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