January 30, 2010

This past week to week and a half I didn't see too many sites because we've mostly been doing things around Seville to get settled. I did, however, visit the Cathedral here (where Christopher Columbus is buried!) and Alcazar, which is a beautiful castle built in the Moorish style. Otherwise, I've been trying to get into a routine and also have been getting school started.

Seville is such a wonderful city to be living in! It is large, but the residencia I am living in seems to be close to absolutely everything. I walk almost everywhere, with the exception of school which I ride the metro to. I have gotten into a taxi twice, and both times I would rather have walked but the people I was with wanted to get a ride.

There are a lot of differences between here and home, but not as many as there were when I went to China this past summer. Let me walk you through some of the things I do each day. We usually eat toast and jam or butter for breakfast, which we get ourselves. We can have breakfast whenever we want, and my host mother Rosa served it at 8:30 am before school began but now that we have school I get it about 8 am because I have a 9 am class. I leave no later than 8:15 am to head to the metro and school. The metro ride is about 20-25 minutes long, and its pretty enjoyable for me because I love to people watch. It also wakes me up, since I’m not a morning person. My first class is at 9 am everyday (most classes are only Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday, but because I’m in the beginning level Spanish class, we meet everyday so that we can learn more intensively).

So far I am enjoying Spanish, but it just began on Wednesday so I don’t have too much to go off of thus far. On Mondays and Wednesdays, it is my only class. On Tuesdays, I go directly from my Spanish language class to Spanish language lab, which is only a one credit course and therefore only meets once a week. I haven’t yet had this class, but I understand that it is supposed to help with my pronunciation. I have U.S. – European Union Relations Since WWII every Tuesday and Thursday at 12 noon, and follow it up with History of Spanish Art every Tuesday and Thursday at 1:30 pm. My U.S. – E.U. Relations class hasn’t yet begun because the professor was out of the country or something this past Thursday, so I’m not sure what that class will be like yet. I am excited for my art history class, however. It doesn’t seem too difficult and the professor is both very knowledgeable and very nice.

On Mondays I am going to be volunteering at an elementary school to help teach 5 year olds English. I am really excited about this opportunity! It doesn’t start for a few weeks, but it seems like it will be very cool. I also was paired up with a Spanish student who is learning English as an “intercambio,” sort of like a language partner and also just a person to befriend at the university. She will practice her English with me, and I’ll practice my Spanish with her. I emailed my partner this past Thursday or Friday but I’m told the Spanish students are taking exams right now so I told her that it isn’t a big rush to get back to me. Hopefully soon though, I’d like to meet her! There are supposedly some sort of university-sponsored intercambio events on Wednesday afternoons that I want to begin going to, as well. I’m not sure when they start up.

On days when I'm not able to be home for lunch, Mama Rosa makes me a sandwich to take to campus. She's such a nice person! I take a sandwich on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but Mondays and Wednesdays I'm able to be home at 2 pm, which is lunch time. We eat dinner at 8 pm and she feeds us all of our meals everyday except for Sundays, when she doesn't feed us dinner because she takes the day off and goes to her families home (they actually live somewhere else in the city, I'm not sure where, but Rosa stays here at night and all during the week except for Sundays and her family comes and goes from here). I definitely understand why she takes Sundays off - if I had to do her job, I would also. Last Sunday I went with some other people to a place that served Tex Mex food because some people wanted to watch the NFL games and that place was showing them. I'm not sure where I'll eat tomorrow, but I am interested in a pizzeria that looked pretty good on a road not far from here.

Because we don’t have classes on Fridays, most of the students in the group I am with go out on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. I tried it this weekend but went home early every night and I’m so tired! I’m not going to be very good at three day weekends at this rate. But I have been having fun, especially when we go places where I can dance. I try not to drink very much. I don’t drink that much at home, so my tolerance is very low, plus alcohol is very expensive and I have better things to spend my money on here. I’m doing fairly well at not spending too much on it thus far. Actually the past two weekends my main problem has been that late at night I crave ice cream so I go buy some Ben & Jerry’s which is expensive at home, but even more expensive over here.

I am also working on planning a few side trips. I want to go to Barcelona, but need to figure out who will want to go with me. I am planning on going to visit my friend Nathalie in Berlin in March, and I’m really excited about that! For Spring Break, I’m actually thinking of possibly going to Egypt which I think would be very cool. It takes a lot of effort to plan trips, especially planning multiple trips all at once. Hopefully I can get to Paris, Greece, Italy, and London as well. If not, I want to go to at least one or two of those other places. I’m sure I’ll get plenty of places!

I love y'all, and hope you are having a great week!

Sarah