Just a glimpse at my host Mama and her precious granddaughter Sara. I might just have the most stylin' host mom in town! And I'm getting to watch sweet baby Sara grow up every day. She is over here all the time while her parents are at work and she's really taken a liking to me and Jennifer. I've was here for her first birthday and got to witness her first steps. She was crawling when I got here and now she's just walking all over the place! Such a special little family with so much love for one another, and they've welcomed me with such open, loving arms and made me feel like one of their own.

Another Week Passed

Hey peeps! I have had quite the week this past week! I was just laying low in Sevilla studying for midterms and such. I woke up with a 24-hour bug on Tuesday morning, which would just figure since I had a midterm paper due Wednesday and 2 midterms Thursday. I managed to make it to my classes, but having to excuse myself every now and then. Gotta save those absences for traveling!! Wednesday found me feeling better, weak and headache-y, but better. I managed to make it through the week somehow. I’m not sure how well I did on my midterms, but they’re over now and I don’t have to think about them anymore!

Since I haven’t blogged in a while, I haven’t even written about what I got to do last weekend. I was out exploring the city a little bit with my new friend, Taylor from Texas, when she said that some of her friends were over close to the cathedral playing guitar and singing, and that we should go watch. Sure enough, 2 of her guy friends were taking turns playing and singing, and had their guitar case open for people to throw in money if they felt so inclined. I mentioned that I wished I could play the guitar so I could do something like that, and so James got me to get up there and sing with him. It took us a few songs to get it together, but soon we were making some magic and jamming out to “Sweet Home Alabama” on one of the more crowded streets in Sevilla. People were stopping to listen and actually quite a few were throwing money in the guitar case. We had a blast doing it and decided that if we practiced a little bit together, we could quite possibly make our going-out money doing something we both love to do. So, seeing as there might be more to come, stay tuned for news from the musical escapades of Callie and James.

So most of you have heard or may have read something about my dissatisfaction with the food that my host mother serves Jennifer and I. Well, out of the want to try and be positive about every aspect of this experience, I have been holding back from writing about how truly awful the food actually is in my house. Everyday before lunch and dinner, Jennifer and I sit in our room listening to the crackle and sizzle of the deep fryer, and wonder and fret if we’re going to be able to stomach what we are about to be served. And more often than not, we already know the answer, which leads me to a story of epic proportions. This past Tuesday night, Jen and I were called into dinner and because she was finishing up a skype call, I got to be the first to witness what we were imminently expected to consume- a plate full of nothing but 8 fried chicken nuggets. I kid you not when I say “nothing but”. There was nothing on either of our plates but chicken nuggets. I’m not sure what happened to diversity of color on a dinner plate, but it was definitely lacking on this night more than usual! As I sat there staring at my place with a huge smile on my face (because it was humorous at this point), Jennifer walked in and I told her I was smiling but I really just wanted to cry. Normally I can stomach a chicken nugget, but the kind she gives us are the most awful tasting things I have ever encountered; I’m really not even sure they are chicken. Our host dad was at work and our mom just happened to not be eating with us this night- she was just coming in and out of the room. So as we sat there, stared at each other, tried to nibble at a nug or 2, and talked about what we should do, I asked Jennifer if the window was open or closed because I couldn’t tell. (This window being about 4 feet away from me on my right and open enough so that there was about a 12 by 12 inch opening.) She simply responded with, “Open, I think. Why?” She found out why as soon as I stood up and hummed a chicken nugget out of our 7^th floor apartment window into the courtyard below. Overtaken with shock, Jennifer started laughing so hard and could not stop so then of course neither could I. When we regained control of ourselves, Jennifer decides to try this clever idea, but misses the window and hits the curtain instead. Since she was on the other side of me, I had to be the one to get up and search for this thing quick before our host mom came back in. So I’m looking and looking and I can’t find the damn thing anywhere. I can hear our host mom coming so I sit down right before she re-enters the room with her cup of tea. It was taking all that we had to hold it together- I think Ma thought we just had a case of the giggles. She started rummaging through a basket of phonebooks that sits right beneath the window, and I just knew she was about to find this chicken nugget. Fortunately, she did not, and she left the room again. Before I know it, Jennifer is trying again and she hits the curtain AGAIN, but this time the thing gets wedged between two folds of the curtain and you could literally see it sitting there in the curtains! I hopped up and grabbed that thing as fast as I possibly could and was barely seated when Ma came waltzing back in with a yogurt for each of us. So we are all sitting there and Jennifer and I are like ok where is this other chicken nugget?? Ma left the room again and so again I hopped up to search for this chicken nugget. I just started shaking the curtain and down falls the missing chicken nugget! I picked it up and threw it out the window and sat down to catch my breath! As much of a rush as it was, we decided that since there were so many people down below, we wouldn’t throw anymore chicken nugs out the window. The image of pegging someone in the head with one already had us in stitches. So we ate our yogurts, stuffed about 2 nugs down in the container and stuffed our napkins on top to hide them. Since we managed to make it look like we’d each eaten about half of the nugs without actually having eaten a whole one, I would call this a victory. We left dinner starving (but yet victorious) and retreated to our rooms to munch on our beloved granola bars and goldfish that our parents sent us. It was definitely a night I will never forget. I laughed more that night than I had in a while. I guess sometimes our favorite memories come from our least favorite of circumstances.

