Paris Photos

Crepes with sugar and I am in Heaven. If you prefer chocolate, try the nutella and banana, I hear they are sinful.

Versailles

Arc du Trimphue

Pont de Arts - Lover's lock bridge.  The locks all have the initials of lovers.

Rich, Barb, & Attie   - I was so happy to find this one!

Our very french (but not very tasty...) dinner

The grand Ballroom in my favorite Pink Palace on the grounds of Versailles

Notre Dame - there aren't really very many gargoyles and I definitely didn't see a hunchback ringing the bells.

The Catacombs

The Parisian Red Light District

View from the Eiffel Tower

Marie Antoinette's play village, where she let them eat cake  
-sorry, I come complete with lame history joke-

The breakfast room at the hostel - best breakfast ever! 2 croissants? oui, merci!

Bird from the street market on the way to Notre Dame

Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore

^ My favorite picture from Paris

Shakespeare and Co. I WILL be back!

12 hours...

 In exactly 12 hours I plan to be sitting in a little french cafe eating cheese and bread and sipping a glass of wine... au revoir mes amis! Je t'aime tous    ~At

The pics I promised!

The wild flowers in the Carmona Necropolis

Paradise glanced on a Carmona rooftop

These are the oak trees with the tops cut off so that they grow fat, not tall. It makes it easier to harvest their acorns to feed the pigs but also causes water to rot the insides so that they have hallow insides and the tree is only alive near the bark and the branches.

Our guide, Mariano. He was amazing and knew everything about the forest and how to use all the different plants. I feel like I could live of the land after our trip I can now identify: spanish wild spinach, 3 types of edible mushroom, 2 edible berries, and know how to crack into a acorn.

This is what the majority of the hike looked like. The low stone wall on the left is the old roman wall from the 1st century AD. You had to be very careful about footing the whole way. You know me though, I tripped and stumbled my way through it without sustaining any permanent bodily harm.

Sheep! That was a fun and unexpected surprise. They followed us along on the other side of the low stone wall until the end of their pasture.

who doesn't love a good porch. This is the best one I have ever seen. I WILL own this house one day... 

1900 year old roman statue. Grandma, the second two really is longer!

The lesser patio at La Casa de Pilatos (Pontius Pilate) in Sevilla

Artsy Fartsy  -  but I loved it.

I love the colors here! They are so vibrant and they make to most beautiful pictures. This is just a upper corner of a entry way into La Casa de Pilatos. There are vines hanging over the edge from the rooftop and the walls are painted a faded rust color with a yellow and white roof inside. 

I hope you enjoy the pictures. I have started to stray away from photographing the cathedrals and churches in every town because they all look pretty much the same. There will be a ton of new pics and probably a couple blog posts within the next week after my trip to Paris (T minus 36 hours!). I leave at 6pm my time on Thursday (noon in the US) and a 6 hour bus ride to Madrid and from there we fly to Paris early the next morning. Wish me luck. None of the people I am going with know any french but I know how to say the words for bread, crepe, cheese, and wine so I feel like we at least won't go hungry!

Last but not least... a shout out to Matt - Internships are lame, come travel with me instead! I'm going to Madrid the last weekend in March and am going to find the tree you carved my name into. Will you come if I carve your name into a tree in some other city? That way you can justify coming here? Yes? Perfect consider it done!

Is this blog too hard to read with the current color scheme? I can change it if it is. It definitely isn't easy to read so please let me know by comment, email, facebook, smokescreen, Morse code, etc. if you would prefer a different background and type color. It won't hurt my feelings, I promise.

I love and miss you all  <3 At

Care package + hiking!

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

It's been too long...

So much has happened! Too name a few… I started my regular session of classes, traveled to the quaint town of Cordoba, ate soup cooked with pig’s ear, and found what I now consider the best burger in Sevilla.

Starting from the beginning: classes. I love them. Mt first class of the week is my favorite so far. It’s called Spanish for the Health Professional. The teacher is an animated man who is always making sure we actually understand what he is saying. Unlike the majority of the time where I can get away with smiling, nodding, and the occasional “bueno,” he actually makes sure you are following along. Likewise 2 of my other professors and extremely nice and I feel I will enjoy their classes as well. My last class of the week is Contemporary Spanish-American novels. I’m fairly positive the professor is a genius. He speaks rapid-fire Spanish much like my senora and I can’t understand everything he says, but the 70% I do understand is going to be more than I will learn in all my other classes combined. He reminds me of my father’s best friend, Walter. The smartest guy I know, and he looks like him too! It’s the best!

Our trip to Cordoba was fantastic. It’s a town famous for its mosque which is now a cathedral (since the rude kicking Muslims and Jews out of Spain). But everyone still refers to the building as la mezquita (mosque). People of the town still say they are going to mass in the mosque. The architecture inside is something to marvel at. The mix of Arabic, roman, renaissance, and baroque influences are juxtaposed into a mindboggling display of architectural creation. You walk into the mezquita to escape the extremely loud bells that chime from the original minaret every 30minutes. And the first thing that hits you is the columns - 859 of them to be exact. Roman-style marble pillars rise out of the beautiful tile floor to connect with cream and crimson (Go Hoosiers!!)  double-decker arches that traverse the entire width of the mezquita.  It’s a huge open space below the decorated ceiling but as with all buildings built for Muslim purposes it’s filled with a very dusky luminescence. You get to walk through the mezquita towards the back where the Qur’an was kept. Look up and you get to see the most amazing ceiling I have ever encountered. Millions of pieces of colored glass were painstaking put into place to create a beautiful floral are star-filled ceiling.

