Mi nariz es feliz

Before anyone has the urge to correct the title of my post…I realize it’s wrong haha 🙂 Today Mary and I were trying to figure out how to say something “smells good”. Somehow we just decided “my nose is happy” will get the point across…so mi nariz es feliz. Of course later I asked my host mom how to actually say it, so “The food smells good” is “La comida huele bien”! I’m learning lots everyday! My host mom teaches me at the dinner table all the time and we keep a dictionary on the table. So I ask her what stuff means, how to say something or I look up words I don’t know when she’s talking, its good! Today at dinner she told me that she’s going to teach me how to cook some Spanish food tomorrow night (some sort of cold tomato soup), so that’ll be fun! I definitely need to learn some cooking skills.

So…about my pictures. Six of us went to Cádiz yesterday again, but went to a different beach, called Cortadura. It was amazing and the weather was perfect and I seriously couldn’t have asked for a better day. I even took a nice nap on the beach 🙂 All was well UNTIL…..we missed our bus to go home hahaha. I wasn’t laughing at the time but whatever, it’s funny now. So we were 5 minutes late to the bus station and we were like oh no big deal, we can just change our tickets to get on the next bus (at 7:00) but the guy was a real jerk and said we had to pay AGAIN. On top of that, 4 of us still needed to buy tickets for the 7:00 bus and there were only 3 spots left so 2 people had to buy tickets for 7:00 and 2 people had to buy tickets for 9:00 (the next bus time). We were all a little grumpy after that, but we decided to question the bus driver about the possibility of having 2 extra open seats on the 7:00 bus JUST IN CASE. He told us to talk to the ticket salesmen and somehow a spot opened up and everyone was able to make it on the 7:00 bus. Woo! So chaotic. On top of that, Ben left his backpack in the bus station and a man started running after the bus holding it as we were leaving hahaha. Thanks old man. Oh also, on the way to Cádiz, Ben almost peed his pants (sorry if you’re reading this…) and was punching the seat in front of him repeatedly because he was in so much pain. He got lots of stares. Mary recorded it…you guys will probably see in the next vlog 🙂

Hmm what else…this weekend I had kind of a lot of homework. I’m taking a really hard Spanish Lit class and the homework was about a billion words to translate, but I made it through. Plus, all of the work I have to do is SO worth the long weekends and fun times traveling and relaxing. I apologize that half of my blog seems like scattered thoughts, it’s because I make a little note when I notice something culturally different/something interesting happens, so I get to my computer with a list of things that I want to talk about and they aren’t necessarily related to each other whatsoever! With that being said, more about school…Professors and students are pretty much on a first name basis here. I guess that’s the culture?! Feels pretty odd to me to call my professor “Hey Dan!” Another weird thing. There is not necessarily toilet paper in public restrooms anywhere here, including school. I’d say about 50% of the time theres no toilet paper in any of the bathroom stalls and thats completely normal here…and there are no mirrors in a lot of public restrooms and also sometimes theres no soap. Also, NOBODY wears athletic wear in Spain unless they are working out. Nike shorts or yoga pants when you’re feeling lazy? Nope. The Spaniards always look nice and you have to dress appropriately if you don’t want to stick out like a sore thumb. Oh and something else that I noticed when I got here but I forgot to write about is the amount of graffiti on the buildings. It’s everywhere, but it’s not gang related. It’s just art, I guess which is a pretty cool quirk of the city.

Strangely enough, since I’ve been here, I have been asked THREE times for directions, in Spanish, by native speakers. Two of the times I was actually able to give people directions somewhat!!! I look so American, so I’m not sure why people keep asking me for directions?!?! But I’ve been surprised at how I’ve been able to understand the people and actually communicate some directions (my Spanish is coming along poco a poco) so I’m celebrating the little things 😛 !!!

One more funny story/cultural quirk. The boys HOLLAAAA. Mary and I were walking somewhere today and I was about to run, so I was in my workout clothes, but Mary was lookin all cute in a dress. Literally 1 minute after walking out of the apartment, a group of guys whistle at her and we just ignored them. About 1 minute later, we turn a corner and a different guy says “¡Guapa!” which basically means “Pretty!” AGAIN 30 seconds later another guy stops for a second, stares SO obviously at Mary and says “OH MY GOD!” in English with a Spanish accent. We totally lost it at that point and laughed so so hard. We kept walking and I turned around to look at him and he was still staring at her. His jaw dropped when he saw her. Funniest thing ever. The culture is really direct and not afraid to tell you how you look, good or bad 😉

Classes and Week 2!!

