Photos in El Centro

Woke up not feeling the greatest so I decided to sleep in a little later than normal. However, I did promise I would take Virginia out for breakfast so I made sure to get up in time for that! We went to the same place as last time and I bought us churros and drinks! We chatted and then took a little walk through the park!

Still not feeling 100% so I decided to rest for a little longer in bed. I then decided to go work on my photo project so I got up and took a little stroll through el centro! I'll put up those pictures when my final project is completed!

I then came home and Virginia taught me how to make Tortilla Espanola! Yummm! Hopefully I will be able to make it as great as she does when I get back to the states!

Sending Smiles From Sevilla,

Rebecca

Virginia and the churros! 

Lunch: Chicken nuggets and rice with artichokes!

Preparing the Tortilla! 

Wine Tasting... in class

It's unheard of to drink alcohol during class in America, let alone have your professors give you alcohol.

Well, this is Spain. I'm taking a Wine in Spain course and today we had our first tasting! We all went outside, were given a real wine glasses, and then the fun began! We only were able to sample two type of white wine today, but I'll take it! I am still pretty clueless on how to correctly taste the wine..it's a much more intense process than I imagined! Check it out in youtube..there are some pretty funny videos on how to correctly taste wine! 

After class I enjoyed my bag lunch outside in the 70 DEGREE WEATHER! Definitely the nicest day that we have had here so far! 

Then time for volunteering! My friend Maaren came with to volunteer today because she was interested in seeing Tres Mil Viviendas and she wanted to help out. Also, it's probably best that I don't go alone to that neighborhood! The students were a bit more tame today and I mainly worked with one girl, helping her with her English homework. It's so depressing how little English they know, because the education they are receiving is not quality. The girl had questions in English written in her notebook that she had to answer in English for her homework. The questions were written by the teacher but they had bad grammar!! It is so sad. Also, they really don't want to learn. Hopefully I can spark some excitement for the language of English!

Then I had Finance, where we again did nothing. I then went home for dinner and after that I went out to cien for a glass of Tinto with Rachael and Sara! Very relaxing night after a busy day!

I've got a weekend full of studying for midterms ahead of me! 

Sending Smiles From Sevilla,

Rebecca

Life's not so bad here.

Dinner: Pasta, soup and croquetas (this time with chicken and cheese)

Plan de Negocios

Instead of writing a blog post today, I decided to write a 7 page business plan in Spanish.

Actually, I was forced to write it because it's due tomorrow. Sorry no real blog post today, but if you want to read a Spanish business plan let me know and I'll send it your way! 

Sending Smiles from Sevilla,

Rebecca

What an appetizing advertisement... NOT.

Lunch: Pasta with something like Alfredo sauce, and peppers.

Dinner: Frozen pizza and artichokes!

Best desserts.

The Classes

I had a global discussion in my marketing class today and I met a bunch of Spanish students! After class CIEE treated us (not to beer this time, because it was 10am) to tostada and coffee or juice! YUM! I talked with the Spanish students and got the low down on where the best ice cream places are in town. One of the students even drew me a map. haha

Then I had wine class and found out that this Thursday is wine tasting!! YAY! Afterwards was lunch with the fam, catching up on HIMYM and slaving over finance.

I am not cut out to take finance in english, let alone spanish. I literally have to make up random numbers for a balance sheet and create an entire business plan for an imaginary business. So ridiculous because we have not learned anything. and today in class he just stood there and walked around the class answering individual questions. No learning took place. I just want to learn!!

Dinner with Virginia and I'm calling it a night early! Buenas noches!

Sending Smiles From Sevilla,

Rebecca

Hey Dad, you helped me in accounting last year, think you could assist me with these balance sheets??

Tried something new: Lentils in a tomato broth base-- reconfirmed I don't like lentils or beans of any sort. The flavor was good-- texture, not so much.

Veggies and chicken for dinner!

A real dessert! (in addition to fruit of course) 

Natilla is a pudding with a cookie wafer on top--so yummy!

My Tutor

I got an e-mail a little over a week ago from CIEE saying that there are tutors available for free if you need help with your classes.

I decided that I would take CIEE up on this offer because I definitely needed help with Finance.

