An April of Challenges

So slightly out of the blue this April I decided to try something interesting... a 28 day detox. That means no caffeine (bye bye daily diet mt. dew and frequent soy lattes), no gluten (sayonara sandwiches, french fries and basically all good food), no alcohol (lets just be real and give a big adios to my social life and any sort of fun for the next month), no sugar (ahhh the insanity!) and no cigarettes (this one is good but sooo hard). On top of all these no no's there is also lists of foods you can and cannot eat, which for me is not such a problem, because i do thoroughly enjoy good for you healthy food. So the first three days you had to "prep" for the detox by removing all caffeine from your body... i have never had such an excruciating headache in all my life. And i get migraines. very bad. but by the first real day of the detox they had subsided to a dull ache. Now, for days 4-7 the rule is that for break fast and dinner you eat this power filled shakes/soups to muscle you through your day. I thought this would NEVER work. but after the first day of not eating breakfast or dinner and having a sensible lunch (with items only chosen from the eat list) i was feeling pretty good. I even went out for a bike ride.

This leads me to the second challenge that I am undertaking in the month of April... the 30 days of biking challenge. http://30daysofbiking.com/bike/ I randomly saw it on twitter (yes yes i know... i tweet. there i said it now ridicule me...ok stop) So as I have been detoxing i have also been biking every single day. Now, i havent been biking marathons everyday or even biking half marathons. Just little trips here and there to get from point a to point b. Overall ive loved being out every single day, however... it hasnt rained yet either.

Wish me luck everyone! I'll need it.

Time flies when you're...

Everyone knows the end of that. But everyone also knows that its obviously not just when your having fun but it's usually when your busy as hell and don't have time to breathe... or when you'restuck in a rut, or when you're bored... or a combination of fun,busy,rut,boredom. So you take all those things and put them together and thats me right now. this post is lame. my life is lamer (is that even a word?) ill probably delete it tomorrow... catch it if you can! in the meantime check out some cool links i found today:

turning junk into cool stuff: http://bit.ly/1xzuVg
This Flu Season Kleenex Lets You Pick Your Mom http://adage.com/u/RrMgTb or skip the article and go straight to the site http://www.getmommed.com/

and we're off.

bye.

Back in the Game

So I've decided that it's finally time to return to the world wide webular of blogging. Yes, I know it's been far too long. So hold on to your hats. I'm rusty. Not that anyone is actually going to read this (sans maybe my mother or someone very very bored on a sunday afternoon) but to bring everyone into the present day Leah Life, I am now working as an Associate Copywriter and Proofreader aka "intern to hire" at Denali Marketing www.denalimarketing.com in the 5th street towers in the 612. Loving the culture, the orange and the ^(circumflex accent that is our brand). Here I write coupon, flyer, ROP, EM, DM and other copy for Best Buy and sometimes work on stuff for Great River Energy, www.mnbrighterideas.com I also proofread a lot of the stuff that goes out the door here. Over the weekend I volunteered at the Hope Rocks benefit concert for Faith's Lodge at Epic event center which was started by Mark Lacek, managing partner here at Denali, and his wife Susan. To find out more about Hope Rocks and Faith's Lodge check out their websites at http://www.faithslodge.org/HopeRocks/cd.php
http://www.faithslodge.org/

If you haven't done so yet... follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/LeahSevilla
That's all for now...
more to come.

gradue de mi universidad ajer con un concentracion en espanol y promociones. ahora necesito encontrar un trabajo aqui en st paul y si no puedes voy a regresar a sevilla para ensenjar a los ninos como hablar en ingles. pues para ahora solo voy a tratar de vivir una dia por el dia... hasta~

it's been a year since I was in Sevilla... walking the cobblestone streets, eating tapas, drinking tinto de verano...and it seems like a dream. Like it was yesterday, yet years ago. I know it sounds crazy but I can't believe that so much time has already passed since I was living at patio de banderas 1 with the amazing view of the catedral from my roof.

In recent news, I am graduating in less then 2 months (scary.) and I have applied to teach children in Andalucia through the embassy. I will find out soon... I hope. I don't know if I could return and have it be the same but it was worth applying to keep my options open. I love that city, that area, that country so much that anything that could get me back there would be amazing. even if I was living in a single bedroom apartment with only a matress on the floor for furniture I dont think I'd care... because Siempre tendremos Sevilla...

