Mis Experiencias en el Extranjero: ¡Bienvenidos a Sevilla!

Hola todas!

I have been living in Sevilla, Spain for roughly 3 days and finally have some time to write my first blog entry! I'd first like to thank all of my family and friends for supporting me and for reading! Hopefully I can update you all quite regularly!

Anyhow, I left Chicago on Friday, September 2. I was much less anxious about traveling alone than I was last year. My semester in Germany really helped me to gain a lot of confidence going out alone into the world. I did have a lot of anxieties though. I was pretty nervous about meeting my host family and new roommate. The other issue I was worrying about was mentally and emotionally separating this experience from my semester in Germany. I literally had the best time of my life in Germany and I met some of my best friends there, so I was just nervous that my experience in Spain would pale in comparison. I know that sounds really elitist or ungrateful, which I'm not trying to be, but I just need to work on enjoying this semester as a separate life experience.

I had 3 flights to get here - Chicago-Philadelphia-Brussels-Sevilla - so that totaled roughly 20 hours of sitting alone in airplanes and airports. Not so much fun, especially considering I got maybe 2 hours of sleep! When I arrived in Sevilla, I had to find my way to my host family's house. I feel that in most programs, the host family would greet you at the airport and drive you home. But not this one. But I had everything planned out! I knew which bus to take, where to get off, and how to walk to the house, so I was excited to independently navigate the city. However, nothing ever goes according to plan when traveling - and I should have known that! The bus I took did not follow the assigned route and did not announce any of the stops. So I was frantically trying to see what street we were on to see where to get off, but wound up at the end of the route at some park. The bus driver directed me to another bus, which I did not want to get on, so luckily I found a metro station right around the corner. The metro took me to a plaza about 10 minutes from my host family's house, so I easily walked there and everything worked out! And I saved like 20€ by not taking a cab!

My host family is really great! I live in a really big, beautiful home with Mayte Casanova and her husband Ángel and their dog Sacha. Their 30 year old daughter Cynthia also kind of lives with us. They're all really nice and Mayte has cooked a lot of delicious Spanish food like tortilla, paella, fish and pork. So I'm definitely enjoying the food a lot! I also have a housemate named Ryan from Maryland who's pretty cool. So I don't really have any complaints about my housing - which is SUCH a relief!

My new house for the next 4 months

My new bed

My desk and the door to my balcony!

View from my balcony

My new dog - Sacha!

Yesterday, I took the metro to my new school Universidad Pablo de Olavide (UPO) to take the placement exam. Luckily I met up with my friends from my school, so it was nice to see some familiar faces! After the exam, we had a tour of the campus, which seems just ok. Then I went into the city center for the first time (I live in a sleepy neighborhood on the outskirts)! I went out exploring with my friend Megan from home and we got some tapas and tried getting cell phones figured out - which is turning into a nightmare for me! We then met up later in the afternoon again to walk around, get drinks and go on a tour of the city.

Guadalquivir River and the "Golden Tower" in downtown Sevilla

TAPAS!

Avenida de la Constitucion - the main avenue in the city center

The Cathedral - it's the largest Gothic cathedral in the world! (I still haven't gone inside)

La Giralda - the minaret/bell tower of the cathedral

This morning, I met up with Megan and her roommate Natalie and Emily, another girl from our school, to go to Plaza de España and Parque Maria Luisa. It was really fun. We rented a 4-person bike and rode around for a half hour. It only took us 15 minutes of strenuous pedaling in the 90° heat to realize that we were pedaling with the brake on. No wonder people who were walking were faster than us haha! But it was a really fun morning in a beautiful part of town!