My Address in Spain

Here is my house address in Seville if you want to send letters, packages or whatnot!

Emily Beckmann

c/Estrellita Castro

n°8 piso 1°

Seville, Spain

Europe 41002

The Forth Day

Monday January 14, 2008

 

Today we woke up and hurried to meet the rest of the classmates that live up near us to walk to class…for the first day of classes. We met in the plaza outside of our building to meet up with our teacher for conversation class, Yaye, so she could walk us up to our classroom. The room is pretty small but the first day of class wasn’t bad. I really like Yaye. She is nothing short of amazing. She’s originally from Seville and she is going to be a great resource for us all. For the last part of class Dr. Tracy took us to Santa Cruz, which is a small neighborhood that pretty much looks like a labyrinth and purposefully tried to get lost. We had a half hour to go through the neighborhood and to find our way back to La Hiralda. In that half hour I managed to step on a huge orange, I don’t know how I missed that one, and we found a lot of different places to get things for people from home. After that we came back home and had lunch, which was a typically Spanish lunch, “papas y carne”- which was a soup with potatoes, meat, and carrots. I took a nap for a while during siesta and then we met up again with our class in La Plaza Nueva. We went over our worries and fears for speaking with native speakers and buying things that we need with our classmates. Then Allison, Sam, and I went shopping and looking for coats and socks. We weren’t very successful but it’s a lot of fun just walking around and looking at the different clothes in all of the stores and just watching the Spanish people interact. We came back to our house for a while and asked Encarna where the closest supermarket was so we could go by snack food and Coke. Let’s be honest, it’s been almost 5 days and I haven’t had one. I think I deserve one already! So we set out for another adventure, this time to the supermarket. Food and drinks are a lot cheaper there than anywhere else. I ended up getting 2 liters of Coke and it was only 1.25 Euros, pretty darn good and basically the size of my head. We also got some caramel corn from Spain as well. Then we came home and had girl talk for a while, about boys and such. Yeah, we were “those girls” for a while. But it was good and reminded me of home a little. I haven’t had a lot of problems with thinking about home because we have been soo busy. There are times throughout the day when I sit back and think about home or see something that reminds me of home or someone. We had dinner at bout 9:30pm and it was homemade pizza with homemade soup, kind of like chicken noodle soup. I eat pretty much everything that they give us because it has been really good so far. For dessert I tried flan and it was all right, but I like the chocolate pudding better. Go figure. We had a really good conversation with Encarna tonight. She is hilarious and she told us all about her family and her love for anything chocolate and Coke. She told us that her ex-husband is a twin and told us some funny stories about that as well. It’s fun to sit around and talk to her about the things that are different in the Spain verses the United States. Tomorrow is my birthday and today Dr. Tracy made me go away from the group so they could make secret plans for a surprise for my birthday. I’m starting to get sad that I’m not going to be in the United States for my birthday but we are all planning on going out to different bars in the plaza close to our house so it should be a good time. Finally a time when we can all go out together and just hang out outside of class without getting starred at. There weren’t any major creepers today, so that is a good thing. Just a few guys that said, “Hello” and thought that they were suave. Tomorrow Sam and I start our service learning so that should be interesting; I’ll let you know how that one goes. 

