day 11: alcázar

Monday we had class. (I know surprising right).

*selfie* in our elevator heading to school.

The super exciting part about Monday was our excursion. We went to the alcázar palace here in Seville. Originally this was a fort and today it is the oldest palace still in use in Europe. The upper levels are still used by the royal family as the official Seville residence. Although, many times when they come to town they stay instead in Seville's nicest 5 star hotel due to respect. They say that the alcázar is for the people of Seville only.

This was the entrance we went through.

Here is the map of it. Its huge. Each person or civilization
in power over the years added on to the building starting with Pedro I. The gardens were huge!

The was the first patio we entered into.
El Patio de León

Next we went to the first room off to the left. The Palacio de Yeso, with the living room of justice and the garden it opens to.

Fountain in the middle of the room. It drained to the adjoining
garden and pond.

The ceiling.

Benches were along all the walls.

A close up on some of the tile inlay in the floor.

This is the view from the fountain out toward the adjoining garden.

Said garden 

Detail work on the archway leading to the garden.

Artsy tile closeup.

Next we crossed the same patio to the room on the right. It is called the Casa de la Contratación.

This room lead to a fan exhibit. In Spanish they are called Abanicos.

This was made with ostrich feathers. 

This fan was made with pearls.

Off the fan exhibit but still in the Casa de la Contratación we walked through this room and to the Patio de la Montería.

These huge doors lead out to the Patio de la Montería

These are both views across the Patio de la Montería.

Next up was the Palacio del Rey Don Pedro and the Patio de las Doncellas. These pictures are the entrance to Pedro's palace.

Gotta love those ceilings. 

The tile work went up high enough to protect
 the walls from daily wear and tear 

A close up on the detail above the tile.

These pictures are of the maiden's courtyard (patio de las doncellas).

One of the ceilings in the maiden's courtyard.
The iron bars are braces they had to add over time for the walls.

These 3 photos make up one of the doorways off the courtyard,
I love all the detail.

More rooms in Pedro's Palace.

Nearly all the rooms had these
three vents which allowed better airflow in the palace. 

 Beautiful sun room.

These next pictures are from Pedro's Hall of Ambassadors. This is where he would greet people.

Ceiling.

Detail work on the walls.

These balconies were accessible for the king to look down
and see who was waiting for him.
There was one on each wall.

Next we moved on to our first outdoor garden.

Before moving on to the next part of the gardens we stopped in to see the Queen's bathhouse. The name is Baños de Maria Padilla.

Then- back outside!

So many hungry fishies! 

So much green space! 

Cyndi and I, she went on the
trip to the DR with me last summer.

They even had a maze in one of the gardens that we got to walk through.

After we finished the tour of the Alcázar we all walked together down the river to go rowing! I didn't get any pictures since I left my phone in my bag for this activity. I didn't want it to get wet.

MAN is rowing difficult. This was the first time I'd ever tried it. I was in a two person boat with another girl named Janeen. We didn't flip, which was a win in my book, but boy did we do a lot of circles! By the end of it I was SOAKED. Jansen, who sat up front, accidentally splashed me a few times (which nicely cooled me off at the time) but made walking home in drenched jeans a nightmare.

After we finished I walked home with Dorel, Ayanna and Olivia. Olivia, Ayanna and I stopped for dinner on the way home at a pizza place on Avenida de República Argentina. I had a super yummy carbonara pizza. Once we finished we all split up and headed home. I needed to shower and was very ready for bed!

day9/10: I'm combining this Saturday and Sunday

Saturday

Sooo. On Saturday Kristen and I decided to meet up pretty early at Starbucks to walk around and shop in my neighborhood, Los Remedios. We met up around 1030 and headed over to shop afterwards since the stores opened around 11.

Mainly we shopped in Calle de Asunción. There we lots of clothing stores! I ended up buying a tank top from a store called Encuentro .

Kristen found a dress too. Next thing is that I wish I had smaller feet. We found lots of shoe stores but many only went up to a 41- so sad for my big feet, but happy for my wallet because I saw SOO many cute shoes and sandals.

