Rest of weekend / Starting school

So after my lazy Sunday a few days ago Kelsey and I made a huge bowl of pasta with shrimp and red peppers and green beans. It was amazing and we ate the whole thing and both enjoyed that full feeling that we had both been missing. The next morning we had our friends Jodi and Ally over for a big homestyle breakfast. We cooked pancakes from scratch, scrabbled eggs and we fried some bacon (didn't burn it this time.) After our big breakfast we had tons of energy to explore the city. 

                        

We started off with the Torre del Oro, or the Tower of Gold. It is a stone tower that is situated on the Guadalqivir River and was the strong point for a defensive wall that guarded the city. The tower is now a maritime museum where you can learn about it's history and how it was beneficial to the city. I paid the 1,50 euros to rent an audio guide and listened to everything about the tower. It has a great history and really means a lot to the city of Sevilla. Also the view overlooking the river is great.

                     

We also went back to the Real Alcazar which was a fortress/palace back in the day. It boasts the most amazing tapestries, mosaics, paintings and gardens in all of Sevilla. We spent most of our time in the gardens because Kelsey made a few friends who wanted us to stick around and keep feeding them. 

                  

That night we went to a club with a bunch of people that were going to be studying with us at Universidad Pablo de Olavide and we had a great time. The international party was held by a group called Discover Sevilla, which helps study abroad students get acclimated to the city and meet some new friends. 

On Tuesday we had our orientation at the school where more than 350 other international students gathered. We received our spanish level placement exam grades, class schedules and we listened to a presentation about the school and the experience we are about to have here. I placed in the Advanced 1 level for my Spanish courses and will be taking a conversation class, a reading/writing class and a history/culture class (all 3 are taught in Spanish.) I am also taking an International marketing class in English. The teacher for my marketing class seems like a great guy, I know I'll learn a lot from him. 

Everything has been great here in Sevilla and now that school is starting I'm meeting new friends, hearing all types of different stories and learning so much about different countries and cultures. There have been a few bumps in the road where the language barrier has slowed me down but that is why I'm studying here. I'll do another update some time this weekend. Adios

Relaxing weekend

            Today Kelsey and I have just been relaxing around the city. We brought our computers with us to a great outside café and we are enjoying the view. While I’ve got some down time I thought I would catch everybody up with what happened this weekend. I’ve got some great pictures to go along with this post and I hope you enjoy them.

            After about 15 days in this country (it seems like we’ve been here longer than that) I’ve started to really miss something about America and especially my home: the feeling of being full. Big portions are definitely a foreign thing here in Spain and my body doesn’t like that too much. Kelsey and I find ourselves stopping for snacks or other small tapas every few hours. I will just have to learn to adapt to this new way of dieting, so we’ll see how that goes.

            The third day that Kelsey and I were here in Seville we visited the Real Alcazar, which is a palace with beautiful gardens located in the city center near the cathedral. Kelsey heard of this way to take pictures so you can form your name with them after you line them up next to each other. I tried my hand at it while we toured the palace and gardens.

                                              

I recently finished reading “The Lost City of Z,” a book that I purchased in the Chicago airport before we got on our flight to Madrid. I have always thought of myself as an adventurous person but the protagonist in this story has me beat by a long shot.  The story is about an explorer who is hired by the Brazilian government to navigate and chart the huge expanses of the Amazon rainforest. While he goes on these impossible missions he becomes obsessed with the theory that there is a forgotten city (similar to the stories of El Dorado) in the vastness of the jungle. He spends his whole life searching for this lost city but never returns from his last expedition. Now I’m not saying that I’m going to get lost in Spain and never come back, but I have discovered some similarities between myself and this explorer: I don’t know the area that I am living in, I have to deal with the native people (luckily they aren’t armed with spears and poison blow darts), and I have to learn a foreign language. I feel like I am here to fill in the blank spots of my mind and learn about the different cultures of the world, much like the navigator helped chart the blank spots in the Amazon. (Dad, you would love this book)

          

            Yesterday we walked around the city with a few friends and got tapas at a big plaza and enjoyed ourselves talking about where we were from, why we chose to study in Seville and what we like best about the city. After our long lunch break we kept walking and found an amazing stucture known as Las Setas. This huge abstract piece is supposed to look like mushrooms and claims to be the largest wooden structure in the world. We paid the 1,20 euros and took the elevator up to the top where there is a very cool café and pathway that goes all around the outer part of the structure. Though not as tall as the Cathedral in Seville the view from Las Setas is one of the best we’ve seen so far.