The Third Day

Sunday January 13, 2008

Today started out a little bit better than the previous day…all because I remembered to take my towel with me this morning to the shower. One win for team Emily. After showering and getting ready we had breakfast and then headed out to meet our class for a walking tour of the city. We walked to the plaza outside of where we have our class at and met our teacher from Simpson, Dr. Tracy, our teacher for contemporary Spanish culture from Seville, Victor, and the rest of the students on our trip. Victor showed us around the city and pointed out the different historical places. Today we walked past and saw: La Hiralda Catedral, La Plaza Salvador, Arcihvo de Indias, Real Alcazar, La Universidad, La Plaza de Espana, El Parque de Maria Luisa, Ayuntamiento (City Hall), Teatro Lope de Vega, La Plaza Virgen de los Reyes, and La Plaza Nueva. Victor pointed out the things that we need to watch out for which included: the insistent palm readers, thieves, and horse buggy drivers that like to look at the women. After the walking tour we decided to stop at a little bar called “Horno del Duque,” and I had my first glass of wine in Spain. It was only 2 Euros and it was a good experience to order something from a Spaniard and actually get what I ordered! They talk really quickly and the also leave off the end of words frequently, which makes it really hard to understand. After the bar we came home and had lunch, which was chicken and fries (really good) and we went out again to meet up with some students from school. We met at a plaza and then when to El Parque de Maria Luisa but at this point it was pouring down raining. So we decided to cut the tour a little short and we stopped at Starbucks and the Café de Indias for ice cream. I of course opted for the ice cream, which was delicious. We stood around in the street, took some pictures, and then talked for a while about the adventures that we had done over the past three days. We ran into the director of CML, David, in Starbucks and we talked with him awhile. After all was said and done, we left for home. It was about a half hour walk back to our house. A couple classmates came with Allison and I to look at the outside of our house to see the size, apparently our house is a lot bigger than most, which was fun to find out. After showing off our house we headed inside and waited a while until dinner was ready. I think they are really trying to make us feel at home because we had two hot dogs on a bun with potato chips for dinner! For dessert we had chopped up bananas and apples with yogurt on top. Encarna sat down and talked to us for a while about our majors and about our day in general. From the stories that I heard today from the other students, she seems to be a really good host mom. Rocio talked to us for a while as well about the day and we asked her about renting bikes here. She said that it was a good idea and that it was really cheap, so we are looking into that for sometime soon in the future. Tomorrow I need to look into getting a jacket here because with all of the rain it has been a lot colder than I expected. We have our first day of class at 9 in the morning tomorrow and it should be interesting. After class, lunch and siesta we are going to try and look for coats and maybe scarves. There are still sales from Christmas so it’s easy to find some good deals! Plus all off the stores here are to die for and have the cutest things that you will ever see in them. Bueno, es todo para hoy…Buenos Noches. (Well, that’s it for today, good night).

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!

 

A Day of International Travel

Friday January 11, 2008

 

Our journey started out at 9:15am in the morning where the 22 people on our trip met with our parents, luggage and aspirations for our upcoming four months in Spain.  After we all received our packets with information and checked our luggage it was time to say our good-byes and head on our merry little ways. I couldn’t help but become nervous, excited, happy, sad…and many other different emotions at that time. It was finally hitting me. I was going to Spain, and I was well on my way. After getting my bag search through by TSA, apparently a 5’4 blonde girl is really threatening, we left from our airport in Des Moines and then headed to Atlanta, Georgia. There were thunderstorms on the way so our flight came in late and we had to hurry to get onto our next flight from Atlanta to JFK in New York. We had a three-hour layover in New York and we got the chance to explore the airport and buy some food. Although, we got there at about 7pm so there weren’t a lot of options still open.  After taking down a salad, large Coke, and a BK dessert, I was ready to go. We left from JFK at 9:45pm and then started the long flight across the ocean. Our flight was approximately 7 hours long, dinner and breakfast included. The flight wasn’t too bad but the whole not sleeping thing was starting to wear on me. After a few choppy naps, some in-flight movies, airline food, and a surprise 3am essay in Spanish (yeah, not so easy) we finally made the decent into Madrid…and the Spanish began! We went through immigration, found our luggage, next was customs, literally a door marked customs…guarded by two Spanish Ken dolls in green. After waiting around for a while, we found out that we had to meet our driver at the bus station. We left the building and headed to the bus parking, all in the rain. Later our host mom, Encarna, will tell us that it had been sunny, then cloudy, and now that we were there it was raining. Our bus ride to the train station wasn’t very long but it was really interesting to be able to look around Madrid with all of the different housing, buildings, roads, signs…everything. We once again we hauled out all of our luggage and then made a massive mountain of suitcases by a row of seats in the station. We finally went to get our first meal in the train station, it was gross, but the good thing about it was the fact that I got what I ordered. After freshening up the in bathroom, at one point we had all of this sinks filled with girls from the trip brushing and primping, we were ready to board the train. The train was the nicest form of transportation that we took, and the most comfortable. If we had traveled any other way we it would have taken us six hours, but by train it took us 2 hours. I slept most of the way but woke up a few times to take-in the countryside. We arrived at the train station in Seville at 4:00pm and met David, the on-site director or coordinator for the program that we our in through Centro Mundo Lengua, and he took us to meet our host families. You could tell that they were all really excited. One host mom who had a male staying with her from our trip saw him and said “ohh, tengo un esposo nuevo,” – “ohh, I have a new husband.” Apparently she was really impressed with his looks! They were calling out names and they finally came to Emily, Allison, and Sam. Our host mom Encarna (short for Incarnation) hurried over and kissed us all on one check and then the other, which is customary in Spain. Then we hauled our luggage once again through the rain to her car. Imagine this…if you have ever seen the movies or shows or at the circus when there is a freakishly small clown car and 20 clowns pile into and out of it…that was us, plus luggage. So we played “How do we fit all of this” for a while and finally found the winning combination. While Encarna drove she pointed out a few different things in the city that are important, like churches, stores, and where she works as a teacher. The traffic here has no regulation. It’s a surprise that they don’t all die in car accidents; because they like to speed around and they definitely don’t follow many laws for traffic. The streets are really small too, so that doesn’t help. As we drove I explained to Encarna how much bigger the cars and streets were in the United States and she thought that was something else. We finally drove down a quaint little road and came to a huge wooden door.   Encarna stopped the car in the middle of the road and we unloaded all of our stuff. After unlocking three doors, we finally got to the top of the staircase, which was a lot of fun to haul our suitcases up. When we arrived we meet Rocio, Encarna’s daughter who is 27, and her granddaughter Angela who is 5. After our introductions we were shown our room, which is right inside the front door. For Spain the rooms are large and the house is large as well. My roommates and I are sharing an icebox, I mean a room, and there is one set of bunk beds and another bed. There is a dining room, kitchen, salon, a patio with many plants, two bathrooms, and at least 3 other rooms in the house. I haven’t gone to the back part of the house where Encarna and her daughter Rocio live because she didn’t show them to us on our house tour, I just assumed that we weren’t supposed to go back there. Encarna was really nice to us and showed us around the house and showed us how to use the bathroom and how to lock and unlock all of the doors. All of the simple things that you take for granted and do everyday are different here. Besides the language barrier and second most frustrating thing is probably not being able to use and figure out the things around us. When you have to spend 5 minutes figuring out how to use the toilet you know that things are different. We got some time to ourselves, with which we unpacked all of our things. After a while Encarna made dinner, which consisted of a fried egg sandwiches, vegetable mush soup (mainly squash which was pretty gross), water and chocolate pudding for dessert. We went back to our room to organize a little more and Encarna and Angela came in to talk. We showed Encarna pictures from home and explained them and then gave her our gifts. Encarna saw the page about Coke in my scrapbook and told me that she loved Coke and that she always bought and drank it and from that moment on, I knew things were going to be great. I think I even told her that I loved her. Overall, things seem to have gone over well and her granddaughter was really enthused with the corn and tractor shaped chocolates that Allison brought. After that time we all got ready for bed and finally got to sleep after 26 hours of travel and around 6 more getting to our new home, eating and getting in bed.

