First Week Nightlife

From now on I'm going to just write about the highlights of my trip since I have classes and such and I know I won't be able to keep up any other way.

So I've been here a week now! Craziness. I have been out almost every night I would say since it is a huge part of the culture. They nap and then stay out allllll night. I have been out in the centro a bit, to La Alfalfa which is kind of an international student (but definitely not just American) hangout and a little bit on Calle Betis which is where a lot of people go to dance and has kind of a bad reputation here since a lot of international students go there, get too drunk and become the victims of petty crime. They say Sevilla has a very low violent crime rate, but a very high petty crime rate. I've been lucky so far *knock on wood.* I've also hung out a few nights on my street which is really laid back and fun as well. There is a bar up the street that has ofertas for everything on the menu for 1 Euro a couple days a week which makes us pretty happy.

I've been to La Alfalfa twice so far. The first time I went there we ran into one of the bike tour guides who promised his group shots if we saw him out. Next thing you know we're on a bar crawl that his flatmate leads for local hostels. We got free alcohol all night and ended at an open air night club. Prettyyy cool. We met people from Germany, England, Australia, Holland and Italy which was really fun and interesting.

The other night I was there I ended up making a couple of Spanish friends who stuck with our little group the rest of the night. Mari and Pedro who are university students from just outside of Spain. It was funny because we thought they were a couple the whole night, but they were just childhood friends. Part of the culture here is that they're very touchy-feely and their sense of personal space is much different so I think that's how we got that impression. We practiced our Spanish and their English the whole night. They were super nice so I got Mari's number. Hope to hang out again soon!

Last night was probably the best night out I've had yet. It was my first time going out for tapas with an awesome group of friends! We tried a bunch of different things the most bold being Bull's Tail. It was not bad, but there's not much of it! We enjoyed those along with sangria and tinto de verano (wine with soda basically). We got ice cream as is becoming tradition because it is amazing here and they have so manyyy flavors!! It was a perfect night full of good food and drink, friends and lots of laughter. Hopefully to be repeated soon! Wandering around this city at night is so much fun because it is warm, people are still out and about being social (not stumbling over drunk) and you have all of these striking historical buildings that you so casually walk by, but they are so beautiful and old and all lit up. It's a beautiful place.

From left to right: Addie, Carli, Hannah, Tiffany, Jill and Kathleen. Mis chicas!! Love them!

Day 2

Day 2 we woke up around 8:30 to get ready and eat breakfast before meeting our CEA group. Breakfast here is basically just toast, coffee and maybe some "crispies" (cereal). I have been working on finding something with a little more protein that I can snack on before lunch because I am always starving a couple hours after breakfast. Lunch is a bigger meal around 2:30 and dinner is lighter around 9 traditionally. But then you go out for tapas and drinks until the wee hours of the morning!

 It is a short 15 min walk to Torre de Oro which is a kind of central meeting point for everyone since it is right by the river that divides the city and is very easy to identify. CEA staff told us that the tower used to be a defense tower just outside the city walls and that it was also used as a custom point for imports. They say there was a tunnel that used to run from the river to the tower so they could bring goods in and avoid the prying eyes of pirates. The river that we see now is man made, though I'm not sure how recently it was created. A bunch of us live on one side of it in the Triana or Los Remedios neighborhoods while the other side has the city center. We met with the group at Torre and made our first walk to the CEA campus. It's probably gonna take me a good 20 mins to walk to school, but it is really easy to find. There are about 45 student in our group and most of the people from SoCal know each other at least a little bit, but it was cool to start chatting with everyone. The CEA staff seem really cool and the orientation was a loooot of information, but very helpful as well. The first day was all about health, safety, transportation, housing etc. We had a welcome lunch at a nearby hotel that was served tapas style. The food was amazingggg! Lots of chickpeas, pork, cheese, and potatoes. Lunch was delicious and also a good opportunity to socialize with both our fellow students as well as the CEA staff.