                       

Probably the biggest futbol game of the season for the city of Seville just took place last night. It featured the Seville team and Real Betis (another Sevillian team.) The rivalry between these two teams has always excited fans in Seville and futbol fans around the world. My friends and I went to the same bar that we watched last weeks big futbol game, but we made sure to get there early so we could get a table and some food. It was a great first half with each team scoring a goal but after halftime it was uneventful and the game ended in a tie. There were lots of local fans sporting either their green for Betis, or red for Seville. Kelsey decided she liked Seville better because their red uniforms looked better than the green ones that Betis had. I’d say that a pretty good way to pick which soccer team is better.

                        

This morning Kelsey and I slept until 11 and decided to cook an American breakfast: scrambled eggs, bacon, orange juice and toast. Even though I burned a bit of the bacon we still enjoyed our nice breakfast while watching some Spanish news shows. We then packed some sandwiches and made our way to the Guadalquivir River for a nice lunch in the sun. We picked out a great spot in the grass and enjoyed our food while we discussed what we would do today. 

As we were sitting there the Policia came in on two motorcycles and stopped in front of some people a little ways down. It looked like they were interrogating them for a while and we snapped a picture.

             

         After lunch I headed back up the river and stopped at a great outside café to get out my computer and type out this blog. 

Its been a great day with Kelsey but we still haven’t figured out what to do tonight. I guess that will be covered in my next blog post. Stay tuned. Adios

2 weeks down

Big update tonight. Lots to talk about. So here we go.

    Last week a few classmates, Kelsey and I booked a trip in Dublin, Ireland for the St. Patrick’s Day weekend in March. We’ll fly from Seville to London where we start our trip. We’ll be traveling in huge green buses and enjoy the countryside while we make our way towards Dublin. There we will learn all about the history of the celebrations, visit a Guinness factory and join the party that night. Here’s the link to our St. Paddy’s day itinerary where you can see exactly what we’ll be doing for the 3 day trip. https://www.paddywagontours.com/tourView.php?id=236&cat=21

      Next up is the story of me getting a haircut here in Seville. Kelsey says she wants to avoid cutting her hair over here because her style is very particular and she wants to be able to communicate every detail of what she wants. Since I just went in for a buzz cut I figured I could handle it. I walked in and was instantly bombarded with the standard , Digame (pronounced Dee-gah-may) which is the command to “tell me” in Spanish. It’s normal for store owners and waiters to skip the formalities and get right to what they need to know. Not knowing the standard protocol of getting a haircut over here I stumbled through telling the woman that “I needed all of my hairs cut the same length, but very short.” She understood what I meant and told me to wait a minute while she finished up with another customer. My turn came soon enough and I sat down, told her what length I wanted and sat back and tried to make some small talk. Everything ended up going smoothly and I won’t have to worry about cutting my hair again for maybe another 2 months. Kelsey on the other hand might look like Repunzel by the time we get back to the states.

Last night there was a huge fútbol match with Madrid playing Barcelona. We went to a bar in the downtown area and watched the game with the locals as they cheered on they’re favorite players.

                                          

Some people in the bar were Barcelona fans while others rooted for Madrid. Some of the exchanges between these fans were very hilarious to eavesdrop on. Anyways we stayed for the whole game and everyone left the bar entertained. We said goodnight to our friends and went back home to finish up some homework.

