mama...donde estas sus dientes?

Mama...donde estas sus dientes?
Translation: Mama...where are you teeth?

I will explain later....let me first start with the fact that it is FREEEEEEZING HERE!!! i know what you're all thinking...ya right...you're in the south of Spain and you're complaining that its cold..but really it is. I did not pack for this weather- I packed for summer...well summer isnt going to come until march. Until then I shall forever be cold. I am sick right now, and my mom says I'm sick because I don't wear socks in the house. Shes so cute.

On Friday night Enrique- my mama's nephew from Paris- came to visit for the weekend. He spent a year studying at University of Seville, hes 21, so he knows a lot of people in the city. What a great opportunity! So Friday night we went out with him and met some of his friends from the University and went for tapas and drinks. It was so nice to be around real Spanish people and not americans. We made really good friend with them, and now we hang out with them all the time!!! Enrique went home yesterday (monday) but Pablo- one of the guys we met...we're going to tapas with him and some of his other friends on friday! Its so exciting!

On saturday we traveled about an hour and a half from seville to the city of Cortoba. If any of you have looked at the pictures I have recently uploaded on the google cite you will agree with me when I say Cortoba is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The history and the architecture of the buildings is just so unbelievable. I mean really...the United States is so lame!! We had a few encounters with the gypsy women in Cortoba...they were begging with their babies in the streets. Don't worry though- I was smart and I knew to say no!! I learned in my popular culture class yesterday that its forbidden in Spain to beg with a child under the age of 16.

On Saturday night all of my roommates and I went out to a few bars to celebrate my one roommates birthday. We went to this one bar that we call "the bar with two fabios" do i even have to explain?? haha. anyways..when we went in we were basically the only people there and we were speaking Spanish to them and we made friends with them and we got free drinks and shots haha it was so fun. they were taking shots with us. Now they know us by name its so great. Its like my own little 19th hole dad- except there isn't a back door. We left the bar con dos fabios around 130 and headed to another bar next door called Big Ben, its notorious for being an American bar, so all the creepy spanish men go there to pick up american girls. We just went for one drink and then went back to fabios. By this time fabios was super crowed and when we walked back in the bar tenders were like AHHH our friends and came right over and served us! haha its so fun being a celebrity!!!

Long story short...it was a loooooooooong night. Lots of walking and lots of not knowing where we are. I met two guys from wales..that was fun. We ended up at thie Discotech near the cathedral around 3 AM....there was some girl drama...gotta love it...and we didnt get home until 430. Im pretty sure Im still recuperating. nonetheless it was a fun night.

The rebajas (sales) are almost over...I think i explained how they have incredible sales for the whole month of january...like incredible sales...but soon they will end and it will be all window shopping for this girl. Im meeting sexton today to go shopping by the cathedral because my shoes almost have a hole in them from all the walking we do. YIKES!

My roommates and I are starting to plan our trips that we are going to take this semester...so far for me its looking like italy, the canary islands, and england/wales. My one roommate is going to Paris in march..but us CEA girls have a trip that weekend planned for us by our program so we cant go with. I think paris might be overrated anyways...who knows. I really really want to go to Greece, but I think that is a trip Im going to wait on and do when im a little older.

I feel like this blog is muy abburido (very boring). not a ton of exciting stuff has really happened these past few days...but I will try to update more often. I know I was slacking...oops!!

Well on that note...i'm off to go study my spanish vocab.

I hope everyone is well-

AHH I almost forgot...so about mama's teeth...the other night mama went out for a late lunch with her friends and she came back and she was pretty drunk and it was so so sooo funny! and shes talking to us and I am looking at her mouth and I realize that her two front teeth are missing!!!! It was so hard not to stare at her mouth but I couldnt help it! So now we have a big joke between us girls (minus mama of course) and we say mama..donde estas sus dientes? of course we dont say it when she can hear us...but we think she jsut forgot to put them back in. That was the first time we had ever seen that. it was too funny!!! I'm laughing just thinking about it. oh mama!!

PICTURES!!!!

I have created a website that I will be uploading my photos to every once and a while. If your interested please take a look. Keep in mind though...my pictures hardly do Seville any justice..you really have to see the city for yourself. it is MAGNIFICENT!!! enjoy!!!!

the website is:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Sabby1028

I miss you all dearly! TE AMO!!!

The first day of school

Today was the first day of classes. I had class from 9:00 until 3:45 with no break!!! it felt like I was back in high school. I'm definitely not used to being in school for that long with no break. All my semesters at college I have had a long break between classes for naps and lunch and all the necessary things of course...oh and most important..breaks to do homework that you didn't finish from the night before. Its a beautiful thing. But here...no breaks.

Here are the classes I am taking:

Spanish Language
Architecture and Painting in Seville
Seville: Past and Present
Popular Culture in Andalucia: Bull Fights, Flamenco Dancing, and Holy Week
Dealing with Immigration: A case study

I have the first 4 classes Mondays and Wednesdays and then I only have 1 class - dealing with immigration on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Needless to say I will not be going out on Sunday and Tuesday nights.

