Adventuros en el Día de San Fernando

Hola amigos!

The more time I spend here, the more I am really enjoying Sevilla. It´s a really neat city!! You always hear about Spain and the siesta, when everything closes in the middle of the day. well, EVERYTHING is closed on Sundays too (hard to find food!), and also on holidays. Well, we found out last night at about 10 that today was going to be a holiday - nothing was open! The closest supermarket in town that was open today was a 15 minute walk away - it was crazy! But it was okay, because me and a couple friends from my hostal (Tim from Toronto and Lydia frmo Wisconsin!) went to the grocery store and bought some fresh bread, cheese, and meat and then took it down to a bench under a tree right on the river. it was so amazing. Yay for loitering in Spain! So a note to people visiting: beware of holidays and sundays, they can starve you :)

A really cool thing about Sevilla is that it is Kansas City´s sister city! There is actually a Calle de Kansas City (Kansas City Street!) and I even saw a fountain today that looks VERY much like one in KC - you know that tall one by P.F.Chang´s, with the dragon-looking heads on all four sides? i swear it´s based on one in the plaza by the cathedral here! It´s pretty cool :)

Ooo, about the holiday today! Apparantly today was el Día de San Fernando, and his remains are in the cathedral here in Sevilla. On this day in honor of him, they take him out of his crypt or whatever and put his mummified self on display in the cathedral, and then tonight at 7:30 they paraded him through town. It was so cool! Things like that don´t happen in the States and I´m really enjoying all the culture here. It´s so interesting!

Also - I was looking at the itenerary for my Study Abroad program today, and I realized that on Sunday we´re taking a daytrip to Cádiz, the oldest city in Europe (on the coast in Southwest Spain, south of Portugal), and then in a few weeks we´re going to take a weekend trip to Lagos in Portugal. I´m really excited because those were two side trips that I was really hoping to make. I will get to add another country to the places I´ve been! :) I would love to do Lisbon, though, before I leave this area... anybody want to go with me? ;)

Okay, I´m off. Next time: the Spaniards´ obsession with the 80´s.

este es la vida.

Howdy yall :) Sevilla is great - I got to see the Alcázar today, which was AMAZING. it was Moorish architecture, much like the Alhombra in Granada, but it´s got COLOR and it was really incredible. I really enjoyed it. And man, these people knew how to make their palaces decadent, especially the gardens. It suddenly makes me want to landscape. haha. Everywhere we go there are incredible gardens... I am loving it. Last night the hostal had a dinner party and there were 30 or 40 people on the rooftop patio hanging out, and then this girl who has been studying in Sevilla for the last semester took us to her favorite place in town - an outdoor bar in a park nearby here. It was kind of like the other place, with candles and tapestries and a really cool atmosphere. I´m excited that I know about it, and i definately intend to return! Oh, and on the way to the park was the University of Sevilla, whichi s where I think I´m taking classes, and it is just beautiful! It´s actually a landmark that guide books advise tourists to check out. We were walking by it and all these people kept saying ¨Kelly! That´s your school! I can´t believe you get to go to school there!¨ It rocked! haha.

By the way, this afternoon i spent a lot of time reading and getting sun, then i took a nap. Man, this is the life. :) I´m off to freshen up and get ready for tonight. It´s Shaun´s last night in Spain (he takes the highspeed train to Madrid in the morning and then flies home), so we´re going to try and find something cool to do. so yall have a great day... i can´t tell you how relaxed i am right now... i highly recommend going to europe! it´s great! and take advantage of siesta! :)

I am in Spain and I KNOW people!

