Morocco

So when I told everyone I was going to study abroad in Spain, I'm sure a lot of you were surprised.  When you heard I was going to Africa (Morocco), I'm sure you were even more surprised and maybe a little bit nervous due to the current state of things, however, fret not, I'm back in Spain and in one piece.  It was a great experience and I had a ton of fun.  I'll start at the beginning.  First we had to meet at 730am to get on a bus for 2-2.5 hours to Algeciras which is a short ferry ride away from Africa.  The ferry was just an hour long but on the way there it was pretty rough and I regretted not taking dramamine until I was able to fall asleep (just thinking about the ferry ride is making me lightheaded).  After that we got to Ceuta, a Spanish city on the coast of Africa just 14 km from Spain itself.  We then had to cross the border and take an hour bus to our first city, Tetuan.  We went with two chaperone's, Virginia who is one of our program directors and one of the coolest people and Cristina who is a receptionist at our study center and who is really nice as well (and is in some of my pictures).  There we met our guide who told us he was told by everyone he looked like the American celebrity, Michael Douglas.  I'll let you all decide...

"Michael Douglas" showed us all over the city of Tetuan from the markets, to a tannery, to small stores, to mosque's and everything else.  It was pretty crazy to see their small houses and everything being sold on the street.  We saw people cutting chickens heads off and a guy selling natural shampoo and deodorant

.  During our day in Tetuan we went to a restaurant for lunch.  We started off with a soup that was pretty bland but better once we put some salt on it.  Next was some beef on a skewer which was pretty good.  The main course was cabbage, carrots, onions and chicken on top of cous cous.  It was really good and my friend (and roommate in the hotel) Greg was pretty disappointed when they took it away and he couldn't eat anymore.  One of the more popular drinks in Morocco is their mint tea.  Being that I don't like tea, this was no different, however it looked pretty cool.

After lunch we toured the city some more and then went back to the hotel to eat dinner and crash.  I would say this may have been the most fun day out of all just because of how great our tour guide was.  He was pretty funny and we learned a lot about the city and Africa in general.  I should have mentioned this before but everyone in Morocco speaks Arabic and then the next language is French.  Our guide knew Arabic, French, English, and Spanish, and I'm sure he knew some others.  After dinner everyone was so tired from the long day that we went right to sleep, especially because we had to be up by 730am the next day for breakfast and then a bus at 8 to Tangier, the next city on our schedule.

The next morning we hopped on a bus to Tangier.  It was just an hour bus and first on our agenda was a tour of the Coke factory there.  It was pretty cool to see the different production lines of bottles, cans, and glass bottles even though our particular guide sucked.  She wasn't very good at Spanish so there was no point in trying to listen to what she was saying (mom you're probably shaking your head at that, but it's true).  It was pretty cool though and we got to drink some coke, and try the drinks they make that we don't have in the US which are called Hawai (coconut, orange and some other fruit combined and carbonated into a soda ha) and then POMS which is an apple soda.  They were both good but nothing I would drink on a regular basis.  I'm sure we all know however that I am brand intensive (marketing term, thanks IU education), and loved drinking Coke because it is that much better than Pepsi.  Anyways, it was a great time and I had a lot of fun touring the factory.  We also had to wear these goofy jackets/suits while we toured the factory, I can only assume for sanitary reasons...

After the tour we stopped at a beach for 20 minutes or so.  It was awesome and I wish we would have been able to hang out longer and swim.  Here's a couple pictures from it...

After the beach we headed to the caves which were pretty cool but nothing more than one nice view.  After that was the most fun part of that day.  We got to ride camels.  I was one of the last people to go and after watching people go I was just hoping I wouldn't fall off the camel because a lot of people seemed pretty close haha.  Thankfully, I did not fall and it was pretty fun.  I now can say that I have ridden a camel in Africa...how many of you reading this can say that? Probably not many.  

One of the funnier parts of Morocco was the little kids with pet donkey's trying to get any tourist to take a picture of them for money.  One kid let Greg pick up his donkey in the picture.  Another kid refused to talk to us until Greg paid him for a picture and he replied, "Thank youuuuuuu."  He was pretty funny and had his donkey rolling over like a dog which was impressive.  He wouldn't do it when everyone was around but we saw it and it was awesome.  He also played hide and go seek with the donkey, which makes me wonder whether the kid is an amazing animal trainer or that is the smartest donkey around.  

