Anxious little me had a hard time falling asleep last night before my first day of classes because of a few things. I was worried about getting to class on time, and making friends. But to my great relief the kids in the 2 week intensive Spanish program were really open and friendly, which was great. I met a lot of kids from Appalachian State as well as Presbyterian. They are all southern kids and are just sweethearts. I also have some people in my program from France, Germany and England. I have got to tell ya, it is bizarre to hear them speak Spanish with French / German accents.
So to start the day, I took a class to see what level of Spanish I am at in order to placed into a class for my 2 week intensive Spanish program. I was placed into the intermediate level, which I feel is just perfect for me – this way I can get a review of my verbs. Another interesting thing we did in class today was that there are 2 French students 2 German, 2 British and 5 American and we had discussions on stereotypes. It was interesting to hear about what we thought were stereotypes of one culture and what other cultures thought were our stereotypes. It was a great discussion. I also love my intermediate level Spanish teacher, she is hilarious and warm. She is easy to understand and has this fun energy that we all feed off of in class. I’m looking forward to more classes.
We also had a tour of the campus. It was a little overwhelming because 9,000 students attend the university whereas St. Norbert College is only 2300 or so. But it has palm trees and there are many places to eat and grab a coffee! Its insane. I think there are 4 places or so on campus to grab a bite to eat. There is one particular place where you can order pizzas to go and eat and enjoy them in the sun. Also, the university also offers dancing lessons, which I think would be a great time…and embarrassing ha. And apparently there is a place to play ping-pong, and this building was built for a world champion ping pong player. Even the air conditioning system is special because it doesn’t interfere with play. How random to have this on their campus. Oh and our campus is infested with cats. Seriously, I wonder if they have their own classes, haha. I was leaving my intermediate class and all of the sudden I look over and there is a cat just hanging out on the moped. Simply hilarious.
Okay but by the end of classes today, I was STARVING. I ate breakfast at 8:30 or so in the morning and then we get out of class at 2:30 or so and then you finally have lunch at 3. Thankfully I had a snack, but I will need to force my body to adjust to the Spanish lunch schedule. I mean at least (in my opinion) that the Spanish have it correct, I like the fact that lunch is the most important meal of the day and then afterwards you can take a nap. Now this is perfection.
After class I made plans with new friends from Appalachian State, Maddy and Kristine, to go into the center of Sevilla. We went around 5 pm or so and Kristine and I took a 15-20 minute metro ride into the center of Sevilla. The metro is very clean, efficient, yet there are not a lot of passenger cars per train, so they can get crowded. Yet, they kick butt. So Kristine and I planned to meet Maddy praying that we would find her by this metro and bus stop. After 2 minutes or so we found her and we were really relieved that it worked – because at this point we did not have cell phones and if all else failed we would have had some issues……but thankfully it didn’t J We started walking through a park when we saw about 8 other kids from our program. It was really crazy to see them as well because we did not plan to meet up with them. However, after a few minutes we all decided that it would be a good idea to have cell phones. And that is what we did, we went on a cell phone hunt, and ding ding ding ding we were winners. We are all now proud customers of Movistar. And let me tell you, that is no translation, that is the company’s name. Needless to say I now feel like a “Movistar,” and life is perfect, haha. That pretty much took most of our time while in downtown, but it was definitely worth it. WE did see parts of the city and it is beautiful and I cannot wait to explore more of it. It is truly a European jem.
A few interesting notes:
My padres sleep in different rooms, I’m not sure if this is custom or normal, but I think its interesting nonetheless.
Their son, Guillermo is still here…and this is the second time I’ve seen him and I’ve been here for about 3 days…. Eh whatever? Oh and I found out that Guilllermo is a helicopter pilot for the army, which is really cool. AND from the few glimpses of him I got this evening he has beautiful arms hahaha. But seriously.
The population of Sevilla is about 1 million, I did not realize how big it was.
Southern kids have pretty accents and they are nice. Thankgoodness. Oh and I had a conversation with them explaining how Wisconsin feels like it’s a southern state with the similar hunting and fishing lifestyle. AND I also impressed them with my Wisconsin accent --- hahahahaha.
If I want to talk to any French kids, I must communicate with them in Spanish because they do not know English.
Did I mention its 60 degrees here? Hasta Luego Winter! Woot.
Okay that’s all for now. Love and miss everyone.
Besos y Salude
Erica
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