Tapas y Lagos

Well, this weekend was a little bit crazy and a whole lot of awesome.

Thursday night (good to know that some things don´t change all the much from home. My weekend still starts on Thursday nights) we went out of tapas in a group. Every week we´re going to different neighborhoods to experience different parts of Sevilla. Anyway, the first restaurant we went to, one of the dishes we ordered was Octapus. It actually wasn´t terrible, I just refused to eat a part that had anything that resembled suction things.

It was also my friend Marissa´s birthday so we definitely celebrated that on Thursday night as well.

Friday morning we somehow managed to drag ourselves out of bed and get to the bus for the ride to Portugal. It was only about a 3 hour ride there and I slept for most of the time.

When we got therem we checked into our hostel, which was amazing. I´ve stayed in crappier hotels before. But we immediately headed out to the beach, which was gorgeous. I probably posted way too many pictures on facebook but it´s just that gorgeous. But I had a blast in the water once I got used to the cold. We swam out to a giant rock on the first day and I pretty much managed to beat myself up that first day because my arm and leg are bruised and cut, but it was worth it.

Then we went back to the harbor and got on a boat that was taking us out to see comes caves farther away from shore. I was having a blast on the boat. Normally I actually like the choppiness of the water, but apparently mixing that with the free sangria was a bad idea because a lot of us got sick.

For dinner that night a small group of us went out in search of some good Portuguese food. I wound up with fish and chips, but it was delicious.

A few of us skipped going to the beach the next day, me included because of sunburn (surprise surprise) so we walked around town and did some shopping and I finally got a burger for lunch. I also had my first experience with indian food and I loved it. That night we went around town and explored some of the bars. The nice thing about Lagos is that it´s a tourist town so there were a lot of people that spoke English.

We spent our third and final day at the beach. I got to sit down and enjoy sitting in the shade (while wearing long jeans and tennis shoes that I´m sure got me lots of strange looks, but I didn´t care) and reading my book and taking more cool pictures.

Welcome Party/Futbol Game

Hilary- Yes, it counts as hounding if I get all of your requests for pictures within 5 minutes.

I survived my first week of classes here in Spain. I think I even managed to stay awake for half of them. Though it really helped that I had 3 canceled classes this week. That's what happens when you have the same professor for multiple classes.

Friday night we had out welcome party, which included free sangria, beer, and snacks. That was pretty awesome, even if I am a lightweight. After the bar, we went to Casino, an outdoor club. It was a lot of fun to get dressed up and go out dancing, even if I'm truly terrible at the dancing part. It's still fun.

Saturday night I went to my first soccer game. I figured if I'm gonna go to a game, I might as well do it in Spain. It was actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Especially since the team we went to support won.

Today the roommates and I met up with another friend with the intention of going shopping, but being that we're in Spain and it's a Sunday, all the stores were closed (we guessed as much anyway, but thought we'd try our luck at the mall anyway). So we just kinda wandered around a part of the city we hadn't seen before. I think we eventually wound up at the Plaza de Espana or something like that. All I know is that it was gorgeous and we took lots of photos.

Address

Well, this is mostly for Hilary because she keeps hounding me for pitctures.


Unfortunately I don´t have any up yet. I should be posting pictures sometime this weekend. I hope. I just have to do them on my own computer. Remember- I´m bad with the whole taking pictures thing though. I´ve forgotten my camera most days.

Also, if you guys want to send me anything here, my address is

Amy Jacobson
Spanish American Institute
Cuesta del Rosario 8, Casa 1, 3ª planta
41004 Seville
SPAIN

The First Week

I think I have to make this quick since I´m gonna get kicked off the internet soon. Anyway, we went to visit the cathedral here and Alcazar, which is like a garden. Except of course I had to go an get myself separated from the group once we got there so I basically just wandered around the places with a friend and still had a good time. That was also the day I managed to nake it back to my appartment by myself for the first time. That made me proud of myself.

Later that night we went out for our first Tapas experience. Good food and good drinks. After Tapas we went to a few other bars and a club that was pretty exclusive. I think one of the program guys knew the owner so we got in for free. Otherwise I don´t think we would have passed the dress code.

On Saturday we went to the beach in Cadiz. It was really windy and chilly for awhile with a few rain drops coming down, but eventually I sucked it up and went into to ocean because you can´t keep me out of the water for too long. Had some fun playing in the waves and a few of us decided to swim out to the bouys. I almost made it but I kept getting hit with salt water in the face so I let them touch the bouy for me. I still made it out farther than most people in the group so I´m okay with that.

Spent the rest of the weekend just wandering around and looking at shops around my apartment. Especially trying out new places to go eat lunch and dinner on the weekends.

Today was the first day of classes. I had Latin American History and 4th year composition. Neither seem to be too hard nor have too much homework. We´ll have to see how tomorrow´s classes got though.

I´m Alive!

So I´m alive, I survived my trek across the ocean. I´m still trying to settle in and am in the "why the hell did I decide to do this, how many days until I come home?" phase of this whole travel thing. Which is about par for the course for me when I do something new. The airline did leave one of my bags in madrid when I went to sevilla, but it should be here my now and I´m just waiting on it to get here. And I have to get creative with the computers here and for awhile my roommate and I are going to have to share an outlet to charge our computers, but once my bag gets here with my power strip in it we´ll be good to go. Unfortunately the apartment doesn´t have internet, either.

But it does come with a pool and AC so I´m not complaining. I get along well with my roommate and she knows where some stuff is here. Once I get things settled in and stuff I´ll be feeling much better about this. I am, however, counting down the days until it gets cold. One of the program guys said October so that´s not too long from now. Hopefully I´ll survive.

I don´t know what you all want to know so I´ll just keep this short today.

Love and miss you all bunches, hasta luego!