Romance and the Buda-Pest

I was so so so excited to go to Venice. Its just one of those places that you dream of going to one day, and I was on my way there. Of course I would have loved to be going there for a romantic getaway with the love of my life like in the movies, but this would do for now ( and I can always go back one day ;) I was like a little kid in the candy store when the train was about to stop, and the initial view of the city was everything that I expected. It was a gorgeous day and we walked out to one of the large canals and beautiful bridges crossing them. The journey to the hostel was frustrating and nice all at the same time since Venice is a massive maze and a map is completely useless, we walked around in circles for some time and it was wonderful to see all the cute small streets with the canals and gondolas with men in striped shirts singling and all the couples awwww.. so romantic!! After dropping our things we started exploring and within 30 minutes Jess saw a group of people that she traveled with earlier in the trip. It was such a coincidence but really great because they had been there for a few days and were able to show us around. We had dinner, got some wine and hung out in Piazza de San Marco for a few hours and headed to bed early since we only had the next day to see the city, we wanted to be well rested.

We got up and planned to be packed and out the door by 10am. We were right on schedule when we realized Jess’s clock was an hour off and it was actually 11.. not happy! Good thing is, as beautiful as Venice is, I think you only need a day to see the important things (minus the lovey dovey). We didn’t stop all day and really got quite familiar with the city. There are so many amazing mask shops and after seeing how they are so big on the masquerade (as they should be since it originated there) I really really want to go back for the carnival in Feb. hopefully I can work that out. My favorite part of the day: Picture us at a corny souvenir shop looking around listening to an English woman on the other side yell at her kids..”Stop touching everything.. you don’t have to touch it to see it.” I decide to non saliently whisper to Jess “Ha well I do” as im trying to open a compact mirror. Still trying to open the stupid mirror I flick it and it goes crashing into the ground, completely shattering. I quickly pick up the mirror, run inside while yelling “don’t worry I’ll pay for it!”.. as the woman walks over to me and points and says “SEEEEEEEEEE this is why you don’t touch when your looking!”… then proceeds to look at me and say “thank you for being an example for my children.” Haha!! Still makes me laugh! Im just glad it was a mirror and not something super expensive. Slightly embarrassing. Anyway, after all that we enjoyed our the rest of our beautiful afternoon and early evening strolling around the streets, doing a little window shopping and being jealous of all the disgustingly romantic couples everywhere. We grabbed our bags from the train station where we had stashed them for the day and then headed to where we thought the bus was going to pick us up since we asked the entire town of Venice where we could find out where our bus would be and not a single person knew. We prayed for it and vua-laaa it came. Not a bad ride, except that my legs well my calfs really have been starting to kill, flip flops have not been the most supportive shoe to explore these cities in, and my legs are yelling at me for it. Got a little sleep but charlie horses kept waking me up.

About an hour early to what we had expected at 5:30am, we arrived to Budapest. First time I think I ever was mad a bus was early because I just wanted to sleep more. We made our way outside and it was freeeezing. I definitely didn’t pack properly, I guess I didn’t expect to get this far north during this trip, so I thought it would be a bit warmer. Thankfully Jess has a few bits of warmer clothes that shes benn nice enough to let me borrow. We knew it was much earlier than our check in time, but we decided to try to get into our hostel anyway. Thankfully there were a few people up (still from the night before) and they let us in and this was my favorite hostel yet. It was just like a big apartment and everything was done very family like. We had our own room which was SO nice, and the common area was so comfortable, and the people so nice. We met a group right away and went to grab some breakfast and go on a 3 hour walking tour. Great tour guide, she was hysterical. We learned a lot about the history of the city and got to see how pretty it was. She had us rub a horses balls for good luck (the things those Hungarian people do.. weird) saw the castle that Walt Disney designed his castle after and brought us to a yummy proper Hungarian meal afterward. Jess had this meat and pumpkin baked thing that was absolutely out of this world. I should have ordered that! Next a group of us broke off and considered going on another tour about communism but we got back and sat down, and after sitting for a few minutes decided we were too tired and relaxed for about an hour instead. We bought tickets to the opera..we were in the nose bleeds, but it was really cool to go and listen to the music and see the theater. We saw Mefistofele which was a weirrrrd opera, there were grown men playing with doll houses and barbies, and plastic lawn mowers, and wings and toothbrushes, supper strange, and completely in Hungarian so I have no idea what it was about but I enjoyed being there. We left during intermission and back to the hostel for a night out. As typical I was tired so only stayed out for a few hours, but the nightlife is crazy here so had to get a little taste.