We'll see if I get accepted.
Hasta

home.

ive been home now for 2 weeks and one day. its de ive been home now for 2 weeks and one day. its depressing. i miss all of my friends from CC-CS so much.
i miss the rio
i miss the weather
i miss the orange trees
i miss tinto de veranos
i miss flamenco
i miss hearing spanish coming out of everyones mouths

and so much more.


overall. im home and im poor. but i will forever have No8Do with me ;)
se echo de menos de mi sevilla.
besos

blog italy... lil late!

So... i kinda forgot to post this one!

Blog-Italy trip

To start off this story, I need to give some background on how it started off with bad karma. For a couple of weeks, Nick Clare Michael and I had been planning a wonderful magical trip to Italy. Starting from Valencia Spain, flying to pisa, taking a train to Florence and the cinque terre and then back through Pisa onto Valencia and home to Seville. Tickets were bought; emotions were high and excited because we had scored a great deal from Valencia to pisa. That’s when I learned never let your guard down, never think things will work out. Cuz they don’t. We figured out a week before we were to leave that there wasn’t a bus or train to Valencia like we thought their would be, because there was only one a day, and it was at the wrong, -we would have missed our plane if we took the train. So we opted for buying new plane tickets, which ended up costing more then our tickets from Valencia to pisa. So we sighed bought the tickets and lost one traveler in the process. Clare backed out because of costs. no problem we thought this is still going to be fine, fun fine perfect beautiful and we get to see Valencia in the same trip! so off we went

Day one.

Leaving for Valencia, our flight was at 645 in the morning. I met Michael in front of the starbucks on San Fernando in front of Puente de jerez. We walked to the airport bus stop and met up with some other traveling Americans. Then right as we were getting the the stop the bus came and we began to load, getting out our money in thte process. Of course it took more then two seconds and the driver started rushing us and then the red light changed and he gave us a look like, sorry, Im going. So as he closed the doors and began to pull away, I hit the side of his bus with my fist and flicked him off. Very classy I know but it was early and I m not one to put up with bullshit at 500 am. Then he stopped the bus again at the stoplight and let us on, in fact he wasn’t leaving at all the whole time he was just pulling up to the stop… oops! So we loaded the bus and traveled to the airport where we met up with our 3^rd traveler, nico blanco. Blah blah blah did all the stuff we needed to do, and got on the plane. Nick and I watched a movie, slept a bit and then we arrived in Valencia. We bought metro tickets, and took it into main town at the xative stop. we then looked for a locker for our bags, at the train station and set off exploring. Nicks little Fromers book had some ideas, and so did the tourist office we stopped at before we left. So we went looking for the plaza Mercado, to see what they were selling. It turned out to be this HUGE building with a giant market inside. They had many many booths of fruits, vegetables, beverages, and meat. In fact I was walking by one of the cases and there were dead chickens staring back at me… not only that, but they still had all their feathers on their heads. So sad! Then, I noticed some strange animal skinned next to it that had a tail bone…and then I saw the sign and nearly barfed. It was a bunny! I instantly thought back to my poor little pet bunny named snuggles and seeing his kind skinned for us to eat was just disgusting. More then I wanted to deal with. After milling around the giant market, getting some lunch, and talking to a nice elderly couple from Holland, we moseyed on to this really cool odl church building, looked around a bit and realized after asking information that it was the Lonja de Seda… or the old silk market area… strange huh? We then decided to take the bus to the botanical gardens to sit and eat some lunch, it was beautiful. There were multiple sections of different kinds of flowers trees and all things growing. My favorite was by far the cactus area where there was a zillion different sorts of pointy things. It made me think of Erin’s cactus with the funny name… so we took lots of great pictures, wasted some more time and then decided to get back on the metro to go back to the airport to catch the plane to pisa… easy peasy. Hour and a half later we landed in italy! And so the craziness ensued. We went to the information desk asking bout the train/bus to florance and she told us that it was leaving from the station at 930and the next one wouldn’t be till 1230 so we had to get on it. So we went and Michael got hi first Italian pizza… in the airport. Then at 9 we went to load the bus and found out that they were completely full and that we’d have to wait till 1230 which wouldn’t work. So as we were waiting in line, we met another girl from the states named codey from san. Fran. State.! So we thought quick and made the executive decision that we should rush, take a taxi and catch the train from the station at like 10 instead of like 6 so we grabbed a cab, raced to the train station, bought tickets and got on. We ended up in florance by around 10. wandering around we followed the directions on the print out of the hostel and found it. It was tucked beyond the Duomo plaza, next to a restaurant. Up five flights of stairs across the street from a bar called old stove. It was a shock compared to the opps hotsel I stayed in last, the man that ran the place was absotlutly crazy. He tried to charge us for each extra little things. Then hes like high on something I don’t kno what.. either that or he had previously in his life smoked himself silly, or stupid or both. The walls of the hostel were pink. Random comment. There were two girls in our room from santa Barbara who were traveling after graduation from college. And then we met some Canadians as well. so as nick stayed back to talk to his girlfriend on the phone Michael and I wandered around to see the city lights of florance… it was beautiful. We tried to find a place to get a good drink and had a list of things to see, but we ended up right across the street at old stove. We decided to splurge on cocktails. I had a sex on the beach and Michael got a cosmo. Finally nick came to meet us and we ordered some popcorn and then decided to go back to go to bed, so we could get up and go to the museums.

