Claire's Study Abroad Adventures

Twelve weeks down, three to go! It is so amazing how fast time has gone here. It is so sad to think I leave Sevilla in less than two weeks. I finished my spring break in Cinque Terre, Venice, and Milan. I loved how relaxing Cinque Terre was! I went on a solo hike from Vernazza to Monterosso, which was absolutely beautiful! I laid on the beach for a while and explored both of the towns. Our Airbnb in Corniglia was awesome, so we hung out there a lot, especially on our balcony. The next day, we took the train to Riomaggiore and explored the town. My favorite part was climbing out on the rocks on the water to get a view of the city. Later in the day we went to Manarola to watch the sunset. It was absolutely beautiful! That was one of my favorite parts about Cinque Terre. We headed out the next day to travel to Venice. It was a long day of traveling, but we made it there that night. In Venice, I walked around for most of the day and saw a lot of gondolas. Also, I took a gondola ride! It w...

Eleven weeks down, four to go! We are on our spring break right now because it is Semana Santa. I am doing a little tour of Italy for ten days. We started in Rome and spent two days there. The first day, we saw the Roman Forum, Colosseum, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, and just wandered around the city. Of course, we got some really good gelato and some pasta. My favorite part of the day was the Trevi Fountain at night. It was more peaceful because there were not as many people. The second day, we went to the Vatican City, where we spend a good 7 hours. We went to the museum part first and saw the Sistine Chapel. I loved all the ceilings in the museum and chapel! After a couple hours there, we went over the St. Peter's Square and went into St. Peter's Basilica. I thought that was so beautiful! There was so much art, and it was nice to just wander around. We went up the tower too, and we could see the city, and it was definitely worth it. We were so exhausted after tha...

Nine weeks down, six to go! School work has started catching up since we are almost to the end of the semester, but we went on an awesome weekend trip with SAIIE to Morocco this past weekend! We left on Friday morning and took a bus down to Tarifa to take the ferry to Tangier. It was a bit of a rough ride because it was rainy and windy, but we finally made it Tangier! Right when we got off the boat, it felt like a totally different environment already. We met our tour guide and we hit the road to start our tour! He drove us around California Mountain in Tangier to show us the huge houses, including the King's house, and he took us to the point where we could see where the mediterranean sea meet the Atlantic.  It was so beautiful! The water was so blue and we could see mountains on both sides of us. We also got to ride camels, which was one of the things I was looking forward to the most about Morocco! It was a bit scary when the camel stood up and sat down, but other than that, it ...

Eight weeks down, eight to go! Last week was a pretty relaxed week, but over the weekend, we took a girls trip to Prague. I had exams in my classes at SAIIE on Monday and Tuesday, but they were not too difficult. I'm so happy to have my second round of exams over with at SAIIE, and now we only have finals left. In my cooking class at the Universidad de Sevilla, I learned how to cook gazpacho, tortilla de patatas, and torrijas. It was really interesting to learn how to cook some traditional Spanish dishes. Also, I am still volunteering at the colegio again on Monday and Wednesday. I love all the kids there, and I really enjoy going there. There were seven girls, including me, that went on a weekend trip to Prague! We left on Thursday night and took a train to Malaga. We ended up staying in a hotel, a spontaneous decision, and left for Prague in the morning. When we got to Prague, we went to a restaurant right away to try some traditional Czech food. I got goulash and fried cheese,...