 

 

Hello everyone! I guess it has been a few days since my last blog, but nothing too crazy has happened. I started classes officially on Wednesday and Thursday, so I’ve had 2 days of school so far. Thursday I timed my walk and metro ride to school and it took 41 minutes (so much walking)! Some of my professors talk insanely fast, assuming that we’re understanding all of it. But actually…..no. In one of my classes I don’t even know how many pages of homework in chapter 1 were supposed to do, so looks like I’m doing the whole thing (could not understand her!!). Also a little cultural difference here is that it’s extremely rude to eat or drink in class or get up to use the bathroom. In the US, college students are all about their snacks and coffee or whatever in class, but it’s not okay here! This girl got yelled at for eating an apple the first day haha! So the first couple of days of classes were a bit overwhelming, but I think each day I’m comprehending more and more. I’m switching out of one of my classes and into another because that one in particular seems to be way over my head. As for the other classes, thank God for free tutoring! Anyways, my schedule is looking pretty good and I have tons of free time, so can’t complain! Also, no Friday classes is the best thing ever! 

My first picture is a picture of a palm tree on campus (yeah I’m a little obsessed with palm trees, okay). I sat under this one to eat lunch with a few people the first day and then just laid down and soaked in the beauty of it all 🙂 It’s the little things. The second picture is of something I keep seeing!!! In all of the markets there are chopped off animal legs just hanging…pretty strange. Another thing about the market…if you go to buy a 6 pack of Coke for example, the price you see is per can, not for the whole bundle of 6. Those tricksters. The last picture that I posted is my first stab at doing homework! For me, it marks the beginning of my studies here in Spain and my journey to becoming fluent in Spanish. It’s going to be a lot of work and frustrating at times, but I am excited to learn it! My host mom said that she can tell I’m understanding her better and better every day, so I’m hoping by December there will be a huge difference! I’m taking it day by day, but I can’t wait to improve my communication.

So the past couple of days have basically been school, homework, naps, a couple of runs in the park, bar hopping one night and walking all over God’s creation looking for a discoteca (the girls got swarmed by Spanish guys at this one bar hahahaha), buying textbooks, some shopping, and Pitch Perfect movie night with ice cream (my host mom let me have 3 friends over, thanks mom 😛 ). We’re trying to plan a possible day trip tomorrow, so we’re going to check out the bus schedule and see where we want to go…possibly Málaga (beach on the Mediterranean coast). And next weekend we’re trying to plan an overnight trip to Portugal! Lots of fun stuff coming up, I can’t wait 🙂

Last but not least, random culture stuff…time. They use military time here, but they say the time the way we would say it. For example, the clock could say 15:10, but when they say the time out loud, they say it’s 3:10. I don’t get that! Something else about time: meal times! So breakfast is whenever you wake up…for me on a school day it could be 7:30 AM. Lunch is typically like 2 something (but at school my host mom packs my lunch and I get hungry and eat at like 1), THEN dinner is at like 9 or 9:30. Luckily, my host mom is really nice and tells me to go in the kitchen and grab some fruit if I’m ever hungry and the other day she actually offered me some green tea and crackers for a snack, but normally there aren’t “snacks” unless it’s just an apple or something very small. The other day, I ate lunch at 1 and dinner at 9:30 and only had an apple in between that time. Huge cultural difference in meal times!! Hmm…also, everyone here wears shoes or slippers in the house. I haven’t seen my host parents barefoot even once. I usually try to wear flip flops or socks just to be polite I guess, but occasionally I forget and go barefoot 🙂 They haven’t said anything when I do. 

P.S. Mary, one of the girls from CNU that’s also here, is making vlogs of our adventures in Spain. Watch this video of our first 24 hours navigating the airports and our arrival in Spain! Thanks for reading everyone!

 

School and Volunteering

 

In my last post, I said I would put up a picture of the beach later! I didn’t have any pictures at the time, but now I do 🙂 The first picture is the beautiful beach I went to on Sunday in Cádiz. Luckily there are no naked people in this picture 😛 The second picture is on my new campus!! I’m pretty lost around campus right now, but I think I’ll figure it out! It doesn’t beat CNU, but the pretty palm trees definitely add some greatness! I went to school for the first time yesterday and took a placement test for my classes which was pretty difficult. We also got a tour of campus, of course. Today we went to campus to get the results of our placement test, another day of orientation and also we got our class schedule (classes start tomorrow!). I have 3 classes Mondays and Wednesdays, starting at 9 and finishing at 1:20 and I have 2 classes Tuesdays and Thursdays starting at 10:30 and ending for the day at 2:50. Sounds like an easy schedule to me, but we will see about the classes (4 in Spanish and 1 in English)!!

