PARIS!

From the minute we stepped into the airport to my weary walk back home at 10pm sunday night the laughter and craziness never stopped. Jenn felt sick when we first left so she was pretty much on drugs all of friday. We basically had to drag her through the airport and direct her to the plane. We left at 10am and did not get to our hostel in paris until 1 am. It was a loooong day of travelling. When we got to the hostel the people that worked there were really nice but lack of lighting, a creepy spiral staircase and a little woman with a voice that could make millions in horror movies created an interesting walk up to our room. We pretty much thought we were going to die, when really, she just wanted to talk to her friend monica. (One of those stories that you just had to be there I think). The next morning we woke up, well, I woke up and jumped on everyone else, around 8:30. After a little song and dance in the room we went down to our free hostel breakfast and then off to take over Paris. We went to the church of the sacred heart, the eifel tower, the louvre (amazing! pretty much the greatest thing i´ve ever seen), sat in the leisure fields, ate some crepes, went to notre dame, met some really helpful french men while looking like lost tourists, went to hardrock and made a friend from brooklynn, ran through the pouring down rain to try and catch the eifel tower in its 5min of sparkle and shine..we made it in the last 30 secs, and then went to see Moulin Rouge at 1am. We finally headed back to our hostel around 2 and fell into comas about 2:15 only to get up in the morning and be tourists for a couple more hours before we had to leave. Basically we were like tourists on speed but we saw everything that we wanted to see and it was great. We had a blast and although it was a really short trip, it was well worth it.

So today I rode a bike in a dress. I am pretty sure I might as well have been naked. I don´t understand how spanish people do this. A lot of them wear heels too and ride. I am thoroughly impressed. It has been sunny for the entire week and it is beautiful and amazing. I have the urge to just skip everything and sit out in the sun all day. It cracks me up though that the spanish people still bundle up in their coats and scarves and it is like 70 outside. My señora constantly tells me I need to wear a scarf or coat and then I just take it off and hide it the moment i get outside haha. This weekend we are going to paris and I am really excited. I will be sure to put up lots of pictures and tell stories when we get back. We attempted to do couch surfers but it didn´t work out..sad day. Next time..I am determined to do that sometime before we leave haha. Well, that is all for now. Until after Paris!

Crazy children...

Ok so yesterday I was working with some of the younger kids, like around 7 I think. We were playing a game so the teacher and I were up front and the kids were sitting in their groups. Now, the teacher is this very spunky little fake blonde who is probably about 4ft 5 or something like that. She is always very bubbly and excited and going to her classes are by far my favorites just because it is always crazy. yesterday, however, took things to a whole new level. One of the students decided to get up and go sit in the teachers chair. After about 5 minutes she noticed and burst out laughing. This was the exact reaction that chair snatcher wanted so he proceeded to fall out of the chair onto the ground, rolling around laughing. Within 30 seconds the entire class was on the ground laughing. It was like a scene out of a movie..I´m not sure if the movie was a comedy or a creepy one with psycho children but either way it was entertaining. The teacher was laughing so hard she was crying. Here I am standing in front of this chaos watching children writhing on the floor with laughter and a little blonde lady exploding with amusement. I had no idea what to do but clearly there was only one logical option...to laugh. If you can´t beat em, join em right?

So, Sevilla has this amazing thing called Sevici where you swipe this card and it unlocks a bike that you can ride all over the city-my 40min speed-walk to school just turned into a 15 min bike ride. I think that my life is now forever changed. I might even be able to find time to run now!!! And write on this blog more than once a month...soooo exciting!!! Also, my wonderful family sent me a birthday package with some rainboots inside and for the first time in a month, it did not rain. Thank you!! The package was wonderful...I love it all. And it will probably never rain again because now I have rainboots haha. My birthday was great. Val and Jenn kidnapped me and took me to this vegetarian restaurant to give me a break from the mass quantities of meat that I have to eat here and then we went to a friend´s house to watch a movie and hang out. And it was sunny for some of the day! The day before (on Saturday) we went to Gibraltar but it rained the whole entire time so it kind of sucked. We couldn´t really see or do much because it was monsooning and my umbrella died from mass quantities of wind and rain. Pobre paragua....Oh, I got to work with the 3-5 year olds at the school the other day and it was pretty much the greatest moment of my life. They were sooo cute. I feel like there are so many stories I am forgetting about....o well, maybe I will remember later. Adios!

Salamanca!!!

So, we went to Salamanca this weekend and it was great. When we first got there the wind was so strong it felt like we were walking through a hurricane. We could barely move and debris was being hurled at our faces from all directions. Normal people would hate this but we though it was hilarious. All the spaniards thought we were completely nuts (which I guess is slightly true). The next day, however, was better. It was a little chilly but there was no wind and it was sunny most of the day. We decided to conquer every monument and tourist attraction in a day. It was kind of exhausting by the end but sooo worth it. Salamanca is full of beautiful historic buildings. Don't worry, I am putting up some pictures instead of describing them all to you. Probably our greatest adventures of the weekend were our meals. For lunch we went to this place called "Con 2 Huveos" just because it looked strange and we wanted to try it out. When we walked in the waitress told us we could share a giant ostrich egg for only 50 euros...haha ya right. We ended up with the cheaper option of duck, quail and turkey eggs. Duck and turkey are pretty similar to chicken but quail eggs are really, really little. They were pretty good. We expected them to make something out of the eggs but instead we just got a bunch of strange sunny side up eggs on a platter lol. It was foos but if I have to eat another egg anytime soon, I might hurl. Then that night for dinner, we were walking around searching for someone cheap and not packed to eat at and while we were staring cluelessly at one of the menus a waiter came out and coerced us into coming in. We still didn't really understand the menu but he was nice and explained it to us. We were feeling adventurous again and decided to order things that sounded strange. One of the plates (the one that got put in front of me of course) happened to be pigs feet. Like the entire foot with hair and hooves and skin still intact. My first instinct was to gag but instead i decided to pretend like it was science class and disect it. I even ate a piece haha. It was interesting but I don't think I will be ordering manitos de cerdo again. Salamanca is a beautiful city though and we had a ton of fun. I am so blessed to have two of my best friends here with me. No matter what we do, no matter how crazy or stupid, it ends up being fun. OOOO the rain is dying down! Time to run home before it picks up again. More pictures later, I promise. Adios!!

Exploring Sevilla

Whoops...its been a while again. Here are some pictures of some places around Seville that we visited during class that I meant to put up last week but didn't get a chance to...