LLL - Living London Life

3 words... I LOVE LONDON! Ok, so maybe 3 words might not describe how amazing London is, but London is incredible. It is one of my favorite places I've ever been. Sure, I acted like a tourist, I took my platform 9 and 3/4 picture, I took pictures of big ben and the london eye, I took pictures in the red telephone booths, I took thousands of pictures. I also went to Westminster Abbey, London Tower, London bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, Buckingham and Kennsington Palace. But I also learned a ton about British history, ate food from all around the world, and got to spend time with good friends.

London Eye

Leading up to Buckingham

Classic pic

London Bridge

Changing of the guards

Westminster Abbey

The first day, Gabi and I went explored London. We had both been traveling all night, but we pushed through our tiredness! We went to the Camden market, got amazing coffee off the side of the road, got poured on in true London fashion. That night we were able to meet up with my friend Erin and her boyfriend who took us to a pub, chinese food, and ice cream!

Buckingham Palace

The next two days went by in a whirlwind on tourist attractions. We asked every tour guide in site to explain the family trees of royalty in England. We kept getting all the Edwards and Charles and Isabelle's confused! We saw crown jewels, toured the palace where Kate and William and Harry and Princess Diana, Queen Victoria and many others lived. We saw the amazing old outfits, more jewels and amazing views. We ended the night with take out chinese food and say yes to the dress. Classic.

Kennsington Palace

O and did I mention we saw WICKED?!? In London! By far, the best experience ever!

Flamenco Dresses and Carnival Rides = FERIA

Last week was a worldwide known festival in Sevilla called Feria. The best way to describe Feria is to is an old western town with a spanish twist. Imagine tents and streets lined with holiday lights, men wearing suits, women dressed in Flamenco dresses, carnival rides, and horse and carriages everywhere. It is truly an amazing site to bee seen!

 



The first night, I went with my friend Rebecca and some of her friends from her program to Feria on Monday night at midnight! At midnight the lights to the door of Feria turned on and everyone entered to start the week long festival. We explored the public tents where we found Flamenco dancers, rode a crazy festival ride, and enjoyed the packed Sevilla atmosphere. 

Before entering

The carnival rides

inside a public tent

The next day, I had a true Sevillana experience when I dressed in Flamenco dress and went to Sevilla during the day. My host family was so kind and lent me a Flamenco dress. They even ironed it and sewed it for me so it fit perfectly. I bought the big bracelet and earrings to match and my host aunt did my hair while my host mom did my makeup. I met my friend Meghan at Feria and we rode a carnival ride for free (it was slightly nauseating though). The way Feria works is that there are tons of private tents that you can't enter unless you own them (and they are very expensive) and few public tents for the rest of the people to hang out in. We managed to hang out in a few public tents and saw many women flamenco dancing. One dad asked me to dance with his little 6(ish) year old boy (who refused). It was so cute! The best part was seeing everyone dressed up! Women ages 6months to 90 years old were dressed in fancy flamenco dresses! It was incredible to see the spanish culture!

Inside a tent

The streets and my Flamenco dress

 a little crazy on makeup?

Perfect sevillana pic

Matalascañas Beach Day

Sooo I've been a bit behind on the blog because nothing too exciting has been happening, just living the daily grind of Spain! Last Saturday, the 6th of April, I took a break from the grind to take a quick trip to the beach! My friend Meghan and I took an 11am bus to the beach! The bus was supposed to last 1.25 hours, but somehow we took all backroads and it lasted 2 hours.









When we finally arrived, we found Matalascañas to be beautiful! It was slightly chillier than we had hoped, but we walked the beaches, sat down in the sun, and enjoyed the breeze! We went and found a tower that had fell in the ocean, walked around a park and saw a lighthouse!

Tower in the water!

Matalascañas shore

beautiful colors

 For lunch, we ate at a restaurant on the beach where we ate paella, fried fish, bread, and strawberries with whipped cream! Later on we got ice cream on the beach too (never too full for ice cream!) The bus ride home was just as long on the way there.

Only in Spain would the bus driver stop in the middle of a circle because he saw his friend in another car and wanted to say hi! The trip was a perfect way to spend a Saturday, soaking up the sun and enjoying the beach!

Semana Santa con mi familia

So before I start this blogpost let me just say that I did about 40000 things over Semana Santa and this will just be a very brief outline because I'm sure no one wants to read a book about my vacation!

Semana Santa, or holy week, was absolutely amazing! My parents and brother and sister came to visit me! We met up in Venice, Italy, which meeting itself was an adventure! I planned to meet my family near baggage claim until I realized I had flown into a different airport from them! DISASTER! A lady told me that the water taxi's were on strike so my only option was to walk an hour (with my heavy suitcase) to the hotel or take an expensive taxi to the airport where my family was at! I took the airport and thankfully my dad was able to call me on my spanish phone and I finally found them! What a scary start to the trip!

Venus was amazing in total! We took a gondola ride, went to Murano to see glass blowing (and got some pretty cool earrings), rode a few too many long water taxis (which turned out not to be on strike), and ate DELICIOUS pasta, pizza, and gelato!

Fam in Venus

Near St. Mark's square

murano

near gondola

murano!

Next stop was Florence! We took a 1.5 hour train to Florence and were happy to check in and grab some more delicious pasta! We spent the day at the Ufizzi art museum that Jamie, my brother, was dying to go to! That night we met up with my friend Kyle from Elon and he took my family to a cute little italian place for dinner! I loved it and seeing him! The next day in Florence we went to the il duomo and before we left Florence we climbed both the il duomo dome and the bell tower (and ate a ton more Italian food).

Kyle and I in Florence

We made a quick pit stop in Madrid to sleep (and eat delicious calamari sandwiches) before heading to my hometown of Sevilla! I accidentally got on the bus going the wrong way in Sevilla (what's new?) so it took us a long time to get to the hotel, but after we were there I took my family on a tour of Sevilla in true sevillano fashion! We went to a frutería (a fruit store) and ate our plums while going to see the cathedral (and Christopher Columbus' grave). We had tapas for lunch and then went to see the alcázar! For dinner we went to my host family's house! It was funny because my host family doesn't speak english and my family doesn't speak spanish so I played translator the whole time! My host mom made a really delicious meal (paella and spanish tortilla) and we all left stuffed!

in alcazár

All family pic!

The next day we went to Granada! Here we had tapas and delicious sangria that we all were in love with! The waiter kept bringing us random tapas and we couldn't quite figure out what was going on, but that's Spain for you! We spent the evening at the Alhambra and on our way back to the hotel we saw a processional and then got some ice cream for "dinner."

Last stop was in Madrid! We went to parque de los retiros, rode a cable car over the city, went to a tour of the royal palace, ate menú diarios (two courses, dessert, bread, and a drink), drank more sangria and ate chocolate and churros for dinner two nights in a row!! Sunday, Easter Morning, was sad saying goodbye! I didn't want to see my family leave! The week spent with family was amazing and I can't wait to see them again soon!