It's amazing how tiempo corre, corre, as Basa says almost daily. This is especially evident in how I felt like I'd done a fair job of updating this thing, but then realized that I've written one post since Portugal. Oops.

However, this can be a good thing, since it means that I've had plenty of activities keeping me busy. The most recent of which was our IES excursion to the cities of Sevilla and Granada, two cities in Andalucia (southern Spain).

Of course, being in Salamanca, this trip required quite a bit of travel time - good thing I can sleep so well on buses! ... Oh, wait. 

But I did get a good chance to listen to a lot of music while I attempted/pretended to sleep, which made me realize that music has also been a casualty of my Salamanca adventures. The highlight for me was playing the Pixies' "Debaser," which features the line, "I am un chien andalusia" - in Andalucia! (It refers to this movie, if you're curious)

But really, the weekend was not about buses or my music. It was about visiting two beautiful southern cities, completely different from what we had seen of Spain thus far geographically and culturally (and with regards to accents: the "unpure" Andalucian accent is about the equivalent of the southern accent in the US).

 Sevilla was gorgeous, probably everyone's favorite city out of the two that we visited.  Our only planned activity there was to visit the cathedral - only the third-largest church in the world - no big deal. Oh, and it has the tomb of some guy named Christopher Columbus. 

From there, we wandered around town for a bit until we were ready to collapse from low blood sugar and sleep deprivation (Have you begun to notice a common theme here?)

Sevilla's Plaza de Espana has a bench for each Spanish province.
Here we are, repping our fake hometown.

Fortunately, we didn't need to go far, since there was a Festival of Nations in a nearby park - with food from all over the world. One IES student, however, made the fatal mistake of ordering Mexican food - warning: the Spanish version of it is extremely disappointing. Despite all the tributes we saw that day to Spanish imperialism, they've definitely failed to conquer the food.

Another picture at the gorgeous Plaza de Espana

We wandered around a lot that night, especially when Katie and I tried to follow the recommendation that Emilio, our Spanish language professor, gave us - to get Sevilla's chocolate con churros. However, as good as it was supposed to be, the Sevillanos knew nothing about any places to find it - as in they actually had no idea. What kind of place is that?!?

Then, of course, as soon as we gave up and got helado, we found a churros place two blocks from our hotel. But don't worry; this didn't ruin our day (too much).

There was actually no reason whatsoever to be sad because there was a ridiculous amount of food that we were able to eat, at least. Basa packed me another super-bag of food, the remainders of which I again have hoarded in my closet now.

On Saturday, we left Sevilla for Granada - specifically the main tourist attraction in the country: the Alhambra.  The massive gardens were absolutely gorgeous, let alone the palace itself. I loved seeing the Arabic influences in the architecture, especially because it's so different from the architecture that we've seen thus far in the north of Spain.

I could handle living here. Just saying.

But that's not all! After exhausting ourselves, we checked into our very nice hotel (IES liiiiiikes us...), and I went to go meet Lisi, my friend and roommate from SCU who's studying in Granada this semester. Of course, I had subconsciously tried to sabotage my plans by mistyping Lisi's Spanish cell phone number in my phone. However, I managed to use the Wifi on my iPod to get the correct number, and then we got to spend the afternoon together! (Thank you, technology.)

We walked around the town of Granada, including to the mirador, which is a lookout point on top of a massive hill with an amazing view of the Alhambra. Then we went and got coffee like the super Europeans that we are.

That night, IES had a private espectaculo de flamenco planned for us. That's right - a flamenco spectacular! In a cave! 

The dancing was apparently the purest form of flamenco you'll ever find, and it was performed six inches away from my feet. I survived, but with the dancers as intense as these ones were, I was a little nervous in the beginning. But the show itself was fantastic, complete with two guitarists and a singer accompanying the five individual dancers (including the most intimidating male dancer I've ever seen).

Sunday was our day to cross the country en autobus, and return home. During the ride, I was thinking semi-jealously about all the lucky people who get to study in the two beautiful places we had just visited - but then I also realized that I was actually really glad to be heading back to Salamanca. It might not have just gotten a visit from Michelle Obama, or have the tomb of Christopher Columbus, but I've been really happy here.

Right in the middle of this thought process, we made a quick stop - at the windmills of Castilla la Mancha made famous in Don Quixote. Despite a clumsy moment on my part (shocker) in the pursuit of a funny photo, it was still pretty cool (and appropriately, extremely windy).

Now, I suppose I have to stop looking at my 200 pictures from the weekend and go be productive...