Finally going to blog about the past few weeks. Thank you guys for reading this and making me feel like I should continue writing. It is super time consuming, and although I like being able to (b)log everything about my time here, i would rather be out doing something else.
I realized today, while i was writing my composition in class about the things I have done in Sevilla, that I really havent gone "site-seeing". I mean I walked around, saw the U of Sevilla, Plaza Mayor, el Prado, Plaza de Espana and Parque Maria Luisa, but I havent gone to museums or anything. I suppose I dont want to waste my time in museums about random crap that I wont remember, but I really really really want to go to the art museum. I mean who would I be if i missed all the art museums in Spain? Not that I have gone through the galleries in the ducky museum (aka QAC) over my past three years at St. Bonaventure, but oh well. (Its on my list of things to do before I leave Holean)
So Friday night we went to watch flamenco at La Carboneria, which was up this random cobblestone street a bit further than El Centro. It was old and authentic and had a not so good flamenco show, but the atmosphere was very "summer in spain" if you know what i mean. thats not supposed to be an inuendo in any way, its just that i cant describe what a "summer in spain" type of place is. so we tried this drink called Agua de Sevilla, which is this awesome fruity, creamy-ish drink that consists of champagne, pineapple juice, rum, triple sec and something else. Plus, it was topped with whipped cream, which obviously made the whole thing a hell of a lot better. And, there were straws, and we all know how happy they make me. anyway, this drink was delicious and Im very happy i tried it while here. watch out US, the recipe's coming home with me.
Saturday day we went to La Rabida and Matalascanas. La Rabida is the place where Christopher Columbus contemplated how to get completely lost around the world. There, he spent hours upon hours praying and determining what path to take to India. Good thing he didn't waste his time or anything. Good thing he totally reached the Indian shores. Yea, good one Cristobal. Anyway, my contempt for Christopher Columbus did not change the fact that The Monestary in Rabida was beautiful and the tour was fairly quick. We also got to see replicas of the Nina the Pinta and the Santa Maria, so that was pretty cool. The ships were fairly small, so it is pretty impressive that they made it all the way to the Americas without being completely destroyed. Plus, they were great locations for some photos.
Saturday night, we went to the oldest bar in Sevilla, called the Rinconcillo. I have to say, in the nicest, most eloquent words possible, that this place was a hole. It looks like the oldest bar, and it probably still has dirt from the construction of the building on the floor. Ok so maybe thats a bit of an overexageration, but i didnt like it that much, and neither did the rest of the group, so we left. After that failed attempt at a fun new place, half the group wanted to go home, half wanted to go to a club and the other half wanted to just chill at a bar. I was in the last half. Whitney, Donavan and I finally decided to go to this Irish pub called Flahertys. There, we were even more incongruous and ordered mojitos (which are still pretty gross to me). We were having a nice relaxing night, planning on going home in a little bit, when this Scottish dude came up to us and starting talking to us about who knows what. He then brought his little buddy too and suddenly we had made two foreign friends. I have never been to Scotland, and I dont know if I will ever make it there, but it doesnt seem like the place for me. Apparently if you have 3 drinks, you are not "on it" and need to be more "savage". They were ridiculously drunk stereotypes of Scottish guys, but they were not creepy, so that was a plus. Eventually, we told them we were going home, and we pretty much got labeled as the most lame youngins in Sevilla. Well, we had reps to preserve, so we decided to go to a club with them.
The place was called Cathedral and it was actually pretty sweet, but it was a total boys club. And by boys club I mean that all the dudes in the place were just standing around with their drinks pretty much waiting for a female to catch. It was a crazy little scenario when I actually think about it. It was like those turtles who wait for the rain to eat worms. They just stand around waiting for the worms to come out of the ground and then they pounce. Well, I guess turtles dont really pounce, i suppose they slowly sidle over to the slimy little critters. Not to get side-tracked or anything...
After some clubbing time, we left our new friends and got home at around 5:30am. It was a pretty entertaining night to say the least. Those Scots really do know how to drink. Sorry American frat boys, you got nothing on these men.
