Portugal and since then... part two

After Cabo San Vicente, we got dropped off in the middle of the city and went to dinner at Casa Rosa and then out to a private party for people in our program at one of the bars in the city. At Casa Rosa, we ordered our dinner and it was not what we expected at all. For instance, I ordered chicken and it came with salad and rice. Which meant I got... three chicken wings over a little bit of rice, and four big pieces of onion as my salad. It’s very interesting to see how things don’t turn out the way we expect them to. If it was America and that’s what I got for 10 Euros, I don’t think I’d be eating there again. But in Spain and Portugal, the portion sizes are a lot smaller and not exactly prepared as you would think. Natalie, on the other hand... got more than she bargained for. She ordered fish… aka—an ENTIRE fish- head and tail and skin as well.

She was so distraught by the sight of this thing that it lead us to make friends with some Australians sitting next to us. Thankfully, one of them volunteered to behead Natalie’s fish while the other girl yelled: “You just decapitated a fish! You just chopped the head of someone else’s dinnah!” We ended up chatting with these Aussies and they were really cool. I am really nosy, so I like hearing why everyone is in Portugal or Spain, travelling? Vacation? School? I must know.. haha

On the last day, we visited a third beach called Praia do Amado, which was, once again, amazing. However, this beach was really really windy, so we were all kind of situated behind this big rock- not that it helped at all. At around 4pm, we headed back to the hotel, and then back Sevilla. I wish we could have just stayed in Portugal! Here are some more pics but it’s impossible to capture how beautiful it really is!

(It took us 6 tries to get this picture)

School is a mystery to me. I seem to get yelled at for something different every day. On Monday, I got in trouble for looking up a word in the dictionary that he said and I didn’t know. Our teacher is constantly putting up extremely blurry pictures onto the overhead screen and saying.. Okay- what do you see? This was a picture of a stained glass window depicting a religious scene and a saint holding what was apparently- a “parrilla”- (the word I looked up.) My teacher stopped class to say to me, “What? What don’t you understand?? Parrilla?? It means grill! It explains the entire story!” ………. Grill. A saint holding a bbq grill… yeah, that explains a lot……???

So class is pretty much baffling me right now.. on account of, I can’t understand anything he says, and when I figure out what he’s saying in English, it still doesn’t make sense. We have a lot of reading to do outside of class, a test tomorrow, and also an 8 page paper due next week. That paper is supposed to be based on a ten minute presentation we are working on about art and architecture of a specific building in the city, which we had to go visit and tour. Btw, when they advertise—guided tour! In English!- it means you get a little audio recorder to hang around your neck and they let you loose in the museum. Here is my piece of architecture to study—El Hospital de la Caridad (Charity Hospital)

The church altar and ceiling

Last night we also visited Museo de Bellas Artes (Museum of Beautiful Arts) with our class at 7pm. It was a really nice museum and contained paintings and sculptures from the most famous and influential artists of Spain. However, here is something more exciting we found on the way to the museum! This guy was sitting—or rather, Not sitting for hours!!

It seems that there are not enough hours in the day here in Spain. With a four-hour class, using public buses for transportation, getting lost in the city, mandatory field trips outside of class, crazy eating schedules, etc etc etc.. There is no time for this homework, let alone anything I may actually wantttt to do… such as- this blog, or having fun maybe?

Today is mainly focused on reviewing for the exam tomorrow and possibly starting my paper??L boo homework!!