3 Adventures

Well, I guess my promise to update more often didn't really hold up...but it's been an even busier two weeks than the last time!  Here are my three big adventures from those two weeks:

1.  A day at the beach in Conil -- Two Saturdays ago, my friends Molly, Allison and I decided to spend a day at the beach.  After much flip-flopping (haha, get it?) between places to go, we chose Conil, a supposedly beautiful beach town on the Atlantic side of the Spanish coast.  (We originally wanted to go to Malaga (on the Mediterranean), but a 3 hour bus ride was too much for just a day trip.)  Anyway, we were great travelers -- we did research before about bus schedules and where the best stretch of beach was, making sure that we utilized our precious time in Conil as best as we could.  So, on Saturday morning, Allison, Molly, and I walked to the bus station in Sevilla at 8:30 am, ready to take the 9:00 bus to heaven.  When we went to buy our tickets, the guy in the booth said "Conil?  You mean Conil de la Crujera.  It's a 2 km walk from the beach."  We all looked at each other and realized that the bus schedules had changed from their summer times to winter times, even though it was still 35 degrees every day.  The bus to Conil de la Crujera left at 9:15 instead of 9, and the 2 km walk was less than our walk to school multiple times per day, so we didn't think it would be that big of a deal.  Two hours later, the bus dropped us off in the middle of nowhere.  Seriously, the middle of nowhere.  No sidewalks, no buildings, no nothing.  Dumbfounded, we started walking in a random direction, which luckily turned out to be the right one.  We walked along the highway, cars whizzing by and honking their horns at three girls in semi-revealing clothing (this is Spain, you know) for about 20 minutes before we found someone to ask for directions.  He assured us that Conil was straight up the road, less than 5 minutes away.  An hour later, we were still walking.  Finally, we saw a hotel and stopped in there to ask for directions.  Apparently, the man had forgotten to tell us that we had to make a turn "right up the road," and we were now about a 45-minute walk from the beach.  The hotel very kindly called us a taxi, which delivered us to the most beautiful beach I've ever seen (yes Mom, even better than Amelia) in about 5 minutes.  The beach more than made up for how long it took us to get there, though.  Clear blue water with almost no waves, an extremely sunny day but with enough wind to prevent us from getting too hot, and almost no one on the beach.  A beautiful backdrop too, of white houses climbing up the hills and sheer cliffs in the distance.  Our beach day was saved...and we even made it back to the stop in the middle of nowhere just five minutes before our bus home arrived.

2.  Classes at the University of Sevilla -- My three university classes began two weeks ago...or shall I say my EIGHT.  Yup, that's right.  During the first week of school, I tried eight classes (plus the one I take at the program center), each one lasting an hour-plus and multiple days a week.  Generally, Spanish students choose their major before they arrive at university, so they never take classes outside of their chosen "facultad."  We Americans, on the other hand, have the possibility to take whichever classes in whatever facultad we want -- provided that the teacher likes foreign students and lets us take our final exam early (in December, as opposed to mid-January).  You'd think that this would be an amazing opportunity, a complete free-for-all in terms of classes, but in reality it's quite difficult to find three classes that fulfill these requirements and fit together into a manageable schedule.  After much back-and-forth, here are my four classes:

1.  History of Spain (20th and 21st centuries), taken at the Center
2.  History of the Americas in the Modern Age (15th and 16th centuries)
3.  History of Contemporary American Culture (18th, 19th, 20th centuries)
4.  History and Fiction in Hispanic America (all periods)

You might look at that list and say, "What??  Why are you taking classes about America?"  But in Spain, saying "America" means South, Central, and North America.  Actually, there is really not much about North America in any of my classes -- we focus on Ibero-america, which is limited to Central and South America (plus Mexico).  The classes are wonderful so far, as are the professors.  I am really enjoying all four and am genuinely excited to go to class everyday -- same as at Penn, so things must be all right!