So now Im in Vienna, and we are just about to have a really nice homemade dinner, but I will get to that later when I finally catch up to where I actually am on this trip. Till then! Much love!

Biting Bugs-Bloody Boogers-Busses

I have spent the past two days in Milan. We took a bus to Seville and from there got a flight on Ryan Air (one of the cheap European airlines) which is such a pain... they have limits on everything which is part of the reason they are so inexpensive I suppose. We finally arrived to Milan/Bergamo in the evening and the directions to the hostel were the WORST... so after being lost for a good two hours we found our way to the hostel and it was actually pretty nice... or so we thought! After getting some yummy italian food, I got a pizza and yup basically ate the whole thing since it was the first thing all day and a 1/2L of wine for myself, hey it was a stressful day and it was only 3euro. We called it an early night to get some rest. Well I wake up the next day and am in the shower and I feel a massive lump on my back of course Im freakkkking out and go into the room and have Neddy look at it, shes all ohhhh damn girl something bit you and I can still see the fang marks! WHATTTTTTT?!?!?! Thankfully I didn't die or have some crazy allergic reaction... but its still there now and itches ughhh. We made our way to the bus station to meet Jess and Micah and of course their bus was late which is expected but it was really exciting when they got here. After getting to the new hostel and cleaning up, we met Jess’s sister and her Italian husband to have them show us around Milan. The Duomo, and the castle which were pretty impressive, and we walked all the expensive shopping streets and checked out all the fashion which is what your supposed to do in Milan right? We had a nice dinner on this boat on a river and our waiter was hysterical! He was giving us a photo shoot and we just made fun of his English all night. After a 4 hour dinner we headed back to our hostel (with a 2 toothed doorman) which was just a room with 4 beds, so we totally had a slumber party which was so much fun! Then we finally decided to head to bed when I notice a massive bloddy booger hanging out on my “freshly washed” bedset. EW! First I get attacked by some creature, and then I get the bed with booger sheets! What great luck! I took it upon myself to go down the hall and find the linen closet and change my sheets. Quick fix.

We got up early for a day trip to Como di Lago and Bellagio which are both really cute towns with little cobblestone streets, cute shops and amazing views. Its really close to the Switzerland border, and there are all these gorgeous mountains surrounding the lake. We rented these little petal boats and went out on the lake and played bumper boats..shhh don’t tell the guy who rented them to us. We actually had to take an hour long bus ride from Como di Lago to Bellagio and what an adventure that was. It’s pretty obvious they don’t have the same seatbelt laws we do our fire codes for how many people can fit on a bus at once. The entire bus was filled, all the seats were taken, the entire aisle was packed to the point we weren’t sure the door would close. Micha and I found ourselves sitting on the steps of the bus and Jess found a comfy seat on the dashboard. While whipping through the tiny streets of Lago di Como I saw my life flash before my eyes. Not only was there no guard rail between the bus and the cliffs we were driving up, all that was keeping Micha and me from plummeting to our deaths was a mechanical bus door. I think the bus driver was whipping around the curves in hopes someone would pee their pants. After our day up there we just went back to Jess’s sisters house and she was nice enough to let us sleep there for the night although it wasn’t the most comfortable sleeping sitch. I got the floor with Micah, Neddy got the couch, and Jessica found herself a comfy spot in the bathtub using towels as blankets and a pillow haha.

