Algeciras, Bolonia, Tarifa

My host family is literally THE BEST. I have been so blessed to be completely welcomed into this family; both Lizzy and I absolutely ADORE them. Let me give you a little run-down on my family here. In Granada, Lizzy and I live with our host mom Amparo (or Mama Dos which is mama two) and her daughter from a previous marriage, Ana, who is 19 years old! They are wonderful, through and through. My host mom Amparo is married to an adorable man named Pedro who lives in Algeciras, Spain, about 3 hours away. Amparo and Pedro try to see each other as many weekends as they can but since Spain is in a "job crisis", neither of them could give up their jobs to move since they have great ones. Pedro has two sons, Alonso (19) and Alvaro (18). These boys are so sweet and kind and such fun brothers to have!! The picture above is one weekend when both Alvaro and Alonso spent the weekend here with Pedro. We all snuggled in the morning and it was awesome! I have always wanted little brothers and Ana is such a great new sister to have as well! So my family is basically awesome!

So one weekend, rather than the guys coming to Granada for the weekend, we all went to Algeciras! It was such a  blast!!! We started the weekend off visiting Amparo's sister, Tana, and going on a walk around town there and going out to eat with the family. It was fun getting to know more people in the family and having fun around the town! Algeciras is a really cute little town right on the Mediterranean ocean; it has a big harbor and you can see Gibraltar right from the sidewalk near the water! It was really cool!

The next day Pedro took Amparo, Alonso, Lizzy, and I to Tarifa, a beach town, and Bolonia, an old Roman ruins site! It was SO WINDY...like so windy that now I now how Dorothy from Oz felt like in the tornado! Check out some of the pictures from that adventure!

This is the port in Tarifa...notice that land mass in the distance? That's Africa!! I've never been able to see a different continent before!!!!!

Look at the tree..that's how windy it was!

A small Roman theater

My brother, Alonso, and Lizzy!

The salt basins where the Romans would soak food in salt for eating!

After we visited the ruins, we went to Tia Tana (our aunt) and Tio Mauri's (our uncle) house on the beach! Its a small house that is right on the beach in Tarifa..it was still SUPER DUPER windy so we only got to walk on the beach for a little bit because the sand on the beach felt like bullets hitting our face. What is so cool about Tarifa is its on the Atlantic ocean...not the Mediterranean! Where these two towns are located are in the province of Cadiz, but they are on the point...so one one side is the Med and the other is the Atlantic!

I colored Algeciras with a red dot and Tarifa with the lime green so you can see the point they are located on!

But definitely the highlight of hanging out at the beach house was the food....PAELLA. Paella is very typical of Spain and it is SO AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS. Our Tia Tana was hard at work when we got to the beach house, cooking up a massive amount of the goods...take a look at it!

Tia Tana and my host mom Amparo is in the pink!

Lizzy after paella!

Yah...we basically INHALED it...SO GOOD

After we ate, we all had a small siesta! We needed one to let all that paella soak in our systems! We hung out around the beach house and cleaned up and headed back to Pedro's house afterwards. Once back at Pedro's we played games with our brothers, watched a movie, and just vegged out. It was a rainy, windy day so we couldn't do much outside. Plus, we were all exhausted from the crazy wind in Tarifa...it wore us out!

The next morning (Sunday), Pedro took Amparo, Alvaro, Lizzy and me to a local walking path right on the water's edge! It was still kinda an ucky-ducky day but we made the most of it! Plus we just had fun hanging out with our "padres" (parents) and our "hermanito" (little brother)!

Me, Lizzy, and Alvaro!

Aren't we precious!?

Flying siblings!!!

The three of us with our "padre" Pedro!!!

These flowers reminded me of Indian Paintbrushes from back home in TX!

I had so much fun that weekend...but finally we had to head back home to Granada! It was so much fun seeing meeting new family and hanging out with Pedro and the boys! Plus Amparo was so happy to see her hubby..look how precious they are together!!

