Barcelona, anyone?

First of all... HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I suppose it's about time I let yall know what's up with Barcelona, eh? :)

I got here last Friday and met my roommates - they're really neat! Our program took us on a bus tour of the city (but I forgot my camera, so no pictures yet... oops!) and it was a great way to start off the month here. We went on a bike tour of the city last night, too, so I've pretty much gotten to see the whole thing! Architecturally, Barcelona is incredible. Gaudi's masterpieces are all here, not to mention amazing designs by other people - it provides for a really cool-lookin city, and awesome things to see around every corner. Also, the city has changed a lot in my lifetime because SO much was done to get it ready for the Olympics here in 1992. Areas that were previously totally undesirable are now major real estate areas, and thanks to the cleaning up of the beaches, Barcelona is a beach town! Overall, the city is MUCH different and much nicer than it was 20 or 30 years ago.

We got our apartment on Sunday, and it is INCREDIBLE! It's really nice, with its hardwood floors, huge balcony, washing machine & dishwasher (!!!) etc. We like it! It's in a good location, too - we're about a 15 or 20 minute walk from Port Olympia & the beach in one direction and the big shopping/restaurant area in the other direction. I'm still trying to adjust to Barcelona being such a big city - I'm not used to living in anything bigger than Lenexa or College Station - it's weird. But I'm a whiz at the metro now which helps a lot, because you can get anywhere in the city pretty quickly. Yay for metro!

I suppose that's it for now. Spain has sales in the stores once per year, and it's from July 1st to August 31st, so I plan to take advantage of that later on today, and maybe hit up the beach for a bit. You're welcome to join me! :)

Sevilla in review - pictures!

They're terribly out of order. Do forgive me.

Janine and I in Lagos

Roomies, on the bike thing. I can't remember what it's called! Oh well it was awesome. It even had a bell.

Ruchi and I in Nerja

Emily and Rachel at the park in our apartment complex

Avenida de Kansas City!

Carmen! And me, Rachel, and Emily

My Spanish class! Brooke, Kelly, Jesus, me, and Lisa. Aka Jesus y sus chicas americanas feas (Jesus and his ugly American girls!)

Aggies! Do you see the A&M pennant on the cieling behind us? Yeah, we were excited.

Emily and I trying to be as cool as the dancing statue. (At the Real Alcazar, a very old Moorish-style palace in Sevilla, where the King and Queen actually stay when they come to town)

Cadiz

Katie and Emily at the little cafe down the street from our school. This is where my Spanish class went every day for cafe con leche, and the bakery in the background kept us all full of spanish pastries and fresh bread.

Granada, with some of the band members from the Corpus Cristi procession

ROOMIES! With our oh-so-appreciated bus passes!

Carmen Cookin: Paella, salad, and bread!

Spanish dryer :)

Our friends! (except the guy in front on the left. We don't actually know him, we just couldn't get him out of our picture.) They're actually from Morocco, but have lived in Sevilla for a few years. They taught us how to salsa and such - it was awesome!

The Guadalquivir River, the oldest bridge in Sevilla: el Puente de Triana (also the one that leads to my apartment!), as well as the Torre del Oro. Isn't my city lovely?! Oh, and notice the timestamp says 10:23, and the sun is just setting.

The Plaza de Espana

Emily, Janine, and Roni standing on the "sidewalk" so a car could go by in Carmona.



That's it. I miss Sevilla! But Barcelona is great so far (as I knew it would be!). Can you believe I'm now over halfway done with my summer abroad? Wow! It seems like so much has happened, but it's gone so fast. I can't believe it!!

Love yall.

What, already?!

**I wrote this post on Friday, the 29th, but couldn't post it... so pretend that's when i actually did**

Well it's been ages since I’ve written on here – SO sorry! It’s been busy though. So much has happened!!! Our whole program went to Lagos, Portugal – it was incredible!! I have never seen a more beautiful beach in my life – cliffs and rocks everywhere, as well as beautifully clear blue water – truly amazing! We had a blast!!A lagoon in Lagos that we both swam in and then took a boat to.
The beach we were on in Lagos

When we got back, it was time for our last week in Sevilla, hence why I haven’t written – I was too busy trying to soak in every little bit of Sevilla and Andalucia before it was time to head north to Barcelona! The last week was great – we went to Isla Mágica, the amusement park in town, which was really cute. Finals were good, and it was the first time since probably elementary school when I was legitimately sad to say goodbye to my teachers! However, I have their email addresses, and I intend to stay in touch with both of them. My culture teacher will be an INCREDIBLE resource for me this fall as I’m researching for and writing my senior thesis, and she’s ready to help me out in any way she can! Jesús, my spanish teacher, I will keep in touch with, too. He is such an awesome teacher and I learned SO much from him this month. Plus, talk about connections!! Last night was our farewell dinner which was definitely bittersweet. We had a great time, but it was our last time. Afterwards we all went out, Jesús included! We had a blast. Things are so different here than in the states! We ran into one of Jesús’s other students at the bar we were all at, except this guy was a Spanish-speaker learning English. I was explaining to him the major boundaries observed between students and teachers in the states, and to him it just seemed ridiculous that it would be so taboo for a teacher to hang out with their students like that. The culture certainly is very different here.

I have to brag just for a minute, but only because I’m so proud of myself! My Spanish has come SO far!! Last night at dinner I was sitting next to Stephen the program director, his father in law (no english), one of the Spanish teachers, and then a couple of girls from the program. I was switching back and forth between Spanish and English like it was no problem!! Also, I talked on the phone yesterday with three different Spanish-speakers, which is very difficult because you can’t see their mouth or gestures or anything, but I have gotten to the point where I can do that. It’s so exciting! I LOVE IT!!

So, after a great last week, I packed up my bags today to head to Barcelona. I said an admittedly slightly tearful goodbye to Rachel and Emily, Carmen (my senora), my apartment, and finally Sevilla. It was sad! But here I am in Barcelona, ready to dive into this program and do it all over again.

That's it. More on Barcelona later!

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