Sevilla 2nd DAY!

Sevilla! I love, love, love Sevilla! I also loved, loved, loved Granada and all the other places we have been. I feel like I am in love with Spain more than I ever realized possible. This place makes me happy and realize how much there is to know in the world and the history of it! I love it!

Look at how HUGE these pillars are in the cathedral! Everything about the Cathedral is unimaginable . Well i guess not since they made everything and it was probably imaged before!

The roof in the Cathedral. way pretty!

There are lots and lots of fountains. I love it, because I love water. Fountains are hard to take cool pictures of, but I'm working on it! This fountain is in the Cathedral's Orange court. It is a place where people go to enjoy and pass and hang out.

I love the gothic arches. They are so cool!

This horse was so nice. I loved it. It let me pet my favorite part on a horse; the soft part right at it's nose between the nostrils.

Okay, I have to tell you that looking at Christopher Columbus' mausoleo brought tears to my eyes, because I am so grateful to him for all he did! He is so amazing for the valiance that he had to have to do what he did. This sculpture of statues is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. The metal looks like ropa. It is so beautiful. The symbolism is so cool. I'll write about it really quickly. The castle on the left represents Ysabel the queen of Spain. She came from Castilla which was represented with a castle. On the right is a lion for Leon, another region in Spain. In the back there is a statue with murcielagos (that is such a cool word in spanish. It has all the vowels in one word!) it means bats. The bats lived in caves in Aragon which is where Fernando the King is from and the last one on the right has chains which represent Navarra. The whole monument represents the unification of Spain once Columbus discovered the new world. All the regions of Spain carry him on their shoulders. I just love it and I love the workmanship of whoever created these sculptures, because I kept wanting to reach my hand out and feel the material, because it actually looked like heavy, real material. It was so beautiful. All of this was inside of the cathedral in Sevilla.

No me dejado. This is the symbol of Seville. It is all over the place and the symbolism is cool. I love all the symbolism everywhere. I am learning so much. No me ha dejado means "He/She didn't leave me" and this comes from someone along the way not leaving someone...has something to do with the king and queen as usual it started out as no me dejado, but because language changes it changed to no me ha dejado. The nudo or knot is a part of it...k it's too late for me to exaplain. Go look it up on wikipedia! http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevilla that is the address. You probably need to change the language it is in spanish.

This is the first balcony from the outside. The next picture is from the inside looking out.

Okay today rocked! Seriously we did 2 of the best things ever! We went to the top of the La Giralda. It was so cool. You can see everything up there it is like 300 and something feet tall. It has 35 ramps and 17 steps.

This is one of the Arenas where they do the corrida de torros. That is a bullfight. We aren't going to get to go to one, but that's okay, I've seen way too many videos where a bull goes crazy and runs into the crowds. It would be kind of cool though!

Sevilla

SEVILLA!

So today has been an awesome day! We left Jerez de la frontera after going to the arches last night and getting to bed at 2:30am. We came to Sevilla (remember the famous barber of Seville? well it originated here!) It is so cool! There is a tower that is 300 feet tall in a cathedral. I went to my first catholic mass today. It was pretty cool. It was extra special because of the celebration of Corpus Christi. There was a live orchestra (Jenn you would have liked it!) and children singing in a choir and dancing. The cathedral was so cool! Really! Huge arches and my favorite is a statue of Peter holding the keys of the priesthood. I love it! I learned about that in my art class about 8 years ago and still remember!

300 foot tower! Amazing! Hurts to look up at right underneath it it's so tall. We are going to the top tomorrow!

Shoes to dance flamenco in. Jenn this has something to do with what I got you today. Don't get any "big" ideas!

This is the tabernacle.

Peter with the keys of the Priesthood symbolically!

So cool! There is a bicycle system in the city of Seville where residents swipe their ID card and they rent the bike in one place and drop it in another...that would have been very nice after walking probably at least 10 miles and i say that as my feet are thanking me after walking all day!

This is our hotel room! It is so nice. In all the rooms in Europe (or at least Spain) the beds are a twin or full and are pushed together. It even smells so good. I love it! Professor Knapps is sleeping next to me right now. I need to go to bed! I already passed when I said I would be done! It's 2:13am I've got to get to bed...Looking at the picture it is calling me!

The bridge as you enter Sevilla! Oh man it is hot today. 41 degrees cel. I sweat and drank a lot andddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd (those d's represent my hand being heavy on the keys as I fell asleep typing just now. K I really need to echerme a la cama...gotta go to bed. night!

Matching Horchata! I like mexican horchata better for some reason.

The Torre de Oro. This isn't the tower that is 300 feet tall. I'll put a photo on and go to bed! But this used to be called the Tower of Gold because when the ships would sale in they would put their gold here. It is cool and very pretty!

Another awesome day in Spain

(it's 2:04am...i'm posting what i wrote earlier today in the car)

I don't have energy to write in English so this is what you get for now! I haven't corrected all the spelling errors etc...but have to write in Spanish for my Journal so i thought I would just add it. I will see how long i can stay awake to add pictures. It's 2 in the morning. Needless to say today and all the days i've been here have been amazing. i have met so many nice people and i love them all. I have met people for Morruecos, Argentina, del sur y norte...i love it! We haven't had internet for 2 or 3 days so i'm a bit behind. okay ahora me voy a dormir...

