Thanksgiving in Spain

The much-awaited pictures are here! Let's narrate: First, there is my Thanksgiving dinner...I will get to that later; second, you have me "wearing" the orange glasses (the strip in the middle is optional, but it shows that you've got more orange-peeling skills if you can keep it there...); ...Below, and third, is a picture of the orange peel to give you a better idea of how it is cut, in case any of you feel like attempting it before I can show you... :)





Ok, now, as I said, I will talk about our Thanksgiving...Well, it started off as a rainy day, which is a little bit atypical here in Sevilla. For that reason, I opted to not go to Italica (the Roman ruins nearby) since it was all outdoors...I ended up going shopping with some other girls instead...The rest of the day was pretty normal...In the evening I got ready for our dinner (we had to be at the restaurant by 9pm...schedules are quite a bit different here...) Evidently everyone except for Karla and me had been told to get "guapa" for the night...somewhat in rebellion and as revenge for not being important enough to be told, I wanted to not get super-guapa...but in the end I relented and I got halfway guapa...moving on...

So, I barely make it to the restaurant in time...or maybe I didn't after all, but others were later than me, so it was ok...We waited around for about an hour, and were rather ravenous since it was 10pm and we had not had any food since 3pm...the school passed out papers with nice things that the other students and the staff had written about each person...among mine were "great dimples", "cool socks", and "reminds me of a medieval princess"...it was amusing if nothing else...

Well, finally our food came (we were the last to be served, of course)...and, as you can probably tell from the picture, it was pretty disappointing, but that's what I was expecting...I must say, the green beans were amazing! Other than that, though...yeah...I'm also pretty sure that the meat was NOT turkey, and when I told Salud about my suspicions, she remembered that some other year one of the girls told her that it was ostrich meat; evidently ostrich meat is cheap here and turkey is rather expensive...who would have thought??

We later got dessert (carrot cake and/or flan; the flan was pretty good) and then got our "amigo invisible" gifts, aka "Secret Santa" gifts...I got a salt and pepper shaker from the ceramics shops! Which is funny, since I bought my "amigo invisible" a cute little cup from the ceramics shop...hehe...

So, all in all, the food wasn't great but the company was wonderful!

Hope you all have a great week!

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, I'm pretty sure that it's only 19 days until I'm home!! Crazy!!

Monday

Hola todos...

So, this weekend was pretty chill...I went and explored part of the barrio Santa Cruz with Ellen on Saturday, we took some pics, we found the fair-trade shop her housemate had told her about, we went and found the yarn shop that Salud keeps telling me about, and then we made plans to go to a flamenco bar...Unfortunately I didn't feel good when flamenco bar time came around, so I stayed back at the apartment and knitted...

Yesterday, I pretty much didn't do anything...it was nice...Every so often you just need one of those do-absolutely-nothing days, ya know? Well, yesterday was that day for me...However, I must say, I have learned to make "glasses" out of an orange peel...yes, you read that right...It's a trick that Salud showed us; her mom used to do it for all of them...Well, when she showed us the one time, I paid very close attention...and yesterday, we had absolutely MASSIVE oranges, so I figured it would be a good time to try--more room for error when it's a giant orange...well, it turned out beautifully; Salud was proud (or at least that's what I like to tell myself); we took pictures...however, I don't have my camera with me, so I can't show you all...but someday, you will see the pictures...and, if you're really lucky, someday you may see me make you a pair of orange peel glasses... :)

Fashion Trends that I hope don't make it overseas...

Well, I don't really have anything to say that's special today, but I feel like I should take the opportunity to make a blog post while I can...so I remember that I was going to make this post at some point, so I may as well do it now...

Fashion trends that I hope don't catch on:

1. Poofy crotch pants
2. Low butt-pocket jeans
3. Insanely short dresses (sometimes worn with leggings, sometimes not)
4. Short skirt with tall boots combo
5. Whatever this is
6. Tshirts with English nonsense
7. This look for men
8. Tight pants for men....sorry, couldn't find a picture...

Well, thanks to the website of a certain overpriced Spanish store, you can now see what I hope will stay located ONLY in Europe...but now I need to go to class!!

...so it's been a few days...

Yeah, usually I don't do that whole not-posting-every-day-during-the-week thing, but I guess this week I did...it's been an unusual week though: presentation on Tuesday, two tests today...but all of that is over now...I think the tests went ok...I was the first person done in both classes; that always makes me really nervous--I either really got it or really missed something...

Well, it hasn't been a particularly exciting week, but let me see what I can come up with...

On Monday, as I believe I told you, we were going to go take a little walking tour of the old Jewish Quarter of the city (which was destroyed in el pogrom de 1391)...It was pretty cool; I'd been in that area of the city once before, but it was evening, so it looked a lot different. We saw one little part of the wall that still exists that used to separate the judería from the rest of the city; kind of crazy to see it and think about when it was from and why it was there...We checked out some of those quintessential narrow European "roads" where all the windows have cute metal grates/coverings and flowers hanging over the edges and saw into the interior of what used to be houses of rich Jews...they are now either hotels or government buildings, if that gives you any idea of the size...Some of the guys in the class were talking: "Yeah, I can see why the Christians were jealous...I mean, if I lived then, I think I'd convert...Jews and Christians are pretty close in what they believe anyway...it's just the Jesus thing that's different"...Yes, yes it is, and it's kind of important...oh heavens...Needless to say, the buildings were pretty cool...The streets were narrow and winding and had funny names: "Agua" "Vida" "Muerte"...there was a bar on a corner that was named the Agua y Vida bar (the "Water and Life Bar")....because it was on the corner of Water and Life...too strange...Actually, what was really strange was when we went on a little side trip to see some commemorated thing...There were tiles that had the "commemoration" (for lack of a more precise term) written on it, that told about how the head of some girl had hung there as an example for what happened when she betrayed her father on account of love...that part may or may not be true, but José María told us that that was pretty much the first time the Inquisition was used, right here in Sevilla...crazy!

