I got a care package!! My wonderful big sis sent me the most awesome care package ever filled with exactly what I have been craving: skittles, GOOD peanut butter (choosy moms and dads –and sisters!- choose JIF), lemonade packets, sweet tarts, and cereal! Yummy! I am so excited. It is hard to exercise any sort of self-control.
As for this past weekend, it was one of my favorites so far. I went to a small town 30 minutes outside of Sevilla on Friday called Carmona. It is “famous” for being a roman necropolis. The main attraction is a set of ancient burial tombs, the biggest or which is the size of a full basketball court (the girl buried here was apparently pretty special and her family was mega-rich). This place was first discovered by British archeologists in the 1800’s and the coolest thing for me was the old photos or their expeditions and digs.
Saturday Ana had the entire family over for lunch. Wow, that was a lot of Spanish conversation. It turned out unexpectedly well and her family was a joy to meet. Saturday evening I had “American Day” with my two close friends which consisted of a little shopping, complete meal from McDonalds, and finished with a movie in English. We saw The King’s Speech and I highly recommend it to anyone. I thought it was wonderful.
Sunday was one of my very favorite days yet. We had the opportunity to go on a hike in Huelva, the western neighboring providence. It was about 6 miles of hiking in a nature preserve there. I was right up front (because if you know me well you know that I hate walking behind slow people, it drives me insane!) and could see everything there was to see. The guide was extremely knowledgeable about all the plants and the history of the area and he would stop to show me different herbs that grew there and explain their medical relevance. I think it was my favorite excursion I have had yet. Exercise + outdoors + natural beauty = one happy Attie.
In the nature preserve there is a specific type of oak tree that the people have cut off the top part of the tree so that new branches will grow outwards instead of up. When this happens, water collects on the top and rots out the middle of the tree so that these trees are only alive on the outside and many have hallow cave-like insides. The acorns are used to feed the pigs in Spain. We walked along ancient roman roads bordered with low rock walls dating from the first century A.D. Now that’s old! They were beautiful though, moss covered and enchanted looking. They reminded me of the rock walls that I pictured when reading my parent’s favorite book Trinity, the walls that divided the Irish countryside into a series of oblong squares and lopsided rectangles. I drank from the creek that had crystal clear water that the people of a little town of 400 still use as their main source of hydration. All in all it was a great experience and I hope to go hiking again soon.
That’s all for now. I am off to Paris. I leave for Madrid Thursday evening (6 hour bus trip – lame!) and fly out of Madrid early Friday morning. My internet is currently broken so as soon as it is functioning properly again I will put up the pics!
I love and miss you all <3 -At
No comments:
Post a Comment