Feria!!

Last week was one of the biggest festivals of the year in Sevilla!!  It was their annual Feria!  This is the time of year that they set up fair grounds and everyone goes out and dances!  During this time, there are tents that families or groups of people can rent for the week.  In these tents, there are meals and drinks served!  Most of the tents are private so you need to know someone to be able to get in but there are a few public tents as well! Anyone can go in the public tents.  Many women during Feria wear flamenco dresses and dance a fun "Sevillana" dance.  The idea of Feria started in the 1840's.  It started off as a livestock fair.  Today the only thing that is the same as the Feria in the 1840's is the horse and carriage.  There are a bunch of horse and carriages that are decorated and they take citizens to and from their tent to their homes.  At the front of the fair, there is a "portada," which is basically like the entrance to the Feria.  The design of it changes each year and they light the portada at midnight of the Monday of Feria.

Here is a picture of the protada lit up at night:

Here is an example of some of the typical flamenco dresses worn during Feria:

Here is an example of the decorated horses that are carrying a carriage:

We got a surprise performance of Sevillana in one of the public casetas!

We spent one day riding a few rides at the carnival part of Feria and we spent one on a tour of Feria!   It was quite a different experience but it was so much fun to see everyone dressed up in their dresses!  On the last night, there was a firework show and we went to that! It was pretty.

Adios!
-Kelli :)

Weekend in Valencia!!

We got up early and walked to the bus stop, rode the bus to the airport. We didn't have to wait long and the flight to Valencia went well. We picked up a map and wandered around and found our hostal and checked in. It was fairly nice, nothing special but clean and a bed for pretty cheap, with breakfast included. We had an Italian guy as a roommate, so that was interesting. We had quite the language barrier and he seemed a little weird, but it was alright and had the hostal experience. hehe We got some lunch and had some wine then walked around Valencia and saw some of the more modern architecture and the alameda, which was pretty. We went to a friends apartment who we met while they were visiting Sevilla a few months ago. They made us dinner and had a small party with some of their friends. On Sunday morning we walked around and looked at some stuff at the market on the streets. We even saw a cafe/bar named Nebraska!! Then we rode the metro to the beach. All afternoon we laid on the beach and took some fun pictures. We loved just laying on the beach and relaxing! We went our for dinner and decided to try something new, which ended up being little octupus-looking things, maybe squid? It was really chewy. Then we went on a bar tour with the hostal. It was really fun. We got to see a few different bars and try some different drinks! The next day we went on a walking tour of Valencia. We learned a lot about the history of the city and lots of the buildings. It was pretty interesting. We tried Horchata, a special drink of Valencia made with Tiger nuts and it looks kind of like milk. Then we got ice cream and walked around and sat in a park for a while. Then we rode the metro back to the airport and waited there. The flight back was the rowdiest flight we've been on. People were talking so loud, shouting to friends on other sides of the plane, getting out of their seats and walking around. It was crazy, but kind of fun. It was a great weekend overall and Valencia was very pretty!

~Morgan

Semana Santa

The 2nd-6th we did not have class for Semana Santa, or Holy Week. The whole city was transformed for this week before Easter. The churches make huge "floats", or pasos, with scenes that depict the last parts of Jesus's life. There is also another float they usually carry with the Virgin Mary with candles and an elegant cape. They are very intricate and detailed. It is sort of like a parade, but more serious. A band plays loud, moving music and there are many nazarenos wear capirotes, the pointed hats and walk along carrying candles or a large cross to symbolize repenting their sins and many in the processionals walk barefoot throught the streets, as well. Someone carries incense. Some children even dress up and walk, too, which is cute; and some of them pass out candy. Some of the processions last 14 hours! Starting Thursday some women wear black veils to represent mourning the death of Jesus. It is all quite expensive, so they do not go out if it is raining, which it did most days. We were lucky enough to see probably seven different pasos throughout the week. Some at night, as well, which was very cool because they rely on the candles. Here is a video of a paso close to our house. We got to see them exit the church, which was very cool. They have to bend down because the paso is too big! There is also a common food eaten during Semana Santa called torrija that we had to try. It is a little bit like french toast but it is made with honey, eggs, and milk or white wine. We learned a lot this week and saw a lot of new, cool things. It was a great thing to experience!

~Morgan

Portugal!

