La Feria de Abril, I mean Mayo...

Hola tod@s! I have 2 final exams tomorrow, but no te preocupes, I'm going to study soon. Just wanted to update everyone on one of the coolest weeklong holidays I've ever encountered... FERIA!

Okay so in American terms, Feria (or Feria de Abril) is a HUGE fair that comes to Sevilla every year usually in the month of April but always atleast 2 weeks after Semana Santa. However, since Easter was so late this year, "Feria de Abril" was actually in May. (The running joke said it started the 32nd of April lol)

So, what do you do at the Feria? Great question. Feria is basically a huge celebration of the Andalucian culture, including but not limited to: Flamenco dancing (particularly Sevillana), Flamenco dresses, Flamenco music, Singing, Drinking Rebujitos, and lots of fried fish and tapas... Next question, What are "Rebujitos"? Another excellent question. These are possibly one of the greatest drinks I've ever had... It's a slightly unproportional mix of lots of Manzanilla (White wine from Andalucia) and a bit of 7up. Delicioso!

Of course, after much influence from the Rebujitos, everyone becomes a Flamenco dancer at the end of the night (by end of the night I mean around 6:30am when the Feria closes)

Throughout the fair ground there are hundreds of tents, called "casetas" where rich families and organizations set up for private parties where you must be on a list to get in. There are a couple casetas publicos but everyone knows the private parties are better. Luckily, through a connection of a friend of my intercambio, I was able to get into private casetas both nights that I went.

Aside from private tent parties, there's also a half of the fair grounds dedicated to attractions and games, for the kids of course. Ferris Wheels, roller coasters, flipping boats, you name it. It was all there. Hope you enjoy the pictures:

La Portada de Feria, it changes every year

Daniel & I on the Ferris Wheel

Some fun and games :)

Those are all of the casetas

Surprisingly enough, I played twice & got 2 out of 3 both times :)

Quite Sevillana, don't ya think?

The group on Feria night #2

I thought I'd leave you with some friends performing drunk flamenco dancing, enjoy :)

Besos xx
Catalina

I'm Back! (but still in Spain)

So, the charger cable for my laptop broke... literally severed in two pieces... so I haven't been able to post since my computer has been dead for about 3 weeks now. It kinda stinks. However, I did get ahold of a friend's laptop (thanks Brian!) and while I should be working on my presentation on La Casa de Bernarda Alba for tomorrow, I'm going to take a short break to update all my stalkers xD

Wow, I can't believe it's been a month since I've updated... Let's see what I've done...

There have been two major holiday celebrations in Sevilla. First was Semana Santa (Holy Week) which is right before Easter and second was Feria (for my next post). There were processions of huge floats representing the journey of Jesus leading up to Easter Sunday. While I thought the concept was very interesting and meaningful, the obnoxiously large crowds disinterested me. Take a look-

I couldn't move from where I was standing so I took a pic

These fellas (called Nazarenes) ran around the city all week... They're religious, I swear.

So after approximately 2.5 days of Semana Santa, I was ready to get out of Sevilla. And that's exactly what I did. Brian, Bryan, Jim, and I met up with Brian's parents in Malaga in a town called Estepona and spend a weekend on the beach at a super nice resort. It was amazing. (Big thanks to Mr. & Mrs. Driscoll, I don't think I could thank you enough for your generosity)

A picture from our resort :)

After the beach for a couple days I took off again with Laura and Mariana for Mérida, España, where my other roommate Maca lives. We spent two nights at her house and exploring her quaint town full of Roman ruins. It was amazing, we literally would be walking through town and stumble upon sights like the one below hidden around every corner.

Let's take a walk through the ancient Roman aqueducts today, nbd.

Immediately from Maca's house we went to Lisbon, Portugal to stay the rest of our weekend with some friends of Laura. Not only did I fall in love with this city but also may have met the man of my dreams- a man who can cook! (I hope he's not reading this haha) Aside from that we got to explore not only Lisbon but also, Cascais and Sintra, both very beautiful portuguese towns. Sintra is an amazing little town on a mountainside with an incredible mountaintop castle and monastery. The views from up there were possibly the best I've ever seen...

Beautiful Lisbon

My family should recognize this delicious portuguese sausage... Linguica!

Me and Micael in Sintra :)

Mariana and I, on the castle in Sintra

So that's all I have for now... Hope you've enjoyed. I'm going to try and get more cultural stuff up. It is currently the week for Feria here in Sevilla so prepare to learn lots about Flamenco and the Sevillana :) Can't wait to update you again! Miss everyone... less than 2 months til I'm home.

xo Catalina

PS. HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MOMMY! I LOVE YOU!!

The Fiesta Post

Wow it's been awhile since I've posted, I apologize. Sad part is that I feel like I haven't done anything too exciting since my last post. I guess I mean nothing too exciting compared to my new standard of living, I'm not sure what you all will think. But if you're reading this I'm sure you'd like to know... Okay so what have I done since Granada...

