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.

Ay ay ay I am already behind on this blog. I've had computer problems all weekend, and it's been rainy here, so not much has happened, so here's my chance to catch up!

So on the 24th, I did two really fun things throughout the day. First of all, my program paid for a tour through Sevilla via double-decker bus! That was pretty fun. First-time experience there for me haha. OF COURSE I sat on the top deck! It was a beautiful day to tour the city. Unfortunately for the people on the right, there were some low-hanging limbs from trees at times that tried to clothesline them haha. Our tour started at the "Torre del Oro" which was part of a wall of defense back in the 13th century. The tour told us that the tower has been used throughout the years as a chapel, a prison, a store for gun powder and port offices. All these pictures can only attempt to capture the beauty of Seville, when really you have to be here, taking it all in to get the idea. All I can give you is a taste. We toured the main part of Seville on the east side of the Guadalquivir River for a while and then crossed over to the "old" part of Seville to the Triana district and the Isla de la Cartuja district. Of course calling it the "old" part of Seville doesn't do justice since the city is over 2000 years old itself! But here is a picture from the bus crossing one of the modern bridges that Seville has. We were on The Puente de la Barqueta and down the river you can see the amazing harp-shaped Puente de Alamillo. These bridges (5 in total) were constructed for preparation of the Expo '92, which I will discuss on another blog. All I'll say for now is they're pretty sweet to see! Then here's a picture that I took with one of my fellow ISEPS students, Erika. She along with the third of us, Phil, is from Cedarville University in Ohio. One of the last places we saw was the Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza. Built in the 18th-century, it is still used for "las corridas" (bullfights), and the matadors, like I said before, are some of the biggest celebrities here in Spain! Outside it you see horse-drawn carriages, which are located all throughout Seville for tours. We haven't done that yet, but we plan on it! We can always use a break when we walk 5 or so miles a day! Anyway, that was most of my afternoon. After the tour, I went shopping and bought some clothes that were of the European style, and I'm liking them very much. I'm still looking for that perfect pair of "zapatos" (shoes) to wear out to the "discotecas" (dance clubs)!




----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is where my day got SO much better. One of our directors, Macarena, is a HUGE futbol fan, and she had an extra ticket to the Sevilla F.C. (1 of 2 seville soccer teams) game that night! The first of us to reply got the ticket. I was second to Phil... But then during the tour, Macarena called me and said another person couldn't go, and she had ANOTHER ticket. OF COURSE I went! Phil met me at my apartment, and we walked to the game that night around 9:30. I had no idea where our seats would be, but when we followed Macarena in and she went down to the FOURTH ROW, I about fell over! It was AMAZING. The atmosphere. The perfectly green grass. The chanting of 70,000+ Spaniards for their home team. It was a sea of red and white adrenaline. Electric. The game started a little after 10 p.m. (remember we're on a later daily schedule over here) and the rumble of the crowd could probably be heard for miles. For those of you who know the "Superfan" at IC, there was definitely one of those at the game. I'm sure he goes to every game... He came walking right past us supporting the team decked out in his home team's colors and pumping up the crowd. Of COURSE I had to take a picture of the player with my favorite number! Sevilla F.C. was in white and they played a team from Barcelona (don't remember the name). Here are some more pictures of the action from the game. I captured a lot of video on my camera too and I plan on throwing together a video, but for now, enjoy the stills.

















And at the end of all the madness, Sevilla won 2-0!! They scored both goals in the 2nd half, and the crowd was going craaaaazyyy!! "OLE OLE OLE!" Here is a picture of the outside of the stadium. That is the name of the stadium on the top. It was one of the best sporting events I have EVER been to! OLE!! There had to be thousands of mopeds parked everywhere outside, and the mass exodus of people was like a dam breaking after the game was over. What a night! I'll never forget it!

Lo siento amigos!

Well I'm already two days behind on my blog, so I'm dedicating my free afternoon to updating my life in Seville the past two days. Wow. Wow. Wow. Or as the Spaniards say, "Ay ay ay..." It's more amazing here each day. First, I need to discuss with you the schedule that the Sevillanos follow compared to the US so you're not confused at when I do the activities that I do. Breakfast is around 10 en mi casa, lunch is at 2:30, and dinner is at 9:30. After lunch, many businesses close down for...literally...nap time. "Una siesta." For 2 or 3 hours, it's rest time in Seville. The whole city doesn't stop what it's doing, but many people personally honor the time period with rest. It's wonderful. I remember all those days back in high school... freshman year biology right after lunch... sometimes I could barely stay awake!

Ok so this blog is dedicated to two nights ago. After dinner at 9:30, I decided to walk around Seville and take some nighttime pictures of various historical places. It was beautiful. I stopped at a few restaurants along the way to have a cruzcampo, which if you read one of my previos blogs, you know that it's the town favorite here. I must note something about drinking over here. "No es una cosa mala." aka It's not bad. First off, the drinking age is 18, but that still doesn't matter to the Sevillanos. They don't view drinking as a vice. You don't see drunkards in bars everywhere. What you see is people, young and old, out having a good time with their friends. Most of the time with their drinks they are having 'tapas' which are small servings of food. Most of them are 'deliciosos.' The point I'm trying to make is that no one here has the mentality of "Let's get drunk tonight," which I know many Americans have. Our drinking age will probably never get lowered to 18 because I don't think we will ever grow out of that mentality, which is sad. The purpose of the nightlife in Seville is going out with your friends, finding new places to eat, meeting new people, and just having a damn good time. They actually view a lot of drinking at once as an insult to them. Hello, culture shock. At one restaurant, I sat outside and watched a group of men who all had to be at least 70, and they were talking and laughing about many different things, and it was beautiful and really had me wishing my friends and I could have be doing the same at that moment.