Another important thing going on here is my volunteer work!! Yesterday I had a meeting to get all the information about the organization I will be working with and the type of things that I am expected to do. So, basically there are a bunch of high school drop outs (mostly boys age 16-18) who go to this “school” to learn specific trades such as working with electricity or the girls learn to do hair, etc. They learn these basic skills in the school, but they also learn very basic English! They all have to take a test at the end of their schooling and they can skip the English section and not get penalized, or they can complete the English section of the test and get bonus points, or extra credit!! I am going to be in a classroom of 5-10 students (probably all boys, I’m told) with another teacher helping these boys learn basic English. Apparently I have like an hour to teach something like numbers, ABC’s, basic greetings/questions, etc each week when I go. I have to prepare some sort of lesson plan for the material that they are going to learn that day. I’ll be going to this organization once a week to help! I think it’s going to be pretty interesting 🙂 I have to be in contact with the organization and I will probably officially start the last week of September. 

I keep forgetting to write about the little details that I’m noticing/learning about the culture here. So here’s a quick little cultural lesson 😉 The people here are super affectionate…immediately upon meeting someone, you kiss them on each cheek (first to the left, then to the right). Girls kiss girls, guys kiss girls, but typically guys don’t kiss guys. It’s very different from what I’m used to because I usually will shake someones hand, wave hello or OCCASIONALLY hug someone upon meeting them. Personal space isn’t really a big thing here. I was told that it makes Spaniards feel very comfortable if you touch them on the arm, the shoulder or whatever while talking to them. Also, if you complement someone on an article of clothing or jewelry, it’s normal to touch the item while complimenting them. Basically…they just touch a lot. Oh and PDA here is way more extreme! The couples are so so touchy and always kissing on each other in public, butt grabbing or whatever and nobody cares. You typically would see this more in teenagers/young couples in the US, but here its anyone and more extreme. Another cultural thing that I have noticed and been told over and over is that this culture is very very flexible, relaxed and all about improvising in different situations. There isn’t a whole lot of planning and nobody makes a big deal when things don’t go “as planned”. It’s just whatever to them! I kind of like this aspect of the culture! Just another weird little thing…I keep wanting to spell words wrong in English because I have this overload of Spanish in my brain. The other day it took me like 10 seconds to remember how to spell “where”. I was like …oh my gosh what is happening to me?! 🙂 On a positive note, my host mom said my Spanish accent is good and she likes the way I speak 🙂 yay!!!I think that’s about all for now, my next update will probably be about how my classes are going!

Rich in Culture

Hola amigos 🙂 The past couple of days have been so crazy and so much fun! We went to a Flamenco show on Friday night (in the first picture). Flamenco is a cultural dance here in Spain and it’s so so cool. The dancers are very talented and it was really fun to watch. We also went out for tapas (in the second picture) with one of the Study abroad coordinators and she’s really nice and funny! Her English is pretty good so we can ask her more questions, which is helpful. She said she had a lot of fun and got “good vibrations” from us. I laughed so hard…she meant good vibes 🙂 The food at this place that we went to was RIDICULOUSLY good. I can’t even explain how good it was 🙂 Tapas is basically “small” portions of food to share, so we ordered like 5 dishes and shared between a bunch of us. I had to throw in that last picture of the cars almost touching, just because I think it’s funny. The parking here is so tight (one of the first things I noticed when I got to the city)! People in the U.S. would be soooo mad if you parked that close to their car haha!! Yesterday, a few of us went on a nice run in the morning and ran through a park during a festival, kinda cool! We also went shopping and I got these really cool pants for like 7 euros 🙂  After that we all took a quick cat nap and went out at midnight and stayed out until like 4 or so. We walked like 30 or 40 minutes to a “discoteca” which is basically a club/restaurant/place where people go dancing. It was super crowded and hard to move around but the music was pretty sweet and we all had a good time! I went to bed at like 5 am and got up at 8 this morning….to go to Cadiz!!! (aka the beach) We walked to the bus station and bought round trip tickets for Cadiz and back to Sevilla, waited for our bus and headed out. The bus ride was about an hour and a half and when we got there it was around noon and the beach was really close walking distance. First impression-wow, this country is so beautiful. The coast is amazing. (I’ll post pictures of the beach later!) Second impression-holy cow what are these people wearing?? I’m gonna say about 1/4 of the women were either topless or wearing thongs/showing major butt cheek. A lot of men were wearing speedos or really short bathing suits. It was a pretty strange sight to see! After staying up almost all night and then spending all day at the beach I’m so exhausted. Spain is treating me well so far though! Tomorrow I have to go to school 😦 First thing in the morning we walk to the metro and get to campus and take a placement test for our classes. I guess in a way I’m ready to start classes this week because I want my Spanish to be really good so that I can live here more easily and communicate well. But on the other hand, I’m really enjoying feeling like I’m on a gigantic vacation 🙂 Anyways, I need to sleep like 15 straight hours to catch up from the past week probably, so I’m off to bed. Thanks for reading everyone!

