thanksgiving like no other: sevilla & paris

as weird as it was to be in europe for thanksgiving,

walking among people who had no idea a whole culture was celebrating a holiday,

i had a greeeat day. 

i got to celebrate with my "familia sevillana,"

people who i had no idea existed 3 months ago,

and now i have trouble imagining life without them.

 THEN:

we spent the weekend in paris!

seeing SO MUCH,

exhausted and happy...

i'll list off the sights:

1. Snow!! - paris' first snow=our first snow.

(it was COLD. quite the shock to this sevillana who has just started to see leaves turn yellow and fall in andalucia. northeast usa's winter...we'll see how that goes in a few weeks.

2. Champs-Élysées - comparable to nyc's 5th avenue or la's rodeo drive, this was LIT UP. katie and i had been googling this image for months, and then we finally saw its magic in person!

3. eiffel tower: on the hour...which means it was lit up, too! and sparkling for a few minutes. 

we saw it during the day too...

 with kaitlin!! 

putting our V's up in "Paree"

4. A brass band in a bar: katie's friend, studying in versailles, was in paris for the evening and invited us to see this band from her school play. what hook ups!

5. Père Lachaise Cemetery: where jim morrison, oscar wilde & other famous dudes are chillin' - postmortem. 

6. Paris' sewers: we took a free tour with kaitlin's program...i learned that the rat population is double the human population in paris. that is all.

7. Notre Dame: and the christmas tree getting decorated on the outside!! beautiful.

8. the jewish quarters...hosting the best street food ever: my first falafel. delicious. & then followed by a nutella and banana crepe. i was in food heaven.

9. moulin rouge: katie's all-time favorite movie. it looks quite similar! 

10. the ferris wheel: after a fail at the louvre...where we got pictures with the glass pyramid, but not tickets to enter (it was "impossible at this time. it is closed.")

so we decided to treat ourselves to the huge ferris wheel to cheer ourselves up. and it sure did! it was at the end of the Champs-Élysées, so we could see all of those lights, the stripes of red and white from the car lights, and then we saw the sparking eiffel tour again, good timing, huh? unplanned, believe it or not. 

11. Christmas Villiage: along the Champs-Élysées (which runs between the ferris wheel and the arc de triomphe) there was the 'villiage de noel' where we had some "vin chaud" (hot wine) and walked along the avenue, looking at the stands of gifts and sweets and delicious french baked goods.

i'd say that this weekend was the best 'intro to the christmas season" i've had yet. 

even if it didn't include black friday at king of prussia, pumpkin pie & awesome leftovers. 

and i even got to skype with my family before thanksgiving ended!

<3

 2007

...

2009

...

the day i've been dreading...

tomorrow.
thanksgiving.
ya know, there was a time when thanksgiving was my least favorite holiday.
why?
i think because i thought it was boring.
because it was me, and then more than a decade between the next youngest.
but thankfully that changed.
to think that my family will be gathering without me tomorrow...
dang!

i am ridiculously thankful for them.

among other things, 

but being away from everyone i love these past 3 months

has really driven the point home.

i am now, more than ever,

certain of the people in this world,

whom i cannot find the right words to describe,

for, without them, i can only imagine life as cloudy & grey.

sure, i'm thankful for this semester.

i know that it's a blessing to live in europe,

to see the way another culture lives,

to live within that culture,

but i've hit that point

where i'd just like to appreciate my experience from my kitchen table,

in between my mom and dad.

from my apartment, 

surrounded by some of the best people in the entire world.

from the floor,

lying next to my dog.

from behind the wheel of my car

with lecki in the passenger seat.

this year

i'm thankful for my people.

"home isn't a place anymore.
it's a group of people."
-garrett nickelsen 

muy interesante

How language affects how we think

los ojos de julia

one of my classes here is "cine española contemporáneo"

(contemporary spanish film)

and it's probably my favorite class.

1. we watch movies in class and talk about them.

2. Ángel, my professor is the bomb. i just want to shrink him and put him in my pocket and take him to america with me! he's just so chic! hahaha and i don't really throw the word "chic" around that often. 

anyway, so he decided that, as a class, we should actually go to the movies together!

so last night we all met around 10 to see:

i watched the trailer beforehand...

i mean, i'm glad i was forewarned, but shoot!

this movie's a horror movie!

hahaha it's about a guy who makes people blind and then kills them.

it happened to julia's sister, and so then julia knew something fishy was going on.

so she was trying to figure it out, started to wise up,

then SHE started going blind.

it was pretty graphic...not gonna lie.

but at the same time, it made me laugh.

ya know those movies, when the girl just doesn't have boundaries

and goes into that dark alley,

or chases that dark figure...

and i just sit there, 

laughing.

"good lord!"

(yeah, sounding just like you, mom.)

"this is ridiculous!"

so at the end...i stood up, and angel was smiling at us.

what's this guy trying to do to us?!

it's ok. i still love him.

MADRID (again)

last weekend (november 19-21)

my interest group (sports & nature)

went to madrid together!

the easiest way for you to see what i did?

photos, of course!!

 this speaks for itself.

....

 our first stop?

INEF and the universitario...

this is where the athletes go to study and train.

i'm talking national athletes & olympic athletes.

pretty cool.

 this is the museum part, showing workout equipment from the 19th century..

 and then i missed track. a lot.

 THEN

we got to tour Real Madrid F.C.'s stadium!

 in the press room:

and after a little siesta...what'd we do?

about 8 of us saw harry potter & las reliquias de la muerte (parte uno)!!

SATURDAY:

first thing: the botanical gardens

where there are plants from all over the world

it was SO REFRESHING to see leaves that have changed colors and fallen.

 the desert room:

 the bonsai's!

the puerta del sol: being decorated for december!

 the (relatively) new cathedral across from the royal palace

beautiful. 

we went in at the perfect time because the sun was shining

RIGHT through the main stained glass windows

 leaving my shadow surrounded by bright colors!

up next?

the reina sofia museum!

(filled with modern art, including picasso & dali)

this is the outside.

bacon?

 dali:

on top of the reina sofia...there's the train station that was bombed a few years ago.

8 or 9 years maybe? shoot.

aaand a bocadillo statue! haha

in madrid, the common bocadillo has calamari inside it! 

(weird, well, to me since i've been having chorizo or ham!)

SUNDAY:

before we returned to sevilla,

we visited "la rastra"

a huge open air market open every sunday.

i was going to go down one side of the street and back up the other...

fail. 

there are so many streets and they all just go on for what seems like forever!

madrid is a very metropolitan city,

which, for me, made it a fun place to visit, 

but made me appreciate sevilla even more.

a lesser concentration of people!

most likely tomorrow i'll explain the movie i saw this evening...

scary scary!