3.  In which Amanda and I backpack through Central Spain for four days:  This past weekend, my friend Amanda and I traveled to Madrid, Salamanca, Segovia, Avila, and El Escorial with nothing but our friendship, money, and what we carried on our backs.  That's right -- 5 cities in 4 days.  And it was absolutely incredible.  We both figured we'd never have the opportunity to do something like this again, so why not grab the bull by the horns (yay Spain cliche) and just do it?  We took a total of 9 trains over the course of the trip, so we can pretty much call any Renfe train our home from now on.  And with basing ourselves out of Madrid, we spent a lot of time in Madrid-Chamartin (the local train station).  The trip was extremely tiring but very gratifying.  On Thursday night, we trained to Salamanca, with a changeover in Madrid.  Once we got our hostel room and everything, Amanda and I went out to explore the city at night.  The next morning, we went to the Plaza Mayor to be greeted by none other than the World Cup!  The Spanish national team was playing a game in Salamanca that Friday, and they were touring with their prize from this summer.  You can't imagine how long the line was to take pictures with it.  Amanda and I also visited the University of Salamanca (where I originally wanted to study abroad), and the conjoined Old and New Cathedrals.  We actually got to walk on top of the cathedrals, where they had been joined together!  The views were quite breathtaking.  That afternoon, we left Salamanca and trained to Avila, the home of Spain's oldest fortified city.  Avila has had a wall around it since medieval times, and we climbed that too, walking more than 2 km hundreds of feet above ground.  We also had Avila's famous dessert, called "yemas de Avila" -- basically really yummy lemon squares.  ("Yema" means "yolk" in Spanish.)  Friday night, we trained to Madrid and walked to our hostel to rest up for Segovia Saturday.  Segovia is home to a centuries-old original Roman aqueduct that used to provide water to the entire city, an immense cathedral (of course), and the castle that inspired Walt Disney when creating Cinderella's Castle.  The castle belonged to Isabel I of Castilla before she married Ferdinand and united the two Spanish realms.  We actually saw her original throne!  Saturday night found us back in Madrid, resting up for El Escorial on Sunday.  That was probably my favorite part of the trip.  El Escorial is Felipe II's palace/monastery/cathedral/library/mausoleum that was built in the 1500s.  The best part of the castle was seeing the royal mausoleum -- being 5 feet away from the remains of great Spanish kings like Carlos V (the last Holy Roman Emperor), Felipe II, Felipe III, Carlos II, Carlos III, you get the picture.  The room that housed their coffins was glorious -- green marble and gold decoration everywhere.  Very surreal...the rest of the palace was wonderful to see as well.  After all, I've been learning about it since European History in 10th grade, so I figured it was about time to see it.  It was even worth the 2 hour wait in line to get in.....

A lot of catching up to do....

Aaaaaaaack so I'm sorry about my little two-week hiatus from the blogging world.  These past few days have been so busy that I literally have not had time to sit down and let you all know what's been going on.  So...just letting you know, this will be a pretty hardcore post.

1.  Excursions after Cadiz:  We finally visited the Cathedral of Sevilla as a group after having to walk by it for the past month.  I had already been there (on my previous trip to Spain), so I knew what to expect, but it was honestly better the second time.  This cathedral is huge -- one of the largest in Europe -- with seven naves, huge Baroque style altars and decorations everywhere, four-plus rooms of Catholic church treasures (including relics like bones of deceased saints), and Christopher Columbus's supposed tomb.  Well, I shouldn't say supposed...it has been proven that two of his bones are indeed in that tomb.  After touring the Cathedral, we all climbed the 34 "stairs" of ramps to get to the top of La Giralda, the huge bell tower.  It was a lot easier than I remembered -- except going down was quite steep, especially in flip-flops.
We also went to the Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla, which houses many Murillo originals.  It was mainly all religious art, which gets old after a while...but it was still beautiful to see.
We also applied for extracurricular activities for this semester!  The way the Spanish school system works is quite austere next to the American one.  There are no school sports teams or school-funded clubs -- everything is on your own, apart from school.  School is just going to class, taking notes, and taking exams -- and most Spanish people don't even go to class.  But that's another story.  I signed up for an Intercambio, which is where you talk with a Spanish speaker for two hours every week, one in English and one in Spanish. That way, my Spanish gets better, and my partner's English gets better, too.  I also signed up for some volunteer work with underprivileged Spanish kids, which should be fun.

2.  Madrid:  Our weekend in Madrid was great.  I mean, I had been there before, so it wasn't as exciting as the first time, but it was still cool.  We went to the Prado on Friday to see the Velazquez and Goya originals (my favorite part of the trip, of course) and went out that night to a Madrid discoteca, which really wasn't all that different from the ones in Sevilla.  Saturday was completely free for us -- no mandatory tours or anything like that, so a couple friends and I visited the Royal Palace and just walked around the Parque de Retiro and plazas around the city.  We also went to the Reina Sofia, where I saw Guernica again (amaaaaaaazing -- my favorite painting ever) and just stared for about twenty minutes.  On Sunday, we woke up and had a tour of the city (a little late, right?) and then went to the Plaza Mayor and had free time for the rest of the day.