Today after school Kelsey and I went to the historic center of Seville looking for some lunch. We were walking along a street wondering what to eat when the tempting smell of grease, cheese, and pepperoni filled our noses. We found pizza. Good pizza. The place is called “Slice of New York City” and its run by a guy named James who is actually from New York. We walked in and he instantly knew we were American and started talking to us in English (we get that a lot). We ordered our pizza and garlic knots (yeah Parker they’ve got garlic knots here too) and sat at a table and talked with James while he cooked more fresh pizza. We learned his life story and he told us all about his life in New York, meeting his Spanish wife while he was a DJ, moving to Spain, raising his child and opening his restaurant. He said the only reason he opened the place was because “these people don’t know what real pizza is.”

I am so glad that everyone is enjoying this blog and all the stories and pictures. My Spanish review course ends tomorrow and the real semester for school starts on the 24^th. My classmates and I will enjoy our weekend and explore more of this amazing city. I hope to capture some great pictures and have some more funny stories to tell. Adios, keep in touch.     

The Spanish night life

   After finishing our first week of the spanish review course most of my classmates, Kelsey and I found out what the "night life" is like here in Seville. First of all you should know that when I say "night life" I say it because the people here stay out until the morning. The metro even caters to the crazy schedule that Sevillian party goers have created. The metro runs all day then stops at 2am (thats when everyone gets to the center of the city where the parties are) then the metro starts again at 6am (when everyone is heading back home.) I had heard that people stay out late over here but I didn't actually believe it until I was right in the middle of it.
  The group that we went out with includes people from France, Germany, Australia and the U.S. We are all in the same intensive spanish course right now and have all become great friends. We hit the streets running and had a great night out in Seville.

David and I played a short game of Foosball in the bar against some spanish speaking students. Every time we scored a point we yelled "GOOOOOOAAAALLL!!!" like the announcers for spanish soccer games.

It was a great weekend and I'm glad we could all become friends and enjoy the city together. Now Kelsey and I are getting ready for our second week of school. I hope to have more great stories and pictures to show very soon. Kelsey and I are also researching a trip to Dublin, Ireland for  St. Patricks day in March. Hopefully we can find some good deals on flights or bus rides to get there and back. Another update to come soon, adios!

One week down

Quick update for everyone back in the States: I just finished the first week of the intensive Spanish course at the university here in Sevilla, Kelsey and I got some more food in our fridge and plan on making either chorizo with red peppers or shrimp with pasta tonight, we went to Vodafone and bought an internet modem that plugs into the USB port of our computers and gives us internet wherever we go; including our apartment. School has been great and I’ve been learning a lot but I think I learn the most about the language when I interact with people in the city, either at a restaurant or a store. Anyways I know this small paragraph is no way to show that Kelsey and I are having a great time over here but you’ll have to trust me. I’m thinking about taking my camera out to the places we see this weekend, stay tuned for those pictures. Adios. 

Back to school

So yesterday was the first day of my spanish review course before the actual school semester starts later in the month. Kelsey and I got got to school at 9:00 am, took our placement tests and took a tour of the school as the instructors were grading our tests. We both were placed in the intermediate II class and met our teacher that afternoon. Our teacher is great and understands the needs of all 12 of us in the class even though we are not all at the exact same level of understanding.

     
We also checked out the Catedral de Sevilla one afternoon and went up in the bell tower. It has a great view where you can see all around the city.

 We also went to the royal gardens. Kelsey found a great place for a photo op. 

    Everything is going great with school and the apartment. We are working on getting internet at the apartment but we stocked our fridge with some essentials. Now we don't have to get snacks out of the vending machines for lunch at school anymore. Kelsey and I are really adapting to the city very quickly and learning some tricks as we go. Eating in restaurants is still a very difficult thing to get my head around. I don't really know what's on the menus but I haven't been disappointed yet. 

