The forgotten Triana Game

Well it looks like the semester is coming to an end, with only four weeks left.  Unfortunately, those weeks are filled with papers, exams, and projects but luckily, I have planned for them.  As many of you know, I spent my 21st birthday in Spain this week and what a memorable night.  Although it was nothing crazy, it was a birthday that I will never forget.  No traveling this weekend, but it was nice to spend the days in Seville, trying some different restaurants and enjoying the sun until the rain comes this week.  Two weeks ago, I had my first game but completely forgot to mention it on my blog.  This was not intentional because the game was amazing and a great experience for me.  I played right mid for the first half and then dropped into right back for the second half.  The way this team plays, is right down the middle, not much use of the wings, which is why for the first 10 minutes I found myself just running back and forth along the touchline.  Eventually, I made my way inside to try and find the ball a little bit more, which ended up working out well.  Some good plays here and there, but one run I was able to pick up the ball along the touchline.  Make a couple passes and find myself near the goal with some space.  I decided to slip the ball along the ground to one of my teammates for an assist.  It was great, my first game in Spain, and I get an assist in a position I do not play very often.  This gave me a lot of confidence for the remaing game.  I found myself having the ball a lot more when playing right back.  I tried being an attacking option but the game didn't really allow for me to go forward too often.  Nonetheless, I had some nice passes, couple moves, and the game finished up 3-3.  The level was not something completely shocking to me.  Don't get me wrong, they move the ball well and all of them have great touches but I found myself fitting in well with the rest of the team.  Perhaps a criticism I have of the team and the style that they play, is the amount of time they hold onto the ball before passing.  I understand that element of the game in Spain is huge but it seems that they take too many touches when the ball could have been off their foot a couple touches earlier.  Although I don't favor that style, I am trying to change my style to match that a little bit more.  I think coming back to the US, it will help my game a lot more to hold on the ball a little longer and maybe make more runs in attacking positions.  I am excited to play my second game and go home and try and implement what I have learned and what I am trying to change back home with my club over the summer.  I think I have improved a lot while being here as well as learned that the semi-professional level is no too far off where I stand today.  Sorry about not letting you all know about the game earlier but now that you know you can stop worrying about how I did.  Until next week, ¡Adios!

Marruecos, First Glimpse of Africa

Due to the strong caffeinated coffee, the three hour bus ride to the ferry was spent just awaiting the upcoming trip.  Trying to wrap my mind around what I was going to experience this weekend.  Looking back on the experience I just had, nothing could have gotten me prepared to be shocked like that.  Our ferry across the Straight of Gibraltar was short but spent in good company.  When we arrived in Tanger, it was off to the races to start exploring.  Our first stop was the city of Assilah, which is located right along the Atlantic Ocean.  Classic white and blue architecture filled each street along with very colorful and inspiring paintings along the walls.  While we were getting a tour around the city, the call for prayer came on the loud speakers spread throughout the city.  It was a memorable experience and although it woke me up at 5am the following morning it was rather peaceful.  There were many vendors and shops, least that is what I thought before we made our way to Tetouan on Saturday.  We stood out as tourists and the vendors would seek us out no matter how many times we refused.  Tourism is their source of income and although you might get some different looks, they appreciate you being there.  Moroccans are also very impressive in their vast understanding of languages.  Most Moroccans can speak English, Spanish, Arabic, and French.  Bartering would have been very difficult if they could not speak English.  Friday night we ate at the hotel because you were not allowed to go out in Morocco.  It is a completely different culture than that of Spain.  When you look out into the city at night, there was very few people around in the streets,  Saturday was perhaps the biggest shock for me and one that I will never forget.

  We left the hotel early in order to get a full day in the two cities of Chefchaouen and Tetouan.  Chefchaouen was a city that was filled with street vendors and some restaurants.  Again, the typical architecture with the blue and white was beautiful.  From the outside, nothing is given away in terms of whether the family is rich or poor.  The concentration is all on the inside, which is much different than life in the US.  Even in the hottest of days in Africa the color and shade provided by these houses make withstanding the heat rather easy.  My first experience bartering was successful and I was able to drop the price of this blanket down about 100 durum (currency in Morocco).  It is funny to think about whether you could have gone any cheaper and also the fact of how much it really cost them to acquire or make those goods.  A stream went through apart of the city in which to this day, women still go down to this stream to wash clothes.  It was quite a sight to see, you realize even in the 21st century people are still washing their clothes in a stream rather than the newest hightech dryer and washer from LG.  People are content with what they have and don't need excess to make their lives happier.  This was perhaps the most shocking after visiting Tetouan.