Tonight I’m going to a Sevilla futbol (soccer) match with some girls. This will be my first European futbol match ever, so I’m looking forward to experiencing the most popular sport live! I am meeting my mama in Rome on Wednesday and we are taking a train down to a town called Positano on the Amalfi Coast. We’ll stay there for the weekend and then come back to Sevilla for the week. I can’t wait to hug on her and catch her up on everything I have been doing the last 2 months. We’ve never really had just a mother daughter-trip, so I’m very excited to get to share this part of my world with the best mom in the whole world! This is all I have to report for now so until next time, Ciao!! Xoxo.

Switzerland

Well I’m back in Sevilla after a trip to beautiful Switzerland with Megan. It was a bit of a trek to get to from Southern Spain, but it was well worth the trouble. We stayed the first two nights in a town called Vevey, which is right on the beautiful Lake Geneva in the French speaking part of Switzerland. These two nights would be my first experience in a hostel and to be completely honest, I was a bit nervous. Upon arrival into our room, we saw all empty beds except for one that was housing a sleeping male whose origin we knew not. We must have been a little loud because he awoke in a startle- very shocked to see us. We asked him if he spoke English and he said no, only French and Italian. Perfect. We speak only English and Spanish and you speak only Italian and French. Megan then exited the room to go use the Internet and I was left alone with the Italian. I soon found out why he was so startled to have been awakened by us… He was napping in the nude!!! He said something to me in Italian and motioned something at me, and it took me a second, but I realized that he was asking me to turn around while he got up. I awkwardly turned my head and waited for the ok to continue about my business. He okayed me and then sauntered around the room in his towel for a few minutes before exiting to the restrooms. This would be my first experience in a hostel, I thought to myself.

Later on, Megan and I got cleaned up after a day of traveling and set out to find a nice place to eat dinner. After making a couple of loops around the town, we decided on a crowded Italian place with relatively cheap prices and what appeared to be very yummy food. We went in and sat down, only to find that our waiter was none other than our naked Italian roommate. It just figures. He seemed more than thrilled to see us and was actually a really nice guy. Due to language barriers, we never actually figured out why he was staying in a hostel if he worked there in the town; so I will forever be puzzled by Estefano and his strange or quite possibly, unfortunate situation.

Day two of our travels had Megan and I drinking expensive coffees, or should I say “renverses”, eating authentic Swiss chocolate, and hiking around a few vineyard towns where we actually got to taste wine that was an hour old and wine that was a year old. By late afternoon of day two, we were growing bored with the small town of Vevey and much looking forward to leaving for Interlaken the next morning.

We got an early start on Saturday so that we could catch an early train to Interlaken to have most of the day to spend there. It was on the train that I started to see lots of cows and noticed that Swiss cows really do wear bells around their necks- every single one of them. I found that quite quaint. They made for very lovely windchimes. When we got to Interlaken we stored our bags, had a quick lunch, and hopped back on a train to go to a town about 30 minutes away called Grindelwald. This is where we found the most breathtaking views of the Alps, and basically just walked around all afternoon and gazed at the beauty and sheer majesty they possessed. When we rode the train to and from Grindelwald, we could see the snow-capped mountains and I felt like I was in the movie The Polar Express on my way to the North Pole!