Day two

After taking a tylonol pm the night before because the cali girl next to me couldn’t stop coughing, we got up at 8 am to get ready and go wait in lines to see the academia and the david. We found around where it was and started our wait around 930… got in around 1030 or 11. the david was just as great as the first time I saw it. His hands and feet and his head are so out of proportion but there is still a subtle beauty to it. The rest of the art was great too!

after the academia we went walking around, found a supermercadi and bought some snacks and went to find the duomo that Michael wanted climb to see the view. After we went to the free cathedral part, with the striped colums, we waited in line for about an hour and a half listening to these guys from England and Australia behind us talk about segways for about an hour and a half making tons of segway jokes.. random… then we started the dark dingy climb to the top of the duomo. We waited in line, forever but it was really worth it. At the top we came out onto the roof of the duomo and we were able to see out all through Florence. It was beautiful. After decending, we wandered around some more beside deciding to walk down by the river where the bridge has houses built onto it. It was a gorgeous day so not waiting in lines, and just being outside was perfect. We went down in that area and I ended up buying a knock off purse and nick got some fucci sunglasses. Aka Gucci knockoffs. After this lovely day things began to get rough. We went back to the hostel and picked up our stuff around 745 because we were going to the train station to get onto the train to pisa at 845. we bought our tickets but then realized we bought them to the wrong place went to talk to information, as the clock started ticking closer and closer to the train leaving we started to freak out. Finally we were ready and we would have caught it, but we didn’t know where it was! We couldn’t find it on the track!! And just as we found it we were watching it pull away… the most depressing feeling ever is when you see the train ur ticket is for… pulling away. I collapsed in the station. Just sat down and began to freak out quietly. Nick started pacing, and calling his gf. And Michael nervously laughed at my side. I broke all rules of money spending at that point, pulled out my cell phone and dialed mom the great(shes actually saved as that in there) we got some stuff figured out trying to find the next train the next info anything. Which ended up being florance to pisa to le spiza… and it would say to le spiza on our ticket. So that was for 1245. nick and I got our tickets and went out to find a drink as Michael stayed back with the stuff to do some of his homework. So nick and I returned to the station at around 10 and sat and talked and laughed and at 1220 we went and found Michael. And then we walked to the tracks, again trying to find the train to la spiza… it wasn’t there. Time started ticking again we were the only ones there so we didn’t know where to find the train and again as we watched track 8 have its train pull away, I was like shit. That was ours again. There was no train until the next morning. Dealing with our bad luck, almost crying and screaming at the same time. So basically this time around we just decided to shack up for the night in the station and wait till the next Pisa train arrived, whenever that would be.