Monday, Melissa and I got the urge to get our hairs cut. I dont know what the plural of Haircut is. Is it Haircuts? We had the urge to get haircuts? I suppose that works...So we searched (fairly feebly, i might add) for a place to get our haircuts and found a place close to home. It was clean, and looked professional, and anti-tacky haircuts, so we got our hair washed, cut, and dried. I chopped my hair off pretty short (as short as I had it when i was 10 almost). It wasnt as drastic of a cut as Shivani Sharma circa May 2010, but it was big for me. I was pretty happy with the cut, and have finally accepted my lack of edge. Anyone who knows me will know this is a problem in my life (and yea, if that is my biggest problem with life, I have a pretty sweet life). Its ok though, cute haircuts fit me better than extremely dark eye-makeup (see Elliot Reed from Scrubs season __. You know that episode when she gets her hair layered and choppy and then wears ridiculous black eye makeup that was so not Elliot of her? yea that one. I just got a European haircut, no makeup change ensued). Anyway, it was pretty cool getting a haircut and having to tell the hairdresser things in spanish. Luckily the pantomimes for "up to here" are pretty universal...
During the week, we somehow ended up at Flaherty's once again and had a fun night. I am pretty sure it was for the first Spain futbol game, but dont quote me on that. On the way back, we stopped at this tapas place which was probably too expensive for my taste, but delicious (note the reason we stopped is because of my bladder, not for their food). Well, we ordered this delicious solomillo con whisky tapa. It was pretty much a piece of meat cooked in a whisky sauce with lots of soft garlic. Oh man it was good. So tender, so garlicy. So delicious. I think one of my favorite parts of Spain is the food. I dont know what I will do at home without daily gazpacho and fresh bread!
A day after, we decided that the next weekend, we would go to Milan! So we bought our tickets and booked a hotel and had international plans for two days. Friday, the school took a trip to Alcazar, which is the beautiful castle where royalty stays when visiting Sevilla. It was apparently amazing, but I have yet to go. Instead of going on a field trip to the center of Seville, we took a trip to the center of fashion in the world aka Milan. Our flight was scheduled for 1:45 and we arrived with plenty of time. Too bad we (3 girls and a guy) can not pack lightly at all. Our one checkin bag weighed about 6 kilos over the 15 kilo limit. We took three tries in and out of the line and rearranging between carry on bags to finally get an acceptable mass. And still, I am fairly certain that the woman at the desk fudged the numbers and somehow decreased the mass by 1.5 kilos to an even 15 kilos. Still, we got it on the plane and thats all that really matters.
We got there early, and wasted time with the rearranging, but we still had plenty of waiting time because our flight was delayed for about 45 minutes. We took Ryanair, which is the no frills european airline, and I mean NO frills. You had to pay to use the bathroom on the plane. You had to pay for orange juice. You had to pay for your mini bottle of champagne (ok you do that anywhere pretty much). Well Donavan and i decided that the fear for our lives on that flight required some champagne. It was overpriced and tiny, but fairly tasty, and made me sleeeeepy. It allowed me to close my eyes for a little bit before our whirlwind italian adventure. We arrived at some time around 5, i would assume. Honestly, I didnt have a watch, and I didnt check my phone, and I really didnt care.
It turns out that the international Bergamo airport is farther from Milan than I had assumed. We took an hour-long bus ride to Milan before having to navigate the metro without knowledge of the train system, specific geographical location or the italian language. It was a bit more difficult than I would have assumed it would be, so that sucked. But we figured it out with the help of lots of employees and a homeless man. After getting off the metro, it was another 45 minutes until we finally walked to our hotel. Whoever steered us to the stop that we took claimed our hotel was right at that exit. Whoever that was lied. We finally got to our hotel, which was a chic, old looking hotel that had clearly been renovated recently. It was beautiful, but also a bit fancier than was needed for 4 americans taking a weekend trip to Milan. Regardless, after about 45 minutes of room discussion, we ended up taking two rooms for the 4 of us, adding a good amount of Euros to our bill (aka my parents credit card...thanks mom and dad!)
