The week before Feria de Abril began, I had a lot of make-up work to finish. First I had to make up a day of work so I was in the office for 15 hours. Joyy. Second, I had to start writing some of the papers that I had kept putting off. I literally hadn't begun any of them yet. Procrastination is somehow worse abroad. Then, during this week a nice volcano is Iceland decided to erupt! That was a nice little bump in our spring week plans. The ash kept spreading to almost everywhere in europe. It started in Ireland and the UK, then Paris, then east from there. People had trips to Italy that were being cancelled. Luckily it didn't hit Spain, but almost anywhere you wanted to go in Europe had flights cancelled. Our original flight was to fly to Dublin on Saturday, and that was cancelled on Friday night. We had originally had a connecting flight to paris, and then we would be back in Sevilla for the second weekend to enjoy Feria.
Since we couldn't fly to Dublin now, we enjoyed the beginning of feria which was probably more fun to see the first few days. There are less tourists, and everyone is still really excited to enjoy their week off. There is also a HUGE carnival park section. The rides here put anything in the states to shame. The rides seem taller/faster. There was even a bull ride type thing that I had really wanted to try. The other half of Feria is tents that people rent out for the week. However, tents is an understatement. The only thing I can compare it to is the tents in Harry Potter movies. They literally looked like big tents from the outside, but inside it was decorated like a house. There were chandeliers in some, picture frames, tables with white clothes...lavish stuff. They didn't leave anything out. The people hang out in the "casetas" and there are a few public ones, but the fun is in the privately rented tents. Our family didn't have one, so we tried our luck in the public ones and those were still fun. We tried the typical feria drink, got some food and watched the people start to dance Flamenco. It is no joke that once the music turns on, the women (some brave men) will go up in paris and dance in front of the tent. It's cute to see, and makes me want to learn. They wear their typical flamenco dresses (even in the heat of the day) and everyone dresses up for Feria. If you aren't wearing your flamenco dress, you are at least dressed up. The men wore suits or torero-ish type clothing. There were horse drawn carriages and men on horses throughout the whole thing. I felt like I had gone back in time 100 years.
However, my thoughts still kept thinking about Dublin/Paris. We thought maybe if the volcano ash slowed down or changed direction we could fly to Paris on Wed (as we had originally planned) but instead do Dublin the second weekend. We were lucky enough to fly to Paris because the flights opened up partially on Tues, and then fully operating on Wed through our airline (some still weren't open).
We did make it to Paris, and LOVED it. It had so much history and culture. Even though there were a ton of tourists, it didn't seem to lose any of its "spirit". It was still very rich in french things ;) We had a girl from IU show us around the first day and helped us get our bearings in France...like how to even say simple things like "water". Anyway, we first saw the Arc de Triumph and then made our way to the Eiffel Tower. We went up to the 2nd floor (the top floor was only the restaurant I believe) and then got chocolate crepes after! It was wonderful two hours. The Eiffel Tower was cool because we could literally see all of Paris. It was an awesome view, and the river was almost right below us. That night, we went to a cute little fondue place right around the corner from our hostal! We got meat and cheese, and they gave us wine in baby bottles. We had some americans to our left, and some germans to our right. It was a tight squeeze with everyone in one small room, but there was writing on all of the walls and just a fun Paris experience.
The next day we woke up early to go see the Sacre Coeur. This was also right up the street from our hostal so it was an easy walk. It is a famous church in Paris, but my favorite part was walking up to the Dome to the view points. The Sacre Coeur was on a hill to begin with, and then after climbing the what seemed like millions of stairs, we got to the top to possibly one of the best lookout points in Paris (in my opinion). It was cool because it was more to one side of the city so we see the Eiffel Tower without having to walk around many tourists and it was a smaller 360 degree view which meant it was easier to see more at once. We also decided that later that night we wanted to do a bike tour, but with the tour we didn't go into any of the buildings that we passed. Therefore we made it to the Louvre (Mona Lisa), the Musée d'Orsay (Van Gosh and Monet works) during the day. We also grabbed some yummy French Onion soup (best I've ever had) and a few more crepes (one apple one, and one egg one for dinner).
One of my top favorite things that I've done so far, is the night bike tour in Paris. We stopped at the Notre Dame around sunset, got ice cream, rode up and down the Latin quarters. My favorite part was when we probably made it to the Louvre. It was dark at this point (no worries we had bright yellow reflector vests...so cool!) but the Louvre was lit up and the buildings around it were so pretty. It was probably the prettiest part of the tour. Last we made our way past the Eiffel Tower and saw it light up again for 10 minutes of sparkles. Before the tour ended we got a boat cruise up and down the Seine river and saw some of the most famous monuments in Paris at night. It was love.
The next day we got up early to see Moulin Rouge (red light district) before we took our plane back to Madrid. We decided to spend some time in Madrid before we headed home to Sevilla. We saw the royal palace and got some quality spanish food.
Overall, everything ended up working out well. I am still a little upset that I didn't get to go to Ireland, but I'm already planning on returning! at some point... We were lucky enough to go to Paris with the volcano, and I got to travel with my two best friends in the program. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Success.
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