La Sexta Semana: Ronda 🇪🇸

After my crazy week in Munich, I was happy to get some time to relax. But since we got back Tuesday morning, I had to go straight to school. And of course of all days, I had two presentations the day I had three hours of sleep. But I survived and got to sleep a lot that night. The weather has been getting a lot warmer, so on Wednesday I got to have one of my classes in the park. If only we could have all of our classes in the park. On Wednesday night, my friends and I decided to go to the Sevilla football game. I don’t really follow sports, besides Angels baseball, but football is so important to the Spanish culture so I knew I had to go at least once. We only had three days of classes, so the week flew by.

Un día hermoso para clase en el parque

Seviiillaaaaaa!!

On Thursday evening, Anna and I went to destress at a cute little marketplace and hung out by the river. Every day that I'm in Sevilla, I always find something just incredibly beautiful, like the view we had of Triana from the other side of the river. If summer in Sevilla didn't get to be over 100℉, I might have stayed forever...

El Río Guadalquivir y Triana

Anna invited me to join a group of friends for a day trip to Ronda on Friday. I was planning on staying and being lazy in Sevilla all weekend, but I had heard so many great things about Ronda, so I knew I couldn’t pass it up. That morning, I realized that my wardrobe doesn’t really consist of clothes for visiting a city on top of a canyon, so it was pretty entertaining how overdressed I was for all the walking and climbing we did throughout the canyon. Nevertheless, it was so much fun. The city itself was beautiful. Ronda is a small town and the people there were all just so friendly. After we found lunch, we went to the Plaza de Toros and its museum and ran around the ring pretending to be bulls. We wandered around for a while just taking in all the beauty of the countryside and visited the Arab baths where we learned a lot about the history of the city. We finally found out how to get to the Puente Nuevo, the tallest of the three of the city's bridges. We explored the canyon and all of its beauty until it was time to find dinner before we had to take the bus back home. There was so much to see and learn about the city, and I went with a fun group of girls who also took time to learn about the history, which made the day trip so great.

Plaza de Toros

Baño Árabe

Detrás del Puente Nuevo

Amigas

La hermosa Ronda

Saturday and Sunday were lazy days. I didn't get to explore as much as I had originally wanted, but it was nice to have a couple days with nothing to do. I don't think I even left the house on Sunday, but sometimes it's nice to have a day of absolutely nothing. On Saturday, I found a church in Triana that had a statue of Mary that they use for one of the processions during Semana Santa. Basically, Semana Santa (Holy Week) in Spain is a huge deal. Thousands of people travel to Spain to see and be part of the processions of statues all week. So this church had the statue out for the day so people could go see and kiss the statue. It was amazing to see so many people there because the traditions of Semana Santa are such a big deal. It was weird because there were tourists everywhere. I heard English being spoken everywhere. And we still have over two weeks until Semana Santa. But it was just really awesome to experience while I was just wandering through the city.

La Virgen de las Estrellas

Now I just have to survive midterms the next week and a half. Then I'm headed to Paris for my first spring break! And we're headed to Córdoba and Granada with ISA this weekend!

Hasta la próxima!

~Erynn

La Quinta Semana: Munich 🇩🇪 & Salzburg 🇦🇹

This week was a blast!

On Monday, Maddie, David, and I decided to bake cookies after class, which was an adventure in itself. Between the fact that the only attempt I had ever made to bake cookies myself ended up with cookie dough all over the kitchen four years ago for an Honors Chemistry assignment, the ingredients weren’t exactly what you would usually find in the US, and converting measurements, it was all quite entertaining. Luckily, the final product was awesome chocolate chip cookies.

El selfie de hacer galletas

After class on Tuesday, I had an awesome dinner with Anna and Hazel. We went wandering around through the city center until we found a nice little restaurant for tapas and sangria. I always enjoy my time with them because we always have great conversations. Later, I met up with my friends to go out for Matt’s birthday. And then on Wednesday, we all got a little dressed up for Matt’s actual birthday dinner at a really nice Italian restaurant. We had such a great time at dinner, and all of these fun nights were a great way to lead up to a fun weekend.