At the end of Asunción we a ran into some super bright structure. No clue what it is. Oh and of course more beautiful flowers I couldn't pass up.

This was said bright structure. It looked liked it would belong
to a bridge to me but it wasn't a bridge.

We did the shopping thing for a few hours and started to get tired and sore. Since we had doubled back to plaza de Cuba we decided to stop at Phoenix Pub, a new favorite place of mine as you can tell. Kristen had some chicken nuggets and I just had two beers to hold me over till lunch. Amada always cooks lunch for me.

When we left Phoenix we both went out separate ways. I went home and was super ready for lunch. Afterwards a siesta :D I hadn't planned on doing much that evening but when I heard it was the Real Madrid vs. Atletico Madrid I figured I'd go out and watch the game somewhere. Sadly some girls posted on our group Facebook page about where to meet up but then never responded with an actual address of the bar and I couldn't find it online. Soo. Instead of giving up, me and one of the other girls, Tristin, who couldn't figure out the plans decided to meet up.

We went to Cerveceria de Sureña, a restaurant and bar in the plaza de Jerez. 

They have buckets of beers for pretty cheap so we split two buckets and bought little sandwiches called Sureñitos. 

The beer bucket menu.

I even got to try the lemon version of cruzcampo in our beer bucket.

Super fun time. Afterwards we just called it an early night. All in all it was fun.

Sunday

Sunday was pretty chill for me. I slept in and didn't really do much till the evening. Sunday night Kristen and I met up to finish our short story we started Friday in class. It was about a little fish named Rinaldo III who lost his parents and became a fish ninja to defeat the dragon who killed his them. 

We met up at Starbucks at 730 and stayed till about 930 when we finished it. Laughing the WHOLE entire time. It is fun because we both have very similar senses of humor. 

After that we headed to a nearby restaurant called "Spala" to eat dinner.

My pitcher of Sangria was AMAZING!

Along with my dinner. I got chicken with scalloped
potatoes,  bacon, and a carbonara cream sauce.
Loved it.

After dinner we both headed home to do the get ready for bed stuff a since we had school tomorrow.

day 8: TGIF

Well Friday marked one week since I landed in Spain. So far I'm loving it. My mom cooks so much and all her food is amazing. There is so much to do and see here. Plus- the weather has been great! Only downside I can think of is my mom here tries to feed me a little too much and that eating only bread products for breakfast every day is getting a little old lol. Eating toast with muffins and croissants is just so many carbs! At least I walk several hours a day.

But, anyway after school on Friday I came home and did the lunch thing. We didn't have an excursion planned so I was also able to squeeze in a needed siesta. Around 530 I met up with my friend Kristen and we did some more shopping. We went to a couple clothing stores and then some more souvenir shops. I ended up buying two t-shirts and a magnet for our fridge.

My little tiny azulejo :)

After our shopping we went to a little pizzeria and pasta place for dinner. We split a pizza (the thinnest pizza I've ever eaten) and a bowl of homemade fettuccine pasta. We finished dinner around 930 and called it an early night, cause we're cool like that. Plus it was nice to come home, shower and get to bed at a decent hour since we wanted to meet up early Saturday morning.

day 7: Thursday

So Thursday: first me and one of the girls on the trip, Sarah, and I had a mini photo-op in class. I love her curls!

During our 20 minute break at 11am I snagged some photos of our classroom and the floor we're on.

The second door on the right
is our classroom.  

Our classroom. 

After class on the way home for lunch I stopped by a bookstore I always walk past. I bought "Alice in Wonderland" in Spanish. I wanna stop back later this week to look some more.

After lunch at home I headed back to school for our excursion to Carmona. A city near sevilla that has old ruins from a necropolis and has the old gate to sevilla.

One the way back to school I had to stop for a pretty flower picture :)

We took a bus to Carmona- so much fun it was a double-decker bus, and I sat on the top :D Not in front, which would have been fun, but on top. 

