Barcelona with the Parents

Hello one and all,

At this very moment, Kerianne and I are both working on two blog posts to try to catch you guys up on everything that is going on in our lives. We are so sorry that things have been kind of slow, but in our defense we have had a sort of crazy last couple of weeks. So where to start...

Well, when we got back from the Costa Del Sol, we had to hit the books pretty hard to catch back up with things that were happening in class. Although class isn't super straining here, it does take some time, and since we do want to learn Spanish, we have to actually work at it. This was a short week for us though, as we didn't get back from the Coast until Tuesday.

My parents returned from the Coast on Thursday to Sevilla. We spent some time just walking around and enjoying this city together. My parents got the chance to take Blanca out to eat which was such a treat for us! Although the wonderful Kevin and Brenda (parents) don't know a lick of Spanish, it was fun to watch us all interact together.

Late Friday evening, my parents and I headed off to Barcelona! My dad had bought a Rick Steves book on Spain (which are probably the best travel books EVER) and looked through it all and we were very excited to see Barcelona! Some of the greatest architects of all time are from and created buildings in Barcelona.

We got into the hostel late Friday evening so we didn't really have time to explore. Saturday morning, we got up with a plan to go get breakfast and coffee and then explore the old Gothic quarter and cathedral on foot. That plan changed fairly quickly at breakfast because we decided that if we wanted to see all of Barcelona, we should hop on the "hop on, hop off" Touristic Bus. We were able to see all of the things in Barcelona that we really wanted to see this way. Here are some pictures from day 1:

 The Christopher Columbus Monument

 1992 Olympic Stadium

 Trying to blend in and not be a tourist. :)

 Famous home by Antoni Gaudi

Although we felt like "tourist" had been stamped on our foreheads, the tourist bus gave us an awesome view of all of Barcelona, and our blond and red hair probably gave us away before the tourist bus anyways. :) One of the spots that we hopped off of the bus and looked around at was Park Guell created by Antoni Gaudi. This park was HUGE and so fun to walk around.

 An awesome view of the city and La Sagrada Familia

How cute. :)

Saturday, we decided to pick up the plans from Friday and roam around the Gothic Quarter and look at the Cathedral. We quickly noticed that the Barcelona Marathon was going on, and we decided to cheer them on for a little bit. As we roamed around the Gothic Quarter and Las Ramblas, we found a handful of quaint shops and restaurants that we enjoyed looking at. There was also a parade going on with people wearing giant costumes dancing around. 

Sunday we walked up and down all of Las Ramblas which is famous for all of its shops and all of the street performers. Here are just a few examples: 

Some of the costumes were incredible!

Monday was one of my favorite days. We visited La Sagrada Familia which is a famous church designed by Antoni Gaudi. The project was so huge that it wasn't finished in his lifetime, and work continues on it today! It is said to be the most anticipated finished project in our lifetimes! Pictures normally can't do justice, and this is no exception. 

 It was huge!

 

 The only side that Gaudi completed in his lifetime. Incredible.

 Inside

We flew back to Sevilla Monday evening, and I had to say goodbye to the parents because they left early Tuesday morning. I loved being in Spain with my parents! I hope that they enjoyed learning and exploring a totally new culture as much as I have.

Ronda, Crazy but Wonderful Parents, and the Costa del Sol

Greetings -

We've had a fun filled weekend! Starting Thursday when Emily's parents came to see this awesome country, and of course, Emily. On Thursday alone, they visited the Plaza de America, Plaza de Espana, Barrio de Santa Cruz (one of the oldest neighborhoods in Sevilla), the Alcazar (the old palace where the king and queen would stay), the Cathedral, and climbed las Setas (a modern structure in the center of the city). All four of us hoped on the bus Friday morning to head to Ronda. Another field trip with our school. The drive was a site to see. Ronda is a fortress that has withstood many wars because of its location in the mountains, hence a beautiful and windy trip.

Ronda is the birth place of bullfights in Spain and we were lucky enough to see the oldest plaza de toros.

