Settling in

Since my last post, I have joined up with the CIEE group and started settling into my homestay and classes. Our group is great. The people seem very enthusiastic and so far everybody has been really nice. A major plus is that four of the kids were here last semester, so they have been showing us around and filling us in on the best places to get cellphones and churros.

My host family is the bomb. The parents are relaxed and welcoming, making me feel at home but also giving me space and letting me go out whenever. The kids are really cute and friendly: the little ones like to hug me and hold my hand and the older one likes to play Europoly (like Monopoly with Spanish properties and Euros) with me! I live across the river from el centro, in a family neighborhood (mostly residential with a few shops here and there). The walk to school takes me just under a half an hour, giving me a good amount of time to think, listen to my iPod, and enjoy my surroundings.

The Spanish classes are set up in a very relaxed way. We basically just talk for hours at a time and ask the teacher when we don't know what something means. Today we talked about fashion. Yesterday we talked about menage-a-trois (sp?) and where everybody was from. The great thing about this chill, conversational set-up is that I am learning a lot more colloquial Spanish than I ever did in high school. The teacher, Mercedes, doesn't seem to mind going off on tangents, as long as everybody is talking and doing so en español!

I've also learned a bit more about Sevilla. The oranges I mentioned before are apparently really bitter and no good to eat. Every spring they are picked and sent to England though, where they are turned into orange marmalade! When I heard this I laughed because orange marmalade is something I always have associated with little British school boys who are asking their Daddy for some toast. I've also learned that bicyclists make no effort to avoid pedestrians and travel at incredibly high speeds. Apparently four kids doing my program were hit last year! So that's something I'm going to have to be careful of. Other things I have learned are: people are late (my teacher didn't arrive at our 11:20 afternoon class until 11:35, so I guess I can take my time getting my café con leche during break), January-March is the season for rebajas--sales--and so all the shops are packed, and people live with their parents until their mid-twenties or early thirties.

That's all for now. I'm going to do my homework assignment and then get to bed early, because tomorrow is FUNKY NIGHT at a discoteca in town. I have to get some good rest or else I will be pretty cranky at school on Thursday.