On Friday night, we were invited to our house sisters birthday party! She had a few friends over and had some food to eat.  It was really fun to be able to talk to some of them!  They even asked us to sing the National Anthem! HA! It was funny

The weekend of April 1st we went to Portugal!! We went with a company called We Love Spain so they organized everything and we just went along for the ride!  We left on Saturday morning and dropped our stuff off at the hotel and then went to explore the city!  This actually ended up being the only day that we could lay out :( so we took advantage of that!  We made a few friends too!  We had dinner with our new friends both nights!

We also went to this place they called the End of the World!! Many people thought that if you went off this coast that there was no other land, until they discovered America! Here we are at the end of the world:

One of the days we got to go to a beach where you could see through the water!! I have always wanted to swim in one of those, sadly though it was too cold to swim that day!! But heres a picture anyways!

When we returned back to Sevilla, we were greeted by lots of rain!! This was the first time that we had encountered rain in our time here in Sevilla!

Next blog we will post about Semana Santa or Holy Week!!:)

WOO!

Adios!

-Kelli :)

This week we have been continuing our studies at the University.  We have been busy keeping up with notes and homework and trying to improve our Spanish!  We have made it half way through classes! Also, since we have started classes we have not had to go to a full week of classes because each week there has been at least one cancelled!  This week we did not have classes on Thursday because there was a nation wide strike going on.  From what we gathered, there was recently a labor reform passed.  We don't know the exact details but we do know that it made it easier for companies to fire employees.  There were fliers and stickers all around the city and many of the city workers chose to not work for the day.

They have also been busy setting up for Holy Week next week.  They have put up many bars to create walk ways and sitting areas for the week.  We are excited to see what all is going on during Holy Week.  We do not have classes the whole week in observance of the holiday.

We also learned this week that instead of Friday the 13th being a day where the superstition says there is bad luck, it is Tuesday the 13th!  Kind of different!

Not too much going on here for the past week, we are excited for the upcoming month because we will be able to see a lot of the Spanish culture during Holy Week and during the Seville Fair!:)

Adios!:)
-Kelli!

Last Saturday was St. Patrick's Day, as you may know. One of our Spanish friends is like in love with Ireland. The people, the beer, the country. So, we met her and some of her friends at an Irish Pub. We got there they were already drunk, so that was quite funny. We drank Guinness beer (which is from Ireland) and they painted the Irish flag and a Shamrock on our cheeks. I got a hat that says St. Patrick's Day. Then we walked to Calle Betis which is this street with a lot of bars. We went one place and danced awhile. When we left we got churros con chocolate on the way home. It is sooooo goood!!!! We got home at about 3 am and that is considered kind of early here. But it was really fun and her and her friends were so nice to us. Plus it was so funny to see her so excited about everything Irish. Like one time she grabbed me and was like, help me find a really cute Irish boy to talk to here! haha Sunday we went to the Catedral...finally. It was so big and there were lots of different chapels/rooms. My favorite part was going up the 34 levels to the top of the Giralda and looking out over the city. We have also started doing Jillian Michael's "30 Day Shred" every day on the computer to hopefully get beach bods for Portugal next weekend! haha

~Morgan

Gibraltar and Beyond!

This past week we have just been continuing to be good little students and do our homework and go to class. We had two classes that were cancelled because the teacher was sick so that gave us a little bit of extra relaxation time :)!

On Saturday, we went on a trip to Gibraltar!  It is in the southern most part of Spain but it is a British territory.  We took a 2 and a half hour bus ride to get there.  We started the day off with a guided rock tour.  The airport that we got picked up at is the only airport where traffic has to stop when a plane is taking off or landing!  It was pretty interesting.  Our first stop was Europa Point.  At Europa point you could see Africa and another part of Spain.  You could also see where the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean meet!

Here is us at Europa Point, you can see Africa on the left and a part of Spain on the right:

After Europe Point, the tour bus took us to St. Michael's Cave!  In the past, the cave has been used for different kinds of things, but it is now used as a theatre!  Outside of St. Michael's Cave, we got to spend some time with monkeys!  Monkeys are popular in Gibraltar. They are Macacas and they are tail-less!  Although nobody is sure how the monkeys got to Gibraltar, they are quite a tourist attraction.  One monkey sat on my shoulder!!  One of the bus drivers helped lure him onto my shoulder and the monkey was eating sunflower seeds out of my hair!  Here is a picture to prove it: 

After St. Michael's Cave, we went to the Apes Den.  Here the monkeys were a lot more aggresive and there are very strict rules not to feed them or touch them!  We saw two monkeys get into a fight!  After all of that sight seeing, we went to the town center and had lunch with two girls from Pennsylvania!  

