a weekend away from home

who would have thought but finally after a month here in sevilla i feel like i can call it my home- what a great feeling! anyways, i went to madrid this weekend to visit noah, and can i just say how shocked i was to see how different these two cities are? sevilla is filled with narrow alleyways and plazas around every corner, and then i arrive in madrid to find modern buildings and two way streets. crazy stuff, i know. i'll give an abbreviated version of how my weekend went, pointing out specific highlights for your reading pleasure:

I arrived in madrid on Friday at 7:15 AM after having taken an overnight bus for 6 hours and joined my fellow jumbos for quite a speedy run through of some of the most famous paintings in madrid at El Prado. I'm not the biggest museum goer but I generally want more than 60 seconds to look at a painting- not this lady- she had an agenda and she was sticking to it! that night we decided to check out the second biggest discoteca in madrid- Joy. During our lovely botellón sesh alongside many a spaniard enjoying similar activities, a dear old italian man excitedly (and very drunkenly) approached the group wishing to bond with us over some cheap alcohol. over the course of the next five minutes he managed to: break the touch barrier that normally exists between strangers, prove his lack of mastery over the spanish language, and serenade my boyfriend in italian. the night was off to a great start. the club turned out not to be as good as we had hoped, but we got in for free, so i would still count it as a success. however, the next night i broke my standing record and stayed out until 5:30 at El Kapital dancing to house music. guess i need to bring this endurance back to sevilla...but as much as i loved madrid, visiting this past weekend made me love sevilla even more and the culture it possesses, including the forever impossible to understand andalucían accent. 

all in all, it was an incredible weekend in so many ways. I hereby commence my semester of travel: more to come from Córdoba, Amsterdam, Cádiz, Morocco, Paris, Italy, and more.

viva la vida.

that's pretty freaking cool...

mosques, gardens, sun, and games

hola, my dear friends. sorry for the rather long pause between posts. haven't had much to say in a while, but i figured it was about time to update you all on my life here. hmm..since the last time i wrote, i think that was before granada last weekend. damn. okay, so granada is absolutely gorgeous. we went to the alhambra, which is this massive collection of old mosques and gardens and it's absolutely incredible. if you're reading this and you are currently in spain, definitely make a trip to granada, totally worth it. they also have these cute little side streets with lots of little shops that sell hookahs and teas and lots of ceramics and leather for super cheap. a very fun weekend overall! and this past weekend I went to Alcazar which is similar to the Alhambra, but it's in Sevilla and it's much smaller, but still beautiful all the same. plus, it's right in the center of the city so i plan on spending lots of time in the gardens when it gets warmer. speaking of which, a little something to make my fellow jumbos and all who currently suffer on the east coast jealous: this past weekend, it was a beautiful 65 degrees and sunny here. by noon there were hundreds of people just outside of my house drinking, eating, and enjoying the gorgeous sunshine. ahhh, the wonderful life of a Spaniard.

also news i guess, since i believe my parents do now read my blog, i started real classes today. one was this really cool journalism class in which we write a magazine that comes out the end of the semester, both in spanish and in english. i also have to have a blog for this class, so for anyone who speaks spanish, i'll post the link here soon if you love my blogs that much and want to follow me twice! another class i'm taking is a cinema class at the university, and it could not be easier. literally all we do is watch movies (in spanish), talk about them a little, and go home. no homework, no papers, no reading. 2 tests, y nada más. looks like it'll be a stress free semester after all =]

viva la vida.