In Madrid

So much to do, so little time to write on here! And we have an essay due tomorrow too... So this is going to have to be short. Sorry! Since I last wrote, we've traveled through a ton of places. From Nerja, we went to Frigiliana, Granada, Sevilla, Toledo, and now we're in Madrid.

My favorites so far have been Frigiliana (I don't have pictures, but very pretty white city on a mountain), the old part of Sevilla and Toledo. But I think Madrid might be my favorite now!

Some pictures:


the city of Granada












overlooking Granada












another Granada...












Alhambra, the old Muslim part of Granada












Alhambra












a mosque-turned-cathedral in Córdoba












the head of the trip, Santi, with a bunch of birds :)












a huge cathedral in Sevilla












Alhambra again.. sorry, these are out of order!












me, with some other kids in the group :)









More later!!

- B

In Spain!

June 20, 2010

8:45 PM EST, who knows what time where I am at the moment, which is somewhere over the Atlantic ocean…

It’s a weird feeling to travel away from the sun. One minute you are traveling in, if not broad daylight, then definitely daylight, twenty minutes later you are contemplating a sunset, and not long after that it’s pitch black. So strange.

Besides the darkness, I had worried a lot about surviving the trip to Spain. After all, I almost die every time I have to make the trip from Boston to Salt Lake or Denver, and this trip is significantly longer (6:36 if you believe the pilot, 8:10 if you believe my dad – I have no sense of time, so no idea what the actual is). And it didn’t help that we sat on the runway for a full hour after the scheduled departure. But I think it will be good, and I hope to eventually work up the courage to talk to the two Spanish speakers chatting away next to me!

June 22, 2010

5:57 PM Spanish time

In Nerja, Spain. Just got back from swimming in the Mediterranean. I even jumped off some rocks into the sea, go me… It was amazing…

My time here has been great so far. Awesome people in my group, super nice hotel right on the beach, great food, and Spain won their game last night! Can’t write more now because we’re about to go on a walk, but I have definitely been enjoying my time here and my Spanish is getting better by the minute.

Oh, and I was right – I hardly felt the jet lag at all. I was tired last night, but just from getting about 6 hours of sleep over the last 3-ish days, and I woke up fine and rested this morning, at what would have been 1 AM Montana time! Haha

More later,

Brianna

Counting the days til departure...

¡Hola!

I never thought I would be the type to have a "blog." But I enjoy reading other peoples' travel blogs, so I figured I might as well set one up for myself to record my time in Spain this summer! I'm SUPER excited, as I don't feel like half an hour in Tijuana a couple years ago really gave me a good feel for Hispanic culture...

Starting June 20th, I will be doing a study abroad and internship in Spain through the Summer Institute of Hispanic Studies (SIHS). I will start off in southern Spain (Málaga) and make my way up to León, in northwestern Spain, where I will be staying for the majority of my time. I will be taking classes at the Universidad de León and living with a host family there. The last four weeks of my trip will be an internship (with what company being something I have yet to discover...), most likely in León as well. Should be fun, right? For those of you who are interested, more information about SIHS can be found here.

I leave for Spain in 3 weeks and 1 day. Can you tell I'm in full-on countdown mode? I've already added all the other SIHS participants as friends, created a group on Facebook, and have to keep myself from starting to pack already. I think if the weather in Bozeman were a little nicer I would be a tad less anxious to get going. May and June are never good months for hiking and backpacking, but this year seems to be particularly bad. I'm attempting to get some good trips in before I leave though, even if I have to snowshoe...

Anyway, until my next post!

Besos,

Brianna