We went for pizza that night, but got this horrible microwaved imitation crap from an Arab place called Bilal. We were hungry, and tired, and all we wanted was pizza, so it wasnt that bad, but some ON we were in Italy! We needed some goooood pizza. well that was a failed attempt, but we were full, so that was a perk. We decided we wanted to go out in Milan, so we went to a bar called Coffee and Cigarettes (just like the song by Michelle Featherstone) which was really chic, but empty. I think we got there a bit too late for the Milanian rush. Just because two countries are part of a union does not mean they live by the same schedules (aka in Spain we would have been right on time). But we had a drink and wanted to go to a club afterwards.
We went in search of a cab while walking towards the club, but we did not get too far. We encountered an accident between a motorcycle and a car. We heard the cracking and shattering of glass, the skid of metal on the pavement, the voices of the passengers. We were just far enough from the accident to not be part of it. We waited while the cops came, and the ambulance took the motorcycle driver away in the back. His friend who was also on the bike managed to jump off before any large damage, but the driver skid on the ground and had a bit of a gash on his one arm. All in all, they were all ok, and would be perfectly healthy (from what it seemed) in about 3 weeks.
Needless to say, that was a major buzzkill, so we headed back to our hotel to debrief and thank God for our lives. We stayed up until about 5am, i think, talking, laughing, photoing, you know the drill. Also watched a pretty awful fashion show and some Italian MTV (mtv isnt any better internationally). ok I dont know if it was actual MTV or jsut music videos, but whatever. The only exciting part of the TV was the Sean Kingston song that came on. Yea thats right, he was on Bonas property 2 months ago.
Next morning at around 10, after missing our 8am wakeup call completely, we ventured out into the streets of Milan to find some real, live, Italian pizza. After about 35 minutes, we found the place. Apparently, I cant open doors in Italy, and Italians dont know generic hand motions like "push the door dont pull". Ditziness aside, I had the best pizza of my life in that restaurant. It was about a 10inch round pie with mushrooms on it. I was Janice right then with the "Oh My Gawd" that ensued after the first bite. So delicious.
Afterwards, we walked around near Il Duomo in Milan, which is the big attraction. Melissa found a mime guy that was taking pictures with people and fell in love. Then she and Whitney attempted to get into the cathedral, but were rejected due to lack of clothing coverage! that was probably the only culture shock I felt in Italy. But Donavan and I went in while they waited in the impending rain. We didn't bring in cameras because we were following rules (dumb idea, except for the fact that we wont go to Hell...for that reason, at least). The inside of this cathedral was majestic and ridiculously gaudy. but oh man, so beautiful. There isnt much I can say about it besides the fact that each little piece of the decorations must have taken like 4 months at least to complete. And Im talking about the really small things! It really was breathtaking.
By the time we left, it was raining and we found shelter in a cafe that had its dining room 4 floors up. We had to take a narrow set of stairs to get all the way up there, and so did the waiter, with our drinks (poor guy). At least he was in shape (probably because of his job). We did a little souvenir searching and went back to the hotel to get warmer clothes. The nice thing about fancy hotels is that they provide simple things like umbrellas when its raining. We took a few red umbrellas (I wish they were yellow) and set out again to discover milan. We were the ultimate tourists and stopped to buy souvenirs and used a map. We stopped to take pictures everywhere and looked like we didnt belong. it was awesome. We decided that our last italian meal should be pasta, and we should dress nicely, so we went back to the hotel, got dressed, and headed to this cute restaurant.
When we ordered our meals, we were so excited to eat pasta from italy, and when it arrived, we were so excited to get the hell out of there. Ok it wasnt that bad, but it was no where NEAR the goodness I expected it to be. grrr. Oh well, we had amazing pizza!
I will continue this later, because I have been writing this one entry for days and I really dont want it to be like nine pages long. k cool, I'll write later, folks! Probably when Im back in the States... so sad!