The moment we laid down trying to get comfortable, a man on a lil cart started driving around shooing the hobos out and since we were looking bit like them, and since it wasn’t allowed to sleep in there, we got kicked out onto the steps of the station. I never knew before what it was like to be homeless, now I know and it sucks. Sitting outside on the steps next to Michael we began to observe our surroundings. Nico went to the corner to try and sleep till morning, Michael stared out into space and I noticed we were in the company of 3 men who seemed to range in ages a great deal. I said hello and learned that they were a father and 2 sons who had come to Italy from England for a boys weekend away. Both of us groups were incredibly “pissed” (them being drunk, us just angry) and we started talking, they seemed harmless and hilarious, and the father kept quoting Steinbeck to his sons trying to motivate them to a bar, instead of lollygagging on the steps… “In life there you are either a man or a mouse, and you are a mouse…squeak!” so Michael and I decided what the hell, why don’t we just go hang out with these crazy British boys. After wandering around, we found a place open late and sat down. I got a diet coke and just started chatting. The father’s name, I learned from the sons, was Dr. Ian Watson and his sons, ages 27 and 20 were Craig and Calum. They were crazy, they had hilarious terms for everything such as “shes fit,” I like that one! Anyway, at around 4 am they claimed that there was a train at 430 so we blundered back to the station which was re opened by this point, we kinda knew that the next train wasn’t till 630 but I personally was kinda sick of their weirdness. So we sat in the freezing cold station and huddled together triple spooning, leah sandwich if you will, to keep warm. My boys and me forever. finally when the time passed, we found our train got on and settled down to finnnnally make it to Pisa, and onto La Spietza. Nick and I decided to watch the rest of our movie since we couldn’t sleep, I have a problem with sleeping on transportation. It kind of sucks but that’s life. About two hours later we finally got to la speitza and I was so happy to finally be nearing the cinque terre! We went to the bathrooms at the small station, cleaned up, bought our train and hiking tickets for the cinque and looked for something to eat. Again, we didn’t pay attention to time and almost missed the train to the first town, rigamori . With little to no sleep we decided to buck it up and start the hike. I was full of excitement so I didn’t give two shits about not sleeping, but boys seem to be mostly concerned with two things: sleeping and eating. Without either, I wasn’t with real animated company but I didn’t care! We started in rigamori and walked to Manarola, the town where I stayed in 8^th grade with my family. We looked at the little town that I had fallen in love with so many years ago and it hadn’t changed at all. It was more full of tourists obviously because word had obviously spread that this tiny paradise existed on the edge of italy. we started hiking higher on the path that wasn’t as touristy and saw the most beautiful view of the next town, C somthing. Which I had heard was one of the less touristy of the bunch along with Vsomething. As we neared the C we realized that to get to the town, you had to climb about 400 and so stairs to the top, maybe that’s why the town isn’t as popular! But, being young we knew we could make it, especially since there were couples that looked like they were about to break a hip bounding up the stairs. All of a sudden a familiar smell caught my nose… it reminded me exactly of cry of the loon resort where my family used to stay every summer. Its weird how smells can bring you immediately back to a memory, likewise with songs, fotos, sights, and anything else using the senses. Then as our energy dwindled, we made a group decision to take the next train from the C town to Montarosa where the beach was to relax take some sun and just enjoy ourselves. Again we couldn’t find any food because everything was closed because it was a Sunday… there were bars open that would have cost us an arm and a leg. So I bought 2 apples and a giant piece of delicious focaccia bread to tie me over till the next meal, whenever that was going to be. Heading down to the beach the count for topless woman began. We only found 2 and were disappointed in the Italian fable that they all run around topless on the beaches all day. Basically for the next four hours we layed on the beach, which was composed of large bits of shell and stuck to you even if you weren’t wet, and listened to this hilarious group of British people who were sitting to our right and they were our age and just “pissed” as the British call drunk. They buried their friend in the sand where he had passed out, spilled the wine in the ocean, looked and asked us for rolling papers, and just were funny but obnoxious in general. Mike and I decided to be brave and go for a swim even tho the water looked really really cold. We kinda flitted about around it for a while, not wanting to put our toes in, nor our whole bodies for that matter… we finally told nick to take a picture and got ready to go… mike skimmed the top and went headfirst under the water and I just ran into about my chest level and ran straight back out. Tooo cold!!!! More laying on the beach ensued after that to dry off and warm up. Around 5 we thought we should maybe go get our bags at la spitza bring them to the hostel and then come back to the V town for dinner. Another horrible horrible messed up by timing idea. After trying to find a bus to our town for at least an hour and knowing that we missed it cuz we had the schedule, we finally took a taxi and realized our town was quite a long way away. We were winding up these crazy mountain roads, twisting and turning through the wooded areas… I was holding on for my life when Nico goes “are we sure he’s bringing us to Biassi or is he going to bring us to his house to kill us?!?!” great nick. Thanks. Let’s make it mooore scary! Finally arriving at the door to our hostel we unloaded our stuff and checked in. hot, tired and crabby from searching for an hour for the taxi we realized that there would be no way for us to get back to la spitza besides a taxi, then to the cinque terre and then to the hostel again without it costing about 50 euro so I had to accept the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to go back to the cinque terre at nite and that really bummed me out. That’s what I had been looking forward to the whole trip one of the real reasons that I made the trip in the first place, but there was nothing any one could do about it so we decided to make the best of it and look around Biassi which seemed way less touristy, way off the beaten path and kind of deserted besides the hostel. In fact, it was tiny and had two places to eat. And that’s all there was to do there. So we wondered down to get some dinner and went to this pizzeria, that didn’t have pizza. Which was fine for me but all I wanted allll I wanted was a giant yummy salad. Much like in paris. So we got there and looked at the menu and again everything had milk in it except the red meat which is not yummy at all. So I settled on the side salad… lettuce and a carrot basically and ate some of the complimentary bread (which in Europe is NEVER complimentary. Ever.) nick got this type of noodle that looked like a giant pancake with the sauce on top and Michael got this ravioli type pesto sauce pasta. The best part of the restaurant was the giant brick oven that was situated directly behind my table was there was a cook making stuff. He had these metal circular things with holes in therm that he would pour some batter into and stack them together till they were like 2 feet tall and then he put them in the brick oven to cook and get rid of the raw egg ness. It reminded me of working at brick oven bakery back in the day, cept I didn’t ever put stuff into the oven! After eating my lettuce and feeling like a rabbit, we left and walked to the other restaurant/bar to see what it was like see if it had cheap drinks. Negatory. But it did have bigger portions, and the same prices. Oh well. then we just went back to the hostel and at this point I was just getting more and more pissed off at the world. I was bored not tired and had no where to go! We thought about going down to the beach but that was so far far away. Basically there was nothing to do but sleep so we did. Nick fell asleep in the fetal position on his bed with all his clothes on, and I started writing in my journal, and trying to plan somewhat the next day. I fell asleep with the light on and woke up with it off. Mysterious.

