The morning of departure didn't start off so grand. We arrived at the airport right after 5am, waited in line to check my bags and discovered we were two minutes late to check in, which meant that I had 'missed' my flight and had to pay $75 dollars extra to get on the next available flight. Fortunately, the next flight arrived about an hour before our international flight departed in Chicago. Chicago was where the majority of the group met, so we had a total of 34 students on the international flight. So the first day consisted of flying from Portland to Chicago, Chicago to Madrid, and Madrid to Seville. Sadly, I wasn't able to really sleep on any of the flights, so I was pretty exhausted when we finally arrived. I did get to know a couple of the people on our international flight and learned to play Cribbage and got to read a Spanish newspaper.
Once we arrived in Seville, things went pretty fast. A few people didn't receive their luggage... which was unfortunate for them, but they got them back within 24 hours. Then we proceeded to be dropped off at our Señora's house. Somehow our Señora hadn't got the memo to pick us up, so her neighbor (who is hosting two other students) took us to the apartment where we will be living. It's a cute little apartment and our bedroom is really small, but almost perfect. =) When we finally got meet our Señora, she was delightful! Her name is Pepita and her husband's name is Enrique. They have been hosting students for some 15 years. The first thing that I learned about her.. is that boy, does she like to talk! I was actually surprised at how much I could understand, because I've heard that many times student's don't understand for a good couple of weeks (since the Spanish is so different from what we are used to). I also learned right off, that Pepi LOVES to cook. She feeds us SO much food and it's so delicious. However, I just can't eat all that she feeds me. Most of our meals are tons of carbs and they like to deep-fry things too. So we eat a lot of bread (Homemade toast at breakfast every day) and we've had things such as chicken, paella (traditional spanish meal), Pasta with melted cheese, and last night we ate tuna pizza, where she gave us one whole pizza each. That's a lot!!
So far we've done many activities in the first few days--almost too many to talk about. Wednesday, we explored our close surroundings and found a park within a couple of blocks. This park has workout equipment in it--kind of like playground equipment, but there is like an elliptical and such. I even saw people using them! On Thursday we had orienation, where we learned about some of the spanish customs and also received our movíles (cell phones). We also took a listening test, to see how much we could understand and I got 100%!! Then in the evening, we met up with the other students and went on a tour around Sevilla to see some beautiful buildings and learn about the area we will be living in for the next four months.
Friday, we went to the school, which is about a 20-30 minute walk from our apartment. We met up with a couple of the professors to get our class schedule and then had another small orientation on Spanish culture. In the evening, we met up again to have pizza in the park with other students. Saturday morning, 7 of us went on a photo scavenger hunt through Sevilla. I cannot tell you how much we walked but at least 7-8 hours. Sadly, I now have a huge blister on the bottom of my foot about the size of a quarter. I can barely walk today. =) I actually have about 5 blisters total, but nothing as bad as the one on the bottom of my foot. Last night, we met up with the rest of the school to look at everyone's pictures. It was a competition.. and we won second place! So we got free movie tickets to a movie in Spanish that we will redeem sometime this semester.
Cathedral close to the school. It is the biggest Gothic Cathedral in the
world, 3rd largest cathedral in the world, and biggest building in Sevilla.
Plaza de España
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Most expensive hotel in Sevilla.
This is where Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz stayed
when they filmed for 'Knight and Day' in Sevilla.
Woo! That was a lot to blog about. I'm sorry this entry is so long. Today is Sunday. We are about 9 hours ahead of everyone in Oregon, so right now it's actually 4:55am back home. I've learned so much already! You will be interested to know, that every day the whole city shuts down from 2-5 for siesta (nap) time..so nothing is open. Too bad they don't do that in the US. I love napping! Also, the meal times here are different. Breakfast is typically from 8-9, lunch from 2-3, and dinner from 9-10pm. So that has taken a little bit of getting used to. It's been super hot here as well. It was around 105 yesterday. I also love our host family. Our host dad loves to watch TV and actually signs Flamenco, which is a type of Spanish dancing. Pepi loves to talk as I said earlier and she's just funny.
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| Enrique y el perro 'Pitu'. Pitu is their daughter's dog |
I'm excited for everything I will experience in the next few months. Spain is so exciting and is a place that I've always wanted to visit. I'm so thankful that Matt has been so encouraging and supportive throughout all of this. He's the best husband anyone could ask for! Hopefully he will get to come visit about half way. =)
Love you all and hope everything is well where you are! Please email me if you'd like. I'd love to hear from you! My main email is mountaindewfreak@gmail.com
You can also read about our journey at http://acentosis.blogspot.com/
¡Adios!
Woohoo! Sounds like SO much fun. I'm jealous of all the delicious food you are eating. If you come back fluent in Spanish I demand that you teach me :) I had to drop my Rosetta Stone class because of cost and time. I have to get a job instead to pay for my car :(
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ReplyDeleteHey, you're good at this :) Very interesting to read!
ReplyDeleteSo interesting about the siesta and meal times. What time do people generally get up and go to bed? I watched a video about Mexico years ago. A young girl was talking about her family's life and she indicated the same kind of schedule, but I never had the complete picture. Thanks!
Congrats on the listening test!!