3.  Excursions after Madrid: This week we chose classes for the University, which I will tell you about when they're actually finalized.  Basically, I have to go to all of my 7 class choices this week, even though I'll only have 3 classes at the actual university.  But the good thing is that class doesn't start until Tuesday, and then there is a general strike throughout Spain on Wednesday to protest the high unemployment rate (among other things), so I probably won't have class then either.
We went to the Hospital de la Caridad, which is a very old and historic hospital, which is used as an old folks' home now.  It had the most beautiful church in it that I think I've seen in Spain -- and I've seen a lot of churches here.  Original Murillo paintings, the most over-the-top altar...it was crazy.  We also went to the Reales Alcazares, which is the old Muslim palace in Sevilla (hundreds and hundreds of years) that was converted to the Catholic kings' palace of residence.  Actually, Alfonso XII spent most of his life living there, and Juan Carlos I even stays there when he comes to Sevilla now.  Thursday night was a flamenco show with the same singer from the flamenco concert we went to our very first week here!  It was incredible, as always.

4.  Cordoba:  Friday was a day trip to Cordoba, which was pretty much -- no, exactly -- like Sevilla.  The Guadalquivir River runs through it, there are bridges connecting different parts of the city, a Cordoba Torre del Oro look-a-like, an Alcazar, and a cathedral that was converted from a mosque.  The only difference was that this mosque is INCREDIBLY famous, and rightfully so.  It was absolutely amazing -- we walked in and just saw naves of columns and Muslim arches and tiled floors and intricately detailed ceilings.  Quite ridiculous, in fact.  Parts of the mezquita were from the 6th and 7th centuries.  And it was converted into a cathedral when the Catholics conquered the Muslim territory of Spain (of course), so it honestly feels like the one building was just squashed right in the middle of the other.  It was eerie to think about the thousands of square feet covered by rows of prayer mats and people back when it was a mosque.  But at least the Catholics had enough sense to not tear the entire thing down, as it is extremely beautiful.
We also went to the old Jewish quarter in Cordoba, which dates back and back and back and back.  Windy streets, narrow alleyways, and a huge wall all around -- yup, seems like a Jewish ghetto to me.  But the best part was seeing the oldest synagogue in Spain (not the best one though, that's in Toledo), complete with a Maimonides statue outside.  It was a little sad to see this dilapidated-looking, hole-in-the-wall synagogue when we had just seen lots of huge, elaborate churches.  There was even a faded mosaic cross on one of the walls.  Twenty people couldn't have fit inside the main room, and there was even a cramped womens' seating area on the upper floor.  It was cool to see the two places carved into the wall for the Torahs, though -- and funny that a tiny gold menorah was placed on the bimah, kind of like our altar.  Very strange.  But we got our obligatory "Jew picture" with the 6 Jewish people who are on this trip, so all was well.

5.  Isla Magica:  Saturday was a day at the "Discovery of America"-themed amusement park.  SO MUCH FUN.  The park was pretty small (only one roller coaster and three water rides), but it was amazing.  The roller coaster had five loops, all with corkscrews, and a tight double corkscrew that made your head bang back and forth in the protective harness.  And the water rides were great, too: two log flumes and a rapids.  My little group rode one of the log rides three times because we kept posing for the picture that they took at the beginning of the second big drop.  It was hilarious!!  Basically, we had an incredibly fun day -- so glad to finally be done with the orientation class.

And I've also handed in a paper and taken a grammar exam -- only one more paper to go and I'll be completely done with this class!  Plus, Monday marks the beginning of the 5th week here, which is unbelievable.  The time is just flying by.

P.S.  I promise to update more often, as hopefully things will calm down a little bit now....

