It's Been A Month?

It's been a while since I've last wrote a post and it's definitely been interesting during that time.  I've gone on a hike, finished my Intensive class, been out of the country and started classes. I'll go in that order.

So, the two Sundays ago, I got the opportunity to go on this beautiful hike in Huelva, Spain, which is about 2 hours from Seville.  There it's just full of little pueblos, beautiful landscape, and livestock.  It was an amazing 11 km, about 7ish miles I think, hike up hill.  They said it was for intermediate to beginner, but I don't know about that.  Anyway, there was a pretty rough part of it but the final view definitely made it worth it.  It was also interesting to see all the livestock (pigs, goats, and sheep) just grazing around in the open field.  Here, cerdo, or pig, is a big part of their gastronomy.  You will see legs of jamón, pig, hanging in most of the bars and restaurants.  They'll just shave off the meat from it and serve it to you.  Kinda cool, but little creepy as well.  Anyway, my señor told me that the way to tell if the cerdo is good or not is to look at it's hooves.  You'll be able to tell if it was in the open field or a barn because of the color.  Black means that it was out in the fields and is supposedly better.

Then, I spent the week finishing up my Intensive class with the only two exams I had to take, which were in the same week.  I'm definitely glad I had to take it but also that it's over.  It was definitely a rough 3 hours.  Not much else to really say about it.

Then the fun part came, I got the opportunity to go to Sagres, Portugal last weekend.  This is a city which was considered to be the end of the world and I can definitely see why.  It was just cliff after cliff after cliff then the ocean.  It was absolutely beautiful.  The beaches were great and the view was amazing.  However, the water was freezing.  Its the type of water you go in just to cool off and get out ASAP.  I went surfing on Sunday and that was interesting.  The waves were huge and strong.  The waves would almost take me out without a board and while I was aware that the waves were coming.  The rip was really strong and our guide/teacher said that it's one of the well known spots of surfing cause A) Portugal is known for surfing and great waves B) Portugal has the biggest waves C) some waves would hit the dunes that were probably 100 yards away from the water when storms come in...
So, it was definitely interesting and a struggle but fun.  It's interesting though, when we crossed the country boarder, we were not checked, stopped, or even looked at.  It was like crossing a state boarder in the States.  We crossed a river and before the river said "Welcome to Portugal".  That was the only way to know you were in Portugal.  It was also interesting cause it was the first time I've been in a place where I don't know the language.  I guess for Portuguese, they are able to understand Spanish and can speak enough Spanish to get tourists through, but for me Portuguese is complete gibberish.  It reminds me of Russian and Spanish.

Finally, the classes.  I'm taking a Culture and Cuisine in Spain, Academic Writing, El Cervantes y Don Quixote (Famous Spanish writer and his biggest/best work), and a Translation course. I'm definitely looking forward the most to my Translation course, but they all seem really good so far of just a week.

That's basically what's been going on so far.

Up Next:
Sevilla FC v FC Barcelona futbol game Saturday (soccer for us Americans).  This will be a lot of fun. There's a group of us going but even better for me it's my two favorite teams.  My first team is Sevilla cause I'm studying here and love the city, not to mention I'm decent with them in FIFA and everyone hates when someone plays as Barça.  So, it'll be a lot of fun both teams are playing well. Barça is 5-0 and Sevilla is 3-0-2.  So they're both on the top of La Liga.

Next weekend: Traveling to Barcelona with a friend

Booked a trip to France where I'm going to spend a few days in Paris then go to Normandy and see the D-Day beaches.

Así, I think that's all for now.

Hasta luego,

Greg

P.S. I'm going to switch up how I do photos. I'm going to be posting Flickr links for anyone interested in looking through them instead of putting them inside the blog.