an ordinary week of class, homework, and visiting a castle

since monday, this week has been a pretty normal, nothing-too-special week. i´ve been pretty busy with class and homework. i had my first exam on tuesday, and i left the exam feeling like it went okay, but i ended up getting an A, which was delightful! i also turned in a paper on tuesday, and gave two presentations on wednesday. between working on those projects and completing my other homework, this week hasn´t been as filled with exploration and adventures as i would have liked. just the same, it has been busy and fun.

on monday, chelsea and i went shopping and she bought a really cute green purse. the shopping here in sevilla is pretty fabulous. most of the clothes are pretty cute, but some of them are completely strange. for example, the height of fashion here in spain is wearing aladdin pants--you know, pants that are cuffed at the bottom, really baggy on the legs with a long baggy crotch? yeah, definitely not the most flattering thing, but i´m seriously considering purchasing a pair, just so i can show them off when i get back to the states. they are hilarious! another weird fashion trend is girls wearing boxers and then wearing really lowrise pants. it reminds me of the boys in junior high and high school who used to wear their pants around their thighs and have a good 6 inches of boxers peaking out--only these are teenage girls! definitely strange, but the fashion in the stores is cute, and i´m sure i´ll do a little bit of shopping one of these days...

after shopping, we hung around the center of town until 9:30, when we met up with one of our classmates, kyle, and his girlfriend, caitlin, who is studying in madrid. together, the four of us went out to an irish pub, which was actually quite wonderful! they had traditional irish drinks (like bailey´s and guinness), and then they had non-spanish food, which was WONDERFUL! the food here is good, but it´s all spanish food! i´m used to eating several different types of food, like chinese, italian, american, etc., in the states. but in spain, they really just have spanish food, so it was nice to eat something a little different. i totally chowed down on a club sandwich, and it tasted so good. it was nice to hang out with kyle and caitlin. they are both really cool people, and caitlin has traveled to some pretty interesting places, so it was good to hear her advice about where to go in spain and where to avoid (not that there´s really anywhere to avoid...). chelsea and i ended up getting home around 11:15, which made tuesday morning really rough!

tuesday was exam/paper day, so class didn´t feel too long. after class, chelsea and i ran home for a quick lunch, and then ran back to the center for dance class. afterwards, we stuck around the center for a while, because we had signed up for an educational meeting about the spanish bullfights. i have already been to a bullfight, so i wasn´t really expecting to learn much, but it was an incredible talk! the woman who spoke, judy, was originally from the united states, and she moved to spain more than 25 years ago to teach at a center like CCCS. while in spain, she became a big fan of this local artist, john. ironically, john was originally from the states. in addition to being an excellent artist, he was also the only american ever to be a full matador. well, the two of them ended up falling in love, and judy became a total insider on the spanish bullfighting circuit. it was so interesting to hear her story and listen to all of the centuries of history behind the bull fights. it definitely gave me a greater understanding of the fights and greater appreciation of them. after the talk--which lasting a very short 2 hours--chelsea and i talked with judy for a while and took pictures with some of her authentic bull fighting gear! i´ll definitely try to post those sometime soon... we then returned home and grabbed some dinner with rosario. rosario´s two grandsons, jaime (about 18 months) and carlos (about 6 or 7 years old), were staying with her that night because their parents were at the madonna concert (that´s right--madonna gave a concert in sevilla for more than 50,000 people!). they were the cutest little boys, but i couldn´t understand a word of what they said! it was fun to see rosario dote on them, and i´d heard so much about them that it was great to finally meet them. after dinner, chelsea and i headed to bed!

