things i miss about the us (in no particular order)

non-gendered language
's
hamburgers made with cow, instead of pork
cream cheese and bagels
i sort of little miss autumn leaves. but i also appreciate 80 weather here
chlorine pools (instead of the bromine one i have here that is messing with my skin)
classes that arent' 2 hours long
house
mad men
watching house and antm and project runway with people
getting to go to fiestas gratis, instead of paying to get into discotecas
my car
not getting propositioned on the street/assulted in discotecas
the phrase wife, or spouse, or partner, instead of "mi mujer" (my woman) which doesnt really cae bien conmigo
peanut butter
captain crunch


and a few other things, but thats what i have right now.

This viernes, our program went to Sevilla. It's a very beautiful city. I was a bit exhausted from a very spanish night out the noche antes, so i might of missed some cool stuff, but we saw the plaza de espana, and the 3rd largest catedral del mundo. and we climbed a torre, which is becoming a theme of all my trips (next up torre inclinade de piso!)

I only have two months left here, so I'm stepping up my level of immersion. I'm writing words that i learn on the wall, and conjugating them, im talking in spanish when im not talking to you, queridos lectores, (or my madre, or my novio) I'm trying to go out more so i meet more spanish people (i talked to the lg and one of the aerobic instructors at the gimnasio today, and it was mas o menos successful) I'm actually reading all my homework. I'm watching a spanish tv miniseries drama thing that is three hours long each week and super dramatic. I think that I can reach some level of fluidez if i do this. Provided I can find enough spanish people to talk to. so thats my goal. Este es mi meta.

this is all going by so fast! wish me luck!

This weekend, I went to Cádiz, which is a Spanish city on the Atlantic ocean, with 5 other Preshquitas. It was a great city to visit because it was pretty small (it has to be, since its basically an island; it's connected to mainland spain by only a 4 lane road and a train track) so it was easy to walk everywhere. We stayed in a very cute hostal, and went to the beach and climbed some torres. (towers) One torre was an old watch tower, and one was part of the catedral nueva. The watch torre had a camera obscura on the lower level (not sure what exactly that translates to in english), you know, a camera where light is let in through a periscope sort of thing, and filtered through lenses, and reflected by a mirror onto a giant white disc and you can focus on things closer or far away by raising or lowering the disc. Well, anyways, it was really cool, because you could see the movement of the ocean, and the birds flying and laundry blowing on the terraces of all the roofs. The torre worker described all the important edificios (buildings) to us, so it was like getting a tour of the whole city without having to walk all over the place. I highly recommend visiting this torre if you're ever in Cádiz.

Cádiz is possibly the oldest city on the iberian peninsula, so there were some cool phonecian ruins, under roman ruins, under medival ruins that we saw too. And an old roman theater. and the playa (beach) reminded me of beaches at home because they're man made and wide. It was nice to hang out in the ocean and be sandy and warm. and we climbed the giant ficcus tree from south america too.

Next weekend our program is going to Sevilla, and then two weekends after that, I'm going to Italy!!! We're going to see the tower of Pisa, then hang out in Florence for two days (and visit with Rebecca from Wheaton) (maybe we'll side trip down to sienna to see Marina too) and then go to Venice for two days.

The weekend after Italy, our program goes to Granada for two days, then there's one weekend, then austin/claire arrive in spain that week, so ill be spending some time in Madrid, then two free weekends, then my program is over and i go to Paris with Kristie. O man. so much adventuring. And I still want to go to Portugal/Morocco.

I feel like I'm running out of time to learn Spanish. Better start reading more articles on elpais.es, and hanging out with more Spanish people.

• 

Things I have done since my last blog post:

• Joined a gym with a 2o meter pool, and gone swimming (twice!) (in two days!)

• planned a trip to Italy

• planned a trip to Paris after the program ends, right around christmas time (squeee, so excited!!!)

• Decided to plan trips to Portugal and Morrocco sometime in the near future.

• gone to class. meh. There's one class I really can't understand. It was marked as an Art History class, so I thought I'd like it, but in reality it is a Philosophy class. We haven't looked at a single work of art yet. Plus, the room it's in is really echoey and I have a hard time understanding the Spanish students anyways so its pretty much 2 hours of being lost.

• Started taking Sevillana dance classes. I like it alot.

I guess that's about it.
oh, i also visited the ruins of an old Muslim city the caliph built for a member of his harem named zahra (pronounced sara), and went to the alcazar de los reyes cristianos, where cristobal colon asked permission to sail his boats west. The picture was taken from the top of the alcazar, and the tower is the belltower of the Great Mosque of Cordoba.

yours in adventuring,
Sara