In Gibraltar, most of the people speak both English and Spanish.  Also, they used to drive on the left side of the road beacuse they are a British territory but because they are connected to Spain, it caused a lot of confusion which led them to switch to driving on the right!  Their monetary unit is Pounds but they also accept the American Dollar and the Euro.  It was a really great trip and we all enjoyed it so much!

 That's all for now!

Adios

-Kelli :)!

My 21st Birthday Weekend!!

Thursday night we met our friend Shai who we met on the bus to Cadiz. We stopped at a random bar we saw and shared some wine. We just chatted and laughed. It was quite fun. Then we went to Club Buddha. It is a 4 story dance club. There were a lot of people and they actually played a lot of American songs. We rode the bikes and got home about 4 am. Luckily, our 9 am class on Friday was cancelled!! (the teacher must have known it was my birthday) So we got to sleep in. I got 3 birthday cards from home, so that was nice, and Kelli and Beth got me a card and some candy bars! We had a class later and went to Yogurtlandia after for birthday ice cream. Delicious! Kelli still had me start the night with my "first legal American shot" of Vodka. Which is weird since we aren't in America. I still think my first legal American shot will be when I return. haha Friday night we met our new friends...3 girls from Greece! They were so nice and invited us to this club with them since we told them it was my birthday. We thought we were meeting them at 10:30...turns out it was 12:30. So we went to a bar for some wine. We met them later and went to Club Bandalai. I got in for free for my birthday! It was fun. We danced and sang. We got home about 4 again. I did not even consider trying to do 21 shots like some people do on their 21st. ha All in all it was a very happy birthday! :)
~Morgan

The Adventures Continue!

Well we have finally started to memorize our class schedule.  It is so weird because one day we will have a class at 9am and the next day we won't have that class until 11am.  It is rather random and hard to remember sometimes. Ha!  On Thursday night we went out with a few friends from school.. We started out by hanging out in a plaza.. there were so many people!  We then went to a dance club for a little bit.  On Friday night, we went to Salsa dancing lessons.  It was so much fun and we can kind of salsa dance now. How fun!  After the salsa dancing lessons, we went to a few other dance clubs.  At the end of the night, we got Churros con Chocolate.. it is really popular to eat them after a night out with your friends!  They were SOO delicious!!:):)

Saturday during the day we just walked around the city and took silly pictures in the streets of Seville!  On Saturday night, we went out to a dance club again!  It was so fun, they played a lot of old school English songs so we had fun dancing all night!!:)  The people here like to stay out really late at night!!  The clubs stay open until like 5 in the morning!  Crazy town!

Sunday we went to the Real Alcazar which is the oldest active royal residence in Europe, built in the 1360s!  It was sooo gorgeous.   We had lots of fun taking pictures of all of the cool things going on inside.  After that, we treated ourselves to some ice cream :):)

We have finally received our bike cards that let us rent bikes whenever we want for a whole year.  Although we will only be using them for a few months.  We also bought a weekend to Portugal and we are going to that on March 31st!! Can't wait!!

Today and tomorrow we do not have school because tomorrow is the Day of Andalucia.. Andalucia is basically like a state to Spain.  They don't call them states though, they call them autonomous communities.  So tomorrow is basically like if Nebraska celebrated when they became a state.  Which I'm not sure why we don't.. we could use another day off of school ;)!

Check out our Facebook pictures from all of our adventures here in Spain in the blog post below!!:)

Adios!
- Kelli :):)

Photo album links

Here are the links to our Facebook albums. You copy and paste them into your browser.


Morgan's:  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2908591308068.2126581.1059125038&type=1&l=17aeb85067


Kelli's: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2731288004269.2123305.1319310041&type=3&l=ebd075d874


Morgan's 2nd album: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3283320236057.2133545.1059125038&type=3&l=8baa2f66bb

:):):)

Carnival de Cadiz

Last night we went to the Carnival of Cadiz. The carnival includes a parade and music groups and skits. We only went to the huge costume party. We rode a chartered bus about an hour and a half. They told us to "follow the crowd" so we did and found soooo many people just hanging out in the streets. It was so packed so we just had to push our way through. Everyone was wearing costumes so we took advantage and took quite a few amusing pictures. Some of the best were foozball players who held rods behind their backs, "babies", bulls and bullfighters, mimes, super heroes. We dressed up as Minnie Mouse. ha We had a lot of fun walking around together talking to random Spaniards. It forced us to work on our Spanish too. ha We had to be back on the bus to return to Sevilla at 3 a.m. and then walk to our house so we got to bed about 5. It was a long night but also very fun!