If I was dropped off in the middle of this city, I would never ever be able to find my way out.  There is no systematic layout of this city and what might seem like a way out, is just another conitnuous street of vendors.  As we were walking through the city, with our two body guards there was a funeral procession.  Four men holding a wooden casket followed by about 25 other men just walking down this crowded street with no warning or anything.  It is hard to explain how this single city affected me.  There were points where I was scared, excited, and amazed all at the same time.  This crazy way of life seemed so hectic and out of control from my perspective but to them, it was just another weekend.  People were satisfied with selling used shoes and maybe only getting the chance to sell about two a day.  Just when I think I've seen it all, I experience another culture and continent.  Lunch was spent at this amazing restaurant that served us authentic Moroccan soups, teas, and perhaps the best couscous I have ever had.  After exploring a little more of the city, we eventually made it out without any losses or anything.  We returned to Tanger where our hotel was and spent the night recalling what we just experienced.  Luckily, our recollection was over another amazing authentic Moroccan dinner.  

Sunday was nice and relaxful, seeing a different side of Morocco.  We stayed in the city of Tanger, where our hotel is, and made a couple touristy stops along the way to the Caves of Hercules.  The camel rides were a nice touch and I wish we could have taken them by ourselves for a little bit.  It makes for a nice humpday post on facebook and of course the profile picture.  We then visited the Caves of Hercules, which were very interesting because there were more vendors inside the caves.  A lot of the cave was man-made but the typical postcard of Africa is the picture I got below.  This trip to Morocco just made me want to experience more of the world.  There are places in the world that enjoy and live life differently than what I am used to and know of.  What I learn from these places simply makes me more aware of the world and the people inside it, but more importantly how it affects my life when I get back home.  

The Calm before the Storm

Well another week in the beautiful city of Sevilla and the sun has been shining for a week straight now.  Unfortunately, no trips this week mostly due to wrong meeting spot.  It was a nice relaxing weekend, where I was able to get some work done for the future as well as get some studying done for this upcoming week of exams.  The picture above is one of the many amazing inventions from me and it turned out flawless.  Two buckets with some metal frame found in the corner of the porch, topped off with an extra mattress.  This led to quite a relaxful Saturday.  Even though we weren't able to travel around we were able to find some fun in the city.

This girl from Spain has become quite a friend and was able to get three of us free tickets to a professional basketball game.  I don't know basketball too well but I do know that there are a lot of college teams that could easily beat these teams.  Whoever wants to play professional basketball, just come on over to Spain.  It was a great experience and I probably needed to switch up the sports a little bit anyways.  The future in Spain is slowly slipping away, fortunately I am staying in Europe to travel for another month after the program ends, but it is amazing how fast the time has gone by.  School is getting hard, where every class has some sort of presentation or paper due within the next two weeks.  Luckily, I have stayed ahead of all my work and was prepared to do less as the time narrows and sun shines.  I have a few more trips planned out and one of them being Morocco this coming weekend!  I am very excited to see a new way of living, obviously everyone has been warning me about keeping my wallet safe.  It will be a nice relaxful time after this stressful week of exams.  I can't wait to let you guys know how everything goes and the new culture I will experience.  Sorry about the short blog but I need to get some last minute studying done for a couple exams tomorrow.  Until next weekend, ¡Hasta Luego!

A Little Bit of Everything

Yet another amazing weekend has passed and I am pretty sure I did it all.  Friday was a day trip to Cordoba, which is a state just north of Seville.  It took about an hour to get there but once we arrived you could tell the Muslim influence on the city.  The great Mosque is located here and is the second largest in the world.  From the outside, it looks like a typical mosque structure with nothing fancy on the outside.  But once you enter inside the Mosque, the picture above, everything hits you at once.  The stone columns were taken from various Roman temples when the Muslims took over and destroyed many temples.  There are thousands of them throughout the whole Mosque.  The Roman aqueduct style is the basis to this whole building.  The architects were no fools either.  The mixture between brick and limestone on the arches are a perfect balance of flexibility and durability.  This allows some give to the structure which was very important when the earthquake hit the whole Iberian Peninsula, Portugal and Spain, back in the 18th century.  Also another interesting fact about this mosque is that back when it was in full use, about 20,000 Muslims would pray here about five times a day and this open area was just filled with people all facing Mecca (bottom picture)

Christians took over this mosque during the 15th century and ended up rebuilding the center of the mosque.  As sad as this is, the restruction actually saved the whole mosque from collapsing during the earthquake.  Although, the church in the center is absolutely amazing, it definitely takes away from the Islamic feel and no longer are you able to see from one end to the mosque to the other, which would have been quite a sight.  

