Week 2

Monday

                Not much excitement happened Monday. I had a somewhat unpleasant breakfast of cornflakes and warm milk, I definitely prefer cold milk, but Concepción didn’t really give me an option and just set a cup of hot milk in front of me for my cereal. I successfully managed to eat it all, but needless to say, I would never recommend it.  Spaniards seem to like their milk warm, somewhat strange, but I will try to be open minded about it.

                Classes went fairly well, however the three other students from the US who had been with us last week left to attend classes at Seville’s University, so for the last class of the afternoon it was only Paige, me and a new student from Brazil, which was a smaller class than I’d prefer. I wouldn’t mind it being so small if it weren’t for the fact that our professor, Elena, is the hardest to understand and now we are expected to speak even more with less participants. Oh well, as much as I don’t like it, I know it is good for me.

                After class Paige and I went to el Cortes Inglés because whenever we need something that is the place to go since it is the closest thing to a Walmart. After picking up a few grocery items and returning home, I decided to head back out for a bit and browse around some of the shops on my street and the streets adjoining it. One street away from me is another building of el Cortes Inglés which has specifically clothes and jewelry and such, so I meandered through there for a while and ended up buying a nice skirt that was only 5.99€. I visited a few other stores without buying anything and finally headed back. In the evening I finished my homework and had a supper of spaghetti, which had a white sauce with ham pieces in it and some other stuff that I wasn’t quite sure of, but nevertheless it tasted pretty good.

Tuesday

Paige and I decided to return to the Plaza de España Tuesday to get some better pictures in the daylight. It is about a twenty minute walk or so from our school, but definitely worth it. I’m proud to say that we were able to get ourselves there and back without looking at a map once, and since the first time was in the evening and with a group of people to follow, I think this was quite an accomplishment. Once there, we walked around for a while just taking pictures and enjoying the scenery. After, since it was still fairly early, we decided to go see the Museum of Popular Customs which basically was full of exhibits of Spain’s past. It was fairly interesting and as students in Sevilla we were allowed to enter for free, however, of the three floors of the museum only one was currently open to the public so we didn’t get to see that much.

On the way back we passed this one guy that had painted himself to resemble a statue and was somehow standing in the air a foot or so above the ground. I have no idea how he did it exactly, but it was certainly intriguing. We also encountered a protest of some sort that had drawn a huge crowd that kept chanting things and waving signs that had something to do with the disappearance of a girl named Marta, but I couldn’t figure out what exactly they were protesting. It was so packed in the street, that Paige and I became squished in between several people and it was a slow process to finally get out of the crowd.

Once back at home, I visited with Concepción for a while and we watched a video of her son’s wedding. Her son and daughter-in-law were married in a super gorgeous church that Paige and I visited Friday, called the Basilica of the Macarena, which has a huge and beautiful statue of Mary with teardrops on her face. After that I worked on my homework and had supper which consisted of a green soup, that I was told had potatoes and something else in it, but I didn’t recognize the name of the other main ingredient. It had a strange flavor, but I was able to eat it all at least. I also had some sort of chicken that was a little on the chewy side, but very flavorful. Overall, it wasn’t a bad food experience.

Wednesday

                Well Wednesday was another day of cereal and warm milk. Maybe the more I eat it the more I’ll like it and by the time I return to the U.S. I’ll actually prefer it that way. Maybe. Classes went more smoothly than Tuesday because I felt like I was better able to understand everything, but I have my first test Friday, so I’ll know if I’ve improved or not then.

                I didn’t do much of anything exciting after class. Paige and I went to a phone store called Orange to see if they had any international phones, but they didn’t. They do have fairly affordable phones that work only in Spain, but nothing that will work for when we are traveling in other countries of Europe afterwards. While I do have an international phone, I don’t want to use it much because it costs ninety-nine cents per minute for me to make calls with. Receiving calls is about fifty cents per minute, which isn’t a whole lot better. So I’ll need to keep looking into my options regarding a phone since nothing was resolved Wednesday. 

                For supper I had some sort of dish composed of large peas and pieces of meat that was quite flavorful and also these two sausage link looking things that Concepción said was chicken but didn’t look or taste like it so I was kind of confused, but it wasn’t bad. Then we watched some part of a series called la fuga (the escape) which was a little hard to follow but I kind of knew what was going on.

Thursday

                After classes Thursday, I went with a group from my school to see the Palace of the Countess Lebrija which is full of Arabic tiles and has collections of pottery from the Romans, early Americans and others. It is an impressive and very old palace that from the outside looks like any other building, but inside is quite distinct and is full of interesting statues.

                Once the tour was over, Paige and I went in search of a restaurant that we had been told had a one euro menu. We found it without too much difficulty and discovered that it actually is really close to where we walk to school. I believe it’s called Cerveceria 100 Montaditos and all of the food offered is affordable, which is nice to find in a city full of high prices. We both ordered chocolate con leche, which translates to milk chocolate. I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d be getting, but seeing chocolate in the name seemed encouraging. It turned out to be a small sandwich consisting of bread with melted chocolate in the middle and was definitely worth the euro. It also came with potato chips on the side as an added bonus. I’ve decided that it’s definitely a place that I will be visiting again soon.

                Once back at my house, I delved into studying because my first test of the year is Friday. We’ve covered the material a lot in class, so I feel like I’m prepared, hopefully. For supper we had a yummy meal of meatballs in some sort of sauce and French fries. There was also a plate with slices of meat but before we began to eat, Cala (the dog), snuck into the room and began eating some of the meat, so I didn’t have much of an appetite for it after that.

                On Saturday I’m going on an excursion with CLIC to the city Córdoba and will be seeing the famous Mosque/Cathedral there as well as other places of interest. So I will attempt to post more on Monday with details on my trip. Until then, Adios.