Sevilla/Cadiz

I went to the famous Carnival of Cadiz last weekend. The Carnival of Cadiz is very very famous in Spain and I soon found out why. Last Friday I got on a bus at 3:30 and traveled all by myself for a 3 hour bus ride to Sevilla! The girl who sat next to me was a teenager from Granada and was so sweet. We sat there and talked for a while and she helped me with some Spanish homework I had. Conversing in Spanish is getting a lot easier and it was really challenging and fun when I couldn’t talk in English all of last weekend. I spoke in English maybe twice and it was helping others with their English. I slept the rest of the way and when I arrived Elena was right outside my bus waiting for me with her friend Anna. (for those who don’t know, Elena is the girl I stayed with when I went to Spain my jr. year of high school. She now studies at a University in Sevilla which is about an hour from Cadiz. When I got off the bus she had a kinder bueno waiting for me in her pocket, which is only the best chocolate bar in the world!!! Her friend Laura picked all of us up from the bus station and we headed to her flat. We got there, showered got all ready and sat down for supper. Laura’s boyfriend made us all supper, we had Spanish tortillas and these really good sandwiches which were like two pieces of bread toasted together with coleslaw type food on the inside. Then we went out to a disco called SOHO. This place was super packed, and for the first time no one stared at me like I was an American. I didn’t see any other American there so it was nice because no one thought I was, people would come up at start talking to me and then once I opened my mouth they figured it out but other than that it was nice. Another nice thing was when creepy guys would try to talk to me, I would just say I didn’t understand them because I was American, (in Spanish), and Elena would say she was American and we would start talking in English so that they would leave haha. Something I noticed was that guys loved to dance with guys and girls with girls but rarely did I see guys and girls dancing together, but if you want to see guys dance- spain is the place to be. They straight up get it on the dance floor in like a goofy 80’s dance sort of way. We stayed at the disco till about 7:30 a.m. and then headed back to laura’s hous/piso. We woke up at 12:30, packed up and then headed to Cadiz. We got to Elena’s house/apartment and her parents were so excited to see me! I was excited to see them too and hold a conversation with them as where the last time I talked to them all I did was respond with “Si”. So after we showered and got ready I noticed that there were a lot of people coming over to her house. I was really confused because literally her living room was packed with people, turns out her niece was having a birthday party there…who knew. She probably told me but I wasn’t listening- if I don’t know to listen- the Spanish just goes one ear and out the other. So anyway her niece turned 3 and was the cutest little Spanish girl I had seen yet. She had brown curly hair and eyes that could melt ya. All of the guests were family members- cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandma. Some of them I had met before but I got to meet a lot more this time! All of the kids dressed up in different costumes and ran around while the adults talked over coffee and hot chocolate. I was sitting on the couch with Elena and Anna, and all of her little cousins would surround me and try to show me the English that they knew. One of the little girls was 4 I think and started rambling off in Spanish and then goes, 1,2,3,4,5 in English and gave me a great big smile. Her aunt really made a conscious effort to talk to me throughout the whole party and did a great job of asking me questions that I knew the answers to and could elaborate on! It was really fun to experience a Spanish birthday and see how they were similar or different from ours. That night we dressed up in all black, wore red sweaters, red hats and held cardboard guitars. We were tio pepe, it’s a famous wine bottle here that wears a coat, hat and has a guitar. (you can image google it if you’re insanely curious) We got to the carnival and it was crazy!!!! The best costumes I had ever seen in my life! It was Halloween on steroids! In the US girls just kind of want to look cute in their costume and everyone just kind of does something at the last minute, not here! It looked like people spent all year on their costumes!!!! There were Avatar characters with the apparel, hair and then blue sparkly skin. There were sims characters, every animal you can think of, A table with a table on his back with a table cloth, food, drinks, and silverware pasted to the table. The amount of people there was so overwhelming too! People dancing in some of the streets, performers, just different stuff going on everywhere we went. I met a lot of people there and actually ran into some Americans and I learned that one of the girls’ there- her boyfriend goes to my college! I didn’t know who he was but it was still pretty cool. We didn’t leave the carnival until about 7 that morning too. Needless to say, the next day on my 4 hour bus ride back, I slept the whole way!

