from portugal to valencia to ITALY to england and back

so it has been another week and half since i have updated this blog. sorry about that for those who read it. i went to toledo last weekend. we decided not to go on to madrid, but i was perfectly fine with that! toledo was beautiful! i love cities on mountains with rivers :] also we got to see the windmills in Don Quixote. i mean lets be honest, i have NEVER read that book, but it was cool to see. we went really early thursday morning and came back friday night. on saturday we as in emily and i, bummed around and didnt really do much. we then went to ‘our bar’ and skyped people! afterwards we had dinner with isabel and polished off the night with having liz come over. we made cookie dough and watched ELF! it was a great night!

sunday came around and i got to go find a bus stop that took me to the airport! my momma and jeff came to visit! at the airport i met jeff’s daughter anne and her daughter ava because they only live about an hour away from me (i went down to their house in the beginning of the semester).we then ventured off to go find the apartment we rented for three nights! it took awhile, but when we found it, it was well worth the confusion! the apartment was BEAUTIFUL and three stories! downstairs was the kitchen and living room. the second story had two bathrooms, three bedrooms, and a loft. then the third story was the master bedroom/ bath with a laundry room. we also could outside on a terrace that was two stories. we had a great place to stay.

monday i had school, but that was okay. we found a cute place to eat lunch. my mom and i then ventured off to find a yogurt place i saw! it was delicious. my mom came and joined me at FLEMENCO lessons. after watching me she said these words, “i am sorry sweetie that i didnt put you in dance lessons when you were younger.” i just about died when she said this. she had been laughing so hard! we had a good night!

tuesday i may or may not have played hooky, but jeff’s other daughter julia came! these days were fun filled! on tuesday i found out some exciting news... I GOT RA!!!! i am so very excited! i will be serving sophomores in the MODS (trailer park) next year! i am ecstatic. this also means i could be my brother’s RA hahhhaah!

wednesday was another fun day with the family! we did lots of walking around sevilla! i also got my bus ticket to portugal! we stayed in a very nice hotel on wednesday! everyone leaves thursday to portugal. they rented a mini van! because i had school and a test on friday i was unable to go with, but i will meet them there!

Sorry y’ll that it has been an EXTREMELY long time since i have updated this blog. It has been quite the adventure since i have updated this thing. So where i stopped off was when i went to portugal with my mom, jeff, and his girls. we had a great time with them. we went to lisbon, portugal and it was just like san francisco. i absolutely loved it. upon returning and everyone leaving my good friend katie hazdovac and katie shore came! they were here in sevilla for four days. we had lots of fun. the sun had come out and we were able to go on many walks and eat our meals down by the river. the friday they left, i went to valencia for las fallas. you will need to youtube las fallas, valencia, spain. it is a huge deal in valencia which is just south of barcelona. it is a week long (emily, liz and i went for the last day) and they have these HUGE statue like things and then burn them. i am not doing justice trying to explain it, but they are huge and it was interesting. it was extremely loud and smokey, but cool to go. when we were there we stayed with liz’s teachers (from high school) friend. we were so spoiled. they made the most amazing food and showed us around valencia. they also had a dinner party and we hung out with many spaniards. that also was fun. when i came back from valencia i only had three days left of school until i went to ITALY! so this past week i went to the one place in the world i wanted to go before i died, ITALIA! i went with my dear friends jenna and rachel (from my program). we had THE BESt time!