I am so blessed to be a part of this family and that they want Lizzy and I to be so much a part of their lives and meet all of the rest of the family!! They are truly wonderful and I wouldn't want to be with anyone else! So I'll leave you with this quote that I found the other day that I thought fit our family perfectly..."The great gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never even introduce yourself to, had life not done it for you." - Kendall Hailey
Talk to y'all soon!!!
Mackenzy

Street Art-Granada

One thing that I love to do in my life is walk. Most people like to run or exercise, but for me walking is something that calms me down and allows me to think more clearly. I try to go for a walk everyday if I can...even if it means walking to and from classes, I still get to think about things. I'd rather walk than run because every time I've tried running, all I can think about is how much I hate running. So walking is my vice. Well, in Granada, there is so much beauty EVERYWHERE! Its in the view of the mountains, the trees, the people, and my favorite...the walls. While I don't condone graffiti, street art is completely different in my book. Sometime an artist is even commissioned to paint these glorious pictures, but most the time they are not. Regardless, they are art and the painters are artists. I try to take pictures of these paintings whenever I stumble across one that I love. Take a look at some of the ones I have found during my walks around Granada! I'd love to know what you think!

I tried to translate the words on some of these paintings but I can't figure them out. I'm sure they are of importance to the artist, but my host sister couldn't even translate some of them and she speaks Spanish. I don't mind though...it gives the paintings a beautiful, yet mysterious feel to them. I will capture more of these gorgeous paintings on my many walks and post them when I have more! Until then....live colorfully!!!
Mackenzy

Italica-Where Romans Roamed!

Hello world! Before I start my newest post, I want to take this time to ask for prayers for a few things..first off, one of my high school friends who I knew through tennis suffered a brain aneurysm recently and is still in the ICU. While I am not close to him, I knew him and his potential in this world! He has just been accepted into dental school so he has his whole life ahead of him. So please send a prayer for Ramon when you can. Also, two young cadets from my school at Texas A&M were killed this past weekend in a car accident involving a drunk driver. So please pray for their families and friends as they deal with their grief. And one more prayer, please, for my best friend Mandy, whose grandmother lost her battle to cancer two nights ago...I love this girl with all my heart and know that she is going through some hard times. Please pray for her family as they deal with their loss as well.

Onto brighter subjects!!! So yesterday I FINALLY finished my post about Seville! Well on the way home the next day from Seville  we got to stop by Italica...an old Roman city on the outskirts of Seville! It was formed in 206 BC as a Roman hospital for wounded soldiers wounded in the Battle of Ilipa during the Second Punic War. It later developed into a town, adding temples, public buildings, and an amphitheater. The amphitheater reminded me a lot of the Colosseum in Rome because of its design and size. It was the third largest amphitheater in the Roman Empire and it seated 25,000 spectators. It was home to not only theater and performances, but to games as well. Gladiators used to wait in the hallway of this theater while animals were stored underneath in the center pit of the amphitheater. There were gladiator fights and most likely naumachia or small naval fights where they filled that pit with water!

You can see two of the levels of seating in the amphitheater..there were 3 decks!

The amphitheater with the pit in the center!

Where the gladiators used to wait to enter a fight...can you imagine how terrifying that would be!?

The other really cool thing about Italica was that the mosaics that covered the floors of the buildings of this town are amazingly preserved and beautiful! Some are black and white mosaics, but my favorite were the colored mosaics.

 These mosaics were breathtaking and very ornate! It was so cool to see them up close! It's amazing that they were so well preserved after all these years...I was very impressed! Also, the statues found in Italica were also awesome! I don't think that some of them were the original statues (those are stored in preservation at a museum I believe) but they were still pretty awesome!

Replica of Venus statue

Those statues were so cool...I loved seeing them. Italica was definitely an awesome place to visit, so full of history and beauty. I enjoyed everything about this place! It was a great finish to an awesome weekend in Seville and Cordoba!  I will leave y'all with this one last picture...a picture of my roomie and me again..We have basically decided that we are the same person and this is like the picture of our relationship!

Yah...we're awesome! Haha!  Please send your prayers towards those who I mentioned before and until next time..God bless!
Mackenzy