1. The first week at sea was the toughest, obviously, because I was in a whole new place and knew no one. I had such high hopes for being friends with my roommate, Chelsea, but she came from Los Angeles with her boyfriend and 3 of her friends, so she was all set with her group of friends. Meal times were tough because there was limited seating, so every meal I had to just find a random table with an empty chair, introduce myself and make small talk. Sometimes, I just wanted to eat alone, but always had to sit with someone. It ended up being a good thing tho, because I sat alone one day, and the table next to me had a free chair, so the 3 girls there asked me to sit with them. I said yes, and it ended up that Jocelyn and Evergreen actually live across from me and Laura lives not too far away either. For the next day or so, Laura always seemed to find me at meal times, so we always sat together, and occasionally we sat with Evergreen and Jocelyn. Evergreen and Jocelyn are actually best friends from home, both were homeschooled and Evergreen’s dad is their church pastor, she is the youngest of 12 children! Laura and I ended up sitting with Megan one day at dinner, then we stayed up half the night playing trivial pursuit. At some point I also met Katherine, and together they make up my little group of friends.




2. Spain was amazing! I went to a bull fight, which was horrible, bloody and disgusting to watch a bull be tortured and killed, but by the time the 5th of 7 bulls was killed, we were all getting into it and it was a great time! Spain time is also different from our sense of time. I went with Laura and Megan to Jerez for a day, but Laura has a bolt in her head for a hearing aid and it was bleeding, so we called the medical team, who did not answer the phone (good to know!), but we eventually got thru an hour later, so this cut our trip short since we had to go back to Cadiz so Laura could go to the clinic. She ended up to be fine, and we just spent the day shopping, all of us finding €5 shoes! The next day I went with Megan and her friend Ben to Ronda, which was a long bus ride away, but totally worth the view of a giant bridge across a massive gorge in the earth! The last day I went thru the market place with my anthropology professor on a SAS trip with Megan and Jocelyn. Then we went for tapas after, and it was all seafood! Jocelyn and I hate seafood, but we did our best to eat it. I had Oysters, shrimp, seafood paella, dogfish (my favourite cuz it tasted almost like chicken!) and a few other random sea creatures! The Spanish eat their meals starting around 10am, then again at 2pm, then again around 10pm, and every meal is eaten slowly, and they share tapas, and socialize. It was so relaxing and fantastic to just sit and take your time, eat and talk! Except when we actually had somewhere to go, then it was almost impossible to get the bill! I was also dying to go out to a club (relive my days in Scotland!), so I dragged Laura, Jocelyn, Evergreen and Megan (it was her bday) out on our last night, but the nightlife doesn’t start til 2am since all their meals are so late. We started at a tiki hut on the beach, and we ran thru the water and got soak and wet! We then ran into some other SAS students who were looking to go out, so we went with them to a bar that played everything from lady gaga to salsa! Finally we ended up at a club, and danced til the early hours of the morning, and Evergreen, Megan and I were the last ones standing!