Our first stop in Carmona was the old Roman Necropolis. Here hundreds of people were buried. Some rich families were buried here alone and other burials were communal burials for multiple families. Each family was buried with items they would need for their next life, especially some money. The money was important so they could pay the "gatekeeper" across the river into their next life. Without money they couldn't pay and would get stuck in purgatory. 

This was the first burial site we saw. Off to the left was a ladder we went down
in groups of 8 to see it. It was for one of the more rich families buried here. Most of the burial
sites we not this extravagant.

All of the bodies buried here were burned and their ashes were buried.
This was a typical crematorium.

This was a two family burial which is separate by that column in the middle.

These are more tombs. They were not accessible for visitors. 

This was called the tomb of the elephant (because of a statue of an elephant
they found in front of it). Here is where their Gods, at the time,
were buried along with their prophets. 

One of the pathways in between burial sites.

This last extravagant burial was for a very wealthy family. The more extravagant
the burial the more prepared the family would be for the afterlife. This was a "home" the
family could take to their next life.

After seeing the Necropolis we went and saw "La Puerta de Sevilla", meaning the gate to Sevilla. This was the door to the city which had been built on to my each different civilization that controlled the city. The gate had several different levels. 

This is the view going up the first staircase.

These three pictures above are from the gate's main open courtyard.

This is the view from the courtyard. Super pretty!

Me with said view :D

Thought this cross on the wall was super neat. I love that
it is made out of tile.

This was the view from the top.

Me up at the tippy top!!

After we got back home from the excursion I stopped by a pub by my house in the Plaza de Cuba. I ate a light dinner there and wrote my journal entries for our GSU professor because they were due Friday morning.  I enjoyed kinda sitting by myself and enjoying the time alone to write my entries.

My yummy ham and cheese sammy.

And my Cruzcampo cerveza.

After I finished by entries I headed back home, showered and hit the hay! I can't believe this week is almost over. Week one is already almost done! SO FAST.

day 6:let's go to the cathedral! JUST KIDDING

Wednesday, May 21. Otherwise known as the sixth day of our extravaganza. Today we did the school thing, such a surprise I know, and before our excursion I headed home to eats the lunch. Amanda always feeds us well.

It was meat refilled with ham and cheese
(which sounds a bit gross/weird) and beans w. onion and spinach

Lunch was super yummy and afterward I relaxed till about 330-when I needed to leave for the trip to the Giralda Cathedral here in town.

Once I left we all met up in the Plaza de los Reys in front of the cathedral at 4. Except we had a problem. Apparently all the activities that are "included" in our program fees, THAT WE PAID FOR, some require our school ID card. Before meeting today, at the cathedral, we didn't know we needed to have our GSU ID card to get in. Much less did all the students know to even bring it on the trip. The only person I was in communication with about the program, our professor from Georgia Southern, never mentioned us even needing to bring it on the trip-my card was still in Germany. So we hit a snag. All the students that didn't have both their GSU card and something else that proved their age (since your birth date isn't on your GSU ID) had to pay to get in. Our teacher said he'd try to work out something for us to all come again as a group.

Me and 5 of the other girls who couldn't get in decided to leave and shop, walk, and snag some vino. Plus it was about to rain.

Looking back I'm bummed because I really wanted to go but I think I'm just going to go one day by myself this week. Our professor said I shouldn't wait to see if he can get a group together again because he said it's not likely. The group was rushed anyways since we arrived late and had this entrance issue which took up time. But until I go again here is my cathedral tease picture I took when we were waiting in line.

Me and those girls ended up parking our behinds at a little café for some wine while it rained.

Afterwards I headed home. When I got home I realized I hadn't posted any pictures of the foyer in our building.  So I took some.

I think its really pretty with nice marble floors.

One I got home I told Amada what happened with my ID and asked her if there was anywhere around here I could print pictures of it if Rob sent me some. She said there was right around the corner and let me borrow her little memory stick to go get them printed. It only cost 1€ and I spoke with our school and they said the copies plus my driver's license will work if I need it for other excursions. So at least I can avoid this mess in the future.

All in all, that was day number six.