I never kept a blog during study abroad, but I figured that this is the easiest way to record my memories and keep everyone informed of my adventures. So here we go. This is me in Spain. It’s been a rocky past couple of days, including flight changes, jet lag, sickness (which yes includes me barfing on a sidewalk in broad daylight… more to come on that) and technical difficulties, however things are slowly starting to come into place.
Rachel and I met in the Madrid airport Monday morning and flew into Sevilla together. The hotel we have been staying at, as well as our apartment, are both in a completely different part of the city that I had rarely visited, so it hasn’t really felt like much of a homecoming yet. Because we have been so busy with orientation, I haven’t gotten the chance to explore the areas that I came to love so much, so in a way this really has felt like a completely new experience. I was surprised, however, by how many familiar faces I saw. At least 15 people from our study abroad program in Sevilla are on our program, which is comforting to know that others loved Spain so much that they wanted to come back as well! Orientation was frustrating in a way, however, because people here are placed all over Andalucía, so it has been really hard to meet people who will still be in the city after tomorrow. So far we’ve met 4 other girls in Sevilla who we will hopefully be able to keep in touch with!
On Monday Rachel’s former host mom Antonia invited us over for lunch, then drove us to our hotel to pick up our enormous suitcases to bring them to the apartment. I really like the apartment from what I have seen – we’ve been staying in the hotel and haven’t gotten a chance to pick out our rooms or settle in, which I will be looking forward to doing. I already know that Antonia is going to be a huge help and a great landlady – she had flowers on the table in a vase for us and even bought us some fresh fruit and bread.
Today (Tuesday) we had meetings for orientation all day, which were both informative and overwhelming. I realized how difficult of a transition this is going to be without the comfort of a host mom doing all of our cooking and our only worry being getting to class. The first part of orientation was dreadful, as my stomach did not seem to agree with my lack of sleep. During breakfast at the hotel I could barely eat, and upon leaving for the orientation I felt the strong urge to barf… which I did… into my hands… because I was still in the hotel lobby. With all 100 kids on my program. Quickly I ran outside and continued to projectile vomit onto the sidewalk. It was pretty disgusting. After that, I felt pretty gross and had to force myself to sit through orientation, slightly smelling of puke. After lunch, however, I started feeling a lot better, which made the rest of the afternoon a lot easier.
This afternoon, we had to make a stop at Vodafone because the new phone Rachel bought wasn’t working, and then we went on a Corte Ingles trip with Antonia. For dinner, Rachel and I went out to Cien Montaditos (mmmm) with another girl on our program who will be in Sevilla, which was glorious. I’m still extremely tired from jet lag, but am excited to move into the apartment tomorrow (pictures to come). Unfortunately, there is a nation-wide strike in Spain tomorrow, so almost everything it seems like will be closed, including supermarkets, transportation, etc. We were hoping to buy internet for the apartment, but I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes. We also won’t have any food… hopefully at least someplace is open!
