No news is good news...

Or so my mom always says... However I do apologize for the lack of recent blog updates. I really can't attribute it to anything other than being busy. And, when not busy, lazy. But now feels like an appropriate time to get back in the groove. Lets see, I guess it would be most logical if I just began from where I left off....

The new group of students arrived a few days after I posted the last update and, unfortunately, Sevilla seems to be overflowing with Americans now. CIEE, the program I am with, has 4 sections (each with about 80 students) and then there are at least 5 other similar organizations operating in the city. If you wanted to you could easily spend your life as if you were in America - talking in English, hanging out with Americans, playing football and frisbee, ect. I don't want that though, so I try my best not to do. I have a roomate now (because there weren't enough families to put only one student in every house) and we do our best to only speak spanish with each other, but sometimes the urge to fortify some experience with the lovely language of English is too much to overcome. The first two weeks of this program we had an "intensive session" - the name barely does it justice. I was in Group 1 and my class was "español de negocios". We had class every day for 3 hours and on top of that we had out of class projects/assignments/homework and a 2 page essay almost every night (we ended up writing 8 essays in the two week span). But, in spite (or maybe due to) all of that, I learned un monton. (I seem to have forgotten how to say that in English, but it sounds much better to write that than simply, 'a lot'). The class mainly focused on the economy - terms/definitions/understanding them/how the economy works - things like that. It was really interesting and the professor was great - in fact he was so good that I felt as though I had to have him again for the regular session, which led to a week of the all too common (at least for me) stressful, ever unknowing class changing routine. But I did eventually make it into his class (Comparative and Contrastive Grammer) and its by far the best class I have right now. The professor is hilarious. He likes saying "I vant to die. GivE me anthrax, i vant to die" when somebody answers a question wrong. My favorite quote by him is probably: Thine love is my sweet sweet dictatorship.

Lets seeee what else what else... I haven't done a whole lot of traveling, though I did go back to Bologna, Italy to visit the Italian friends that I met in Switzerland. It was a kind of neat feeling because as I was stepping off of the plane I thought to myself that exactly one month ago to the day I was stepping off of a plane in the same airport with absolutely no idea of what the next 25 days of my life would bring me. This time it was a little bit more comforting knowing that I was going to see friends and wouldn't have to worry about anything, but I have to admit that I felt a little bit proud of myself when I thought that, if I hadn't done what I did, a) I wouldn't be getting of the plane in Bologna and b) I definitely wouldn't be going to visit Italian friends. Anyways, back to the story, I stayed in Bologna for three nights. My friends called me the "bad luck with food guy" because it seemed that everything I managed to order (in Italy, of all places) either wasn't of high quality or simply wasn't what I was expected. I remember one conversation that went something like this:

Me: "I haven't ate in forever and I have this overwhelming craving for some authentic, meaty Italian pizza. With lots of meat. In fact that is my main requirement. Just meat. Pizza with meat. That is all I ask for"
Italian friends: "Ok well here is the carne pizza. It is meat. Only meat. That is probably what you want"
Me: "Well that sounds enticing, but here I see pepperoni. I think I will just go with that. Because we have pepperoni in America and I know what it is and I feel comfortable with it and I know that it would really be a great decision"
Italian friends: "Well thats not very meaty...."
Me: "It may not be as meaty as the carne pizza, but pepperoni should be enough. I really love pepperoni."
Italian friends: "Ok, if you say sooooo"
The point of this story is that 'pepperoni' in Italian means 'peppers'... so my pizza was full of peppers. With not one pepperoni on it. It was one of the biggest let downs of my life. I thought for sure they were joking when they handed me the peppery pizza but, well, they weren't. It was one of the bigger let downs I have ever experience. I was so excited to eat that pizza. And then all my hopes and dreams shattered with a mere glance... And that's just one example of my troubles with food in italy. Moral of the story: Next time I want some high quality, 'authentic' Italian food I will just go America.

Other than my food luck, however, Italy was a blast. We had a little dinner party with about 15 italians and myself and I felt like a superstar with all the attention they were giving me/questions they were asking me.

Aside from Italy there isn't much traveling I have done. I went to the pueblo of my Señora for a weekend and it was a lot of fun - much different from city life. We stayed in her parents house and her whole family (3 sisters) came from across Spain with their children - one big family reunion. Being here for a year has definitely helped me become more integrated with the culture and the family I live with and experiences like this I will never forget. I have also been taking a class of the 'Sevillana' - the famous dance of Sevilla and I'm starting to look more and more like a native Sevillan. I also am doing an internship in Hotel Murillo (if anybody wants to look it up on google or something) in the center of Sevilla. Its a challenging job because they put me out in front of everybody at the reception and I have to talk to the clients, check them in and out and enter all of the data into the computer. I like it though because it forces me to use my Spanish and puts me in an environment where I have no other choice other than to learn.

This week is midterm week so I have 3 exams coming up (all on Thursday) and then my friend Ryan is coming to visit me for a week from the states and my parents come the following week. And anybody else who wants to drop by is more than welcome! - thanks to all those who stayed on me about the blog or I don't know if it would have ever gotten updated. I'll be sure to do it more frequently/give more detailed information from here on out! Hasta pronto!