so we caught a bus at 7:15 am on thursday to catch our flight. we got through security no problem at all and then proceeded to get on our airplane. we flew into milan, italy. once we got there, we had pretty much no idea what to do so we found a bus that would actually take us to milan (because ryanair flies you into ‘the city’ about an hour outside the city) and then went to the train station. we made COMPLETE fools out of ourselves because we obviously dont speak italian and well we would speak english to them in broken sentences and really loud. it was hilarious. we were in milan and not impressed at all. i mean we got our first gelatto and also got completely stared at there so we decided to hop on a train and venture to where we were staying the next two nights; vernazza, cinqueterre. this train we got on is very old and we have little rooms with six chairs in it. we thought that maybe we would have our own room, but no we walked into it and was greeted with this awful stagnate smell of B.O. and a crazy man. this man was no older than his late twenties and his might be the oddest person i have ever met. he smelled so bad and really had no teeth. he also would randomly just speak and or sing. he was so weird! so that was an adventure. we get to our our train station that we needed to get off, so we did. this is where the adventure begins. i was told to bring my head lamp so i did so. please picture this, it is dark out (around 7:30pm), there are three girls (with big backpacks on), and we have some directions we need to follow in order to get to our Bed and Breakfast. these directions we hilarious and we ended up doing switchbacks up this mountain! i had so much fun with it because i felt like i was on trek again! i was also in my chacos and hold this headlamp so we could stay on this NARROW footpath! this footpath had MANY stairs and pretty went straight up! it was insane. when we were treking up this mountain we thought that there was NO WAY anything could be up there, we were proved wrong. after the 15 minute hike we got to this little cute house. we had found it! there was nothing around us, but we proceeded to follow the directions. when we got inside we saw this little old couple. PRECIOUS! the woman only spoke italian and french and the man spoke barely any english, french, and italian. so with our spanish and english we tried to speak with them. the woman was adorable couldn’t really say anything except, water water water. we smiled because we were sweating and replied with a YES! they couldnt believe how young we were. they showed us our room. we just about died. it was so cute. there were three of us with this queen size bed and a little cot. we all looked at each other and said, “together?” so we snuggled lol. we asked the couple if there were any restaurants near here and they said you have to go back into the village. so we treked back down and found an amazing restaurant! when we walked in we were greeted with this tipsy couple from the states who wanted one us to date his son. it was HILARiOuS! we sat down and ordered. i had homemade fresh pasta with pesto, rachel had sword fish, and jenna had ravioli in a walnut sauce. they all were simply amazing! we them saw homemade tiramisu and chocolate souffle so we could not resist it! it was all simply amazing! we then got to venture back up the mountain! we played phase 10 and then gave each other massages and talked. it was amazing. our hostess asked if 9 o’clock breakfast was okay and we replied happily with a yes! that next morning we got up at 8:55am and went down for our feast. she made hot chocolate, coffee, and tea. there was amazing bread, yogurt, and so much more. we had an amazing feast. we got back up to our room and welp... feel back asleep until about 1:30 pm. we didnt really feel bad because it had been raining outside and we just wanted to hike. by the time we woke up the rain had passed. we ventured out and hike along the cliffs of the ocean. it was breath taking. if you are from home it is like hiking in sobranes (sorry for the spelling) big sur. it was amazing! we didnt want to leave. we came to the next little town and had a little lunch. we had pizza and lasagna! that night we also had gotten gelatto and went to a little store to get some cheese, bread, olives, and turkey for dinner. it was so fun. we were back at the B&B by 7 pm. we again played phase 10 and gave massages. the next morning we got up and had our feast again. then we ventured down into the little town of vernazza and hung out there for a little before catching a train to florence. we then spent the next two days in florence. when we arrive here we checked into our great hostel and needed gelatto. we found this great place and got a waffle cone. the guy at the register asked if we wanted to pay together or separate. i replied with a separate, he then said okay 10 euros... i then said um no we wanted to pay separate he then replied again with i know, 10 euros. we died. it was so funny! it was really good! so we walked around florence with out 10 euro gelatto. it was great. later that night we found this pizzeria with cheap pizza and the most amazing pizza! it was delicious! we crashed that night. the very next morning we ran around florence and enjoyed every minute! we saw ‘the david’ and some other really cool things! i have NOTHING bad to saw about italy except for the fact i didnt want to leave! so i parted from from jenna and rachel and flew from pisa, italy to standsted, england.

i met emily and liz in england. i was shocked because everyone spoke english! what?!?! so to make this story short we didnt get to our hostel in enlgand until about 3 am. it was the worst place i have ever stayed and i didnt get one ounce of shut eye! we got up in the morning and hit the ground running. we saw welp pretty much all of london lol. i mean we saw all the important things at least. then we got on another bust to oxford to go visit katie hazdovac and katie shore! we had so much fun with them! the next day we went all around oxford and i was in love! we got to see all of oxford! i loved it! we got to tea and scones in the afternoon! it was so fun. we then got kebabs for dinner. it was all amazing. that night we met my dear friend maupsie (that is what us high sierrans call him)! he also is studying in oxford. we got to meet up! i loved seeing him, too. the next morning katie and i went on a run along a river and in the fields of oxford. it was simply splendid! we then went to this cute cafe before getting onto a bus to then catch the metro to get on another bus to catch our plane! we missed our second bus, but then found another one! we barely and i mean barely made it in time. i had five minutes to check my bag and then had to go through security and SPRINTED to our gate! we made it in time. we laughed about it afterwards! so we made it home safely.

once we got home isabel greeted us with besitos and love! she made us dinner. liz had eaten dinner with us, too (this is very odd for the spanish to allow someone into their home and let alone eat here with them)! it was a great end to our adventures. ALSO isabel informed me that well, we had a parrot now. I DIED! this bird, peepee, TALKS! so this morning i woke up to it talking and whistling. so now not only do i not like the dog i hate the bird lol. as i have been sitting here writing this long blog, i have been listening to this stupid bird talk to me, sing, and whistle.

tonight is the finally of semana santa (holy week)! semana santa is a HUGE thing here in sevilla. sevilla is known for the biggest precessions here there are millions of people here, no exaggeration! tonight i will see one or two probably, but it is so sad because many people here just like it because of the show and not for what it really means. it also breaks my heart because this is a somber week and no one is out on sunday when everyone should be celebrating that JESUS is alive!!!

well i am so sorry that this was forever, but i hope you have enjoyed! i miss you all... really i do! i cant wait to come home. i will be home in about 8 weeks!

oh and yes i forgot this... i will be working up at YSSC (yosemite sierra summer camp) this summer! i am ecstatic! i will be headed up to bass lake for the summer! YSSC is the campus that i went to school at for high sierra!

well i think that is all for now! i want to hear about you all!!!