Next we hopped on a bus to Siena which continued on to Rome. We got these Eurorail type of bus passes that go from city to city for 15 days as many trips as you want and its relatively inexpensive to get around. Great concept, but unfortunately the plan that we have is switching up a bit since we thought we could go from Rome to Naples see Pompeii then to Florence and Venice… but today we found out that’s not really going to work out for us, so our plans will be switching up a bit. Don’t know where we are going to go yet, and weve had SO much trouble getting on the internet (which I am sitting here right now putting in this “code” that is like the 5^th theyhave given us to get on the internet and still not working.. so maybe we will get on one day to know where we will go after Rome?.

We arrived to Rome lastnight a bit before midnight.. it was Saturday and all we did was sleep on the bus all day so we decided to get ready for a night on the town. This is a good hostel to meet people so we walked in the door and already had a place to go out. We got ready fast and went downstairs where the front desk guy re-opened the bar for us, made the other girls some sweet drinks (that I cant drink) and gave me a bottle of wine.. yup just gave me the whole bottle with a cup that ended up coming with us for the walk to the bus which I think is pretty bizarre that it is legal to carry around a bottle of wine, but yup When In Rome. He also gave us shots of Sambuca which he lit on fire and we drank out of straws… Not a bad welcoming right? We then headed out and it was alright, late night but nothing too exciting, I was sleepy.

After 3 hours of sleep we got up to re-book our room for another day and tried to have some of the free breakfast, nope not good so we just went down the street and got some proper espresso and were ready to go for the day. Jess and I went our own way since we have both been to Rome before and didn’t want to do all the same things as the other girls. We just walked around casually and acted goofy… sooooooo many tourists here, which is way different than the last time I was here. I don’t like it, you cant really see anything. I highly recommend coming during the off season if you ever want to come to Rome. We had pasta carbonera, umm and gelato again J Good thing Ive been walking a ton for the bad food Im eating here, but ohhh it is soooooo yummy!! As we were eating lunch the waiter comes over mid bite and grabs my hand, and just holds it. Im like dude really Im trying to eat what in the world are you doing,?!? literally just holding my hand and then he lets go and boops me. Pokes my nose and goes boooop, is this for real? Then another waiter comes over like 10 min later and holds my hand too, I don’t understand.. what are these crazy Italians doing? After an interesting lunch we saw more sites for a while, and then it started pouring so we ran home, good excuse for a nap. Except instead of napping I’m writing this and trying to get on the internet. No luck, and she looks so comfy asleep, so I am going to do the same until Pizza in an hour. More healthy food, cant wait!

So still haven’t gotten on the internet properly to post this so now Jessica and I are sitting in the middle of Termini train station on our packs with a janitor sweeping up French fries and cigarettes around us waiting for an expensive train to Venice when we thought we were going to be sleeping on a bus there right now. Yes our plans are not working out as expected. So lets start from the beginning. We wake up from our nap in search of free pizza and internet, apparently the free pizza lasts approx. 5 min because we got down there at 8:35 and it was gone… and the people with extra slices didn’t even share… but our favorite hostel bartender Marcio gave us rice balls, which were gross. We finally got to the Eurolines website to properly map out the next leg of our journey. A couple other travelers were chiming in about where we should go and mentioned how Budapest was a must see. We were all about it since neither of us have been there before, and in the past have heard great things. So okay we got it figured out it leaves tomorrow 11am stops in Venice (for us to spend one night, which was great since no other bus would get us there) get to be all romantic for a day and then leave the following night for an overnight bus to Budapest arriving 7am PERFECT!DONE! Now is where decide to be proactive and book a hostel in Venice and were good to go. After all that planning we feel great so we grab a discounted bottle of frozen white wine to celebrate. It was only 3 euro and hey, we’re traveling on a budget here. We ended up chatting with almost every other traveler in the bar that night. I learned a little bit of samba. At one point a group of Swiss boys entered the room starting a dance off on the tables, pretty interesting. They looked about 12 and after the conversation I had with one of them I proved to be right. The night was coming to an end and after 4 bottles of frozen discounted wine it was time for bed. I have to admit we were a bit tipsy and while walking by the closest pizza shop decided to duck in. This was probably not the smartest idea he asked us our names and we told him they were Hungry and Pizza. He wasn’t impressed. So back to the reason we’re sitting at the train station. We were on our way, all ready for the journey to Venice. When we reached the bus station we waited patiently in line to get our ticket. After all the planning we did last night we thought we were all set and would be on our way within the hour, how wrong we were. The lady at the counter told us that we would not be making the journey today due there being no buses to Venice on Mondays. How could this be? We told her about the website and all our planning and she non saliently told us the web site must be wrong. Oops sorry! So once again we decided to be pro active by grabbing our tickets to Budapest from Venice and just taking the train. There could be no way that the train would cost us more than 30 Euro right. Wrong! We got to the train station to find that the only train that cost even close to that was 46 euro and had left an hour ago. So now we have a hostel booked in Venice, a ticket to Budapest from Venice and no way to get to Venice. We had to get there today there was no other possibility. We gave up the college tuition of our first born for the ticket and here we are. Oh and we left Neddy and Mica in Rome.. they still have more to see.

