Jun 03 2009
Sevilla, España
Hola everyone!
I am currently studying abroad in SPAIN!!!! I have been here for about 12 days now. I am finally settled in and ready to tell you all about my experiences so far! Spain is AMAZING!!!! I live with another girl from State and another American student from a different program. We live with a Spanish family in an apartment in the city. Our family is so nice and so fun! Our Señora is a professional chef and her husband and one of her daughters who is 21 lives with us. They have 5 other kids that live in their own places. The apartment has 5 bedrooms, a kitchen, 2 bathrooms, and a living room/dining room. Our room is pretty big! It’s like the size of a dorm room and we have plenty of space for all of our clothes! This is going to be hard to describe, but if you look outside of our window it is like an enclosed center of the building that looks up to the sky. This is where all the floors above us hang up their laundry and it seriously looks like a scene from Aladdin!! Our apartment is in an awesome location. Although it is like 35 minutes away from the school, we have a BEAUTIFUL walk to school and we are RIGHT NEXT to Calle Betis and the river Guadalquivir which is where all of the nightlife occurs. We don’t have to go far at all!
This city is awesome. The streets and alleys are so narrow and all of the buildings have these huge wooden doors that look like a dungeon. All of the buildings are BEAUTIFUL. They have so many awesome little shops and tons of flamenco dresses. The streets are extremely confusing because they aren’t just perpendicular to each other. They wind around whatever way they feel like. The street signs are so hard to read because they are on the buildings so it’s impossible to see!!! We spend a lot of time shopping in this area in the center of the city called El Centro. El Centro is awesome because it is kind of like Disney world. There is like loud music playing and random people doing random acts all over. There are people dressed like statues but then they move, there are people playing instruments and doing dances and singing. There are also people with little blankets set up selling jewelry and fans all over the streets. It’s just a fun atmosphere to walk around and enjoy!
I am taking 6 credit hours here. I am taking a class called “Historia del Arte Español” and another one called “Conversación, Gramática y Redaccion.” I have one class from 9:30 to 10:45am, and the other from 11-12:15pm. The days go by so fast! After class I stay at the school until lunchtime to do my homework and Skype with my family and friends because we don’t have the internet at my house. We eat lunch around 3pm and then take a siesta. The siesta is no lie here! Most of the shops are closed from 2-5pm so there is basically nothing else to do but relax and sleep! We eat dinner around 9pm. My actual homework for my grammar class is pretty hard. We move really fast obviously because it’s a summer class, but I don’t remember anything about grammar and also here we have to learn all of the vosotros forms when I have never had to do that in my past 6 years of Spanish classes so that is so confusing. It is also really hard to understand or talk to anyone here because they speak in “el andaluz” which is a very strange dialect of Spanish. They talk with a lisp, so everything with a “c” “s” or “z” has a lisp and sounds like “th” and it’s pretty funny. They also make random things like “y” and “ll” sound like a “j” so that is confusing. They pronounce the “h” in words which I have never heard in all my life, and they also just kind of cut words short and don’t finish them like instead of saying “hasta luego” they will just say “ta luego” and you’re like ok what??? It’s already hard enough trying to understand a different language but it’s insane when they speak it differently then what you have been learning since the beginning of high school!!!!! Not to mention they speak at a million miles per hour. It’s ok; I’m having the time of my life anyway!
We have already been on a lot of trips around Andalucía, which is Southern Spain. Last weekend we went to tour an ancient Roman city called Italica. After that we went to a beach on the Mediterranean called Matalascañas. It was beautiful!!!! Thursday we went to the Catedral de Sevilla for a group tour. It was HUUGE and really pretty. We also saw Christopher Columbus’ tomb. Our teacher Fernando explained how there is controversy over where the body actually is because it had been moved so many times between Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Sevilla. We were told that the conclusion is that most of the body is here in Sevilla. Supposedly his feet or legs or something are missing and are thought to be in the Domincan. Haha. Poor Christopher. After that we climbed to the top of the tower. It was all ramps and each floor was numbered. When we FINALLY got to floor 35 we were at the top!!!! The view was AMAZING!!! You could see the entire city and the bell tower was open and windy and so awesome. Yesterday we went to the city of Córdoba to visit the famous Mezquita. It was soo huge and gorgeous. We also walked around the city and just enjoyed the afternoon. Next weekend a few friends are going to the beach in the city of Cádiz. We are planning a trip to Lagos in Portugal for our 3 day weekend June 5-7. The next weekend we have a four day weekend because of Corpus Christi, and I am going to Rome with a few friends! We have an overnight trip the last weekend with the entire group to the city Granada, which has the famous Alhambra. The next weekend, June 27th, I am coming home!!! This trip is going to go by sooo fast!!!! I’m sure I will enjoy every minute of it! Until next time, Hasta luego!!!
