I'm a Girl of Many Words...

I have a ton to talk about! Good meal, new job, Barcelona, NEW BABY in the family and my surprise today! :) I'm just going to use a lot of pictures because I think it's easier and more entertaining that way, but I'll probably end up writing a novel anyways.

Zoe Felicity Hanna was born this weekend, 14 weeks early and weighing 1 lb. 14 oz. I'm claiming her as my partial-niece even though tecnically she's my second cousin...? But only children are allowed to claim cousins' kids as nieces and nephews (at least in my book - ha.). She's going strong and is breathing great but still needs lots of thoughts and prayers! I can't wait to meet the gorgeous little girl once I'm back in the states! Sweet Zoe Felicity! :)

Doesn't this look amazing? It was. It's a chiliburger that I had from the Texmex place I've mentioned before. It's actually called the Houston Burger, coincidentally. I ate the entire burger and every single fry - and some people think I don't eat? Ha. It was SO good, but I can safely say it was the blandest burger I have ever eaten in my entire life, so I'm not sure why it was so good? I think it was just the concept of it all, and it may have been a bland burger, but all the food over here is bland, compared to the states, so it tasted pretty darn good. :)

I had my first day of work at the bookstore last Monday. It was a really good start. I actually did work which I wasn't expecting. I had to put prices on some books. Then I had to look up books on a list with all different titles, mark which ones I found and then put them all in boxes - a lot of inventory-type work.

My boss also has had me go to the Chino store next door

(*Sidenote: Chino stores are stores run by Chinese people who speak Spanish. Yes, it's a weird concept seeing a Chinese person rattle off Spanish. They have EVERYTHING: drinks, food, converters, straighteners, school supplies, shoes. It's kind of like a knock-off Wal-mart on a small scale and they're on every corner.*)

and get him a Coke Lite (Diet Coke), maybe some beers and to get myself whatever I want. (For the record...I got water.) The day that he wanted me to get beers he wanted six Coke Lites and three beers in "botes." He really emphasized the word botes. To me, it was as if botes were different from what the Coke Lites were in. I assumed botes were like a nickname for botella (bottle). I went next door to the Chino store and the Chino lady helped me get everything I needed and I told her "botes" but she acted like if it was for my boss next door that it would be cans. She only confused me and I said botes and pointed to bottles and she said okay and gave me bottles. Then I walked back to the bookstore and my boss immediately said "No no, botes." I started trying to ask what botes were and ask if they were the same as what the Coke Lites came in, etc., but then a customer in the store (who apparently spoke English) informed me that botes are cans. So, there ya have it. I learned what cans are while buying my boss bottles of beer instead of cans. I always thought bottles were supposed to be better anyways? Ha, but I guess you learn something new every day, SO botes = cans, NOT bottles. That's my Spanish lesson for the day.

Overall, working at the bookstore isn't bad. I almost wish I didn't have anything to do so I could read some of the books! A lot of them look so interesting and are fairly easy for me to read. One book that I saw was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was a children's chapter book, but I think that would be something good for me to start with. I'm excited about my semester at the bookstore! Pretty soon I'm sure I'll know all kinds of Spanish authors.

Now onto Barcelona (aka Barthelona - with the Spanish lisp), it was so much fun! I haven't heard a negative thing from anyone who went, and there were a lot of us. We had such a great weekend with tons of good laughs, sight-seeing and exploring.

 This was all I packed - it's a miracle! My backpack is actually slightly open in this picture, so it looks bigger than it was. Ryan Air is a cheap airline that flies around Europe, but they have so many restrictions (including size/weight of carry-on luggage) and will charge you if you do not abide by them. We were only allowed ONE carry-on item. Not one personal item plus another bag - just one, so my purse had to be inside my backpack with all of my clothes and toilitries for the entire weekend (three nights). Packing was a bit stressful, but we made it. I DID forget my toothbrush and body wash though - oops - so that was a purchase I had to make.

Beautiful Barca! You can see the coast way out there too. It was such a pretty city, and it reminded me a lot of L.A. or NYC in the States. This view is from El Parque Guell - a park with gorgeous views of the city.

This is the STEEP street we walked up to get to the park, and you can see the beginning of escalators that go even higher. It began with two or three escalators, then this steep street, then probably 4 more steep escalators and a set of stairs plus some up-hill trails within the park. Needless to say, we all got our workout for the semester - ha.

Meet Flat Stanley. This little guy took a trip to Barcelona with us! I received him in the mail last week from the daughter of one of my mom's friends. He comes from a story that a lot of kids read in school about a guy who travels all around, so they send this paper version of him and I have to take pictures, buy post cards, write a story about his adventures in Spain and mail him back! We had a lot of fun trying to find good places to take pictures of ol' Stan, haha.

