Just wanted to add a little blurb about the Feria. It is a festival here in Spain that lasts a whole week long (which is why we have school off this week and have been able to travel so much). It is basically a week-long party where they dance the Sevillana, eat and drink. They have a ton of tents set up, most of them private, some public.

Me and my friend Amanda walked all around it today and it was so pretty! Funny story, we had been walking only for about 5 minutes seeing everything.. when a reporter came up with his camera man and interviewed us! He started out talking to us in Spanish but then I quickly told him I could do it Spanish :) It was pretty exciting, I just told him how pretty the Feria was, with all the flamenco dresses and horses and carriages everywhere.. not sure if it will air, but I will possibly be on Spanish TV today, so that is pretty cool! We walked by a tent with a bunch of older ladies in it that were all singing flamenco, while two of them were dancing the typical dance here, the Sevillana. We stopped and watched for a while, and when they were done they asked me and Amanda if we wanted to dance with them. We told them we didn't know the dance, but they insisted! So, we ended up dancing with them and learning a few moves. They were really sweet, and complimented us afterwards even though we had no idea what we were doing.

After that, we went to the area called the Calle del Infierno- which translated means 'Hell's Street'. It is funny the call it that because all it is is a bunch of rides. Ferris wheels, merry go rounds... and many more. It is mainly for the kids to enjoy, but there are also rides adults can go on. We didn't do any because it cost money, but we did walk around and see it all. Overall, it has been a really awesome day enjoying this typical Spanish festival... with perfect sunny weather, I might add.
                                                                The entrance into Feria

I love how decorated the horses are

What the inside of one of the tents looks like

The ladies that taught us to dance Sevillana, or attempted to. Notice the dresses :) Almost every woman is dressed this way

So, I just got back from an incredible trip to London, England!! We (Jonathan and I) left from Sevilla late last Thursday night and landed in Stansted airport at about 23:30. We were a little worried about communication when we got there as far as transportation.. because all we knew was that Jenny and Theo were going to pick us up, and we had phones but we weren't sure if we could get a hold of them. This was complicated even further once we landed because we had to stand in line at customs for about an hour and a half.. it was quite a long wait. But anyways, we eventually got through and saw them waiting for us at the exit. Emily ended up coming to pick us up too which was a lovely surprise! It was so great to be reunited with her once again!

Next day was Dan and Katie's wedding! It was SO much fun!! One thing that was really cool was the dancing at the Reception. They did a kaylee, which is a kind of Celtic country dance. It involves a lot of partner dancing and line dancing and at times it reminds me of square dancing. Either way, it was so much fun! There was a lady there instructing us how to do it and everything, it was very fun.

The next few days involved walking around London and seeing all of the sights. We rode the 'chube' a lot.. this is basically just the metro, and it is actually called the tube, but I am spelling it the way they say it, and the way we said it the whole time we were there :) Anyways, rode the chube a lot, ate typical British foods such as fish and chips, crumpets, scones, apple crumble and drank lots of tea. We also saw the Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, the Tower Bridge, the Globe Theater, and a few soccer stadiums (from the outside). It was so much fun, we had a pretty large group to start with and as people began to head home we got smaller and smaller. We had a great time visiting with old youth group friends from Costa Rica, and getting caught up on all of their lives. Jenny very graciously housed us the whole time we were there and gave us a great tour of London on Monday. Oh yeah, and we also rode in a double decker bus, which is very smart and I am confused why America hasn't picked up on it yet.. it is kind of genius.

We had a wonderful time in London. Met some awesome people, saw great sights, and had some amazing food. There is so much more I could include in this post but if I start into the little details, I could talk about it all day long, the rest I will have to tell you in person. 

I am so glad that we were able to go, and so excited for my next trip tomorrow to Rome! 

God is so good :)

A few pictures...

Semana Santa with the bro!

