Getting to know the city

Something ironic that happened the other day- I was walking to class and had my i-pod on shuffle, and "I'm Proud to be an American" came on. My initial reaction was to quickly look around to see if everyone was looking at me, but then realized that it was impossible for them to hear it. I let out a chuckle (yes, out loud) and continued on my way to class and listened to the whole song.

Moving on... before I talk about things that have happened, here's a quick 30-second summary of Sevilla that I have learned so far:

1. The city is extremely clean but sometimes smells weird (although I can't smell anything right now cause I have a cold)
   
2. Pretty much no one speaks English which I thought was kinda surprising
   
3. We walk everywhere and my feet are killing me (especially my right heel...it might actually be a problem haha) but its keeping me skinny I suppose, and saves money
4. Sevillans?...Sevillanos?...People from Sevilla "live in the streets," which means they don't spend much time in their homes. You meet friends in the streets, you hang out in the streets, you drink in (some of) the streets, etc. There's also a lot of homeless people who literally do live in the streets- and some of them have legitimately cool "homes" made out of cardboard boxes, with tape and rope and everything
   
5. They are crazy about saving electricity, recycling and everything else “green”
   
6. A single bottled water can be more expensive than a whole bottle of still-good-tasting wine
7. There is one beer (Cruzcampo) that seems to have a monopoly in Sevilla, so if you ask for a cerveza (beer) that’s the beer you will get, unless you ask for another one by name, but only at certain places
   
8. Spaniards don’t smile and don't seem to be very friendly, and there seems to be no such thing as customer service (not to sound like a spoiled American...)
   
9. I'm pretty sure sevilla must have the word record for smallest streets and sidewalks
10. More to come...
    

Alright, so lot has happened since I last wrote- we finished our first week of our intensive spanish class (a 2 week session teaching us spanish business lingo, grammar, etc. before we start regular classes next week) and 4 of my friends from IU who are studying in Barcelona came to visit.

I'll start with my Spanish class- as I said, the first week is over and it went by VERY fast, which makes me nervous about the rest of the semester. We were broken up into 6 levels based on a placement test and an interview, and I am in group 3, which is obviously right in the middle. Our professor is Miguel and he is hilarious and a good professor too. He will also tell you the answers during exams if you ask him. He speaks English pretty well, but he has a British accent which we all find pretty funny. (much like how we have people from mexico teach us spanish in the U.S., they have British people teach them English here). And for those of you from Chicagoland, he actually lived in Des Plaines for a little before moving back to Spain. Weird, right?

Anyway, the course is pretty intense and we get a good amount of homework, which is annoying because I don't want to be stuck in my room doing homework for hours while I'm in Spain. I know I have 4 months here, but it's already been almost 2 weeks and at this rate, I'm nervous that I wont be able to do everything that I'd like to do/see, especially with my internship (discussed later). Therefore, I'm going to do my best to plan out as much as I can (something that I'm not used to doing) so that I can make the most out of being here.

Moving on again- as I also said before, 4 of my friends from IU came to visit Sevilla this weekend. They are all studying together in Barcelona and of course had to make the trip out to Sevilla (much like I will need to make the trip out to Barcelona). I still was not extremely familiar with the city, so during the day we just kinda walked around the city aimlessly, usually not really knowing where we were headed. And the one time that I thought I knew were we were going, we were supposed to go to Plaza Espanola which everyone had told me is amazing and beautiful and much more, but when we got there, we walked through it and I was pretty disappointed... However, as you could have maybe guessed, it wasn't the right plaza and I have no idea what it was that we walked through. Oops. That being said, it was nice to walk through the city because I hadn't walked through it that often before then. I can now say that I know how to get around much of the city, which is kinda cool.

At night we went out and had a pretty good time. The program is still just beginning, so we still haven't broken into our "groups of friends" yet, so making plans that include over 20 people, who are meeting with 20 more, who are waiting to hear from 20 others, can be a challenge. I'm looking forward to when we will go out in smaller groups and not look as American. But anyway, after having a few issues and delays with plans, we finally ended up going to an Irish pub called O'Neils to pregame with a couple girls before we headed to the other side of town. We had a few drinks, met a few other Americans, and almost got into a dance off with 6 spanish guys who were no older than 17. We then headed to a place called Calle Betiz (but it really should be called Calle "Cheap Drinks and Lots of Americans"), which is a street along the river in town with a few bars. We went to a bar called Big Ben, then walked to a discoteca called Budha... I left the club at around 5am and there was still a line of people trying to get in. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun and def one of the best nights since I've been here so far. And after a really good dinner at a random bar in the city (I had something called flamenquin which was cheese and mushrooms wrapped in ham and then deep fried... it was very good and obviously very healthy), we did pretty much the same thing the next night.

So yea, it was a fun weekend and I hope my friends feel the same way. I'm still living with my Senora, who has now virtually refolded and organized all of my clothes for me in my dresser and taught me how to "properly" make a bed after walking into my room, looking at how I made the bed, and then letting out a loud sigh. The food she makes me is pretty good- I've had a few familiar meals, like steak and spaghetti, but also a lot of fish and meat dishes that I've never had before. Communication has been getting better, with a few mishaps including when apparently I told her I ate dinner when I really didn't. She kinda freaked when she realized I didn't eat yet and called two of her friends to tell them the story. But besides that, communication has been going pretty well as of late.

A few other random things: I got placed into an internship through my program! It wasn't my first choice (we interviewed with a bunch of companies in town, and afterwards we ranked them and they ranked all of us, and then we were matched), but I'm still pretty happy as of now because the lady I interviewed with was very nice and easy to understand. The company is IELE which is a school that teaches Spanish to foreign students. I'll be doing a lot of administrative things as well as some marketing things, but I also know my spanish will improve because I will be using it a lot, so if nothing else I'm looking forward to that. One of the only downsides is that it takes up a lot of time (like 10-12 hrs a week).

Alright, I need to get to my homework. Thanks for reading.

Until next time,
Ross