This is La Sagrada Familia, a cathedral in Barcelona that began building in the 1800s and has still not been completed. We didn't pay to go inside but just viewed the outside which was incredible. 

The girls in front of the other side of La Sagrada Familia. It was amazing how many different types of architecture were incorporated in the building. 

We went to the beach! It was freezing cold and the waves were huge. We weren't really sure if it was the Mediterranean Sea or not...we didn't think it was. I just looked it up and it is called the Balearic Sea, but it is a portion of the Mediterranean/runs into the Mediterranean, which is more south. Despite the cold weather, we really enjoyed it!

We went out on a dock/pier that was so cool! The waves were crashing up against it and we got some pretty cool pictures.

We also all eventually ended up pretty soaked, but it was totally worth it. :)

Here's our hostel! This was the little sitting area in our room, the other group's room had an actual balcony that we could walk out on, but they didn't have furniture to sit on. This was more like a closed-in balcony because it was still an area that we could close off from our room.

Our room with six beds that were like sleeping on a box of springs and nothing more.

This was our kitchen in the hostel. The hostel was really cute and was basically just an old apartment that had lots of bunk beds in different rooms. It was small and the 12 of us that stayed here practically had it to ourselves the entire time.

The elevator up to our hostel made me think of the Tower of Terror, so these are my friends being scared to get on the tiny thing.

This was in the Picasso museum BEFORE I found out we weren't allowed to take pictures, ha. I figured I'd share my one picture of one of his earlier paintings, but I have no idea what it is called. The museum itself was really cool to see! There were a lot of other pieces from artists that had influence on Picasso's work. There weren't many paintings I recognized until his later years, but it was still very cool.

We went to a chocolate museum!! Even the entrance ticket was made out of chocolate. :) There were all kinds of statues/figures like this one that were made entirely out of chocolate. This is a depiction of Don Quixote which is a story that was written by a Spanish author - Miguel Cervantes.

This is a HUGE open-air market that we went to - La Boqueria. It had everything from fresh fruit to live crabs and lobsters. It was amazing! We each got some fresh fruit juice that was prepared and ready in a cup to buy. I had kiwi...it was SO good. I wish I could have some of that every day; I think my body would love me if I did.

I think this was possibly the most favorite part of the entire trip. It is a fountain show with lights and music that was one of the first in the world to be like this.

This was an art museum behind the fountain that had fountains and a waterfall in front of it and was lit up really well. It was so pretty! We went up there and had a gorgeous view of Barca at night....

Here it is! I love this picture, but it was also 100 times more incredible in person.

That was just a FEW of my hundred+ pictures that I took this weekend, ha, but I think it's a pretty good summary! I loved Barcelona and would love to go back during the summer some time. I think it could be an amazing city when it's not freezing and raining like a hurricane majority of the time. We faced quite a bit of rain this weekend, especially at night, when umbrellas basically didn't do any good. Despite the rain, we still had fun! We used the metro to get around a little bit, to places that were REALLY far away, but we also walked a TON and that's why we all have aches and pains throughout our bodies - lol.

Now onto my day today. I got to class at 9 a.m., and walked past the couple of packages that were sitting in the mail area. Once I was sitting in class, one of my friends told me that she saw one of the packages was for ME!!! As I'm running out of class to get the package, she asked who was in San Antonio..... "COUSINS!" :)

FOOD! And a precious pictures of Tessa (which is already on my bedside table) plus a note from Corey and Mandy. Omg - I was so excited. KitKats, gum, PEANUT BUTTER CRACKERS!!!! (which I've been craving), jalepenos, tea bags, etc.

Can you see the excitement on my face? There was definite excitement. I mean, seriously - tea bags, jalepenos and peanut butter crackers? Some of my all time favorite things. :) OBVIOUSLY, it made my week and was just the boost I needed after an exhausting, but extremely fun, weekend in Barcelona.



That's all for now and I feel like this post didn't end up being as long as I anticipated it to be? It did take me all day to write though, ha. We have a lot of four day weeks ahead of us and lots of plans for weekends coming up. I only have one full weekend in Seville from now until Spring Break - when my parents come!!!! We're going to Granada this weekend. It is supposed to be VERY cool - in more ways than one. I've talked to so many people that loved it and have also heard that it's freezing there. Some people may stay a day longer and go skiing. We leave on Friday and stay overnight and then we come home Saturday afternoon. Other trips coming up: Lisbon, Portugol; Venice, Italy; Cadiz, Spain - let the European travels begin!

