Hola! So this past weekend we went on our last group excursion, this time to Granada. I´d heard so much about the town, from it´s amazing location in the middle of the (Spanish) Sierra Nevada, to the adorable town, to the breathtaking Alhambra. Suffice to say, I was pretty stoked. On Saturday we wandered around the town, saw the church where Isabel and Ferdinand are buried, wandered the historic part of town, got lost and separated from the group, etc. It´s a strange mix of a town - on the one hand, very Mediterranean and historic, with twisty roads and white houses, and then suddenly it changes to a bustling urban city more modern than Sevilla. The more places I visit, the more I realize what a singularity Sevilla is - I literally have yet to come across a town that resembles it. While the rest of Andalucia looks pretty Mediterranean, I would venture to say that Sevilla is the most classically, romantically Spanish city of Spain. So I´m getting the real deal here!
Saturday night we wandered around town again, in search of a small cafe, because I was craving a hot chocolate really badly. But the fabulous thing about hot chocolate in Europe is that it´s moreso a dessert than a beverage - when we finally found a cafe, the chocolate they brought me was essentially a melted Hershey´s bar in a mug (or maybe Ghiradelli, quality-wise). It was straight out of Chocolat (sans chili pepper), and it made for such a fantastic night.
Sunday we went to the Alhambra, the palace of the Muslim rulers that governed Granada back in the day. We had an entire day dedicated to exploring the place, because it´s absolutely enormous - first we visited the gardens, then the Christian king´s palace, then the lookout towers and battlements, and finally the Arabian palace itself (all in the span of about 4 hours, leaving me with a rather striking sunburn). The title of this blog refers to how we were being tacky and classless Americans the entire time, comparing this architectural and historical marvel to essentially every Disney film ever made (Aladdin, Alice in Wonderland, Beauty and the Beast, Sword in the Stone, Mulan, some Lion King songs thrown in...). This aside, it was INCREDIBLE.
So this week I´m preparing for midterms/Galicia (except not in that order...). My whirlwind travels will take a break after this week, thankfully, because between trip preparations and reading my prior blog posts, I feel like all I talk about is travel. I feel like I should mention more about Sevilla and how much I love it here - I just talk about my trips because they are the exciting parts of my life, whereas Sevilla has simply become my home base. I don´t feel like a tourist anymore (though sometimes still like an outsider, which is entirely different), life with the family is just perfect, and I´ve essentially adjusted to life here.
Therefore, I wanted to list some random tidbits that I love about my new hometown: one of my favorite things to do is walk home from the university by taking the back route by the park, which allows me to look at the entire city from across the river. Also, the other day, I went paddleboating on the Guadalquivir! I didn´t even know they had paddleboats until my friend pointed it out. Something else that´s exciting here is the advent of the holidays - even here, the preparation starts early, only in the form of the availability of Spanish Navidad candy. They are called turrones, and basically they come in a million varieties - they even have turron ice cream flavors in all the gelato stands. And finally, another Sevillian favorite is when it´s cloudy - in my opinion, the city looks the most amazing on gray days. The river turns green, the goldenrod and carmine buildings really pop, and it looks straight out of a picture.
So that´s all for now - can´t wait for Galicia, land of seafood and cloudy days! miss everyone terribly!! xo
Saturday night we wandered around town again, in search of a small cafe, because I was craving a hot chocolate really badly. But the fabulous thing about hot chocolate in Europe is that it´s moreso a dessert than a beverage - when we finally found a cafe, the chocolate they brought me was essentially a melted Hershey´s bar in a mug (or maybe Ghiradelli, quality-wise). It was straight out of Chocolat (sans chili pepper), and it made for such a fantastic night.
Sunday we went to the Alhambra, the palace of the Muslim rulers that governed Granada back in the day. We had an entire day dedicated to exploring the place, because it´s absolutely enormous - first we visited the gardens, then the Christian king´s palace, then the lookout towers and battlements, and finally the Arabian palace itself (all in the span of about 4 hours, leaving me with a rather striking sunburn). The title of this blog refers to how we were being tacky and classless Americans the entire time, comparing this architectural and historical marvel to essentially every Disney film ever made (Aladdin, Alice in Wonderland, Beauty and the Beast, Sword in the Stone, Mulan, some Lion King songs thrown in...). This aside, it was INCREDIBLE.
So this week I´m preparing for midterms/Galicia (except not in that order...). My whirlwind travels will take a break after this week, thankfully, because between trip preparations and reading my prior blog posts, I feel like all I talk about is travel. I feel like I should mention more about Sevilla and how much I love it here - I just talk about my trips because they are the exciting parts of my life, whereas Sevilla has simply become my home base. I don´t feel like a tourist anymore (though sometimes still like an outsider, which is entirely different), life with the family is just perfect, and I´ve essentially adjusted to life here.
Therefore, I wanted to list some random tidbits that I love about my new hometown: one of my favorite things to do is walk home from the university by taking the back route by the park, which allows me to look at the entire city from across the river. Also, the other day, I went paddleboating on the Guadalquivir! I didn´t even know they had paddleboats until my friend pointed it out. Something else that´s exciting here is the advent of the holidays - even here, the preparation starts early, only in the form of the availability of Spanish Navidad candy. They are called turrones, and basically they come in a million varieties - they even have turron ice cream flavors in all the gelato stands. And finally, another Sevillian favorite is when it´s cloudy - in my opinion, the city looks the most amazing on gray days. The river turns green, the goldenrod and carmine buildings really pop, and it looks straight out of a picture.
So that´s all for now - can´t wait for Galicia, land of seafood and cloudy days! miss everyone terribly!! xo
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