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
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
So I'm back again!!! So last week I told y'all about the first half of my adventures in Seville! So starting where I left off...lets chat about the Catedral de Sevilla! This is the largest gothic style cathedral in Europe and the fourth largest overall, I believe (you might want to fact check that if you want to be absolutely sure..I'm just going off what my tour guide said!). This place is huge, y'all. Like I had to tip my head all the way back to see the top big. Its 138 ft from floor to the central nave in the church! So basically a 10 story building could fit in here! Check it out!
This doesn't even captivate how huge this Cathedral is
SOOOOO TALLLL!!!
This place was gorgeous! All of the stained glass windows were beautiful and the sunlight streaming through just took my breath away! Here is something that will help put the size of this cathedral into perspective for you. The painting in this photo below is 150 square feet...roughly the size of a small apartment here in Granada! It may look tiny but don't let this cathedral deceive you!
Also...check out this organ. It has 7000 pipes in it!!! 7000!!!!!!! Can you imagine how stressful it would be to play that thing?!
The other awesome thing about this cathedral is that it is the location of Christopher Columbus' final resting place. Yes, that's right, Christobal Colon resides in this cathedral! While there is only 200 grams of him left, it was so cool to think that I was in the same room as him!
Good ol' Chris is up there in that box they are holding!
Me and my amiga Victoria chillin' with Christopher Columbus!
It was so cool seeing this piece of history up close! Also within the Cathedral, Christopher Columbus' son is also buried as well! There is so much cool things within here! I really enjoyed the Cathedral and its bell-tower called Giralda! We climbed to the top of this super tall bell-tower that you can see in my first picture in this post! The view of Seville was amazing! Check it out!
While it was a long walk up (95.5 m tall) it was definitely worth the view! You could see for miles!!!! After the trek up and down the bell-tower, it was time for lunch...I was starving!! So me and a few of the awesome friends I've made through my program stopped at a little cafe for some paella and refreshments!! I loved the sign that was in front of the restaurant!!!
My friends and me :)
So after lunch, we all got an hour of free time so I got to walk around and get some gelado (ice cream!!) After we walked around, we got to visit Plaza de Espana! Now if you don't know me very well it may come as a bit of a shock that I am a COMPLETE NERD. Like we're talking Iron Man sheets in my bed, a Superman lunchbox, I have a Harry Potter wand kinda nerd. So my first thought when I found out we were going to Plaza de Espana was STAR WARS. This is one of the many locations used in the newer Star Wars movies; Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones! They used the plaza to film the City of Theed on Planet Naboo which is totally awesome. All I could think about when crossing over the main bridge was that I was Queen Padme Amidala/Natalie Portman. I know. Nerd alert.
If you want to see what I'm talking about with Star Wars...this is the scene where they walk across the plaza and up the staircase/through the halls...I've been there. :)
How cool is that?!?!?!!? Anyways...around the Plaza de Espana is a moat-ish thing that you can rent little row boats in for 5 euro a half hour. So 3 of my friends chipped in and got us a row boat! It was so much fun seeing the Plaza from that point of view and just playing around in the water! We had so much fun trying to figure out the row boat at first, plus we added some excitement to our water adventures by continuously accidentally crashing into other people! Take a look!
It was such a blast to hang out there and be with friends and our awesome advisers! Did I mention that CEA has the best people in the world lookin' out for all of us?!? Here is a pic of our lovely two male advisers, Jorge and Dani, and my friend Victoria and me!
Aren't they precious! They are so helpful and knowledgeable about the places we go and Granada...I'm so blessed with this program! Anyways..I gotta put this pic in of me and my AMAZING roommate Lizzy..I literally ADORE this girl and have been so lucky to be a part of her life this semester!
How cute are we!? If you would like to read a little bit about her and her times here as well in Spain you can visit her blog right here!
I will be back shortly with some more of my wonderful advetures!! Until then...stay classy my friends!
Mackenzy :)
Its been awhile but I'm back! Unfortunately there is a bug going around Granada and me with my weak weak immune system was one of the first to get it! But its alright because I subsequently gave it to about 6 other people...revenge! Just kidding..but they did get the bug as well! So I have been exhausted and stuffy/runny and dealing with life with a icky tummy for the past week but all is better now! I am so lucky that my host mother here is a nurse and has been keeping me drugged up and alive!
So now I will get y'all up-to-date with the second half of my trip to Cordoba/Seville with a post about the beautiful FUN city of Seville!!!! This city is such a beautiful destination for a weekend away and I want to go back someday FOR SURE! It was a little rough-around-the-edges (meaning people do get pick-pocketed frequently) but I thought it was awesome! We got there Friday night and spent some time in our hotel unpacking and relaxing from the 2 hour bus ride there. I was in a hotel room with my roommate Lizzy and another AWESOME girl named Rachel! This girl is adorable. Like pure adorable-ness through and through...I love this girl. Lizzy and I had so much fun rooming with her for the two nights we were in Seville! We had about two hours to wander around until we had to go to dinner downstairs, so Rachel, Lizzy, and a few friends and I went shopping!
That night after dinner, a bunch of us went to a free flamenco show! Two of our amazing advisers, Dani and Jorge, took us to this show! It was so much fun! That was the first time I had seen a flamenco show here in Spain and I loved it! After the show, a bunch of us went out on the town to a few different places and then I went home and slept like a BABY! I was exhausted after a long day of walking around Cordoba and Seville.
Some of our group at the flamenco show with some delish sangria!!!!!
The next morning we woke up and ate a big breakfast at the hotel. After that we all met up downstairs and took off for our tour of Seville and its historical places. We started off seeing the oldest still-in-use palace in Europe, Reales Alcazares. This was such a pretty palace that was built with the same Moorish architecture and style as the Alhambra. It was so ornate and decorative and absolutely gorgeous. The Spanish royal family still use this palace whenever they come to Seville which is why its the oldest palace still in use. There is a labyrinth in the garden area which was really fun! What was crazy is it used to be three times the size that it is now AND they used to put live animals in there for knights and whatnot to fight against! I mainly just ran around and pretended I was Harry Potter in the Triwizard Tournament (book number four for those of you non-Harry Potter fanatics like myself).
Me in the awesome labyrinth!
After the labyrinth we got to see the palace! It was so beautiful! After it was built by the Arabs, it was conquered by Ferdinand III where it was then turned into a palace for the monarchs. Many monarchs added onto the palace during their reigns which brought it to its final glory that is seen today! Check out some of the pictures from the palace!
One of the many fountains on the property
One view of the front of the palace
The main patio..see the beautiful Arab architecture
The entrance to the part of the palace we got to see
It was so beautiful to walking around the palace and leaning the history behind the palace! After the tour of Alcazares, we got a small break for coffee and snacks! Three of us found a cute little cafe that was delicious!
Cappuccinos are a necessity in my life!
Good friends and good coffee!
After our little coffee break we went to the Catedral de Sevilla which is in the center of Seville. I will tell you all about that and the Plaza de España in my next post...I feel like I've made this one super long already! So stay tuned for Seville Part 2! Till then...god bless!
Mackenzy
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!
