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!

PARACAIDISMO!

I WENT SKYDIVING TODAY!!!!! it was so incredibly amazing! there are NO words!

Paris holds the key to my heart!

PARIS WAS INCREDIBLE!

First of all, it was wonderful to see Blake! And I met her friends Jen and Brittany (Spanjer) and I love them too! When I got there on Thurs it was just me Blake and Jen. We went to dinner and I got a pizza that had a sunny side up egg in the middle! SO WEIRD! But delicious! Then we went to Amorino for gelato! YUM! They even shaped my gelato like a rose! So pretty and yummy!

Friday we got up and went to Notre Dame. Jen and I went to the top and pet the gargoyles! Then we headed to the Old Jewish Qtr and walked in a small Sephardic synagogue and got falafel at L’as du Falafel, a restaurant endorsed by Lenny Kravitz so you KNOW it was good! We headed off to the Champs Elysees to shop and eat and see the Arc de Triomphe. We ate at a delicious restaurant! Then b/c Blake felt worse we took her to the doctor off the Champs! SO ODD! But within 30 min she saw the doctor and was walking out of a pharmacy with her meds! I wish America was that efficient! We took a quick pic of the Arc and headed to the Musee d’Orsay. Josh met us there! He looked so French and fabulous! The museum was really cool b/c it was built in what was originally a train station! VERY pretty! Then we went home to wait for Spanjer, and got a crepe on the way. I ordered one w/ “apple compote” thinking it would be sliced warm apples or something and it was applesauce! Haha Still good though. Then the fun really started!

We ate dinner that night at a restaurant called la Refuge de Fondue. Let me tell you, if you are ever in Paris GO EAT THERE! It was HILARIOUS! First of all its fondue (yum) second of all they serve wine in baby bottles!!! It was so wrong to drink alcohol from a baby bottle but it was SO much fun and hilarious! Plus the people sitting next to use were very fun and funny! After we had our fill there, we went to the Moulin Rouge to take that picture, and headed back to the hotel where we got yelled at for having 4 people in a 3 person room. So we had to get another room. OY

Saturday we got up and went straight to the Louvre. Thanks to Josh we knew there was an underground entrance so we walked right in with no wait at all! We went and saw the Venus de Milo and hung out with Mona for a bit (Mona Lisa). Then we headed over to take another pic of the Arc for Spanjer and went up to Sacre Coeur, a church at the highest point in Paris. We sat on the steps in front for a couple of hours listening to a cute Italian play guitar and sing while a psycho lady that must have been on SOMETHING danced like a crazy person! SO FUNNY! Then we went to the artists square and had lunch. Shopped for a bit and went to the big dept store that is the Harrods of Paris for a bit. Then we went back to the hotel to relax before going to the EIFFEL TOWER and having dinner.

The Eiffel Tower was incredible! We went to the top and while we were going up the light show went off. It was like being inside a GIANT disco ball! The view was gorgeous! When we got down we went to dinner at a very French restaurant where they wrote the day’s menu on a chalk board and put it on your table. (The waiter brought us one in English.) I had quail stuffed with foi gras over lentils which was FABULOUS! Then we headed back to take pictures in front of the tower and watch the light show which was nothing less than beautiful. Then we headed home since we had early flights the next day.

I didn't want to leave! I LOVE PARIS!

Intercambio

OY! So I am having the hardest time finding an intercambio! (This is a person I meet with occasionally to practice my spanish and they practice their english.) But at first I had this cute woman named Teresa. She was so sweet! But she was 30, a teacher, married, and so we had not too terribly much in common. Also, since she was a teacher she would talk so much and try to be too teachery about it that I barely could participate. So I am looking for others. There was a whole confusion with them. I was supposed to meet one (maybe 2) yesterday. The first one was a no show but I was not sure if that person was or was not coming or even who it was. It was very weird! So then I went and met the second one. Again, he was a good deal older than me and I couldnt understand him. Even when I told him to slow down he didnt. I just want a university student! I need the practice like WHOA!

On that note, I just got back from watching a play. I understood the basic plot, but not much more than that. Girl loves guy. Guy goes away. They think he is dead. She marries. Guy comes back. They want to be together but cant. Husband kills girl and guy. OY!

BUT TOMORROW I MEET MY BLAKEY IN PARIS! And Dolores was SO CUTE! I have to leave straight from class and cant come home for lunch. So she made me 2 sandwiches, half of a big bag of chips and fruit for lunch tomorrow! She wont let me leave without it tomorrow! SHE IS SO WONDERFUL! haha

BERLIN!!!!

So I just spent the weekend in Berlin with Frede and Ilona and it was FABULOUS!!! Here is the summation of the weekend:

Thurs – Get there!!! YAY! Go find Alli who just HAPPENED to be there the same time I was, and we sat and had some German beer. Then we went to a bar that was retro of what was typical East Berlin style. It was really hippy and weird and I liked it! The best part though was this man who was dressed like an Indian, braids, headband, and all! HE WAS SMOKING A 4FT LONG JOINT! It was the funniest thing I think I have ever seen… you know… weed related! Haha And he walked around offering it to everyone in the bar! When he got to a kid near us he asked to see his passport before he offered it to him b/c he thought he looked too young! Haha

Fri – We walked ALL OVER! First we went to the Alex tower, the central point of what was East Berlin. Then we went to a chocolate place (German choc = YUM!), and the Brandenburger gate, and the Berlin equivalent to the White House, and Checkpoint Charlie (the checkpoint for passage b/w East/West Berlin. Lunch/Dinner at an Indian restaurant where we got yelled at by a big German bald man for being too loud (which we weren’t!) The we took some pics in a photo booth which are SO CUTE!!!!

That night we went to see a movie that was part of the Berlinale (Berlin Intl Film Festival). It was a Japanese movie about gay men in Japan. It was odd… good, but odd w/ WAY to many crotch shots! Haha But the coolest part was that the director, composer, and one of the lead actors were sitting in the row behind us! I got a pic with the actor!

Sat – We were all so tired! So we eventually got up and had “breakfast” at noon. But it was the BEST BREAKFAST I have had so far in Europe. (scrambled eggs, 3 kinds of ham, 3 kinds of cheese, fruit and yogurt, tomato w/ mozzarella, bread, butter, and jam! SO DELICIOUS) The we went to the Jewish Museum which is HUGE and very cool! Someone could spend ALL DAY in there! Then we went back to the house, but first we got some Currywurst for me to try! (Yay for German sausage!) haha

Ilona had to leave so Frede and I relaxed for a bit and then went out for Sushi! YUM! Then we went to another cool local bar where the waiter did NOT like us. But we were so tired we started falling asleep! So we headed back for about half an hour before I had to leave for my 6am flight.

Why I booked that flight I have NO CLUE! SO MUCH FUN! And I cant wait to go visit the rest of the Hassels fam in May!

OH, and it was FREEZING! It had been really warm the weekend before and dropped right before I got there so I was so cold! There were times when we each had on 5+ layers! Such a hassle to get out the door! Haha