¡España!

It´s hard to put my thoughts into a blog but I´ll try my best. I guess I´ll start out with my eight hour flight to Spain. I was unable to sleep on the plane which wasn´t good since I was tired for three days straight but on the bright side, I got to see the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean. It was simply amazing! When we got to the Barajas Airport in Madrid we were greeted by Sevillanas. They were wearing bright colored dresses and were handing everyone jars full of olives. It was silly but I soon found out it was women who had been in prior beauty pageants and were trying to give us a ¨taste¨ of their culture. I had no problems with my luggage which I´m thankful for since some of my friends had to wait days for theirs. Also, by friends I mean girls I had met through Facebook believe it or not. It sounds kind of weird but it was very helpful to already know some of them before arriving into a foreign country. We were also greeted by one of the staff members, Aco, who works at CC-CS (the school I´m currently attending). We all rode the bus to our hotel. We had orientation and the following day we were taken to our homes. I took the taxi with my roomate. Her name is Elizabeth Doyle and she is a junior at Standford University. Her and I got along great the first time we met and have been good friends ever since. When we arrived at our home we had to ring the bell and have our Señora come down to open the door. She gave us both kisses on the cheeks and a big hug. She took us up to the second floor of the apartment and showed us around. We found out she lives with her sister Olga and her cat Lola. They call her ¨gordita¨ which I thought was both funny and cute. Also, Olga´s little grandson Alejandro always comes over. He´s adorable and will probably be a heartbreaker when he grows up. He is only 3 years old and he´s already attending school. He is learning both French and English at school and when he´s around us or his mom he only speaks in Spanish. His mom is a professor at the University of Seville and she´s quite a character. All in all, the family is very friendly and loving.

The school I´m currently attending is The Center for Cross-Cultural Study. We had to take an exam before starting classes just to see where everyone was at. I´m not one to brag about my grades but I ended up getting the highest score on the exam. I would have to thank my Spanish professors and well my parents for having me in bilingual classes at a young age. The first three weeks were extremely hectic since we had to have a 4 hour long intensive course and two other classes. It was mostly to get everyone to perfect their Spanish since most of the students didn´t speak a word of Spanish all summer. I was lucky to have practiced it all summer since I speak Spanish at home and also at work. This week is the start of the second half and well I´m overwhelmed with the amount of classes I have to take. I am taking 15 credits and so far I´m loving my classes. I am taking a dance class where I learn the basic moves required to dance what is known as ¨el baile de las sevillanas¨. This dance requires alot of memorizing and well coordination as well. I am also taking Cultural Realities of Spain, Great Works of Spanish Literature, Immigration in Spain and Spanish for Business. The professors are easy to understand since their accent isn´t as thick as I thought it would be. Trying to understand people outside of school is hard even for a native speaker like myself. The Spaniards tend to speak alot faster and they often swallow half of the words. It´s interesting to hear the language and I´m starting to pick up the vosotros form in everyday conversations. I wish I would have learned it a little better in school but I guess now is the best time to really put it to use.

So far, Seville has treated me well. I am learning ALOT about the people and their culture. That in itself is a good topic for a blog. So I´ll leave you with this. I´m sorry I haven´t been on here updating my blogs but with school and traveling it´s kind of hard. I´ll be writing a blog about my trips as soon as I get more time.

Keep an eye out for new blogs...by the way...the picture above is the one I took at a bullfight here in Seville. It was one of the most cultural things I´ve done thus far. I should really get more blogs on here! I´ll try...promise. Until then...have a wonderful day!