La cena de cumpleaños de Matt

On Thursday evening, I finished up my last minute packing for Munich. At midnight our bus left from Sevilla, and we made the 6 and a half hour drive to Madrid. The bus was rough; I was stuck in the back and the seats were tiny. When we finally made it to Madrid, we had 8 hours at the airport where I found some breakfast and slept on a bench for a couple more hours. Our flight left at 3:00 and we arrived in Munich two hours later. It was about 9:00 by the time we were able to sit down for our first delicious German meal. Later, we found a Bierhalle full of people, especially loud Düsseldorf soccer fans, where everyone ordered liters of beer at a time which made for a very fun night.

Also, our hostel… awesome. It was a little far outside the city, but we didn’t mind taking the metro. It was more like a hotel than anything. We had a 4 person room all to ourselves with its own bathroom, so it was even better than the last one.

On Saturday, I started the day with the best breakfast I’ve had in a long time. In Spain, no one really eats breakfast, and if they do, it’s a tiny piece of toast. So when I found scrambled eggs with ham, I was happy. We wandered around Munich for a while doing some sight-seeing. We then attempted to make our way to the Dachau Concentration Camp, but we ended up in a random neighborhood where we wandered around for a while. We met the sweetest German lady with her four kids who said we looked like we were in search of cakes and gave us directions to a cafe. We told her we were trying to get to Dachau and just talking about going brought tears to her eyes. We headed back to the metro station where we waited for another hour and decided to head back to the center of the city to go to the English Gardens. Since it’s winter though, there was not much to see there, but it was beautiful nonetheless. When the four of us girls went out to dinner together that night, we asked the owner of the restaurant what he would recommend. I didn’t really know what I was eating, but he brought out a ton of delicious authentic German food for us. We did a lot of munchin’ in München, to say the least.

Marienplatz

Waiting in the middle of nowhere

Roommate love in Englischer Garten

More Englischer Garten

On Sunday, we were more prepared and had a better idea of how to get to Dachau. We spent an hour taking in all the information about the first concentration camp. It was unbelievable to think of what it was like to be there only 80 years ago. After our visit, we made our way back to the city center where we wandered around for a while. We found our way to the well-known Bierhalles, Augustiner and Hofbräuhaus, and had a fun night with just the nine of us.

Dachau Concentration Camp

By the way, I’m including Monday in this week’s blog because it was Día de Andalucía and we had no classes and a long weekend for traveling… Yay!

Remember when my friends and I had to sprint around the city to get to the train in Málaga last weekend? Monday was a lot like that. The four of us girls decided to take a day trip to Salzburg for the day before we went home. So that morning, we gave ourselves 45 minutes from the time we checked out of our hostel to when the train left. But when we got to the metro station to get to the central station, we found out that it was delayed and all the metro was shut down for the time being. So we sprinted to get a taxi to get to central station, sprinted to find the lockers in central station for our luggage, sprinted to find change for the lockers, and sprinted to our train with just a couple minutes to spare.

Two hours later, and we were in Austria! We only had three hours, and it was raining, but we knew what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go. We found good food for lunch and then a chocolatier first, of course. And then we hiked up the giant mountain to the Hohensalzburg Castle. It was a bummer that it was raining so we couldn’t see very far, but it was still beautiful and totally worth the hike! Although we weren’t able to spend that much time in Salzburg, it was such an incredible place to visit, and of course I left with the Sound of Music stuck in my head. We then made our way back to the train to Munich.

Mirabell Gardens ("Do Re Mi" from the Sound of Music)

Residenzplatz ("I Have Confidence" from the Sound of Music)

View from the Hohensalzburg Castle

From there, everything got crazy again. We ended up with the wrong metro tickets to the airport, so when the train security came to check our tickets and said they weren’t valid, they demanded 60 euros from each of us. We showed them that we had no where close to 240 euros and that our flight was supposed to board in 30 minutes, so we made them sprint with us to the closest ATM in the airport. By the time we got all our boarding passes printed and got through security, we were still stressing to find our gate. But we finally got there only to find out that our plane wasn’t there yet. But finally after a 2 hour flight, 8 more hours in the Madrid airport, and a 3 hour train ride, we were finally back in Sevilla.

Overall, it was an incredibly fun week, but I’m excited to have this next weekend for myself in Sevilla.