Today, I met with my tutor for the first time, her name is Margarita and she is an absolute sweetheart!

Unfortunately, when she asked me what I needed help with and I responded Finance, the look on her face was not promising. She told me she knows absolutely nothing about Finance, but that she wanted to help!

I showed her a balance sheet and she had no idea what any of it meant. However, she was able to help me edit the first two pages of my business plan which was just text..no numbers. She thought that I just needed help understanding what my Finance project translated to, but I really need help understanding Finance! (in any language!!)

Anyways, she said she was going to talk to her friend who is a finance professor and then she'll get back to me on everything. So I'll let ya know how that goes.

My photo class is becoming extremely inefficient. There are about 15 of us and we each have our own project and for the past two classes all that has happened is he talks about each persons work and what they should work on.. 90 minutes of this.

It was 50cent monday at cien montaditos so I tried some new montaditos that were so yummy! Also, I tried out a new gelato place called Las Rayas. It was fabulous and there were SO MANY flavors to choose from. The only problem with the place is that they only let you sample one flavor! and if you're as indecisive as myself, this process was a struggle! So I just asked the worker what her favorite was and chose that! Almond cream with chocolate--definitely a good choice!

Sending Smiles From Sevilla,

Rebecca

Soup made of bread, with a side of broccoli! Steaming hot and yummy!

White Asparagus and Grilled Cheese!

Carnaval en Cadiz!

I had a relaxing day on Saturday due to the exhausting and exciting day trip to Gibraltar on Friday! It was nice to stay in for a little and chat with Virginia, Francisco and Paco and his girlfriend Monse came over. I definitely took a much needed siesta, as I was going to Carnaval and would be up until the weeee hours of the morning.

The bus for Carnaval left Sevilla at 8PM and we would be there until 5AM and hop back on the bus to arrive back in Sevilla around 7AM.

What is Carnaval? I'm still trying to grasp the concept. From my experience it was literally an adult halloween. Kind of like Freak Fest in Madisonx100. The whole city was decked out in lights and EVERYONE was dressed up. People went all out for their costumes! Also, it seemed to be very popular for men to dress up as women. The streets were literally filled with drunken Spaniards (and definitely many Americans). It had been stressed many times to us that there are professional pit-pocketers at Carnaval so we should not bring anything of value. One of my friends actualyl had her purse and iPhone stolen that night! All I brought was my spanish phone, 20 Euros and my keys. Hence, no photos..so I googled some images for you to see what it's like.

Also, much of the city wreaked of urine.. there are no restrooms for people to use so the alleys were a popular place to relieve yourself. Thankfully I was able to control my bladder that night and didn't have to go until we made it back it Sevilla!

When the clock struck around 3AM I was ready to head home-- this was already wayyyy past my bedtime and some of my friends felt the same way as well. We waited by the bus starting at around 4AM and when our bus leader opened the door we all got in and crashed.

Walking back to my apartment at 7AM felt so strange, but I was so excited to be reunited with MY BED.

I slept for a while this morning, to make up for the lack of sleep I received last night. Then today after lunch with Virginia and Francisco I met up with some friends to work on homework.

This finance class may be the death of me. Our professor wants us to make an entire business plan for a company that we have to create... (don't forget this is all in Spanish)! It is so vague of an assignment but he expects so much from us. It is so ridiculous I could rant forever.

Anyways, I've been working on that for a while and had dinner with Virginia. It's been a half relaxing and half exhausting weekend!

Sending Smiles From Sevilla,

Rebecca

Carnival summed up in one picture that I found on Google.

Saturday Lunch: NEW: cold tomato/garlic/onion soup. very interesting... I ate all of it. Not terrible. Not great. and I had the cold potato salad again.

Lunch today: artichoke and potato dish in a tomato broth--so good.

A treat for studying finance: BAILEY'S COFFEE. Yup, i'm obsessed with Bailey's-- I promise I'm not an alcoholic though!

Dinner: Pasta and Peppers! YUM!

A day trip to Gibraltar! MONKEYS!!!

When you do spontaneous things, usually two things happen: something goes wrong, and good stories come out of the experience.

