Still Behind... But Still Here!

My dad keeps telling me how behind he is with all of his wedding videos he still has to finish... I feel the same way with this blog. So here's to you, Dad, and to those known and unknown followers out there gaining insight from my travels. ;) I need a life or death situation or something to keep this blog a rollin' like the pit and the pendulum haha. Anyway, I will try to catch you up on my past 2 weeks or so, and from here on out I've vowed to at least write a little something every day, even if it's just for 15 minutes. I at least love being busy here in Spain. There's always something to do. Enough blabbering though. Here's what I've been doing!

Almost 2 weeks ago, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend an authentic flamenco performance in a pretty much hidden little bar near the edge of the city. I wrote about it in my journal that night because my Internet was broken, so I will post that journal entry on here later tonight. One word though: AWESOME!

That same week on Friday (el 10 de octubre), Phil, Erika, and I went to another beach. This time we went to Málaga, which is on the Costa de la Sol a.k.a. Mediterranean Sea side. I was crossing my fingers when we boarded the train, because the forecast told me to expect rain, rain, and more rain all day. On the way there, I saw some small mountains off in the distance. The sun was rising and breaking through the clouds, fighting to bring all of us daylight. It was breath-taking, but I couldn't get any good pictures through the train window. There was an interesting red splatter spot on the window that made me wonder if the conductor possibly hit someone...just kidding. We arrived at Málaga and it was cloudy and extremely windy; not too promising at first. We first visited a Cathedral. "Cuando en España..." It was big...of grandieur nature...you know how those Catholics are... Check out some of the pictures when I upload the album. =)Málaga is situated in a mountainous region, and there was a fort on the top of one mountain that we decided to trek up to. Once I post the photo album later, you'll get to see a glimpse of the amazing view we had. It was the highest point in the city. Of course a sea port would have a fort up there! The next day my hind parts were extremely sore from the climb, and I decided it was time to get back into shape... But that's for a new blog. Back to Málaga!

After descending from the fortress, we saw ruins of an ancient Roman outdoor amphitheatre..."This is older than the United States..." I keep telling myself with all the amazing stuff I see: the ruins, the cathedrals, the cobbled stones I walk on down winding streets, the buildings... SO much history.

After that, we went to a Pablo Picasso's museum in Málaga. Oh...forgot to tell you... It's the birthplace of Picasso! (Antonio Banderas too...) Some of his artwork made me think "Wow I wish I was famous just by drawing/painting like this!" He really was an innovator though. Pablo Picasso, I salute you.

The rest of the day was spent sitting at the beach with the vicious waves crashing in caused by the Mediterranean winds. It was pretty sweet. The water was definitely chilly, but some crazies still attempted to swim. We all just layed there with our iPods listening to our favorite music and taking it in. Another relaxing day after a long, fun week. Mom and Emily, you might notice a little 'pug-nosed pup' that ran up to me and started licking me. I barely had time to pull out my camera and capture the culprit before he scurried away... "Otis Otis Otis Otis..." =)

We took the train home after that and had already decided to go out on the town together when we arrived in Seville, so we went to our favorite bar/restaurant, La Abaceria, and enjoyed some of the best main courses Spain has to offer.

The rest of the weekend in Seville was definitely rain, rain, and more rain... Saturday night I went to see the movie "Quemar Después de Leer," or "Burn After Reading," for those of you Cohen Bros fans out there. I'm sure it was...interesting...in English, because I thought it was...well...interesting...in Spanish haha. I walked around the city after that, just listening to some chill music and knowing it was IC's homecoming that night. It goes without saying I was very homesick. I miss you all back at home!

One weekend blog down, another week/weekend to go. I'm going to get this thing caught up. For now though, I have to go to the University. ¡Adios!

¡Qué divertido!

Well it's been busy fun here in Seville the past week. Every day, I want to record all my goings on but I keep getting caught up in Seville life. Little by little "poco a poco" I am going to keep this blog alive, because I know there's at least a handful of people out there that enjoy reading about my time here. With that preface being said, hop aboard the rollercoaster. Here we go.

Friday, October 3 (el 3 de octubre)(el cumpleaños de mi padre!): I went to the beach with Erika and Phil. Cádiz, España to be exact. It was a perfect day to get away from the busy streets of Seville and take in some fresh air. I'm not the best with words at times, so I'll let my photo album tell the story. http://picasaweb.google.com/rdbishop06/CDiz?authkey=57EOt3aufY8

Everything was breathtaking. Within a 3 month span, I have seen for the first times the Atlantic from the west side (South Carolina with Em!) AND now the east side (Spain)!!! We all definitely needed the break. We stayed at the beach most of the day. I am proud to say that, yes, I DID in fact go topless haha. Touring the city, we saw some amazing flora, a few stray fauna, and some amazing architecture (Cathedral photos).

We arrived back in Seville that night around 10 p.m. I got home just in time for some dinner, and then I went out on the town with my 'sister' and her friends. I had so much fun meeting/talking to all of her Sevillano friends. They are all very kind and outgoing and love meeting new people. We went to a posh dance club called "Antique," although that's the definition of a irony, because the place looked like it was from the future. The music was bumping, I had my dancing shoes on, and everybody had an amazing time. I can't wait to go out with all of them again soon.

