Seville - Week 1

Hola hola hola! Hoy es un buen día (today is a good day)! I am finally in Sevilla. After 43 days in Europe, I have made it to my final destination...at least for the next 4 months. It feels so good to finally have a place to call home, where I can settle in and just relax. I absolutely love my host family. I have a dad and a mom and they are the cutest thing ever. I have been able to understand them and speak Spanish to them and it is such an amazing feeling. They have told me multiple times that my Spanish is really good (even though I know it isn’t that great). Pero, esta bien. (But, it’s okay.) Because I love the language so much and I am so thrilled to learn. We have our placement test tomorrow and I’m really hoping I can take some of my classes in Spanish. If you would have asked me two months ago whether I wanted Spanish or English classes, I would have never even considered taking my classes in Spanish. But I have never been this excited to learn and, what better way to learn a language than to take a Spanish class in reference to my major? The program I am with, ISA, has a very good support system so I think if I struggled, I could get extra help with them. Also, I thought I was going to die with the heat but it hasn’t been too bad. During the hottest part of the day, which is around 4pm-7pm, we have what we call “siesta time” or “rest time.” That is when I’ll most likely be doing homework, taking a nap, relaxing, etc. I thought I’d hate the schedule here, but I actually love it. I haven’t gotten my class schedule yet, but I did find out I only have Friday classes for the first two weeks, and then I have Fridays free which will be great for traveling.

The place I am staying at is incredible. I have a roommate, Carly, and then we share a bedroom, living room, kitchen, and bathroom. We pretty much have an apartment to ourselves above the actual house. Are we spoiled? Yes, we are. The beds are so comfortable...too comfortable. It’s going to be dangerous. The food has been so good, as well. We have a little patio downstairs and our host mom told us we are having a BBQ this weekend. How cute is she? She’s super affectionate and gives us kisses all the time. I love it. I haven’t had a lot of time to explore the city, but the metro system is super easy to use and there’s a stop really close to our house that takes us downtown. I’m excited to find the supermarket. Tip about Kellie: She loves el supermercados...especially in Europe! Also, fun fact. The third largest catedral (cathedral) is in downtown Seville. We get to take a tour of it on Tuesday. This week is going to be fun. I’m really excited! I have also met a ton of awesome people so I am excited to see where those relationships go.

Oh! I forgot to mention Toledo. So, our program started in Madrid. We stayed in this really nice hotel and I broke a record for how fast I can get from the hotel, to the metro, to centro (downtown), climb five flights of stairs to the ISA office, pick up two suitcases (big ones), go back to the metro while carrying those massive suitcases up two flights. Sometimes there were escalators and sometimes there were not. I did all of this is 35 minutes. I think that should have counted for my workout of the day. It was cute...the ISA workers at the Madrid office told me I should take a taxi, but I was like “Nah, I got this. Line 2, line 7 to the Gregorio Marañón estación (station).” They just kinda stared at me but I think they had a lot more faith that I could take care of myself. And the best part is it only cost me three euros total. Anyway, I had a great night to myself. The next day we toured the city and I did the tour of the old part of Madrid in Spanish and was really proud of all I understood. Then we toured the Prado museum, as well. Then, that night we got a bus and went to Toledo. I fell in love with Toledo. It’s a very old and well preserved city. It has lots of hills but we had an amazing tour guide who showed us a panoramic view of the city and then showed us all around his town. He was so proud of it. It was really hot but we also got el menú del día. I introduced some friends to it. It was so delicious. I am so very glad I did the intensive program in August. Even though it was so hard, I am so much better with my spanish. Everyone thinks I speak amazing Spanish and asks me to do the communicating, but I definitely need to do a lot more work to get to where I want to be. The hotel we stayed at was also super nice. It had a really nice pool and reminded me of a hotel in Vegas. It was located outside the city so we had to take a taxi to the city, but I still liked it a lot. That night, we got dinner at this restaurant and had an awesome waiter who liked to mess with us and was very “chill.” That was a bonding moment for us girls--there were 6 of us there. We were probably at dinner 2-3 hours. There was a light show at the cathedral that took place every half hour until 1:30am and we almost missed the last show. We got there right at 1am. That’s how long we were at dinner… Yeah, well it was a really cool light show! Then after, we went to this discotecha that actually used to be a church. Our group was pretty much the only ones there because it was “early” for Spaniards to be out dancing. But I seriously had an amazing time. Except…neither my roommate nor I woke up the next morning on time. We were supposed to be downstairs with all our stuff at 9am and we definitely woke up at 9:10. We freaked out and packed all our stuff really fast and were afraid the group was going to leave without us, but then we didn’t even leave the hotel until 9:45am so we were fine. And...the worst part is that I had this bad feeling that we left too fast and forgot some stuff, but I didn’t recheck it and so I ended up leaving my retainers and my hair towel. But luckily I called the hotel today and they are going to ship it to me so all is well. But anyway… it was quite the adventure, but all in all, I LOVE Toledo and highly recommend visiting at some point.

Well, that’s all for now. I only had one crazy story this time (thank goodness, right?!). I plan on trying to post every Sunday now that I am here in Seville and I’ll probably have to stick to posting pictures on Facebook because I have so many I want to include! Thanks for reading and I’ll be praying for the US. I’ve been following all the hurricanes and fires and it does not sound too good… please stay safe! Adios amigos.