The day trip to Gibraltar was supposed to be with a group of 5 of us. Me, my friend Becca, Zach, another girl from our program, Jess and her friend Christine. 

We said we would all meet at the bus station at 7AM, because our bus would be leaving at 7:15. All of us are there expect Zach. 7:10 rolls around and he's still not there, I thought it would be ok because everything in Spain runs late, so I didn't think there would be a problem. But, it's 7:15 and the bus driver is ready to go, I begged him to wait 2 minutes because we knew Zach was on his way, but he would not wait! So, then there were 4 of us.

We get to Algercias, the city at the tip of Spain where we needed to catch another bus to get us to Gibraltar. We were not sure which bus to take so we went to the info desk to ask for help. It took about 15 minutes for someone to arrive to the desk and then we were finally directed where to go. We had to walk to another bus station and hop on a bus there. Around this time, we realized that Christine only brought a copy of her passport and not the real thing. We were crossing borders going into Gibraltar, but we weren't sure how strict they would be. 

We got on the bus to Gibraltar and at the next stop some teenagers got, sat down behind us and started talking about us in Spanish! Little did they know, we could understand everything they were saying. A guy that was sitting in front of us overheard that we were heading to Gibraltar and he gave us some good advice and when we got off he walked us in the right direction of the border. 

At the border, I felt like I was in We're the Millers. I'm not sure why, I wasn't smuggling weed, or anything into Gibraltar, I was just for some reason nervous that they wouldn't let me in! but I showed them my passport, which they barely looked at, and they let me in! Unfortunately, even after I tried talking to the police man and trying to get them to sympathize with us, they would not let Christine in, so Jess decided to stay with her and they headed back to Sevilla. And then there were 2. 

Becca and I quickly got to exploring Gibraltar! First things first, converting our Euros to Pounds! (Since we were in the UK!!) We then noticed that they have Telephone booths like in London! We thought that was super funny and cool, so we of course took pictures in them, like such tourists!

We then wandered into the town of Gibraltar where we were approached by a tour guide company. Now, normally I am very against these tour because I just like to wander around and figure things out on my own, but we had limited time and walking up the Rock of Gibraltar would have taken 3 hours...So we hoped into a random white van (sorry Mom, I know you said never to do this!) Turned out to be an awesome tour and experience! Our tour guide Jaret was so cool, taught us so much and showed us the best part of Gibraltar! 

We learned that it is one of the most diverse places in the world (which we realized when we arrived and heard so many languages being spoken!) There is only a 1% criminal rate, so it is a very safe place to live! There is no unemployment rate, because they actually need people to come and work there! Also, they don't have any universities, so if you get good grades in high school, the government will pay for your tuition to go to a university abroad.

Out first stop on the tour was the Pillars of Hercules! From this spot you could see Spain and Africa! It was so cool and I did not realize how close the two coasts are! 

 Our next stop was St. Michael's Caves. These were huge caves within the Rock of Gibraltar and it was absolutely beautiful! Next up, by far my favorite part of the day, MONKEYS! Yes, it's true Monkeys are the wild, natural animals of Gibraltar! So, they don't roam the streets like I expected, but they do roam around on the Rock, and there are a bunch of them!! As we drove up the rock and stopped for a second, Monkeys began to jump on our car!! Before we got out of the car, Jaret warned us that these are wild animals and we should not touch them, but if they touch us it's ok. Also, it's a 4,000 pound fine if you feed them! We got out of the car and Jaret had the monkey sit on our hands for a picture! He also gave us a seed in our hand and had the monkey open up our hand to grab the seed. Then, I was standing by the car and a monkey jumped on my head! So COOL! Becca and I were taking a million pictures, we saw the monkeys in their natural habitat! Eating, cleaning, fighting and even having sex... we saw it all. I was then trying to take a selfie with a monkey, and it decided to hop on me and and get in front of the camera! I was laughing so much!! Jaret said he was surprised and that most people would have freaked out if the monkeys jumped on them, but I was loving it!! (As my dad says, they are our cousins!!) Also, when we were leaving the monkey den, a monkey hoped in our car through the window! Jaret said the monkey's name was Wally and the monkey knew him because he used to come up the Rock and nurse him back to health after a taxi driver ran over his toe! Wally was adorable!! 

