Camels, Survival, Black Beaches, and Gaudi

Hiya folks. Sorry it takes me so long to update these days. Anywho. Last time I blogged I was preparing for my weekend trip to Morocco. Yes, Morocco as in Africa. WOWOWOW i know. It was a really cool trip. A totally, completely new experience. The culture was so different. i mean SO different. Everyone there speaks at least three languages: Arabic, French, and Spanish and a ton of them speak English as well. That just blows my mind. completely. We rode camels and bargained with street vendors and drank delicious moroccan tea. Then it was back to school for one more midterm and three more days of class until Semana Santa break. (Semana Santa is the week before Easter..holy week)

I PASSED ALL MY MIDTERMS!!!!! yess. so excited. And then Wednesday night I crashed at Arianna's place to prepare for an early morning trip to the airport. We began our excursion to the Greek Island of Santorini at four thirty in the morning Seville time. Following that was the flight from Sevilla to Barcelona, then a couple hours in the airport, then the three and a half hour flight from Barcelona to Athens, then an hour bus ride from the airport to the port (for the ferry) and then another bus and some walking to our AWESOME huge amazing ferry. Then a five hour ferry ride...a really altogether pleasant experience...then a little van ride to our hostel on the other side of the island...and at one am we had arrived! We woke up at a reasonable hour, headed to the little mini mart two blocks away for some groceries (and when i say mini, i mean MINI) and then we headed to the GOREGOUS Perissa beach. Perissa, by the way, is famous for its black sand. Yes, i said black. It was sooooo cool, the sand didnt stick to anything! it was like little pebbles. Best invention ever, thanks God. And thanks to the active volcano on the island! four days of complete bliss on the beach and in our hostel - which by the way was really a villa masquerading as a hostel: three rooms and a bathroom a balcony and a kitchenette all to ourselves. not to mention that everyday a maid service came in and changed our sheets AND did our dishes for ten euro a night. i know, wow. one of the days we woke up bright and early and rented two ATVs (four wheelers) for the three of us and drove all over the island: to Fira (the capital) and to Oia (the famous sunset place) and had a BLAST. we swam in the mediterranean and bathed in saltwater (no fresh water on the island) and got a suntan. amazing. it was incredibly beautiful. Then at the end we flew to athens early in the morning our last day, spent the whole day touring athens and seeing ruins and eating gyros (souvlaki), and then headed back to the airport for a flight to Barcelona.

Barcelona! that's where i am currently with Mary and Arianna (the three traveling musketeers) and we are here for two more days, Arianna's padres arrive in Barcelona tomorrow and they are gonna be in Spain for a week! Today we walked around the gothic quarter, had some comfort food at Hard Rock (where they spoke english to us YAY) and where we all ordered mixed drinks...well, frankly, just cause we could, saw the cathedral, and toured the Picasso Museum. Tomorrow we are going to Guell Park (a park full of Gaudi creations) and the Sagrada familia before heading to the airport to pick up arianna's fam. :-) what an exciting life i lead....SO BLESSED.

xoxo

Rota + the Beach, Aracena + the mountains, and Midterms

Time continues to fly as I progress through the semester here. I can hardly believe that March is over halfway done! I do miss home, but I am having an absolute blast in Europe, I am traveling as much as I can, and trying to experience all that I am able to in this short time. Last weekend my friends Lisa, Lauren, Mary, Arianna, and I went to Rota for the beach for the day. Rota is where the American Military base is and it was a beautiful beach location. Yes it was around 65 degrees Fahrenheit and we were laying out in our bikinis. We'd been living in a clouded depression zone for a month! And to us Americans, 65 is WARM. Of course all the Spaniards there looked at us like we were absolutely nuts and you could basically hear them saying "stupid, crazy Americans." we had a blast though, and scoffed at them in their coats and scarves. These people dont know warm when it hits them! haha of course I suppose they have a right to when it gets over a hundred easily in the summers here. We all got a little sun and went home that night full of Vitamin D and happy warmth.

