Dia 14 & 15: Plaza de Espana y Caracoles

Que pasa guapos?

On Tuesday I went to class as usual and then came home to promptly get my homework done in preparation for an awesome activity ISA had planned for us. The activity was called "Salir con los Espanoles", which basically meant that we were going to meet up with a bunch of students from the University of Sevilla and split off into smaller groups where they'd take us to the cool young bar and restaurant scenes. Well................. it wasn't as magical as I expected. We didn't really go anywhere new that I hadn't seen before. Furthermore, we were paired with a married couple. I was actually hoping to be paired with my future novio. LOLZ. It deff was not the case. We only spent about an hour and a half together and then we all went our separate ways and didn't really exchange contact info. Fortunately, other people in my program had really great experiences and they said they were going to hang out with their people soon and said I could join. You can't win them all, pero no pasa nada.

I did have 2 pity beers after our relatively unsuccessful night which turned it into a successful night because beer always = success. 

On to a much better day :)

Wednesday was the bomb diggity. 

Today in my culture class I learned about a slum called El Vacie that is located just outside Sevilla. The slum is terrible. If you google it you will see lots of very sad pictures. We watched a documentary about it. It said that 300 families live in the slum which totals to 800 people. People's homes are made from scrap metal and random pieces of wood. They don't usually have doors, electricity or water. Everything is rat infested. Basically, hell on earth. It is literally unimaginable to think that this slum exists in the same city that I am living in. Sevilla is GORGEOUS. They have workers that pressure wash the streets every single night. I'm telling you, its an immaculate city. It's especially sad because there are so many children living in El Vacie. There's a big social and political issue about El Vacie and whether the gitanos (gypsies, aka people that live in El Vacie) should receive government housing and government assistance. Here's the two sides
1) The gitanos should receive government support because they are citizens of the city and are currently living in a vicious cycle where they have no money to buy houses or pay for food because no one will hire them because the live in El Vacie. In result, they steal from people and stores to survive.
2) The should not receive government support or be given jobs because they cannot be trusted because they are always stealing from people. Many of these people are also previous drug addicts or prostitutes which is not helping them receive empathy. Peopling working for a living and paying taxes don't want their tax dollars to go to "free loaders" and "thieves" when they are in an economic crisis.

Personally, I haven't formulated an exact opinion on the issue. It's too complicated.

Sorry for the buzz kill. Let's get back to party time!

After class I went home and had a yummy soup with carrots and potatoes with strawberries for dessert. Delish, as usual! I went in my room and tried to work on homework but desperately needed a siesta. After my siesta, I met up with a group of friends at 530pm to go to the Plaza de Espana. They had never been and, as you all know, this will now be my 3rd time visiting it. Honestly,  I can never take enough pictures to capture how gorgeous it is, so I was excited to return. What was the best about this time was that there were 5 girls and 1 boy. AKA 5 models and 1 photographer. We had a field day. I could not be happier with how all of these pictures came out. BONUS POINTS: I deff took some gems that will be worth printing on canvas.

 

(you have no idea how many times it took us to finally get this picture. we were creating quite the scene)

After our glorious photoshoot, we started heading to Plaza Alfalfa because at 8pm we were meeting up for an activity called "Caracoles con MJ". This activity is one where ISA buys us all plates of carcoles (snails) to eat and each a glass of beer. Caracoles are a completely normal and widely consumed tapa, especially in Andalucia (the south region of spain). We arrived at the plaza earlier than expected so we took advantage of our additional free time and got a couple pitchers of sangria. Oddly enough, I hadn't had any sangria yet in Spain so I was excited. 




Finally, it was time to eat some snails baby!!! MJ has coordinated for us to go to her favorite caracoles restaurant so that we can all experience them together for the first time. Once we were all seated, she got our attention to describe how we were supposed to eat them. She told us, and I quote: "Chupalos" (suck them). We cracked up. She then was like "I know it sounds bad in Spanish but it sounds bad in English too so what did you want me to say??". Ohhh MJ, so cute. 

So they arrive on plates as if they were a mountain of popcorn. Everyone was very hesitant to try it because these little guys had faces!!!! But you're only in Spain once so I bit the head and sucked that little baby out of its shell (I hope you enjoyed that description, because there was no way of avoiding it). They were delicious!!! They were a little salty and had the same texture as a clam or an oyster so I was very accustomed to it. Usually with food that has a face I can't look at the face, but somehow I put my big girl pants on and was able to look at each one of my victim's faces before I ate them. I felt like a bad ass. Most of the girls tried a couple just to check it off their bucket list but I was going to town. 

 (MJ teaching me how to bite and suck)

 (got it!)

 (look at its little face)

It was also funny because we were seated on the terrace and there were many spectators sitting near us that were thoroughly enjoying our squeals as we tried them. Overall, I give caracoles an A+.  

After our snail snack, Cassie and I went home to have dinner with our family but we told our friends we'd be back asap to continue the festivities into the night. On our way home we passed by a clothing store that I walk by everyday on my way to class. I've been wanting to try on a pair of these skirt like pants for a while and finally had the chance to do it. I can now say that I am the proud owner of some awesome ass pants (literally ass pants). They are very popular here in Spain and I will totes be the fashion forward diva who brings this look to Estados Unidos.  

Dinner was fried on fried on fried. We ate french fries, fried steak and bread. This was a little too much starch for me, but oh well. The spaniards really love their fryer. Everyone's house parents own deep friers.

We headed back out to Plaza Alfalfa where we found most of the girls sufficiently toasted after having downed mojitos and shots. Shortly after arriving we went to Plaza Salvador because it was poppin off. There were lots of boys there, but not very many were guapo. There was one guy that was super guapo but he may or may not have had a girlfriend... sadly we didn't run off into the sunset and elope :( I'll keep you posted on when that does happen.

After some of the girls in our group headed home for the night, 3 boys (Americans.. boooooo) came up to our table to talk to us. They were whatever. Their very animated friend was epically bald and with the biggest caterpillar eyebrows ever. He is from somewhere in the US that I don't care to remember and had just arrived in Spain a few hours ago. He's here to teach English. His friends, who were much quieter but much cooler, were legit biking through the Iberian Peninsula. They told us they would be biking from Sevilla to Lagos, Portugal this weekend. This made my jaw drop because earlier I was complaining to Cassie about how it was a 5 hour bus ride and these guys are going to freaking travel on bicycles!!! Craytown, USA. 

As we were about to leave I heard an older man yell "Raquel!", so naturally I turned and looked. Well, evidently, he wasn't speaking to me but we made eye contact and I said "Este es mi nombre" and he replied with "En serio? Necesitas besarte". I have no idea how my name being Raquel meant he wanted to kiss me hello (double cheek kiss... we didn't actually kiss, gross, please, this guy was like 40 years old). Regardless, we did the kissy hello business and then exchanged a couple of words and the two women he was with asked me where in Spain I was from. Wait. Let me repeat that. These SPANIARDS thought I was from Spain. Yes. BOOYAH. Mission accomplished. I told them I was from Estados Unidos and they were shocked. Apparently, my tan skin, brown hair, light eyes and KILLER spanish accent made them think I was from Cordoba. Hearing that was music to my ears. I will rest on these laurels till the day I die.

They told me to look up a famous painter from Cordoba named Julio Romero de Torres because he paints women that look like me. I looked him up. They don't look like me. Whatevs. I'm still flattered.

And this concludes my very wonderful Wednesday in the beautiful south of Spain.

Hasta Luego,
Raquel

PS
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