the great adventure called returning home...

Hello everyone.

I am home safe! I've actually been state-side for well over 24 hours but it's been rather busy... Let me explain...

SO... we left our hotel in Madrid for the airport at 6:30am Monday morning... this was after an 8 hour bus ride from Sevilla the day before AND staying up to watch Spain beat Italy in the Eurocup for the FIRST TIME IN 88 YEARS! That was pretty amazing... I have a newspaper to keep as proof of being there. Anyway, got to the airport, said our tearful goodbyes to the TAs (who would NOT be accompanying us on the way home) and got on our plane. Got to Paris on time... though we still had to rush because there was only an hour layover, and in case you don't know, Charles De Gaul airport SUCKS. We followed signs to our gate... which led us to a bus that took us to a platform where we had to wait for a train that would then take us to our gate. Guh. We got to the train platform to find MASSIVE amounts of people just waiting around... no trains coming or going. After asking around, we found out that there had been a security breach and the trains were shut down. Crap. We waited and waited and got rather antsy as our departure time neared... FINALLY the trains came. It turns out someone left their luggage on the train and it became a suspicious, unclaimed package... bomb squads had been called. Anyway, we're jockeying to get on the trains so we can get to our plane that leaves in about 30 minutes but of course, EVERYone and the grandmother was trying to get on them... we finally get through only to arrive at an even greater bottleneck: this hellish place called a security checkpoint. It was terrible. The one upside: it seemed like our entire flight was stuck in this mess. We were running into Atlanta bound travelers everywhere. Surely the plane wouldn't leave without the majority of its passengers... (this calmed me down a little bit... I refused to think of any other alternative). After getting through security, we busted it��to get to our gate, boarded and could finally take a breath.... although there was still a lot to be worried about... we were the first ones to make it from our group, and we had seen how far behind some of the others were. We had made it with five minutes to spare, but there was no telling how long the flight would wait...

An hour and a half after our scheduled departure time, our plane was finally airborne. We waited for every passenger, and for that I think everyone was grateful. I ended up sitting next to this guy from Turkey who was going to Minneapolis to work for three months at the Rent-a-Car in the airport there. He spoke NO English, but he had his Turkish-English dictionary, a grammar book, and a common phrases book complete with phonetic spellings... communicating was a bit difficult... Lots of gestures and looking up of words by me in his dictionary... I would point to the word I was trying to get across. It was a very interesting experience. But he was nice, and I managed to help him with filling out some of the forms. :) Good times. We watched Mulan together too. It was pretty entertaining. I am now convinced that Disney movies are a type of universal language :)��

Anyway, 9 hours later (three of which were spent unconscious), we landed in Atlanta. My favorite moment was getting to turn on my cell phone that DID have service! That was nice. I don't remember exactly what time we landed, but I do know that it was a good 45 minutes to an hour before I was actually out of the airport... customs, claiming and then rechecking luggage, more security, etc. I finally made it out, met my Dad-- BIG hugs-- and then headed home. We pulled up to a house with a "Welcome Back" balloon on the mailbox (Big smiles) and walked in for more hugs, of the Mom variety. Flowers on the table, more balloons and another lovely welcome sign :) I love my parents SO much! This was in my bathroom --->

Then, DINNER!!!! Delicious, American, homemade food. Oh, how I missed you! I also talked with Drew, who I would be meeting the next day to send him off to Austria... and then I crashed.��

The next day (yesterday), I woke up took a shower, and got ready to meet Drew and his family in Buckhead for lunch before heading over to the airport. I got into my car to pull out, turned the key in the ignition and... nothing. I tried again. It just made this anticlimactic clicking noise. The battery wasn't even trying��to start the car. Crap again. I almost cried. 6 weeks without seeing him, and I was about to have to endure another 5 and now I wasn't even going to get a few hours to say hello and goodbye. My Dad, whom I love SO much, came all the way home from work and gave me a ride to the meeting place. I missed lunch, but all was well. I got my few hours before I entered the airport for the second time in 24 hours.

Let me tell you, that was a strange feeling. ��But anyway, I gave a few good long hugs, a kiss or two, and off he went to Austria for 5 weeks to study. The timing of all of this was certainly not the greatest, but what can you do. At least we had our one day. I took MARTA��to Dad's office and we went home around 6. More delicious home-cooked food for dinner (YUM!) and then early to bed.��

<-- Me with my man before he headed out... I miss you!