Hmm...what else? Well, they're selling a bunch of nativity scene stuff over by the cathedral, and I'm serious when I say that--there are a TON of figurines, etc...I saw that when we went on our little tour thing...I'm thinking I need to go check that out sometime...Also, Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are shooting a movie here in Sevilla, and it's not too far from that area...so I figure that once the stars get into town, I'll maybe check out the nativity scenes and the movie scenes in the same trip...yeah, we'll see what happens...

Hope you all are having a great week!

Ronda!

As previously mentioned, we went to Ronda this past Friday...

It was mostly a sight-seeing trip, and this was one of the sights!! A very impressive bridge! There's a building in the middle of it (look closely at the middle...there's a window!) The city is divided by a deep gorge/river into two parts, "old" and "new"...although both parts are really old..."Old" here just means pre-Ferdinand-&-Isabella, or in other words, it's the very much Muslim side. We enjoyed our tour of the city, walked down through the old Arab mines to the river bed, and then struggled back up the stairs...Going down wasn't so bad...but the return definitely was!!

Saturday I did a bit of shopping. I found a ceramics store in Triana (the part of the city that I live in)...Evidently Triana has it's own style of ceramics that it is known for, so I figured I had to check this out...so I did, and I bought a few items...Then, while wandering around the neighborhood, I stumbled across several other ceramics shops that were a little more off the (tourist-)beaten path, and discovered that the prices were probably better there...Oh well! If I decided that there are some pieces I'm lacking, I'll go to one of those stores...

Today we're going to take a little trip to the old Jewish Quarter of the city for our Tres Culturas class...That portion can't be called the Jewish Quarter anymore because the "judería" was destroyed in the pogroms of, I believe, 1391...So, that should be good...

In other news, Eric and I have been together for 2 years as of today!

I'm working on uploading pics to the Picasa album...(Captions have now been added)

http://picasaweb.google.com/sarahloveseric/Spain#

Have a great week!

Three day weekend!

So, I figured that since I've got a three-day weekend coming up, I should probably write a post so that you all at least know that...so, don't be expecting any updates until Monday...

We're going to Ronda tomorrow...evidently it's just a sight-seeing trip, and it's not required for anyone (normally the outings are required for the Art Class students; I just go along because I can), so I really don't know what will be there...but hopefully it will be pretty since that's mostly the point of our going...

I had my test today...I think it went ok, but we'll find out...I felt like a wrote a whole lot of nothing...I just could not think in any clear or concise or ordered way...which made it significantly more difficult to write out the answers...since all of our tests are basically just essays...yuck...

A slightly more fun note: So, we like to play tricks on our one professor...he can take it, and it amuses him and us, so we try and think of new things we can do...It started in one class that I had with him, and now it's moving into the other class too...In theater class we had switched sides of the classroom one day (the beginning of the whole trick-playing thing), and it just threw José María off so much, and he just kept making the funniest faces at us....so, anyway, we had thought in Tres Culturas class, what would happen if we all switched sides of the room?? This would involve all of us moving to a different seat, but all of the seats still being occupied since 3C is like twice the size of Theater class...so, today I was like, "Hey, let's all switch seats!" (The effect of a test looming on the horizon, I think) So somebody else was like, "Yeah, that'd be perfect! Let's do it!" So, with a little bit of convincing, we got everyone (except for two girls who just couldn't bring themselves to switch) to move to not their usual spot...and then we waited...
José finally came in, and he was all like ok, good, let's start class...then he looked up at us. Then he looked again with shock and he gasped a bit..."Wait! What are you doing there!? And you!? And..." and he looks around the classroom..."ah! all of you! Oh, except for her...oh! and her! (I love how he immediately picked out the two that stayed put) Ugh! I'm not going to be able to concentrate at all! I just can't do class with all of you out of order...I'm an ordered person...Everything in its place...Every student in their place!!" It was amusing...several other times during class when he would look up and around at us, he would exclaim how much it was throwing him off, and at the end he basically forbade us to ever sit in different seats again...which is funny, since we don't have a seating chart...(he forbade us in jest though...but it threw us all off enough that we probably won't do it again...)

Well, hope you all have a great weekend! I've got to get going to get back for lunch on time...

Nothing much...

So, I should really be writing my composición right now...so I will make this quick...

Random observations/noticias:

• It is actually kind of chilly here nowadays...not like Ireland and definitely not like it probably is at home, but in the mornings and at night it is definitely chilly...the afternoons still aren't bad at all...crazy place...
• I tried a traditional Christmas sweet yesterday; Salud gave Karla and I one each, and Karla didn't like it, so I ended up with basically two of them...They were Salud's favorite kind; she said they were just almond and "membrillo"; however, when I read the ingredient list, although almonds were the first ingredient, membrillo was nowhere to be found...but they were absolutely delicious and reminded me a bit of gingerbread in flavor, and cookie dough in texture, so altogether they reminded me of gingerbread cookie dough...yummmm...I think I will have to bring some back to the States...

Um, yeah, I think that's about all I've got...on to the homework... :(