What's Happening with...
School
Exams are next week (March 9-12)! The past two weeks of classes moved quite quickly as we are able to cover a unit or chapter in one two hour class. The school designed the four days of classes during exams week to be split into two days for review and two days for examination. Monday and Tuesday, March 9-10, are days designated for classes to be about review and receiving study guides. Wednesday and Thursday, March 11-12, will be for exams with a two hour period for each test. Two of my exams will be essays written in class and the other two are a combination of writing and multiple choice.
The school also hosted a paella and sangria cooking class, probably Spain's most famous food and drink. Paella is a type of rice dish with many vegetables and seafood items and sangria is a drink made from red wine, lemon soda, and a variety of fresh fruit slices added in along with cinnamon.
Host Family
As I get to know them more, my host family continuously becomes more fun to be around. Sometimes my host mom will come sit on my bed in the afternoon to chat about her day at work or she will sit on the couch after dinner with me and check out my blog page. Arturo will talk about soccer (what's new), and Aitana and and I will talk about her plans for going to university next year and how her classes are going.
Aitana asks that when I make plans travel on the weekend that I tell her early on so she can see if she can make her own travel plans since I won't be in the house. When I was in Gibraltar last weekend she and her daughter went to their vacation apartment on the beach on the coast of Spain and suggested we should all go one weekend. She says the American students she has in her home always inspire her to want to travel more.
My family is planning to visit for spring break in mid April, but due to the current coronavirus situation in Italy my mom thought she would come visit sooner than later in case April won't be an option. My host mom kindly offered my mom could come stay with us instead of getting a hotel next week after midterms!
Travel
Travel with Friends
The weekend of February 29th four friends and I decided to rent a boat in Gibraltar and spend a night on an adorable wooden docked sailboat. We took a three hour bus from Seville down to the British territory where we dropped off our things on the boat to then walk across the border from Spain into the UK. Border patrol is known to be very relaxed here, but I was very surprised to the extent of simplicity... there were two agents who just glanced at everyone's passports as we held them up and walked through. They didn't even hold them. When I asked if they would stamp our passports they said they didn't have stamps.
The town was so interesting because it felt like we were walking through England even though we were on the southernmost tip of the Spanish peninsula. After a visit to a British grocery store we had our fix of English goods to bring home like tea, coffee, and chocolate. We also got eggs, bread and avocados to have a nice breakfast cooked on boat stove the next morning. After just one night on the cramped yet cozy boat we all decided boats were our new favourite type of stay.
Travel with School
Our first overnight trip with ICS (International College of Seville) was to the beautiful city of Granada, Spain. Granada is one of the most historically rich places in Spain because it was the last city to be reconquered by the Spanish Christian kings in 1492. It is the city that was exposed to Muslim influence for the longest amount of time in Spain and it shows in the most beautiful ways. Friday morning we took a bus to the city where we visited the famous and most visited monument in Spain called La Alhambra, a massive palace and fortress filled with gardens and beautiful architecture. We also saw the Generalife, historically used as a leisure place for the kings of Granada when they wanted to escape official palace affairs for awhile.
We went to a gorgeous Arabic bath house, tea houses and walked through the winding streets that made it seem like we were in Morocco from the building structure to what was being sold in the stores.
Since we only had one night in Granada with the school, they suggested we could stay another night on our own to have more time to see the city or even ski in the Sierra Nevada mountains, only a forty minute bus ride from where we were staying. This was the greatest tip because we decided to stay and enjoyed our day skiing on Sunday SO much.
Next week I'm planning to go to Amsterdam for the weekend with friends!