Ham=God

Its been six days since I arrived to Cadiz, and its already beginning to feel like home. I feel so safe here, and the people who live here are the nicest I think that I have ever met. I swear you ask someone a question and they will stop and walk you to where your looking to go, or explain something 6 times because you dont understand. Its pretty amazing. The city has two parts, the old city (inside the wall) which is all little streets that look the same.. really old and quaint, and then the new part (outside the wall) which is still super old, but looks much more like a typical city. Its almost like a little island and its completely surrounded by water. The south side is all beautiful beaches and to the north its a port. I have actually found myself a place to live by now and its in the new area called Playa Victoria. Its a cute little place and its central to everything I need. Its 5 minutes walking to a gorgeous beach, a little over 5 min to the bus station to get to work, right in the center where there are a ton of bars, restaurants.. etc. Its also in my price range which I thought would be more difficult, since I wont be making much this year unless of course I am able to find an under the table paying job.. but I havent gotten that far yet to rely on it. Its a 3 bedroom and I am living with a girl Neddy who is from Florida and in the program as well, she and I have been in touch prior to arriving in Cadiz becasue we are teachers in the same town. And were also living with a Spanish girl Ana who is sooo sweet and doesnt know a word of English..ps Neddy is origionally from Panama so shes fluent in Spanish as well, so Im STOKED to be surrounded by Spanish so I will be forced to learn it. Im actually suprised how much better its gotten.. well not exactly the speaking, but I can pretty much understand when people are talking to me (with the craziest accents ever here!!) I just sometimes feel like a mute cause I cant form a proper response haha. Im learning!

Well a lot has happened in the past 6 days! I can't believe how much has gotten accomplised expecially considering the way that things are done here. Nothing is done on the weekends, especially Sunday dont even think about finding an open store... Stores are open from 10-2 and then again from 5or6 to 9 during the week. Or they just make their own hours.. No one is in a rush... EVER. Drinking is done at all times of the day. Actually people here dont eat I swear, its just drinking all the time. Yup like if Im thirsty at work Ill pour myself a glass of water... here I had a waitress who just poured herself a beer. But thats just the norm. So talking about drinking, eating here is ehhh. If you dont like ham you should go home! They think ham is Gods gift to man, and it goes on everything, and every restaurant and bar has AT LEAST 4-5 ham legs hanging from the ceiling... that they just cut your meal straight off of when you order food. Even when you order something vegetarian, it will come with either some form of ham, tuna, or egg. And we eat standing up here... for the most part tapas are eaten for every meal and its typical to stand in a restaurant and eat.

I also found out that I have a friend Miguel living here who I went to school with at Coastal, pretty exciting! I knew he was in Spain but had no idea it was the same area. I went down to his town Conil one night and its a cute town, not such a big city like Cadiz. We went to a few bars that were really cool, like outdoor but indoor.. open areas with no roof. Really nice! And nice to know someone here, and his friends are great too! I also went to a soccer game with them which was pretty cool. The stadium is actually near my new apt. so Im glad I got to go to a game. It was Cadiz vs Murcia and the stadium was the most unsafe thing Ive ever seen...Its like straight up and down with no handrails or anthing.. i thought I was going to fall off! They go nuts first of all, and its totally normal for young kids to scream swear words throughout the game. The 12year old boy in front of me was going nuts.. it was so much fun!