Hello all!!
Well I´m in Sevilla... still... and I will be until the end of June so I´m going to stop informing you of that at the beginning of each post. I haven´t really done much sight seeing while I´ve been here yet because I figure I´ll be here all month, I´ve got plenty of time. We FINALLY have nice weather again, so I sat out at the rooftop terrace by the pool and read for awhile yesterday (for the record - a rooftop pool is NOT your typical hostal!)... it was so relaxing! I got to see Jerry for a few minutes, that was cool! He seems to be doing well, and he says that he really likes it here. We´re going to go out sometime... yall should join us! :) Then my friends Amanda and Laura who I met in Granada arrived - they had been in Cádiz, and then came back here to Sevilla to hang out. It was so much fun. We enjoyed the city yesterday, went out last night for tapas and such, then found this really cool outdoor bar and hung out there for a long time with some people from our hostal. This place was amazing... Wicker furniture with orange silk cushions, beaded chandaliers and lamps, gauzy fabric overhead and big plants all around, orange lanterns hanging in the trees, and all of this with a view of the river in the background. Really cool. Amanda and Laura had a 7:30am bus to catch this morning to take them to Lagos (Portugal), but they ended up missing it so we got to hang out a bit more today. We spent an hour walking around town looking for a kebab shop (they were EVERYWHERE in Granada - more plentiful than starbucks in the US!) and when we finally did find one, it was closed. Awesome. Its all good though cuz we had fun. I suppose that´s it for now... I´ll update again soon and let yall know what else I´m up to!

SEVILLA! y observaciónes.

hello everyone... this time i´m in Sevilla! It´s crazy, all the traveling and stuff, but now I´m here for awhile. I have to pick up and move to the hotel for the beginning of my program, and then to the place I´ll be living while I´m here, and then I get to stay put for a month! I really enjoy the traveling around and stuff, but I admit I brought too much and so it´s hard to lug it all around :) haha. I´m really excited to be here, the city looks great so far! The hostal we stayed at in Granada was called the Oasis, and now we´re at the Oasis in Sevilla, so it´s pretty cool. It´s brand new and REALLY REALLY nice - when I think of a hostal I don´t think of white marble floors and rooftop pools, but there you have it. :) The really exciting part, though, is that some of my friends from Granada will be here! I´m psyched. Also... JERRY IS HERE! not at the hostal, but in town somewhere. (Jerry is a friend from Lechner... He´s going to be here the entire time I´m here doing an internship... I´m so excited to see a friend from home!!) Hopefully I´ll get to see him soon. I know there is so much more to tell about the last couple of days in Granada and everything... but I cannot think right now! So instead I´ll leave you with some of my observations on Spain and do the more comprehensive update later...

Observaciónes:
* Spaniards love their ice cream! You would never see so many people in business suits walking around with ice cream cones in the US. Also: I think Nestle is trying to take over the world, starting with ice cream stands on every corner in Spain. They´re like Starbucks in Seattle.
* MULLETS EVERYWHERE! I´m serious: I think I might have warned the world previously about the new "trend" we saw in Madrid (fauxhawk on top and a little bit long in back... ack!) but Granada was infinately worse with the insane numbers of mullets... and these weren´t your typical, run of the mill mullets - these things were intense! I´m talkin shaved head except for the row of dredlocks coming out of the bottom of the head, and other such ridiculousness. Intense, i tell you. (like camping!!!!!!!)
* These people run on a VERY differnet schedule than us! Besides the fact that they eat dinner at about 9:30 or so at night, the night life really picks up around 2 or 3. It´s crazy! We went out last night to this really amazing flamenco place that wasn´t a touristy place, it was where the locals go. It was a tiny little cave-like bar and there were just these local guys playin guitar and singing... it was amazing! But it didn´t start going until about 2:30, and by then I was falling asleep! I need to get better at this.
* Tapas rock. You order a drink (any drink - beer, pop, wine, etc) and you get free food! it´s perfect. Oh, and Sangria rocks too.


Okay, that´s it for now. Yall have a great day and let me know what´s going on with you!!!!

Kelly :)

Crazy weather.

So the weather here is even more ridiculous than Texas, and you all know that´s sayin something. Our first few days were beautiful, and then on our last day in Madrid it rained. It didn´t rain during the day we were in Toledo, but it was definately cooled down quite a bit because of the rain, and that has persisted. It has rained pretty much every day at some point, but usually just a little sprinkle, or at night. Yesterday was the best, though. Here is the weather as I saw it, in chronological order: sunny with not a cloud in sight; very cloudy with sprinkles and LOTS of thunder; cloudy but dry; sunny and clear; FREAK HAILSTORM; sunny rain; clear skies and dry ground, cloudy and sprinkling, clear and nice again. It was ridiculous.