Here's a picture of the less cool donkey kid

After all of this busyness (is that even a word?), we headed to lunch where we had some pretty good food.  I have no idea the name so I can't really talk about it or tell you what it was.  After that we got free time in Tangier where we all did some shopping.  I got a couple soccer jerseys for friends, but nothing for myself because none of them fit me.  I also bought a few other things as everything there is pretty cheap.  It was fun bargaining with the people and getting good deals.  We headed back to Tetuan to the hotel we were staying at to hang out and then have dinner.  That night we had more food I don't remember!  Dinner was one of the most fun parts of the trip though.  I sat at a table with Greg, Annie, Nina, Melissa, and Steph, and we all decided that we would only speak Spanish at dinner.  Since most of the time here we always talk English to each other we thought it would be fun.  It was one of the funniest times we've had and we were laughing all through dinner.  I'm reallllllly glad we decided to only talk in Spanish as it kept us entertained the whole time.  After dinner a few of us hung out in my and Greg's room and talked for a while and then went to bed, again having to get up at 730am. 

Our last day was spent in Chefchouen which is the "all blue city" of Morocco.  It was pretty cool and in between mountains.  I did not enjoy the windy roads that we had to drive on to get there but at least I could sleep because it was early in the morning.  We got there and toured the city.  It was really beautiful (I never say that but I mean, it was...no manly word to describe it huh?) and not having a camera on this trip kind of sucked, but so does my camera (it's 4 years old, what can I say) so it is what it is.  I did however take some pictures on my iPhone and stole other peoples pictures of Facebook so no worries, you all get to see the awesome images of Africa.  

After the tour of Chefchouen we did some more shopping where I got a couple gifts and finally bought myself a new jersey.  After that we ate one more Moroccan meal and headed back to Spain.  The ferry back was much easier and we got back around 1030pm.  It was one of the most fun trips I have been on my life if not the most fun.  It was a great and eye opening experience.  I never thought I would go to Africa in my life, but I have and am glad to say I did.  Just want to thank you Mom, Dad, John, and Steph for pushing me to study abroad because I have had so much fun here and can only expect more to come in Italy and England before I head home in just a month.  On that note, I'm out.  Hope you enjoyed this one.

Soccer Games and Amsterdam

It's been a couple weeks everyone but I'm back.  I hadn't done a lot to merit a new blog post as I am incredibly lazy and also had midterms so I wanted to wait until I returned from Amsterdam.  I'll start by summing up my soccer experience in Spain so far (mom you may not want to read this).  So far I have been to three games, bought a jersey, a quarter zip jacket, and 2 scarves.  I never really thought after watching soccer for so long I'd actually get to go to a game in Europe.  The first game I went to was back in January and it was Sevilla vs. Real Madrid.  Obviously I had to buy tickets for this game as Madrid has my favorite player, Cristiano Ronaldo.  It was also the semi finals of the Copa del Rey or Spanish Cup.  It was pretty crazy atmosphere and the fans lit off flares at the beginning to get everyone hyped up.

Although inside I was rooting for Madrid as they have become my second team since they got Ronaldo, I had to wear my Sevilla jersey because I didn't feel like having any Sevilla fans want to kill me.  Needless to say, Real Madrid won the game 1-0 on a nice goal from Karim Benzema, however not without controversy.  Sevilla seemed to have scored a goal to tie the game but the ref ruled it did not fully go over the line although replay ended up confirming it had (or probably had).  Sincere there's no replay in soccer that didn't matter.  Madrid ended up winning the second leg a week later in Madrid and advancing to the final.

The next game I went to was Sevilla vs. Malaga.  There's not a whole lot to write about for that one.  They tied 0-0 although Sevilla is a much better team and had plenty of chances to score.  I was pretty disappointed because for the second straight game I had yet to see a goal from Sevilla.