Day three

Walking up in my hostel, my money still under my pillow, I was slightly relieved rested and not as crabby. So I got up to take my first shower of the trip and boy did I neeeed it. It was amazing. We packed up and caught the bus down to La Speitza and to the train station where we caught a train back to Pisa for the last leg of the journey. We got there and just kept our stuff with us because we only had a couple of hours. We asked at the train station where the bus station was, and hopped the first one to the tower. Along with everyone and their mother. So on the crowded bus with our huge bags we made it to the tower, the one and only thing that is famous in Pisa. So surrounding the park where the tower is, there is a huge castle wall such as a muralla (old city wall) in Sevilla. We walked in and saw so many tourists doing the exact same thing, taking the picture of them supposedly holding up the tower. Joining in and positioning ourselves just right it turned out really great. We saw this one couple that must have been ballet dancers, he held her up in a pose above his head and she looked so graceful while she held up the tower before it came crashing down on her. Afterwards Michael decided to do his last Italian like thing… eat gelato. He picked out peanut butter, chocolate and banana scoops. I tried the pb, and a massive headache but it was kinda worth it. Then we just walked around and bought more knock off things from our friends the crazy men. I got a prada bag, and nick got some Armani sunglasses. We then got the metro back to the airport and boarded our plane, trouble free to Valencia.

Valencia 2^nd time around- since we hadn’t really gotten everything we wanted to get done in Valencia it was good that we had another go around to finish up. We found our way to the metro again, to the trainstation and onto a bus over to the other side of the city to look at the cool arquitecture buildings hat are worldly renowned for their coolness. They are the arts and sciences buildings of something. It was sweet started to rain tho so we went to find a bar cuz eating palalla(what Valencia is famous for) since it was the only thing we hadn’t done on the touristy list it seemed to work out. But when we got there they only sell pallela till four! So I settled on a giant salad that I had been waiting for foreeever! It had green lettuce, tomato radish, snail I think, goat cheese!!! And yumminess. After dinner, we loaded up our stuff again and set out in the sprinkling rain to the train station to the metro to the airport. We boarded the plane again without trouble and had a great time just talking all the way back to sevilla, it was a great trip but we were all glad to be home, safe, and with at least a couple dollars to our name. not many but a few.