Yesterday we were out walking around and felt just a few sprinkles. Suddenly people were getting out umbressas and practically running to get inside. We thought that was kind of interesting bc it was really not a big deal. ha We also saw 2 groups of break dancers in a plaza. They were practicing for what we assume was going to be a little competition. That was interesting to watch for a while.

We took a two hour walk today and went to Burger King for a little snack. I was amazed to see cerveza (BEER) on the menu. There were so many people out because it is the weekend and it was so nice out!! Lots of people were just sitting by the river drinking beer and smoking hookah.
~Morgan

Hola from Spain!!

Well this last weekend ended up being a lot of fun!! On Saturday night we went out with a a mutual friends and a bunch of people that he knew from all different countries!! We met people from the United States, Germany, Italy, Finland!  How fun!!

It's so crazy because first we went to a bar and just had a few drinks and after that, at 1:30am we went to the dance club!! They start charging cover at 2am!! How late!! At the time most bars are closing in the United States, some bars here are just starting to charge a cover!!

They are a lot more lenient on laws here too, everyone just drinks in the streets!
ALSO! How crazy is this, in the University cafeteria, they sell BEER!! ON TAP!! What the heck!! They don't even allow alcohol on campus a lot of times in America!!

Sunday night we went to get tapas with two girls from Italy, a guy from Finland and a guy from Belgium!  That provided for some interesting conversation about varying customs..  To go to college in Finland, the guy told us that it's only about 600 dollars A YEAR!!! WHAT?! That's inexpensive!  And, while they are studying abroad in another country, their home university PAYS them!!! Ugh, lucky! Also, in a lot of European countries, it is popular that once you are married to just wear a simple gold ring on your left ring finger rather than huge diamonds like in the United States!

Anyways, this upcoming weekend we are going a Carnaval in Cadiz, a city real close to Sevilla.  It's basically another excuse to dress up like we do on Halloween and go out!
They do have Valentines day here!  We celebrated by going to a candy shop and treating ourselves:)

TOLIET PAPER.. Before coming here.. I had read a few articles about how they don't usually have toliet paper in the bathrooms in Spain and I thought maybe those articles were outdated but NO!.. Most public places DO NOT have toliet paper!  What happens is they clean them daily and put toliet paper but once that's out they don't care to put more in there throughout the day!  Yucky!

Other than that, we hope to plan a few more trips for our time here and continue chugging along through classes!:):)
Adios!!
-Kelli!

Things we've noticed:
There are kind of a lot of twins. They (and even just siblings) are often dressed the same.
Hardly anyone wears sweatpants at all.
There aren't many sidewalks, cars often drive by within a foot.
We've seen cars parallel parked side by side and were told that the outer cars leave them in neutral so if the inside needs to leave they can push it out of the way. I want to see that.
There are "bike" lanes on many streets.
People often just sit down on a bench or stairs and hang out and chat. Most things are slower paced and relaxed. They often leisurely walk through the streets.

We went to a bar last night and saw a small flamenco show. There was just one dancer but it was pretty cool. We had Sangria and it was pretty good. We rented bikes today. They have a system where you get a bike for half an hour and then can return it to a different station, wherever you are going.
~Morgan

We have had a request to do a blog sort of about  the customs in Spain!!  They are very different might I add!!

This week we started classes.  After a rocky first few days we have decided on the four that we are going to take.  And how great is this, we already have friends in them!! We met these two really nice girls who have helped us a lot in two of our classes..  They showed us the book store and said we could have photo copies of their notes!!  I really love nice people!!  Anyways, the meals here have been so great!! We have breakfast when we wake up, which consists of cereal!  Morgan usually has coffee too! YUM!  Lunch is served at 2! This is really late for us Americans so it took some adjusting at first.  On Wednesdays we cannot come home from school until 4, so we asked if we could just have a lunch at 430 and our house mom, Lola, said no because that is against Spanish customs!!  They don't eat lunch after 4!  So instead, she packed us a sack lunch with a bocadilla (sandwich). And then, we don't have dinner until 9!  Lunch is usually a lot larger than dinner.  All of these things are so much different than the United States!

Also, we went to McDonalds the other day because I really was craving a pop.  So, I ordered large Coca Cola Light.  I'm expecting a good amount of pop, but no!! The large here is the size of a Medium.. It sounds like I'm being dramatic but the portion sizes here are exceptionally smaller than in America!