Hasta la próxima semana!

~Erynn

La Cuarta Semana: Málaga 🇪🇸

Coming back after speaking English all weekend in Morocco was actually a lot more difficult than I expected. I probably spoke a maximum of five whole sentences in Spanish all weekend because almost everyone spoke English. But I've been getting back into Spanish-mode. I love that Maddie and I speak Spanish whenever we're together, whether we're at home or not, because we're always practicing. But it also makes me worry about what will happen when I go home. I'll just have to find people who will let me keep practicing my Spanish with them.

This week, it hit me how fast the semester is going to go by. I only have eight more weeks of school and two weeks of break. Besides the two long breaks, I have two other weekends that I have nothing planned for yet, and so many places I want to go to (and of course these weekends are the ones before midterm and finals). So I've had to figure out the most important things I want to do and who else also wants to do those things. Easier said than done. I usually end up searching for different flight prices and staring at them all night until I fall asleep. And it especially doesn't help that I'm so freaking indecisive. I didn't even decide what I was going to do after the ISA trip to Málaga until the day of.

Other than our excursion that was included with our program, the rest of the week was pretty mundane. But speaking of Málaga... We had a great trip! ISA has excursions planned for us students throughout the semester that are covered by our tuition (so almost free, right?), and this past weekend's trip was to a city on the southern coast of Spain, a 3 hour bus ride from Sevilla. I think between the early wake-up call, my usual sleep-deprivation, sleepy bus ride, and gloomy weather, I didn't enjoy the tour as much as I would have otherwise. Don't get me wrong; Málaga is a beautiful city, and we got to take a walking tour and visit the Picasso Museum. I was just kind of out it. In fact, Málaga strangely reminded me of California with its beaches and touristy and expensive stores and restaurants everywhere.

Amigas en Málaga

As previously mentioned, I just decided at 8am Friday morning that I would join a group of 6 other friends and stay overnight in Málaga in a hostel. Since I had never stayed in a hostel before, I didn't really know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised. The place was very and modern, and we met so many nice people there from all over the world. We spent most of that night hanging out there where they had their own cute little rooftop bar and chatting with so many interesting people.

El azotea del hostal

On Saturday, we had an even better day. We made our way to the beach where we hung out for a while. We walked back up the pier for a nice lunch, gelato, and shopping. It was just a beautiful day and the people we were with were super fun, so it was just an overall great time. In the afternoon, we made our way to check out of our hostel and to catch a train back to Sevilla. We realized we had fifteen minutes to get from our hostel to the train station, so we were running frantically throughout the city, asking random people for directions. Four of my friends were able to find a taxi, but Jessica and I were left to run the whole way there. We somehow made it their first and got on the train with two minutes to spare, but two other friends didn’t even make the train.

Yes, we dressed up for the beach

Playa de Malagueta

Sunday was a lazy day. I stayed home to relax for most of the day, but in the late afternoon I decided to do a little bit of exploring in the city center. I was hoping to get some shopping done, but unlike in the United States, there is absolutely nothing open on Sundays. So I just wandered around for a while until it was time to go home for our usual 9:00 dinner with the family. But I enjoyed being able to relax for the day because between school and weekend trips, I know I won’t be able to get a lot of time to be lazy. But that’s not a completely bad thing…

Hasta la próxima semana!
~Erynn

La Tercera Semana: Morocco 🇲🇦 & Gibraltar 🇬🇧

This week was a little more crazy...

On Monday, once I recovered from not sleeping all weekend after Cádiz and Super Bowl Sunday, I ran out of the snacks I packed for my flight to Spain. And with the meals so spread out during the day, I need to snack. So I went into the supermarket around the corner and bought the most American things I could find: Sour Cream & Onion Pringles, Chips Ahoy Cookies, and Coca-Cola (sadly their Coca-Cola Light is not the same as Diet Coke). I wouldn't say I'm exactly homesick, but there are those little things I miss...

