Day Sixteen-Day Nineteen

To start off our first full day in Sevilla, we had an AMERICAN breakfast. It rocked. Everyone had been craving eggs and bacon and fruit and it was all there in front of us. After filling up on breakfast foods, we meet up in the lobby because we were going on a tour of the Cathedral with a tour guide. Thankfully, she spoke English and had some good humor.  We had to have the tour start at 9 so we wouldn't all fry; it was 109 degrees in Sevilla the previous day! The tour lasted about 2 hours and it was so interesting! The cathedral was spectacular. The best part of the Cathedral was the tower we were able to walk up to see an awesome view of the city. There were 36 ramps we had to walk up to get to the top; there were ramps and not stairs because back in the day, horses had to get up there. After we admired the view, Avery and I decided to run down. That was fun until I ran into like 5 people, scaring them. Once we were all done with the tour, we headed back to the hotel for a 4 hour siesta. Some people swam in the pool on the roof and others worked on their assignments and there were some like me who slept. That night, we all got what we were craving, American burgers. We found a Tex Mex Bar. Tex Mex in Spain? It was random but believe me, the burgers were so good! A lot better than the spanish burger people had ordered thinking it was normal when they were not at all. After dinner, we go outside the Cathedral to shoot self portraits with the timer on our cameras. We all had a little too much fun with that and took a ton of pictures using the timer. We also met a group of kids our age with another study abroad group, and one girl happened to live in Houston and goes to St. Johns. So, that was fun to meet them. We all headed out to get ice cream, but instead of getting ice cream, I got a chocolate milk shake, it was to die for. Well I think anything would have tasted good. We head back to the hotel and hit the sack. The next morning, we had 3 options. Two of the options were to go to these different areas and tour them and the third was to sleep in. I was exhausted, so I decided to sleep in. After we slept in and had a bite to eat, we headed to the river to have a boat cruise/tour. It was really cool because it was in english and we were able to learn a lot about the architecture around us. Later after our siesta, we went to a 2 hour Flamenco performance. After seeing them practice in Granada, it was really cool to see what it was like in a true performance. We grabbed a bite to eat and headed back to the hotel and packed because we were headed for Cadiz the next day. We all met in the lobby, some people decked out in their 4th of July apparel and we loaded the bus for the 2 hour ride to Cadiz. Cadiz is a beach city, it is really nice. We got to the hotel early before the rooms were ready, so we decided to check the beach out, which was right behind our hotel. We walked around the beach for about an hour and then went to the grocery store next to the hotel and got lunch food and ate it in the lobby of the hotel. We all got our rooms, I am with Brandon this time, and get ready to actually go to the beach. We got to the beach and immediately went for the water. It was beyond cold, but we all went far in anyways and had a blast. After cooling off in the water, we all head back to "lay out". I put a ton of sunscreen on, but that didn't seem to work because I still managed to get burned. I never really heard of Spain having nude beaches but now I know they do. It was an interesting experience. We all headed back to the hotel and got ready for dinner and headed out to find a place to eat. We found some restaurants with some shops around it so we shopped then ate. After dinner we had American ice cream - Ben&Jerrys! It was so good. We all went back to the hotel and went to bed. The next morning, breakfast was even better. Fresh fruit AND sunny side up eggs. Best breakfast in a long time! We all met in the game room in the basement of the hotel and worked with our on assignment projects with our group. After working on them for about an hour and a half, we all presented them. And I have to say, they all went really well. At the same time, we also submitted our photos to National Geographic. I ended up submitting 14 photos. We all went to the store to grab some lunch and those who wanted to go to the beach were able to go. I decided to stay because I needed to work on assignments and other things. Tonight is the night noone is going to sleep because we have to leave here at 3 am to catch our flight to Paris. There is only a 1 hour lay over from the time we land to the time our other plane leaves for Houston, and having experienced changing terminals and going through security in Paris coming to Spain, we know there is the possibility of us missing our flight and having to stay in Paris overnight. We are all going to sprint in the airport though, well at least I am because I am going home tomorrow, so we shouldn't have any problems. This trip has been such an awesome experience and I have had the time of my life. Along with meeting a ton of new people and having a blast, I was able to expand my knowledge of photography by a lot, because going into this trip, I honestly know not a thing. So, these past 3 weeks in Spain have definitely been a success and completely worth it.

Day Fifteen

We packed all of our things up and made our way to the bus that was taking us to Sevilla. All of us huddled around the bus to have the driver put our bags on the bus and then some of us waited on the bus and some waited outside. It was clear that when they were still trying to stuff the 18+ bags on this bus after 25 minutes that the bus was too small. We call for another bus and wait for 30 minutes for it to arrive, which gave us time to get breakfast, I didn't get anything though. The bus finally arrived, and believe me it was more like an oversized coach bus, everyone got their own row with many more to spare. We finally hit the road and started our 2 hour drive to Cordoba. We decided to stop in Cordoba for a couple of hours because of the well known Mezquita. We arrived to Cordoba and I don't think I have ever been so hot. We made our trek to the Mezquita and it was like nothing I had ever seen. We roamed around inside and took a ton of pictures.  After about 2 hours of walking around, we eat a quick lunch and then head back to the bus. It took about an hour or so to get to Sevilla and once there we found our hotel. Considering our living conditions in Madrid, this hotel is like the ritz. Most rooms are only 2 people, I got roomed with Robert. It is a lot better than 4 people. We had around a 2 hour siesta time and in that time we all checked out the pool on the roof and just relaxed. We went to an early dinner and then got some ice cream. I had a chocolate shake, it was so good! I can't wait to have American food back in Houston. We walked around the city a bit, but not very long because it was so hot. We got back and had our usual nightly meeting with the leaders and headed to bed. I stayed up till 1 working on my photography book because I want to get it done before we get back to Houston.