LONDON BABY!

So lets recap the last week or so.

So moroccan food left me a little treat and i almost didnt go to london. On thursday i skipped classes, dropped a class and sucked it up enough to head to LONDON! I met up with Laura who I met in Morocco and stayed with her at her brothers flat for a few days. We went and saw the tower of london, crowned jewels, Buckingham palace, st pauls cathedral, tate modern, and all that good jazz.

one night i met up with my love sarah pierce and we had dinner and went and saw Spamalot (SO GOOD!) But the coolest part was that Alan Dale (AKA Bradford Meade on UGLY BETTY) played King Arthur. It was precious! He couldnt dance to save his life but he pulled off the singing quite well. Plus the show was just great in general. And to see that in London with the real accents was great!

When laura and her friends left I went to stay with my cousin at his flat in west hamstead. it was nice! he took me to dinner and i got to go do the things laura and her friends had not wanted to do. I saw the changing of the guards, westminster abbey, churchill's bunker and a couple of other thing. (st james park, parliament sq, etc...) That night alan (my cousin) took me out ot a few pubs for a pint for st pattys day! it was so much fun!

now i am here in seville and its semana santa and im really excited to see the big parades tomorrow night! and then my family comes on fri for a week in italy! YAY!!!!!! SO EXCITED!

I'M 21!!! AND I WENT TO AFRICA!!!

YAY! So my 21st was all I could have hoped for without the big American blowout! First of all, Dolores made me a GIANT apple tart for me and all the girls on my program and it was DELICIOUS! she also made us a ton of fresh hot chocolate and set the dining room table all nice and pretty for me! She is so sweet! After we ate the tart and hot chocolate she opened a bottle of wine for me!

That night me and 2 of my friends went to Antique, a high end club here in Seville. First of all, we did not know but the night we went there was a guest list and we weren't supposed to be allowed in, but since it was my birthday they let us in! I'm such a high roller! haha Anyway, it was a TON of fun and we made friends with a Swiss Soccer team! They were SO much fun!

The next day, cindy and I went to MOROCCO!!!! It was SO COOL! We stayed in Tetuan and saw the Medina there and went to Tanger and Chefchaouen. Chefchaouen was a PRECIOUS little town that was painted all blue and white (white for peace and blue for the gods). Also, the second night I was there I couldnt sleep, so at 530 am I heard a weird ghostly noise outside my window, so I went out on the balcony and I realized it was the first call to prayer of the day! IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL! I heard somewhere between 4 and 6 callers in different minarets and it was like a song that echoed all over. And it was still dark out and there were still stars out and it was just an INCREDIBLE experience!

PLUS we met people from ALL OVER! We met a ton of people from Holland and Germany, one from Poland, one from Hungary, TWO from ICELAND! Who the F lives in Iceland? haha And did you know Icelandic was a language?? I didnt! But ya it was an AMAZING birthday weekend!

Also, its time to reveal, I have been having a hard time here. I think it was a combo of culture shock and homesickness and a bit of lonliness that I didnt know how to handle... especially all at once. But ever since the day I went skydiving :-) every day has been INCREDIBLE! I cant believe it is already march and I only have until the end of MAY! :-(

But I am SO excited because my family will be here in 10 days! YAY!!!!!!

Dolores and me on my birthday!
21! YAY!
Dressed like a Moroccan woman!
CAMELS!
Chefchaouen! blue and white town! SO CUTE!

Mis Clases

Ok so I guess I should write about my classes since I mean I DO go to school 4 days a week even though some people think I dont! haha Ok so lets see. I am taking 5 classes but only wanted 4. I went through 2 weeks of not knowing which sections of each classes I wanted to take and then got down to 5 and couldnt figure out which one I wanted to drop so I am in 5. Its not too bad, none of them are too hard.

Foneticas Corectivas y Conversacion:
So I originally had a prof who was crazy! If someone pronounced something wrong he would make them repeat it 10000000 times! And even when they said it right he would say it was wrong. He did it to me once and when I got home I asked Dolores about it and she said I was right! SO THERE! haha But I switched professors and I like my new one better except we have only done 2 or 3 things related to phonetics. We keep doing 3rd grade busy work! Oh well! I do have my first real assignment in this class do Monday! Man I need to get on that and not be on here! haha

Grammatica II:
I like the prof a lot. She is very nice but we have a bunch of busywork homework. Not such a huge fan but I dont actually think any of it gets graded, just corrected? I dont know. Its not too bad and we learn some colloquial stuff which is good.

Flamenco:
So I am taking a class about the cultural influence of the Flamenco on Andalusia. So far its kind of a bust. The guy talks for an hour and then we watch or listen to examples for an hour. All I can say is that he shows us the beat patterns written out and expects us to be able to identify them among a slew of other noises and distractions in a video or audio clip. No one can. He will ask the class a question which is normally followed by a good 5 min of silence before someone answers incorrectly! haha OH and he writes like a 2 year old. Unless I am writing exactly what he says down AS he is saying it, I can NOT decipher what he meant with the chicken scratch he puts on the board! OY! This 2 hours can be tough!

Tres Culturas:
If the 2 hours of Flamenco is bad this is pure torture! This is supposed to be a class about the influences of Cristians, Jews, and Muslims on Spain. But he rambles on for 2 hours straight in a monotone voice about things that dont fit within this category! And then he jumps all over the place. Yesterday we were talking about stuff from the year 580ish. We get to something about jews and all of the sudden we are talking about the Holocaust. Needless to say the ENTIRE class was lost! 2 hours of this class feels like 10! Its awful! I just dont get it. And the worst part is that I was SO excited about this topic. Oh well!

Cine Espanol Contemporaneo:
I LOVE THIS CLASS! Comtemporary Spanish Cinema. Basically we watch spanish movies and talk about them. And the last one we watched he gave us English subtitles! ps- it was great! La Lengua de Mariposas (The tongue of the Butterfly) is WONDERFUL! The professor is really nice and I do like this class alot! It the only thing that gets me through my 3 cultures class every tues/thurs!

I am also taking a dance class, Sevillanas, which is kind of like Flamenco. It is through the university but its a graded class or anything its just for fun and I like it alot! YAY!

And now I am getting SUPER excited b/c my birthday is on Friday and I am about to start a 3 week whirlwind of vacations! YAY!