Thoughts and prayers to Zoe and love to my sweet family...

XOXO

Paige

Mi Librería

I still love this life! I think I've started almost every entry like that? I just have a short update today - nothing too exciting has happened since Friday.

My mom's birthday was Saturday. I decided that was a reason to actually use my ghetto cell phone to call home. It was also the only real present I could offer since I'm in Spain, so I called my Momma and wished her a Feliz Cumpleaños. It was nice to actually talk on the phone and not have to worry about Skype/internet connection interrupting our conversation. We only talked for about six minutes, and the convo basically ate up my remaining minutes. A Spanish message came on saying I would use up all of my money in a few seconds, so I pretty much hung up on my mom in a panic and then continued our conversation on Facebook - ha. SO...with that being said, I went today to go add more money to my phone and I did the entire transaction in Spanish! I was pretty proud of myself and definitely walked out smiling. I always order food in Spanish, etc., but there was just something about adding more money to my phone all in Spanish that made me feel smart. :) Hopefully there will be more smart moments to come.

On Saturday, Kelsie and I made a trip to the mall again to look for various items we had decided we needed. Between the two of us - we walked out with one thing, but it was quite an experience. While we were walking we noticed there were A LOT more cars than usual on the streets, whether they were parked or stuck in traffic. I mentioned that maybe there was a fútbol game that night. Didn't think much of it...we just kept walking down all the little back roads to get to the main street the mall is on (the soccer/futbol stadium is just on the other side of the mall) - my thought was confirmed. PEOPLE WERE EVERYWHERE. It was just like a mob of people walking to a sporting event in the States. They were crossing the streets in packs wearing their team colors and singing/chanting about their fútbol team. It could have easily been good people-watching, but we weren't very prepared for it and were on a mission...it was still entertaining, though, and a definite adventure. We really want to get tickets to go to a game some time soon. I think we're going to start looking for some cheap tickets in the nosebleed section - ha - just to get a feel for what it's all about.

Today is my first day at the bookstore (la librería), and this is it! My little blue store. I'm excited to FINALLY get in the routine that I've been looking forward to this entire time. I'm a little nervous because I don't exactly know what's in store and it doesn't seem like my boss speaks a lick of English, but we'll just have to see how it goes! I'll have an update ASAP. :)

This weekend we go to Barcelona. As of now, it is about 10 degrees cooler than Sevilla and it is supposed to rain all weekend - fabulous. We're all really excited though. A lot of us had tests today that we were studying for on Sunday and today, and we keep talking about how the only thing getting us through this week is that Barcelona is at the end of it! I think we're all going to have a ton of fun - rain or shine. Packing, on the other hand, for three days with JUST a backpack that can't weigh more than 22 pounds...could be a little difficult. I've been trying to plot out my outfits in my head, but the rain and cold are both really throwing me off.

I will try and post one more time before we leave for Barca (Barcelona), but if I don't have time then I'll have a lot to tell about come Sunday or Monday.

Ten una semana fabulosa,

Paige

Córdoba is Cold!

Today we did not have classes and we took our excursion to Córdoba. It was, by far, the coldest day we have experienced since we've been here. We all checked the weather, and it did say the high was 50 and sunny, but usually in Sevilla when it's 55 and sunny it's pretty warm, so we weren't prepared. We froze until about 3 p.m., but overall it was a fun trip!

We started by crossing this bridge (right of picture) over a river that was the entrance to the city, more or less.

Kels, Olivia and I sitting outside the city - just before crossing the bridge.

We immediately walked through the city and to a mosque that has been converted into a cathedral by Christians.

This is a picture of the bell tower with the orange trees (of course). It was taken from the orange tree garden right outside of the cathedral - sound familiar?

This is part of the irrigation system that was originally placed here to irrigate the orange tree garden. There was a system just like this at the cathedral in Sevilla. This one actually had water flowing through it when we were there though, so that made it seem a little more interesting.

This is the first glimpse when you walk into the cathedral. It's almost looks like a mirror repeating all of the columns and arches, but it really did give off that never-ending vibe - similar to this picture.

This depicts a couple of the different ceiling types, the archways and the stained glass windows.

I like this picture because you can really see the marble of the columns, and it also shows, again, the never-ending feeling that the building portrayed.

Again, everything was SO detailed and ornate.

The amounts of gold and silver used in these buildings is unbelievable. This is made out of gold and silver from the New World. It is a sculpture that is still used to this day and is carried around town one day out of each year.

This is a clock that was used to tell the time to the entire town according to the ringing of the bells in the bell tower.

