ALSO!

Chirigotas! I forgot to add these!

It seems like I just might never make it home.

Man the weather has been crazy! (And I also haven't posted for a while, oops)
More flooding basically everywhere except Cádiz, which is a a giant rock in he middle of the ocean, so if we flooded, EVERYONE floods. For some reason it has gotten really cold. My computer is telling me that it is 43 degrees out. 43 DEGREES IN SOUTHERN SPAIN! Evidently it has been snowing rather heavily in Barcelona, which I can only hope does not spread to Cádiz.
Moving on, we are leaving for Lisbon on thursday morning, which should be a lot of fun because I have heard that it is a really gorgeous city. And luckily enough, the weather forcast is calling for sun! YES!

So, some random things that I just remembered that I could share....

The Burning on the Momo God
(Quema de Dios Momo)

So on the wednesday of Carnaval, they had a big stage set up in the Plaza with musical performers and this big effigy of "Dios Momo", which Wikipedia so kindly told me is the Greek god of Satire. o one of the main points of Carnaval is to do all the stuff that you can't do all year, to get it out of your system, and then go back to being a good catholic. This is why it's followed by Semana Santa. Anyways, the burning of this "Dios"is to signify the beginning of the end of Carnaval, which means the end of all the fun. So they have a whole procession of events during this night which leads up to the burning of this statue. We were lucky enough to be pretty close so I got some decent pictures of it!






And I bet you don't see this very often. Yes, that's right Ham flavored chips. YUM

What I did today....

WELL, I doesn't happen very often, but I EXERCISED! Amazing. I mananged to motivate myself to run to the new part of town to meet people at the beach. Granted, it wasn't a marathon, but it's better than nothing. And the best part was going swimming after I got there and was all sweaty and hot. Glorious. Although, I will say, I still like freshwater better. BUT, the weather has been showing some sign of improvement, as in, we had sun for the majority of the day today! Amazing! I'm just hoping that it will continue, because that would be a mean joke of the weather if it continued to rain for the next three weeks. :( I'll be hoping....

A broader explanation of our trip to Sweden.

Stockholm is a very gorgeous city. Really. All of the architecture is very, I guess, classical European when you imagine it.

All of the buildings have these beautiful endcaps with big round spires and big doors. Really beautiful. And, one things that is very pretty is the fact that there are so many bridges in the city.



I never realized this, but Stockholm is built on I think 17 or 18 different islands, all connected by bridges. It has a very unique feel to it, as each island is a different neighborhood with a completely different feel to it. The big spire in this picture is the big cathedral in the middle of Stockholm, which we didn't get to go into, but it does make for a really pretty skyline.










We got to visit the outside of the royal palace, which was pretty impressive, as well as see the big governmental building, which I'm forgetting the name of at the moment. The snow I think is what makes everything look so special, almost timeless. Although I'm sure everything is gorgeous in the spring, because surprisingly, there are a lot of trees within the city center. Unlike Spain. :(





When we visited the Vasa Museet, a museum built entirely around a 15th(?) century warship of the Swedish Crown Fleet that they raised from the seabed in the harbor, we walked past this lovely building which is the Nordic Museum, and rightly so with this kind of architecture! It was huge, this picture only shows about a 3rd of it.











All of these museums were located on an island called Djurgården, which I think means animal park, or something like that. It used to be, back in the days of Royal rule, the Kings hunting grounds. It was however, covered with a foot of snow, so that made exploring it a little difficult. However, it was still very pretty, and it has this huge gate in the entrance with golden stags on each side. Pretty cool.



Miracle of all miracles, we found good pizza! I didn't think that we would have to go to Sweden to find it, but man, they have some tasty, and interesting, pizza. One of the things that we had never seen, but is actually really good, is egg. They just crack an egg right in the middle of the pizza and bake it. Super tasty.







What a trip!

We arrived!

And are still alive. So I left out a few steps that popped up at the last minute. We had to take a taxi, and we had to take metro in Barcelona, WHICH we almost got horribly lost on, but just got off at the right stop randomly. Stockholm is gorgeous and snowy! I'm glad that I packed the North Face, because it would be preeeety darn hard to walk around everywhere. Well, this is just a quick update, to say that I'm alive and everything. More news AND pictures to come once I get home!

Heading out for Sweden!

We leave tomorrow! And the weather, HOLYCOW! It poured all night, and all that is on the news today is flooding! And snow in Madrid, but that's not that interesting. Our adventure starts tomorrow at...

