¡YO SOY ESPAÑOL, ESPAÑOL, ESPAÑOL!
I think I heard that chant about 50 times during the night of the European Cup where Barcelona played Manchester in Rome. A huge group of us decided to watch the game at Flaherty´s, a local pub that gets packed on game days. Even though the game didn´t start until 8:45, we had to get there at 6 to actually be able to get a seat in the bar. I´m soooo glad we did because as soon as the game came on, there was no room to move ANYWHERE. The place wasn´t crazy big, and so people were pushed against each other and some people were even watching from outside the door which was about 100 feet away from the screen. I had to stand on my chair because there was no room for me on the floor! These people have true dedication to their fútbol. After watching the Barcelona fans, Ive decided that Americans have no clue what it means to be a sports fanatic. The Barcelona people were crazzzzyyyyyy! The intesity level of everyone in the bar was incredible, a UNC/Duke basketball game doesn´t even compare. A good majority of the people in the bar had actually flown from England JUST to watch the game with some true Barcelona fans.
In order to get even more emersed in the culture, Angel (my roommate) and I decided to stop in at a restaurant/bar right beside our apartment builing and try to get to know some of the people there. As soon as we sat at the bar, a girl walked up to us and asked in English if we were Americans. She said she could tell because we were wearing shorts. (In Spain, no one wears shorts and the women don´t exercise, so the fact that we were wearing shorts and tennis shoes made us obviously foreign.) We kept talking to the girl, who had lived in both Sevilla and Texas and she explained that she had basically grown up in this restuarant. She introduced us to the staff—Rafa, Fran, and Diego and we got to use our Spanish to talk to them. THIS is how I had imagined coming to Spain would be!
This last weekend was our first weekend free since coming to Sevilla. There were no program-planned trips, so we planned our own. Saturday was a very early morning. A huge group from our program took the 7 am bus to Cadiz. We did nothing but relax on the beach from 9 am that morning until time to leave at 7 pm that night! GREAT DAY! What made it even better, though, was that I FOUND MY CAMERA!!!!! It was in a really obvious place in my beach bag that I had somehow overlooked….praise the Lord! At the beach, some Spanish boys had taken what looked to be a yoga ball and buried half of it under the sand. They then jumped off of it and did flips and invertos (a flip in which they do twists and turns before they land). SO COOL! I´m so glad I had my camera!
The trip to Cadiz was great for most of the group, except for 5 of us…4 guys and 1 girl forgot to get a bus ticket back and got stuck in Cadiz for the night. No hostels had any vacancies, so they tried to build a shelter on the beach for the night, but got kicked out by homeless people who then took over the fort themselves. They said they then attempted to sleep in the park and a car garage until their bus finally left at 8 the next morning. Their experience was definitely a little different than mine!
The next morning, Sunday, was another early one. We left for Ronda at 8 am. We had always been told how pretty Ronda was and how cool the gorge would be to hike. They were so right! We got there and couldn´t believe how sterotypical this small Spanish town was. Ronda is set on a cliff and the main attraction is to hike down through waterfalls, to the gorge below. We went a little off the beaten path and ended up hiking for around 4 hours. We were exhausted by the time we got back to town, but no one was complaining! Everyone that went to Ronda agreed that no place even compared, this is undoubtedly my favorite place that we´ve travelled so far.
My time so far in Sevilla has been absolutely amazing! The only real adjustment from living back at home is that I don’t control when my laundry gets done. Our Señora does not do laundry as often as I thought when I was packing so my closet is getting slimmer and slimmer….but I’m not complaining, it gives me an excuse to hit the mall that’s less than 5 minutes from our apartment!
Besides my new obsession with Spanish clothes, I have also come to LOVE their food. My top obsessions are the helado (ice cream— my favorite flavor is, as weird as it sounds, biscuit with cookies) and Fanta Limón (God’s gift to earth). They have some very unique flavors of a lot of the same stuff we have in the United States. For example, they have Ruffles chips, but the flavor of choice here is ham. Weird! And at McDonald’s, one of their sauce options is Curry. Very interesting…and in my opinion, good! I’ve had some authentic Spanish cooking that I will definitely be making when I get back to the States. My favorite is the gazpacho soup. It’s served cold and is just a vegetable-based soup made of mainly tomatoes and olive oil. Sidenote…EVERYTHING here is made with olive oil. I’m not exaggerating. If you walk into a supermarket, you are guaranteed to see at least an aisle or two dedicated to nothing else but olive oil.
So now I am almost a month into my program. It’s crazy to think about how little time is left! Work in my classes is definitely picking up. Two exams and an essay all due on Wednesday is making this actually seem like school. But as soon as that’s over, I’m off to Madrid!
I still miss everyone back home a ton!! Please keep sending me your updates, I love hearing what’s happening on the other side of the world. Let me know if there’s anything I can be praying for or any gifts that you want me to get for you while I’m here :)
¡Os quiero mucho!