The third game, however, was just last Sunday.  By far the most fun I have had at a game so far.  Me and 5 friends got tickets to see FC Barcelona and got to the game about a half hour early.  We found seats that were in a good spot as there is nobody to tell you where you actually sit and a lot of the time people just find an open spot.  My friend Alison and I had to get up a few times because we were in peoples seats (or so they said) but we eventually ended up in the seats directly behind the rest of our friends.  My friend from IU, Leslie, and myself had practiced the Sevilla anthem so we could sing it with the rest of the fans before the game and that's exactly what we did.  The game started out pretty badly as Sevilla was getting outplayed in every aspect of the game.  It seemed as though I was going to see another one sided affair which was especially disappointing because I hate Barcelona with a passion.  Barca scored in the 30th minute or so to go up 1-0 and everyone was pretty pissed.   They came close again near halftime when Messi headered a cross off the post but Sevilla escaped only down 1.  3 minutes into the second half Negredo crossed a perfect ball to Jesus Navas who headered in the goal tying it up at 1 and igniting the crowd.  Everyone went absolutely insane.  It was an amazing atmosphere and nothing like I had ever seen.  Although both teams had their chances it ended up a 1-1 final but I was perfectly content with that because it was incredibly exciting and an overall great time.  I am hoping I can find a way to get to a game in England when I'm there but we'll see if that's going to be possible.

Now onto Amsterdam.  It took another overnight bus ride from Sevilla to get to the Madrid airport and it gets pretty old pretty fast.  But this time our flight was at 9am so there was no time to go into the city to hang out.  I took this trip with 2 of my friends, Jake (also went to Germany with him) and Steph.  We got to the airport with plenty of time and took off, arriving in Amsterdam at 1130am.  We eventually figured out what train to get on which ended up being the wrong one but found ourselves at our hostel eventually.  We checked into the hotel, put our bags on and went to discover the city.  We were a little outside of the center but we found a nice little area not too far away.  We walked around there and got some food and then went to the Van Gogh museum.  Now for those of you who don't know me well enough to know I don't really like art, well I'm surprised you're reading this if that's the case.  Needless to say I paid the 14 euro to see what Van Gogh was all about.  To no surprise at all, he was not the most exciting painter, not that any painter in my opinion is very exciting.  I will say I enjoyed looking at all of his paintings but I only need a 4-5 second look before I can move onto the next one.  My friends however, needed about a minute on every one.  I took this opportunity to nap, and they would wake me up every time we were going to a different room in the museum.  When we were done we went to hang out in the main area where I fell asleep for around 30 minutes while they looked at some other section of the museum with different artists.  I had enough art for a lifetime after that trip.  And we happened to see some people playing a very large game of chess...

We left the museum and headed back to the hostel.  We wanted to save money and had heard food in the Netherlands is nothing to write home about so we decided to go to the grocery store to buy food and make it at the hostel.  They told us they had a full kitchen so we decided to buy a couple frozen pizzas and make them in the hostel.  That was our first mistake, assuming they had an oven.  They did not and we were forced to make our pizzas in the microwave.  Although they turned out to be good, they obviously would have been better in an oven.  We split a 12 pack of Heineken (sorry mom but 4 beers is really not that much) and hopped on a tram to the center of Amsterdam.  Side note: apparently you are supposed to pay for a tram card but we didn't know how nor wanted to spend the money so we just hopped on and off when it got busy to avoid ever having to pay for the tram.  Back to the night, we decided to head to the red light district as it is a must for a trip to Amsterdam.  We walked up and down it a few times laughing at every guy that left one of the prostitutes rooms.  We learned a lot about them though, that it costs 50 euros to go into a room with one and they have to pay 100 euros just to use the window.  They also get regular testing haha.  Anyway we went into a few bars and in honor of my dad, I had a Grolsch at one of them.  We went to a few and then headed home after a pretty fun night out.  Next morning was pretty interesting since I took it upon myself to decide I was going to sleep in Jake and Stephs hostel room instead of my own since the door didn't lock and there was a girl in my bed (but not the one above mine). They had beds open in their room and it actually locked so I figured it was a better choice.  Apparently not as the next morning the hostel owner freaked out at me at first telling me he could kick me out (which I didn't really care about) until I made some stuff like I felt unsafe in the other room and he ended up feeling bad.  Once everything was sorted out we went into the city and went to the Anne Frank House.  Definitely a good experience and I'm glad I went although it was kinda weird being in the place they were hiding for so long.

After that we walked through the whole city saw a lot of stuff, hung out by some canals and just relaxed.  We watched some kids skateboard and later on break one of the skateboards in half for fun.  After that we went back to the hostel and made pasta for dinner.  We met some cool people there, the girls who were studying abroad in Paris that were staying in the same room and some Australian guys.  That night was a big night for Jake who goes to Wisconsin so we went to a bar and watched the Badgers vs K State.  I had to root for KState since I want to win $ however it didn't work out that way ha.  Anyway we had a great time watching the game and got back to the hostel around 430am.  I got my stuff together and caught a bus around 515am for my 8am flight back to madrid.  The other 2 stayed in Amsterdam for an extra day so I was on my own.  I made it back safely although I fell asleep everywhere I was throughout my trip back.