 Interesting fact: they sure didn’t think much of women then. Where did we get to sit? Nowhere near the Qur’an that’s for sure. If there was room all the way at the back, yes we could sit there. If there wasn’t room or the men just didn’t feel like having us there, well, the patio outside is where you could find us. How rude! Honestly, I am so thankful that I live in a time of equality and I want to give thanks for all the strong women who have come before me who fought for that equality. I am lucky enough to be part of a family filled with strong women, great-grandmothers, grandmothers, my mother, aunts, and the rest. I love you all.  Sorry to get sidetracked   : )    Overall Cordoba was a great day trip. We had a couple hours for lunch and my friends and I found a hidden gem in the windy back streets of Cordoba. With full les of dried pig hanging from the ceiling and every inch of the walls covered in pictures of famous bull fighters, this bar had the most Spanish spirit I have seen anywhere. It was clearly a local favorite and it was fun to find it. 

Apart from school and travels I have been able to enjoy and explore Sevilla a little more. I went for tapas after class one day with some friends and we stumbled upon the best burger in Sevilla. I have to go back very soon. You can’t go wrong with burger, cheese, and caramelized onion. Pair it with a tinto de verano (red vine and lemon soda) and you have the ultimate early evening snack. I’ve met some new friends too. One girl moved here on a whim and has been here for 7 months. Later this week she is taking me for pizza – besides skittles, pizza (without ham… which is one everything here) is the biggest craving I have had yet.

This coming Friday I am off on another day trip sponsored by our program to a small town called Carmona. It’s about 30km from here. Sunday I am going on a 7 mile hike. Our program is really amazing about setting up trips for us. I am thoroughly impressed with our program thus far and highly recommend it to anyone who knows someone wanting to study in Spain. 

I’m sorry this is so long; I won’t leave so much time in between next time. There is just too much to tell and not enough time to tell it all! 

Love and miss you all - At

My artsy picture I am most proud of. These are the old baths inside the royal palace here in Sevilla.

The view as you cross the original bridge into Cordoba. This is the same river that runs through Sevilla.

After lunch, getting ready to explore the mezquita!

The cream and Crimson arches! Who knew the people of Cordoba love IU as much as I do!  There are 859 of these columns throughout the mezquita

The beautiful glass mosaic ceiling above the old Qur'an room. A picture really cannot do it justice.

It's amazing the difference between the dark original mezquita part and then your literally turn a corner and find this HUGE open light cathedral. How different can you get?!?

As our guide informed us, this is the "must-get photo" of Cordoba. This is the street rightfully named the street of flowers with a view of the bell tower / minaret of the mezquita. How pretty!

Great Weekend

What a great weekend! I got to see one of my closest friends from Indy. She is studying in Toledo and came down to Sevilla for the weekend. We spent all day together exploring the city from 10am until 7pm. Then I came home to a delicious dinner with Ana and was off again to meet up with a few friends. One of the girls I was meeting became fast friends with a few Spanish kids on the metro and we ended up spending an hour with them by the river chatting and finished off the night in true spanish fashion by stopping at a churros place.

Churros con chocolate is a true spanish late night snack. Churros, strips of fried dough similar to a funnel cake, are dipped in a thick chocolate sauce. Me not liking chocolate, I didn't partake until the man who was selling them asked me why I wasn't eating with my friends. After explaining I don't like chocolate he called me over and gave me a free churro to enjoy without chocolate. When we left he gave me the first high five I have received in Spain and the traditional dos besos (double cheek kiss used for greeting and departing - I am finally getting the hang of it too!).

It was the perfect end to a perfect day. Today my friend Brittany and I went for a run then met up later to read in the Plaza de Espana, a truly impressive sight that comes complete with excellent people watching!

Well wish me luck, tomorrow is the first day of real classes!  Love and miss you all - At

Updates from a lucky girl

The last few days have been B-E-A-UTIFUL!!!  Today I booked the only other big trip I will take during the semester. So I'm off to PARIS Feb 25-28 with the same girls I'm heading to Prague with in April. I'm very excited but now am not allowing myself any more expensive trips. After all, I am not coming back to the US until June 15th, after a month's worth of traveling. I've got to save up!

Tomorrow I have my final in my intensive grammar class and starting Monday I start my regular session classes with class at CIEE Mon/Wed from 3-7pm and class at the University Tuesday/Thur from 5-9pm. It's a much later schedule than I'm used to, but on the plus side I will have all day to be outside enjoying the lovely weather.

A couple days ago I had 2 personal field trips to do for my class. I had to do to a museum for one. It was nice, a few to many religious paintings for me (aka ALL religious paintings except for a cool 18th century piano). The other 'field trip' was to the oldest market in the city. El Mercado de la Calle Feria.  It was quite a sight! Situated in an ancient building between 2 churches, there are fruit stands, veggie stands, meat and cheese and fish stands. It's eye-catching with the vivid colors of the fruit drawing my eye. I got fresh strawberries for the walk back to school. Yumm!!

One of my best friends from Indy is studying in Toledo (near Madrid) this semester and she is visiting Sevilla this weekend. I can't wait to show her my city. And lastly I will leave you with a couple pictures. One of each: the market, the museum staircase (the building was cooler than the art in my opinion) and a picture of the park where I go to study (aka people watch) and enjoy the afternoon sun. The park that is a grand total of a block and a half away from our apartment. 

I'm one lucky girl. Thank you to everyone who helped get me here and who have supported me in every way possible both here and at home. I love and miss you all.