• Snacks and junk food (but I've been eating a lot more fruits and vegetables than ever), 
• Snow (but the weather is very nice right now; friends' snapchats of snow just make me so jealous), 
• Carpeted floors (it gets so cold at night), 
• Heaters for when it gets so cold (I just bury myself in blankets), 
• Breakfast (pancakes, french toast, eggs, bacon...), 
• Getting all my laundry done at once (but Carmen does it for me, which is awesome), 
• Good tv shows on Netflix (but I don't have much time for tv anyways),
• Free water (but wine is cheaper than water),
• Classes being a 5 minute walk from my room (but the exercise and views make it enjoyable in the end),
• Stores being open 14:00-16:00 (but lunch and siestas are very important),
• The rest of my clothes (I'll just have to go shopping),
• And other random little things here and there.

But there's so much more to enjoy... I love the Spanish time and that people take time to enjoy what's going on around them, everything's so inexpensive, the food is great, everywhere is beautiful, and everyone is super nice. I love that I feel like I'm part of the family in my homestay, classes are going well, and I'm still in love with the beautiful city of Sevilla.

And all was well until late Monday when my cold started, which was a huge bummer. So on Tuesday I felt pretty crappy and just overall exhausted for the rest of the week.

Wednesday was my first day at my internship, which I was excited about, of course. I help at a school in a neighborhood called Nervión, in an English class with students 13-14 years old. My first day went really well (all of that info is being recorded in a different blog for my education class assignments), and I can't wait for the rest of the semester in this class.

Maddie and I went to Mass for Ash Wednesday that night. Mass is a little difficult, in more ways than one. First of all, I'm always busy and going to so many places during the weekends, so finding Mass times is pretty difficult. And second of all, it's difficult to follow what exactly is being said. I can pick out the parts of the readings that I'm familiar with, but the homily is pretty rough. I can usually figure out the central theme of the homily, but that's about it. I've also noticed that Sunday Masses at home are a lot more flashy than the Masses in Spain. Here, there's no processional hymn, let alone processions or hymns. Everyone just kind of shows up, listens to the priest say Mass very fast, somehow makes their way to the front for Communion, and then leaves. So basically like a daily Mass in the States. It's not like I would know the songs they would sing in Spain, but I just miss the music. But I guess that just means Jesus raves at Regis will be that much more fun when I get back.

On Thursday, I finally went to the pharmacy for cold medicine. Usually when I'm sick, I take DayQuil which helps a little bit, but I was surprised at how much better I felt after finally getting medicine here. Is it bad if I stock up just so I can bring some home with me? And after my nap, I was feeling so great that I couldn't fall back to sleep until 4am. Oops.

After a couple of hours of sleep and last minute packing, I met with an excursion group at 9am on Friday for our trip to Morocco. Our first stop was Gibraltar, a unique little British territory south of Andalucía. Everyone kept switching between Spanish and English and had the strangest accents (almost like a mix between British and Spanish?). Everything was priced in pounds but they accepted euros everywhere, which was nice but made paying for things more confusing. So we spent the little time we had at a bistro and exploring. Then it was time to head to the port for the ferry to Ceuta, a Spanish city in Africa. The day was filled lots of sleeping on the bus, sleeping on the ferry, and sleeping on the bus some more until we finally made it to our hotel in Tangier late that night.

Gibraltar

Anna, Hazel, and I on the ferry

On Saturday morning, we took a panoramic tour of Tangier. We visited where the Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea divide and then made our way to the beach to ride camels. Next, we made it to Chefchaouen later in the afternoon. Anna, Hazel, and I decided to explore the city on our own to get a more authentic experience of the city, which was the best part of the whole weekend. The city was just so beautiful, the people so nice, and the shops had so many incredible things. And finally, we made our way to Tetuan for a 5-course meal in an Arabic Palace. Up until this point, I had slept during all the traveling (1) because I can, and (2) to avoid getting motion sick. But I decided I would be fine to stay awake during the short bus rides before and after dinner. Not a good idea. Between the motion sickness and all the food, my stomach couldn't handle it all anymore, so I stayed in the hotel sick for the rest of the night. With that and my cold, I was not very happy.

