Hey everyone!!
What started out as a semester in Sevilla has turned into 6-months in Spain. My life has changed so much since I left my home at 4am January 15th, 2013. I have already discovered so much and have had an amazing door opened for me. My blog title has changed because my journey did not end when the semester ended, I ended a chapter in my life but immediately started a new one.
So a lot has happened since I last posted something. Before I get into the details of what all has happened the past 6 weeks I am going to explain why there is a post in Spanish (there will be more). As a way to improve my writing and hopefully become familiar enough with phrases and grammar that I can incorporate it into speaking I have decided to write my post in Spanish and English. This is something that I plan on continuing when I return to the U.S. but I will most likely only be writing in Spanish when I return, this upcoming semester is going to be the busiest and hardest semester of my entire undergraduate career and I am not going to be able to write a post in both Spanish and English and I will be writing enough in English with my classes.
Another important reason why I am writing my posts in Spanish is because I have made some really great friends since I have been in Spain and they want to read my posts and know what I am up to and some of them don't know English.
Okay, so let's get on with what has happened. Since a lot of time has passed I am going to break things down into a few posts. This one is just a general idea and introduction.
After my adventure in Sevilla ended my parents met up with me for about two weeks of traveling around Spain and London. The first few days were spent in Sevilla and it was really interesting to see the city that I called home through the eyes of a foreigner. I quickly grew to appreciate the Sevilla that I knew and discovered how much of the city I had truly discovered. There were times that I felt like I didn't really know the city like a local, I only knew it as a tourist, but after showing my parents around I quickly discovered that in my short time in Sevilla I had discovered the true essence of the city, something that is impossible for a person visiting for a few days or even a week to do. One of the things that I was looking forward to the most about my parents coming to Spain was that I was going to be able to show off what I had learned, mainly the speaking aspect. Unfortunately I started getting sick a few days before they came and by their second day in Sevilla I couldn't speak.
We spent three days in Sevilla and then headed to Granada for three days. I still was unable to talk when we left Sevilla (it was extremely frustrating) but I was getting a little bit better. Granada was great and I really enjoyed going back (I went with my program the first part of April) but it is definitely a place that I do not need to go back to again (once is great and a second time was good but there is no need to go back a third). While we were there my parents and I took a day trip to Cordoba and I enjoyed going to there again especially since the weather was perfect unlike when I went with my program and it was raining and cold and overall miserable the entire time we were there. Also by the time we went to Cordoba I was able to speak a little bit.
Three days after arriving in Granada we headed to what would be my new home for two months this summer, Madrid. By this point I was able to speak perfectly fine, yep right when I get to a city where someone can get around with English I am able to speak. So I wasn't able to show off my Spanish skills to my parents as I wanted to. Our time in Madrid was overall really nice, besides it being extremely cold, which we weren't prepared for. We got to see most of the touristy things in Madrid and we also got to explore some of the surrounding areas of Madrid. We spent the morning of one day visiting El Escorial and some other place that I can't remember right now and then spent that afternoon in Toledo.
After about 10 days of traveling around Spain with my parents we headed to a place that I called home for two months last summer and my favorite city in the entire world- London. This also marked the first time since I left the U.S. that I would be entering an English speaking country. And yes it was extremely weird!! My trip to London was a vacation but my main objective was to look at some universities for graduate schools. Unfortunately there were not many that had organized tours so my mom and I just walked around the campuses by ourselves. However, one did have a tour and I was glad that I was able to do something that was organized especially since I had not started to visit universities for graduate schools prior to this.
Before I knew it the five days had come and gone and I was heading to the airport to head to Madrid. Little did I know on the drive there that I did in fact have two more days in London, which was not want I wanted. My plan was to get to Madrid on Friday, which left two full days to relax and get somewhat settled down before I started my first day of work. Yeah, that didn't happen; there was a problem at the airport and my flight was canceled so I ended up heading to Madrid on Sunday. I did not have a lot of time to get settled in before I went to work the following day but I tried to make the best of it. I was spending two months in Madrid, I would like someone to find something about that to complain about because I can't :)
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