Sevilla!

The Cathedral at night... this is also on my  walk to school

My bedroom at my home stay apartment

One of the many beautiful plaza's in Sevilla

Part of my walk to school

Another beautiful plaza

Sevilla is well known for all of their beautiful orange trees, they aren't in full bloom yet but are still so pretty!

My University

View from the rooftop lounge at school

Woke up early thursday morning refreshed and ready to meet my host family in Sevilla! The girls and I (Kandace, Caroline, Sarah, & Bridget) all met for a small breakfast and coffee and then went our separate ways on the buses to Sevilla. The trip by bus took 8 hours but only because in Spain the law says that bus and truck drivers must stop every four hours during their drive, so we took one twenty minute stop and another hour stop for lunch/siesta. I forgot how uncomfortable busses could be and by the time we arrived I was definitely ready to be off of it! All of us were so nervous as we got to the plaza to meet our families but it was really exciting. It was so cute to see all of the host families standing there just as excited as we were to meet. Eventually Maria, my host mom, found Kandace and I and introduced herself and helped us get our luggage into her small car. Maria is an amazing lady, she is very sweet and kind but doesn't speak hardly any english, like literally she only knows 'car' and 'orange' ha ha. But I love it! We are both so excited that we are forced to learn and use our knowledge of spanish all of the time. Maria is also really good about speaking slowly and trying her hardest to help us understand her and learn. Everyday we go over things like 'fork' is 'tenedor' and 'orange' is 'naranja' and simple things like that but we are definitely going to be learning a lot! Get ready to speak to me in Spanish Armendariz family! That evening we got settled into our room and got familiar with the apartment and the area around the building. It's an adorable apartment with a great location next to the metro and only a 25 minute walk to school. Kandace and I share a cute little room and have our own bathroom which is nice since she has a son living with her and the grandmother staying here occasionally as well. Later we met Oscar, her 27 year old son, and then watched tv and got to know one another a little better. I feel very comfortable and am very happy that I got the Munoz Angeles family as my host family.

My first morning at home started off with a bang! The previous night Maria had said that she turns off the hot water to the apartment at midnight every night, so I just figured 'Cool. Whatever, I don't know why I need to know that but sure!' Well much to my surprise when I got up to take a shower the next morning there was no hot water. Duh right? Next thing I know poor Maria is banging on the door "Valeria! Valeria! No esta agua caliente!" But by that point I had already figured that out and about froze to death trying to get the shampoo out of my hair. Needless to say I will not be taking a shower in the morning anymore! Lesson learned. At least I was wide awake the rest of the morning because Kandace and I then ventured off in Sevilla, map in hand, in search of our university. It took about 35 minutes but we eventually found our ISA group and went to our school. International University Menendez Pelayo is located right in the heart of the city. It's in an old building with three floors plus a rooftop deck with chairs and the most beautiful view of Sevilla. That morning we took our placement exams to see which level of spanish we'd fit into and then had a break for siesta and then started our english classes (business classes taught in english) that afternoon. At one point we walked around the town and got extremely lost! It took us 45 minutes of walking down the maze of streets to make it back to the university when we were only actually ten minutes away. After that we decided we better just stay there so that we didn't get lost again and miss our classes. It was the perfect afternoon sitting on the roof with  great people, soaking up the sun, and eating our homemade bocadillos (sandwiches) that our moms had made us. My international marketing class went great, Nano, our professor, has lived in the US but is from Spain and is pretty awesome. I think I'm going to learn a lot from that class. I also got the rest of my school schedule and placed into the Advanced Spanish classes which will be so great. I think it's going to be a great semester! That night ISA held a meeting at local hotel near our home where we enjoyed tapas and afterwards a few of us girls we out to see the city at night. Sevilla is truely a beautiful city!


I have fallen in love with Sevilla and can't wait to start my adventure!


-Val