Mi Vida en España: Glimpses of my life in Spain: Crunch time, but some time in the sun as well. Week 10

This past week and this week have been a little bit of crunch time with exams and papers for my Spain classes and applications for St. Kate’s as it’s that time of year. Thankfully the beautiful weather helps to keep me in good spirits and helps to break up the studying and working when I can sit outside and work. I’ve actually had to start studying in the shade on our terrace as the sun is so strong that after 20 minutes I’m sweating from the heat. It’s been in the 80s for a while now – just amazing.

I visited the Plaza de Torros (the bull ring) in Sevilla. It is the second oldest in the Spain (and the world) and is special because it isn’t a perfect circle, but an oval. We had a guided tour so it was interesting to learn about the bull fighting (though they don’t like that terminology "fighting"…I’m not sure how else to say it in English though). It is quite an art in the fact of there are very specific things that need to be done and the bull fighters are professionals – this is their job. I don’t think I am going to go see a bull fight – I’m not very into the idea of watching the bull be killed. I think it would be too hard to watch. When I asked my language partner, Juanlu, about it he said that he didn’t like it at all and wanted it to be illegal. He said many young people do but the older generations want to keep it around because it’s such an old tradition. Many of the younger generations believe it’s terrible because they are killing the bull very slowly and it’s for sport.

This past weekend I went to Alicante with Lindsey to see our friend from St. Kate’s, Tamar, who is studying there for the semester. It was a very relaxed trip. We did a lot of talking and hanging out. We didn’t get there until late afternoon on Friday and had to leave Sunday morning so it was kind of quick. We enjoyed the night life a little bit on Friday night and spent the whole day on the beach Saturday. It was a beautiful beach with some very fine, soft sand. We were able to eat lunch on the beach, talk, sleep, relax, study (just a little :) )…very nice.

This coming Thursday after classes I will leave for my week long trip which will begin with London and then continue to Slovakia where I will be visiting a family (The Kacians for those who know them) that I got to know my first summer that I worked at Mount Carmel family camp. I’m very excited, but still need to figure out some details! :) I’ll get back to Sevilla in the early evening of Wednesday the 20^th so that I can enjoy the rest of Holy Week in Sevilla as there is a big celebration here and a lot going on. I can’t believe Holy Week and Easter are right around the corner!

Photos!