Cadiz: Beaches, Corpses, and Line Dancing

I just got back from Cadiz a couple hours ago, and the 48 hours spent there were truly fantastic!  After a very early morning 2-hour long bus ride, our whole group arrived in Cadiz, where we were promptly whisked away onto a walking tour of the whole city.  Our tour guide described the city to us as the part of your arm from the elbow to the fingers, as this is kind of what it looks like....the city is almost an island, connected to the rest of mainland Spain by tiny bridges.  I learned that Cadiz is the oldest city in Europe (at least that's what the guide said) and that it was one of the busiest cities of the past because of its location (right at the place where the Atlantic and Mediterranean meet).  Basically, it's a port town with beautiful views of the ocean and scores of towers scattered throughout the city, which were used to monitor the ships coming into Cadiz harbor back in the day.  As I said in my last post, Cadiz is known to resemble Havana, Cuba (or maybe it's the other way around), and our guide told us that a lot of movies have been filmed on its beaches.  Actually, the James Bond movie Die Another Day was filmed on one of the beaches we went to on Saturday!  There are also many cathedrals in Cadiz (of course), and the largest one is actually built in two different architectural styles because it took over 100 years to build.  This same cathedral has a gigantic crypt in its basement, which houses the tombs of many famous Cadiz-ians, such as Manuel de Falla, the composer.  The crypt also had a mummified martyr in a glass box, complete with a vial of her holy blood -- I'm not even kidding.  She looked to be pretty young and was dressed in a white christening dress....I don't know how she died or why they decided to embalm her, but now I've seen a 400-year-old dead person, skin and all.  Cross it off the bucket list?

We also were given a tour of Cadiz via la camara oscura (I can't explain it, so I'll give you the link -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura), with which we could actually see people moving, walking, cars driving, waves crashing on the rocks, even laundry drying in the breeze.  It functions like a periscope on a submarine.

Friday night a group of us went to a Spanish bar where they played Spanish music -- salsa, cha cha cha, and American songs with reggaeton beats -- and we were all just kind of watching the locals dance with each other.  There is truly nothing like watching Spanish people dance together, in couples.  It's like poetry.  Anyway, we were staring awestruck at these people dancing when, all of a sudden, this guy (we later learned he was a professional dancer) ran up to the front of the dance floor.  Every young person in the entire discoteca stopped what they were doing and ran to the dance floor to line up behind him.....AND THEY STARTED TO LINE DANCE.  It was one of those times in your life where you think, "Is this really happening?"  Seriously, it was like a musical...where everyone just magically knows the same moves to the same music and all that.  It was so much fun.  We all got in line with everyone and tried to follow along.  This crazy line dance lasted for about twenty minutes -- and then happened again, ten minutes after the first one ended!  I really want to find a club in Sevilla where this crazy stuff happens.  It was the most fun I've had since I got to Spain...and that's a big statement.

Today, we spent the day at the beach -- la playa Victoria, which is apparently the "best beach in a city in all of Europe."  And it was truly spectactular.  Crisp, cool water, little to no waves, water so salty you can float without any effort.  And Cadiz is extremely windy, so it wasn't even hot!  Just pleasantly warm.  It was so nice to spend the day just relaxing with my new friends and doing nothing.  I still can't believe I live in this country sometimes, even though I've been here for two weeks.  And the two weeks have just flown by -- I only have 14 left!

As soon as I figure out how to upload pictures onto here, I promise I will!

Things are looking up!

I'm happy to report that everything has gotten easier since my last post!  My Spanish is flowing more easily, both in my head and out of my mouth, and I'm able to better understand people, too.  Not just my teachers and the people who work for el Centro, but random people passing by me in the streets.  It's actually a pretty cool feeling to know that you can really speak and understand a second language, that you've learned something so expansive as a language and are able to store it inside your head right next to the one you already know.  Actually, when I think of a word in English, I think of the Spanish version simultaneously, and vice versa.  I guess that means I'm actually becoming fluent...or on my way at least.

The past few days have been really fun.  Molly and I have been eating bocadillos (sandwiches) for lunch the past few days and just staying in the center of the city instead of going home for lunch every day.  It's a 30 minute walk from home in our neighborhood of Nervion to the center of the city -- 1.6 miles each way -- so it gets a little old to walk for 2 hours every day!  The same route, twice a day.  Once in the morning for culture class and once in the afternoon for grammar class.  Staying in the center has been fun, though.  Molly and I like to sit with our friends from our program in cafes or get gelato (not much though) and just walk around or people-watch.  We've also gone shopping a lot the past few days.  I've bought 4 pairs of earrings while I've been here so far!

