Itálica

At the end of October, I visited the Roman city of Itálica!  The bus ride there may have only been 30 minutes, but I traveled back 2,000 years to the first Roman city founded in Spain and birthplace of the Roman Emperors Trajan and Hadrian!  It was pretty awesome!  Luckily, the day I visited happened to be a day of European heritage, so there were free tours all day!  That was great because I got to learn a lot more about the city than I would have otherwise.  The city is not too huge and there are no structures standing anymore, just the foundations, but it was really interesting to imagine what it must have looked like.  There were homes and bath houses that had nice mosaic floors and some crumbling walls.  There were also a lot of brick bread ovens.  I went alone, but I had a fun enough time wandering the Roman streets and enjoying the scenery.  It felt very Roman with withered grass and cypress trees everywhere!  Outside of the city walls is the amphitheater and this was by far my favorite part of the city!  It is one of the largest and best preserved amphitheaters in the entire empire, so it was awesome to just walk in and think of all the gladiators that walked through the same entrance.  

Free tour of the city (all in Spanish, of course)

A wealthy family's house, complete with many bedrooms and a courtyard!

An old Roman statue!

Charming street in Itálica

Just jumping around among the ruins!

The great scenery!

The mosaic floor of the House of the Planetarium
(it features the 7 Roman gods and goddesses who have given their names to the days of the week)

The staircase that I climbed only to have whistles blown at me by angry guards...oops!

Chilling with a Doric column

The Roman roads...the first flat and solid roadways in Europe!

Modern statue of Trajan, who expanded the city once he became Emperor!

Overview of the amphitheater

Inside the amphitheater!  SO AWESOME!

Inside the corridors that run around the whole amphitheater

The seats!

Estepa y Osuna

Hey, I'm catching up!  I'm only 3 weeks behind now :]

At the end of October, I went to the small towns of Estepa and Osuna, about an hour from Sevilla.  I mainly went on this excursion because it was provided for free by the CUI (University International Center) and was the ONLY free trip included in my tuition!  I might be SLIGHTLY bitter about that because half the trips I took in Germany were paid for in my tuition and all the students here that came in big study abroad programs have program-sponsored trips to Paris and Lisbon and all sorts of cool places!  This trip was...interesting.  

In Estepa we visited La Aurora, a family-owned factory and store specializing in mantecados (traditional Spanish Christmas cookies that are VERY thick and heavy since lard is the main ingredient...).  Estepa is actually famous throughout all of Spain for making these seasonal desserts.  There are 27 factories in the town that make them and ship them all around the country.  The professor who went with us got us a tour of the factory because his family just so happens to own it!  So, we got all suited up in our robes and hairnets and toured the factory.  It was interesting, I suppose.  We saw where they keep stock piles of ingredients and it smelled good to walk past roasted almonds and raw dough!  The factory was by no means HUGE, so the tour was done in like a half hour.  Then they allowed us to help ourselves to two baskets filled with various mantecados (chocolate, almond, coconut, coffee, pumpkin?).  They were just ok.  I was initially super excited to go to a Christmas cookie factory, but the Spanish do have different tastes and their version of dessert just does not compare to what I enjoy!  I was eating the cookies mostly because I felt obligated to try the different flavors and to take advantage of free snacks, and less because they were delicious.  After the factory tour, we went out and explored the town on our own...which was basically nothing.  For lunch, the whole group went up to the top of the hill in town which had the ruins of some fortress and great views over the Spanish countryside!  So that was cool!  We walked around to the church and then we were given an hour and a half of free time.  What?  There was really nothing to do.  We had seen the whole town.  So a group of us just stayed by the church and talked/napped.  

La Aurora Mantecado Factory

Store above the factory

D, Emily, me, Megan & Natalie suited up inside the factory!

The professor was TOO excited to show us the lard!

Stock pile of lard...

I don't know what these were.  The wrapper said pine so they're probably pine nuts.
They didn't really taste like anything...except maybe a little bit like lard...

Mantecados on the assembly line

Final product!

View of the countryside in Estepa!

The ruins of the fortress on the hill

View of the town of Estepa

 Afterwards, we took the bus to Osuna.  There is really nothing in Osuna either except the professor's cousins and grandparents.  I kind of felt like this trip was mostly about this professor visiting his family for free and less about taking the students somewhere interesting.  We looked at the university there for like 2 minutes, which is SUPER small and has like 500 students.  Then we went to the outside of the church where the professor's parents were married to look out over the city.  The guide in the church offered to give us a tour, but the professor said we had no time.  Why?  Because we had to go to this one bar in the town square so he could hang out with his cousins.  So, we had another hour of free time there and it was during siesta so everything was closed and once again we just sat around and talked!  It was a rather unproductive and uninformative trip.  I'm glad it was free because otherwise I would have been even more annoyed.  I don't mean to sound ungrateful...it just wasn't the most fun day trip. 

University of Osuna

The church that we "didn't have time" to visit

View of Osuna...and cacti

Osuna - a ghost town...

Las Islas Baleares

What could be more fun than taking a week off of life to go island hopping?  Not much!