This mosque was truly amazing and every glance seemed better than the next.  The surrounding area around the mosque were these small neighborhoods with cobblestoned streets.  A lot of very cool shops filled each store and I was also able to try the famous eggplant dish that is fried with some kind of honey glaze over stop of it.  There was so much history in Cordoba and the influence was very evident throughout the city.

Saturday was spent sunbathing on the beach of Matalascanas, which is in the state called Huelva.  This beach is only about an hour east of Seville and a bus to the beach and back is only 15 euro, which is about 17 dollars, so it was just begging for us to go.  We got our first glimpse of the bus experience and wow was it no joke.  A bunch of people lined up outside of the bus but once the doors opened, the line seemed to become a huge blob of people trying to squeeze into one door.  It was ridiculous how the people literally pushed and shoved to get on this bus.  I was very lucky and was the last person to get onto the bus and the rest of the people had to take another bus that stopped at several other stations making the trip to the beach take about two hours.  The beach was amazing when we got there and the weather was perfect.  No clouds and warm, very warm weather.  Yes, mom I kind of put on sunscreen but maybe a little more would have prevented the sunburn.  The water was freezing but that didn't stop most of the group to go swimming and body surfing.  It was very relaxing and just what I needed after a hard week of classes and visiting monuments.  It was a great weekend and so glad I was able to travel around a little bit.  There are only a few weekends left, so I have to make each one count.  Tuesday, I have my first game!! I am very excited and a little nervous.  I was able to watch the team that I practice with play today.  They have some really good players all over the field but are missing some solid players in some positions.  I hope to jump right in on Tuesday and start playing like I know how.  I will make sure to let you guys know how it goes at the end of the week but trust me it will be the first thing I talk about, depending on how I do.  I hope all is well back home in the States and I heard that it is finally warming up so that's good news except for my dad!  I look forward to sharing my upcoming week with you guys this comind Sunday.  ¡Adios!

 

Already March

It is already March and the days are counting down quickly.  86 days until my flight home and much like this past month and a half, I am not going to waste a day.  There is a network in Spain called "intercambios", where you join a group on facebook and send a message saying that you are looking for some spaniards to meet and speak spanish with.  It is a great opportunity to practice spanish as well as get some inside information on where to go and the great places that only locals know about.  Usuallly, you meet for about an hour either over dinner or something like that.  For half an hour you speak constant Spanish where they will help out as best they can and then for the last half an hour you speak all English helping out their vocab and grammar.  I had my first intercambio last night where we went out to eat and spoke a lot of Spanish, to a point where my head was starting to hurt due to the amount of new vocabulary I learned.  I am definitely going to take more advantage of this, trying to meet with one or two people a week.  I think it is the best way to improve my speaking.  This week, in general, was pretty typical.  Classes and lots of soccer filled my week and nights.  Soccer is going very well, after all I am playing soccer is Spain.  I can see the improvements in my game already especially the speed of play.  I have my first friendly match March 11 and I am already getting prepared.  It is going to be a great opportunity to show myself even more and you never know who is watching, possibly the Real Madrid coach.  I might have dreamed about it.  

Many students in the program have fallen in love with Seville.  It is hard not to honestly, this city has it all from great restaurants to running trails.  Besides the unemployment rate, the city offers a lot especially to the younger crowds.  Several students want to move here permanently after they finish college.  I ask the question about missing their friends and family and surprisingly it falls to the wayside especially due to fact that family situations aren't the best.  I think about whether I could move here after college and I don't think I could be this far away from my family.  I am so fortunate to still have all four grandparents, that I know so well and have a great relationship with.  Even my aunts, uncles, and cousins are so close to my heart that not seeing them for a year is hard.  I am slowly finding out that I am a traditionalist in regard to being close to my family.  I will never live in the Northern Neck, let's get that straight but being close is so important to me.  Especially, with a new member of the family about to join in April, I can't express the excitement and desire to be the best uncle/godfather there is.  I am very upset I won't be able to be there for the birth of my first nephew/niece but I will make up for that over the summer.  I know this is definitely more of a journal post but I felt the need to express the importance of family in my life especially because most of my family keeps up with what I am doing here!  I never realized the full extent of how lucky I am to have a family that seriously epitomizes how a family and love for each other should work.  My brother and sister have influenced me in such a positive way throughout my whole life but I'm particularly happy that I have grown so much closer to both of them as I have gotten older.  I look up to them in so many ways, most importantly because their lives now seem to incorporate the best that life has to offer, happiness.  Thank you for reading through my journal for the week, I promise that I will continue my normal blogging here next week!  Until next time ¡Adios!