I realized today, while i was writing my composition in class about the things I have done in Sevilla, that I really havent gone "site-seeing". I mean I walked around, saw the U of Sevilla, Plaza Mayor, el Prado, Plaza de Espana and Parque Maria Luisa, but I havent gone to museums or anything. I suppose I dont want to waste my time in museums about random crap that I wont remember, but I really really really want to go to the art museum. I mean who would I be if i missed all the art museums in Spain? Not that I have gone through the galleries in the ducky museum (aka QAC) over my past three years at St. Bonaventure, but oh well. (Its on my list of things to do before I leave Holean)
So Friday night we went to watch flamenco at La Carboneria, which was up this random cobblestone street a bit further than El Centro. It was old and authentic and had a not so good flamenco show, but the atmosphere was very "summer in spain" if you know what i mean. thats not supposed to be an inuendo in any way, its just that i cant describe what a "summer in spain" type of place is. so we tried this drink called Agua de Sevilla, which is this awesome fruity, creamy-ish drink that consists of champagne, pineapple juice, rum, triple sec and something else. Plus, it was topped with whipped cream, which obviously made the whole thing a hell of a lot better. And, there were straws, and we all know how happy they make me. anyway, this drink was delicious and Im very happy i tried it while here. watch out US, the recipe's coming home with me.
Saturday day we went to La Rabida and Matalascanas. La Rabida is the place where Christopher Columbus contemplated how to get completely lost around the world. There, he spent hours upon hours praying and determining what path to take to India. Good thing he didn't waste his time or anything. Good thing he totally reached the Indian shores. Yea, good one Cristobal. Anyway, my contempt for Christopher Columbus did not change the fact that The Monestary in Rabida was beautiful and the tour was fairly quick. We also got to see replicas of the Nina the Pinta and the Santa Maria, so that was pretty cool. The ships were fairly small, so it is pretty impressive that they made it all the way to the Americas without being completely destroyed. Plus, they were great locations for some photos.
Saturday night, we went to the oldest bar in Sevilla, called the Rinconcillo. I have to say, in the nicest, most eloquent words possible, that this place was a hole. It looks like the oldest bar, and it probably still has dirt from the construction of the building on the floor. Ok so maybe thats a bit of an overexageration, but i didnt like it that much, and neither did the rest of the group, so we left. After that failed attempt at a fun new place, half the group wanted to go home, half wanted to go to a club and the other half wanted to just chill at a bar. I was in the last half. Whitney, Donavan and I finally decided to go to this Irish pub called Flahertys. There, we were even more incongruous and ordered mojitos (which are still pretty gross to me). We were having a nice relaxing night, planning on going home in a little bit, when this Scottish dude came up to us and starting talking to us about who knows what. He then brought his little buddy too and suddenly we had made two foreign friends. I have never been to Scotland, and I dont know if I will ever make it there, but it doesnt seem like the place for me. Apparently if you have 3 drinks, you are not "on it" and need to be more "savage". They were ridiculously drunk stereotypes of Scottish guys, but they were not creepy, so that was a plus. Eventually, we told them we were going home, and we pretty much got labeled as the most lame youngins in Sevilla. Well, we had reps to preserve, so we decided to go to a club with them.
The place was called Cathedral and it was actually pretty sweet, but it was a total boys club. And by boys club I mean that all the dudes in the place were just standing around with their drinks pretty much waiting for a female to catch. It was a crazy little scenario when I actually think about it. It was like those turtles who wait for the rain to eat worms. They just stand around waiting for the worms to come out of the ground and then they pounce. Well, I guess turtles dont really pounce, i suppose they slowly sidle over to the slimy little critters. Not to get side-tracked or anything...
After some clubbing time, we left our new friends and got home at around 5:30am. It was a pretty entertaining night to say the least. Those Scots really do know how to drink. Sorry American frat boys, you got nothing on these men.