However, this was not nearly our favorite spot in Ronda. A group of us (we call ourselves the "rebel" group) decided to cross over the bridge. The two parts of Ronda are connected by a magnificent puenta (bridge). We were told not to cross the bridge so that we could experience the other side of Ronda with the group. Needless to say, none of us regret this decision.

This was our view at first, if you can believe it gets even better!

We noticed a path that lead right underneath this crazy awesome bridge, so why not go on a bit of a hike?! We took off on what started as a paved path, then gravel, then dirt, then we scaled the wall (okay, this is a bit of an exaggeration). We are still amazed at the beautiful views we saw down in the valley.

 The view from where we were hiking - the waterfall was sweet. 

 The look out view of rural Ronda
 

This was by far our favorite school field trip. Our previous trips we toured many Cathedrals, museums and the like (which are all very beautiful), but here we got to experience a bit of God's creation. We can't wait to see more of it! 

Emily and her parents!! 

The next part of our day consisted of going on a tour with the rest of our group and seeing more of the ancient city of Ronda. We returned to Sevilla that night, and although very tired Emily and her parents stuck it out and went to Carboneria - a famous flamenco bar in Sevilla.

The next part of our crazy weekend consisted of us packing up our things once again, renting a car, and trying to find the Costa del Sol which is the Southern coastline of Spain. At first you may think, "Oh, that sounds easy. Just pack up the things and drive South." But in reality, its always a little more complicated than that. My parents brought their handy dandy Garmin for this journey, but as it turns out, the directions given in other countries are more like suggestions. After we finally arrived, we soon learned that it was St. Patricks Day! The restaurant at our timeshare gave us free hats, and we ate all kinds of good things. Kerianne and I learned how to play the card game pitch, and everyone just had a really good time.

The following days were spent on the beach tanning, reading, and relaxing. We were actually so close to the Rock of Gibralter, that we could see Africa from the beach!

Seeing my (Emily) parents experience Europe for the first time, and exploring it with them has been one of the best experiences of my life. I was so thankful that I could be with them for their first time in Europe, and I think they were very thankful that they had Kerianne and I as well, especially for the language barrier. This coming weekend, my parents and I are headed to Barcelona for one more adventure.

We miss all of you and you are always in our thoughts and prayers!! Until next time...

One Ring to Rule Them All

Kerianne and I have already had the amazing experience to travel throughout parts of Spain, and in the near future, all over Europe. This past weekend, the students of the Acento de Trinity program boarded a bus, and took off for what was once, one of the most important cities in Southern Europe, Toledo. 

We took a short pit-stop to see the windmills of Don Quijote. Don Quijote is a famous fictional character who was known for his unique imagination. In the book, Don Quijote thought the windmills were giants that he tried to slay with his wooden sword on his noble stead, a donkey. 

Toledo is known for a variety of things: it was once the capital of Spain and a very important political power in Southern Europe, the cathedral, it's art history, and what all of you are actually interested in... Toledo has made almost all of the swords, guns, rings, and daggers throughout Hollywood's movies. Some of these include, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, the Pirates of the Caribbean, Alexander the Great, and the Samuri. 

Since Toledo is 6 hours away from Sevilla via bus, our program had reserved hotel rooms for us. I don't know about you all, but Kerianne and I absolutely love school road trips and activities! It was so much fun to hang out and get to know different people from the program a little bit better. Here, I would also like to give a huge shout-out to my sister Tayler who made it to the state championship game for basketball while I was in Toledo. I listened to it at 2:00 a.m. in my hotel room, I am so proud. :)

The hotel offered a free continental breakfast that Kerianne and I took full advantage of before we started our day. We toured the cathedral and then had free time to roam and explore the city. 

 A cool statue :)

 The Cathedral

 A monastery that we toured

 Las Puertas, be looking for our third album coming out in Ronda.

 The tower of the Cathedral

 The view of Toledo from a neighboring hillside 

Toledo was a very fun weekend trip with our classmates, exploring even more history of God's world.

Vacation Time!