I love my spanish professor. He is so great! his name is Jesus Diaz and hes so funny! He really wants us to learn the language and I'm really looking forward to his class and his teaching style. All my other classes should be good...lots of field trips which is always a must but I'm not looking forward to history. I hate US history (sorry Aunt Colleen) let alone the history of Spain. Its very confusing and really boring. UGH! but my only other choice for that time block if I don't want to take history is international business. I don't think I have to say anything else- I'm clearly staying in the history class.

This afternoon Rachel and I walked to El Parque Principes which is about 15-20 minutes from our apartment and met Christy (one of my best friends from Westmont who is also studying in Seville for the semester). It was so great to see her! I haven't seen her since October when I was back in California visiting. It met a few of her friends and then we walked and talked for a while and did some window shopping on some of the high streets in my neighborhood. Come to find out...she only lives about 20-25 minutes from me so I'm happy about that. We're hopefully going to meet for a weekly cafe con leche (coffee with milk) date once a week to keep each other updated on the happenings in Seville.

Mi mama's nephew is visiting from France this weekend so its fun having him around. He's 21 and he speaks Spanish and French and a little english so its fun practicing our Spanish with him and helping him learn english. Every day my Spanish gets better and better. Its so great to see the improvements even with just a few days of being here.

OH!!!! did I tell you that we have a bide in our apartment? i can't remember if I already wrote about that but I still get excited every time I go into the bathroom and see it! I haven't used it yet..and I probably never will but its still so exciting to see it every day. I just think bides are the greatest thing ever. I don't know why but for some reason ever since Andrea and I were in Spanish 1 together in high school with Grace Lytle we have been obsessed with bides.

que mas que mas (what else, what else)

I can't think of anything else thats really important or interesting at the moment so I will leave you with that. I'm going to upload my pictures so stay tuned.

HASTA LUEGO!

I was just kidding...

so....in Spain....they definitely don't joke around the way we do in the united states. Those of you who know me well enough know that I'm a pretty sarcastic person...well I decided that I wanted to try to tease mi mama and so I made a joke last night at the dinner table. Not a good idea...i definitely don't recommend trying to tease someone when there is an obvious language barrier. She didn't really understand that I was joking and got angry with me and today everyone got chocolate with their lunch and I didn't get any. WOOPS!!! so this afternoon when I got home from school I went and apologized to her and made sure she knew I was just kidding and she told me that if I didn't joke around in the house it would be really boring so thankfully shes not as angry as I thought. PHEW!!! maybe tomorrow there will be chocolate with my sandwich. keep your fingers crossed!!!

Yesterday was the most random day of my life for sure...here's how it all started...

We slept until 11 o'clock..a.k.a. Megan woke us up at 11, and if she didn't....we probably wouldn't have woken up. We got ready and then all of us walked to the cathedral for a tour. We met the other students on our program and began our tour of the Catedral de Sevilla (The Cathedral of Seville). It is most likely the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my entire life. We started off in the courtyard. Its so pretty and there are so many orange trees, but in Spain you can't eat the oranges off of the trees because they are too bitter. They export all their oranges to make orange marmalade. Good to know because the oranges look so inviting and I always want to pick them off los arboles pero...i cant. Here's where it gets good...so as we are walking into the cathedral to continue our tour and who comes walking out...BRIANNA MURPHY!!! (for those of you who don't know brianna and I were friends when we were kids and we went to high school together) it just goes to show how small the world is...but wait it gets better.

Despues de almuerza y las siestas (after lunch and naps) megan and I went shopping because she wanted to get a new pair of black boots (boots are extremely popular here) When we were walking home all of a sudden I see this girl running toward me with her arms out....then I realized its Mara...a girl I used to go to Westmont with who studied here last year and has since decided to move back and live and work here. it really is a small world!!! I couldn't believe it. I'm still flabbergasted.

p.s. I'm pretty sure mi mama makes the best mashed potatoes in all of Spain...I mean my mom makes the best in the united states, but my senora definitely gets the award for Spain..hands down!

stay tuned...my pictures will be coming to a theater near you. Check here for details :)

ESTOY AQUI!!!!!

finalmente estoy aqui!!!!!

believe it or not, i have wireless internet access in my apartment! i'm pretty stoked about that.

So where to begin..i suppose the beginning is the best place...

