Con los españoles

Where do I even begin?  I've been having so much fun getting to know Sevilla and getting to know the Spaniards that I feel like I haven't had time to stop and think or reflect really.  Tomorrow is my birthday so the whole weekend has been a bit of a birthday celebration.  During orientation my guía was Victor, and after orientation Sahar and I started to become friends with him.  I think we ended up getting very lucky because he seems like a very genuine and sincere guy.  He also likes to go out and knows all the places we should go and the places we should avoid.

Me encanta la ciudad

I love this city.  I love my host mom.  I love my friends.  I love the people here.  Right now I'm concentrating on living and loving and learning rather than talking about those things.  When I have time I'll give a real update on life.

Amigos nuevos

Algunos amigos nuevos

I've only been here for five days and I'm already getting my bearings.  I love being able to walk around the city and know where I'm going without using a map.  The people here are beautiful, and they have such an amazing sense of style.  From the youngest children to the oldest abuelas all the women wear dresses during the day, and the men wear polos or button downs.  There are many dark people, but they are morenos, but also lighter skinned, light haired Spaniards too.

Yesterday was our last day of orientation, so after dinner our guías took us out to a really fun shot bar then club.  At the shot bar (shots = chupitos) we met a lot of people including españoles, germans (alemanes) and some other americans on a different program.  As it turns out the germans are actually staying in the same hostel that Scott and I stayed in last weekend.  We got to talking to them and two of their birthdays are this weekend/next week also!  So apparently we might celebrate with them - smaller fiestas saturday, monday, and wednesday, then a huge party next Friday for all of us.  Who knows if we actually will celebrate with them, but we did exchange numbers, and they are here for the semester so its possible!  They were crazy but also really fun.  After the shot bar we went down to a discoteca with our guías (and only about 5 americans which was awesome) and we drank more and danced and talked.  It was fun to start to see more about their culture and meet more people. 

No te olvides tu pasaporte

I have so much to write about but I've had so little time!  I feel like many people use these first three days of orientation to settle in, write home and maybe meet some people.  Orientation is busy, but I have already made lots of friends and am looking forward to meeting more.  Each night we have gone out to the local bars (and last night to a more club-ish bar), had several drinks and socialized.  In the hotel my roommate was a girl named Sahar from outside of San Francisco in Palo Alto.  She is a junior at the University of Oregon.  We instantly hit it off and were even in the same orientation group (con Victor!) so we have been spending a lot of time together.  Turns out we have a lot in common and we will probably become good friends.

Exploraciones

Last night we went out for tapas and sangria, figuring we could start finding restaurants we like, and places we like to drink.  We explored for a while, eventually getting into an area that was too residential and the restaurants were too expensive so we headed back up towards the area near our hostel and found a nice little place where we could share 3 cold tapas, 2 hot tapas, each have a glass of sangria, and then share a fruit desert at the end for only 17 euros.

It's not cheap but sounded like a good deal and we liked the food on the menu.  It seems like there is seafood and eggs in everything and the food is drowned in olive oil, but the portions are so small, and we do so much walking that I don't think it will matter.  After dinner we went back up to la plaza de San Francisco and had another pitcher of sangria at the same place we tried earlier that afternoon - Bar Europa.

Bienvenidos a Sevilla

Traveling is tedious in general, traveling to Spain was beyond the usual annoyance at other passengers and incidents since I was traveling for a total of 24 hours.  It was business as usual in Newark Airport, but in London I was surprised to find my flight was 4 hours earlier than I had written down.  It wasn't a problem though, after I took the 30 minute bus ride to the other terminal we literally just got right on the plane.  There were many more students on that flight and I sat next to a nice guy who is spending his semester in Barcelona.  It seems like everyone wants to talk to each other but no one wants to strike up conversation.  I ended up talking to a whole bunch of students simply because I was willing to be the first to say "hey".  I didn't meet anyone who was going to Seville though, so I was on my own after Madrid.

I changed terminals and found the general area of where my flight would leave from (they don't announce gates until about 30 minutes before the flight leaves) so I made my way to McDonald's and ordered un ensalada césar.  It tasted nothing like a regular ceaser salad but I was starving and at least the chicken tasted like chicken.  I then got up to check if the gate had been announced - it hadn't - so I went to find another place to sit with all my stuff.  After 10 minutes of reading I was so tired that I put my head down on my book and fell asleep.  An hour later I realized I only had 40 minutes until my flight was going to take off, so I got up and found out which gate I needed to go to.  Typical - it was on the entire other side of the terminal, so I walked about a mile all the way to the end where I sat and waited to get on the plane.  On both Spain flights I had the good fortune of having screaming babies within two rows of me.  What a joy.  I tried to sleep through it but didn't have too much luck.