HI!! I know most of you weren't expecting something new today bc you have been checking back and getting disappointed every time.
I know I know I haven't really been updating lately and I apologize but to be honest not really much has happened until this past weekend when I went to Portugal for 4 days! Lets rewind first.....so yes valentines day was a bust but the rest of the week was pretty normal. Last week on the other hand was a crazy and difficult week.
Last week
Was our last week of the first class and due to some poor planning a lot of major grades were left for the that week. We had an oral project where we had to do a role play of either a restaurant or a hotel in spanish and have it memorized. My partner and I did not get the memo that it was suppose to be funny or that it was suppose to be 7 mins long!!! So ours was like 4 mins max and very boring.....anyway due to the lack of communication and the fact that we had it pretty much memorized we still got a 100 so YAY! That was Monday, Tuesday we had a listening exam......yeah no bueno because every time we did a listening activity in class we got to listen to it at least twice but on the exam we only go to listen to it once....least to say it was the lowest grade I have gotten all semester. Then Wednesday we had a cultural project and we could pick anything in Spanish cultural. My friend and I decided to do Flamenco dancing. For those of you who don't know what that it is, it is a type of dance. I will upload a short video of it on Facebook so you all can check it out later! Our cultural project went well but she was really hard on us about the memorization which like nobody had done. Thursday we had our one on one oral exam where we had to go in individually and talk to our teacher for about 5 mins.....yeah that went pretty well actually. Then Friday was our official last day and we had our last written exam overall it went well just a few unexpected parts but no big deal. I ended up with an A in the first class.
Friday after class a whole bunch of us went to the river. There is a spot at one point of the river that has this super open space and a whole bunch of people just lay out blankets and hang out with either beer, or wine with a soccer ball or in our case a football. It was a great time and a great way to relax after the stressful week we had just had.
Saturday
Bright and early I woke up to go to Lisbon Portugal with the whole group. We had to meet at the train station at 7 am! We took a bus and it is about a 6 hour drive. Going wasn't so bad I guess because we were excited but coming back seemed like it took forever! We also gained an hour going so the time difference between here and there was 6 hours instead of 7. Going into Lisbon you take this bridge that is extremely high up pretty much any ship can go under it with room to spare. Because of this you have an excellent view of the city I had reserved one of the front seats because the director of the program had mentioned this earlier in the semester. We finally arrived at the hotel at about 12:30 lisbon time. We had about an hour and a half to get some lunch because at 2pm we were to get back on the bus and go on the planned part of the trip. We went to an monastery and it was nice but not by any means the best. Then we stopped at this tower on the way back and took about 45 mins to be near the water and take some pictures. After doing that I got some ice cream with some friends and we got back on the bus and headed back to the hotel. We took a break and then later for dinner decided to go to this meat place where for 11 euros it is all you can eat meat and they walk around and just cut it right off the skewer. It was yummy but we had some difficulties with the check. Anyway we were all tired after that so I just decided to go back to the hotel and go to sleep. What we had done that day was the only thing "mandatory" until Tuesday at 10am when we had to be at the bus outside the hotel to go back to Sevilla.
Sunday
Though everything required was finished there were still some other optional trips. I decided that since they were being offered I would go ahead and take advantage of the opportunity. So for Sunday they were taking the bus of the the Christo Rey which is a statue on the opposite side of the bridge, where we came into the city, and has an amazing view of lisbon and you can go up to the feet of the statue for an observation deck. It was absolutely gorgeous and there are pictures on Facebook. After that the bus was also going to stop at the Portugal aquarium and then head back to the hotel I opted to go to the aquarium. I absolutely love aquariums! It was amazing, I had never seen some many different kinds of penguins in one place and they were so close you could practically touch them and there was no glass so you could if you really wanted to. In one of the rooms it was really cold and the had ice the exhibit it didn't look really and there was some right along the edge so I go to touch it and then like little penguin head slowly comes up and he is looking at me with the stink eye that looks like he is saying "hands off the ice". It was so funny and I wish I had gotten it on video. They also had otters and they were so cute we caught them during feeding time. Then of course there were lots and lots of fish. We made our way through and then eventually to the gift shop where I bought a t shirt and some postcards.
Speaking of postcards I forgot to mention that Lisbon is know for green wine, cork, and leather. So they literally make everything out of cork even postcards, I got kind of obsessed and bought a bunch. I was kind of disappointed about the green wine though because I was expecting it to be christmas green when actually it looked more like white wine. The difference from white wine is in the taste. It was very dry and had a little bit of bubble. It was kind of like a hybrid between a dry white wine and champagne. Least to say though I was a fan even though it wasn't really green. I never really got to see any leather those kind of stores were always closed by the time I made my way over to that side of town.