“Ah Speitz”

So I am finally getting my Switzerland post up! We had an absolutely amazzzzzing time. One of the most beautiful and unique places I have ever been. (and the most expensive, but we’ll stick to the positives!). Some of this might be repetitive from one of my earlier posts right when I had gotten into Switzerland, but oh well. We got back from Morocco Tuesday Feb 2^nd ran home ate and then headed to the bus station at midnight. We took a taxi to the bus station because all of the city buses were done. On the way we kept going through green lights through all of the stop lights and chris was sitting in the front bouncing up and down cheering VERDE LUZES VERDE LUZES (which is green lights in Spanish). The taxi driver thought we were the weirdest Americans in the world probably. So we got to the bus station and jumped on our 5 hour bus ride. Then we hopped on a plane from Madrid to Milan, Italy. When we landed a trumpet song came on and then proceeded to congratulate us for flying with ryanair, and they are proud to present their 90% on time depart and arrival- ironic because on our way back they were two hours late… they didn’t play the song the second time. But anywho, we got into Milan and went to the train station to purchase what we thought were going to be “cheap tickets”, turns out they were going to be 56 euro one way to Speitz. And another 10 or so to Interlaken. But regardless, we had no choice, we had to get there somehow and that was the only way. I decided I was going to be the ring leader and buy my ticket first. I went up to the counter and asked for one ticket to Spits please. All of my group just died laughing at me. It’s pronounced Spaeitz- like flights. So the rest of the trip the ongoing joke was, whenever something went wrong someone would say, “Ah spits!” We also tried to use our ISIC cards which were supposedly supposed to get us discounts at a lot of airports and train stations, but not one of them did, but we continued to ask every single place we went and they would give us the most disturbed look, say no with an obvious glare and then we would reply, ah spits. After long hours of travel, we finally arrived in Interlaken and found our hostel very quick. It was late at night and we were really hungry so we walked around the city to see if anything was open. On one of the streets Robert (King of Karma) Tried throwing a snowball at us girls but continued to slip on the ice and fall on his back (which already has two herniated discs). I mention the king of karma because when we were in Africa, Robert laid on a tombstone, took a picture on it and then when walking away from it to see the picture, he stepped in poop. We all suffered the consequences of that one because he made the whole bus smell. – back to Switzerland- we finally found food at mcdonalds which ended up being anywhere from 12 to 17 dollars per meal, but we had never been so happy to pay for food in our lives. With all of the food from spain and morocco, it felt sooooo good to eat Mc Donalds- we called it the most satisfying meal yet. We went to bed pretty early that night because the guys were going to go to the mountain to ski the next morning. The next day (Thursday) the boys went to the mountain to hit the sloped and figure everything out so it was easier for us the next day- and us girls stayed back and had an amazing day to ourselves. We started out by walking around the cute little town enclosed by mountains- just shopped a little and took some pictures but then we went to the grocery store and had so much fun. We got lunch meat, bread, chips, wine and other snacks and went back to our hostel and made ourselves a great lunch! We later went back and got noodles and sauce and other stuff for dinner and we had dinner waiting for the boys when they got back. When the boys finally did arrive they were so exhausted but also so hungry. That night we went and saw live music at one of the pubs- but ended up losing Robert. Some guys from the hostel made him come with them to different pubs and meet new people- they said he wouldn’t have the same experience hanging out with us. We finally found Robert and when chris picked him up on his shoulder to bring him with us Robert simply yelled, “I can’t! I am becoming a man!” Robert wanted to go back in so we followed him and met a bunch of men from the swiss army- cool because of all the products of swiss army. Caitlin had a little blonde moment of her own and thanked all the men for all they did- not realizing that they weren’t fighting for our country hahaha. We went to bed pretty early that night because we set our alarms for 6 am the next morning. We got ourselves up with a great struggle but knew that what lied ahead was totally worth it! We had to go buy our train and lift tickets, rent all of our equipment and find our meeting spots before we could finally all go off on our adventure! So snowboarding was my choice of snow recreation, and I chose this on account of that fact that I had done it once before and I had never skied before. It took me a little while to get the hang of it but I found different tricks in order for me to get down the hill with keeping a steady pace and not falling every five seconds…well I still fell every five seconds but at least I was on a consistent track. Caitlin and I got to the bottom of the first beginners mountain and we decided to go to the very top-one of the highest mountains in Europe and go for it! It was literally blizzarding up there- when I say literally I mean it- they shut down the hill after we went on it. Sand and snow was flying in my face as I attempted to get down it- some guy who was a snowboarder instructor in the US stopped to give me a few tips too- so at least I made a new friend. We got to the bottom and it was already time for lunch. We were thinking ahead and had made sandwiches for lunch- we ate lunch and then decided to go down the main mountain as a group all the way down- snowboard through town and all the way down to where we rented the gear- this trip was the most amazing time of my life. The scenery was absolutely amazing- trees all around the path- it was just us going down this mountain so we just screwed around and enjoyed being in the mountains- they would all get to the bottom of one hill- wait for me to cruise by and crash-get up again- and then we would go on to the next one. When we would hit flat land the skiers with us would have to give us one of their poles to hold on to so that we wouldn’t have to take off our boards and one time chris handed Caitlin his while he was riding by- she grabbed it and the momentum of her being stopped – stopped him and he flew into a ravine. So after the most amazing day in the snow- we came back and I made spaghetti for everyone!!! The way back was about as crazy as the way there- because of our 2 hour accidental layover – so we didn’t get to the Madrid airport until all the buses and flights were done- Robert goes, “it’s okay, we’ll just stay in the airport hostel”, when we got to the airport we put all of our bags by a wall and laid down to sleep- Caitlin announced to us that she thought there was actually an airport hostel. I have ten times more blonde moments but I love when someone else shares them with me :). So after this novel- we finally made it back safe and had memories to last a lifetime.