The next morning Mary and I met up with a large group of kids from our school (exchange and non exchange) and went on a trip to Aracena in the Mountains in the provice of Huelva next to us. It was incredibly beautiful. It was amazing to see how much the landscape changed with just an hour of driving. Aracena is completely rural and totally surrounded by mountains. There is a huge castle (ruins) on the top of their highest peak, and they are surrounded by miles and miles (or should i say kilometers and kilometers) of nationally preserved land. We parked the bus and went on a two and a half hour hike through the goregous mountains. The weather was absolutely perfect and I felt right at home. Although we were all huffing and puffing cause Sevilla is so flat comparatively, it was exhilarating, and great exercise. We then toured around the town and saw all the museums and stuff. Aracena is apparently quite famous for their Jamón (ham). ok Jamón is a Spanish specialty, and NOTHING like spiral cut ham at home, bacon, or country ham, or deli ham. It is unlike everything i've ever had. and it is AMAZING. and Aracena ham? yeah, there's definitely a reason for it being famous. it was super delicious. Also, another cool thing about Aracena is that underneath the city, there is a whole system of underground caves/caverns. you know the things with underground lakes and stalactites, and stalagmites?? yeah they were awesome too!

last week and this week we had midterms. ugh. They were not so bad, but i still have yet to receive my grades. so far i have gotten a 9 on one (A-) and a 7 on the other (B-), not so bad considering one was grammar and the other was culture and civ. And culture and civ happens to be so boring i cannot force myself to pay attention, i think a B- is commendable. :-) haha good Lord, in reality, i am having a minor heart attack, because, to me a B- is like the worst thing in the world. I really need to get a grip. ok. anywho, I am having a blast and in a couple hours I will be well on my way to Morocco for the weekend. horray!!!!!

oh, and by the way, Feria de Abril is coming soon and one needs an awesome flamenco style dress to wear and you have to have one to get in. And, they are like 300+ EURO, ick. But thanks to a friend, we discovered a thrift store with them :-) so guess who has an AWESOME new dress for feria? yes ma'am, that would be me, Katie Madison Shoaf the first :-)

love love love <3

Irlanda and test preparations

So last weekend Arianna, Mary, and I utilized our five day weekend and took a whirlwind trip to Ireland :-) It was beyond incredibly beautiful there. On Wednesday night we were out at 100 montaditos as per usual and we ended up just staying there until about 11:30 or so, and then we headed back to Mary's place to meet Pepi and Juan (her señora and her señora's boyfriend) because they had offered to drive us to the bus station around midnight (our bus to Madrid left at 1 am). So we get on the bus and look forward to some sleep on the SIX HOUR BUS RIDE. yeah. I am NOT kidding. We doze a little but ultimately the bus is loud, hot, bumpy, and uncomfortable. ugh. Needless to say we got to Madrid at 7am a little grumpy and a lot tired. We had to keep it together though because we would have to get ourselves from the bus station to the airport (hopefully without paying an arm and a leg for a cab). We saw giant signs for the Metro there and I had overheard Lola telling Kiri a couple weeks ago that there was a metro line that runs straight to the airport! hooray...except we had to figure out which of the 20 billion metro lines ran there and how many times we would have to change, what kind of tickets to buy, etc. Thank the Lord for helpful Metro workers. an hour later we were walking into the terminal at Madrid airport. We were a few hours early so we found some comfy looking benches and slept a while. we woke up to a mass exodous from our gate...hmmm. We go to check our screen and find that not only has our flight been delayed THREE HOURS, our gate has moved. anyway, we do get on a plane and land in Dublin safe and sound.

Our hostels in Ireland were amazing. Super nice, clean, helpful, etc. Our schedule in Ireland went as such: night one - Dublin... cheap dinner and bed. day two - Dublin --> Limerick --> Cliffs of Moher --> Doolin -->The Burren --> Dublin (PADDYWAGON TOUR!!!) night two- same hostel in Dublin. day three - Dublin --> Kilkenny (by awesome train)...beautiful day touring the little town. night three - hostel in Kilkenny. day four - Kilkenny --> Dublin (by train again) hangin around Dublin...even though it was FREEZING. night four - head to the airport (we have a 6am flight and are too cheap to pay for a hostel). day five - flight to Madrid, metro to the bus station, bus to Sevilla. I am pretty proud for all the stuff we got to see. Pretty amazing. It was super fun and exhausting.

I have most of my midterms next week so i have been studying (or pretending to study) all weekend long. But last week I did splurge and have all my hair cut off again...in a Spanish salon. it was a small miracle i came out of there with hair still on my head. A little confusing to explain what you want. haha. It was my first time in a salon (love you Mama). I like it lots :-)

love and hugs to you at home!
k