Yes, I am still here.

Hello all,

Yes, I am still here.  I know that I have been pretty bad about this whole blogging thing for a while (sorry), but you should all take that as a good sign.  I have been having so much fun that I haven't had time to blog!  Another reason, slightly less glamorous, is that because its my second semester here all of this is not necessarily new to me, so I don't even think about blogging it.  But I will try to be better about that.

On the last post I left off with saying that we were heading to Córdoba, which was great!  It was a really fun trip, and we did have great weather. :)  Córdoba has a very interesting and diverse history.  There was a mix of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim cultures all living in the same city, resulting a very cool city.  We began the day with tours of all the important things with Encarna, the history professor who comes on all the trips with us, trying to educate us.  My favorite place was of the Mezquita, or Mosque.  It was absolutely enormous and very beautiful - definitely recommend it.  The day was great, and all the new students in the program are all really nice.  I do miss all the students from last semester though, we started it all together and its weird to not have them here...

Mezquita

I have been spending a lot of time making new friends, which is going very well.  (yay me!)  I even have a hard time deciding what to do sometimes because I have so many options...I know, my life is so hard. :p  But hey, friends are essential, especially when your family lives 4,192.97 miles away.  (that is the exact distance - I calculated it)  So, besides the new friend quest that I am constantly on, I have been going to classes and trying to explore new areas of the city.  Overall having a GREAT time, loving life, and starting to freak a bit that I only have 6 months left here ... yikes!  Better make the best of the time I have left, because I know it will fly by... :(

This last weekend I was in Sevilla, having a grand time.  I really enjoyed Sevilla, and again had great weather, at least for me it was great.  (The crazy Spaniards think its freezing...but I just keep telling them they don't know what cold is, go to Wisconsin in February, that is cold.)  Encarna came with us again, and after a few small morning travel issues, we were ready to start touring Sevilla.  We toured all the important things with Encarna and had a great lunch all together.  My favorite part was climbing to the top of the Giralda Tower in the Cathedral for the amazing views of the city.

The tower

The view

The other thing I love about Andalucía (Southern region of Spain) is that there are orange and lemon trees growing all over!  That is something we definitely don't have in Wisconsin.  Unfortunately they are not edible...not sweet.  :( 

Orange trees!

The rest of our time in Sevilla was spent walking around exploring the city, getting lost, watching weird flamenco shows, and I say weird because it was not a normal flamenco performance, it was a theater show - with a bit of flamenco thrown in there.  Very strange - we were all expecting some big ruffled dress, polka dots, something semi-traditional...no, it was weird.  So now I still have to see a traditional flamenco show...I better get on that.

Next on the travel calendar for me is a possible trip to Salamanca next weekend to visit a friend.  Looking forward to (hopefully) seeing a familiar face from Carroll! 

Love you all! xoxo