Magic Carpet Ride

Whereas ONE hour ago, this would have been a super happy, fun entry, it is now a comedy. Times change...fast! I started writing this yesterday on the train...Not moving...Just sitting still in Jerez de la Frontera.  Funny story. Taylor, Lauren & I went to Cadiz this weekend and chose the 3:00 train home. 
 Mistake #1. This particular train had some functionality problemas... We still don't know what exactly, but we were told that it couldn't continue farther.  The train company was sending buses to pick us up and shuttle us to the Jerez airport (the next train stop) where another train would be waiting to take us farther.  Sucks, but not that big of a deal....in the United States.  We are thinking about a 25 minute detour...hilarious. In Spain, things went a little different.  They didn't send the buses for almost 3 hours.  People were about to start a riot...super intense.  All I kept thinking is how mad I would be if I was at home...In the US, I constantly have a million things to do, important things...(at least important to me!) and here my to do list including running and shopping...not necessarily something I can't live without, haha.  There was a man that had a flight to catch, people getting home to see loved ones, dates to be had, just a lot of issues, so I honestly was not impatient...I know, you are shocked, and possibly don't believe me, but I was super calm!!  We were supposed to get into Sevilla at 4:thirty-something and we got in a 7:00...YAY!! It really was a lot faster than we expected.  But just another thing to add to my future book about how smooth sailing my life is :)


Menos mal...beautiful weekend!

Aladdin's castle in the background!! Not really, but I referred to it as that all weekend...from the other side, it seriously looks like it!

We spent the entire weekend searching for this incredible "Old Town" ...turns out we were staying there the entire time...haha.  Cadiz is TINY, but we loved it!  We spent some quiet time on the beach, relaxing on Friday.  Went out on the town Friday night, had a blast! Drinks about 1/3 of the price in Sevilla...it's like when you go from going out in Tuscaloosa to going out in Auburn...huuuge difference in your pocket book!  Saturday we did the more touristy aspect and went in this tower that is supposed to have the "best views of Cadiz"...we were all kind of like ehh, if it's under 3 euro, we'll do it.  It was 5..and we still decided to, because we had time to kill...but were super bitter about paying 5 euro ($6.95) to climb some stairs...good choice...the views were incredible! But still it was spending money after the weekend away of spending too much...BUT then we see on our ticket a 1:00 showtime...weird.  Show?! What show? Turns out they have this thing called "Camara Oscura" .. We got a tour of the city from inside of this room...it was like watching a movie, but live...where we just were...we could see people hanging their laundry, kids running, birds flying, waves crashing, the sun glistening...seriously coolest thing ever! You won't understand the Spanish web pages, but I looked up the San Francisco one and it explains it a littttllleee more eloquently than I do

http://www.giantcamera.com/

Super cool, absolute recommendation, turns out 5 euro was a steal!

I love this vacationing on Friday & Saturday thing, because I still have today to get my life back together! Perfect!

Love and miss you all! 

As always ROLL TIDE!!! CANNOT WAIT FOR NOVEMBER 5!!! Emotions, dedication, passion aside...I still think we have a huge chance to be back in the Championship!! Either way, it will be one heck of a football game! L S WHOOO??!

Old Town...The Cathedral...a block down from our hostel...we're idiots.

 The only cool parts about our hostel....decorations, rooftop shower & hammocks!

Taylor 

The 3 of us & of course...Aladdin is somewhere to be found.

sunlight doing weird stuff...trying to take a pic on my iPod is giving my body some oddly unproportional arms :)

Train ride fun...BEFORE the stop!

...during the 2 and a half hour stop :) BEAUTIFUL scenery...right?

Thief.

I didn't have a camera, so I am just stealing Alex's photos.

Julie & Shay

Rob & Kristen

Mary Duncan, Allie, Alex, Audrey (yes, there is another one, weird right?)

Kristen, me, rando, Alex, rando

Sensation White

Needless to say we had a blast!!

----

Life in Sevilla...

Rosie found my wig in the closet...