Since we got off at the aquarium and everybody finishes at different times we had to make our way back to the hotel on our own which was fine because luckily the metro system is really simple in Lisbon. We made our way back dropped off our stuff and headed back out again to find some lunch. We decided to walk to the downtown because it is a very pretty walk and also down hill, Lisbon is very hilly I would assume kind of like San Francisco but I have never been but based on movies and such. The walk was nice and we eventually made it there. We had seen several souvenir shops we wanted to shop at and a couple of cute bakerys but we had to find some food first, not knowing where to go in we walked the whole street we ran into some human statues, one of which was hovering, a man playing the trumpet all of which you can find pictures on facebook. We eventually found this little cafe and enjoyed hamburgers with some green wine. When then walked around and headed back to the bakery we had seen. After that is was around 8pm and we were pretty worn out so we hopped on the metro to go back to the hotel. By the end of the trip we had definitely gotten use to the metro and it is a lot nicer than the subway in NY.
Monday
Was a pretty relaxed day there was no rush to get out of bed except for breakfast that ended at 10am. There was an optional excursion to a small town outside of Lisbon on a hill called Sintra, at 1:30pm. My friends and I had a late start and got some lunch at the mall under the bull ring across the street from the hotel. At 1:30 we loaded on the bus and there was only about 9 of us out of the 54 that chose to go on this excursion. It was about a 45 min drive to the city. Upon arrival we kind of all stuck together, we first went into a palace right across from where the bus dropped us off, we walked around and my friends and I decided that we would buy it and make it our vacation home in Portugal. A girl can dream right? Anyway after coming out there is a castle at the top of this hill and when I say hill a mean small mountain! We found the information kiosk which turned out to be just a permanently parked van and they said we could take a bus up there for about 5 euros. Well worth it except for the fact that our driver was a CRAZY! I don't know how many times I saw my life flash before my eyes it was this narrow two way curvey street that went to the top and he was whipping around corners and almost running people over. The people's faces in the bus said it all I kind of wish I had had one of the seats facing backwards just so I didn't have to see it. When we arrived at the top I almost felt like going to my knees and start kissing the ground. By the time we had got up there is was 4 o clock and both the palace and the castle up there close at 5 and the lady at the information desk at the top told us we only had time to go to one. Turns out the palace is more like a museum and the castle is more for a view, we decided to go to the castle. Now there was no warning for this trip, and there was a nice surprise of hills and rocks I felt like I was hiking, it was ridiculous. Then to get on/into the castle was treacherous I am pretty sure the teacher with us was having mini heart attacks praying that we wouldn't step wrong or lose our balance and topple to our deaths (okay a little dramatic but we were all a little uneasy after that bus ride). Least to say if you took it slow it was fine and I am not one to run around. The view was absolutely breathtaking! Tons of pics on facebook as well. Speaking of pictures I have taken about 1300 pics since I have been at DFW and now! Yeah that is a lot!
Anyway after the bus ride home again we stopped back at our hotel rooms to freshen up and then our goal was to try and find an African food restaurant and the director said that it would be difficult to tell us how to get there so one of the other teachers said to just google a place and get a address and hop in a cab because split between 3 people it wouldn't be too expensive. So we did exactly that and well our cab driver didn't know where it was and kind of just dropped us off in the general area of that street, so that was frustrating and we probably would have argued if it weren't for the language barrier. So we got out and walked to the right and didn't find the restaurant we were looking for but it was cold and not worth it so we found another restaurant on the water. Due to the fact that the seafood was so expensive we decided to opt for hamburgers once again. It was fine and a really nice place, when then walked back the way we had came because at least we had seen the metro station. We hopped on the metro back to the hotel and then hang out in the room for a bit and then I went to bed.
Tuesday
I woke up and started to pack got some breakfast and then out to the bus by about 9:55am. We left early because we were going to lose an hour heading back to Seville. The bus ride took forever and I could not wait to get off the bus! We arrived home to Mama and I think she was happy to have us home.
Today
Well it was the first day of class all over again we now have a new teacher and she is AWESOME! Super sweet and I think we are going to learn a lot, she is not a native speaker and Spanish is one of her 4 languages! I know crazy, but she know Arabic, French, Spanish, and English! Anyway it is going to be a good end to the semester. My mom comes in about 10 days! I am so excited I can't wait to see her and I think my host mom is excited to meet her, she has already said she is going to have her over for paella. Well I guess that this about wraps it up it is a long one I know and thank you for bearing with me! I promise I won't wait this long to update again.
Con todo mi amor,
Katie
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