So, there is a lot to update you guys on, especially since my blog has been non-existent (sorry about that!) During Semana Santa we (Jonathan and I) were able to go to Santander, Barcelona, Paris and Madrid. We had some great sibling bonding time and have never walked more or ridden the Metro more in our life! We only had one day in Paris and because of that we decided to get the day pass for the Metro. So we literally would take the Metro to one big touristy place, go up, take a few pictures, then get right back on the metro for the next big thing. It was fun and we got to see basically everything but at the same time it was kind of rushed and we didn´t get to truly enjoy it like I wanted to.


The first few days we were in Santander, which is at the very north of Spain. It was a lot of fun! I actually hadn't heard of it until Jonathan booked the flight there first and then to Paris because it was a lot cheaper than just going straight to Paris from Sevilla. So we spent a few lovely days there exploring, hanging out on the beach, walking to a pretty light house, buying groceries for our meals... it was a very chill, relaxed way to start our week, which I think was perfect.. because after we left Santander things got pretty crazy walking from one touristic sight to another. 


We were all set to leave from Santander on Tuesday to fly up to Paris, but it turned out our flight got cancelled due to a strike in France. Thank you Ryanair... :( So, we ended up flying to Barcelona that night, got in about 7 and walked around for a while before heading to our hostel.. which was a lot further away than we were expecting, by the way (story of our lives here during that trip... haha) We were able to see the Sagrada Familia by Gaudi, and a few other of Gaudi's creations while walking around that night. If you don't know about him, you should look up pictures... his buildings are a little strange but overall pretty cool! So we found our hostel, and headed out the next morning at about 3:20 to catch the bus to the airport. Yes you heard me... 3:20 AM!? It was quite ridiculous that we ended up only staying at the hotel for about 3 hours, and of those 3 only slept about 1.. we might as well have slept at the airport of bus station for the night to save that money, but oh well! What can you do? So anyways, we got into Paris around 9:30 AM and spent the whole day like I said before, taking the Metro from touristy sight to touristy sight. 

Madrid was super fun too! The actual city of Madrid wasn´t too exciting. Compared to Sevilla and other places we´ve been it is kind of disappointing. We met up with four people from our school on Friday and went to see The Prado and the Reina Sofia, both awesome art museums. The Prado had a ton of the artists and painting we have been studying in our art class (Murillo, Zurbarán, Velazquéz.. etc) So we basically went through and said, oh.. we studied that one.. and oh, look! There´s that one she told us about. It was pretty awesome, and we were able to appreciate the art a lot more. Speaking of art.. we also went to the Louvre in Paris which was amazing!!

The main thing that made Madrid awesome were the people. We stayed with the Eddys. They were so hospitable and so much fun! We had some great food, including pancakes (which we had seriously been missing) for breakfast one day and strawberry shortcake with ice cream for dessert. You can imagine my joy at seeing that being placed in front of me :) Jonathan and I both agreed that they reminded us a lot of our family.. they love games, and joke with each other a lot. One way they are different is that they were actually born in Spain and their mom is Spanish.. so they speak only Spanish at home, with a few exceptions. I just remember that being different because even when we were in Costa Rica we mainly spoke English at home. But anyway... they have three girls so I especially had a lot of fun hanging out with them. The last night (Saturday) we watched the Hunger Games with them. They knew we had read the books and they downloaded it to watch. It was funny to watch with them because they hadn´t read the books so we had to explain it all to them and they were pretty shocked at most parts. 

Easter Sunday we were able to go to church with them. Their church is really small and 'simpática' as they described it, and we heard a lot of familiar songs from our time in Costa Rica.. one being Celebrad a Cristo Celebrad! El vive.. El vive! .. remember it? 

Anyways, we also saw the Mussers one Saturday and were able to hang out with them for the day. We got a tour of the school that Mr. Musser is a principal at and played Canasta with them(fun new card game with them... you know us Rehners and our cards... :)

After all of this... (sorry about the novel) we returned to Sevilla on the 6 hr bus ride and got back Sunday night at 12:15.. and got up the next day to start the school week. We had an overall great time and got to see a lot of cool sights. I miss everybody so much and hope that everything is going great on your end. I can't wait to share all of these experiences to you guys in person when I get back. Until then my very inconsistent blog will have to do.