Tortitas

Last night I made pancakes for my host mom, she absolutely loved them :) I'd never made them from scratch before but they turned out pretty delicious. My host mom had some real maple syrup as a gift from some other student a while back so we ate them with authentic syrup. Deliicoussssss... I am definitely in the mood to get back home now. Plus John texted me last night and said it was snowing in Seattle?! Crazyyyy and excitinggg! Now, who is going to take me to Blue Star when I get back? I LOVE BLUE STAR!

Me encanta Ultimate

This past weekend was by far the best I've spent in Spain. I went to a beach ultimate tournament and met a ton of awesome people and played ultimate on the beach all weekend and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was so nice to be around ultimate players again... Now all I am thinking about is going home to Seattle for the holidays and also planning trips to tournaments in the spring time when I'm back in Cadiz. I think possibly going into debt in order to go to awesome tournaments is worth it, right? Right.

Photos from the weekend!

















My team placed somewhere in the middle but we won SOTG!! I had such an amazing time, I didn't want it to end :)

Granada

Last weekend the school group went to Granada and Cordoba. It was really neat! I really liked the city and the diverse architecture and everything. I bought some neat Christmas gifts, too. Here are some photos :)


In the cathedral in Granada


Outside of the Alhambra


Still outside the Alhambra




With Skye inside the Alhambra


Cool ceiling


Children messing with the kitty


Pretending to lay on a bush


Britney got her hand through the really dense bush!


More pretty plants in the gardens of the Alhambra


A tower in Cordoba


Chasing a dove


Something important in the Mezquita, it was like... a dome thing they built to make it so the sound of the caliph's voice carried better during religious ceremonies because the building got to be so big. Or something like that.

Cumpleaños

On my actual birthday I got up and began my day by getting dressed and stuff then heading to lunch with my host mom, brothers, sister and sister's boyfriend. We went to a place with tapas that are "muy típico de Caí" according to my host mom. It was very yummy, I thoroughly enjoyed the food. After we ate I came back home because I had a date to Skype with my mom and dad. I got to talk to them finally around 6PM I think. Archie was very sweet and let me look at him for longer than normal on webcam. I miss him. Kiki was apathetic as usual. It was good to talk to my mom and dad, too. My host family got to come on webcam and say hi to them. It was quite entertaining. My host mom was like, "!la cuido muy bien!" and my host brother busted out some English like I've never heard him speak before, I was impressed. He said something like, "you have a very nice daughter, blahblah..."

After the family time I got ready to go to my Czech friends' flat where we were to have cake and hang out. They ended up feeding me a bunch of gin and then made me go out when all I wanted to do was stay home and eat cake and then sleep. So we went out and hung out with people, went to bars and chatted, no dancing. I was too tired. It might not sound exciting or very fun how I just described it but I had a very nice time, I really have a good time with the Czech guys. They're fun to be around.

One other highlight of my birthday was receiving flowers :) they're beautiful.

Now for some photos!


lovely flowers


some of the lunch


Miguel (Gema's boyfriend), me, Juan Antonio, host mom


crammed in the car on the drive home


garbage toy. I played with this and then my friends told me they found it in a dumpster...


Lukas, me, Alex

And my favorite photo from my birthday...



Compare with:


monkey business in Gibraltar

Punta Umbria

Okay so I went to this place and watched a tournament the other weekend. I made some good friends from Sevilla and I will see them again on the weekend of December 6. I took photos, go here to see the album:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/67371717@N00/sets

I celebrated my birthday the last two nights, it was nuts. My Czech friends made me this awesome card and gave me a stuffed animal monkey and we went out and it was a lot of fun. Photos to come later.

La espera

I go home in 44 days. I wish it were more like 4... Not having the most fun here but the next few weeks will hopefully go by quickly. I am happy about the election, but watching the videos of the speeches and the people in the street celebrating makes me homesick too much.

My birthday is soon, hopefully that will be enjoyable. I haven't blogged in forever, just wanted to update and say I'm alive and stuff.

Salamanca

I am in the hotel in Merida right now, the wifi is sloooowwww. I want to put some photos up for everyone to enjoy. This trip is with the school group and to Caceres, Salamanca, and Merida. The bus ride has been boring and long but the scenery is absolutely fabulous. It makes me want to live in the country and be a farmer or something dull. It is seriously beautiful. Salamanca made me feel a little more at home than Cadiz because it is a city more like Seattle, wider streets, people shopping, etc. But still very different from Seattle. I really liked Salamanca. Also I ran into someone I went to high school with who is studying here, I had no idea. It is one of Tom Dale's friends: Tyler Laws. We didn't end up spending any time together but it was a surprise and a good story. I wanted him to go out with my friends and his and show us the cool bars and clubs to go to. He is studying in the university in Salamanca which my group went to and it is so cool. I think it would be awesome to live there.

Okay, now for the photos:


We went to Caceres to explore the city and eat lunch. Nothing was really open because it was siesta time but this tourist building was.


That night we got to Salamanca and ate McDonalds!


My roommates and me before going out.


We drank wine!


After the wine we went to a bar with a live band. I really, really liked it.


They played good and fun music and had a harmonica player :)


During our tour of Salamanca. We went to a huge cathedral and saw a bunch of other super old buildings.


The pretty fountain in the park in Salamanca.


H&M, obviously.

El desconsuelo

Sundays always seem to put me in a bad mood. I did not do anything yesterday, I was doing pretty okay all day though. I cleaned, thought about school work but didn't really do any, just like in the States. I just hung out all day and did nothing, which is not a big deal... I used to do that in Seattle plenty. Here it makes me super depressed though. Maybe I'm just not doing so well today because I am bored and hungry. In any case, I am not happy and I don't like it.

I had one class so far today, I have another at 4:30PM and then I teach English to Adrián (super cute nine year old boy) after class for an hour. Tomorrow is a holiday in Cádiz, it is like... the Virgin of Rosario day, and that is the city's virgin so they close everything. Should be better than having economics and two literature classes, but still pretty boring. My class schedule is different every day, the only day I've memorized so far (after three weeks?) is Thursday. I have no class on Thursdays. I am getting so fat. I need to find something to cheer me up. I think I'm going to go make some coffee. I miss having lattes every day for my breakfast. I miss so many silly things about life in Seattle and UW. Soo many things...

La locura

I went out Wednesday night, Friday night AND Saturday night last week. Whoa. It was all fun! Sunday night I went to the movies and saw Tropic Thunder in Spanish.

I met some Czech people who are going to play disc with me and I invited all of the Americans to come too. We are going to play tomorrow, rain or shine! Weeeeeeeeeeee

Happy :)

Sevilla

I went on a little day trip to Sevilla today with a girl from my school group. I did not have a great time, I won't elaborate here. But I will put some photos up!

On the train


Me and a painting of Vulcan and Venus


More art


Sevilla's S.L.U.T. equivalent