Monday, Melissa and I got the urge to get our hairs cut. I dont know what the plural of Haircut is. Is it Haircuts? We had the urge to get haircuts? I suppose that works...So we searched (fairly feebly, i might add) for a place to get our haircuts and found a place close to home. It was clean, and looked professional, and anti-tacky haircuts, so we got our hair washed, cut, and dried. I chopped my hair off pretty short (as short as I had it when i was 10 almost). It wasnt as drastic of a cut as Shivani Sharma circa May 2010, but it was big for me. I was pretty happy with the cut, and have finally accepted my lack of edge. Anyone who knows me will know this is a problem in my life (and yea, if that is my biggest problem with life, I have a pretty sweet life). Its ok though, cute haircuts fit me better than extremely dark eye-makeup (see Elliot Reed from Scrubs season __. You know that episode when she gets her hair layered and choppy and then wears ridiculous black eye makeup that was so not Elliot of her? yea that one. I just got a European haircut, no makeup change ensued). Anyway, it was pretty cool getting a haircut and having to tell the hairdresser things in spanish. Luckily the pantomimes for "up to here" are pretty universal...
During the week, we somehow ended up at Flaherty's once again and had a fun night. I am pretty sure it was for the first Spain futbol game, but dont quote me on that. On the way back, we stopped at this tapas place which was probably too expensive for my taste, but delicious (note the reason we stopped is because of my bladder, not for their food). Well, we ordered this delicious solomillo con whisky tapa. It was pretty much a piece of meat cooked in a whisky sauce with lots of soft garlic. Oh man it was good. So tender, so garlicy. So delicious. I think one of my favorite parts of Spain is the food. I dont know what I will do at home without daily gazpacho and fresh bread!
A day after, we decided that the next weekend, we would go to Milan! So we bought our tickets and booked a hotel and had international plans for two days. Friday, the school took a trip to Alcazar, which is the beautiful castle where royalty stays when visiting Sevilla. It was apparently amazing, but I have yet to go. Instead of going on a field trip to the center of Seville, we took a trip to the center of fashion in the world aka Milan. Our flight was scheduled for 1:45 and we arrived with plenty of time. Too bad we (3 girls and a guy) can not pack lightly at all. Our one checkin bag weighed about 6 kilos over the 15 kilo limit. We took three tries in and out of the line and rearranging between carry on bags to finally get an acceptable mass. And still, I am fairly certain that the woman at the desk fudged the numbers and somehow decreased the mass by 1.5 kilos to an even 15 kilos. Still, we got it on the plane and thats all that really matters.
We got there early, and wasted time with the rearranging, but we still had plenty of waiting time because our flight was delayed for about 45 minutes. We took Ryanair, which is the no frills european airline, and I mean NO frills. You had to pay to use the bathroom on the plane. You had to pay for orange juice. You had to pay for your mini bottle of champagne (ok you do that anywhere pretty much). Well Donavan and i decided that the fear for our lives on that flight required some champagne. It was overpriced and tiny, but fairly tasty, and made me sleeeeepy. It allowed me to close my eyes for a little bit before our whirlwind italian adventure. We arrived at some time around 5, i would assume. Honestly, I didnt have a watch, and I didnt check my phone, and I really didnt care.
It turns out that the international Bergamo airport is farther from Milan than I had assumed. We took an hour-long bus ride to Milan before having to navigate the metro without knowledge of the train system, specific geographical location or the italian language. It was a bit more difficult than I would have assumed it would be, so that sucked. But we figured it out with the help of lots of employees and a homeless man. After getting off the metro, it was another 45 minutes until we finally walked to our hotel. Whoever steered us to the stop that we took claimed our hotel was right at that exit. Whoever that was lied. We finally got to our hotel, which was a chic, old looking hotel that had clearly been renovated recently. It was beautiful, but also a bit fancier than was needed for 4 americans taking a weekend trip to Milan. Regardless, after about 45 minutes of room discussion, we ended up taking two rooms for the 4 of us, adding a good amount of Euros to our bill (aka my parents credit card...thanks mom and dad!)