I was glad to get back to Sevilla and a consistent environment that I knew. It was an overall really fun weekend and great experience.  I've still got trips to Morocco, Italy, and England left to take and I can't wait for those.  I have less than 2 months left here but a lot to do.  I'm sure I'll have an update at some point on this thing and it probably wasn't as fun to read as last time but you all get the gist of my soccer experiences and trip to Amsterdam.  Can't wait for Steph, mom, and John to all get here in just 10 days and get to see what I've been living in the last couple months and a nice little day trip to Granada.  Also here's to hoping that maybe I can win my pool in Sevilla and maybe even the family pool.  Adios for now everyone.

Giving into a Blog

What's up everyone? I'm not exactly sure who will be reading this; family, friends, random people who might find me interesting.  I decided to create this blog to inform you all of my travels and experiences in Sevilla this semester starting now.  My main reason for doing this is because of my trip to Germany and how much fun it was.  So to preface this, I just want to give you all some background info since I haven't blogged before now.  I have been in Sevilla, Spain since January 19th.  It is in the south of Spain in the region, Andalucia.  A lot of my program is students from Wisconsin and Indiana so I have a lot in common with everyone but their are plenty of kids from Penn State, Purdue (unfortunately), and many other schools.  This weekend was a long weekend because we had Monday off due to Dia de Andalucia aka a day where the south of Spain wanted to be even lazier than they already are by having work off.  Anyway, I planned this trip a couple weeks before with a few friends; Jake, Annie, Nina, and Colleen.  Jake and I decided to book a different flight through RyanAir which was cheaper and turned out to be the better choice (sorry girls).  We had to take a 6 hour bus ride to Madrid at midnight where I had absolutely no space whatsoever and the girl in front of me was basically in my lap.  However, once we got to Madrid at 6am Jake and I decided to go into the city with our friend James who was staying in Madrid for the weekend.  Got my America on by eating Dunkin Donuts (sorry mom) for breakfast.  We saw the city for a few hours and then were back on the metro to the airport because our flight was at 2pm.  Everything went smoothly and we got to Frankfurt-Hahn airport (in the middle of nowhere) at 430pm and hopped on a bus around 45 mins later to Frankfurt (an hour and a half ride).  After all this traveling we were finally there, however, the girls flight was delayed so we ended up beating them there.  Jake and I went to the hostel and checked in.  Keep in mind our hostel was in the Red Light District so we were only asked to go to the strip club about 100 times.

Once the girls got in, Jake and I, the gentleman that we are, met the girls at the bus station and walked back to the hostel so they could check in and get settled.  Annie has a friend in Frankfurt so she came with us to the hostel.  Everyone got ready and we headed out on our first night in Frankfurt.  We went to a few different bars where we tried a few different beers, some sort of vodka (where you tap it on the table as many times as the number on the bottle) and had some girlie cocktails.  It was an overall fun night and after a long day of traveling we decided to head back to the hostel.  This is when we encountered our first strange situation.  When we got back to the hostel we walked into our room, a 6 bedroom hostel with 5 of us in it, and turned on all the lights and started talking about the night.  All of the sudden Annie (hoping you read this), freaked out and basically dove past me, apparently really scared about something.  It ended up that there was a random girl in the 6th and unrented bed in our room.  This girl sat up said something in a language none of us knew and went back to bed.  We could not stop laughing at the girl/Annie's reaction (Jake claims she said, "There's a bird!" or something like that).  I had to leave the room because it was just too funny.  That was pretty much the end of that night but it was a successful day. 

The next day we woke up pretty early (our new friend nowhere in sight and apparently already checked out) and headed out to see the sights.  We went into the middle of Frankfurt where we saw a lot of things including but not limited to; a 6 story mall, a homeless guy with a donkey, a badass market, a church, the river, and others.  I'll start with what we did first, a modern art museum.  If you're reading this you will probably know how much I dislike art and museums.  I would much rather look at something online and be done with it.  Well shockingly I actually had fun at this place.  It was pretty weird and apparently modern art consists of a lot of naked people but it was pretty interesting overall.  They used a lot of candy in their art as well.