yesterday was a low-key day--thank goodness! the spanish life really isn´t very stressful, unless you´re a student, waking up early to go to class, staying up late doing fun things and homework, and then missing out on siesta because you don´t have time. then, the life is a little rough. yesterday, i gave a presentation on a spanish song in my language class and another presentation about learning to live in another country. both went really well, and i felt a great amount of release after they were finished. while i´ve been here, it´s been surprising how naturally the language will come sometimes, and how difficult it can be at others. i definitely have a harder time speaking and thinking when i´m tired, which makes dinner conversation difficult (dinner doesn´t take place until 10:00 pm). after class, chelsea and i both made our way to a local cafe for lunch. we ordered the house special and it was an absolutely DELICIOUS spanish tortilla, made of potato, egg, and ham. it was fabulous! we both scarfed it down with big smiles and a lot of satisfaction. afterwards, we ended up just wandering around for a little while. we found this fabulous pastry shop with the most wonderful-looking desserts, and i can´t wait to give it a try someday. after that, i came back to the center and hung out while chelsea was in dance class. together, we returned back to the house and i FINALLY got to take a nap! it was wonderful! i ended up sleeping for an hour and half, and, when i woke up, i spent time working on homework, talking to my family (yay!), and then eating dinner with rosario. dinner was followed by more homework, and then bed.

today was our day of excursions! every thursday we take a fieldtrip somewhere in the city, and today, i went with a group to the alcazar. the alcazar is a palace located in the heart of sevilla. it was built over the course of several centuries, starting with the moors, then king ferdinand and isabella (the catholic rulers), and then finally carlos the V. because it was built over such an expanse of time, the palace is a beautiful mixture of arabic, classical, combined arabic/classical, and gothic architecture. it was amazing to see the detail that was put in to creating such a marvelous structure. in additon to the architectural beauty, the palace has a large, lovely garden filled with palm trees, flowering bushes, and other green life. it´s so nice to see something green! i feel like sevilla has very little green life in the city, and i was delighted to find the garden. overall, the alcazar was an absolutely beautiful structure, and i look forward to going back (students get in for free!). while chelsea and i were in the garden, we ran into a couple from washington d.c. who were on vacation. they asked us where we were from, and when i told them boise, the woman looked shocked. she said--i didn´t know that people actually lived in idaho, and i certainly didn´t think they traveled! well, i was mildly offended but very kindly informed her that yes, more than a million people live in idaho and that definitely more than a handful of them are well-cultured and well-traveled. i think she was a little shocked. it was kind of ridiculous, but at least it gave me a chance to show off my idaho pride!

after our excursion, a quick trip home for lunch, and a bus ride back to the center, i went to dance class. things went really well! i felt, for the first time, like i truly understood the movements and could actually do them in a way that somewhat resembled the dance. it was a good feeling. later this evening, chelsea and i are spending time at the center, eating tapas with our professors! it should be fun and, as i haven´t really had any tapas yet, i look forward to sampling some new things. after that, the center is having a party to welcome the students (which doesn´t really make sense since we´ve already been here for two weeks) as well as their intercambios (exchanges). every student is required to have an intercambio, and the center pairs them with a local spanish student who is currently enrolled in their english learning program. i just received my intercambio assignment on tuesday, so i wasn´t able to contact her with enough notice, and she won´t be able to come to the festival. i´m excited about meeting, her though! she is an architecture student here in sevilla, and i´m hoping that she can show me some of the really cool places in town that not many tourists know about. it should be a good thing, and i´m excited to practice my spanish even more.

tomorrow will be a short day of class, and chelsea and i are already plotting our afternoon/evening activities. saturday is a day trip to córdoba, and then sunday is a day of rest (thank goodness!). my time here is going really well, and i´m surprised by how fast things seem to be moving. i´ve been chatting with some friends about planning a trip to barcelona and, when i consulted the calendar, i realized that i only have a few weekends free this entire semester! between trips to córdoba, mérida, morocco (yay!), granada, madrid, family weekend, portugal (probably again, because i liked it so much!), and then barcelona, there just really aren´t that many weekends left! i know that time is going to fly, so i´m trying to enjoy every second as much as possible, though it´s definitely hard at times because i miss my family, friends, boyfriend, home, english, quizno´s, diet coke with vanilla, etc...

i´ll try to post pictures of the past couple of days soon, and i´ll definitely post pictures of córdoba whenever i get those taken.

-m