 

Departure and Arrival Schedule: Jan 10-11th

My flight itinerary is as per the following schedule:

Thu, Jan 10
Flights: DELTA AIR LINES INC, DL 4227 Operated by ATLANTIC SOUTHEAST

From: DES MOINES, IA (DSM)
Departs: 11:45am
To:ATLANTA, GA (ATL)
Arrives:2:49pm
Duration:2 hour(s) and 4 minute(s)
Mileage:743

Flights: DELTA AIR LINES INC, DL 0016

From: ATLANTA, GA (ATL)
Departs: 4:50pm
To:NEW YORK JFK, NY (JFK)
Arrives:7:20pm
Duration:2 hour(s) and 30 minute(s)
Mileage:756

Flights: DELTA AIR LINES INC, DL 0126

From: NEW YORK JFK, NY (JFK)
Departs: 9:45pm Thu, Jan 10
To:MADRID, SPAIN (MAD)
Arrives:11:20am Fri, Jan 11
Duration:7 hour(s) and 35 minute(s)
Mileage:3588

Fri, Jan 11
Rail

From: MADRID, SPAIN (MAD)
Departs: 2:00pm
To: SEVILLA, SPAIN (SVQ)
Arrives: 4:30pm
Train: TRAIN AVE 2140

Course Schedule

I will be taking classes in Spanish at the University of Seville. I will be taking 18 credits while abroad in the following courses:

SPAN-319-SP Internship in Spain 3 Credits
SPAN-214-SP Spanish Culture and Civilization 3 Credits
SPAN-305-SP Survey Spanish Literature 3 Credits
SPAN-302-SP Advanced Spanish II 3 Credits
SPAN-216-SP Contemporary Spain 3 Credits

Class are Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Once a week I will be volunteering to teach swimming lessons to handicapped children for my intership exerience.