Friends in Tangier 

^Atlantic ... Mediterranean ^

Riding a camel on the beach

Chefchaouen

On Sunday, I felt great again. No more throwing up and no more congestion from my cold. Yay. It was just super windy and rainy all day, which was not ideal for the day's itinerary. We had a tour around Tetuan and visited a pharmacy, and then we had free time to do some shopping. I was not as impressed with Tetuan than I was with the other cities, but it was still a very interesting place to visit. For the rest of the afternoon, we made our way back home to Sevilla. I finally had the Spanish tortilla I had been looking forward to all day and promptly passed out for the rest of the night.

Overall, the weekend was an incredible experience. Morocco is a beautiful country with its beaches, mountains, and everything in between. And I would not have been able to go without the excursion program I used. Anna and Hazel were also great people to travel with. They'e super nice and smart, so I enjoyed my weekend with them very much. My only problem was that we went with such a huge group of 140 other students who were not the nicest and we didn't split into smaller groups for the different tours. We were a huge group of loud Americans being paraded around Morocco, which is not the best idea in some situations. A lot of the people on the trip were in the same study abroad program, which typically go through individual universities, so they didn't socialize with anyone else because they already knew each other. And a lot of them were just generally culturally insensitive and impolite, which was unfortunate. But it helped me appreciate ISA, the friends I've made, and the whole experience a lot more. So it was all totally worth it.

Also, I know I'm super behind on posting pictures on Facebook, but I'm working on it. Be on the lookout for those soon (hopefully)!

Hasta la próxima semana!
~Erynn

La Segunda Semana: Cádiz 🇪🇸

First week of classes: done! And the best part is that this week is the longest week of the semester, and it's over with. So far, my classes aren't too bad. I'm taking Spanish Culture and Civilization (Advanced Spanish), Second Language Acquisition (Education), Al-Andalus: Muslims, Jews, and Christians (History), and Contemporary Spanish History. My 10am Spanish class is the only class I have in the morning and everyday, and it's only for an hour. Education is for two hours on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, and my two two-hour history classes are back-to-back with the same professor in the same classroom on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which is a little rough. And I'm done with classes at 6pm everyday, which just annoying. But at least I don't have classes on Fridays besides this week, and I should be an expert on Spain by the end of the semester.

ISA Study Center

On Tuesday, I got to go to the Real Alcázar de Sevilla. From the outside walls, you would never have known it would be so beautiful on the inside of the Alcázar and in the gardens. But I love the fact that I can go on mini adventures like this during my breaks in between classes.

El Real Alcázar de Sevilla

Los Jardines del Alcázar

The rest of the week was pretty mundane: 30 minute walk to class, back home for a siesta and lunch, another walk to/from class, some more walking, shopping, and sleeping here and there. And I'm still loving it all.

Saturday night we went to the Cádiz Carnaval, a huge party with thousands of people in the streets an hour and a half bus ride south of Sevilla. We needed costumes for the carnival, so Maddie and I bought masks and painted shirts with the help of our hermanito, David, which was a lot of fun. The carnival itself was absolutely insane. We were there from 9pm to 4am, so we all just hung out and talked to locals. Unfortunately because there were so many people, pick-pocketing was easy to get away with. At least three people I knew had their phones stolen, which made the whole night pretty stressful. But we all made it back to the bus in time and passed out on the bus after all the craziness.

Arte con David

Listos para Carnaval!

Sunday was a relaxing day for the most part. I slept in and did homework at home all day. Since it was also Super Bowl Sunday, we found an Irish pub that would be playing the game on big screens. But thanks to the time difference, the game didn't start until 12:30am. We didn't get commercials either, which was a bummer because those are way more interesting than the game itself. We didn't get back until almost 4am, but that's a normal time for Spaniards, so I guess we're fitting right in this weekend! Go Broncos!

Also, we already filled up the rest of February with other plans: Morocco (12/2-14/2), Málaga (19/2), and Munich (26/2-29/2). I'm looking forward to writing about those adventures too!

Hasta la próxima semana!
~Erynn

La Primera Semana: Madrid, Toledo & Sevilla 🇪🇸

I can't believe I've already been in Spain for a week! The past seven days alone have already been the most amazing trip, so I know my semester in Sevilla is going to be an incredible experience.
After ten hours of flying, we started our adventure in Madrid. Luckily, I was able to sleep on the plane, so I was pretty awake and ready for my first day in Spain. Upon arriving to the airport I met up with ten other people from ISA who were also on my plane, including Maddie, my roommate! Maddie is very nice and super fun, so I know we're going to have a great semester. Luckily, customs was a piece of cake and all of our bags made it to Madrid, but we got ourselves lost in the airport because we didn't realize that from one end of the airport to the other is a 15 minute bus ride away. Oops. But overall, a successful first 12 hours.