I went to Barbate finally and saw my school!!!!!!!! AWWWWWWWWWWW I am SOOOOO excited to start. The school was so cute, pretty tiny but totally perfect! The staff was absolutely amazing, they were hugging and kissing me and they were sooooo welcoming. I cant wait to get to know them better and the kids. I was there after the school day finished and got a tour of the school. When the principal Julia was taking me around we went into all the classrooms and they were all having meetings (where every mom was in the room... no dads which Im curious about.. but I met all my kids moms as well ha) It was great! Then we sat down and looked at my schedule... so they know I have to commute an hour and want to live in the city where I cant arrive until 10am because of the bus schedule... she goes okay Ill change some classes so its okay for you... and THEN she goes I think you should only work 3 days a week, because if your happy, you will work better. Hellllllo great mentality! I think I have the most amazing boss ever. So 10-2 .. 3 days a week I am stoked. 4 day weekends to travel, and plenty of time to take Spanish classes, which Im starting to look into now.

I cant move into my new apartment until Sept.29 which is fine because I dont start working until Oct.1 and wanted to travel anyway. Luckily (like everyone here) my new landlord Patty is the nicest ever and letting me keep my luggage at the apt while I travel around before I move in. So I put it all there today, and tomorrow I am off to Milan, Italy. I am meeting a highschool friend Jessica there in 2 days and going to travel around with her for the 2 weeks before I come back to Spain. Not sure all the places we will go in the 2 weeks, but Im thinking Milan is not a bad place to start. :)

Till Next time! CIAO

Seville Audios. Bienvenido Cadiz

I feel like I just wrote but its already been a quite a few days! The last night I wrote about out was a lot of fun, I feel like I had met the entire English speaking portion of Seville. A lot of the people who arrived around the same time as me to the city are exchange students so everyone was there trying to meet as many people as possible, which was nice because everywhere I went it was like I knew someone! We met at 11 at Plaza de Cuba which is about a 5 min walk from my hostel and Jess, myself, Elizabeth, and Kevin were off for the night. We started out at a small bar which was so crowded it was awful.. I could barley move but I ended up talking to a girl named Kyle who is from Connecticut as well, and goes to UCONN! We actually know some of the same people, Small world! Thankfully we only stayed there for a quick drink and headed off to Fundicion, which was bigger bar and they were having a beer pong tournament. I had a girl from Austria and one from Germany that I had met earlier in the day meet me there, and they were so interested in the game because they had never heard of it before. I thought that was pretty funny. There was a bit of confrontation between some people at the bar so we moved on to another called Big Ben. I was still feeling really tired, so I ended my night "early" around 3:00.. which to them is like the start. I need to get used to this new schedule. The next day I planned to meet Kevin (Jess's roomate) for a coffee which turned into him giving me a tour of the entire city which is AMAZING! I would stay there forever if I was allowed to! It was a beautiful day and I was kind of sad knowing that I had to leave the following day. We met the rest of the roomates for tapas at a small local bar, and the food was pretty good LOTS of cheese which can never be bad! I decided to stay in and actually try to get some sleep, but the girls in my room had the opposite in mind, which meant I didn't get any sleep anyhow. They were getting ready late, then came back late and loud, and one girl gets these nightmares apparently and she woke up 3 times in the night screammming bloddy murder! I was like WHAT is going on?! I thought it was pretty funny and the next day she apologized and told me that it was a regular thing for her... I feel bad for her boyfriend! So I finished packing my things and called a cab to bring me to the bus station for my ride to Cadiz.