Getting acquainted!

 

Hey everyone!! It looks like when I post these pictures they are going to show up huge but I don’t know how to fix it…so whatever! I had to do a few pictures for this blog because I’ve seen so much and couldn’t pick just one! (If you follow me on instagram, you may want to kill me by the end of the semester because ill probably post a lot!!) The first picture is an example of something thats all over the city of Sevilla. Horse and carriages-so unique, I love seeing them all over. Second picture was from today…we were walking down the street and saw this little guitar place that does shows at night sometimes I think. One of the Americans we were with plays guitar so we all eventually went in to check it out. This dude playing the guitar was INCREDIBLE…like it was so cool. He told us that he’s traveled all over the place playing guitar for people and has won many international awards. I could definitely tell why! He was really nice too. The third picture is of the famous cathedral in Sevilla. It is HUGE. We went inside today and spent probably 2 hours just looking around. The cathedral was built in the 1300’s if I understood correctly and they still hold mass there! We walked up 35 stories to get to the top of this tower in the cathedral and it was the most beautiful view of the city. Absolutely amazing. I also may have graffitied the cathedral with sharpie on the wall somewhere….thats not in the ten commandments right?? Okay phew. The last picture is of my first churro in Spain! This is a common type of food here…honestly nothing too special, but it’s the tradition that counts 😉 Hmm, so I feel like a lot has happened in a day and a half since I last blogged. Yesterday I visited “Real Alcazar” which is a royal palace, pretty neat. I also got a tour all over the city and took a trip to “El corte Ingles” which is basically a market of American stuff…when you walk in, it looks like the biggest Macy’s/JC Penney or whatever you’ve ever seen in your life. Like 5 floors high and a couple more floors underground, so insanely big. Last night we all took an adventure to check out the night life. We sat outside a bar and talked for hours until almost 2 AM, just watching the kids play soccer in the street and people walking/riding bikes everywhere. Everyone just hangs out in the street! Very different concept from what we are used to! Today I had a straight 15 minute conversation with my host mom with very little difficulty. This is like a small moment that calls for a huge celebration for me! I’m really starting to understand more and more Spanish even in this short period of time and I’ve learned a ton of words and phrases. I slept through the night last night because I was so exhausted, so I guess I’m getting used to the time difference (6 hours)! Basically, all is well in my world for now. I’m taking it one day at a time and trying to appreciate each experience that I have. Thanks for reading and I will post again soon! 🙂

P.S. My skype works great here, no lag or anything!! I’m so happy. Got to skype with Alaina a couple of nights ago to try it out 🙂 

 

I made it!!!!

Hola from Sevilla! It’s almost midnight here (Wednesday night) and I haven’t slept but 2 hours since Monday night…oops. I’ve been so busy traveling and there was just no time to sleep I guess. I don’t even know where to start…the flights were all good, just long of course. In Madrid, I got my first Spanish coffee (yep, I get really excited about my coffee) and it was more like espresso, very small cup and strong coffee-delicious! This airport was ridiculously confusing but luckily a lot of the people spoke broken English and helped us. I kept blowing off changing my US dollars into Euros because I thought there would be another place to do it before I got to Sevilla. Well, nope. I have 10 Euros in my possession right now haha, which is nothing (that’s priority tomorrow). A MundoLengua coordinator picked us up from the airport and brought us to our host families. My host family is super nice. Right away they gave me a key to the apartment and their wifi password (AMEN YALL!) and made me lunch! The food I had today wasn’t too different from what we would eat in the US. For lunch I had spaghetti with tomato sauce and a salad (salad was a little different) and for dinner I had arroz con pollo (chicken and rice) and another salad and a pear. Pretty good! I slept a little this afternoon but it was really hard with the time difference and being so pumped to be here. Oh and there’s no Air Conditioning in my apartment…………yeah so all the windows and doors pretty much stay open. Its like 90’s during the day, oh well. I’ll survive. Tonight, my host family asked if I wanted to go on a walk through the city and of course, I said yes! They ended up giving me like an hour+ long tour around Sevilla and it is seriously so beautiful. I love it. Theres a river that runs through the city and it’s just amazing. My host family pointed out all the famous sites around the city and told me some places to eat locally and when, very helpful! We didn’t get home from our walk until about 11 pm and EVERYONE was still outside. This city doesn’t really sleep apparently. People were running, skateboarding, biking, tons of roller blading and walking. Little kids were out, older people were out. It’s just a big social scene…super cool. So, i’m missing one of the most important topics here: language barrier. ITS SO DIFFICULT. I feel like its really going to take some getting used to…i’m not used to being a foreigner and its weird! It’s so hard to understand my host family unless they repeat themselves, speak slowly, or rephrase just about anything they say. But hey, these things take time. On top of the language barrier is the way Andalusians pronounce their words. I heard so many words pronounced completely leaving out the “s”. Come on now, I need that s!!! Also, their “v” noise sounds like our “b” noise. Just trust me, it’s confusing. For example, they say “España” pronounced like “epaña” and I totally got messed up on that one today and they laughed…..oops. I feel like there are so many cultural differences that I noticed today that I can’t even remember everything. It’ll have to wait until later because I have to be up in about 7.5 hours for an orientation day with the program! Adiós!!!

