PICTURE UPDATE: Trip to Carmona

Man, today is the best day! So good, in fact, that I'm going to take a break from its excellence to blog about it.

Reasons I am happy:
- It was supposed to rain today (as it has been for the past week) but instead it is sunny and beautiful. For once my socks will remain dry all day, the way God intended.

- I went to my favorite supermarket yesterday and spent like 20 euro on all KINDS of meat!!! Salami, ham, hamburger meat, sausage, the works. After living off of potatoes and bread for a month, I am going to feast like a king this weekend.

- All plans for a trip to Morocco next week have been finalized! I'll be staying in Tangiers for three days and two nights. Very, very excited. Here's hoping I don't get aggressive sales-pitched into buying a rug or camel or something.

- One of my main goals for the trip was to make a joke/pun entirely in Spanish. This week my friend Emme had a day where she had eaten a bocadillo (pronounced bo-cah-DEE-yo, means "sandwich") for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I said, "Wow, a day of sandwiches. I guess you could say you're having a BOCA-DIA!"

Mission accomplished. (Hey, I didn't say it had to be a good joke.)

- We just got back from a day trip to Carmona, a town about 30 minutes away from Sevilla. As you can see in the following pictures, it is AGGRESSIVELY CHARMING:














Your typical house in southern Spain. Still can't believe that people actually live in these adorable things. How do they stay so white?















Cute little produce shop, complete with cranky Spanish woman! She will not hesitate to use that cane on you, I promise.















We also went up into the wall that surrounds Carmona, where I took this aerial shot. If I didn't know better, I'd say they forgot to build roads when they were planning the city.




















Wow, what's this building? I love the pattern on the walls and the flags on the front. It's so ornate. Must be an important government building or something similar.

WHAT? IT'S THEIR PUBLIC LIBRARY!?!?!















Don't lie-- you recoiled in your chair with disgust when you saw this picture. This flat, boring affront to architecture is the public library near my house in Austin. (If you couldn't tell by the bold all-caps "library" on the front. Whenever I drive past it I imagine it screaming "THIS IS A LIBRARY!!!") It's so unattractive that it has sucked the color out of the sky.

That's it, I'm never coming back to the States.















More adorable flamenco dresses I'll never be able to afford. It's all good though, I'm pretty sure I've got a little too much junk in the trunk to fit into one.















We also went to the Necropolis (ancient Roman cemetery) in Carmona. The graves there are about 2000 years old. Very cool, and less creepy than I expected since the remains have all been removed.















Our whole group (ten points if you can figure out which is me). In retrospect, it is a bit weird to be hanging out in some Roman dude's grave, but whatever.

Well, that's about it! I'd like to dedicate my first (and probably last) timely blog update to the following awesome ladies: Aunt Jeannie, Patsy Martin, and Amy Salazar. Now I'm off to go shopping all afternoon, followed by a tapas crawl.

God, my life is tough.