Last week was a blur of events. On February 24 we set off for Palma de Mallorca for a 5 day vacation on an island in Spain. This island is in the Mediterranean Sea and we found ourselves reflecting often about how we were touching the same Sea that Jesus had once touched. Our flight over was with Ryanair, a cheap European airline that prides itself on being on time. After every flight, there is a recording of trumpets that is played to announce that your flight was on time! If you're ever searching for Ryanair in the airport, just go to the last terminal or check in counter that you can find, and Ryanair will be there.

We packed our backpacks full with our swimsuits, changes of clothes, and snacks for the beach. We wanted to save as much money as possible without missing out on the experience, so we decided that making bocadillos for lunch would be best. Hence this picture:

We didn't have to buy lunch once, but decided to splurge a bit for dinner!

The first night we were there we arrived around 10 pm and checked into our hostel. The first thing that we wanted to do was to touch the Mediterranean Sea and find a good tapas restaurant to fill our empty stomaches. We stumbled upon a small family owned restaurant that was filled with locals who were all very welcoming. The next day we woke up to a continental breakfast and spoke with our very helpful hostel receptionists. They told us literally everything we needed to know about Palma. We caught the number 15 bus into the center of Palma to explore the capital city. Of course, it has a massive, gothic Cathedral that overlooked the ocean, so we had to check it out.

Although we stayed right by the beach, the city of Palma is known for its ports. We found it very interesting to look at the many beautiful and huge boats, hoping that someone would take us out into the ocean for a day. The rest of our day consisted of getting lost in the streets and looking at some sweet shops.

I was so happy!

Streets of Palma. 

Saturday evening three of our friends arrived, so on Sunday we decided to have a relaxing day on the beach! There was hardly anyone laying out because it is still winter for these locals and not peak season for tourists, but us crazy Americans found this weather to be perfect.  Saturday night, we all got dressed and took the bus back into Palma to eat and hang out. We stumbled upon an American run diner in the middle of Palma!!! What luck!! Naturally, we went in, and enjoyed one of our first truly American meals since we left the states. It was delicious, cheap, and more food than we could eat!

We successfully watched all 4 sunsets! :)

Monday was fun day! We took a day trip into Porto Cristo, on the other side of the island to see the world famous Caves of Drach! While we were taking a tour, there was a ten minute classical concert and boat show in the large lake within the cave which added even more beauty. Porto Cristo was a really quaint beach town and all in all it was a great day trip. 

On our last day in Palma we decided that we wanted to relax and spend another day on the beach. We got to enjoy all of Tuesday because our flight didn't take off till late in the evening. We were sad to leave Palma, but once we got off at our bus stop in Sevilla we were surprised how much we miss this city!

A Typical Day in the Life of Kerianne and Emily

Here's what a typical day in Sevilla looks like for Emily and I:

8:00 - beep beep beep beep, the alarm goes off. Emily quickly hops out of bed, me on the other...well I take a few minutes to get out of bed. I'll put it at that. Also, I get a little nervous that our Senora (Blanca) is going to bombard me with questions in the morning. Eight in the morning is way to early to speak Spanish.

8:35 - breakfast! Which always (I mean always) consists of orange juice, coffee :) , fruit, and small toast type things that we eat with peanut butter, jam and sometimes nutella. You don't eat much for breakfast here, which makes Emily and I super hungry for lunch later on in the day.

8:48 - This is the latest we can leave to go to school. One day we left around 8:50, but that walk to school wasn't too fun. We're very grateful that we live pretty close to our school though. We've heard some people have to leave at 8:30.

9:00-12:20 - clase! We're both in the intermediate level of classes and they're going quite well. Learning lot of spanish :) After class we either respond to e-mails, check facebook, do our homework, chat with friends or go running. We enjoy running next to the river or in Parque de Principes!

2:00 - finally lunch! We work up quite an appetite so once two hits we are ready to eat! Lunches here are the bigger meal and Blanca is an excellent cook! After lunch sometimes we take naps :). Well not sometimes, quite often, haha! Also, recently we got access to our roof, so we've been enjoying laying out in the sun! We hope to come back with a nice tan! The weather here is starting to get beautiful! We also do our studying in the afternoon and enjoy going to get a cafe con leche!

