Hi All!

Sorry it´s been so long since my last entry!! My school changed the computer lab hours at the start of June, and I just have not been able to make it to Blogger.

Here´s a quick recap of what´s been going on since then...

Last Saturday I went on a day trip to Gibraltar. Very cool city. I´m not exactly sure if it´s its own country or not because you need a passport to get in. It´s on a penninsula off of Spain and from the tip you can see Africa about 15km in front of you. And the Mediterraean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The city is very low key and, it´d be a great place to vacation for a few days. There isn´t a ton to do except relax so much longer than a day or two would get boring. The natives all speak English and Spanish with British accents. There are monuments all over the city for different troops that have occupied Gibraltar at different times during different wars.

We took a bus tour up the rock. Our guide says hiking up the roads takes about 4 hours to get to the top walking. Knowing the Horans I´m sure we could do it faster, especially if we just took short cuts. Plus, it´s a rock, so it´s not like you can confuse the peaks. It has a fantastic view of the ocean. There are apes (they are small, so I´m inclided to call them monkeys, but one girl was visibly upset we called them monkeys because they don´t have tails and therefore are apes, even though I tend to think of apes as larger, more beastly, creatures I just could not handle this girl and converted to calling them apes) on the rock and they are a little unpredictable - they jump on vehicles and even people. I took a picture with a baby, but they are really just unpredictable and I think kind of scary. But they are little, even the big ones. After a conversation with Dad, I´m a little curious as to how the apes got there in the first place.

Sunday we went to a beach called Matalascañas. Very, very crowded. I went horseback riding in the morning and decided I´m really okay if I never do that again. Ever. My horse and I just did not get along and he kept trying to brush up on evergreen trees because he was itchy but that also meant he kept throwing me into the tree and I got all these scratches. My friends opted not to go riding, so once I met them at the beach two hours later, they were pretty red and ready to get out of the sun. Still, I got about two hours laying out and another couple at a cafe, so I have a decent start to a tan. My tan, actually, is very splotchy because of purse straps, swimsuit and differnet shirt lines. It was a topless beach, if you wanted, but the only topless people were old women over the age of I´d say 60, so we all would have preferred it wasn´t topless if you wanted. Matalascañas is about an hour and a half away from Sevilla, but traffic was not moving the the trip home took two and a half hours! There were tv´s, though, so we watched a movie.

Nothing exciting went on throughout the week. I got a wedding invite!! That was exciting. I´m trying to think of a very original song to rsvp with. Class has been uneventful, we had a quiz on Tuesday, and my final is tomorrow. I´ve really been utilizing my siesta time to catch up on sleep. Went out a couple nights. Have been eating way too many sweets. I need to be good the rest of my trip. I don´t have dinero aka euro to do that.

Today is Corpus Christi and I´m not really sure what that means besides there is no school. There was a parade this morning, but I opted to sleep in. It´s a religious holiday, but that´s all I know at this point. Tonight I´m going to a bull fight. So, I´ll let you know how that goes. Beaches in Cordoba and Cadiz this weekend. Can´t wait!

Susan sent me her itinerary and I´m getting excited to have her here. It´s hard to believe I´m half up with my trip from Sevilla. I´m supposed to move out of my homestay on Saturday, but Susan doesn´t get to Paris until Monday. I need to book a flight (or ride a train, maybe?) and I can´t do that until I decide what to do with Saturday afternoon until Susan gets there. I could ask Mercedes to let me stay, or I could go to Paris early and have time there myself. Your thoughts?

Congrats to Mary on finding a place in Chicago! It sounds great and I cannot wait to come visit you this fall!!!

I´ll try to hit the blog more here, at the Internet cafe. The program gave us all 20 hours to use here, and I haven´t used many of them since I used to just stay at school. Class next semester doesn´t start until noon (it starts at 10 now), which means I get to sleep in a little more. The class goes on a lot of fieldtrips so it should be interesting, but also very hot.

Keep me updated on whats going on in your lives. Katie, if you send my your number, I can call you. It might be easier.

Okay, TTYL :)