Cumpleaños en España

This is all pretty outdated because the internet at school was down for a long time (SO annoying), so I couldn´t upload this…it is all about last week. I will have a blog entry up about Barcelona soon!

Ahhh por fin, puedo respirar...finally I can breathe! I just finished my last midterm so I am in a fantastic mood. I mostly forget that I'm actually going to school here until it hits me the week of exams and I get wonderful flashbacks of College Library or the creepy cages in Memorial. Only it's a little bit different because I'm getting tan next to a river in Spain...so I can't complain toooo much :) Though recently (for the past week and a half), Pepita has been getting her kitchen redone and a new bathroom put in, so things have been a little hectic. By hectic I mean that the water in the bathroom with the shower (the pre-existing bathroom), has the water shut off right now so I just showered in the new shower, though the new shower has no doors on it so I pretty much held my head over it and did what I could...I'll be surprised if anything looks clean besides the entire bathroom (which is dripping wet). Oh well, I mean, it's not like I'm going to see my Spanish hottie tomorrow or anything...oh wait...lol. C'est la vie haha.

Besides being done with midterms, as most of you know, I did just celebrate my one and only 21st birthday last week...whoooo!!! I couldn't have asked for a better birthday either. Except to have you all there of course. Even the day of the week was perfect. For years I have been looking at the day that my 21st birthday would be on (Thursday), and I was always pretty satisfied, but since we don't have school on Fridays here, it is probably the best day of the week to have a birthday.

We went out on Wednesday for a little while to a bar that is nearby in Triana, but I wanted to “save myself” for more of a blow out on Thursday, so we didn't go too crazy, though it was still a lot of fun. Thursday morning I woke up and was eating breakfast, (my white chocolate and chocolate nutella on toast with yogurt and fruit...breakfast of champions!), and like I said, we've had construction workers here for a while-- and Pepita came in with a present and started singing Feliz Cumpleanos to me with all the construction guys haha. She gave me a really cute pink shirt and a ring :) Oh Pepita. I had one class on Thursday, with my awesome feminist literature teacher, and we went on a little field trip to the church down the street and she told us about it and then we got organic muffins from the nuns! Awesome. After that I got to talk to my parents and Omi for a long time...it was really good to hear their voices! It felt just like being at Madison or something. Except 80 degrees and cloudless in the middle of March.

For dinner, me and ten friends went to a really good (and cheap) Italian restaurant on Calle Betis. The food was SOOOO good. I had some sort of tortelli pasta with spinach....made me miss spinich ravioli from home, it was delicious. Afterwards we hit up some bars on Betis before finishing the night at a discoteca and dancing are booties off. I know I'm not going into huge detail, but I'm sure you can all fill in the blanks—there was plenty of 21 year old fun that was had. And as my grandma told me, I'm going to have a lot of birthdays, some I'll remember, some I won't, but I will never forget the birthday I spent in Spain...ahh.

I don't want to make any of you too depressed but the weather here is absolutely beautiful. I here you guys got a few warm days though so...whoo! It has been like 80-85 degrees and cloudless pretty much every day lately. I am like as tan as I am in the middle of summer normally. (And Garrett, after this semester, you'll never catch up to me, so you better start fake baking.) The sun makes everyday so enjoyable...though I'd always like to be enjoying it more by the river and not in a classroom...

This last week I got a volunteer job at an after school program with Spanish kids in a poor neighborhood of Sevilla. Its fun but the kids are INSANE. There is no order whatsoever, and if I knew how to yell at them sufficiently I would, but first of all, I have no authority to them, and second of all, they all speak better Spanish than I do so it isn't easy to fight with them. The other leaders are just really inconsistent with their discipline, which is half the problem. They will yell at one kid and then not at another, and then see some fighting and let it go, and yell at others fighting...the kids definetely run the show. I guess we're having a meeting about how to improve so maybe I can kick them into shape. The kids are funny though...they all think it is hilarious how I speak Spanish. “Why do you talk with so many 'S's? You use too many 'r's....you can't speak Spanish...do you even know how to read? Here, come look at a dictionary, it maybe it will help..” Spending two hours with them really cuts me down to size, that's for sure. They love me tho so I know it will be fun. It is also going to be good to say that I'm doing this because I have an interview with the Madison Park and Rec department doing some little kid activities, (and speaking Spanish to them). Which means, yes I will be spending the summer in Madison, and I am sooooo excited. Summer in Madison is like heaven, I love that city. The only problem is that my Carli is going to be making something of herself in far off California....sad. Of course I am beyond excited for her that she's making such an effort in the direction of her future blah blah blah:)

Yesterday we went to the beach that is closest to Sevilla, Matalascañas, in the town of Huelva. When me and Amber left Sevilla at 11 am it was already really hot, so we thought it would be the perfect day at the beach. Well when we got there it was about 20 degrees colder and SO windy. And it also looked like it was about to rain on us for the first hour we were there. But then, all the clouds passed and even though it was still windy, it was really sunny, and I even went up to my knees in the water. The beach was nice, but the water wasn't the pretty turquoise that I love. In fact, the beach reminded me a lot of the beaches on the East coast. We took the bus back at 6 and were really tired (from working so hard during the day obviously), so we stayed in. In fact, I watched the movie The Bridge to Terabithia on Spanish TV and cried like a baby. It was a quality Saturday night.

This coming weekend begins the famous event of Semana Santa (Holy Week), which is known worldwide. It is basically an entire week filled with religious processions through the streets and thousands of flowers and candles and other good stuff. It's supposed to be amazing, but most people in Sevilla don't stay for all of it because there are so many people. The first weekend of it I think I am going to go to Madrid and Toledo, then the last weekend of it I have my trip to Portugal, then the weekend after that I have my four day trip to Morrocco with my interest group, and after that, (though it is still in the works), I am hoping to be going to Italy for part of Feria (the other huge festival here), and then it is my LAST WEEKEND before finals in Sevilla!! I will have four days completely free after finals though so I'll be able to soak in my city as much as possible before I have to leave on the 17th... :( I can't believe how fast time is going here. Which reminds me, I need to get off the computer and disfrutar la vida de sevilla!! Adios mis amores, hasta pronto.