Lindsey from Texas...the one person that can make me feel COMPLETELY at home!

My roommate Ian from England...bestest friends. Love him.

Obsessed with them.

Love birds....they love it when I creep :)

I promise soon I will write a real blog.

Love you

Barcelona.

Don't have pictures of Barcelona yet, but when I do I will let you know!

I had a blast! Love yall!!!

Tom rocking his new long locks...Such a stud.

And PLEASE look at the sushi plates coming by on a rotator belt...best invention EVER.

More Gaudi work that I have not entered...but I will go next time!!

Being super nerdy & proud.  I bought a book at a little market on an author I studied in University and then sad by the marina and read...so nice.

Qué suerte!

It means, "How lucky!" That is something I say CONSTANTLY over here.   ...However, I NEVER hear people say that to me..  I am severely cursed. Too many broken mirrors, walking under ladders & don't get me started on the fact that i OWN a black cat...Don't get me wrong, I am lucky enough to have a wonderful, supporting group of loved ones, but that falls more under the umbrella of being blessed.  When it comes to the true, actual, winning-the-lottery type of luck --Let's just say, luck has never been in my favor.  


Example #1: Today was one of those days.  I woke up relatively early, got dressed, grabbed breakfast to go and start walking.  I still haven't figured out the exact timetable of how long it takes me to get to my bus stop so I started the walk at a fast speed, speed walking if you will, and then as I started to approach...my pace got slower because with one look at my phone I realized I was doing PERFECT on time.  My bus comes at 8:10 and leaves at about 8:11 and 30 seconds.  It was "8:06" when I arrived at the spot, but the 3 other regulars were no where to be found.  Yet again, I have only taken the bus from this particular stop 2X, so there is always room for error on my part. Well, I wait.  8:10 comes & goes so I start to get a little nervous...I pull out my iPod to see if I could grab internet on the road and the clock says: 8:17 AM.  Impossible.  My clock says 8:11... I think you can guess where the story goes from here.  But there is more...I tried to call Juan Carlos (my principal) and his phone wasn't working!!! Then I called my friend Lindsey to look up the train schedule and we couldn't find it. Sooooo, I had to book it the 20 min back to my house and email him. Everything is fine and I am going to work Thursday instead, but still.....suerte isn't my thannnggg.


Example #2: Partially bad luck, majorly unprepared.  I didn't check in for my Barcelona flight until 10 PM the night before, but this is when I see in red, DON'T FORGET TO PRINT OFF YOUR BOARDING PASS! My friends Allie & Alex were at my house and told me that they heard RyanAir makes you pay 40 euro for a boarding pass at the gate.  Great thing about spain is noone I know has a printer...it isn't the same necessity here because A. Spain is green, so if you can do it online the better, B. they just run to a copy store or print it off at work...lucky for me all the copy stores close before 10...I start to look at Fees on Ryanair.com and they said that if you book online the re issue of a boarding pass fee is n/a and if you book at the airport or at a city center it is 40 euro...I save the screen and my boarding pass on my iPod for the airport in the morning (after desperately calling everyone I know in Sevilla for help at this late hour on a Thurs when EVERYONE is out...).  I get to the airport and the lady tells me I have to pay 40 euro for the boarding pass...I show her my iPod & the page of fees and she tells me that is incorrect and I tell her that is on her web page so I don't understand how that can be incorrect unless they updated it this morning...Needless to say, I will be sending an email to RyanAir and probably NEVER see my money again, but still...I can't just sit by. That is RIDICULOUS!! For those of you who do not know the conversion: 40 euro = $53.48 + the international service fee for using a credit card...So at the end of the day I spent almost $55 ON A PIECE OF PAPER!!!!! That was A TON of my spending money when I make NO MONEY here and don't get paid until NOVEMBER 1....ahhhhh, I'm still heated about the situation, obviously...buttttt. it. was. seriously. un-cool.


But on a bright note, I had a blast in Barcelona and spent some time with Tom which made my day..and yeah. The festival was incredible :)


LOVE YOU!


pictures to come!