Maddie y yo en la Plaza Mayor, Madrid

Monday and Tuesday in Madrid were awesome. We did some exploring the first day, as well as some orientation meetings. We did not pick the best restaurant for our first meal in Spain, so that threw us off for the first couple of days. I think Maddie was traumatized after her "House Salad" came with a bunch of raw fish. But I quickly learned that my go-to tapa would be croquettes, because for me you can't really go wrong with potatoes! The second day was a walking tour of Madrid. We saw the Palacio Real, the Catedral de the Almudena, the Plaza Mayor, toured the Museo del Prado, hung out in the Parque de Retiro, and wandered around Madrid for a while. It was a beautiful city, but very touristy.

Amigos en el Parque

Explorando Madrid

On Wednesday, we took an hour bus ride from the largest city in Spain to the smallest, Toledo. Toledo was the original capital of Spain and is known as "The City of the Three Cultures" because of its rich history of Jews, Muslims, and Christians coexisting in the city. We took another walking tour of the city and visited the Monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes (a Franciscan monastery), Santa María la Blanca (used to be a synagogue, but now owned by the Catholic Church), and the Catedral de Toledo. Then we went exploring and shopping on our own in the city and had our first actually good meal in Spain, which was quite exciting for us. The city was so much different than Madrid. Although Madrid was a beautiful place to visit, Toledo seemed to be a lot more authentic because it was a lot less touristy, which I enjoyed so much more.

Holy Toledo!

Thursday was a long day with a six hour bus ride to Sevilla. I slept for most of it, of course, but the seats seemed to get smaller and smaller every minute. Until now, we hadn't had to use our Spanish very much, so I was excited to finally meet our host family and actually speak Spanish with them. We met our host mom, Carmen (coincidence?), her daughter, Carmen (another coincidence?), and her six-year-old son (our host mom's grandson), David. Jesús, Carmen's husband (our host mom's son-in-law) was at the apartment waiting for us too. The first hour or so was a little rough, but I started to get used to being in Spanish-mode. Everyone is very nice and accommodating. Carmen even had cereal and peanut butter just for us (Spaniards typically just have a piece of toast for breakfast). She also explained the crazy meal schedule to us: We make our own breakfast before class, we come home for a big lunch at 2:30, and dinner is at 9:00. So far, I've really liked every meal she's made for us, including Saturday's salmon, surprisingly enough. Maddie and I keep saying that our home stay situation is probably the best anyone could want. We all get along and have a lot of fun. The family has hosted a lot of girls before us, so they have lots of patience with helping us learn Spanish and just a lot of great advice in general.

Mi habitación

Friday was language placement test day which I was actually pretty worried about. I needed an advanced level class for the last class before I finish my minor in Spanish, but I wasn't sure if Regis' definition of "advanced" would compare to ISA's. But I got the class I wanted, so I guess I did well enough. And because it was kind of like our first day of school and we have the best host family, both Carmens walked with us to show us the way and gave us a big hug and kiss at the front gate. After the test, we finally got to see more of the city and had a short tour of Sevilla and visited the Plaza de España and the Catedral de Sevilla. I fell in love with the city immediately. Sevilla is a large city, but small enough so everyone walks everywhere. And the city is so beautiful, so it makes walking everywhere so much better. I almost never want to leave...

Plaza de España

Sevilla

Saturday and Sunday were a lot less crazy. We got to sleep in and did some shopping in El Centro, and I finally unpacked my room. On Sunday evening, Carmen took Maddie and me to Mass at beautiful church in El Centro. After Mass, we went exploring and she snuck us into a hotel with the most amazing hidden pathways and showed us some awesome restaurants to go to in the future (again, best host family). And Sunday night I realized that I'm here to also go to school, so I started to prepare for my first day of classes the next day.

Explorando con Carmen

Hasta la próxima semana!
~Erynn