual’s head. After school we had a cooking class, but it was kind of a bust, seeing as how we just watched a chick cook for about 20 minutes and then got to sample her stuff after. Good, but I don’t feel as if I learned anything. So basically, I’m STILL not domestic. Future husband, I swear I will learn one day! That night, we went back to our little hole-in-the-wall flamenco show that we found. It was so much fun, yet again! The gypsies never cease to entertain the many American tourists that frequent that place. God bless the Gyps.

Tuesday brought yet ANOTHER test, but this one was over Spain’s pop culture, so it was much more capable to fit in my brain. We had a picnic after class, and then we went on a tour of the Real Alcazar, an old Muslim palace with Christian influences that were added after we took it back from them. It was UNFATHOMABLE. The most beautiful gardens you’ve ever seen, intricate architecture, and just God’s glory in everything. Naturally, Whitney, Jack, and I took advantage of such a prime location and had a photo shoot. Those will be sure to come soon on Facebook. We are a swanky, swanky group of people.

The best part of yesterday, though, was last night. Diego, our darling director, had gotten us tickets to a REAL flamenco show, as he seemed to think our free show from the gypsies wasn’t quite authentic enough (although I can’t imagine why). When we walked in to the area where the show was going to be, we were a bit disappointed. It was a covered patio with probably about 50 seats around it in a semi-circle. The performers were late, and when they finally came on stage, they whispered back and forth about what they were going to do. But man, when those folks finally started performing, it was worth EVERY penny. Or I guess I should say centimo. The guitarist was incredible – he could play the fastest little chord-y things that I’ve ever heard, and when you would watch his hands, his fingers were moving so quickly that all you could see was a big blur of motion. Insane. The singer was really good too. He sounded like a mix of a Spanish and Native American. In fact, my impersonation of him after the show was over drew quite a few stares, and even a few asked if I was if that’s what I was channeling. So sadly enough, I will not be joining the flamenco troops anytime soon. But the flamenco dancers – oh man, they put all the rest to SHAME. Full of passion and intensity, the male and female dancers danced individually first but together for the last dance of the night. It was incredible. The dramatic lighting highlighted the intense faces of the dancers as they stomped around the stage, and the tension in the room was thick as a piece of Spanish ham - and that’s thick. It was unbelievable.

When our group walked out and met up outside, we all had the same thing to say – that male dancer was FIIIINE. Epitome of Spanish hombre. But we all tucked our dreams aside as, alas, he was wearing a ring on his right hand, which over here is where you wear your wedding band. So apparently he liked some other chick so much that he put a ring on it. So we’re still in the waiting process. Está bien.

The rest of the night was just as wonderful. My darling group of girls and I headed out to do what we do best – EAT DESSERTS. We found a MIND-BLOWING bakery, with so many choices of desserts that the three-tiered display case ran the length of the store. Can you say heaven? We made a group decision that we are going to go back to the bakery at least once a week for the rest of the trip. That way, we can try every little piece of heaven we can afford from there before we head back home to the land where good desserts come from Dairy Queen. How pathetic are we.

Best part of the day was what happened as we were eating our delectable desserts. Earlier on in the night, this group of guys went pedaling by us on bicycles, and one of us made a joke in Spanish about them being attractive, but nobody even knew what they looked like, we were just being ridiculous. However, apparently they not only heard us, but are bilingual, because later on as we were sitting on the steps to the Catedral, one of them approached us and said in English: “So… which one of you wants to take a ride on my bike?”. Now, maybe this would have if by ‘bike’ he had meant motorcycle. But, nono, the super jacked muscle man meant a literal bicycle. But the best part was, in unison, all six of us just DIED laughing simultaneously as soon as he finished speaking. We just lost it. Poor fella looked like we had just stabbed him in the gut. Oh man, it was priceless. Isabel then asks him, “Does that usually work, or did you just think you’d try it out on us?”. Big guy just looked down at his feet and shrugged it off, but then he got brave and thought he’d try for round two. So he makes some other comment about how awesome it would be to ride on his bike with him, and I respond with “Yeah, well maybe it would, except for the fact that you have RENTED it from the city of Sevilla!”. I had looked down to see he and his three other friends’ bikes propped us, with the Sevilla city logo plastered on the side, nice little basket in front, and best of all – a headlight. After that, there was no holding us back. We all lost it and the little fella just walked away, pretending to still have his dignity. What a great night.

Ooooooooh man. God is good, and He makes all of us so different. Just a rainbow of variety. Especially between my friends and bicycle boy. God bless us all. Paz, amor, y España.