HELLO AFRICA

Today we left Sevilla and started our travel to Tarifa. We stopped in Gibraltar to take a quick tour. Gibraltar is on the south coast of Spain and is owned by the UK. You can view Spain, Gibraltar, and Africa from Gibraltar's high view points which is awesome!! We traveled through Gibraltar and got to see a cave, and even stopped to visit with some monkeys!

When we arrived in Tarifa, the first thing I wanted to do was FINALLY go to the beach! Tarifa is the most southern point in Europe and the beaches are beautiful! There were so many kite surfers and the beach was almost empty! Women in Europe are not afraid to hang out at the beach topless thats for sure. Don't worry Dad, I didn't participate in that cultural experience!!

I'm definitely starting to get home sick, REALLY missing american food (especially momma gs), and really really really missing oliver! The days go by so fast and we do so much each day that it helps keep me busy and having fun so I don't think about missing home so much!

Dancing with the bulls

Who knew a cattle breeding ranch could be so fun?? We started the day at a cattle breeding ranch right outside of Sevilla. They told us how they teach their bulls to fight in famous bull fights and even let us travel through the fields where they raise over 600 bulls. They pulled us on wagons by a tractor and we were able to get incredibly close to the bulls. Kenzie narrated the whole experienced in her best Steve Irwin impersonation. We pulled over and had lunch literally INSIDE one of the fields with over 50 bulls inside...with no fence or anything separating us. At one point a herd of bulls were no more than 25 feet from us. By the end of the lunch, a few of the bulls were staring me down so I stayed close to the wagon just in case I needed a quick getaway.

Before dinner our group decided to purchase tickets to a flamenco show. Flamenco music and dance is famous in Spain, but it originated in Sevilla so of course we had to go on our last night in Sevilla! Flamenco dancing is basically just incredibly loud and fast tap dancing. Most of the dances told a story and it was so fun to watch! I practiced my flamenco dancing the whole way home. Can't wait to bring my Flamenco dancing back to America!!!! Be sure to ask and I'd be happy to show ya some moves

Southwestern Spain

A five hour nap (I'm sorry I mean bus ride) later, we are FINALLY in southwestern Spain! I can already tell this will be my favorite part of the country. We left Madrid at 8 am and took a pit stop in Cordoba for lunch. When we pulled up to Cordoba, it was POURING down rain. Still groggy from my nap, I was not too happy about walking around in the rain. Instead of letting the weather affect our time, we walked around the city square to local shops. Cordoba is known for it's leather so we were sure to check out some local leather shops on our way to find some food. We walked around the city square and even got to walk across a 2,000 year old Roman Bridge. I love walking around the cities here. Who cares if I look like a tourist everywhere with my digital camera???

We left Cordoba and headed to Sevilla where we will stay for the next two days. We got into the city and checked into our hotel kind of late so we grabbed a bite to eat and then headed back to the hotel to watch the huge soccer game that happened tonight. It was basically equivalent to the super bowl in America. It was fun to watch and cheer for the Real Madrid team. Of course I accidentally hit the remote with my elbow and made the TV turn off on the winning goal. I'm coming home with a Real Madrid tshirt and jersey so I guess you could call me a fan now!

Teleferico

Days seem to go by faster in Spain, that's for sure! Today we had a short field trip in the morning and then we had the rest of the day free to do whatever we wanted. I heard of a Spanish dish called paella and I've been dying to try it. There's a tiny restaurant that specializes in paellas behind our hotel so we decided to check it out for lunch. I picked the chicken paella and it was delicious! (once again I forgot to take a picture so I stole one from google). Its yellow rice with green beans and peppers. The rice was creamy with a yummy flavor

Last week I researched different things to do in Madrid and I found a place called Teleferico which sounded awesome! It's basically a sky bucket that goes around the city of Madrid in the air. I wrote down the address just in case we could find time to go. With the help of the hotel receptionist, we picked the best metro route to use. Unfortunately the street that Teleferico is on is cut off from the map. So once we got off the metro we were just kind of wandering around. I saw some nice looking ladies and asked them for help. I spoke in Spanish and they actually thought I was a local for .5 seconds!! They ended up being tourists too and responded with no hablo espanol. I'm pretty impressed with myself that other tourists thought I was a local. After rejoicing that we actually found someone that spoke English, they helped us find Teleferico on a map they had. It was awesome and only 5 euros to ride it!