9:00 - dinner time! We're quite happy we eat at nine (as late as that is). Many others don't eat until 10:30!  Everyone eats lunch and dinner later here, this is something we've definitely had to adjust to. After dinner, sometimes we hang with some new awesome friends or just have a chill night. It all depends on how we're feeling!

There ya have it. What a typical week day looks for us :) This weekend Emily and I are headed to Palma de Mallorca. We don't have classes on Monday or Tuesday so we jumped on this opportunity to travel a bit :) Talk to ya'll later!

Odds and Ends

Hello all!

Wow, this week has absolutely flown by and Kerianne and I have officially been in Spain for over a month! I think we have both hit the stage in our study abroad journey where we are starting to integrate into the culture and make this fantasy Spain world, our real world. These new, crazy things that we have been seeing and experiencing for a month are now becoming more normal and natural. The Spain of our dreams is now our reality, and this is such a good place for us to be in our emotional lives here. I think that it is easy to say that Blanca´s residence (our senora) on Concha Espina Drive is our new temporary home.

We have both had our shares of ups and downs so far on the trip with emotions, language barriers, and feeling totally lost in a country and culture that is not our own. We miss home, friends, and family but are doing our best to take everything in here while we can and live it up! There are so many blessings that God has poured on us already on our trip.

Our Senora is the sweetest woman alive. Kerianne and I laugh and joke around with Blanca at every single meal. She is absolutely histarical and, thankfully, she likes us and thinks we are pretty funny too. :) I don´t know if we can even explain it over the internet, this woman would help us or get us anything that we would ever need... She bought us peanut butter for goodness sakes.

We have also met so many cool people here and are beginning to make really close friendships. We are both in different prayer groups and have begun to make really impacting relationships with the girls in our different groups. It is sometimes hard to make really close relationships with people that you are only going to know for 4 months, but we wanted to set that fact aside, and really get to know people here. So thankfully, God blessed us with some pretty cool people to get to know. :)

And the food really is good (which is sometimes a problem, and the reason that we have started running every day). And there are so many things to do all the time! It is hard to know when to save money and not buy a coffee, and when to just throw money to the wind and get a grande.

Anyways, we just thought we should give you a little update on how we are doing, because it has been a while. Thank you faithful followers of our blog, even when we don´t blog as much as we need to. We will try to give you more updates this week!

P.S. We went to the Carnaval of Cadiz yesterday, which is the third largest carnaval in the world. So stay tuned to hear how it went. And next weekend we are off to the tropical island of Palma with three of our friends!

Grab your bocadillo, we're going to Cordoba!

Folks -

If you're wondering what a bocadillo is...it's a sandwich in a packed lunch! 

Last Friday we had the opportunity to go on our first school field trip in Spain! We felt like little kids again! :) No, we did not ride in a yellow school bus, but we did go with all our classmates to Cordoba! It was about a 2 hour bus ride through the country roads in which Emily and I slept through most of. 

As soon as we got to Cordoba we were graced with this view:

The city of Cordoba is an ancient city that was very important in Spain and it's history. This bridge was constructed by the Romans, a very long time ago. As we walked across the bridge there were three street performers playing instruments. These are the little things that we are beginning to love about Spain! Probably the most important building in Cordoba is the mosque/cathedral/christian church located in the center of the city. This building has been re-made into all three worship centers over the ages and has played an important role the religious history within the city. 

Here is a picture of the bell tower that used to be rung to call the muslims to pray 5 times a day: 

Inside of the mosque/cathedral/church: 

As you can see, the cathedral is outstanding. One of the most beautiful buildings that we have been in. The architecture is mind blowing. There are hundreds of columns within the cathedral, each one of them slightly different because the constructors decided it would be easier to take the columns from places that they conquered. This saved on both time, money and work labor.  

In the afternoon we had some free time to roam around the city. We went with friends to check out the palace where the King and Queen used to stay when they visited Cordoba. Inside the palace there is a beautiful garden, that we unfortunately couldn't see because it costed too much money, but here is the view from the outside. 

It was a wonderful day spent with classmates in Cordoba. We ended the day with another power nap on the way home to our city, Seville :) 

P.S. Our bocadillo was tasty!