Aparthotel Riosol Puerto Rico

... I haven't found myself in tears because I miss home and the people. I miss everyone but at the same time I know I have the family I was born into and the family I've made for myself but I also realized that I have a family here. There is no better feeling than having my 7 year old sister come into my room and confiscate my iPod only to rock out to the Lion King Soundtrack in my bed....

It truly is the little things in life that make it that much more enjoyable!

... over for dinner when they got back. Amazing. Ask your children if you can eat the oranges from the trees in Granada. This seemed to become an obsession in this city which, if you didn´t already guess, is lined with orange trees. Such a simple thing...sooo captivating to a bunch of tired, punchy students. And so the obsession grew. Finally in the Alhambra palace they could no longer stand it. A group took turns trying to knock ...

... singers and guitar players. Lots of fun! After the show, around midnight, we passed a plaza crowded with drunken revellers on the way back to the hostel. We dropped off some extras at the hostel and decided to go out bar-hopping. When re returned to the very same plaza just before 1 AM, it was deserted except for 2 police and a lot of empty plastic cups. We were very confused and asstounded by how several hundred people could disperse so ...

... day I made sure I was up early enough to make it to the Cathedral's 11am service. I didn't really come prepared to go to Mass at such a fancy church, but I pieced a few things together so that I didn't show a lack of respect by dressing like a vagabond. It's hard to actually get in to where church is held at such a place. First, you have to fight your way past all the tourists, then the guards have the actually let you in to the areas where ...

... corner is the famous flamenco joint La Carboneria. Overall things are great. I taught my first class at the University on friday. The building dates from colonial times and was the old royal tobacco factory. Its a maze of imposing hallways and courtyards. There is also a place where you can get tapas and drinks ...

Zaterdag naar Sevilla geweest! Om 11u bus genomen, we waren er om half één, een 1,5u onderweg dus, best te doen, zeer comfortabele bus! We moesten eerst wel het busstation hier vinden, want da wisten we nog niet zijn en omdat we maar niet vonden, heb ik het aan een paar voorbijkomende nonnen gevraagd hehe, ze hebben me zeer goed geholpen hihi Het was in Sevilla wel ietsje warmer dan bij ons, want das het binnenland uiteraard, nl 30 graden, jaja HOT! Sevilla is echt prachtig ...

... almost mid-night. The bus, subway, and then walk to the hostel took a couple of hours. I was pretty tired and viewed the teeming city quite dispassionately. It had been difficult to find any vacant beds for the night and we had been forced to settle on an overpriced French chain hostel. Though it was 2:15 AM when we arrived, the hostel lobby was filled with a loud bunch of fighting kids and we had difficulty getting through the door.

... purposes. First, I realized that I really liked my host mother, that she was kind and caring and intelligent. Second, I realized my Spanish was at a level where I could actually have a conversation that complicated and intense! Even though I didn't go out again that night, and even though I had been lost for over 2 hours, I considered it a good day. The next day I had more orientation classes, so I got up with my family and headed out, now knowing what the address was and how to get ...

DAY 1 - JANUARY 4, 2007 Initially, I thought only Americans would observe the death of the late Gerald Ford with genuine fascination. But then I saw the Spanish paper El Pais (The Country) when I boarded my Iberia Airlines flight to Madrid; it featured a front page picture of the ex-president's funeral. This was my very first insight of Spaniards' perspective of Americans since I began my trip yesterday in New York. Today was a ...

... and decorative fences are similar are used to "connect" everything (like other palaces and statues) together, and everything that can be clean is spotless. The same goes for any other monument or place of public interest; everything is taken care of almost in excess (if that's possible), making every spot in London picturesque. This actually makes me feel sad because Paris has so much more potential than it lives up to! Outside of the ...