Catching up

Sorry! Updating! So this is going to be backwards in time, so first is gonna be stuff from Barcelona since that was last weekend, and then gradually moving backwards. Most of these are Sarah's because I'm generally lazy about bringing my camera places when I know other people will. This is one of the houses Gaudí (famous architect) designed that Sarah, Debra, and myself went into. It was just the three of us on the trip to Barcelona, so yeah.


Here's another photo of some Gaudí stuff that we saw in another part of the city:
Me on the biggest park bench in the world. By Gaudí. Also, here's a mammoth we found while walking around a different park:

While we were in Barcelona, we took a trip up t Montserrat, which is a monastary on top of these huge mountains about an hour outside of the city by train. No pictures do justice to just how high up it is and how unbelieveably scary the cable car ride up is.

As you can see behind Sarah, we were quite far up. The monastery was pretty, and small. It was a good day trip.
SO! Before Barcelona, we went to Lagos one weekend. Lagos is a beach town on Portugal, it's absolutely beautiful. We left on a bus from Sevilla around 6am, you can tell how happy about this I was from the photo:
After the six hour bus ride, we finally got there. Our hostel was awesome, they actually gave us towels and relatively clean sheets and stuff. Hosts were nice and breakfast was free! Yayy.
This is what the beaches looked like there, you can kinda see the caves in the cliff in the water, we swam through two or three of them, they lead to prettier and more hidden beaches. Absolutely awesome. Before that we made a trip to Gibraltar, here's a picture of me and some people on top of the end of europe:
They had thieving monkeys on top of the rock. They will harass you until you give them your food.
Monkey with stolen food. They're tricksy. While on this trip, we were staying in a small town called Rincon de la Victoria. Off of the beach where we were staying, there was a collection of rocks. No one could very accurately guess how far out it was, but we all swam out there:
Note: the person on the far left was some random older Italian guy that happened to be out on the rocks at the same time. Also, while swimming back, two of the girls on our program got stung by Jelly Fish. Ok, this is as much as I'm going to update today, it's sleep time now. This upcoming weekend is Halloween! Get excited!

Casa

Hello! As promised, I have pictures of my living space to put up. This is my roommate in my room, mine's the bed on the right with the blankets all askew and stuff thrown on it.

This is my bathroom...pretty cool. And very large.

...And this is the view out on my balcony. There's the river, el Guadalquivir, and some sort of embassy across the way. On the left you can see one of the towers of the Plaza de España. I'll put up some pictures of that later, it's huge. These photos are all from my camera, too! Yay. Time for my first class now, I'll update later!

Hello! I'm hereeeee! Croatia was fun, but I don't have time for a long update now so I'll post some pictures later. My camera stopped working the morning of our trip, so the coming photos are copyright Sarah Underwood. I did however get my camera to start working again here in Sevilla, so I'll take some of my room and my señora. Her name is María Herrera García and she lives by herself most of the time (except for when her son visits or when she has students stay). She's a fantastic cook. In my room that I share with my roommate (Kathryn) we have our own balcony overlooking the Guadalquivir (a large river for those who are a bit rusty on their Spanish geography). We're still in in introductory stuff today, but we'll start basic classes on Monday. Before school actually starts here, somewhere around the 20th, we'll have classes on language and culture with the program. Pretty exciting. Anyway, Sevilla is a beautiful city. I really like it here and can see why it's such a popular study abroad location. Great food; pretty, not-too-big city, very clean everything, lots of gardens and trees, a huge river, and the people we've met so far have all been relatively nice. That's all for now except that I miss you all a lot and if it weren't so darned expensive, I would want everyone to visit. <3

Hello! I leave tomorrow and won't have internet access until the 27th. I'll be in Madrid, then Rome, then Ancona, then Croatia. Then Ancona, Rome, and Madrid again. I'll be taking plenty of pictures, so expect a ton as soon as I get back. I'll miss you all! Dad, and Meg and Robert and my wonderful friends! Have a good few weeks and I'll hear from you soon. Love you all!

Introduction

Hello! So, this is my bloggggg. It's purpose is to let all those back home see what I've been up to without inundating everyone's minifeed on facebook or having to send out a million emails. Also, this will serve to keep track of things for my own reference, so you're going to get interesting stories and pictures as well as mundane details of life in a foreign country. When I begin to write this blog it will start in medias res, or in the middle of things. By the time I'm able to access my computer I will have been in Croatia for a week and a bit and in Italy for awhile; thus, I will have a few catch-you-up posts. Anyway, thanks for reading the introduction and I hope you continue reading when I have more interesting things to say!