• 5:40am when we leave on a train for Sevilla
• take a taxi to the airport
  
• fly from Sevilla to Barcelona
  
• take a bus to Girona
  
• fly to Svatska
  
• take a shuttle to Stockholm
  
• meet Shane's friend
  
• take the Tonnelbonna
  
• and THEN we're there.

And remember, we have to do this all over again on the way back. :) Que pena.... I'm just glad that the rest of the trips are either already planned, NOT by me, or are just little short ones. So, I'll be off the grid until about Monday night or tuesday, so until then! Ciao!

Carnaval lights!

Mostly just photos.... :)

You call yourself a weather man?

So nowadays, I just don't know who to believe. The weather channel says rain all weekend, but it's sunny outside. Some of the host moms are saying that it is going to rain for the next 4 weeks. That I'm DEFINITELY not going to believe. The bad thing (or good thing?) is that the weather changes about every 20 minutes, so you never actually know. I guess this is what we get for living on a tiny peninsula that sticks way out into the ocean. Carnaval is almost upon us! Festivities are beginning to start tonight, but it all really kicks off tomorrow night! YAY! There is a presentation today from some of the Spanish students about Carnaval, from a insiders perspective (I think) so that will be nice to know where to go, where NOT to go, etc. Can't wait! ¡Hasta mañana!

Rainy days...

So, rain all day. So much for a beach day on my day off.. :(
Heading out to buy the last of my costume tonight, and then we have dance class, which has started to get REALLY interesting. We're now stringing everything together so it's more of constant movement now rather than start, stop,start,stop all the time. I'm excited, because I think I will soon know enough to be able to actually go out and do it by myself, rather than have to have someone call out all the commands. Hahah.

The makings of Carnaval...

Are popping up all over the place!!! The city is being transformed: Stages, lights, PEOPLE! In all of the streets, there are giant hanging lights in the shape of masks, clowns, designs, etc. and it is going to be amazing to see them all lit up! I will try to snap some pictures of them! They now have a schedule of all the official events happening all over the city, so now we can plan what and when we are going to do. In other news, I think the weather channel is lying to us, because it said that is was going to rain all this week, however, it has only rained at night, and been gorgeous during the day. However this could pose a problem for a person painted blue going out at night. We'll have to see how that plays out. We managed to stay up to watch the first half of the Superbowl, as all good Americans in Europe should. But seeing as it was 2 am, we decided to go home and just check in the morning to see who won. Sadly, I found out my pick of the night lost, so it's a good thing I didn't get into the betting. ;)

The Mullet and Spain.

Evidently, when we cast it aside, Spain caught it.

The mullet, in all it's glory, fully resides in the young people of Spain. Every day, without fail, I will see at least 5 mullets. And they aren't hillbillys wearing flannel either, they are hip, young people who chose, AND PAID, for the haircut. I guess jumping the pond means losing (or gaining?) a little fashion. I'm thinking that, just to fully integrate in the culture, I might just have to get one myself, everyone agrees, no? What's even better, is that I have first-hand knowledge of the lengths some people will go to to do it.

Last night, we were out with everyone from our program, and some of the year-long people brought over a few of their friends. At least 2, of course, had mullets. One was just your regular, good old fashioned mullet. But the other had a DREAD mullet. Pretty great if you ask me. Later on that night, one of my friends who had been talking to him cam over and asked me if i had seen the guy with the dread mullet, and of course I said yes. She then proceeded to tell me that this mullet was not real! He had gone to the "peluqueria" and had fake dreadlocks braided into his hair, essentially like a weave, to make a FAKE DREADLOCK MULLET! How awesome.

Pants in Spain are pretty cool too. We affectionately call them "Aladdin Pants" "Poopie Pants" and "Diaper Pants". I can't find pictures, but essentially they are very much like regular jeans, however instead of being fitted in the crotch, or just being loose all over, they have fitted legs, but big baggy crotches, essentially, the pants Aladdin wears.
I did break down (if you can call three euros a break down) and buy some Aladdin shorts. Pictures will be taken eventually. I think I'm planning on bringing this fashion to America. Just you wait. ;)

Plans in the making...

SO, the blue body paint has been purchased, we just have to get the material to make the clothes out of. This is going to be a grand adventure. ;) In other news, I don't know how Spanish young people survive weekends. In America, clubs close at 3. In Europe, they don't START until 3. I guess this is why they invented the siesta. Also, I realize that Cádiz isn't on every map, and I doubt many people have heard about it, so this is a little link that shows you where the city is and what not.


Ver mapa más grande

Pretty unique, no? Now, it is siesta time for me because I have another trip to plan. ¡Hasta mañana!