Preparations

Well, the time has come for me to seriously think about packing (less than 4 days left)! Before I get into that, i’ll give some detail about my trip and how all of this came about. I’ve always had an interest in traveling and learning about other cultures. Also, I have a bit of an adventurous side–okay really adventurous. The Spanish culture especially has intrigued me. Freshman year of college (Fall 2011) I started my language requirement with Spanish101 (never took it in high school). So, I thought I would take up to a 200 level of Spanish and then quit it, but I really enjoyed it my first year and started thinking about a minor. In October of my Sophomore year, I was in Spanish201 and a flyer was being passed around for study abroad trips. I’ll never forget this. I remember exactly where I was sitting…I read the flyer about the 3 week summer program and the semester-long program and read a few details and prices. I knew right then that I had to go. It was the weirdest thing because I never considered it before that moment. After class I called my mom and asked if I could go to Spain for a semester because the pricing is similar to CNU’s tuition. She was basically like “Umm…what? You’re crazy. I guess…ask your dad.” I was going home that weekend, so I upon arriving at home I asked my dad about it too, and he said something like, “Sure, why not? Sounds like a great experience.” Fast forward-I met with the study abroad coordinator and she said nothing but good things about the program. I had made my decision. From then on, I made preparations to go. I took 2 Spanish classes the next semester to get more comfortable with the language and did well in both classes. This summer I got my long-stay visa and plane tickets and now i’m ready to go! For those who have been asking, I leave Tuesday, September 3rd and i’ll be back December 21st.

So, to give some detail about my actual trip-I’m studying at Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Seville. I will be taking 4 classes in Spanish and 1 in English and getting 15 credits towards graduation (since i’m getting so many Spanish class credits from my trip, I decided to add Spanish as a second major).  All of my classes are transfer credits of course, meaning they are pass/fail (I only have to get C’s to pass and it won’t affect my GPA!!!!). I will be living in an apartment in the city with a host family. It’s an older couple with 2 grown children who are out of the house. There are 3 other CNU students going to Seville also, 2 of which will be in the same apartment complex, but different apartment. I’ll be taking public transportation to school Monday-Thursday and have long weekends :). I will also be doing volunteer work tutoring high school students in English (I don’t have the details of this work yet). I have one trip planned so far through the study abroad program. We’re going to Morocco for 4 days, I think. That’s about the extent to what I know as far as this semester goes…I guess i’ll get more information when I get there (if I can actually understand the Spanish 😉 )

I want to say thank you to all of my family and friends (and boyfriend :P) who have supported me in studying abroad. I couldn’t do this without your support and it’s greatly appreciated. I’ve been shown so much love by you all and I’ve already seen tears from some of you over me leaving (SORRY!!!). I know this may not be the easiest thing in the world for both you all and me (my mom and a few others are freaking out), but I can’t wait for the adventure of a lifetime and all of the things I will learn along the way. I will try to update my blog as much as possible to keep everyone informed about what’s going on!! Thanks to everyone who’s reading for sharing this experience with me.

Here is my mailing address for anyone who wants it, and I believe it’s written like this:

“Sarah Wilson

Calle José María Moreno Galván 10, bajo A

41003 SEVILLE

SPAIN”

 

Now I’m back to packing 4 months of stuff into 3 suitcases 😉 !!!