The night I got back from that trip I went to a party at my intercambio's house. Let me rewind though. I have an intercambio and his name is Daniel :) He's the best. I love hanging out with him. An intercambio is a speaking partner. He's trying to learn English while I'm trying to learn Spanish so we meet every week and talk to practice each other's languages. It's awesome. So far we've met every week since I've been here and we've become great friends. So this weekend I went to his flat in Sevilla and we had a party:

Daniel & I

The party crowd

Such a fun night

Us, again.

In a bar we visited after leaving his flat

Let's see what else have I done recently... A friend of mine who was living the residencia with us had to leave to go back home to Mexico so we all went out in a big group to say our adios to him. We went to a botellón with him in Plaza San Salvadore which is a pretty popular place to do this. Botellón is very popular over here in Spain among young people. You might be asking, What is botellón? What usually happens is that lots of people, I mean hundreds to thousands, will meet in a location where everyone brings their own alcohol to drink in a public place and just hang out until it's all finished and then from there they'll go to bars or discotecas to keep the party going. I know, it's insane. When I first encountered this activity I was shocked. Isn't this completely illegal? Am I going to get arrested for drinking in public? News flash: Yes it is illegal (from what I've heard) BUT this is España, no te preocupes. No pasa nada! This is the mindset of this country. It's completely laid back... The next worry I had was, isn't something bad going to happen, like a fight will break out, etc... Nope. Everyone is just here to socialize and relax, there has been absolutely no tension in any of the botellóns that I've seen; it's kinda awesome. It's difficult to describe this activity if you've never experienced anything like it. The closest thing I can compare it to is maybe Quadfest at Radford or any typical college party weekend; except minus the drunken fights and strict cops waiting around to hand out tickets. The biggest one I went to had atleast 5,000 people there, this one probably had about 500. It's hard to see but take notice of the amount of people in the background:

Laura, Mariana, & ME

El grupo

After drinking some of that bottle...

Hope you enjoyed my adventures from the past week :)

Hasta la vista!

Catalina xx

Granada

This past weekend (Friday & Saturday) my school took us on a trip to Granada! This city is also located in the province of Andalucía but about a 4 hour bus trip away. It truly is a gorgeous town. As one of our tour guides explained... If you live in Granada you can drive 30 min away if you want to go skiing in the snow-capped mountains visible from many parts throughout... or you can drive 30 min in the opposite direction if you want to go to the beach. Quite an awesome geographical location.

We arrived around in the afternoon on Friday and that evening we went on a tour of the Alhambra which is a palace city constructed in the 13th century with heavy influence from Muslim architecture. I have concluded that the outside parts of this place remind me of a mix of Narnia and Palace of Versailles. It was complete gorgeous; como un sueño. Without blabbering on much further, I'll give you all what I'm sure you really only want :)

Our hotel: Hotel Los Angeles

View of snow-capped mountains

French style gardens in Alhambra

La Alhambra

Inside the palace walls

View of ruins from top of tower

Yours truly, on top of the tower :)

A taste of the ornate Muslim decoration- All hand carved!

Day two brought us on a tour of the Granada cathedral. Although it might not be the third largest in the world like ours over here in Sevilla, it was definitely different from any other cathedral I've ever been in. Actually, I'd have to say it's also my favorite cathedral I've ever been into... and I have been to a lot around the world. The reason I liked this one so much and the reason it's so unique is because the inside walls are all painted white. Every other cathedral I've been into always has had gold or brown walls, making them very dark and dreary even on a sunny day. This one isn't like that... its beautiful and happy on the inside.

Cathedral

The contrast of white with gold really made it feel glorious

A church hosting a wedding (see the decorated car)

An adorable side street next to a creek (reminds me of Prague)

I realize this is the second city comparison I've made in this post. It's not that I'm trying to boast my travelling record it's just that I tend to compare new spots to my favorite cities/places. I actually told Brian while walking around this day that I can't wait until I can find myself in another city like this one where I can say "this place reminds me of Granada."

A beautiful day in Granada

Besos,

xx Catalina

Más Sol, Por Favor.

La Playa!

This weekend was just too gorgeous to not enjoy it while laying in the sun, feet in the sand, sipping tinto de verano, and reading Spain's newest issue of Cosmopolitan... So that's exactly what I did. Yesterday, I went to the town of Huelva, just southwest of Sevilla on the Atlantic Ocean, to a beach named Matalascaña. Personally I thought it was gorgeous... According to my professor, this is the ugliest beach around. Well, in that case, I can't wait to see the "beautiful" ones. I'll let you judge how ugly it is:

Me, Laura, y Mariana

Mariana

Beachside Restaurant

Las Tres Amigas

Hope you enjoyed that! I'll be sure to update again. By the way, the Spaniards prefer my name to be "Catalina" and I like it too; it makes me feel Spanish. So that's my name until further notice :)

Besos,

Catalina xx

PS. YES, we did go in the water... YES, it was cold... & YES, it was nice once you couldn't feel your legs anymore...