Noticias

SO, we managed to find few options that might work to paint our entire bodies blue, so we'll see which of these we choose. We found one that is like spray paint, but for hair, and it made my hand basically look like the Avatar people, so that one is looking pretty good. Also, I'm pretty glad that our plans changed from the Canary islands, because they are basically just getting over a hurricane, and we are leaving in 14 days for Sweden, which means we would be leaving the same day for the Canaries. Check out this video.



Sweden might be, -1C° for the next week, but at least their streets aren't rivers. Haha.
Other news, my computer battery has been completely fried I think. My computer doesn't even detect that it has a battery. But good news is, one girl in my program had to get a new battery, and I think she got it on the Avenida (the newer part of town) so there's hope for me yet.

Looks like my week is pretty full, we have more costume hunting today, salsa class, a party to go to with UCA students tomorrow, and who knows what will happen on Friday. And another thing, I LOVE having no class on Wednesdays. Although, the man downstairs with the hammer and circular saw was doing his best to ruin my sleeping-in time. Looks like I'll have to wait till next week to get a good late sleep. And soon enough, it will be warm so I can just wake up at 10 and head straight to the beach. You guys don't know how much I'm wishing for that right now as I sit in my sweater and wool coat. I didn't sign up for rain and wind when I signed up for Spain. ;)

Ciao!

Photos from Sevilla!

So these are some of the best pictures from the weekend, although my camera decided to die halfway through, so I don't have any pictures from the inside of the catedral, which was AWESOME! And sorry some of these are sideways, I'm uploading them from the school computer, which doesn't allow you to change them. Oh well. Enjoy!
One of the entrances into the CatedralA tapestry woven right around the time Columbus discovered America. CRAAAZY
A crown that was used to crown the "Virgen de los Reyes"


The top floor of the AlcazarInside the Alcazar

The Catedral at night. A few of us in front of the Catedral in Sevilla

¿Fotos mañana? And Avatar....

I will try my best to put up some pictures tomorrow. I'm hoping that if I put some pictures on a flash drive I can use the school computers to upload faster than wifi at Shane's house will allow me, ;)
We are starting to dig into Surrealist poetry in my Lit class now, and I feel that a poetry class somewhere in my educational past would have been helpful. However, I think our profe is excited enough about the subject that he can handle our dumb questions in Spanish about things we don't understand. It's hard to imagine but I'll be leaving for Sweden in a little over two weeks! It's starting to come up fast! Also, news about Carnival: myself and one other girl from my program, Katie, have decided to go all out and paint ourselves blue and be the Avatar people (See below), because we figured if we in Spain, in one of the best cities for Carnival, why not go all out? More to come on that and if we can find blue body paint that won't make us look like blueberries forever. ;)
It was pretty disappointing today, after having such GREAT food in Sevilla, to come home and have my mamá cook me the one dish that I really did not want, chorizo and beans with fried fish. Normally, it would not be a problem, but that was the meal I ate before I caught the worst stomach bug of my life, so there is some reeeeeal bad scent and taste association going on with that. I managed to eat the whole portion that she gave me, but I might have to go home and tell her that it would be really nice if she didn't cook that anymore, at least for me. Otherwise, all is good, and I'm off to do a little hw and salsa class! Hasta mañana.

Weekend in Sevilla!

So this weekend 14 of us took the train to Sevilla (about 2 hours from Cadiz) to spend the weekend. It is such a gorgeous city! I'll throw up some pictures tomorrow, but it was really incredible. They have the 3rd largest cathedral in the world (also the biggest gothic cathedral in the world) and it is just incredible. I got a few pictures of it, however my camera died because I didn't charge it enough. Oh well, memories will have to suffice. The city in general is very different from Cadiz. Going from small windy streets where everything is 4 stories tall to big, wide streets with streetcars passing through and soaring cathedral spires. Truly impressive. We also visited the Alcazar, which is like a monarchical military palace. Probably one of my favorite places we went to. Everything is a huge mix of cultures and building styles. Once again, pictures to come. Everything on the first level is built in a Moorish style with all of the geometric patterns, because Islamic builders were not allowed to depict anything living. But as you climb up into the palace, there is massive portraits and murals covering all the walls, reflecting the later Spanish renaissance influence. Overall a gorgeous place with 3 times as much garden as building, filled with fountains and orange trees. Our hostel was called "Hostal Picasso", as some of the other hostels were called Van Gogh, etc. For only 16€ for 2 nights it was a bargain. The beds were clean (except for my cover sheet *shudder*), there was a bathroom in each of the rooms, and it had a free breakfast and a rooftop porch. We met some of the other people staying in our hostel and went out with them the first night, and after waiting until around 2 to go to the discotecas, we arrived only to be told that we had on the wrong shoes. Haha, evidently green soccer shoes do not fit with the dress code. No pasa nada, we still had quite a time amongst ourselves. Ok, and the FOOD. It was amazing. We asked the woman who worked at the front desk for a good, cheap place to eat, and she directed us to the Taverna Colonial, which turned out to be one of the best decisions of the weekend. Great food at a great price! 4 tapas and 2 drinks for 12€ for two people. Two nights of that give you high hopes of what to expect when you get home. ;) Ciao!