We went for pizza that night, but got this horrible microwaved imitation crap from an Arab place called Bilal. We were hungry, and tired, and all we wanted was pizza, so it wasnt that bad, but some ON we were in Italy! We needed some goooood pizza. well that was a failed attempt, but we were full, so that was a perk. We decided we wanted to go out in Milan, so we went to a bar called Coffee and Cigarettes (just like the song by Michelle Featherstone) which was really chic, but empty. I think we got there a bit too late for the Milanian rush. Just because two countries are part of a union does not mean they live by the same schedules (aka in Spain we would have been right on time). But we had a drink and wanted to go to a club afterwards.
We went in search of a cab while walking towards the club, but we did not get too far. We encountered an accident between a motorcycle and a car. We heard the cracking and shattering of glass, the skid of metal on the pavement, the voices of the passengers. We were just far enough from the accident to not be part of it. We waited while the cops came, and the ambulance took the motorcycle driver away in the back. His friend who was also on the bike managed to jump off before any large damage, but the driver skid on the ground and had a bit of a gash on his one arm. All in all, they were all ok, and would be perfectly healthy (from what it seemed) in about 3 weeks.
Needless to say, that was a major buzzkill, so we headed back to our hotel to debrief and thank God for our lives. We stayed up until about 5am, i think, talking, laughing, photoing, you know the drill. Also watched a pretty awful fashion show and some Italian MTV (mtv isnt any better internationally). ok I dont know if it was actual MTV or jsut music videos, but whatever. The only exciting part of the TV was the Sean Kingston song that came on. Yea thats right, he was on Bonas property 2 months ago.
Next morning at around 10, after missing our 8am wakeup call completely, we ventured out into the streets of Milan to find some real, live, Italian pizza. After about 35 minutes, we found the place. Apparently, I cant open doors in Italy, and Italians dont know generic hand motions like "push the door dont pull". Ditziness aside, I had the best pizza of my life in that restaurant. It was about a 10inch round pie with mushrooms on it. I was Janice right then with the "Oh My Gawd" that ensued after the first bite. So delicious.
Afterwards, we walked around near Il Duomo in Milan, which is the big attraction. Melissa found a mime guy that was taking pictures with people and fell in love. Then she and Whitney attempted to get into the cathedral, but were rejected due to lack of clothing coverage! that was probably the only culture shock I felt in Italy. But Donavan and I went in while they waited in the impending rain. We didn't bring in cameras because we were following rules (dumb idea, except for the fact that we wont go to Hell...for that reason, at least). The inside of this cathedral was majestic and ridiculously gaudy. but oh man, so beautiful. There isnt much I can say about it besides the fact that each little piece of the decorations must have taken like 4 months at least to complete. And Im talking about the really small things! It really was breathtaking.
By the time we left, it was raining and we found shelter in a cafe that had its dining room 4 floors up. We had to take a narrow set of stairs to get all the way up there, and so did the waiter, with our drinks (poor guy). At least he was in shape (probably because of his job). We did a little souvenir searching and went back to the hotel to get warmer clothes. The nice thing about fancy hotels is that they provide simple things like umbrellas when its raining. We took a few red umbrellas (I wish they were yellow) and set out again to discover milan. We were the ultimate tourists and stopped to buy souvenirs and used a map. We stopped to take pictures everywhere and looked like we didnt belong. it was awesome. We decided that our last italian meal should be pasta, and we should dress nicely, so we went back to the hotel, got dressed, and headed to this cute restaurant.
When we ordered our meals, we were so excited to eat pasta from italy, and when it arrived, we were so excited to get the hell out of there. Ok it wasnt that bad, but it was no where NEAR the goodness I expected it to be. grrr. Oh well, we had amazing pizza!
I will continue this later, because I have been writing this one entry for days and I really dont want it to be like nine pages long. k cool, I'll write later, folks! Probably when Im back in the States... so sad!
finally! i've been waiting for a post FOREVER - thought I am pretty sure I heard everything on the phone already. I love reading your blogs though because you have the best way of writing, highly entertaining. I know michigan won't be the excitement that spain was, but I can't wait till you guys visit!
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