Saturday night, I met up with Phil and Erika to share some drinks, tapas, and conversation. After that, I walked for a while around Seville playing some chill music on the iPod and taking it all in.

Sunday (el 5 de octubre): Wow was this day awesome. I was expecting it to be the usual day of rest, but wow was I in for a treat. My mom informed me that we would be traveling to her brother's house for lunch. It was located about 10 minutes outside the city in a residential district that reminded me of life in Arizona: same style of houses, cactuses everywhere, peaceful.
Her family was amazing. Nothing short of Sevillanos. They took me in like I was one of the family. Pepe, Pepi's brother, thought that Ryan was too hard of a name to pronounce, so he said I would be Manolo from then on. Haha I loved him. We had a barbecue on the back patio that consisted of just about every good food imaginable: shrimp, sardines, salad, chips, chicken salad, steak... everything was delicious. Pepe kept handing me food and telling me "¡Come!" (pronounced 'CO-may' = eat!) and kept asking if I needed another cerveza. What a guy haha! After eating until I could barely move, he took me inside to watch some TV while all the ladies (pepi, ana, pepi's sister, and pepi's sister-in-law) sat outside chatting the day away. Pepe and I watched some fútbol and then "The Terminal" en español. He fell asleep sitting there. I followed suit. When we woke up, there was some movie on about venemous snakes attacking a village. In total, we spent about 7 hours at the house that day. When we were saying our goodbyes, Pepe told me to hold on, went back into the house, and came back out with a gift for me. A Spanish-made leather wallet. I love it! Yet again, what a guy!

What a weekend! They dont' get much better than that here in Seville... Memories I'll have forever.

¡Catching Up!

Wow what a week and a half it has been here in Spain. I can't say "here in Sevilla" because I haven't been here every day! That's right, I did a bit of traveling last weekend. Let's get a quick recap of all my goings on first. I'll try my best to remember everything exciting from the past 10 days or so... I've been so immersed in life here that I haven't had time to really sit down and put forth the effort to write a few words. But here we go:

Friday the... 26th of September (el 26 de septiembre) was an amazing night. Phil, Erika and I had the privilege of going out to an amazing tapas bar in the heart of Seville with Macarena, one of our advisors. Dinner was paid for by ISEPS (our program) so we ordered some of the best tapas we could get. I started off the meal with an amazing glass of wine (copa de vino fino). Then we ordered some amazing plates of just about everything: Meat that was cooked in whiskey (solomillo al whisky) and served with fries (patatas fritas). Fried calamari (calamar frita). Meat filled tapas called croquetas. There were some others that were amazing as well. We had about 6 or 7 plates between the 4 of us. Then I finished off the meal with some white chocolate cheesecake seen here. MM MM MM! It was delicious! My advisor was amazed at the amount of food that ate haha! I literally finished off every plate til everything was gone! I wasn't about to let some amazing free Spanish food go to waste! After the meal I still wasn't full either, and Macarena said to me, "¡¿Quieres una pizza?!" I laughed. After the meal, we walked around Seville for a while, and stopped in another bar to share a drink and rest for a bit, until we returned home. What a night! I told my family that night that it was one of the top 5 meals of my life. I still agree with that. SO much fun and SO much good food!

Saturday the 27th (el 27 de septiembre): I slept in that day, even though I probably should've run off all the food I ate the night before. I WAS planning on meeting Phil and Erika at the bar we had made our home, La Abaceria. The guys like us there, but I'll get to that in a minute. Anyway, Phil was planning on watching "un partido de fútbol" at the bar, and I WAS going to go, except when I was about to leave, my sister's friend, Jesús, walked in with a Wii and Playstation3... Yeah you can probably guess what comes next. Of course I stayed home and played "videojuegos" with them. He had this really cool salsa dancing game for the Wii that I naturally was horrible at but it was amazing fun. After we all took turns playing that, we hooked up the Playstation3 and played the game SingStar, which was popular in Europe before it ever came to the US. All I have to say with that is, people would probably pay big money to see me sing Britney Spears' "Hit Me Baby, One More Time." That was my Saturday night. Good times.

Sunday the 28th (el 28 de septiembre) I did a bit of walking around Seville, getting lost in the winding streets, and finding my way out with a new perspective on all the little things... For example: Find me a street in a city with over 1,000,000 people in the US where you hear no cars, no people, NOTHING. I found many of those on my winding walks to nowhere in Seville that day. Bliss.

Monday through Thursday (el 29 de septiembre al 2 de octubre): Classes at "la universidad" started that week. So far I like all of them very much. In one class about Roman and Greek civilizations we get to watch movies like "300," "Troy," "Clash of the Titans," etc. in Spanish and talk about what is fact and what is fiction about every movie. Then I have 2 classes that really go in depth about writing/understanding/speaking the Spanish language. Some people might call them boring, but I consider myself to be not "some people." I'm a nerd. I like them. Then on Monday and Wednesday nights I have my Flamenco class! So far we've only learned about the history of Flamenco and listened to a few examples of the music, but I can't wait until we go interactive and hit up a Flamenco Club to experience it all first hand! Outside of class, I went to La Abaceria with my friends a few nights to have some tapas and share some drinks. One night, Phil and I explained to Erika why women will never understand men haha. That was priceless.

That's all for this blog. My next blog will be dedicated to last weekend, which was one of the most amazing weekends of my life.