6/27/2011 4:06 de la tarde Lunes

Bueno ahora son las 5:02 porque fuimos a horita a la roca Gibraltar. ¡Qué bien! ¡Me encanto! Había escuchado de esta roca, pero nunca sabía lo que era. Capaz fue en la clase de La Senora Hoskison de la clase de la isla ibérica. Hace 9 años que tomé esta clase asi que no me acuerdo mucho de la clase. Por eso parece que no sé mucho de historia de Espana y para decir la verdad, no me acuerdo mucho porque primeramente cuando tomé la clase era mi primer semestre después de la misión y casi no entendí nada. Por poco no pasé la clase! Me acuerdo para los exámenes y el proyecto final lloré porque no entendí tanto y fui a grupos de estudio y me costó tanto tiempo leer el libro. Era fatal. Profe Knapp nos ha contado tantas cosas. Me estoy acordando muchas cosas que me suenan.

Bueno, salimos esta mañana a las 7:30 de la mañana. Cuando sonó la campana quería morir porque tenia tanto sueños. Fuimos afuera para poner las cosas en el coche y nos habían dado una multa por aparcarnos donde nos aparcábamos por toda la noche. Los hombre nos habían dicho que estaba bien y nos cuidarían los caros. No era verdad. Bueno pasamos una hora buscando donde ir para arreglar la multa. Fuimos a la policía, luego al hotel y otra vez a la policía. Mientras que los profesores, Dendi y Susy fueron a ver cómo arreglar la multa yo y Caro nos quedamos en el coche durmiendo. Estábamos tan cansadas. Susy nos sacó una foto. Me senti tan major despues!

Después de arreglar (o lo que esperamos es arreglar; regalar unas cosas de la policía del lago salado) fuimos al supermercado! Fue tan lindo. ¡Mira las canastas para ayudarse hacer los mandados!

Luego fuimos a LA PLAYA! ¡Que hermosa que fue! ¡Me ecanto tanto! ¡Nadé en la playa y me encantó! Nos dieron una hora y la usamos muy bien! Me compré una toalla. Respalde en un respalde bien lejos. Nadaba hasta allí. Fue muy divertido. La playa era muy lindo. Me entantó. Nos fuimos otra vez. Pobre y el profe quienes tuvieron que manejar mucho hoy. Bueno ha sido un dia tan lindo. Estoy tan feliz estar aquí. No puedo creer que estoy aquí en Espana. Otra meta hecha! ¡Que buena vida que tengo! Y ahora vamos al hotel y luego a los arcos! Siempre he querido visitarlas de Utah, pero nunca he tenido la oportunidad, hoy sí! Bueno te cuento mas luego. Oh, también practicamos el vocabulario de a mi también o yo también. La profe Knapp tiene mucha paciencia conmigo! Bueno me voy porque llegamos al hotel! Yay!

Quieres que me baje

Que dia mas lindo! Don Quixote de La Mancha

Y ahora estamos en GRANADA!
Tomorrow we are to going the Alhambra!

These are your typical viejitos "older people". I just love them. They walk through the streets and sit on benches. This guy on the right is named Frank. He balls up old bread and feeds it to the birds. It is so fun to watch.

When we got to Granada today, after a really long (5 hour drive) it was so hot 34degrees C and very humid, so with 6 min before the pool closed at 8 I jumped in and how cool is it that the city of Granada is right behind us? We are lucky lucky! Then we went out and went around the town! I had spaghetti! Yum and for dessert Natilla.

Who knew that Spain is actually the number one producers of olive oil? I had no idea. I've never seen so many olive trees in my life. It was beautiful. We also saw a huge field of sun flowers they use to make sun flower oil. On my mission in Uruguay they used sunflower oil a lot and had tons of sun flowers growing in the campo.

Us with our wonderful sandwiches and Professor Meredith with his sandwich and Red Bull to keep him awake while driving!

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We went to where Don Quixote de La Mancha takes place and took a ton of pictures. In the surrounding pictures are Carolina (We also passed by her town, or at least one with her name that was celebrating her 16th bday! jk) and Professor Meredith. After La Mancha we went to a supermercado and the prices were amazingly cheap! This isn't like South America where everything is usually a lot cheaper. So far everything has been really expensive and really hard for me to bring myself to pay the Euro price for things, but I have! Too many souvenirs already! then we ate in the parking lot at a grocery store and laughed a lot! I think I was drunk with hunger and because of the heat and the prices etc...it was so fun!
This is Suzy and I with our abanicos tradicionales in front of another tradition, el molino! Somos muy espanolas!

We also went and bought ice cream in the actual windmill! It was so cool! We got to go inside of it! The guy selling stuff was "un viejo verde" spouting off poesia right and left! I bought a cute little Molino (windmill) it was awesome!

Today we left Madrid and did an all day road trip to Granada. On the way we stopped at Consuegra where Don Quixote is based. It was so beautiful. A wonderful little town with cobblestone streets.

The people hang curtains in their front door so the air enters but not the bugs. There are so many really pretty ones. It was really hard to take pictures because we were driving. This is one that turned out.

This is a popular Bull (Torro) almost a billboard that is all over! I love it! Cows make me happy and so do the Torro bill boards everywhere!

When we were leaving Spain I saw this sign on a store and had to laugh, because it was just too English!