Torn Between Two Worlds

(Posted a bit late because airport wi-fi didn't work and because I was too exhausted after 24 hours of traveling to post.) I confess that I am a bit behind on travel blogging. Since my last post, I’ve traveled to Barcelona and Granada, experienced Sevilla’s defining Feria de Abril, cheered on both of the city’s...

Random Ramblings from Sevilla

(My other working title was "Stephanie finished her homework due tomorrow and doesn't want to work on her paper anymore.") I still have to catch up and fill y'all in on my Barcelona trip (amazing...one of my favorite cities) and la Feria de Abril, a huge festival in Sevilla. But tonight I thought I'd reflect...

La Semana Santa (Holy Week)

La Semana Santa, Holy Week, is an important holiday throughout Spain, but most of all in Andalucía. Thousands of people flock to Sevilla for the festivities, which is one of the reasons I took most of that week to travel to Portugal. However, I returned late Thursday before Good Friday and was in Sevilla through...

Global Citizenship

When I hear the words "global citizen," the first thing that comes to my mind is the preamble to the UN Charter. Wow, my Model UN nerd is really coming out tonight!(Sidenote: While I'm here in Spain my Model UN team got to hear Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon speak at the NY conference inside the...

University Life: Home and Abroad

For this week’s TCU blog assignment, I get to channel my inner nerd and talk about differences between the American and Spanish education systems. I want to be a political science professor when I grow up (if I word it that way it makes graduation seem further away and I feel less old), precisely because...

(Mis)communication

As an unapologetic language nerd, I love discovering new phrases, especially ones that don’t translate directly into English. It’s like a puzzle, figuring out where words originate, connecting words linguistically to other languages, unearthing a bit of history or culture behind a phrase. Spanish, the second-most spoken language in the world, is a particularly fascinating...

Odds and Ends

This weekend I took a break from traveling so I could enjoy spending time in my host city. There is so much to see in Sevilla, and I love discovering new things about my Spanish home every day. Here are a few of the fun, random, crazy, weird, exciting things I’ve encountered recently: Remember when...

Stop and smell the oranges.

In my Latin American Geography class last year, my professor began by listing major American cities and asking us to call out the first thing that came to our minds. New York? Central Park. Los Angeles? Hollywood. Boston? Red Sox (boooo). What I found most interesting was to hear others’ first responses to my city,...

All about Perspective

On the first day of my Civilization and Culture of Spain class, our professor gave us a questionnaire to see what we knew/thought about Spain already and asked us what stereotypes we held about Spaniards. Instantly my mind flew to the importance of meals and familia, the fútbol obsession, and, of course, the siesta that...

Negro y blanco

The other day I stole a few hours for myself and returned to the Plaza de España with my journal and camera in tow. I’ve noticed that the Spanish walk much more slowly than Americans, so I tried to blend in and do the same. It was more difficult than I thought it would be....