After lunch we had siesta, of course. Sara and I have been sleeping like rocks every time we close our eyes, but we managed to wake up in time for the city bike tour scheduled for the afternoon. The bikes were a little treacherous since they were well-used and had small wheels. My breaks barely worked, so that was fun. We rode around for almost 3 hours and got to see many different neighborhoods and landmarks such as the Plaza de España, Torre de Oro, the bull fighting stadium, and several other cool parks and structures that I don't quite know all the names of yet. The tour was a good way to orient ourselves around the city and cover a lot of ground that would have taken twice as long on a walking tour. The city is also super bike friendly with bike docks everywhere where you can rent them and ride from dock to dock and bike lanes everywhere that are really quite well laid out.

That night we went out to a club, but it was a welcome party for international students so that's basically all who was there. I saw a few people from the airport which was cool, but the drinks were overpriced and it was just all very American.

The Trip

It was a bit stressful getting out of Chicago, but it always works out in the end! I was proud that I only had one checked bag and my big backpack. Seeing how much I come back with will be the interesting thing. My first flight was from Chicago to Madrid and it was an 8 hour flight. As I boarded the plane it was clear that probably close to half the passengers were study abroad students. I really didn't feel nervous at all, just the normal sadness mixed with excitement that comes with moving and traveling. 4 months really doesn't seem like that long to me though. On the plane I sat next to a girl, Julie, who was moving to Seville to work for a company (VIPSeville) that puts on events specifically for the study abroad students. They do excursions to Morocco, Portugal, the beach and events in the city. We talked for several hours before I slept for the last 4 or 5.

When we got to Madrid the airport was very open and modern looking and yet surprisingly empty for such a big city. Julie and I wandered around to find food and drinks while we waited for our connecting flight to Seville. As the time for boarding neared, more and more study abroad students showed up and I overheard that a few of them were from my program though many were from others as well. My roommate, Sara, actually recognized me and ran over to introduce herself. We had been in contact so I knew she was arriving at the same time in Seville but I wasn't sure if she was on the same flight. Turns out she was as was most of our group. She was traveling with a large group of other students from Cal Poly in SoCal. That group actually makes up well over half of the Fall CEA Seville program this year (about 45 of us total).

The flight from Madrid to Seville was only an hour and before we knew it we had landed and collected our bags. Customs was kind of a joke and I don't think they even checked on person's bag. A couple CEA employees picked us up in a big bus where we got checked in, our welcome packets and got our first opportunity to really start introducing ourselves. There were 3 housing options: The home-stays, the Casas- 4-8 people in apartments with a Señora that cooks and does laundry and lives nearby and the apartments which is completely independent. Most people opted for the casas, but I think there are 4-5 of us in home-stays. As we pulled up to our drop off point we saw our host parents, Juan and Esperanza (Pechi), for the first time. Pechi was all dressed up in a bright red dress and pumps and Juan is a short little man with a great smile and large glasses. They are probably in their upper 50s. They greeted us with the double kisses and began asking us about ourselves and the trip. Sara actually knows several of the girls that have stayed with them in the past so we chatted some about them too. I helped translate a bit since Sara doesn't speak much Spanish yet.

They showed us around the house which is an apartment on the 4th floor. There are 3 bedrooms with 5 beds total. They have a dining room, kitchen, sewing room for Pechi, sitting room for Juan, living room and terrace. It's decorated kind of eclectically with big old paintings and pictures, platters, glasses, rugs etc throughout. Pechi makes fancy hats for ladies for weddings and special occasions (which are also all over the house) while Juan is retired, but used to own his own newspaper company I believe. He showed us pictures of him riding horses and also said he loves to hunt. His sitting room has many of his hunting trophies. They have 4 children, 3 sons and one daughter. The oldest is 34 and the daughter is the youngest. She has a 2 year old daughter herself and they'll be staying here for a month starting in the next couple days. Their youngest son, Bruno also lives here currently. He has been really nice and told us that if we ever had any problems while we were out we could call him and he'd come get us.

They fed us and gave us water before we passed out for several hours. That night we met up with some of the other students and went out exploring a little. We were out in the main road, Avenida Constitución, where we first walked by Catedral Giralda. We went to a couple bars, and I had my first glass of sangria there, but it was a pretty relaxed atmosphere. We weren't out too late since we had orientation the next morning. It was a long first day, but I seemed to skip the jet lag due to siesta time so that was lucky!