Fiestas, visitantes, y una media maratón

It’s been another action-filled last two weeks! Lo siento for the tardiness of this post; there’s a lot to catch everyone up on:

MÁS Y MÁS (¡y MÁS!) VIAJES

Running in the Media Maratón Rincón de la Victoria

Málaga & Rincón de la Victoria 1/2 Marathon– Follow the link for photos! The main purpose of this trip was the half marathon, but since Kristin decided to accompany me we made a full weekend out of the excursion. Highlights of the trip: discovering Primark (a very cheap Irish clothing store chain!), visiting the Museo Picasso Málaga and seeing its exhibition on the Grotesque, and, of course, the half marathon! I’d definitely consider the race as one of the more difficult athletic ventures I’ve undertaken, but I really enjoyed the experience. I also placed 2nd in my age group with an overall time of 2:01:52. I’ll surely want to run another 1/2 marathon in the future! I’ve really enjoyed participating in races in Spain: it’s so much cheaper to register and there’s always lots of free regalitos (little gifts). I’ll miss these benefits when I run races back home!

VIDEO from the race (fast-forward to 10:48 to see yours truly!): 

¿Hay huelga? No hay problema

Kristin’s photo from the 14-N manifestación

At least there’s not a problem for us extranjeros! On Wednesday classes and university activities were cancelled for the nationwide huelga. For any of you non-Spanish speakers out there, huelga means strike, although the Spanish version is not what you might typically think. At least when I think ‘strike’, the first thoughts that pop into my mind are sit-ins, workers with picket signs marching in circles, and huge inconveniences. The huelgas in Spain aren’t so completely different in that, yes, people do take to the streets (in thousands!) and there are certainly some inconveniences for those non-strikers who just want to buy a café or go to a favorite store only to discover that it’s closed. But although there can definitely be strikes here against employers, as anywhere, the huelgas in Spain are usually more centered on discontent with the government. The thousands that took to the streets in Sevilla and other large cities on Wednesday were united in that they wanted to send the government a message of their dissatisfaction, but the aims of different coalitions were different:

¡Viajes y más!

Once again, I’ve been SUPER busy recently! It’s a different kind of busy than at Penn; aside from class, there’s less crew practice & club meetings but more time spent traveling and even just studying. I’ve even found that I review my notes a lot more here since it’s especially important with all of my classes in Spanish to clarify what I don’t understand every day. I should probably start doing this more at Penn! :p Anyway, here’s some more updates from my last post:

VIAJES:

How surreal is this?!? My favorite photo from Ronda.

Ronda– Two Saturdays ago, I went with the MCP program to visit Ronda, located in the mountains. Let me just say that it was “gorge-ous”! (Yes, I know it’s an awful pun but it was so pretty & there was a huge gorge!) You can check out my photos of Ronda at this link, but here’s some other highlights:

La lluvia en Sevilla es una maravilla

Cloudy skies over la Fábrica de Tobacos, one of the main university buildings

In the Spanish version of the film My Fair Lady, the phrase “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the the plain,” used to demonstrate different pronunciations of the ‘ai’ sound in English dialects, is translated into “la lluvia en Sevilla es una maravilla.” Translate this phrase back into English to get “the rain in Seville is a wonder.” And for us in Sevilla this week, that it was! I made it through the end of my first week of classes at la Universidad de Sevilla but not without a little rain to make the treks to and from university campuses just that much more interesting. I still haven’t finalized my schedule yet; we’ve got three days next week before we submit our final selections. However, at least this upcoming week should hopefully feel a little less hectic now that I’ve got a general idea of courses.