The Second Day

Saturday January 12, 2008

 

After getting about 12 hours of sleep, which really felt like 20 minutes, we all got up to turn into popsicles in the shower. Interesting fact, when you go to the shower...you should probably remember your towel. Yes, I Emily Beckmann, forgot this little bit of information. So after patting dry with the hand towel, I put my same clothes on from last night and sprinted to our room and got laughed at by my roommates, and rightfully so.  So that just started the day our on the right foot, pretty funny though. We ate cornflakes with warm milk, toast with butter, and fruit for breakfast. All of the food so far has been pretty good. After breakfast, which was at noon today, we went out exploring for the first time. We got lost a couple of times but finally found the plaza in front of the building where we are going to have classes. They we walked around for a bit. At one point I stopped to take a picture in La Plaza de San Francisco and a guy around my age came up to me and asked me to take a picture for him. I did so and then he started talking to me in Spanish and asking where I was from. I came to find out that he was from Wales in the UK and spending three days in Seville alone. I also found out that he spoke English, which made conversing a lot easier! Allison and Sam finally realized that I was no longer taking a picture and came over to meeting my fairly attractive new friend from the UK. After we got done talking we left the plaza and walked around a bit more. We finally ran into a Cyber Café. We all got our own computer for a half hour in order to send out e-mails home which only cost .75  Euros, which I thought was really good. Then…I had an interesting experience. I was just typing away at the computer when another man around his thirties came and sat down at the computer next to me and said,  “Hola.” But indeed “Hola” would not be the only thing that this guy would say to me. He introduced himself, tried kissing me, which I deflected with my cheek, and kept talking to me. Keep in mind this was all in Spanish. He was asking where I was from and such. I was trying to be polite but I also wanted to just check my e-mail and Facebook, my time was ticking down. When I signed onto Facebook he kept pointing to all of my friends and asking what their names were and what they were like. He asked if I was alone, and I made sure that he knew I was with Allison and Sam and here for strictly educational purposes. He asked me on a date and to a party later that night, but I kindly said, “No gracias”- “No thank you.” Then I turned to Allison and said, "I need help with this." She thought that I was talking about the computer, because everything is in Spanish, even the keyboard is different, but in fact I was referencing the creeper next to me! Luckily my time on the computer had run out, we told him it was nice to meet him, paid, and sprinted out into the street laughing hysterically. We headed home for lunch around 3pm. Rocio was at home waiting for us to make lunch. She made pasta with a red sauce and sausage, which was really good. We told her of our travels around the city and of the creeper in the Internet shop and she thought it was really funny. After lunch we headed out into the city again to do some shopping and to pick up the essentials like shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and notebooks. We got these things from Corte Ingles, which is a huge store with everything similar to a Wal-Mart but with more of a department store look and feel. The things are a lot nicer as well. We stopped into a few of the stores on the streets. There are lots of “rebajas”- “rebates” because it is after Christmas. We tried figuring out the pay phones so I could use my phone card to call home, but that was not a success. We found the plaza outside of the building where our classes are going to be held, which is only about a 10-minute walk from our house. After looking around more we were all exhausted and came back and took a nap-“una siesta.” Rocio came in after we had gotten up and made dinner for us. We had fries, a deep fat fried ham and cheese sandwich, salad and chocolate pudding for dessert. Dinner is typically around 9:00pm to 9:30pm, lunch is around 3pm and breakfast at 8:30am. It has been different getting used to all of the different times to eat and sleep. Now we are just hanging out for the night, and we have a tour of the city tomorrow with our class starting at 11am. Finally, here are a few things that I have learned in the first few days of living in Spain.

1. All the people are gorgeous and very well dressed.

2. Cute shoes are a must; even for children…everyone wears heels or cute flats.

3. Watch where you are walking. All the streets are brick and there is glass and dog poop, and no one wants to be the winner to step on either of those things.

4. Things are not cheap- but I did find a Coke machine for 1.3 Euros, so that’s good. But I have not bought one; I think I’m doing good…It has almost been 48 hours!

5. Spaniards like to speak really quickly and they like to cut off the last part of words, and as you can imagine…its not the easiest to understand. The more I speak in Spanish, I’m sure the more comfortable it will become.

6. Take quick showers, its not as warm here as you would think.

7. There is a Burger King down the road!