The best four months of my life

I love to travel. Period. There is something I find interesting and relaxing about airports. Flying can relax me. I have yet to have a bad flight with turbulence. Only rowdy teenagers. One of the best times of my life was the semester I studied abroad. Spring semester (2008) of my junior year of college I studied abroad in Seville, Spain. I knew I had to go to Spain. No question about it.

It's hard to believe it was over four years ago that I boarded a flight from JFK on a Sunday night with 17 of the 18 other kids in my program for the best four months of our lives. My college was a SUNY school and there were other kids from other SUNY schools that came through our program. We would spend 2.5 days in Granada, Spain and then 2.5 in Marabella, Spain for our orientation before we took our Coach bus to Seville and went to our apartments!

Bear with me as I reminisce (and I am sorry for the overload of pictures!):

A portion of our group as we waited to board our flight! I'm in the orange sweatshirt.

Some of the girls in the Madrid airport during our layover and no sleep! It was like 7am in Spain at that point.

First stop in Granada, La Alhambra.

View from the top of La Alhambra. It makes me miss Europe so much!



Downtown Granada with Jessie, Jessie, and Allie


Pretty!

Then we went off to Marabella...

Yeah, this was the resort we were at....in January! Everyone at home had snow and we were on the beach!



The girls I lived with en apartamento 207: Me, Allie, Jess, Sam and Jessie (Fun fact...we had four Jessicas on the trip! 3 of which were named Jessica Lynn).

Arrival to Seville!
We had four apartments in a Spanish speaking building that was a 15-20 min walk to the university.

Our tiny kitchen. To the left was our washer...took ALL DAY to do laundry! Oh, and I was afraid of that gas stove.

We affectionately called the apartment "Grandma's Garage" because it was so eclectic!

Inside of my closet I shared with Jessie.

Our beds. Not as comfy as mine at home!

La Universidad de Sevilla!

The gardens of Alcazar

Easter Sunday in Spain!


Allie & I
Family dinner!

A bunch of us before our first night out in Seville (Stacy, Jessie L, Sam, Milena, Me, Jessie, Jessie G)


Celebrating Jessie's birthday at TGIFriday's (yes they exist in Europe!)

Fun story...there was a claim that our apartment was causing a leak in the apartment ABOVE us. They came and did this in the bedroom that I slept in. OMG it took a lot of b*tching for them to patch it up.

Pitchers of Sangria before class? Sign me up!

Plaza de Espana...my favorite place in the city!

There was a building there at the start of the semester....

And now travels!
Barcelona:
Fun with the street characters!
Park Guell (yes, where ANTM was!)



Top of La Pedrera

London: (My mom came to visit me and we went here too!)
We went to the wax museum:
(This totally does NOT look like Jennifer Aniston. Also, I'm really tan!)

Phone booth!

Outside Buckingham Palace


Ireland:
At Trinity College

We went on the tour of the Guinness Factory!




Amsterdam:

Went on a Tour of the Anne Frank House (you can't take pictures inside)
This was the coffee shop in Ocean's 12!

Cordoba:
Our study abroad group and our director Miguel (Top row on the left) and our tour guide Luis (bottom row on the left)

Shopping in Cordoba!

All in all, studying abroad was worth EVERY single penny I spent. I would go back in a heart beat! I wish I had traveled more but there is always the future! I can't wait to get back to Europe!