Newsies

So the trip to Stockholm is planned! A little awkward and incomodo, but other than that, I'm very excited! Not a whole lot going on today, school as usual, was a little tedious. Especially when it is 9am, and the profe has given us a list of things describing a type of literature, and then proceeds to ask us what tenets describe this certain type of literature. They are right in front of us. Why give us the list and then ask what they are....??? The sun the sun!!! It is here, however, its coooooold. Still wool coat weather. I'm glad that I packed a lot of sweaters! In other news, salsa class has started, which will be a lot of fun, even though the room that we practice in has a slight hint of vomit to it. We get to practice our skills at Le Monde tonight, so that is definitely something to look forward to. Well, off to lunch, buy train tickets, and siesta. ;) Ciao!

School has begun.

So, we have actually started real school! Haha, finally right?
Thus far, the classes do not look terribly hard. At all. ;) However, everything is in Spanish, the professors do not speak a word of English, and we don't have any full bilingual students, so it will still be a challenge. I am very excited for my Spanish Lit class though. It focuses on the formation of Spanish literature and cinema since the beginning on the 18th century, up until modern day, which is awesome because our profe is choosing to focus on artists like Lorca, Dalí, Picásso, and schools of thought like Surrealism etc. Very interesting stuff, considering, this is the nation where all of these ideas and artists were born. In other news, a trip to Stockholm has been planned! The original plan was to be laying on the beach in Las Palmas de las Gran Canarias for the second half of Carnival, however, flights and accommodations are a little scarce this time of year, and pricey, so we are going to go visit Shane's friend in Sweden! I figure, I've never been, Shane's never been, why not?! The weather lately has been AWFUL. I am currently wearing a wool coat and a zip up sweater. Inside. It looked like a monsoon was hitting the peninsula last night, and it did the same this morning. I can only hope for a quick turnaround. Because I plan on it being beach season by the time it's February 10th. ;) ¡Hasta mañana!

Spain hates Facebook.

I, on the other hand, LOVE Facebook. This is making my stay here very difficult. Haha.
The computers that are free to use in the UCA (University of Cádiz) will let you look at everything on Facebook, however you can't post anything or update things. Annoying yes? And with my computer recently deciding to not use the battery that is inside of it, it makes searching around for wifi a little difficult if I have to remain plugged into a wall. In other news, I feel like I have risen from the dead. I spent the ENTIRE weekend in my bed with the shades and door closed with the covers over my head feeling literally, the worst I have ever felt. Evidently I do not have immunities to crazy European stomach flus. I have regained a little bit of my appetite, although not much, which has my Spanish mamá very worried, but I eat what I can. Also, today is the first day of real school, but I have a feeling that the whole week will be more like syllabus week. I HOPE. Getting over this sickness has basically sucked out all my energy, so having to sit through grammar, literature, history, and writing classes everyday seems a daunting task. I'm hoping that I will be back up to par by this weekend because we are headed to Sevilla! Can't wait! ¡Hasta mañana!

In the land of palm trees and sunshine... ;)
YEAH RIGHT.

If only things were better...

So, at the moment, things are not super awesome. Sick with some weird bug, my computer is dying, I can't upload pictures... guh. Other than that, it is nice to be done with grammar school, because 4 hours of that a day is TEDIOUS. I don't want to do grammar exercises ever again. Too bad I will start them again on monday. HA. I'm waiting for a little more sun, because today it literally poured. The stairwell of my building was leaking and dripping all over the place, because in Andalucia, why fix the broken window, it's always sunny! We will hopefully be planning a trip to Sevilla next weekend, so we'll see how that goes. Ciao.

I've arrived!

So I figured that this would be easier to do so that I can just update this and let everyone know what I'm up to, instead of having to tell everyone individually in a city where I have to go sit in the middle of the plaza to get wifi. ;) I'm hoping that I can upload all my pictures here and then everyone will be able to see them, because Facebook is not cooperating currently, but it might just be my internet connection. Let the Adventure begin!