Morocco

Well, its been a little while since I’ve blogged but its only because I have not had time to! Not because I didn’t want to! So I’m going to start with Morocco. Morocco was absolutely amazing!!! We got on busses after taking our test to get into our classes. From the bus we drove late into the night into the very bottom of Spain to a city named Algeciras. When we got there, we split up into 3 groups and each had an American leader that lived in morocco take us to different hostels to spend the night. We had the same leader and group the rest of the trip. We got up early the next morning and went to the ferries so that we could cross the straight of Gibraltar. This straight separates Spain and morocco but connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean sea. I really didn’t know that much about it until we crossed it and discussed what it really was haha. When we got there, it was a lot different than I had expected. I was thinking it was going to be huts, jungle and stuff like that. Turns out Morocco is an Arab nation and it doesn’t look or act like the rest of Africa. They don’t really associate themselves with the rest of the country. The majority of people there are Muslim. We got into Tangeer in Morocco and went to the Darna women’s center. This center is “go figure” for women- and they come there to learn about their rights or some women just come to work there to make money because they are either a single mother or they separated themselves from their family and need to make a living. We toured the building and watched many of the women make beautiful blankets, quilts and other knitted materials. We went into a classroom and have a discussion with two Arab women and we had the opportunity to ask them any questions we had about their lifestyles or their Islamic culture. One of the most interesting things I learned was why they wore the scarves around their heads. I thought they were forced to wear them which is why I had a negative connotation in my head about them, but it turns out that it’s a personal choice and the significance depends on each woman and her reasoning for wearing it. Some just saw their mothers and others wear it so they wanted to, some wear it for fashion, while the majority of women wear it because it represents their faith. In the Koran I guess it says something about women needing to hide their beauty and cover themselves- so that is left up to interpretation. The next day we got to meet up with some Moroccan college students and went shopping and had coffee with them so that we could get a better idea of the culture. One of the men was a young teacher, and he ended up being a little too interested in me so we ditched our group a little early and shopped by ourselves. He did buy me a key chain though haha. (at least I got something out of it). Totally kidding. But really. Anyway, that night we got to experience a hamman. I really didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into but we were told we were bathing. So we gathered our bathing materials and headed to the sight. We changed into our swimsuits and went in. It was dark and there were naked old women and screaming children pouring water over each other and scrubbing each other down with sponge things that went around your hand. It was warm in there and we were in DESPERATE need of showers at this point, so everything looked pretty wonderful!!!! So the best part of the whole trip was learning about why they only eat with their right hand. Well they wipe with their left, okay that’s fine….but sitting in the bus station going to Switzerland I learned a little bit too much… they wipe with their bare hand!!!!! They don’t use toilet paper!!!!!! I’ll leave you those words and you can create your own images. “Just some food for thought”. So the last day we were there we got the amazing opportunity to go up into the mountains and meet with a family in the country. We took an interpreter with us so that we could fully understand everything. I mean I did learn 6 Arabic words but it wasn’t quite enough to translate for everyone. They asked us questions about America and we got to ask them questions about the Islamic culture. I found out some crazy things that I had no idea of! Well for one, they have so much pride for their religion, although I do not believe or agree with what they are standing for, the way they live and take pride in their religion is admirable. One thing that wasn’t so cool though is the fact that they can have more than one wife. The rule though is that they need to support and spend time with both sets of families equally. Many men don’t have enough money to do this so it isn’t that common but very possible. They asked how many wives men in America could have and they were shocked to learn that it was illegal and frowned upon to have more than one wife. When leaving two of our girls got sick and we had to pull over a couple times when going back down the bumpy mountain. So that was a little bit of a downer but the view on the way down was beautiful!!! And looked a little more like the Africa I was picturing. Overall, it was just a great learning experience for being culturally aware and also religiously aware. In the US we get bombarded with controversy against our faith because of doubt but rarely have I been challenged on account of different faiths and ones so different yet so similar from my own. It was really fun to learn about and share my own and I would go back in a heartbeat.

