Nerja!

First of all, HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!!! if you read this, Dad, I love you and I'm thinkin of you!

Second of all, as of today I have officially been in Spain for a month. WHOOP! It's been amazing, and I can't believe it's ONLY been a month. So much has happened, and I've already learned so much! It's great!!

Now on to what I've been up to. This weekend I went to Nerja with three other girls from my program. It's a little town on the southern edge of Spain, about an hour east of Malaga. It was SUCH a beautiful town! Pretty small, with beautiful beaches and incredible cliffs plunging down into the Mediterranean. This girl from Kansas was overwhelmed by the simultaneous presence of two things that she is not used to - water AND mountains. I couldn't hardly get over it! Let's just say I've got LOTS of pictures! (oh, here's one now! notice the mountains and water all together like that... wow! ) The only downside to this adorable little beach town was the lack of SPANISH. I literally heard more people speaking English (although usually with a British or sometimes Australian accent) than Spanish while I was there - for the first time in a month I asked for the check, in English. It was strange. If it were a Spanish
little town, it would hands-down be my favorite city in Spain. But alas, it felt like a little bit of England (we would have gone to Gibraltar if that's what we had wanted!). But oh it was still a wonderful trip and we all had a great time.
Ok I'm out of stuff to say. Goodnight.

PS My roommate Emily says hi.

Flamenco and a sunset

and
Tonight we went to a flamenco show, and it was awesome! The dance is just a small part of flamenco - the music is actually the main component. Just a guitarist and a singer, and the effect is awesome. I am falling in love with flamenco music. Then the dancers get up there and the intensity is just incredible. I really, really enjoyed it! Then we went outside and I took one of my favorite pictures I've taken this whole trip:

That's the tower and fountain that i had pictures of in my last post, and the sky is so blue! The sun was just setting, and I don't know if you can read it but the time stamp on this picture says "22:06." Yeah, 10:00 and the sun was just setting. A bit later I took a picture of the sun setting over the river, and the timestamp on that one is 10:23. It's amazing... so many hours of daylight, and they really take advantage of all of them! Have I mentioned that I'm in love with this culture?!?! :)

Tomorrow is my midterm for my Spanish class - I can't believe I'm nearly halfway done with my time here in Sevilla! Crazy. I've learned SO much about the intricacies of Spanish, and in my other class I've learned about the religion of Spain, the basics of the region called Andalucia (where I am!), a lot about bull fights (SO interesting), and about Spanish food and wine. This totally beats taking classes in College Station, Texas :) That being said, I'm going to go actually study for my test - wish me luck!!

Kelly :)

So, it's the weekend... know what that means? I have time to really make this thing neat! By that I mean pictures. I've already got a lot put up on my webshots page (I can't put them ALL on here...but the link is over there >>>>), but I thought i would put up a few here, too!



So I've already talked about how Kansas City is the sister city of Sevilla, yes? Well this fountain is in one of the plazas next to the cathedral... does it look familiar to any of you? The fountain in Kansas City that is right next to P.F.Chang's was commissioned to be an exact replica of this one! When I saw this here I got really excited :)








Also, it's just across the plaza from the tower of the Cathedral, called the Giralda. Does this look familiar at all, too? The tower on the Plaza (in KC) is supposed to be a scale replica of this famous tower here in Sevilla. Cool, huh?! It's like I'm at home :)








Well, i suppose that's it for now. I'll put up more pictures periodically!
Byeeee

blessed

Hey everyone!!
Well I just got back from a really fun weekend in Granada. Have I mentioned that I absolutely LOVE Granada? This experience was TOTALLY different from the last one, but still wonderful. Granada is a great city, I would go back there anytime I had the chance! Thursday was a holiday here in Spain called Corpus Cristi, or Body of Christ. It's basically, as far as I can tell, a huge celebration of being Spanish and being Catholic. There was a big parade/procession Thursday morning, not to mention much celebrating both Wednesday and Thursday nights. The procession was really neat, and everywhere we looked both days there were girls and women of all ages in flamenco dresses. it was great! The whole thing was SUCH a cool experience. I went to Granada with some girls from my study abroad program, and it was really cool. I was really nervous before coming over here about being alone in this country with no fellowship, and to everyone who was thinking of me and praying about that, let me tell you that my goodness does God provide! He answered all those prayers and has provided me with an incredible group of Christian girls. I am having a blast with them, and they're really building me up. It's so encouraging and uplifting! I am so blessed.
Speaking of blessed... let me tell you about CARMEN! The apartment we're living in is owned by this family across the hall, and part of the set up is that they provide 3 meals a day for us each day and do our laundry once per week. Carmen is the lady of the family, and she is the one who does all of this. She is an AMAZING cook and we are always so excited to come home and see what she has for us to eat. She takes such great care of us! Plus, she is so sweet! She doesn't speak any english, and Rachel and Emily don't really speak much spanish, so I get to be the translator. It's so much fun though, because she'll just come over and sit down and we'll all chat and stuff - she's so amazing! Coming back from Granada all the three of us could think about was some good CARMEN COOKING! We really like her - we are so spoiled by her, and SO blessed!!!
Thanks everyone for all of your prayers - I can assure you that God has answered them way beyond my expectations! God is good... YAY!
Kelly

Crispy estudiante.

