Sevilla: Hotter than Hades on Steroids.

After a week of traveling, studying, writing papers, and doing a presentation, I finally have time to blog to my minions. This morning I took my final in Celia's class, which I think I did pretty well on. I also just finished a presentation and five-page paper for the Count's class tonight. This means that only the Count's final stands in between me and the San Juan festival at the beach! Oh, and the fact that I have a super nasty cold. Thankfully I am feeling a lot better than I was yesterday, but I still need to rest up.

Cadiz and Sevilla were so freaking awesome! Danny, Kristin, Jamie, Helen, and I all booked a flight early Friday morning to leave to the lovely south of Spain. Cadiz is the equivalent of a quaint European beach town. Tall apartments with iron-work balconies line cobblestone streets everywhere you go. Sarah and the UGA in Cadiz group are very lucky to have such a pretty setting for their study abroad. The first day we got there we met up with Sarah after checking in to our hostel. We went to this fabulous crepe restaurant where I got a crepe with egg, dijon mustard, beef, and veggies. It was one of the best Spanish meals I have had yet. Sarah then showed us the sights of Cadiz, such as the cathedral there and the beach. The scenic view is breathtaking.

That night, we went out with the Cadiz group to the bars. It was so much cheaper there than what we are used to! I got a few drinks for free and most of them cost 3 euro (in Valencia we have to pay at least five). Unfortunentaly, we were all so tired from our 6 am flight that we called it in early (by early I mean 2:30 am. Spaniards love their party time).

We woke up the next morning and went up to the roof of the hostel where they made us breakfast. It was so cute and homey up there. Being ravenous, I ate a homemade egg and four pieces of toast with coffee. since I am now only used to french bread toast, it was great to have some actual homemade protein with breakfast. After that we went to the beach all day. We ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant. The nachos there were good, but I still miss my Auga Linda nachos mucho. We then went back to the beach, where we discovered that we could go to the end of an old castle ruin and jump into the water! It was at least a 20 foot jump, but the five of us did it and loved it. The hard part was climbing back onto the rocks since the waves were very rough. However, it was very worth it.

Later that night we got tapas at the manliest restaurant I have ever seen. There were bottles of wine and beer all over, everything in the establishment was made out of wood, and there were legs of meat hanging off of the walls. My dad would have been in heaven. I wasn't that hungry, so I only got grilled chorizo with grilled veggies. It was perfect. That night we went to the beach with our bottles of wine and sat around and told stories and talked. It was so relaxing, yet so much fun. When we got back to the hostel Danny Boy almost got us in a bit of trouble (peeing off balconies is not acceptable in Spain, apparently), but a genuinely confused and naive Kristin talked our way out of trouble.

The next morning we took a train back to Sevilla where we explored the highlights of the town. We saw the Torre del Oro, Palacio de Alhambra, and Plaza de España. Unfortunentaly the Torre was closed, but that might have been for the best since Kristin wiped out on some stairs and busted her knee pretty badly. Jamie decided this was an opportune time for photos, so facebook pics are likely to come soon. The plaza had huge protests going on about the war in Libya. Literally thousands of people showed up with signs, banners, airhorns, children, dogs, and everything in between. Roads were shut down and police were everywhere. I have never seen such an intense protest before.

My favorite part of Sevilla was the Palace. It was built in the 12th century and literally seemed like it's own mini city. There was a labirynth in the gardens. That is not real life. Also, they had a bunch of peacocks and peahens running around the gardens. This being my favorite animals, I ran around and tried to pose with them as close as possible. There were also dozens of fountains, gardens, secret passageways, courtyards, and everything in between. It would take a full day to truly explore the entire palace.

That night we went back to our stifling hostel (it was cute but didn't have airconditioning). I got so hot that I had to sleep on the tile floor with my pillow. Finally around 1 am it cooled down enough to where I could climb in my bed and sleep comfortable. At 3:30 am we woke up chipper (very sarcastic) and ready to take a flight back to Valencia. Unfortunately, I woke up with a sore throat and clogged ears. Not a good start to an obscenely early day. We got back to Valencia before 8 and Danny and I took the metro straight to class.

It was a jam-packed weekend, but it was so much fun. Now it is time for me to rest up and enjoy my last few days here in Valencia since we leave Monday morning for Madrid :(.
Ciao!