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!!!