Hola! Well so much has happened since I talked to yall last! It's been great. We spent all day on Sunday in Cadiz, which is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the Western world. Cool, huh? And it's on a peninsula that's bordered on 3 sides by the Atlantic, so I got to see lots of ocean and LOTS of beach! I sat on the beach for several hours, and it was heavenly (except i might have let myself get a little burnt. oops!)! And actually on the beach I ran into my friend Pierre who I met Granada - it's so cool to meet up again with people that I've met!

Yesterday classes started. Yuck! But it's ok because they're pretty cool. My advanced Spanish class is me and three other girls, and our prof is AWESOME. He's so smart and funny and totally fascinating. Class is from 8:30-11 every morning, so every morning around 10 or so we go out for coffee together. It's all conversation which is WONDERFUL for learning, and common grammatical errors which are good to learn about, and our coffee trips are our little culture opportunities, where we ask about that kind of stuff. It's wonderful! My other class is all about the culture of Andalucia, which is the southern-most region of Spain that includes Sevilla, Malaga, Granada, Cadiz, etc. It's where bullfighting, flamenco, etc all kind or originated - all the stuff that Spain is known for! The class definately involves homework, and 2.5 hours of sitting through that class is a little long, but it's all so interesting that it's ok :) Well I suppose that's it for now... I've got homework to do :) haha!

Hasta luego,
Kelly


PS I FINALLY PUT SOME PICTURES UP. Sorry not on here, but I'm gettin there. It's so busy! Anyways, pictures from Madrid and Granada are up on my webshots. the address is http://community.webshots.com/user/kelbow417 I'll get sevilla up soon!!

I'M SO EXCITED!!

Hey all!
Well my study abroad program has officially started - no more traveling and hostals (which i love, don't get me wrong!), now I've just got class and an APARTMENT! Our apartment is amazing, and the people that own it live across the hall and are just the sweetest people ever. My roommates are a couple of Aggies named Rachel and Emily and they're great. We're alll so psyched for our apartment - it's seriously the cutest thing I've ever seen! And we have internet access here, which is awesome. Yay for my laptop! Also, because I've got my laptop hooked up, I can get on the whole PICTURE thing! WHOOP! All the people in our program seem really cool. It's like 20 girls and 3 guys... poor boys :) We went on a carriage ride around the city last night which was neat, and I got to point out some of the stuff that I knew. We go to a meeting in a couple of hours when we will learn about classes and all that stuff, and then tomorrow we're going to Cadiz for the day. Yay beach! Are yall in Kansas jealous? :) haha.

Ok, now for the much anticipated discussion of the 80's and its presence in Spain. ITS CRAZY! everywhere you turn you see MULLETS (i'm on mullet overload), big sequined belts, and fanny packs (not kidding). Then you turn on the radio and every other song is by Whitney Houston or some other old school gem. (although the songs in between are some random combination or rap, spanish music, and current stuff. Rather amusing.) I'm serious... although I think i'm actually getting a little immune to it. If I come back to the states all decked out in the 80's, please don't hate me.

Well, I suppose I'm done with this for a bit. Talk to yall later!!

Phase 2 Begins.

Well, today I said goodbye to all my friends here at the hostal (these last couple of days were SO much fun! I had a really, really great group of people that I hung out with!!), and I´ve checked out and am gettin ready to splurge on a cab and head across town to hook up with my study abroad stuff. Exciting! A part of me is sad because the hostal and backpacker crowd is SO much fun, but it´s ok, I´m also pretty excited to be able to settle down and not have to pack up and move again in a couple of days! I´ve gotten to know Sevilla pretty well, which is really cool because this is where I´m going to be for the next month! It´s a really neat city.

Ok I know I said that next time i would tell you about the obsession with the 80´s... but there is a line for hte computer and people are getting testy so I´m going to go. I´ll try and write more later, but if not it prolly won´t be for a few more days because we´ve got a busy ¨welcome weekend¨, complete with a trip to Cádiz. yay! ok lvoe you all talk to you soon sorry so brief!

kelly