So the other day my German tour guide was being so nice and told me hey I have an extra ticket to Cadiz, Ill give it to you for half the price since I know I wont be using it, and because I thought she was nice I took her up on her offer and bought the ticket off of her. I arrived early to the bus station to make sure the ticket was good and all, and the guy told me yes its perfect it will work, so good I sat down waited for my bus thinking all is perfect. Some little Spanish guy offered to help with my luggage to get it in the bus and when he tried to lift it haaaaa the look on his face was priceless, it was like he just saw a dead body!! He thougt I was crazy, and I tried to explain that I was moving here, but I don’t think he understood my broken Spanish. All my luggage is on the bus, and I try giving my “pre-paid ticket” to the driver and he wouldn’t accept it.. or let me buy one from him… so hes telling me to go inside and buy another. Mind you the busses don’t stick around for more than 5 minutes to get everyone loaded and then they are off. So Im freaking out, everything I own in the country is on a bus that’s about to leave and I have to go all the way inside for a new ticket. Im runnnnnnnning inside and obviously there is a line. I finally get to the front and Im buying a ticket and in such a rush don’t even listen to what hes asking me, so yeaa I buy the most expensive return ticket (good job linds) and run back to the bus and thank god he was waiting for me! Slight panic attack, I thought my luggage was going to be gone forever! So paid about 3x the price of a normal person to get to Cadiz. Ooops! After my bus ride I decided since I spent so much on the bus, I should suck it up and walk to my hostel instead of cab it.. awful idea!!!!! Cadiz is beautiful, but every single street looks the same oh and there are more than one street with the same name! We (my new Austrian friend I met on the bus and I) got ridiculously lost and umm yea again I had slightly too much luggage so it was not the funnest hour walk of my life. I think my back was about to break off, and yes I have bruises from it. Finally found the hostel which is really nice and way bigger and all I could think of was seeing the city and the beach. So I dropped my things and headed to the beach with my new Austrian friend. Im going to stop there for now… Im not so good at this blog stuff because this all happened 4 days ago and now I need to go to bed bc I have to be up super early tomorrow and everyone else is sleeping and probably not so happy with all the clicking from my keyboard. So I will fill in the rest of the days asap (hopefully tomorrow). Vale?! (The most popular word in Cadiz.. means okay and is used about every 5 seconds, vale.) Hasta manana!

Seville

I'm finally here!!! Wahoo!! It felt like it took forever for me to get to Spain, and then the last few days before I left it was like everything happened so fast! I guess thats the way that it always works though. So I packed up my as much of my life as possible into 3 bags and I just want to say thank God (and Mya) for vaccum bags. I am truly amazed at how much I was able to get into those bags... which once looking at them packed I was thinking How in the world am I going to be able to carry all of these?! Welp I figured it out haha. My Dad and Tina helped me bring it all into the airport, and then I was obviously overweight on one of the bags... so there I was in the middle of the airport throwing clothes and shoes all over trying to make the weight even. Good thing I arrived 3 hours early! Also to have a nice goodbye dinner of bagels and water on the airport floor with pops.

The flight was easy, although I did freak out a bit when I was sitting in my seat and see a bunch of teenage boys in soccer gear start flooding in and surrounding me. They were so loud I thought it was going to be worse than sitting next to screaming baby. But luckily they all passed out shortly after we took off, the coach must have been smart and put sleeping pills in their gatorade or something. My first stop was Madrid where I had a 5 hour layover... have to wonder why I chose to pick that flight, but I did read more than half of my book which is nice. Once I finally figured out my terminal I realized everyone around me was American which I found pretty bizarre since I was in Madrid, and going on a flight to an even smaller Spanish city. Come to find out it was full of exchange students and people who work with CIEE which is very similar to my program, they just charge a fee to apply and have an intensive language course before the school year starts (which I would LOVE to have p.s.) So that flight was good, but I wish it was longer cause I wanted to sleep sooooooo bad!

Next came the fun part of finding a way to get ALL my luggage from the airport to my hostel. HA hello overpacker! I had a little trolly thingy until I was getting on the bus where a nice gentleman thankfully helped me get the bags on the bus. Then I was a big ol mess trying to get them off the bus! It was like one bag outside then run back on the bus and get the next bag, umm Im pretty sure the bus driver hated me. There was no chance of me lugging all that to my hostel so I took a cab from there and BAM were there :)

The hostel is pretty nice, but the rooms are tinnnny. Im in a room the size of an office with 6 beds, myself and 5 girls from Belgium oh and zero floor space because I think they overpacked too! Luckily they are sweet and super respectful, since when I arrived all I wanted to do was sleep and any time I was they were whispering and keeping the light off which I totally didnt expect, but REALLY appreciate.