    We're about to go grab some food and drinks with some friends from school that we've made. Hopefully I'll have some interesting stories to tell soon. Adios

Parks, sangria and paella

      What we were planning to do today was wake up, grab some breakfast, go check out a cathedral in the city center and do some more exploring of Sevilla. What ended up happening was we slept until 3 again because we didn't set an alarm to wake up this morning.. So we hopped out of bed, went to Starbucks for a quick breakfast and tried to get the cathedral before it closed. By the time we got to the ticket booth, there were only 30 minutes left before it closed and we knew that wasn't enough time to see everything we wanted.
        So we headed back towards our apartment and explored some parks in a direction we haven't been  yet. These parks are everywhere, you just have to walk around and find them. After walking for a bit and taking in the views Kelsey had a great observation, "why don't we have things like these ornate buildings and beautiful parks in the States? They are all over the place over here and all we have to do is go right out the front door to see it" It's great seeing all of these things and we keep thinking to ourselves, "We live here now!"

       
   
   So after a little walking we decided we would get dinner at a place we saw last night. It is called El Flamenquito and we reserved our table for 9pm, just in time for the show to start. The restaurant has a live flamenco show every night and seats about 50 people in front of a small stage. We ordered sangria with our paella and enjoyed the dancing and singing as we waited on our food. It was an amazing show and our waiter ended up being the dance partner of the woman flamenco dancer.

I meant to take a picture of the paella before we ate it but we were really hungry. 

  Today was great and hopefully we'll be able to go back to the cathedral tomorrow and spend some time there. It looks amazing and I'll be sure to take some pictures. Thanks for reading and make sure to check out Kelsey's blog too.    http://kelseymclean-abraodabroad.blogspot.com/

First full day in Sevilla

      Hola a todos!    Sorry for the length of this post but its from 2 days of stories and pictures. If you don't want to read all of it then just scroll through and look at the pictures. If they look interesting you can read the story behind them. It just feels really good to get everything out and keep track of all the great stuff that's happening every day. Anyways, here it goes...

       Kelsey and I arrived in Sevilla yesterday with no problems with flights or luggage or anything. We bought "pay as you go" phones and changed some of our american dollars into euros. Then we met the landlord at our apartment and settled the contract, figured how to work everything in the apartment and then we were on our own. A big issue to start out with was figuring out how to get the hot water for a shower. There is a gas tank connected to the water heater and we have to switch it on every time we want to take a hot shower. (I know, I know #firstworldproblems) But it was difficult learning the instructions for our appliances from a spanish landlord.
        After learning all about our place and unpacking a bit we thought we'd grab something to drink and relax at a little shop. Kelsey ordered a hot chocolate or "chocolaté caliente" as she called it. After a strange look from the waiter he went behind the bar and we talked for a bit. He came back with a cup full of steaming chocolate. It tasted like a cup full of Hershey's chocolate syrup that was put in the microwave and was delicious; but it was not what we really wanted. Note to self: American words do not always directly translate to spanish.

After we got back from the cafe, Kelsey and I collapsed from exhaustion from the long day of traveling and slept for 14 hours. We slept until 3pm and finally brought ourselves to get some lunch. We split an empenada and some chorizo (spicy sausage) with some french fries. While we ate we decided what we were going to do today. Since the market was closed for the weekend we decided to walk around the city and see what was around us.  This is a park that is a block away from our apartment

                      Monument praising Christopher Columbus for his discovery of America

This is La Plaza de España. Kelsey and I rented a row boat for 5 euro and had 35 minutes to row around the plaza and take some pictures. We made it back to the ticket office with 5 minutes to spare, which saved us from having to pay another 5 euros. In the pictures we look like we know what we're doing but with 15 other inexperienced rowers in the water trying to take pictures at the same time, things can get pretty hectic. 

      We've got a few more pictures from today that you can see on my Facebook page. It's a lot easier to upload them there. If I find some time I'll go back and add the rest from today on here.

      To wrap this post up, we had a great trip over with very few problems. Today we saw a little bit of the city and had a great time. One thing I did learn today about the two of us is that we are VERY American. We are both blonde and have blue eyes, I am very tall compared to most of the men here and no matter how good we think our Spanish is, it's obvious we are not from this country. So that's all for now, it's 2am over here and the caffeine from the coffee I had this evening after dinner is wearing off. Hope you enjoyed these few stories and pictures. More to come soon (when I can get internet again).
              Adios!