One Month Left??

One month?!? Just one more month left in Spain?! Where on earth has the time gone. It feels like yesterday that my Señora Inma picked me up from our hotel and brought me to her house for the first time. The month of April is notorious in Sevilla for racing by because students don't have class for half of the month! The first week in April is Semana Santa, Holy Week, for which classes are cancelled and the last week in April is Feria, a huge, week-long, 24 hrs 7-days-a-week festival characterized by manzanilla (a strong, dry white wine reminiscent of sherry) and 7up, flamenco dresses, and massive portales (a door-like structure that serves as the entrance into the festival). Most study abroad students stay in Sevilla to experience a day or two of the festivities and use the rest of the time off school to travel. I am no exception as next weekend I will be traveling to Valencia with my interest group (spanish gastronomy) to spend the weekend eating paella, drinking wine, soaking up the culture, and playing on the beach! From Valencia, my two best friends and I are going to catch a plane to Prague for a spend the week sightseeing and visiting a friend of mine who is currently studying abroad there. What a life :). I will return to Sevilla on Friday just in time to catch the last weekend of Feria!

Random interjection: You know the expression, "Life is like a roll of toilet paper, the closer you get to the end, the faster it seems to go"? Well that is how I feel right now, only in reference to my semester abroad.

With that said, there are still so many things I want to do/see before I go! Here are few of them:

1. Climb to the top of the Giralda, the bell tower on top of the cathedral and one of the most important symbols of Sevilla. It is the highest point in the city and there is actually a law prohibiting any building from surpassing it in height (although that is currently a big topic of contention).

2. Climb el torre de oro (golden tower), an old military watchtower in Sevilla. I pass it every day on my walk to class but have never been to the top! I hear it offers a great view of the city.

3. Spend more time getting lost. I feel like I could live here for years and still find hidden parts of the city tucked away in the windy cobblestone roads on a regular basis. Every neighborhood has such a unique flavor to it and I want to spend as much time as I can getting to know the parts of the city that are still unfamiliar. 

All in all, though, I feel like I've done a pretty great job thus far of taking advantage of my time in this beautiful city :). When the time comes to return home, I know I'll be able to say with confidence that I lived my life here to the absolutely fullest and without hesitation. But what am I saying right now?!? I still have a whole MONTH left of new experiences to have here! My time is Sevilla is far from being over, and I will suck up every drop of it in the meantime. That being said, I am off to go gorge myself at the chocolatería Ocumare! A chocolate shop only open on weekends from 4-9pm during certain months of the year with raw ingredients imported directly from Africa. Is the movie Chocolat coming to mind for anyone else?? 

See you all when I'm 10lbs heavier ;). Hasta luego! xo

Adventures on the northern coast of Spain!

It’s still dark outside as I’m writing this entry on the beginning of our 7 hour train ride from Santander back to Sevilla. Wow, what a phenomenal last 4 days. Russell and I spent the last 4 nights in Santander with a day trip to both Laredo and Bilbao. Santander is a beautiful fishing town in the Cantabria region of northern Spain and is famous for it’s seafood, abundant beaches, and rugged coastlines. On our first full day, Russell and I set out from our hostel and walked along the coast in search of as many scenic views and beautiful beaches as we could find. Santander is stunning, we spent the entire day walking the coastline and found some cliffs overlooking the sea that are going on my “20 most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen” list (it is filling up rapidly these days). I have never seen any sort of landscape like this one, the stark contrast between crystal blue water crashing violently against the vibrant green cliffs is truly magnificent. Other highlights of day 1: stumbling upon a marine life zoo 2: getting lost several miles away from our hostel and bar-hopping our way back 3: walking through a magical green forest with carvings made in the tree trunks.

The Harbor in Santander

Playa de los Peligros

A little tunnel obscuring a quiet, hidden beach

We found a little lagoon with tons of fun rocks to play on

View on the other side of the lagoon :)

Magic fairy forest (as I affectionately refer to it)

This overlook...

Playa del Camello

After a restful night in our hostel, Russell and I woke up the next morning and caught a bus to Laredo, another quaint fishing city on the northern coast. Not knowing exactly what to expect, we were both pleasantly shocked to have stumbled upon some sort of hidden paradise. Laredo is famous for “La Salve”, a 5km beach that arcs around el mar de Cantabria and offers amazing views of a small peninsula jutting out into the water. Russell and I walked la Salve from start to finish, stumbled upon a small ferry that transported us across the bay to the other side of (I want to say island, because that’s really what it felt like) Laredo where we had a delicious lunch of freshly caught seafood and chatted about how we were “living the life.” After lunch we set off to hike to the top of the aforementioned peninsula and, when we got there, ran into the ruins of some old Spanish fortress! It was AWESOME. The fortress overlooked the entire coast of Laredo, with views of the mountains, sandy beaches, and fishing boats in the background. As the two of us admired the landscape in respectful silence I made a mental note to move this place up to the top 10 of my “20 most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen” list.

The beginning of La Salve

Crossing the bay on a ferry

Russell and I grabbing a beer on the other side

Pausing for a picture

Some of the ruins from the fortress we found

The higher we climbed, the more beautiful Laredo became

This was the outlook from our highest point!

Day three of our journey was cloudy and chilly, so Russell and I decided to branch out from the coast and see what else Cantabria had to offer. We initially planned on traveling to Potes, a small village at the mouth of the mountain range Picos de Europa, but the bus schedule didn’t work out in our favor so we decided to hop on over to Bilbao en el pais Vasco instead. Bilbao is a great city with tons of culture and a very modern, European feel to it. After a delicious lunch and great conversation with some locals, Russell and I headed over to one of Bilbao’s most famous attractions: the Guggenheim museum. We saw “The Inverted Mirror” exhibit, an unbelievable collection of modern art and architecture that was fascinating and captured our attention for the duration of our stay. I wish I could show you guys some of the photography and architecture we saw inside but, unfortunately, pictures were prohibited. After the museum, Russell and I set off on a mission to find the “casco antiguo” or, old part of the city. We were pretty pressed for time before having to catch the bus back to Santander and heading in the complete opposite direction from the station, but we went anyways. Despite a valiant effort to find this cultural hotspot, we somehow missed the casco antiguo and ended up in the ghetto of Bilbao which…. although not quite as scenic, offered it’s own unique flavor to our journey. Several attempts at finding public transit later, we hopped onto our bus just in time and napped the entire 1 hr and 45 min back to Santander. We celebrated our last night in Cantabria over a series of excellent tapas, a hoppy local microbrew, and a barca game before retiring back to our room for the night.

The flower dog outside of the Guggenheim Museum

Inside the Guggenheim

Outside the Guggenheim

Bilbao

Que chulo! (how cool)

Of all the traveling I’ve done thus far, this trip may have been my favorite. The northern region of Spain truly has it all: ocean, beaches, mountains, rugged coastlines, rolling green foothills, everything…. I LOVED it! And there is still so much to see! Asturias, Castilla y Leon, Galicia, los Picos de Europa, I am already trying to plan another trip here if I can make it happen. So little time, so little time!

Hasta luego! xo