While we were there we had another adventure, or should I say Annie had another adventure again.  We walked into a room that was pitch black, and the girls wanted me to lead the way because they were scared.  I walked in and out of the corner of my eye saw a guy standing there in the shadows.  I didn't have time to react and he popped out and scared the shit out of the girls, and once again Annie dropped to the ground (apparently that is her first reaction when she is scared).  Nina and Colleen screamed and all I could do was laugh.  The guy just said, "sorry i'm not part of the museum," and walked out.  One of the more funny moments on the trip.  After that we went to a cathedral with 328 steps.  I did not want to climb up it but it ended up being worth it for the view we had.

 

Next we went to the Romer (pronounced Roomer as Jake and I learned from some girl who thought she was smart but definitely sucked).  I'm not really sure how to describe it besides just some buildings that were different colors but cool nonetheless.  We then went back to the market to have our traditional German meal which I can say was amazing.  The funniest thing there was that this homeless guy was standing with a donkey trying to get money from anyone who walked by or tried to take a picture.  I was that guy.  He saw me take a picture and immediately came over and tried to get a euro from me.  I spoke to him in English in hopes that I might confuse him and he would go away but he was persistent.  Annie attempted to bargain with him over the price of the donkey but he would not sell it to her for one euro.  She was pretty disappointed but Jake and I couldn't stop laughing at how crazy the guy was.  

After that we went down by the river and walked around for a bit and saw the Central European Bank.  

Finally we returned to the hotel and got ready to go out.  That ended up taking a lot longer than we had expected and we didn't leave till 11.  We went to a good Italian restaurant (I know I was in Germany) and then went to a few bars.  We called it a relatively early night and took a cab back where we were ripped off for 16 euros.  No crazy stories for this night as the extra bed was empty.  

The next morning Jake and I headed out early to the airport to catch our flight to Madrid.  We got in around 2 and went into the city where we met up with a friend from high school, Rimpal, and had lunch with her at a Chinese restaurant.  I was fine with that because after being in Spain for over a month, I can eat any type of food I want.  Later Jake and I went to his friends place and dropped our bags off and headed to the one place I could not wait to visit.  The stadium of Real Madrid, Santiago Bernabeu.  It was exactly as it was cracked up to be.  Amazing.  I had too much fun while I was there.  We got to see the view from the highest section, go through the museum, the view from the next section below, the lower level section, go on the pitch and sit on the bench.  We met some Italian guys who were pretty funny/cool and one of them ran out of the tunnel pretending like he was about to play and then sat on the medical table saying he was hurt.  Then we got to go into the away team locker room where Jake proclaimed, "Messi has been in that hot tub!!!" haha.  Everyone knows I love sports and I am incredibly amazed at being able to experience these things in real life after watching games in the US I never really thought I'd be able to see these places in person.

Jake and I went to a couple bars that night in Madrid where I got to see my boy Kobe and the Lakers beat the Thunder.  I also unfortunately had to watch some of the IU v OSU game where I was forced to watch them get dominated in every aspect of the game.  Maybe next year Cody Zeller will make them into the contender they should be and Mo Creek, Watford, and Hulls will take them to the tournament for the first time in my college career.  But enough about sports.  We hopped on the metro and went back to his friends apartment and went to bed.  Got up early again to head to the bus station where we took the 6 hour bus back at 9am to Sevilla but this time it was much more comfortable.  Jake and I got some food before going back to our homestays and that was pretty much the end of the trip.  I was definitely disappointed that it was over because it was the first trip out of Spain and for those of you who didn't know this, I have never left the USA until I came to Spain.  I had a great group of friends that I went with and I can't wait for us to travel together again (either Amsterdam in a few weeks or London at the end of April).  In case any of you might be wondering the girls flight from Germany which left Sunday night got delayed for four hours and they missed their bus, thus leading them to pay 83 euros to take the fast train home.  As much as I dislike RyanAir I guess Jake and I made the right travel decisions and being cheap finally paid off! (Sorry girls)

Overall Spain has been awesome so far.  I'll continue to update this with things I do but I don't know how often.  At the moment my only planned trips are Morocco and London but I might be planning a trip to Amsterdam and Rome in the near future.  I hope you enjoyed these stories and I will make sure to keep you all updated on what I'm doing in Sevilla.  Got a busy couple of weeks as we are taking a day trip next saturday to Cordoba and midterms are coming up.  So far school has been pretty easy or maybe that's because I just haven't done too much.  (sorry Mom).  Anyways see you guys later.  Adios