This weekend I went to my first bullfight!!! I was soo nervous and thought I was going to be completely grossed out, but it was actually one of the coolest things I have seen so far this semester!!! Although they kill all 6 of the bulls (that part is sad), there is so much tradition involved in the event that it was very cool. The entire stadium was packed and the crowds were very enthusiastic about everything that was going on. One of the most interesting trad...

Tonight, at dinner, my senora told me that my spanish was getting better. Honestly, I was actually surprised because the only time I get to practice speaking is at dinner with her. When we are at school or travelling, everyone speaks English. We do talk in Spanish alot when we go out though....we try to talk to our cab drivers every night on the ride home. We even met some Spanish locals who brought us to an authentic botellon (pre-game) where everyone was ha...

This weekend, my Spanish Culture and Civilization took a class trip to Navarra, the northernmost part of Spain. In class, we are learning about Spain and its culture during the Roman, Gothic and Baroque periods. This weekend, we went to two castles, two cathedrals, and two monasteries to look at the architecture from these periods. My favorite part was the castles. The first was El Castillo de Olite, built in 1402 for the king of Navarra. It was very well pr...

This weekend I went to Valencia, a city on the Western Coast of Spain. We left at 6 am on Friday, took a 6 hour bus, and did not arrive in Valencia until 4 pm! I stayed in a hostel with 6 other St. Joe's students and one of our friends from Wake Forest. Our hostel room was possibly the smallest room I've ever seen, we couldn't even walk through the aisle between our bunkbeds! It was still one of the best weekends ever though! We went out Friday night for Valenc...

I can't believe I have already been in Spain for almost 2 weeks! We have done so much already, but there is still so much to see! When I arrived in Madrid on August 31, I was immediatly whisked off onto a school trip to El Escorial. We visited El Monasterio del Escorial, which is a giant monastery and is also where many Spanish kings and queens are buried. We also visited El Valle de Los Caidos, a giant cross on a mountain, which is a memorial to all those wh...