Sorry its been so long in getting this up.
And off to Spain! Erin and I took a plane from Rome to Seville. It was my first Ryanair flight and I was a little worried. Ryanair is an Irish company which provides really cheap (about 15 to 30 dollars) flights within Europe. I have heard they were really strict about carry-on baggage though and since I was only taking a backpack that was packed with all I was living off of for two weeks I thought maybe they would make me check it. We had no problems however and a short flight later we were across the Mediterranean! At the hostel we had a little bit of a surprise... the man at the front desk spoke no english at all! We had not run across that yet so we did the best we could using sign language and speaking what words we did know. I find it really interesting what people do to communicate when they speak none of the same languages. First you try using your native language or the language you know that is closest to their language in hopes that the word will be similar enough that there will be inter-comprehension. Then if that doesn't work a combination of gestures and facial expressions put with your language will have to suffice. After we got settled in I was waiting for Erin to drop something off in the room when my friend Brandon (who is studying in Seville for the semester) walked in looking for us. He then became our personal tour guide of the beautiful city.
Brandon took us on a tour of Seville that evening and into the night. This is the view of one of the old towers from a bridge crossing the river. There used to be an identical one on the other side and they would string a chain between them to keep out unwanted boats. 
This is the Plaza de Espana where they filmed some of the scenes for Naboo in Star Wars. For anyone that is interested here is the link for a picture: http://www.sevillaonline.es/images/sevilla/monuments/plaza_de_espana/plaza_de_espana-sevilla14p.jpgIt was really cool they had tiles of the different areas of Spain surrounding the square. Tiles are one of the specialties of Seville and we peeked in on a tile shop.
Me in the Plaza de Espana. There is supposed to be water running under the bridge but they were doing some major construction.
Who can go to Spain and not have churros? I ordered some churros to be dipped in a hot chocolaty fudge sauce (thicker than hot chocolate but not as thick as fudge) They were really good but I'm not a huge fan of fried foods so it was far too much. This day we also met up with Erin's friend who is studying in Seville and went to the palace there.
This is my friend Brandon that who I saw there. He lived right upstairs from me in my dorm last semester. We made multiple plans to go and see each other:Plan 1: we meet up in Andorra, a small country in between Spain and France
Plan 2: We meet up in Paris
Plan 3: We meet up in Ireland
Plan 4: I visit him in Seville
Well at least we got to meet up!
One of the neighborhoods of Seville is called Macarena and it is almost certain the band that wrote the song the Macarena based it off of this neighborhood. So look! I'm doing the Macarena in the Macarena!After a few very relazing days in Seville (we were getting really tired after all the sight seeing and walking around) we took a Ryanair flight (again no problems) to Barcelona. I know a lot of people say that Barcelona is their favorite city in the world, but I wasn't that huge of a fan of it. Yes it was cool being right on the ocean and having all of the cool Gaudi architecture, but I thought it looked a lot like an American city. Apart from the gothic neighborhood all of the buildings looked the same, all of the streets looked the same. More than that though it was probably the fact that I was really tired by that point and was ready for this long vacation to be over, I had horrible allergies and the weather wasn't that great. Maybe if I go back someday I will like it better.
The market on la Rambla was really cool though and Erin and I went there a few times. Ham is a huge specialty in Spain so there were ham legs just hanging up everywhere! I really would like to know if that would be seen as a health hazard in the states...
For lunch we bought a HUGE bag of strawberries (1 kilo so about 2 pounds) for 1 euro ($1.30)! The bag doesn't look as big as it actually was here but we couldn't even eat all of them for lunch and ate the rest for dinner that night. I also had a really good fruit smoothie (coconut and dragonberry) for lunch. 
La familia sangrada cathedral in Barcelona. It has been under construction for 125 years now and they say they won't finish for 25 years yet (although they still have such a long way to go that I doubt they will be finished by then) We decided not to pay the 12 euros it cost to get inside because we were told it was cool but not worth the money (and by the end of the trip our money was getting a little tight!)
This is the Park Guell which was designed by Gaudi. It is so cool and seems almost like a dream land with its strange buildings and structures. 
La Ramblas, which is the main walk-way in Barcelona with all the street performers and a bunch of tourist shops. I was so scared my entire time in Barcelona that I was going to get robbed. One of the girls staying at our hostel got robbed and she lost her credit card, identity card, passport, money, camera, etc etc etc. I felt so bad for her! One of the girls my friend Brandon knows got robbed twice in one weekend when she went to Barcelona. I was always clutching bag. We even saw someone try to rob someone the day we went to the beach. We were laying... under the clouds... when we heard a commotion and a lady went up to a man carrying a bag. He had just taken the bag from another lady sleeping on the beach and she had seen him. All ended well and the one lady got her bag back but that made me even more scared. 
Along the beach people would do anything for money. Some people built sand castles and had a bucket out front asking for money. Some man even brought his dog to the beach to give birth and claimed the money would go to raising the puppies. There were also people selling everything! We saw doughnuts, coconut, temporary tatoos, sarongs, water and massages. Someone would come up to us at least once every 2 minutes and ask if we wanted to buy whatever they were selling. 
We saw a flamenco dancer in Seville and we saw another one on the beach in Barcelona. Overall it was an awesome vacation! Two weeks was a little long to be constantly going but we saw a lot and I'm glad we did it!