After a 16 hour trip, I arrived in Seville on Friday! CEA (my program) picked us up from the airport and brought us to our hotel right in the heart of the "old town." we stayed at the Hotel Giralda Friday night and Saturday night. On Saturday we went on guided "historical" tour with local Spaniards but it turned into a pub crawl...real historical huh? I mean im not complaining it was just funny. We went to this one bar that was just tucked away in a little ally and we got to see a flamenco dancer. It was the most incredible thing I have ever seen in my life. Seriously, the intensity, and the passion is just out of this world. When I grow up, I'm going to become a flamenco dancer FOR SURE! We had sangria...which is my new favorite drink...and then continued on to a few other places. that being said I didn't get back to the hotel until around 2:30 AM but in Spain thats early! People don't start going out until around midnight.

today (Sunday) we moved into where we were going to live for the semester. I'm living with 3 other girls- Rachel (from Northern California), Meagan (from Pennsylvania) and Michelle (from Colorado). So far so good we all get along great. We're all living in one room...which i know sounds crazy, but believe it or not its not too too bad. We have limited closet/drawer/shelf space but its bigger than you would think. Its nice. It will be fun to all be in the same room. There are also two other girls living here. They go to Texas Tech- Texas Tech has a school here in Seville. So all in all there are 6 girls living here with just one woman...our mama!! I'm so excited that she wants us to call her mama and not senora because i just think thats more fun. She also has a dog..a pit bull/boxer mix and hes huge and really slobbery and believe it or not..HE EATS PAPER!!! and he likes it!!!! she was giving him a muffin this morning and then gave him the wrapper as well. its too funny because now we can actually say the dog ate my homework! haha too funny!

Mi mama is a Spanish professor at the University of Seville so the rule in the house is that we are only allowed to speak English in our room and only Spanish in the rest of the house. thats good though because that will really help me improve my skills. She doesn't speak much English...but its good.

what else...what else....i feel like i have so much to say but i don't even know where to start.

Classes start on Wednesday, but we're going to go to the school tomorrow to do some stuff and to try to get our barrings on the neighborhood.

OH!!! you will all be so proud to know that I ate paella today!!! YOU READ RIGHT!! I TRIED NEW FOOD!!!!! it was good....one of my roommates doesn't like fish and is allergic to seafood so i don't feel too bad that i don't like seafood either so our mama made one with seafood and one without. so of course...i had the one with seafood.. HAHA kidding.

I will post pictures soon.

TE AMO!!!

p.s. I have a cell phone here in Spain and I can receive calls for free. If you want the number just email me shiggin1@ithaca.edu

If you need a good laugh...keep reading

so here's a good one. Its Thursday morning ( the morning of my departure) and I wake up as usual and turn on my computer. Those of you who know me well enough know that my homepage is CNN.com. Its a good thing and a bad thing really. Most of the time it is good- it keeps me up to date with whats going on in the world because heaven forbid, the daughter of a sports editor would ever pick up a newspaper. haha just kidding pops. anyways, this morning was a little different. As CNN loaded I saw that the top news story of the morning was that there had been an "incident" at the London Heathrow Airport this morning, involving a British Airways Flight.

OH MY GOSH!!!!

I proceed to read the story to find out it was a flight coming from China, and it missed the runway. All 136 passengers were evacuated and no one was killed...THANK GOODNESS. But now lets talk about this....what are the chances the morning before I fly...TO THE LONDON AIRPORT...ON BRITISH AIRWAYS...that there is an "INCIDENT." i mean i seriously sat there for a good minute saying to myself, this has got to be some kind of a sick joke..and let me tell you...its definitely NOT FUNNY!!!! if i didn't already have butterflies, now there are alligators in my stomach and they are NOT HAPPY!!!

Of course the first thing i proceeded to do was to call my mom and tell her the wonderful news and what did she do...you guess right...shes hysterical laughing....called my dad....he did the same. I suppose it is pretty funny...ironic rather....and yes..i'll admit..once i regained my composure I did laugh a bit...but only a bit!

hahaha reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaallllllllll funny.

It has arrived...

I leave tomorrow.
The journey begins in Boston at 6pm. Then on to London. Then to Madrid and then to Sevilla. 16 hours of traveling- no sweat right? haha Its going to be a looooooooong haul- thats for sure.

I'm not sure how I'm feeling right now...I'm nervous, but super excited, and a little anxious too. I would be lying if I said I didn't already have butterflies in my stomach- but those of you who know me well enough know that there is never a day that I don't have a stomach ache so I'm definitely used to it.

Packing wasn't too too bad....actually thats an understatement. Packing SUCKED! but its about 90% done as of right now, and I'm feeling pretty good about it. There is plenty of time tomorrow to put the finishing touches on everything before we head out.

I can't believe the day has come...it came A LOT faster than I thought it would-

Ladies and gentlemen fasten your seat belts...its going to be a wild ride!

Procrastination

I leave in 6 days. The question remains...have I started packing yet? the answer...a simple no. Usually I like to pack because that means that I'm going on a trip, and who doesn't like going on a trip? Well the truth of the matter is, I can't bring myself to pack because I'm not quite sure if I'm ready to embark on this new journey. As I told Andrea last night on the phone, my goal is to not pack Wednesday night...but knowing me, I will probably put it off until then and then drive myself insane with the stress of packing for 5 months! It's true...I do it to myself, and I never learn. But hey, life would be no fun if we always learned from our mistakes and never made new mistakes. Mistakes are fun, and leaving packing until the last minute is definitely NOT a fun mistake. Is this even making sense? who knows....take it all with a grain of salt.