The hail was the craziest. Our hostal is 3 stories tall, with rooms on the 2nd and 3rd floors on the perimeter. the middle of the building is all open, so from the rooms on the third floor you can look down into the common area whre the couches are, and at the top the cieling is glass windows. well today we had a freak hail storm (the hail was the size of marbles! it was crazy!) and luckily we were alredy here at the hostal so we didn´t get caught in it outside. anyways, we were all looking out on the patio at the crazy hail and then we heard commotion coming from the common area - one of the pipes or something up at the cieling was leaking like mad and the entire area was flooded! I´m not kidding when I say that in that little area of the common room it was raining just as hard as it was outside. there was hail all over the couches and the computers got wet - it was bad news, but it was really funny.

Well I´m hoping to go out and enjoy my last little day in Granada, but its sprinkling right now and it´s stinkin cold, so we´ll see. Worst comes to worst, I´ll stay in and have my new friend Pierre teach me how to rock at ping pong. :)

Love you all... bye!

My first post... :)

¡Hola de España! Okay, so how about this blog that I´m finally setting up? Sorry for the delay, all, but I assure you that all you´ve missed is the AMAZING things I´ve been up to here in España! haha. It´s great! Right now I´m in Granada, and I´ve been in Spain for a whole week, which is hard to believe; so much has happened and I´ve done so much it seems like so much longer than that! We started in Madrid, which was really cool. Such a huge city, and so European and stylish! We were a 5 minute walk from the Royal Palace, which was pretty incredible - it was my favorite thing in Madrid. We did a lot there and some some pretty incredible art, and we definately took advantage of the plazas and laid-back lifestyle of Spain. It was great. Next we went to Toledo for a day, which is this tiny little town on top top of a hill. It was just like a movie: skinny little winding, hilly streets that are deemed major roads if the pedestrians don´t have to jump into a doorway when a car comes down the road. One of the more amazing things I´ve seen in my life: a truck backing down one of these hilly, curvy streets and avoiding hitting both the surrounding buildings and the terrified pedestrians (that would be me). It was cool though, the main thing in town is this INCREDIBLE cathedral! It was truly amazing. The US has a shortage of cathedrals and palaces - someone get to work and fix that! :) After Toledo we headed here to Granada, which I love! Although I don´t know if it´s the town that I love, or the hostal that we´re in. Everyone is wonderfully social and there is so much to do! I´ve made so many new friends, it´s so amazing! Amanda from Austin, Laura from Dallas, Dan from Boston, Elly from Australia, Pierre from Paris (France!), Maciek & Jeremy from Australia, Christian from Argentina, Kevin from Hong Kong, Bert from Malaysia, Jen & Sarah from Wisconsin... oh, it´s so cool!! The city is really neat and we saw the Alhombra yesterday... but I´m loving getting to spend time with all these people who have traveled to all these incredible places! We have a blast together. This hostal is really neat - to anyone traveling to Granada or Sevilla, I recommend it! Some of them I´m hoping to meet up with when we head to Sevilla next! and Laura, who goes to UT Arlington, is really neat - hopefully I´ll get to see her when we get back to the States! Well I suppose that´s all I´ll say for now... I´ll fill in holes later because this post is already pretty long. Now that I´ve got this created I´ll update it more frequently, and I think I´ll have pretty steady internet access for at least the next week!
Oh, and thanks so much everyone for your interest in what I´m up to over here! It´s so nice that I can stay connected while I´m so far away... it makes how much I miss all of you so much easier to handle! Thanks so much for your emails and messages, they really mean SO much to me! Keep them coming, I love it! kelgoetz@tamu.edu!! :) Let me know what´s going on in your life!!!!!

Kelly

PS pictures still to come! :)