Sunday we woke up early again and had our breakfast outside on the patio in the cold, autumn air. The change of color there was just so beautiful that we couldn’t stand to be inside more than we had to. The town of Interlaken is enclosed by mountains and to be there for the fall colors felt like we were being engulfed in red, orange, and yellow. The only thing that would have made the morning even better would have been a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks. We signed up for a horseback ride that afternoon and were surprised when we got there to find that we were the only two signed up. A cute German girl who looked to be only about 17 took us out on our own private tour of the countryside of Interlaken. I cannot rave about the fall colors enough. It was the most beautiful horseback ride I think I’ve ever been on. Just imagine the mountains with the red, orange, and yellow trees on one side, fields with cows with bells around their necks on the other side, and snow-capped mountains in the backdrop and that is where I was riding. Sunday really was the most picturesque fall day anyone could ever ask for and to be able to spend it on horseback with the cold air whipping by only made it that much more perfect.

We ended the day with chocolate fondue that disappointingly did not live up to the rest of the day. We thought we just HAD to get fondue since we were in Switzerland, but to tell you the truth, I’ve had better fondue at the Melting Pot. That was the only disappointment of the entire trip. While Lake Geneva was beautiful, Interlaken was hands down my favorite of the two. By the end of the trip, I was ready to be back in Spain to get my feet back on the ground again in my life here. I’m not traveling anywhere for a couple of weeks until my mama comes, so I’m looking forward to putting on my running shoes and exploring and divulging into my city further.

Barcelona

Wow, finding time to blog has been few and far between for me lately! I just cannot get over how fast time is flying over here. I was in fabulous Barcelona this past weekend with mi amiga, Megan (aka- Tillie), who is there with her grandfather, visiting his mother who lives there. Friday, we went up the mountain with Megan’s grandpa (Avi) and great-grandma (Yaya) to a town called Argentona, which is a small town outside Barcelona where many of their relatives live. The plan for the day was to go up and have a long, authentic, Spanish style lunch with the whole family. The drive up took about 45 minutes and a long 45 minutes it was! Avi, who was driving, had rented a stick shift car to use for the trip and he only kind of remembered how to drive one. That combined with the fact that Spanish people just simply cannot talk without using their hands, had Megan and I holding hands in the back seat out of fear for our lives, and hanging our heads out the windows for fresh air. Once we had safely arrived to Argentona, I met about 10 of her relatives, all of whom were over the age 70 and none of whom spoke English. It was a great day for putting my much-improved Spanish to use. We all sat at a long table where we drank red wine and ate course after course of yummy food, which is typical in Spain since lunch is their biggest meal of the day. Once you’ve had a real Spanish lunch, you’ll understand why they take siestas afterwards. The lunch lasted about 3 hours and consisted of 4 courses, and after 3 hours of speaking nothing but Spanish and eating that much food, I was absolutely exhausted.

One of the funnier parts of the day may have been when one of Megan’s great-uncles was talking to another great-uncle (out loud but in Spanish) about how great my legs were. I could tell he assumed I wouldn’t understand what he was saying by the fast-paced speed in which he was speaking and also by the fact that he wasn’t trying to include me in the conversation. Quite the contrary- I understood everything he said. I started laughing out loud and told Megan what her 80 something year old uncle was saying about me. It was all in good fun though, and as ready as we were to leave by the end of it all, I had a great time meeting her Spanish family.

That night Megan and I went to a tapas restaurant that my friends Jordi and Raul own. They were both on staff of the program I did in Barcelona two summers ago and it was so fun to get to see them again. The food was amazing and they didn’t let us pay for one thing. We hung out with them while things at the restaurant died down and then afterwards, we all went to a club together for some serious party time. Spaniards take their fiestas seriously! It was such a fun night and I was so ecstatic to see the familiar faces of two people who played such vital parts in my unforgettable, summer experience in Barcelona two years ago.

Saturday in a nut shell consisted of my feeling a tad bit ill thanks to Jordi’s generosity the night before (all his fault), walking around Barcelona with Megan, getting my long overdue sushi, and meeting up with another friend for a few drinks. It was such a fun weekend and it definitely made me miss Barcelona and long for all the precious friends I made there two years ago, but it was still so great to be back. It felt a little bit like home to me. I think that city will forever and always hold a little bit of my heart.

This weekend I’m jetting off to Switzerland with Megan for a few days because I have next Monday and Tuesday of classes off. I’ve never been there and am really looking forward to eating some Swiss chocolate….. and to be able to gaze at the beauty of the Alps and Lake Geneva of course!! Seeing as this will be my third weekend in a row to travel, I’ll be glad not to go anywhere for a while after this trip so I can get my feet back on the ground and start hanging out more with friends I’ve made here in Sevilla. Adios for now and I’ll blog again after my Swiss adventure!