In mid-October, 5 friends and I spent 4 days in las Islas Baleares (Balearic Islands), one of Spain's "autonomous communities" (that's basically just their fancy term for state or province).  We started off in Ibiza!  Ibiza is known world-wide for having the biggest party scene anywhere, with world famous DJs like David Guetta headlining every week!  So we were all pretty excited to get out and party (despite hearing of MINIMUM 30€ cover charges and 10€ drink prices)!  However, apparently the party ends with summer...and we found that out the hard way by arriving 10 days after the party season ended!  The island was basically deserted!  We asked about clubs at the front desk of our apartment and they basically looked at us like "Why are you here?" and told us that there was only one bar open.  FAIL!  However, with everything bad comes something good!  Since we visited during the off-season, our apartment (which was already SUPER inexpensive at 8€ per person per day) bumped us up to a premium apartment, since basically no one was staying there.  So, we had a REALLY nice, cheap apartment for 3 nights with a balcony overlooking the beach!  How awesome!  And considering I developed a fever and sore throat, clubbing would not have really been possible for me, so luckily I didn't have to miss out!

Our swanky kitchen!

My bed! 
Sam and I let the girls have real beds, but it wasn't too bad for being a couch!

Our beach view from our balcony...nbd...

On our first day in Ibiza, we took the bus into the city to tour Dalt Vila - the old city!  It was a cool fortified city with an old cathedral, battlements overlooking the harbor and the BLUEST water I have ever seen in my life, and cute, winding streets filled with flowers, whimsical doors, hanging laundry, and vicious cats.  It was a rather enjoyable morning.  Then we came back to the apartment to lay out on the beach, wade in the crystal clear Mediterranean, and have a family dinner :]

The walls of Dalt Vila

View of the harbor from the top of the fortress!

Fire the cannons!

STUNNING!

BLUEST WATER OF MY LIFE!

Yeah...still not over the blueness!  And it's so clear too!

I would love to come back and take a boat around the island someday...

Hey, I look pretty good for being sick as a dog!

Medieval Ibiza Cathedral!

Wouldn't mind living here...

The streets of Dalt Vila!

Just relaxing in the Mediterranean!

Family dinner!  Chillbanging on the balcony!

The second day in Ibiza started off as a fail!  We had planned to visit caves on the other side of the island, but due to our inability to read maps and the inability of a certain someone to be ready on time, we missed the bus to the caves!  So, we just wandered along the beach from the city center back to our apartment.  And then after lunch, we just laid on the beach some more!  What a life!  That night, after I was done doing the dishes from dinner, I went to turn off the sink (which already had a very difficult handle) and as I was jiggling with it, I pushed it down and the water did not turn off!  The handle was basically non-functional and the water would not shut off!  I told the front desk and they didn't have any maintenance personnel on hand, so the random guy they sent couldn't fix it and couldn't figure out how shut off the water for our apartment.  So...the kitchen faucet was running for over 8 hours.  Ooops!  Luckily they didn't charge us!

Another day of island living!

I know, another picture of water...
I just can't get over it!

Oh hey, Ibiza!
(This was also the same location a woman came, ripped all her clothes off and jumped into the sea!  Oh, Europe!)

Crystal clear!

Walking along the coast of Ibiza!

Sunset on Platja d'en Bossa!

Uh-oh...I broke the sink!
(You can see it running in the background!)

Our third day began early since we were flying to Mallorca, the main island in the Balearic chain.  It was literally the SHORTEST flight of my life!  19 minutes.  That was it.  I wish all flights were like that!  Once we arrived, we headed from the airport to our hostel in the beach town of El Arenal.  Our hostel was really nice and the staff was great, including the hostel (or hostile) cat Thomas!  We really lucked out with our accommodations on this trip!  After an amazing and inexpensive lunch, guess what we did!  Yep, laid on the beach some more!  That afternoon, we took the bus into Palma, the capital city of las Islas Baleares.  The cathedral was absolutely beautiful (unfortunately we arrived after it closed...) and it was fun to just walk around the city!  That night, I went out with some friends to discover the happening bar scene of El Arenal!  First stop - a completely empty bar with a lonely bartender.  Second stop - a nice place for 50 year old German and Dutch people.  Third stop - a cheap attempt at a being a cool club with a creepy oiled-down bartender and some "dancers".  It wasn't the crazy Ibiza parties we had all been expecting, but it was...something!

Flying over Mallorca!

A GREAT family lunch :]

The beach in El Arenal

The gorgeous Palma Cathedral!

Me and the cathedral!

Thomas.  He snuck into our room and started going through my bag!

Sam, Caitlin, and me enjoying the nightlife!

On our fourth and final day on the islands, we were determined to see some caves!  So, we actually did some research and planning and took the bus to the town of Porto Cristo to visit las Cuevas del Drach (the Dragon Caves)!  The caves were pretty incredible and had pools of crystal, blue water!  The most random thing ever was the classical music concert that took place in a boat on the lake in the middle of the cave!  Awesome and weird!  But after the concert, we were allowed to ride on the boat...across the lake...in the cave!  I felt like Harry Potter hunting down horcruxes!  After our caving adventure, we spent the rest of the day in Porto Cristo, which I loved!  It was such a charming little beach town with a nice harbor and great rocky scenery!  Once we got back to the hostel in El Arenal, we had some downtime before our flight back to Sevilla and laid on the couches watching 'Back to the Future' on a British TV station!  It was AWESOME!  Since we all live with host families and having guests is kind of prohibited, it felt great to just hang out with friends and watch a movie on a couch!  It's funny how the littlest, simplest things in life can bring such joy!

Porto Cristo!

Inside the Dragon Caves!

The boat on the lake in the cave!  So awesome!

Oh hey, Majorcs!

Porto Cristo's charming harbor!

Me on the rocks in Porto Cristo

The beach!

I love waves crashing into rocks :]

Despite living off of cough syrup and aspirin all week and having quite a few planning mishaps, my island adventure was really great!  Not what I expected, but spending a week in paradise with great friends can never go too badly :]