We sadly had to leave the Monkey's and headed onto the Tunnels of Siege. These tunnels in the rock were used as a defense mechanism during the siege of Great Britain vs. Spain in the 1800s which Britain won. Then in the 1970's there was a referendum type event where Gibraltarians were able to vote if they wanted to be a part of Spain or Britain, 12,000 voted Spain and 44,000 voted Britain...

After the tunnels were over we headed back down the Rock! Even though the trip was spontaneous, the night before I felt obligated to look up what there is to do/ good places to eat in Gibraltar. Madeleine's Bistro was a top choice, so we had Jaret direct us to where that was. We ate our sandwiches that our host mom's made us, but we indulged in an amazinggggg piece of berry cheesecake from Madeleine's, it was so good!

After that we did a few more touristy things! We went to the Gibraltar museum, the Trafalgar cemetery, and the Gibraltar Botanic Gardens!

We then did some souvenir shopping and met a very interesting man who owned one of the shops and was asking us all about where we were from. He was confused why American's were in Gibraltar, he was curious what we learned studying "business" and he told us he did not like America at all. BUT, I was able to barter with him for a cheaper price, so I'd say all the small talk was a success.

We then decided to indulge again and get Gelato. This gelato may have been some of the best I've had in my life, might even beat La Abuela in Sevilla. I had a small with half Bailey's and half Nutella and oh my goodness was it heavenly.  

We decided we should head back to the first bus at 5:30 because we wanted to catch the second bus at 7PM. After waiting in a long line to cross the border we got the bus station to find out that the first bus wouldn't arrive until 6:30... so that meant we would have to wait until 9 to catch the second bus. The bus schedule was off because it was an Andalusian holiday. When the bus arrived we quickly realized hat we forgot to convert our money back to Euros. I asked the bus driver if he accepted pounds and the answer was of course no. We scrounged through our bags and pockets to try to come up with 5 Euros to get us two tickets. We were about 20 cents short so we asked random people in line to help us out, fortunately this nice girl gave us some change so we were able to board the bus! I think the bus driver might have hated us for giving him a million coins...but at that point we really didn't care.

We got off the bus and I was starving but none of the cafes took pounds! So, we quickly found a currency exchange place and got our Euros back! I then went to the nearest panederia and bought an entire loaf of bread (which I demolished in a matter of minutes), a muffin, some nuts and a piece of chocolate. YUM. I was definitely satisfied! 

We then made our way back to the other bus station. Once there we tried to find out when the next bus would leave for Sevilla. We talked to the info lady, who was not very helpful..and then wandered around until one of the nice janitors directed us the right lady who knew the schedule! She said the next bus would leave at 8:45. We had about 90 minutes to kill so we sat in the food court and chilled. During this time we were bothered by a homeless (probably drunk) man who stood at our table and asked us for money for about 5 minutes and would not leave! We were slightly terrified of this man and wanted to know why there was no security guards to make him leave.

At around 8:30 we headed outside to wait for the bus. It literally arrived at 8:45 on the dot, we got on and we were the only ones on the bus. The bus driver took off and we thought we had the bus to ourselves, but then he went back to the other bus station, that we were just at, and picked up more people.. So we could have just stayed at that station.

We were chatting for a little bit, singing songs, and then quickly fell asleep as we were exhausted from the long day! We got back to Sevilla just before midnight and made it back safely to our homes! 

Overall, it was a great trip! and I can say without a doubt that Gibraltar is one of the most interesting places I've ever been to! AND THE MONKEYS WERE THE COOLEST! Glad I was "Spontaneous!"

Sending Smiles From Sevilla,

Rebecca

GIBRALTAR! 

St. Michael's Caves

At the Pillars of Hercules! You can see Africa on the left and Spain on the right!

THE ROCK.

SO HAPPY. PURE BLISS!

HEAVEN.

The Tunnels of Siege!

The museum (that is Becca on the floor!) and the gardens!

FOOD FROM THE DAY! What well rounded meals!

A fun trip when the Beccas take on Gibraltar!!