Today el Centro took us to los baños arabes -- Arab baths, in English.  Today, it's basically a spa that caters to the old ritual tradition of bathing, similar to the baths in ancient Greece and Rome.  They had six or seven baths, including temperate, ice cold, hot, jacuzzi-like, salt, and a sauna.  It was really relaxing, with candles and soothing music.  Except for the fact that my hair caught on fire when I leaned back straight into a candle!  Good thing I was around water...


Our group is going to Cadiz (accent on the a) tomorrow, and some of us are staying overnight!  Cadiz is this beautiful beach town on the Atlantic side of the Iberian peninsula.  People say it looks like Cuba, but obviously I've never been...we'll see I guess.

Finally...the house

Yesterday Molly and I moved in with our host family -- our "mother" Loli and her son Alberto.  Alberto is the youngest of Loli's four children, and, at 35, still lives part of the time with his mom.  In Spain, it is very common for children to live with their parents until they get married.  I think that this situation is a little different because Alberto also has his own house where he spends nights and parts of weekends, but he has a room in Loli's apartment where he can siesta and do his own thing.  He's a graphic designer and extremely attractive, as are most Spanish men.  Loli also has a daughter and two other sons, one of whom is a talented painter.  His paintings are all over the apartment.

The apartment itself is relatively large, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a spacious living room/kitchen area.  The floors are tile so as to keep cooler, and there are a lot of windows for the same reason.  Loli has a little balcony outside the living room where she hangs washed clothes and drinks coffee in the mornings.  There are pictures all over the place of her family and past students she has housed.  Molly and my room is small, but sufficient for both of us.  We have heavy blinds on our one large window that we can close in the afternoon to block out the sun so that we can siesta.  There is no air conditioning, but we have a fan in our room, which helps a lot.  We also have our own bathroom, which is nice.  That way we can shower whenever we want without fear of waking Loli up at night or in the morning.

And the food is FANTASTIC.  Loli is an extremely good cook and has already promised to teach us how to cook anything we want.  Yesterday for lunch we had arroz con pollo, salad, and homemade croquetas with plums and kiwi for "dessert."  Loli says that the plums she gives us are good for digestion, as is everything else we will eat -- lots of water with meals, lentils, garbanzo beans, olive oil.  She also says that she doesn't fry a lot of foods, that she only uses olive oil because it's the healthiest, and that she likes to eat and cook healthy in general.  She also says that we can eat however much we want and that she won't stuff food down our throats, but so far I'm finding this last statement to be not completely true.  It gets a little tiring to keep saying "No, estoy bien" or "No gracias, estoy llena," but it actually reminds me of my mother and grandmother, so I feel at home.  Last night we had the best tortilla I've ever had -- kind of like an omelette with potato -- and homemade gazpacho with cheese.  I honestly think that we're eating Monterey Jack cheese but don't want to admit that that may be true...it just seems too American for me!  Breakfast was light this morning -- just toast with amazing apricot preserves (and I don't even like preserves when I'm home), and lunch was heavy, as usual.  Stuffed eggplant with croquetas (Loli said that ALL her American girls love croquetas) and salad.

I still love it here, but I have to admit that I don't quite feel like myself.  I've been super quiet at the dinner table and not very talkative at all.  I think that this is the culture shock the Penn advisors were talking about.  I feel like I just don't have anything to say because I can't think of how to say it in Spanish...and when I know what I want to say and how to say it, I'm constantly second-guessing myself as to whether I'm conjugating right, using the correct words, etc.  I know that this feeling will go away, and Alberto and Loli have been nothing but nice about it (after all, they've been with the program for 10 years, housing more than 40 kids along the way), but I feel embarrassed every time I have to ask them how to say something.  It got a little better last night -- Molly and I watched a television show that was a cross between Cribs and Life of the Rich and Famous with Loli and learned words like bodyguard (guardaespaldas), ice skates (patinas), and mansion (mansion).  I just have to keep reminding myself that this is only the second day; I'm sure I'll feel more comfortable with everything as the days go on.