What if you woke up today with only the things you thanked God for yesterday?

I just read this on Facebook and had to include it in my post.  What if? Somedays I would be golden, but days like today I would be left with nothing...except the fact that I wasn't late to work...and that isn't exactly something important in the big scheme of things.  I am about to print this off and put it on my bulletin board and encourage all of you to put it somewhere you can see it too, because it is so true.

Now, bloggity blog time.

School.

This is what Spain looks like when I leave my house at 7:30 AM.

Other than that fun fact...I adore my job!! The teachers are great, the kids are adorable, my counterpart (Manu, the english teacher) is really fun AND my principals are WONDERFUL! I literally LOVE my job...  

Minus the commute...

I leave my house at 7:30, pick up the bus at 8, get to El Pedroso at 9:30, work until 2...then is when life gets tricky...The bus doesn't come until 4:30 soooo Juan Carlos (principal) asked around and the first day I went with a car pool group from the High School.  The only problem is they don't get out until 3.  So I waited at the school and slept in the car haha. They dropped me off right on the outskirts of Sevilla around 4:15, but it was only about 20 min walking to my house, no pasa nada (nothing happened, it doesn't matter, no problem) so I was officially home right before 5.  Wellll, today we tried something different and I rode home with another professor from our school that lives outside of Sevilla.  So I left at 2 when we finished, BUT I had to sit and wait at a bus stop (on a side street in this small town) for 45 minutes, so I ended up finally getting to Sevilla at 4 and the same 20ish minutes walking...So I saved myself 15 minutes, but also paid for the bus and waited on the street, sooooo I am hoping I can still revert to option 1 tomorrow...It ended up working out better! I am accepting that I don't get done until 5.  I already told my friends that we can't be friends M-W.  Only on the weekends...I'm exhausted by the time I get home. 

Miss yall as alwaysss!!

Update! ...and a smile :)

Hello sweet wonderful readers. For some reason my blog is looking SUPER weird so I'm not sure how this is going to turn out, and it is most likely in the cursive font because I don't see the option to change it buttt it's okay. I woke up a little sad this morning but chatted for a while with one of my great friends from college, Stephanie Irwin and Nana also (PPL to you both) and I feel much better!

I start work Monday! YAY! I'm excited! My principal is awesome too! Very VEry Helpful!! He even offered to meet me at the bus stop Monday so I don't get lost! Annddd I need to get out of the house and have something to occupy my time! Seriously, this past week I have been an intense online scrapbooker! (Shoutout to Shutterfly.com -join and tell them I invited ya)

Last night we went to a fiesta at Lauren's place and then one at my house! It was really fun! Lauren, Taylor & I are always together. And when we are not together we are chatting online..it's really kind of sad, but this week has felt like a MONTH to us because we have nothing to do...well Taylor & I have nothing to do... Lauren is working a side job (or two?) so she has stuff going on but still loves us.

Here we are in our prime, from the other night...Sorry I've been horrible about photos lately!

Tonight I am cheating on our trio and hanging out with someone new (LOVE yall still!!) AND the best part about my hot date tonight...well there are soooo many best parts to my date night. #1 Lindsey is from TEXAS!! Whoop Whoop, Southern Charm! We actually met through one of my old roommates Mary Catherine (look at my rooms bringing all the southern girls to me! Sidebar: I'm going to Barcelona next weekend with another old roommates cousin...more on that later). #2 We are going to get this mouth-watering Italian place I went to my first day in SEvilla by myself. It is right down the road and literally had the best vegetable plate of my life and I have been dying to return! #3 We are going to see a movie!! Yayy! IN ENGLISH!!!!!! Whoop Whoop! Needless to say I'm pumped!

Hmmmm...que mas?

Ohh I am OBSESSED with my roommate, Ian's girlfriend. She is from Birmingham...UK. So we laughed about that. She's presh and we are in love. Haha, she even told me she would go and watch all the bama games with me and learn to love it.