Thanks for the memories Madrid, but I'm ready to take on Southwestern Spain tomorrow!

Professional Metro Rider

This trip is going by so fast. I can not believe I only have nine more days here! I love Spain more and more each day. Today we went to the Digital Business Enterprise show. Not gonna lie, this was probably one of the coolest business field trips we went on. I think I liked it because it was interactive and not just a presentation (I tend to get a little sleepy during those). There were businesses from all over the world there with new electronic products that make doing business easier. We were able to walk to each stand and talk to the different businesses personally which made it pretty cool! After the show we hopped on the metro and went shopping. (I've officially had to cut myself off from shopping) We've rode the metro so much in the past few days I'm starting to feel like a local. It's incredibly easy to get pick pocketed on the metro though. There's so many people packed on to each bus that it makes stealing incredibly easy! We've been extra careful to keep our hand on our purses and hold it tight. It would be just my luck to get  my passport stolen and not be able to make it home. We ate at a little restaurant on the shopping strip. I ordered a chicken and bacon sandwich that was probably bigger than my head. I cleaned the plate, and once again my stomach spoke before my brain so I didn't get to snap a picture of it. In Spain you can't get water for free at restaurants and coke comes in the cute old fashioned glass bottles. In most places, Sangria is cheaper than coke and water. (this is a bonus in my book). After shopping for a while, we stopped at a well known churro restaurant where you can actually watch them make the churros!

We then took another trip to the park by our hotel to eat dinner. Only one more day left in Madrid! I'm excited to start the fun touristy field trips in southern Spain next week instead of the business and professional field trips we've had this week!

By George we did it!

As much fun as this trip has been so far, I am beyond exhausted! We pack a lot into our days with very little sleep, but at least I'm getting my moneys worth! Today we had a field trip to Mercamadrid at the lovely time of 6 am. Its basically a huge market where you can rent space to sell fish, meat, fruits, and vegetables to businesses. We started off in the fish market and boy was it stinky. I had to breath through my mouth only to avoid gagging. However, it was pretty interesting! We were given plastic shoe covering to keep our feet and shoes from touching the slippery floor filled with fish guts.

We had some free time in the afternoon so Kendall and I took a nice nap and then hit the town for some wondering and to grab a bite of food. We took a map and a metro pass and we were on our way! We headed to Parque del Retiro which is a quick walk from our hotel. There is a lake where you can rent row boats and many restaurants to eat outside. The weather in Madrid this week is low 70s and sunny so eating outside is a must! I chose a sandwich to eat and Spain's famous churros with chocolate sauce for dessert

After wandering around the park for a little bit, we looked at the map and found a nearby shopping center that we wanted to go to. We mapped out our route and even got to pass the Gate to Madrid on the way there!

We shopped around at local clothing stores and then decided to head home before the sun went down just to be safe. The walk back to the hotel from the mall didn't seem like too fun so we hopped on the Metro and found our way back to the hotel. The metro here is just like Marta in Atlanta. We definitely impressed ourselves by navigating around the city through maps and the metro by ourselves. By George we did it! With no trouble at all. (Don't worry mom we were safe and careful) We rewarded ourselves with watching The Bachelorette before bed and that seems like the best kind of reward to me!

Day 2

The first week of our Spain trip is more educational field trips. Although they've been fun so far, I'm really looking forward to next week when we travel to Southwestern Spain! Today we ate breakfast at the hotel and headed to the Madrid airport for our first field trip of the day. The architecture of the buildings in Madrid are beautiful. This was the ceiling of the Madrid airport.

