Update Numero Uno

I am writing this email out of my room at my home stay-in Sevilla. We have Internet, but unfortunately an Ethernet needs to be connected to a router and we only have one of those, so the whole family takes turns using it. Right now it is siesta time, so with everyone else asleep I decided to take my turn. The house I’m in is actually pretty nice. It has two stories and a roof that we can sit on as well. I’m located on the second story across from my host brother and – the padres live below us. Its hard to believe that I’ve already been here for 6 days! At times it like I just got here, but then at other times it feels as though I’ve been here for 4 months already. Sevilla is a beautiful city full of narrow, winding streets where cars somehow manage to get up to 60 km/hr and people are constantly avoiding collisions with vendors, motorcylcists and other walkers. It is definitely no place to walk around reading a book (or map for that matter) as you could actually be risking your life and, not to mention, the views and architecture are too unique to pass up. The most famous of the buildings in Sevilla is the Gothic Cathedral. It is absolutely massive and is located very near to the center of the city. I haven’t had a chance to go in it yet, but we are taking a field trip there tomorrow. Over the weekend our group took a little trip to Italica – an ancient Roman city overlooking Sevilla. The amphitheater is still standing and gives one a very good idea of how it must have been to be a spectator at one of the events. There is a large hole in the middle that the Romans would fill with water and then stage a sea battle – only with much smaller ships. When this was not in use they would cover it with wood and sand – much like hockey rinks can change into basketball courts in a matter of hours. Many of the homes retain their walls and tiles and their bathing places look like they could be used today if only there were water in them – and we were all wishing that there was with the average temperature here above 100 degrees.

Today we started something known as the “Intensive Language Program”. It consists o

f two weeks of 3-4 hour classes in which we are just drilled with Spanish grammer/vocabulary/norms and customs. I was placed in the

Advanced section so most of what I will be learning should be new to me. Combine this with the fact that my family speaks absolutely no English and learning Spanis

h should become a bit easier – in part because it is now a necessity, it counts for more than just a grade in a class. I definitely feel as though I have improved since I have arrived here. Many of the words and phrases you just pick up on without even trying because they are used so regularly. I don’t understand a lot of what my family talks about (on top of speaking incredibly fast they have a very strong Spanish accent), but I do my best to make a comment every now andthen… To get into downtown Sevilla and the CIEE study center all I have to do is walk a couple of blocks to a brand new metro, stay on that for 5 or so minutes and then walk another 10 minutes into the center of the city. One of my favorite parts of this new experience is exploring and becoming familiar with the city. At first it seems impossible, but today I went in without a map for the first time and although it added about 20 minutes to my journey I eventually found my destination. It’s definitely not the worst of cities to get lost in because you want to see as much as possible anyways.

Last night before I went to sleep my host dad came in and showed me how to turn the air conditioner down because the night before I apparently had it up a little bit loud. I understood about half of what he was showing me/doing, but when I went to bed I did something wrong because on a number of occasions throughout the night I woke up perspiring, soaking and with my pillow drenched in sweat. In the morning my dad came in and looked at the unit and bursted out laughing. I looked at him in confusion because he kept repeating “Sauna, sauna, sauna!” and then it dawned on me that instead of turning on the air conditioning last night I had turned on the heater – adding to the 90 degrees temperature! I don’t know how I survive

d, much less how I was able to get any sleep, but one thing I have learned so far is that, with a language barrier like this, you have to experience a lot of these little mishaps and such for yourself before you actually understand what to do.

P.S.One of the smaller differences that I have noticed over here is that none of the bathrooms (even the public, single ones) have locks or paper towels - the second of whi

ch is probably much better for the environment...