:)

i realize that i´m a terrible blogger. i´m roughly 5 days behind typing in comparison with what i´m actually doing.

i´m sorry.

ok i´m going to catch up!

so...after El Escritorial we went to Toledo. We spend two nights here as well.
I loved Toledo! it was small and quaint and filled with so much history.

the first night we arrived we settled into our hotel. very nice i might add. and then all who wanted headed up to the "old" part of the city.

it looked as if it came out of a story book. :) a group of about 8 of my friends went to search for a place to eat. this is something i am getting quite used to.

we get dropped of in random places by the bus and then we walk around aimlessly peering into unknown restaurant attempting to see if the food is good or not. i am never good at this. i just kinda follow. well...actually none of us are very good we just walk in and take our chances.

the food here is...quite different. i mean its hard to describe...they call it a Mediterranean Diet. Spain is supposedly known for this. the food mostly consists of meat (imagine ANY tyep of meat and they serve it), cheese (lots and lots of cheese), fish, fruit, and umm yea i think thats about it. so you would think this would be wonderful, however, its not. like i said i can´t really describe it. but i felt like i starved for the first three days of this.

so that night i ordered paella. mix of rice and all sorts of ocean life. i have absolutely no idea what i ate. but i just ate. we made a rule that we couldn´t speak in english at the table and it was so fun! it was also very embarrassing for me because about 3 of the people there were fluent in spanish, so i sounded like an idiot but it made everyone laugh a lot so thats good.

pray that i will become more confident and just speak spanish!

so the next day we toured the old part of the city. we walked and walked and walked. mom, thank you for making me put my sperry shoes in my bag. they might not come back in one piece but they are wonderful!
my tour guide was phenomenal. i always choose the spanish speaking only tour guide, which can be extremely frustrating at times because i find myself looking at what we are supposed to be looking at and then just tuning out his words. you see in order for me to begin to attempt to understand spanish i have to look at the person. i have to concentrate. i have to watch their lips. and i can´t do that AND look at all the marvelous things he is showing us. however this guide would sometimes throw in a few english words here and there and ahhhh it made me so happy!

we toured the Catedral de Toledo. another moment when i was completely in awe. it took my breathe away. our guide kept stopping us and telling us "We are very lucky. YOU are very lucky. what you are about to see is one of the grandest sites in all of the world" then we would all slowly turn the corner and...be left speechless. he was always right, corner after corner. Inside the Catedral there was a room full of extremely famous paintings. outside the door of the room hung two paintings. on the right was a painting of Peter hung upside down on a cross. on the left was a painting of andrew hung on the cross shaped as an X. these two pictures stopped me dead in my tracks. surrounded my students asking who these people were and why they were killed that way...a moment i will never forget.

guess what?? that night as i was walking down the stairs i saw some guys carrying suitcases and i asked where they were going they said "malaga" i screamed! i called blaire and we both realized we were staying in the same hotel two floors above each other! crazy! i was so excited!
we got to spend another night together!

the next day we woke up and got on the bus for our long trip to Sevilla! by this time i was very anxious and ready to just get there!

after a long bus ride we arrived and our host families were waiting on the curb for us! it was sooo cute, i felt like i was coming home from camp and my parents were there to pick me up!

so mi madre is adorable. she is so cute! she is very fashionable and stylish!

Bettina and I share a room, it looks a lot like a dorm room. two twin beds, two closets, a desk and two shelves. its wonderful!

i also have two "brothers" one is 21 and one is 28, they aren´t home that much but they are very nice.

none of them speak any english. my roommate knows very little, therefore for some reason i am considered the one who "knows" spanish. the madre always looks at me when she talks. its so fun to talk with her! i asked her to correct me when i mess up and she does.

she is a wonderful cook! she also has a son that lives next door who has two daughters ages 2 and 4. oohhh yes pictures to come soon! they are absolutely adorable. i find myself coming home just to play with them! i love them being around because i can actually understand them and talk to them.

yes i realize i consider this progress...talking with a 4 year old. ha

yaaay i am in Sevilla!

so i have caught you up to this past sunday night. i´ll post more tomorrow about this week!

love you!