Churches, Bars, and Futbolistas!

So according to my guide during the first week here in Sevilla, "at every corner in Sevilla you can find beautiful churches, bars, and futbolistas!" (futbolistas are futbol fanatics) I think I can finally agree with her because I have experienced all 3 of those things this weekend!

BARS

Friday night wasn't my first experience at the bars in Sevilla, but it was my first experience at bars in Sevilla with Spanish speaking friends! Friday night it was my intercambio's birthday and we all went out. When we met up with my intercambio Javier, me and my two american friends quickly realized how underdressed we were! Everyone had on suits with ties and then the girls had on pretty sparkly dresses. And we were jsut going to a bar! ugh! but it was still a lot of fun and we got to meet lots of really nice spanish people and speak lots and lots of spanish!(Ps my senora told me that it is really weird how dressed up they were, even if it was for a birthday, so I don't exactly know what was going on with that!) Here is a picture of me and my intercambio. His friends gave him some apron that he had to wear all night. 

ignore my squinty eyes pls

I also met some other awesome Spanish friends when I went out Saturday night! I think this was my fave night yet because it was so spontaneous. I had gotten on the metro to go down to river which is where everyone "botellons"...Botellon is like pregaming before you go to the bars, except here you can get a bottle of wine for 3.00.  Anyways, while on the metro these two girls and guy asked me if i wanted to dance in the metro with them..well why not right?! As they say: when in Spain... So they put on some Justin Beiber (their favorite ever) and i got up, did a little twirl then sat down real quick (i'm not that spontaneous:) ). Well after they finished dancing they automatically were my best friends and even tried to speak english to me... So basically i was speaking broken spanish to them while they were speaking broken english to me..It was great! When we got off the metro they asked if I wanted to hang out with them and I said sure! So we grabbed my 2 girlfriends that were waiting outside the metro for me and we went and botelloned with them. It was definitely the best/most spontaneous night I have had in a long time!

So in this picture I have red lipstick on because Mariela (on the right) insisted that everyone in Sevilla wears red lipstick :)

CHURCH

Today was my first time actually attending mass in Sevilla. There is a church right across the street from our house so I went to that at 13:00. I just can't get over how pretty all of the churches are in Spain. They're all so beautiful! This church that I went to isn't even a famous church, but it still had gorgeous gold statues and breathtaking designs behind the alter. Maybe I'll slip in there a take a picture one day. Well anyways, I'm not really sure how I felt about attending church today. At home I love going, especially to St. Tom's up at school. Sometimes I even go during the week. However, this mass was different. It was really weird not understanding a single thing that was going on during the mass. Like I like to take a message away from the homily, but if you can't understand it, then it's kind of hard. I'm usually really good at understanding Spanish, even in my classes, but they priest wore a microphone and when everyone gave responses, it just sounded like blah blah blah! Although I couldn't understand anyone in church, I still enjoyed going because it gave me a chance to pray quietly. Maybe next week I'll just go not during mass and just say my prayers. We'll see how I feel. Other than that, it was neat getting to take in all of the differences that went on during the mass. For the most part, all of the procedures were the same, but quicker. Like I seriously think the priest began his homily 15 minutes after mass started. There was no piano or singing, so mass was super quick. Luckily I had a nice lady sitting by me that I could kind of follow her lead. She called me bonita, so I knew I could kind of just shadow her. I'm glad that I did because during communion, half the people just kind of raced up to communion (in no order at all) and then the rest of the people stayed seated until it wasn't so crowded. The nice old lady sat down and waited until there was basically no one in line then went. So I followed. But, good thing I was paying attention because everyone that I saw received their communion in their mouths, not their hands! This was the first time I have ever received communion in my mouth. All in all, going to mass in a gorgeous church was a great experience. I don't know if I'll go every week like I'd like to, but I'll definitely sneak in their a few times for some quiet prayer :)

FUTBOL

Before I tell you about the game today I want to tell you about something shocking. So Friday, after playing soccer with my sister in shorts and a tshirt (yes be jealous), I came back in and my senora was telling me how happy she is that a girl from america plays soccer. Well i was a little confused and thought i didn't understand her right because i mean tons of girls from USA play soccer. She then went on to tell me that futbol is only a boys sport. (what?!) Laura, who has better foot skills then me and is 11 years old, is the only girl on her all boys futbol team! That is so weird to me! In a county with such futbol fanatics I cannot believe that girls who play soccer is kind of advised against. So sad right?!


So today I went to my first European futbol game and had a great time! It's just so crazy how intense these people get! For example, when I was walking to the stadium to meet my friend, I was stopped by a policeman because the Malaga (the team we were playing against) fan bus was pulling in. Their fans were pounding the bus windows and chanting their cheers. There were probably like 10 policemen holding back the crowd so we wouldn't attack them. This was the most cops I had seen all 3 weeks that I've been here. They even had like swat vans and everything!

Once we finally got tickets (a madhouse) and bought myself a really cool jersey for half price (another mad house) we went up to the 2nd highest row in the stadium where our seats were. For all of my McLaughlin family members reading this: half of you probably wouldn't have liked sitting there! It was so high and seemed like you were looking straight down. I however thought that they were still great seats and loved the atmosphere. The fans made noise the entire time and the fan group right behind the goal seriously NEVER stopped chanting the entire game. I also wanted to make a funny observation. So for those of you who have been to Spain for long periods of time, you already know that there is no peanut butter over here :(. Well, after today, I realized that there are not peanuts either! Instead of peanut shells on the ground there were a bajillion sunflower shells! Here are a few pictures! 

these scarfs that everyone wears, but when the Sevilla fight song comes on they hold them up!

Me and my friend Paul who went with 

One last really funny thing. So my sister just came into the room and was looking at my jersey that i just bought. Well see i got it half off and was super proud of it...she looks at the name on the back and says : he is not a futbol player for sevilla! hahaha...so she gets on the internet to show me that he plays for Sevilla B team and that Sevilla B team has the same jerseys! OOOO gooosshhhhh! I still have so much to learn! Wish me luck!

Hasta Luego!

Lauren