Once we got to this side of the massive building, there was a mixture between gotchic and renaissance architecture. There were a lot of different types of architecture within this cathedral; it was mainly because it had been changed so many times by different people of different religions in different time periods.

This is a close-up view of the choir seats. They were made out of wood - mostly walnut to give the darker look. Choir members were actually not allowed to sit during Mass, so (you can kind of see it here) when the seats were not set down, there is a little lip that would allow the choir members to lean on but not make it appear as if they are sitting. Here it shows the seat in the middle is set down like normal, but to the right the seat is up and the flat area that they could lean back on is pictured.

I love the way the light is coming through the windows at the end of the hall way in this picture. :)

My bruschetta that I had at lunch! It was amazing :) and I'm wishing I could have some more if it right now.

Just some Spanish country side - the view in between Sevilla and Cordoba on the bus...so pretty!

Now I have a couple other pictures/updates from yesterday. We went and got some churros con chocolate again, so I took a picture. They vary from place-to-place, but they were REALLY good here...and there was a ton, haha.

Yum! :) I'm starving right now, so all of these pictures of food are not helping my problem. If you look on the other side of the churros, you can see one of our ghetto Spain phones lying on the table. It's basically a small brick and it's still really difficult for all of us to use.

This is an aisle in one of the grocery store/markets that was COMPLETELY devoted to mayonnaise and olive oil - welcome to Spain. If you look at the bottom shelf you can tell there are HUGE bottles of just olive oil.

Okay, that's all for now. It's the weekend in Sevilla and I'm so excited to sleep in tomorrow! We had an early morning today and we technically missed siesta time, so everyone's pretty exhausted. I am hopefully starting my internship on Monday, so I should have quite an update after that. Hope everyone has a good weekend and stay warm in Texas!

All my love,

Paige

Sevilla Update

I'm still loving life in Sevilla! I don't have any pictures to update y'all with, sorry, but I have some things to tell about. First off, we booked a trip to Barcelona!! I say "we" because the majority of our TTU study abroad group is going to Barcelona the same weekend. We have a random three-day weekend, so we're all going to spend three nights in Barcelona. I am so excited, the director of our program said there is only one problem with Barcelona....once you go, you always want to go back. :)

I finally went to this bar that I've been hearing about for quite some time called "Texmex." They are known for showing American sporting events, especially football games. This past Saturday night we went and watched the Baltimore vs. Pittsburgh game - it was fun. One of the things I miss most is probably being able to watch football, thank goodness the season is almost over. They also have "Texmex" food. We decided we would try some cheese fries. They were nothing like we expected (with onions, jalepenos, bacon, etc.), they were more like chili cheese fries, but they were pretty good! They definitely had some flavor/spice. We also asked for jalepenos, thinking there was no way they would have them, but they did! I was so excited I could have just eaten the jalepenos by themselves (didn't even care that they charged me 1.20 euros for 20 jalepeno slices). They were really good, maybe a little too pickled, but still amazing compared to everything else here. I'm ready to go back and try some other "Texmex" food. I know it can't compare to anything actually in Texas, but, these days, I'll take what I can get.

I'm hoping to be able to watch the Super Bowl while I'm here. It will definitely be going on during the middle of the night, but I don't care. We will probably either watch it at the Texmex bar, or we may play it on our projector and watch it at The Center...that's what they did with the National Championship game, but that was before our first day of classes, so I opted out of that. We'll see though!

Classes are still going well. We've had a couple quizzes so far and we have another quiz tomorrow. We have our first exam on Monday that will be over how well we speak during a mock interview...it should be interesting. Today we had to give a little Powerpoint presentation over jobs and what jobs we would like to have in the future. It's kind of cool that we're doing things in our classes here in Spanish that we could easily be doing in our classes in the States in English. During our classes we also will go to "el bar." A "bar" here entails a lot more than a bar in the states. Bars here have cafe con leche/breakfast, food and alcohol, so when we go to the bar for class, we order cafe con leche and maybe some toast or breakfast (all they eat over here is a light breakfast) and we talk in Spanish and/or do activities out of our workbooks.

