September 5th
We are approaching a two full weeks
in this country! It feels like longer, and I’m not sure what that’s supposed to
mean because sometimes people say “wow it feels like nothing” and that’s good,
or “wow, feels like forever” and that can be good too. Regardless, I’m happy to
be here today. Mary Alice is the TCU contact in Sevilla, and she led us through
our orientation over the weekend. She is a wonderful, insightful, and kind American-turned-Sevillan.
Because our group is so small (the three of us), orientation was very informal
and fun. We had our “meetings” over coffee or meals and strolled around the
city to learn the most important routes and landmarks. What felt so big and
confusing over the weekend already feels smaller and familiar. We even have a
favorite ice cream place already (so far), but there are literally at least two
on every street so we will see. I do have to say that I saw horchata on a menu
at one of the ice cream place and asked about it/tried it and it is not the
horchata I know I love at all. It is made from the milk of some variety of
tuber and is sold only in a couple of regions of the country. Win some, lose
some. Add it to the list of food items we will miss this semester, which so far
includes Hershey’s dark chocolate and chick-fil-e, soon to include popcorn
unless I can find some this weekend. Speaking of, us three amigos are going to
Cadiz this weekend, which is a city a couple hours south on the coast. Beach
time is coming and I’m pretty dang excited.
Back to orientation, it was very
helpful and full of cultural heads-ups. For example, it’s very strange and
generally impolite to stretch or yawn in public here and we are trying to be conscientious
about that. Resources and meals are both taken very seriously. No light should
be on unless you are actually in the room at the given moment, and if there is
still daylight, there is no need for lights. Showers are short, and we turn off
wifi at night. When you think about it, it really doesn’t make sense to treat
it any differently; we’re just avoiding wastefulness. There is also no air
conditioning or heating in our house, which means that so far we’ve kind of
been in a constant state of sweating. It also means that during the hottest
part of the day, we siesta so as to move as little as possible. Siesta is right
after lunch, which is the biggest meal of the day at about 2:30. Most stores
close up and there are few people in the streets. We sleep or read or some
other calm activity. It’s as wonderful as it sounds and is kind of necessary
once you realize what nightlife is like. A couple days, we slept for nearly
three hours, and later Elisa told us that was barbaric. So apparently you’re not
supposed to sleep the whole time. After siesta, it is starting to be nice
outside again and we leave to do whatever around the city (we don’t really have
homework yet). Dinner is at 10 and is a lighter meal, than we chat or whatever
before bed. This week we have been in intensive Spanish classes four hours a
day at a language institute as a warm up basically for university classes. It
has been pretty interesting because our class has one retired and four young americans,
two guys from Ireland, a German girl, and two lovely older people from France.
This week overall has been quite relaxed and great for getting accustomed to
things. My stomach is settling into our food schedule a little better finally.
Breakfast is coffee and toast pretty much exclusively around 8:30 so our breakfast
buffet at the hotel last weekend was a final supper for eggs, fruit, juice,
yogurt and such. Our family is fantastic. Ashlyn and I live in our own
apartment, one floor up from our family, in a neighborhood called Triana. Gifton is in a house with his host mom
(señora) several blocks away in Los Remedios. We are both very close to the river, and we cross
it every morning during sunrise to get to the language institute. Our señora,
Elisa, is kind and pretty reserved. She cooks and eats lunch and dinner with us
and we sit afterward for sobremesa, which is the “after-dinner chat”. We’re all
getting to know each other little by little and it’s obviously great Spanish practice.
Elisa is married to Monolo, who is
constantly smiling and so adorable. And I feel like I can call him adorable
because he is shorter than me. They have a son Paco who comes over a lot and is
very friendly and helpful. We have yet to meet their daughter Cristina. It’s
weird to insert yourself into a family like this, but everyone puts themselves
out there and the bonding just happens. Overall things are quite wonderful
here, but I can tell my body is searching for routine, which I think will come
when classes start at university. It is fun and peculiar to watch life continue
at TCU and at home (7 hours behind), just like any other semester. I’m glad to
see they can carry on without us ;) There have been several discussions about the
nature of our experience here. When people study in Europe, they tend to travel
A LOT. Up to 12-14 countries can be visited in the course of a semester, maybe
more. Everything can turn into a weekend trip because we don’t have class on
Friday. But as we were walking around Seville this week, we realized how much
we are enchanted by this place and want to spend time having a presence here
and getting to know friends and places. So we’ve worked toward finding a
balance between enjoying the proximity to so many great tourist destinations
and our desire to live like a Sevillano, who obviously would not be taking
international vacations every weekend. We are only leaving Spain once in
September, and are still planning out trips in Nov-Dec. The other big thing for
me is that traveling outside Spain helps zero with our fluency in Spanish and
my biggest regret would be ending this semester without having learned and
improved as much as possible with the language. Therefore, I think our schedule
may be a little atypical, but I’m very excited about it. Seville is an amazing
city rich with things to do and see and people to meet! I would hate to miss
that. Luckily, we all feel similarly about that. On the whole, the three of us have
so much fun together. They are both wonderful people and we laugh a lot. Ashlyn
is incredibly nice and open-minded, and Gifton is hilarious and genuine. I feel
like we really lucked out to be here together and can’t believe we didn't find
each other at TCU before this.
Today we are meeting up with our
first Spanish friends for churros and tomorrow we’re off to Cadiz! I also
wanted to note the food we’ve tried for anyone who is curious, but I figured I
would group it all together in case others found it boring. Everything our mom
has cooked has been so tasty, and I’m already excited to have some of it again.
For example. . .
- Lentil soup. I know, right? But it’s so so good. With bread, there is always bread.
- Gazpacho: a cold, tomato based soup with oil, vinegar, salt, and diced onions, cucumber, pepper, and egg. Crunchy and refreshing!
- Tortillas: basically an omelette, can be plain (francesa), with vegetables (española), or others
- Albóndigas: meatballs with some unknown sauce on them that I wish was on every meat ever
- Postre is the dessert, and for postre we (and most families) have fruit, which is awesome, because we have pleeenty of ice cream in the afternoons. They have all been juicy and delicious but besides pears, I haven’t tried them before. Elisa says nature is wise and gives us what we need, which is why we get juicy fruits in the summer and oranges with vitamin C in winter, when people get sick.
The rest has been pretty familiar, like pasta or mashed
potatoes. One night we came in for dinner and it was literally a giant pile of
peas with hard-boiled egg spread on top. They put eggs in a lot of things.
I think that sums up this week.
Assuming you enjoy humanity, which I do, I would say being in a different
country is pretty incredible, as far as incredible things go. We are trying to
blend in but I’m not sure if it’s working yet. We’ll keep trying and I’ll let
you know.
Have a great week, and thanks for stopping by!
Love,
Jenna
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