BarCeLoNA.
I am going next weekend, Friday AM to be exact and Tom has the day off so he's going to show me around the city from the eyes of someone who lives there. I am excited! And I missed that little booger a ton! Background...Tom was my best friend last summer. We took class together in Madrid.

This is from Santander last year. Neither of us had eaten any type of Oriental food in 3 months and we happened to run into a Chinese restaurant and ORDERED EVERYTHING!! haha it was a really fun time and so we are getting Japanese when I get there. Keeping the tradition alive! And for those of you wondering "Hmm....." I will answer your question. No, just friends. But I ADORE him. One of the best guys EVER.

I have other reasons for Barcelona besides Tom as well..Sensation White.
http://www.sensation.com/spain
I am going with Alex and her friends. She is awesome as well. She's Caitlin's cousin from Georgia. I'm pumped.

That is all for now! Love yall tons!

Pictures from last night:

2 of my Roommates: Curly hair=Vincent from Milan and Ian is from England.

My new gf, Rosie.

A Normal, Level-Headed Blog Entry.

I figured it was time for a change due to the fact that I sounded like a nut case in my last post. Sweet. I promise ya'll that normal, less emotional, non-whiney Audrey still exists.


I'm gonna break this up into what you have missed.

• Friends. Yes, you read that correctly.  Maybe, I should say it again, just for kicks & giggles. FRIENDS. Not the tv show (which I love duh), but real life.  I, Audrey Wood, FINALLY have real spanish friends.  Well, that's partially correct.  I have american friends in Spain.  How about that? Slowly, but surely my life is coming together.  One of these new friends is a professional blogger...okay maybe that's an exaggeration, but she is a journalist (ShouTOuT to Lauren: Hey girl, Heeyyyyy, you like my normal font?).  She gave me a little GRIEF today about my font selection.  I like it to resemble that I'm actually writing it, hence the cursive font, but hey turns out I'm giving ya'll a headache. So hopefully throughout this year, I will actually learn how to blog and not "Diary" all my emotions on to the worldwideweb. I know you are thinking that Friend(s) sounds promising...I have 2. But don't worry, that is better than last week! 
• Casa. So I was a little vague in my last blog and decided to leave gender out of my roommates, but heyyy if I'm being honest with ya'll...I live with a majority of boys.  I know, I know, this is not really kosher in the South...but in the South of Spain...it's one of the only ways to do it. I keep meaning to take pictures of my house to show ya'll and keep forgetting, but next post!  I casi-promise.  (Casi=almost...I also use it like kinda).  I definitely am developing a relationship with the other girl in the house, Marion. She is great and I took her out with my friends the other night.  It was a lot of fun! She feels the same way I do that it is weird to live with people and not be friends so our goal this week is to win over the boys! Haha. The first 2 nights we moved in we had family dinners.  I am going to try to implement that again tomorrow...by cooking.  Yes, you heard me right...that leads to point three.
• Cooking. This year my goal is to learn to cook...I know...crazy, crazy.  Veronica helped me out and gave me a starter cooking class the last 2 weeks of Poland.  I am slightly prepared, but my friend Taylor & I attempted yesterday and it was okay.  We still have some work to do...
• Internet & Homesickness. They really coincide and are one and the same.  I am spending a ridic amount of time on the internet trying to catch up with everyone because I am SOOO homesick right now.  If you think about it shoot me an email and remind me that I have a home full of loved ones that think about me and miss me.  Thanks :) And ... I was serious about the whole receiving mail thing :) haha

Miss yall tons and tons!

HOW BOUT THAT BAMA GAMEEEE???!!

Roll Tide!

Some of our friends.  The 2 girls to the right of me: Marion, my roommate & Katalina...Taylor's roommate.  They bonded as well so it was fun!

Lauren, the professional blogger, is in the black dress & Taylor beside her.

Marion, my roomie :)

At the TEX-MEX Texas Saloon watching the game!! 

SOOOO HAPPPYYYY!!

We Looked AWESOME & I got to enjoy the game with friends....that may or may not like football, but regardless...I wasn't alone watching updates on Espn.com