Today, after waking up at 5:30 or so from a pretty scary nightmare, going back to sleep and waking up again by 8:30, I got my car jumped, drove it around for an hour or so to get the battery working again and returned home. I stopped at a Starbucks drive-thru on my trip and experienced a lovely act of kindness... the person in front of me paid for my drink! How awesome is that?! I felt loved... and it was a nice little "welcome back to the South" kind of thing. :)��

Now, I am simply procrastinating the whole unpacking mess that plagues my room. But I better get to it. Tomorrow or the next day, Mom and I will be headed down to Amelia Island where I will get some time to relax, reflect on the trip, and just hang out before the rest of the summer ensues. Keep checking back here. I will continue to update :)

I love you all!

la luz está viniendo...

The last couple of days have been rough ones.... school REALLY picked up with a slew of essays and group projects all due in the same three days.... to give you some sort of idea of what I've been going through, I've got 7 hours of sleep total in the last 48 hours. I'm actually doing surprisingly well considering my current sleep deficit... I'm about ready to hit the sack though... but just to catch you up on a couple of things...

Granada was wonderful. I took SOOOO many pictures... probably too many. Between that and our trip to the nearby Roman ruins of Italica, I just downloaded 400+ pictures onto my computer. Yeah. I know. Also... Friday night, Alex and I had the scare of a lifetime... we very easily could have lost our wallets. Long story that I am too tired to tell at the moment... Just know that there was some absent-mindedness followed by some frantic sprinting down the cobble stoned streets of a mountain... followed by an ENORMOUS sense of relief when the forgotten items were recovered. La Alhambra... everyone reading this must promise me that you will see the Alhambra if you ever get the chance...

What else...

Oh, I stayed up until 4 am rewriting an essay for my pop culture class. This was this morning... I think it turned out rather well if I do say so myself. Jill and I also gave our second and final presentation today on two different Spanish songs that will be uploaded to the website shortly. ("Cien gaviotas" and "Piel de pantera"). Now just one more paper to finish up tomorrow and finals on Thursday... the end of schoolwork is in sight! Thank goodness! I have so much left to do and see before we leave...

Today was Jill's birthday, so we celebrated by going out to dinner at this restaurant called VIPS. It was very tasty. Very American style food, for which I was very thankful. I had a cheeseburger... yes, I'm in Sevilla and I ordered a cheeseburger, it's true. But I have to tell you, I MISS my good old American food. Actually, I've kind of been missing Americana in general. I was listening to some Frank Sinatra the other day and it was making me a little homesick. I think I may be due for some classic movies when I get back...

And now I feel like I'm starting to ramble... so I will go ahead and say goodnight!

I will be doing this again...

Hello all. I am sitting in the lobby of our amazingly awesome hostel in Granada... itś called "The Funky Backpacker Hostel," and I love it! It's about 9 in the morning and Stephanie and I got up before the rest of our party (at 6:20!!!) to see the sunrise from this lookout spot we sought out last night. It was wonderful to see the sun slowly creep out from the mountaintops and spill onto the city below... I have some good pictures from this morning as well as the sun setting last night. Let me say something again though: I love this place. Brad, if you're reading this I have to tell you that I am now more jealous of you than ever. Simply the idea of backpacking around Europe seemed exciting to me before, but now that I am surrounded by people doing just that, it's even more awe-inspiring. When you weren't camping out next to the Rhine, you were staying in places just like this one, with people like you from whom and to whom you could hear and tell stories... At breakfast on the rooftop of this wonderful little establishment, I saw a girl sitting very peacefully (not many people were up yet), and she was looking at her guidebook, no doubt planning her next adventure. I want to do that. SO badly.
Anyway, we will be seeing the Alhambra today so I will be taking a palace's worth of pictures... I apologize for the lack of website updating, but I think most of my remaining pictures will be uploaded soon after I'm back in the U.S... there's so much left to do and I can't waste too much time staring at a computer screen... You understand ;) More blogging on Granada to come. I just wanted to say hello :)

I love you all! Thanks for reading!

