Are you best friends with Justin Bieber?

So today was my official first day of classes. I work Tuesdays through Fridays for about 3 hours a day, and I can already tell that it will be tiring, but hilarious. Most of my classes today involved the kids (aged 8-11) asking me questions. Do you like fútbol? What is your favorite team? Do you like to eat jamón? (when I answered no to this question all of their faces dropped; they simply could not believe it). My favorite question, however, had to be: are you best friends with Justin Bieber? Not do I know Justin Bieber, or do I like Justin Bieber, but are we best friends. After laughing for a really long time, I replied that sadly no, I have not had the pleasure of meeting señor Bieber, but if I ever do I will convince him to come to Sevilla!

This past weekend was full of errands and crossing things off the list. On Friday, Rachel and I met a few of Carmen’s friends from Sevilla and had them over our apartment for pizza. We all then went out to Sevilla Este for caipirinhas (my favorites!). They were all super nice, so it was a good low-key get to know you night. On Sunday I convinced Rachel to go to this awesome market (el mercadillo) that I used to go to when I was here last time. It used to be right down the street from my homestay and had a little bit of everything… notice that this sentence is in the past tense. After walking about 45 minutes over the river to where the mercadillo used to be, we discovered that it does not exist anymore. So we basically ended up wandering around this sketchy back road with nobody and nothing in sight (we were definitely “wandering deep,” as Rick Steves would say). Finally, we asked two British women if they knew of a mercadillo, and they told us there was one about 20 minutes away. At this point, I could tell that Rachel probably wanted to kill me, because we had already been walking for so long, but I was convinced that it would be the same mercadillo and that I just midjudged the distance. Boy was I wrong. If I were to describe this market in one word, it would be garbage. Literally, because the ground was blanketed with garbage. For sale were old dirty tools, used underwear, porn, and puppies (I wanted to buy them just to save them from this horrible place), with some random Victorian furniture thrown in. I realize this doesn’t sound too disgusting, but it was. Take it from somebody who doesn’t get disgusted very easily.

After finally escaping from this horrible place (which was achieved by hiking through some bushes and across some old, broken-down train tracks), we made our way to Antonia’s for lunch. We told her about our experience at the mercadillo, and she just laughed. I guess she had heard about its awfulness but for some reason did not warn us not to go! She then taught us how to make a delicious garbanzo soup with tomatoes, garlic, peppers, onions, and chorizo. We hope that we will be able to reproduce it, or at least make the attempt to, sometime this week. So all in all it has been a funny couple of days, and at least now we will know to ask before trying out any other mercadillos!