Cell phones, meetings, and classes

To pick  up where I left off before:

We got to Sevilla and the hotel, where we were greeted by Luisa Alvarez, one of the directors of the program.  She handed us envelopes containing a map of Sevilla (which you'll see turns out to be very very helpful in the days ahead), a card with emergency phone numbers, a schedule for the next two days, and 70 euro!!  The money is to cover our meals for the next three days, until we move into our home-stays.  The girls from my flight and I dropped our bags in our respective rooms (Molly was sleeping, due to the fact that her flight got in at about 9:00 am (3:00 am, USA time) and that she had no sleep either on the plane) and left the hotel in search of an early lunch.  It was 1:15 or so, and we were starving...but most Spaniards eat lunch around 2 or later.  Luckily, there was an open cafe right across the street from the hotel, where we got our first taste (no pun intended...or was it) of the Spanish culture.  Speaking Spanish to the waiter was surprisingly easy...I really wasn't as rusty as I thought I was going to be (this would change in about 4 hours).  I ordered a bocadillo de jamón serrano ibérico, which is a small sandwich of cured ham.  My first taste of pork in 8 and a half years!  It was pretty yummy...I figure that I'm only in Spain in this experience once, so I should taste and experience all that I can.


After our lunch (only 5 euro with water), I went back to my hotel room.  Molly was still sleeping, so I took a shower.  The funny thing is though that Spanish hotel rooms do not have light switches for the main lights in the room.  Instead, they have a place on the wall where you are supposed to insert your room card (or another card of about the same size).  When you do this, the lights turn on.  When you take the card out, the lights go off -- actually the power to the entire room goes off, too.  This is because electricity is much more valued in Spain than it is in the US of A, so they don't want people accidentally leaving lights on in their rooms when no one is there.  Too much of a waste, I guess...so I had to turn on all the lights to get power in the bathroom.  I felt really bad about the possibility of waking Molly up from her nap, but I was super gross from the past day -- plus, she didn't even wake up!


After the shower, it was time to go downstairs for our first meeting together as a group.  We met the directors -- Eva, Luisa, Pepe, and the visiting professor from Penn (except he's from GW) who is teaching one of the Centro classes this semester.  I don't remember his name because I'm not taking his class (haha!), and he's Mexican anyway so I kind of tuned him out as he was telling us about his class.  It's difficult enough trying to understand the Sevillano accent, so I didn't need to hear the Mexican one too.  Eva, Luisa, and Pepe all work at the center -- Eva is the director, Luisa is the second-in-command, and Pepe is in charge of all the cultural excursions we go on as a group this semester.  Also, he takes us around Sevilla every once in a while to increase our awareness of the culture...basically so we won't be the obnoxious tourists that the sevillanos think we are.  Dinner in the Hotel Becquer followed our meeting, all of us sitting around one long, long table.  We had vegetable soup, chicken and rice (arroz con pollo), and a fruit compote for dessert.  We didn't finish dinner until 9:30 (seems late, but it's also pretty early in Seville time) because everyone was so tired from their travels.  I fell into bed at 10:30 completely exhausted.


We had to be up and ready to go (already having eaten the continental Spanish-style breakfast) by 9:30 the next morning for our meeting at the center.  It's about a fifteen, twenty-minute walk from the hotel, in an extremely old building called La Cristina that is apparently very well-known around Sevilla.  The classroom is on the first floor of the building, but the actual office (complete with a computer room and library with about 2,000 books -- large for such a small space) is on the third floor.  The directors just went into more detail with us about the program and the orientation class we'll be taking for the first month of our program.  After that, Pepe took us on a brief tour of Sevilla (mostly the center of the city) and dropped us off at our hotel.  We all promptly went back out to the Corte Ingles (similar to a super Walmart or Target in the States) to buy cell phones to facilitate communication among all of us when we move to our homestays on Friday.  The guy who sold us our phones was a 23 year old Argentine  trying to practice his English on us...he gave all of us his personal number, along with a goodbye of "Call me!  My friends love hanging out with American girls!"  Not sure we'll be taking that offer....haha.


It was Chris's birthday (a guy in the program), so we all went out to dinner around 10 pm to a tapas restaurant outside.  I had salmonillo de cerdo ibérico (pork loin) and homemade croquetas (little fried balls -- these were filled with delicious cheeses).  Soooo good!  But it's strange here -- everything is served with either french fries or potato chips.  I can't figure out whether that's because of all the American tourists or just Spanish culture.  I guess we'll see...I'm not complaining though.