My friends and I have actually fallen in love with this one bar that we continue to go to during class, and we've also found our favorite thing to order. We even went today AFTER class because we were all craving it. We order a cafe con leche (the strong coffee in Spain that I previously mentioned) and una tostada entera con mantequilla. "Una tostada entera" is a whole toast, but the toast here isn't the same as the toast in the States. A whole toast here is more like a mini loaf of bread - cut in fourths. If you just ordered half of the toast you would just get either the top or bottom of the loaf - not the whole thing. "Con mantequilla" is with butter, toast with butter and a coffee. That's what I get here that I think is amazing...you would think it's nothing special...except the coffee is addicting and a definite caffeine booster and the bread is so fresh and delicious when toasted with butter on it. There are lots of other options of what you can get on your toast, olive oil is a popular one here. They also offer various hams and other sauces. For our one coffee and tostada entera we pay 1.80 euros - we're in Heaven. A cheap, yet filling breakfast and caffeine boost...what more could a girl ask for? AND it's at a precious little bar where we can sit outside if we want.

Last night, we had our first meeting with our tutors (basically they are people who are paid to be our friends). We will meet with them every Tuesday night through the end of February. I think it could be a really good way to improve our Spanish because they all speak mostly Spanish to us, but yet understand English well too, so they can help us with words we're unfamiliar with. My class, which is much smaller, got paired up one-on-one with a tutor and in the lower level class they had two to three students per tutor. We literally got paired up with them and then everyone went completely different directions to different bars and such. Then we all sat and had a drink and talked with our tutors for an hour and a half. I'm not positive if we're going to have the same tutors each week, or if they will mix it up so we can meet different people? I guess we'll see how it all plays out!

Have I mentioned all of the little dogs here? They're everywhere! They aren't all small - some of them are definite horses, but the majority of them are medium to small sized. They are all so cute and it makes me miss my Wilson. :) A lot of them will have cute little sweaters on and their owners will be walking them. There is absolutely no grass here, so you can only imagine where they go to the bathroom. On the sidewalks? Why not? Dog poop is ALL OVER the sidewalks here...you kind of have to look down while you walk or else you may end up face-down on the sidewalk before you know it. It's definitely disgusting, but is completely normal here and is something we have to get used to. Ha, I bet a lot of you didn't care to know that.

This Friday we're going to Cordoba. It's going to be a longer trip than Italica because it is a little further away, and, again, I'm sure I'll have plenty of pictures to show after we've been there. I'm still working on getting my work schedule figured out for the book store, I will probably have my first day of work next week. I'm ready to get started so I can officially be in my routine for the rest of the semester.

Hasta luego,

Paige

First Excursion

Yesterday we went on our first excursion to Itálica. Itálica is an old Roman city that is right out side of Sevilla. It consisted of a bunch of Roman ruins...wasn't nearly as breath-taking as the cathedral was, but it is a huge part of Spain's history and is so cool that we are living right by it.

These two pictures were the beginning area that we were in. There were all different sections of Itálica.

This is an original inscription of the Roman rules. It was written in Latin (so obviously we couldn't read it). There was a Spanish translation to the left of it, but that wasn't very helpful at this point in the semester, either.

The girls in front of some of the ruins. The doorways were tiny! I'm kind of sad I didn't get a picture directly in one so you could tell how small they were in comparison to me.

This was the other main section of Itálica that we were in. This is where the actually city was. There were layouts of houses all over the place, and a lot of them were even covered up by dirt/grass to keep them preserved. All of the floors in the houses were mosaic...I can't imagine how much time JUST that took.

This was an oven! It looks similar to a big pizza oven from today.

I took this picture mainly for my dad - the square in the middle is the God of Wine (and something else that I can't remember). He discovered how to cultivate the grapevine. I had no intention of taking a picture of this until my teacher told me that - it made it much more interesting to me. :)

This is an olive tree. There were tons of them and there were a lot of them planted in rows in fields. I didn't taste one of the olives, but some people did and said they were horribly bitter. There is a whole pickling process that they have to go through after they are picked off of the tree.

This was the Roman theater.

That's about it from Itálica - welcome to my morning yesterday, haha. I forgot to mention my iced tea attack that I had when we went shopping the other day! Oh. My. Gosh. There was a Starbucks in the mall, so I decided I would see if they could make me an unsweet, iced black tea (no water added). Quiero un té negro con no azúcar. Well they didn't really understand. First, they wanted to make it hot. No, quiero un té con hielo (ice). Okay, so then they understood that, but they pulled out what looked like that pink passion fruit tea. I asked if it was JUST black tea and that it WASN'T sweet - "Sí, Sí!" Negative. It was the disgusting sweet/tart pink passion fruit tea, which I'm sure could be really good if I wasn't expecting and needing a bitter, strong BLACK iced tea. Needless to say, it put me in a bad mood for a little while...all I needed was an iced tea, and I regretted even going to Starbucks to try - never again (while in Spain).

That's it for now! Today's just going to be a lazy Sunday at home. :)

Sending my love to Texas,

Paige