¿quieres saber algo de Lagos? :)

Hello everyone! Thank you for all the comments and emails :) It's good to know that my site is not going to waste!

Anyway, this past weekend was spent in Lagos, Portugal. It was absolutely gorgeous! I haven't uploaded pictures yet, but I will soon and then you will have to agree with me. We got to Lagos in the late afternoon on Friday after actually passing it to visit the Southernmost point of Portugal. The Atlantic was on both sides of us and on one side, we were able to climb down the rocks to the water... It was absolutely amazing and I wished I could have hiked and climbed some more... and I was in flip-flops no less! But anyway, I dipped my feet into the Atlantic Ocean at the Southernmost tip of Portugal and I think that's pretty sweet. There will be many pictures coming from this little pit-stop... prepare yourselves :) The coasts in Europe are very different from the ones I am used to in Florida and the like. There are so many more cliffs, with beaches nestled in between. I wonder why that is...

The hotel in which we stayed exceeded any and all expectations that I had had. I thought we would be staying in some low-budget place considering we're a group of students on a weekend trip... but Oh no... we stayed in a FOUR STAR hotel about 10 minutes walking distance from the beach. Our balcony overlooked the marina (in the distance) and a beautiful resort style pool with an island and sturdy straw umbrellas providing shade. Very cool. There was a delicious complimentary breakfast buffet each morning with cereal, yogurt, ham, mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, toast, fresh fruit, and a slew of other things... A VERY nice change from my usual toast and jelly breakfast. Oh man... I ate SO much. And I kind of had two breakfasts each of the days... :)

And as for other meals... lots of fresh fish. Another wonderful change considering I get none of it in my house here... but we're talking bones still in them and everything. Lots of work and vigilance. But tasty nonetheless. Except for the Sardines. They tasted alright, but WAY too much work for just OK meat. Plus it's a lot harder to eat something that you know was alive and well earlier that day... and LOOKS like it was too. All in all though, buena comida. :)

While I was there, I noticed that they liked their modern and contemporary style. The buildings, the furniture, the art... our hotel room was mostly white with small hints of sand color and blue... Lots of stainless steel. Basically just very graphic and minimalist.... art for art's sake kind of things. I'm not sure if it was just our hotel or a trend throughout all of Lagos... though I did see many contemporary houses on the way in...

Enough of my boring nerdiness... some exciting news: I have now seen the Atlantic Ocean from the other side TWICE! I think that's pretty awesome... what's more, I've been in the water... SO cold. But it was an experience :) Besides some limited swimming, we played some frisbee on the beach, napped in the sun, ate well and just relaxed. I didn't get sunburned! So that was a nice triumph :) Also, we went to this bar Saturday night where there were a slew of Brits. I've decided Portugal is the place to go if you're on holiday in Britain. The bartender spoke 7 languages, which of course made me jealous. But more on that some other time..... I had a very highly recommended drink called a Black Capiroska... made with a Portuguese black vodka that supposedly has a hint of a blackberry taste in it. It was very tasty indeed. :)

Anyway, this week is a short one (no school on Friday) but that does mean we have any less work... It's a little stressful. Two papers and a presentation in one class, the same in the other, and then a final exam for each... and all this happens in the next week and a half... And there's so much I still want to DO here! I'm running out of time. But all will go well. I'm excited for this weekend... we leave on a train for Granada at 7 in the morning on Friday and come back late Saturday. I'll be seeing the Alhambra and I can't WAIT. Due to the lack of time, I may be a little slow on getting pictures up and in all likelihood they will go up after my trip... so keep checking back. :)

Gotta go now... class is about to start!

Love you and miss you all!

leaving for lagos...

Hello world.

Today's been a hectic day. Classes started an hour early than normal (9am!!!) and I had plans to talk to Drew at 8. So I took my shower last night to get that out of the way, packed up all my things, hiked it over to San Fernando TWO hours before I usually do and the building was not open... there were people inside, but they wouldn't open up. It was slightly frustrating. No, really frustrating... I'm sorry, Drew :(

On a slightly happier note... my breakfast was delicious. I bought a kiwi yesterday and had it this morning... After I had prepared everything, I laughed because this is what I saw:

Hope that makes you all smile as well...

I'm off to Portugal!

Peace :)