Today (Wednesday) was the start of our classes!!!  At 9:30 am, we were standing outside of our culture class waiting to be let in.  Our classes for this week focus on the shift from Franco's dictatorship to Spanish democracy, the first of five topics we will cover in the culture class.  Each topic is allowed three days, so obviously it will be just a brief introduction into the topics.  For example, we covered the Civil War and part of Franco's dictatorship today in 1.5 hours...only 30+ more years to go in the next two days!  The class was wonderful, though.  Rafael (the professor) is an amazing lecturer.  He is extremely easy to understand and actually writes things on the board (unlike Penn professors) -- although this may be because he doesn't think we understand what he's saying.  I, however, understood everything and even wrote my notes on blank printer paper like the rest of the Spaniards do.  Really surprised myself!  For the first time, I thought, "I can do this.  This is exactly what I should be doing in this moment, right now.  I am where I'm supposed to be."  It was really eye-opening and a little bit emotional.  I realized that I am incredibly happy here.  I can't wait to see how much happier I get, considering this is only the third day!


After Rafa, we broke up into three groups for our "discussion time" with Enrique, a 29-year-old Sevillano who taught Spanish at the U of Michigan for three years.  He studied at the University of Sevilla, too, which is neat.  Enrique was hilarious.  He told us how much he likes basketball and country music and living in the US, but loved Spain too much not to come back.  Our discussion centered on what we had just learned in culture class, possibly to cement it into our heads and clear up any discrepancies we may have had in case we didn't understand Rafa.  Enrique enunciates really clearly and waves his hands around when he talks to make sure we really understand what he's saying.  The discussion was really lively and exciting, and, again, I was reassured that I'm in the right place.  My final class of the day was grammar.  However, this grammar class is not like your run-of-the-mill high school/entry-level college grammar class.  Our professor, Juan, is going to teach us how to be fluent in Spanish by learning from the common mistakes that we make speaking Spanish, along with those that Spaniards make when they speak English.  He is wonderful, too.  Really funny and down-to-earth.  I love how it is a class where I can ask him anything random just because I want to know.  For example, we asked today about all the different ways we can order food in restaurants because we didn't know if it is considered acceptable to say "Yo quiero" (I want) or "Quisiera" (I would like) or "Me trae" (Bring me).  We're also going to learn idioms, Spanish-isms, etc.  I'm so excited.


I think that's the word of the day.  Excitement.  In Spanish, "la emoción."  I am excited about EVERYTHING.  And I know that that is how it's supposed to be.


Sorry this was so long, but now I've caught you all up!  More tomorrow.

THE FIRST DAY

The day has finally come!  After many hours of traveling, I am in Spain at last.  At the moment, I'm relaxing in my hotel room for a couple hours before everyone in the program meets for dinner at 7:30.  Or 19:30...I'm trying to get used to Spanish/military time.  Since I didn't have a computer with Internet access while I was en route to Sevilla, I guess I'll just recap the past day.

Sunday was a pretty nerve-wracking day.....My train was 45 minutes late into NYC, and the cab driver and I hit mad traffic on the way to JFK.  Plus, there was no air conditioning in the car, so I was sweltering.  Not a good thing to be before you get on a plane and have to travel for the next 12 hours.  To make matters worse, my check-in terminal at the airport was really hot as well....so I basically just dripped sweat for the entirety of Sunday.  Kind of gross, but it was part of the adventure, I guess.

I got to my gate on time, made all the necessary phone calls, and boarded the plane.  I was a little disappointed when I actually got on the plane, though -- one of the flight attendants was directing people where to sit (the plane was huge) and spoke to me in Spanish.  I'm guessing it was because of the dark hair and eyes...I was so excited, even though I was a little rusty.  BUT...as soon as he saw my boarding pass tucked inside my blue US passport, he switched to English!  At least all the other flight attendants thought I was Spanish.  I even had a pretty lengthy conversation with the Spanish girl sitting next to me.

Just a side note for anyone flying through or to Madrid in the future -- it is the most confusing airport I have ever been in.  I had to go down escalators, up elevators, around corners, through hallways -- it must have taken me thirty minutes to get to customs and then another fifteen to get to my gate!  The good thing was that I found about five other girls in my program at the gate for our Sevilla flight.  We all talked for a while and then boarded the plane, where I promptly fell asleep.  Not sleeping at all on the JFK to Madrid flight was not a good idea...but it was incredibly turbulent, making it extremely difficult to rest and relax.

So....the plane touched down in Sevilla, and we all trouped off to get our bags and get in cabs to drive to the hotel.  The hotel is beautiful!  www.hotelbecquer.com -- check it out!

I'll post more about today later...