My apologies!

First off, my sincere apologies (mostly to my mom) and to everyone else who reads this regularly. For whatever reason, I kept forgetting to update my blog this week. I would always remember just as I settled into bed, ready to fall asleep. But, just so you all aren't worried, I am alive and well and I guess I've just been enjoying the week :)

Last Thursday was a holiday in Madrid, their equivalent of Father's day. I didn't have school and used the day to rest and sleep in! Some friends and I had plans to go to Sevilla on Friday and Saturday, so I also went and bought tickets with them. We hung out for a little while and then I went back to my apartment and got ready for the weekend.

We left for Sevilla on Friday morning, taking a bus from Madrid that left at 8am. We arrived around 2pm, got to our hostel and walked around the city for the rest of the evening. Sevilla is a beautiful city, very much like Southern states in the US. As weird as it sounds, Sevilla also smells really good...the city is known for its oranges and lilacs, so everything has this citris-y lilac-y sent to it. Its awesome. We came back to our hostel, got a quick nap, and left for a couple of bars that night. We had fun hanging out together.

Saturday we checked out of our hostel (which was by FAR the best hostel I've stayed at since I've been in Europe...it had free internet, free towels, access to a kitchen AND each room had their own private bathroom! I thought I was in paradise) and set out to see all of the tourist-y things in Sevilla. We wanted to go to this convent where suppossedly you walk up to the door, knock on it, and nuns come and give you pastries. Well, it took us about an hour to even find this convent, and the weather in Southern Spain is HOT. It's gorgeous, but hot. We were all a little cranky when we got there. However, when we arrived, we discovered that they only sell marmalade and honey and none of us wanted marmalade or honey- what were we going to do with it? So we awkwardly left and continued down to the main part of the city.

We toured the Cathedral in Sevilla, which was beautiful as always. We also went to a bull ring and got a tour inside. I have some really neat pictures of it, but they haven't been uploaded to my computer yet so I will have to post them later. After dinner, we got our bags from our hostel and took the bus back to the bus station. We took a night bus back to Madrid so we had the hole day Sunday to recover, which was nice. Lately all of my travels have come in either really late on Sunday nights or really early on Monday mornings. It just makes it tricky to get back into the swing of school.

This week has been busy for me, but not overwhelming- just enough to keep me on my toes every day. I had a midterm in my oceanography class on Wednesday, which I think went really well. I just got back tonight from a Madrid Young Life bible study...ironically enough, my former area director in St. Louis knows the area director in Madrid, so we exchanged emails and I've hung out with them a couple times since I 've been here. It's been really neat to see how YL works on an international level.

I think that brings you all up to speed-- I am staying in Madrid this weekend, which I am SO excited about :) One of my friends who is studying abroad in France this semester is in Madrid for the weekend, and she wants to see everything so I will probably accompany her around town, and most likely to the Prado (ahem Dad) since I still haven't been there yet.

all my love--