We were able to see behind the scenes operations of the airport. My favorite part was seeing the mechanics used to transport and screen checked luggage.

Our second field trip of the day was to see the FAIN elevator corporate office which was surprisingly interesting. We talked about how to manage effectively and the importance of good customer service and happy employees (since all the students on this trip are business students). We have a tour guide named Roberto who planned our trip and takes us to most of our field trips. I asked him today if there were any restaurants near our hotel that he would recommend and he suggested a restaurant called pinnochios. After our trip to FAIN, a few of my friends and I decided to try out his recommendation and I'm sure glad we did!! I ate a pasta dish called Checca which was a tomato base dish with fresh mozzarella and basil (with sangria of course). We ate out on the terrace and it was beautiful scenery! The restaurant is right in front of a museum on cobblestone streets with locals playing different musical instruments in the background.

After dinner we headed to local bakery to grab breakfast for tomorrow morning since we have a field trip really early....so early the continental breakfast at the hotel will not be ready. I settled with a muffin. Ready to take on tomorrow but not ready to wake up at 5 AM. I can already tell a nap may be well needed tomorrow! After all, it is vacation!

I also finally got some pictures of our hotel!

Jet lag is real

Hola from Spain! After traveling all night with only a few short naps on the plane, the first thing I wanted to do when we checked into our hotel was take a long and well deserved snooze before our first field trip in the afternoon. Unfortunately we arrived to the hotel at 8 AM and we were told our rooms would not be available until 3 PM. The hotel kindly opened up one room for us to lock our suitcases away in so that we would be free to roam around the city without lugging heavy suitcases around. My friends and I decided to find a well known market area we heard about on a map. It was about a twenty minute walk from the hotel so it was a perfect way to waste time until our rooms were ready. The market was HUGE! They sold everything from keychains, to hand painted plates, to clothes, to straw hats. It was a fun distraction to the jetlag that was definitely starting to kick in. A six hour time difference is no joke.

At this point I started to realize how badly my group stood out. I can tell people are talking about us because I can hear them say "americanos" when they walk by us and not in a very nice tone. However, overall everyone we've had to talk to has been so nice, patient, and helpful. We headed back to the hotel and I grabbed a slice of pizza from a pizzaria outside the hotel. I would've taken a picture of my first official meal in Spain but unfortunately my tummy spoke before my brain. We checked into our rooms and took a short hour nap before getting ready for our field trip. We had a bus tour of the city of Madrid. The city is beautiful and definitely needs more than one tour in order to take everything in. I was able to snap some pictures of different buildings, sculptures, and cathedrals out the bus window.

 Bull Fighting Stadium

 Madrid Soccer Stadium

 Leaning Towers

The Puerta de Alcalá

 Gate to the city of Madrid"

Cathedral in Spain

And right about this time.....the jetlag hit me real hard. I'm a naturally very tired person but this was just absolute exhaustion. After the bus tour, we walked (more like zombie walked) to a little restaurant on small cobblestone roads that were adorable!!!! I felt like I was in the Lizzy McGuire movie when she travels to Europe and she rides the motorcycles on the cobblestone paths because that is exactly what Spain looks like! I now realize while everyone in Spain is so skinny! Walking this much everywhere can be a serious work out. I'm embarrassed to say I'm 100% positive I will be sore tomorrow.

We ended the night at the restaurant for an unlimited tapas and sangria dinner! It was delicious of course (but man was that sangria yummy). From what I could tell, tapas are just small dishes kind of like appetizers in the US. We had ham and cheese as seen in the picture below, fried calamari, a spanish omelette called tortilla espanola, something that resembled mozzarella sticks, salad, and bread.

After dinner I was basically skipping back to the hotel to take a shower, write the new blog post, and now crawl into bed. Excited for a new day tomorrow after actually getting a full nights rest! Almost equally as excited to get rid of this jet lag.