Tennis Superstar!!

Lame title, but this last week I was definitely nothing like a superstar. My whole body ached all over and it took me forever to get from the sitting position to that of standing...and I know you are asking WHY?? I will answer your questions in one second because I must say I was really sore. Answer: I had my first Spanish tennis lesson. It was so much fun. And yes, broke my strings in the lamest of places, the upper left corner, not even a solid hit. Oh, and I failed to mention it was the first time I had played with those strings, ha. I am just that strong. This new tennis adventure was a little out there but so worth it. I think I might join up with a group that hits every monday and friday. I am super excited about it because I need an outlet to keep me practicing a sport or active in some way.

60 degrees...WHAT?

This past weekend we made a day trip with my new friend Miguelangel, my roommate, Sydney, and our new couchsurfing friend, Victor from Portugal. Miguelangel having a VW van let us join for a trip to the beach. The weather was sooo nice! We started the day by having coffee at a nearby 24 hour Diner (previously unknown to us...we are pretty much SUPER excited because they have hot dogs, nachos, tacos...we took a menu just to look at it, ha! SAD). Then we headed to some nearby beaches and saw some great sights. It was a great day of speaking Spanish and getting a little sun..burnt. Not really, just a little pink. Good start for summer, eh? That night we headed out to celebrate Sydney´s birthday and had a fun night on the town. Here´s some great pictures documenting our times!

My Heart Will Go On!!

I can just see my mom´s face right now...don´t worry, I am not really as close to the edge as it looks.

Me, Syds, Miguel, and Victor enjoying the fountain in Vejer.

These are us girls, Nadia (canadian), Me, Caity (Oregonian), Syd (Kansasian, ha)...and the little dog we have been babysitting, Moors!! Soo cute!

Sad, look at how much smoke there is. GROSS!

Prayer

Throughout this whole year I have been struggling with sleeping. There are times when it is ok and there are times when it is horrible. Sometimes I go for days without sleeping just because my body won´t allow me to sleep. Like these past three days, maybe added together I have slept 5 or 6 hours. I don´t even know if that. It´s an exhausting process because when I don´t sleep I know I am tired and I easily get sick, but once I finally am able to get some sleep. I wake up feeling more tired than before. And sometimes even medicine doesn´t help put me to bed. I just want to ask for a little prayer because it is really starting to ware on me. Thank you for your prayers!

The Rents in Spain!

I had the privilege to spend 11 glorious days traveling Andalucia with my parents. You have no idea how refreshing it was to see them. We enjoyed many tapas (small dishes), flamenco, RAIN (hah), La Alhambra, and our own company. WE decided that the theme of our vacation was "cerrado" which means "closed" in spanish. This makes sense because basically everywhere we went everything seemed to be closed because of local holidays, international holidays, national holidays, or just the spanish decided they did not want to open, hah. I still don't think I am accustomed to the Spanish view of time...ah well.

Throughout the 11 days we did some major sight seeing of all the things that were open, ha. We hit up Malaga, Ronda, Granada, Marbella (super rich harbor), Tarifa, Bolonia, Vejer de la Frontera, Cadiz, El Puerto de Santa Maria (my town), and Seville. If I were to explain all of it, it would take forever. Some of my favorite parts were seeing the Alhambra in Granada which is an amazing moorish fortress built in 1527. It was built to mirror paradise on earth and here are some pics of it.

Fountain

Place called General Life

A theatre in the Alhambra

Mom and I walking through the Alhambra

The gardens en La Alhambra
This is Tarifa, it is Europe's number one place for surfing, windsurfing, and kitesurfing.

Visiting Cadiz for me was so much fun. Cadiz was discovered in 1100 B.C. and is known to be the oldest city in all of Europe. Cadiz is super close to my home town and I had been there a couple of times. However, seeing it through my parents eyes really showed all the amaziness of it and how much there is to do. I have decided if I stay another year I would definitely commute from Cadiz, no doubt.

Seville was the last leg of our trip. Seville is trully an amazing city. It has so much history behind every corner. I wish we could have spent more time there but it was just enough to see the major sights. One story worthy of telling, HA. A little bit of Spanish culture for you. The Spanish technically celebrate Christmas on the 6th of january. They do this to celebrate when the three wise men (los reyes magos - the magic kings) arrived to give presents to Jesus. The night of the 5th the three magic kings roam around the town with a parade and everybody comes to watch. Anywho, we were already told not to drive in Sevilla but we thought we thought better. OH how wrong we were. We arrived on the 5th DURING the parade. PS. Sevilla is quiet a large city. As we are following our internet directions and I am saying, "Dad, turn left here" we look up as cops are blocking the road telling us "NEGATIVE" (my personal addition). From that point on I had my nose to the map yelling out turns and street trying to find our hotel. We basically drove all the way around Sevilla, even through streets where we had to turn our mirrors in to be able to squeeze through, that was scary. Finally, we decided that we had to stop and eat and wait for all the craziness to stop. Yea, it was nuts.

We got to see a flamenco show in Seville. It was very interesting and for the first part I think my parents were a little weirded, aka my dad...but then they really started to enjoy it.

This was found in the cathedral below and I just thought it was an interesting photo.

La Catedral de Santa Maria in Seville. The largest Gothic cathedral and the 3rd largest in the world.

La Plaza de Espana in Seville. It's made of ceramic and I believe for the '92 expo.

All together it was an amazing vacation and SO good to spend time with my parents. I miss having those people that are close to you and truly know you, ya know. I am blessed with two amazing parents who love the Lord and for some reason love me, yesssss! Love you guys.

Danish Christmas

This is a picture from my flight from Malaga to Copanhagan. It flew along the southern coast of Spain which meant I basically got to see the country unfold before me. This is a picture of my town, crazy. You see where it juts out into the ocean, that is Cadiz which is the capital of my province. If you look basically exact opposite of it, you see my little town, Puerto de Santa Maria.

This year was a little different. Not going home for Christmas was definitely a hard concept for me. On the other hand, other than being home I could not think of a better way to spend my Christmas this year than in Denmark with my Danish family. Well, not REALLY my danish family but almost like a second family now. Christina, my danish sister, who lived with me my senior year in high school invited me to come spend it there. So, that's what I did. We had a blast. We ate and ate and ate some more. For the danish, they celebrate Christmas on the 24th, weird eh? They have a huge dinner, then sing around the tree and open gifts. It was fun to see how then spend their Christmas.

It was a very relaxing holiday for me because basically we sat around and ate most of the time, ha. Great way to spend time. Christina and I did head out one day for the town to go Christmas shopping, however it was one of the coldest days of my life. I was so blessed to have a second home during the holidays and family to welcome me. Thank you Morcous's.

My Students

The day before I left for Denmark my students and I had a day trip to Seville to go to a tourism convention. Free trip!!! They showed my a little bit of the town and it was fun to spend time with them outside of class. I haven´t really written about my students which is kind of wierd since I spend a lot of my time with them. They are older, ranging from 17 to 32 and are studying tourism, marketing, and tourism entertainment.