Viajes

WE got back from morocco and had the best time of our lives!!!! We learned once we got there that it was a muslim nation- who knew. So most of the women wear the head scarfs and dresses- but the significance of it was what blew me away. They wear them because they want to- it signifies their faith and how strong they are to their god/ala. I'll go into more detail on the villages we went to in a later blog, i only have a little bit of time right now. but a quick note, another thing is that you eat with your hands in morocco. And you eat with your right hand, it is against their culture to eat with your left. This is the case because you wipe with your left hand so you are supposed to use your right to eat. I turned to our guide lady and was like, well what if i wipe with my right, isn't that defeating the purpose?? and she just laughed and said, well with the culture you were supposed to grow up learning to wipe with your left. I also soon learned that they wipe....with out toilet paper. they use their bare hands to wipe, and then cook and eat with the same hands!!! One night we all ate supper with my host family there and there was another girl from the us staying there too, we ate out of one big bowl of veggies and chicken and she would reach her hands in, lick her fingers and then stick them back into the main dish... i didn't last long eating out of the same bowl. Then i found a hair in my soup one of the nights, so once i again i had to eat thinking that there were children starving in Africa.. but this time i was IN Africa thinking these thoughts...crazy. So i'll go into more detail later about the islamic culture and how much i've learned, which is a ton!!! - we got back tuesday evening from morocco came home, got lots of kisses from mama carmen, ate supper and then were off again! Also- when we returned to carmens there were two french girls staying there from high school- they knew like 3 words of spanish. Caitlin and i came in yelling in spanish because we were so excited to speak a language we could speak !!!!! and they just sat there and didn;t talk, and we saw them and were like.. oh haha hola! We left that night at midnight for the bus station- and we had a 5 hour bus ride from granada to madrid- then we took the metro to the airport- took a plane to Milan, Italy and then took a train to Speitz and then another to Interlaken, switzerland. We thought we were saving ALL this money by taking busses and trains instead of a plane...turned out we weren't. We got to the train station to learn that a one way to speitz was 56 euro- we had no choice but to take it at that point! so we are going to look into flights for the way back- but last night after almost 24 hours straight of travel to get to switz- thats not including the traveling from africa the day before. We got here!!!! It's gorgeous and is a small town by lakes and in the mountains!!!! Today the girls are going shopping and to the grocery store so we can make some pizzas tonight and get some food for the rest of the weekend, and the boys are heading to the mountain to ski and figure out how all that runs. We went to mc donalds last night and one meal was 15 dollars. RIDICULOUSLY expensive, and the response from the people there was, welcome to switzerland! so we are going to try and save some money by making out meals! pizza and sandwiches. Tomorrow all of us are hitting the slopes and getting a taste of God's creation!!!!