So like I said, I walked around Seville from around 10:30 p.m. to 12:30 p.m. taking pictures. I will show you and tell you about some of them here. The first one we have is the Seville Cathedral (above). Huge is an understatement. I can't fit a picture of the entire building in one photo. It has a really tall tower called "La Giralda" that is on the other side. You can see the tip of it in this picture in the middle on the top (the brightest spire). This cathedral was constructed in the late 12th century and is claimed to be the largest Catholic/medieval/Gothic cathedral in the world. "It's huge! It's huge! And boy, is it ever big..." Here's another picture (above) of a part of the cathedral, this one of "La puerta de la Ascencion." Above the door in stone and hard to see here is a beautiful relief of the Assumption of the Virgin. I have yet to go in this church yet, but it's high up on my list of things to do! Above is a picture of a plaza outside of "El Banco de Espana." The bank is just to the right of the picture and you can see it in my "Cena y una pelicula" blog. There are many people around this area during the day because the shopping district is very close to here. Above we have the "Iglesia de Santa Catalina." I stumbled upon this gem on my way back toward my house. Notice the moped sitting outside. I must note that mopeds are EVERYWHERE in Seville. They own the streets. They drive everywhere. They park anywhere. I wish I had one haha.

Anyway, that concludes my night-time adventure for that specific day. These pictures were the best of the best that I took. I hope you enjoy keeping up with my blog. I'm trying my best to keep it interesting and informative. Now time to work on yesterday's blog! Adios!
-Ryan-

Actividades hoy

So I rolled out of bed today to the dismay of an alarm that I did not want to have ringing. Kind of funny, isn't it?... I'm in Seville, Spain right now, and I don't want to roll out of bed! Bad habits die hard, I guess... I haven't still exactly adjusted to the eating/sleeping schedule, but it's getting there! I've decided that rain follows me wherever I go. I'm not talking your average daily showers. I'm talking torrential downpour. FYI: It's NOT suppose to rain THAT much in Spain...maybe 4 inches all semester I'd say for a fall average... Well it rained here today. It was extremely humid most of the day, but nothing was out of control where I went. I watched on the news where other parts of Spain were rocked and had flooding. Scary stuff. But enough with the negative talk!

Highlights: The 2 other students from the US and I went to the university today to meet with our academic adviser. He's a bit crazy, but he's very passionate about what he does, and sometimes I think that's what it takes. After the meeting, us 3 decided that we are at Hogwarts. Seriously, the university looks like it's straight out of the movie (pictures coming soon...camera battery was dead...) I am Harry, the other chico has fire red there, therefore he is Ron, the girl has curly hair (aka Hermione) and our professors could be doubles for Dumbledore and McGonagall. We joked about that for a while. Afterward, we went to the Plaza del Centro, which has many stores and food stops along the way. I am currently looking for a nice pair of shoes to fit in with the Sevillanos. I found a cool store that is pretty much the equivalent of Journeys in the US! Anyway, afterward I came back home and had another great dinner with Pepi. I forget the name, but here's a picture. Now I'm off to bed, because tomorrow I have to figure out what classes I want to take. Adios amigos!
-Ry-

El primer domingo en Sevilla

Estoy muy cansado! aka I'm friggin' tired! I finally stayed up all day to try to adjust to this whole jet-lag thing, and I'm about ready to fall asleep. 'Pepe y yo' are watching a movie in Spanish right now... "Assault on Precinct 13" I believe it is called. Let's see... highlights of the day. I woke up this morning to get ready to meet up with my advisor, Macarena. I got out of bed after 2 alarms, took a shower, got dressed, then checked my phone and noticed I had a text from her that said she was rescheduling our meeting for tomorrow because of the forecast of rain all day. (p.s. It barely rained all day...) For "el desayuno" (breakfast), I had toast and hot chocolate milk... Pepi had me add vinegar and oil to "la tostada" and it was a little crunchy, but still really good. After that I relaxed until 'el almuerzo' while working on all of my pictures I have taken up until now. I still haven't got around to taking pictures of the room, but it'll happen. 'El almuerzo' was around 3 p.m. and ohhhh was it amazing! Ternera, ensalsa, compatata y chanpiño, ensalada de pasta con bonito, juevo duro, pimiento marron, y la pasta (spelling check on all of those)(see pictures above) After that I had a good talk with one of Ana's friends about how Star Wars: Episode 2 had a part that was filmed in Seville. After that, I finally got to meet the other students in my program. We walked around Seville a bit and then stopped at a bar to share some drinks. I found out that beer is cheaper than Coca-Cola here, so naturally I had some. Apparently it's the best beer in Seville. Cruzcampo is the name (below) It was pretty good too! The bar gradually filled up with futbol fans who all turned out to watch the derby game between Sevilla and Real Betis. The game ended in a tie, but damn those fans were loyal to their teams. The names of the other 2 students (1 chico y 1 chica) are Phil and Erika. They are fun people to be around and I look forward to exploring Sevilla with them in the days and weeks to come! Here are some random pictures I took after the game. We walked to the river and then back to our respective homes. Overall, it was a great day to just soak in Seville. On the way back to dinner, we saw a festival going on, but no idea what for, so we decided to check it out. I saw some kids dancing and they were absolutely adorable! (See video below**) For dinner, I came back home and had "sopa" (soup) with Pepi. It was alright, but I think it had a peppermint leaf in it or something, and it just had a unique taste... But it's taking me forever to type this blog because I keep falling asleep and watching this movie... Anyway, that is all for now! Hasta pronto! -RDB-