Day 1 here, I was exhausted so I took a little nappy, but was determined to get out. I contacted a girl that I met last year while I was in Amsterdam named Jessica who I knew was living here in Sevilla and she is actually part of a group called "We Love Spain" and they direct all kinds of tours, and she had one yesterday evening so I went on it which was really nice. Afterward we went to a hookah lounge and they gave us yummy tea and I got the chance to meet a bunch more people who I ended up having a few cervecas y chupitos with. We stayed out for a a while walked around the streets checked out a few bars and it was a good time. Definitely a nice first night out in Espana!

So today I woke up super early, still tired, and slightly hung over. I got up and tried to eat breakfast, but my body is so jet lagged still I took a bite and decided hmmm Im gonna go back to bed :) Which was a great decision! I slept until near 1 but I needed it! Then it was off on my first proper adventure.. buying a cell phone! I asked around a bit to decide on the best option for a cell plan and I decided to go with Movistar which is really big in Spain. Talking to the guy to buy the phone was my first legit conversation in Spanish here so far (well more than asking a simple question or basic how are yous) and I was really impressed with myself! Now I have a phone and I actually know what my plan covers. Wahooo!! After getting my phone, I went on another tour and this one was on the total opposite side of the city so it was really nice to get more background on Seville and see more of the sites. This is an absolutely gorgeous city and so walking friendly.

I just stopped by the grocery store and grabbed some food to make tonight since I havent had a decent meal since the night before I left. Im not a big fan of Spanish food, which I suppose I will have to get over at some point! But for now, time to eat some dinner and meet up with Jessica and a few others at 11 for another night out on the town. Were going out right near where I'm staying which is a huuuuge thumbs up for me :) So thats all thats gone on so far. I will be sure to update again soon. Miss you all at home!

Getting Ready to Go

I've never done any kind of blog before, but I have been asked by several people to do one for the next year soooo I am going to do my very best to keep up with this so you all know whats going on with my life over in Espana. So to be a little more specific.. I am moving to Barbate, Spain to teach English at an Elementary school for the upcoming school year. I am employed by the Ministry of Education in Spain and I am one of the several "Auxiliares de Conversacion" they hire each year. I could not be more excited to work with these kids, learn Spanish, fully experience the Spanish way of life, travel a lot and see what what else this year will bring! There is something great about traveling and experiencing other cultures to the point that you are being put in a situation that is new and foreign and feel completely lost. I love knowing that once you find your way, and get through it you will be a stronger and more knowledgeable person. Its hard for a lot of people to understand that I find comfort in the uncomfortable, but there is something about it that is so invigorating for me. So while I have the opportunity... I plan to experience as much as possible. I finally booked a hostel today for the first couple of nights that I arrive into Spain. I am going a little over 3 weeks early, giving myself enough time to get familiar with the area I will be living in, as well as hopefully securing a place to live (yup I haven't the slightest idea where I will be living yet) and then backpacking for a little bit before school starts. If all goes well :)
I leave on this crazy adventure in exactly 2 weeks from today and now that it feels completely real I am just trying to keep myself together enough to get everything situated for when I leave. Of course since the ridiculously long application process was months ago, and then waiting to forever to hear if I got accepted into the program, then waiting again to hear which region, then waiting again to hear which school, THEN a whole new loonnng visa application process of waiting again to get everything back ughhh I'm just so glad to have all that finished with.... Through all the paperwork and waiting it seemed as though the time would never come that I would actually be boarding a plane to fly to Spain, BUT its just about here! I feel like I have an endless list of things to get accomplished before I leave, and I wonder how in the world I am going to get everything done, and say goodbye to all the people I need to.... but I suppose if there is a will there is a way. So here we go! !! VIVA ESPANA!!
I wanted to get a little introduction post out, but as of right now its just the preparations so nothing too exciting YET... Till the arrival ;)