During siesta, which is from 2-4, you just have to expect places to not be open!  It's true, they're not open!  And, when we talk to the administration working at the university, they only have office hours from 9am to 2pm!!  What a short business day!

Other than classes starting this week, we have just been trying to explore different places around the city by foot and trying to stay busy!

Tata for now!:):)
-Kelli!

Well we thought we could spice it up a little bit and add a few videos of us in action in Spain!  This afternoon after much relaxation, we went on a jog!! We went down by the river and we found these fun workout things!! At first, we thought it was a playground but after a little investigation we found out that it was actually some work out equipment!  After the jog, we all came back to our humble abode and ate dinner!!

Also, Morgan forgot to mention in the previous blog that the house family has two dogs!! They are real little and so so cute!  Except when they come and scratch on the door when we're trying to sleep....

hahah 

So long for now!!

-Kelli!

Our host family

We finally arrived at our host family's house which was thankfully only a few streets away from our hotel, so we just walked down the street with all of our luggage. We unpacked...there are lots of drawers and a closet and two desks in our room (pictures are on facebook) so it is pretty nice. Their names are Juan and Dolores (who likes to be called Lola). They have two older sons who live on their own in Sevilla and a daughter, Monica, who is 23 who lives here but goes to school in a town outside Sevilla so we hear she's not here much during the week. They provide us with all three meals. Breakfast at 8 (before class at 9), lunch at 2:00, and dinner at 9. These are pretty normal times to eat here. The food has been pretty good so far. They bring them up to our little living room on trays and the table has a little heater underneath it to turn on and keep warm. :) Juan took us on a very long walk in the afternoon. He showed us he fastest way to get to the school, then the scenic route back, showing us lots of different landmarks and teaching us about the city. It was encouraging that we were able to have a long conversation with him all in Spanish! We went into La Plaza de la Encarnación (we called it the honeycomb. hah) you can go up in it and it overlooks the city. It was very cool.
~Morgan

The First Night Out!

Friday, the first weekend we had in Spain was actually pretty fun!  We started off knowing zero people in Spain but thanks to Michaela's mom's old coworker, Alex, we got to explore a little bit.  She is teaching here for the year and she is fluent in Spanish and English.  She met us at the hotel we were at and we walked and had tapas.. which is kind of like appetizers, just little portions of meals.  We then walked back to her apartment and along the way she made sure to show us fun landmarks and pretty sights!  We got to the apartment and met her roomates who are also all teachers here from the United States.  We hung out there and had our first taste of "tinto de verano" which is wine of the summer.  It is red wine mixed with either lime or lemon juice!  Very sweet and delicious!  We then went around the town for the night with Alex and her roomates.  They were very informative and we appreciated the time they spent with us very much. :):)
-Kelli!

The first few days

Well they were a bit stressful, to say the least. (Wednesday) We got to the hotel and met up with Beth Erks, another girl From Missouri Western here for the semester. We all walked to the University, getting only temporarily lost. We got there and found out we needed to go to a different part of the city for the International Students Office, so we took a taxi there. But, they close at 2 every day (a very short work day) so we were too late to do anything. We took the 40 minute walk back to our hotel. Then tried to go out to eat, which was difficult because we didn't know what to order. We ended up getting completely different things than we expected. The next morning (Thursday) we took a taxi back to the international student building, and signed up for housing, which they never ended up helping us with. We had international student orientation. Luckily they had the English on a PPT!! We walked back to our hotel and stopped by a grocery store for bread, orange jelly, and ham. Plastic grocery bags are an extra charge. We took it upon ourselves to go to the school's website and search for suitable housing. We e-mailed a few people. Luckily, the next day Dolores (Lola) e-mailed back and said we could come visit. (Friday) We got up and visited the host family. They seemed nice and had enough beds for the three of us so we decided to take it. (Still having not heard back from the school about housing)
~Morgan

Leaving Nebraska...

Kelli and I were dropped off by our wonderful families at the Omaha airport. Our flight was at 2:00 pm. We went to Chicago on a mini plane. ha. We had a short layover and then a very long, 8 hour flight to Madrid, Spain. We got boxed dinner and breakfast on this flight which was pretty good. We were both so thirsty though. We didn't really get to sleep, so just read, watched a good movie and listened to music. Then in Madrid airport we had to practically run through to get to our next gate. We rushed through customs and had to go through security again but we made it! Apparently our plane had some issue and we ended up having to switch planes anyway. This flight into Sevilla was only an hour. We had no real problems, luckily. We picked up our bags and took a taxi to our hotel-Best Western Hotel Cervantes.
~Morgan