Cosas Buenas

Here is an update on some of the things I have been up to since my last post:

My little plants that have all been "collected", not stolen, of course not stolen, I would never use the scissors on my pocket knife in that way. 

All I had to buy was the dirt! And yes, I am wearing socks with sandals because I didn't bring my slippers :(

The terrace of our apartment where my little plants will live and grow. More to come soon hopefully!

Yesterday Evan and I went to our friend Lisa's apartment. Lisa is back in the States right now and she lives with and helps out an older German women who is really sick and lets her live there for free. We took out the trash, cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed, etc for her. She has a beautiful apartment too, which has a great view of the Catedral. She is also an artist an she made us this amazing little gift basket pictured below!

This has been 2 days of gifts! The little football on the left we got at the awesome little bar that has like 200 kinds of beer. Then the gift basket from Christine, and the little panettone from the really nice Italian family that ran the restaurant we went to yesterday.  

She cut and painted an old cardboard box to make it look like an adorable house!

All kinds of good stuff in this box: a candle, dried tomatos (the heart shaped package), 2 stir sticks for coffee covered in chocolate and sugar, a little box full of spicy chocolates, little cookies with chocolate in the middle, rosemary salt, orange sugar, orange brandy, orange oil for moisturizing your skin, a Christmas tree ornament, and a conconction of raisins, cranberries, and ginger soaking in some kind of alcohol! And all of these things are packaged by reusing old bottles, plastic bags, and pieces of cardboard! Amazing! This would easily be worth 30 euro!

Evan's parents are here right now and we have been having a really good time showing them Palma and the island. Today we are hoping to rent a car and drive around to the gorgeous scenic places on the island.

Andalucía

I think I belong in Andalucía. The next time I apply for this program I DEFINITELY will be putting Andalucía on the top of my list.

We spent 5 days and 5 nights there total. And we spent 350E each (Evan and I), which in my mind is pretty damn good if you never even had a budget in the first place. We went with our friends Mary, Emily and Naz. We spent the first 2 nights in Sevilla, where we saw some amazing free flamenco, drank delicious sangria and explored the beautiful, colorful city. The art that people were selling on the streets was all soooo beautiful, it was really hard not to buy anything. We toured the gorgeous cathedral and walked through huge gardens. The food there was delicious! It was really beautiful/difficult because all the streets were lined with orange trees that were just dripping with oranges, but of course they tasted like lemons. ¡Que lástima!

We rented a car in Sevilla and then drove to Granada. Of course it was not as easy as that because we got lost leaving Sevilla and getting into Granada. The next day we went to the arab baths and soaked in the warm water for an hour and a half and drank delicious Morrocan tea. Granada was gorgeous and reminded me a lot of Lake Tahoe (not only because it is right next to the Sierra Nevada mountains) but it was very cold and Christmas-y and looked like a really nice ski resort city. We went to the Alhambra and marvaled at the painstakingly carved and painted designs in the palace. We ate tons of delicious tapas there as well. I wanted to buy just about everything I saw in the shops there because everything was so pretty! It is funny because I haven't felt that way about anything I have seen here in Palma. I had a tipsy splurge on a very hippy but cute jacket, a scarf, a beautiful handmade wood picture frame, and Evan bought a magnet.

On the way back to Sevilla we stopped in Córdoba to see the Mezquita, which is a mosque that was converted into a cathedral. We watched a really interesting documentary about when the Mores had control of Spain and that time period is very evident in Andalucia. I love the rich patterns and colors that come from the Arabic influence. The Mezquita was really interesting because it was very much a (somewhat clashing) mixture of a traditional Catholic church and a mosque. It was very beautiful and well worth the drive. For our last night/day in Sevilla we went out to the bars, gorged ourselves on tapas and walked around the city.

I had a really great time getting to know Mary and Emily better. We traveled really well together and I feel like that is definitely a sign of a good friendship!

I really wanted to put pictures in this post but Evan is taking FOREVER to go through them (I shouldn't complain, there are like 1200 pictures) so he hasn't given me any yet. :( Or you could just check out the travel blog for pictures instead!