Un Poquito Sobre España y Sevilla

So for my third blog post, I thought I'd talk a little bit about Spanish stuff and the day to day goings-on rather than a straight summary. Let's start with my host family. They consist of a mother (Paula), a 20 year-old son (Pedro), and una gatita, Lola. Lola is always getting on the furniture. "Bajate, Lola!" They're good people.

Meals here go something like this: breakfast basically whenever, and you can eat in casa or at a restaurant. A restaurant's offer usually is toast with jam or ham, coffee, and juice. It's not a big breakfast like many people eat in the US. At about 2-3, there's comida, which is lunch and usually the biggest meal of the day. It varies, but two elements are always present: meat and bread. There will always be bread at every meal. Sometimes potatoes as well. One meal consisted of penne pasta in a red sauce with tuna, french fries, and bread. The female exchange students are worried about gaining weight with all of the carbohydrates we're eating. My host mother seems to be fond of eggs (usually fried) and melón or sandía. Fried rice is also surprisingly common. I think that her cooking style derives from the fact that she doesn't really have a big stove that's suitable for big pots, so everything goes into a sartén, or frying pan. In between lunch and cena, most people usually have a merienda or snack between 5-7. Not that it's unusual to see Spanish people at any hour of the day in a bar eating or drinking something. Most bars do close down between 2 and 4 for a siesta, and it becomes difficult to buy anything or get help because everyone has their doors closed or rolled down, like a garage. Dinner is between 9 and 10, depending on the family. I've pretty much adapted to the schedule, as long as I try to merendar a little before dinner. In the apartment, meals are usually eaten in front of the television, where a game show, the news, or some celebrity update is playing. The Simpsons plays pretty often on one of the channels, though (in Spanish of course).

My room is fairly small, but a good size for the average person in an apartment. There's a clothes closet and a miscellaneous items closet, a desk, a bed, and a nightstand. The window looks out onto the pool. Kids are always playing Marco Polo out there. I also have my own bathroom, which surprised me. It has a good-sized shower and a cabinet for toiletries, which I was admonished to use by my host mother because it makes the bathroom "easier to clean" if you don't have stuff on the countertops. The hamper is also in the bathroom. One of my first culture surprises: when my host mother called me into the laundry room to talk about my pants. In the United States, we wear pants once and then wash them, right? My host mother expressed surprise at the fact that I had six pairs of pants in the laundry for six days, when most of them weren't "dirty". I managed a feeble excuse about sweat, but I guess that's just a cultural difference. It does surprise me, though, that she holds this attitude when she also requires the use of shoes in the house (the floor's made of tile). For Spanish mothers, the CIEE housing guy explained, walking around barefoot (or in socks, I would imagine), is considered unhealthy. It just seems like an odd juxtaposition. Anyone who can offer an explanation, please do.

What's typical in Sevilla? For one, people "comer"  their "s" and their "d", as well as the ends of words. Therefore, "estamos todos?" (are we all here?) becomes "e'tamo' to'o?" The Spanish "theta" is prevalent here too. That's the tendency to turn "z or c + a vowel" into a "thh" sound. Therefore, "zeta" or "z", is pronounced "theta". There are also bars everywhere, and almost every one of them sports a Cruzcampo sign. Cruzcampo is the local beer of Sevilla, and is served "glacial", or from -2 to 2 Celsius, which is a blessing because it's really hot. Almost every day it's 92-95, with the exception of one day when I think it was 85? Cruzcampo is very popular and sometimes the only beer served. In one bar, I got two for me and a friend, and a guy came up and asked for the beer of the day. What was the beer of the day? Cruzcampo. It's the beer of the day every day, it seems. In another bar, I asked for Mahou, which is another Spanish beer, and was told that they only had Cruzcampo. It's very light, but it's cool, refreshing, and better than PBR, so who am I to complain? The other popular beverage right now is "tinto de verano", or summer red wine. It's a sangria-like red wine with ice and sparkling water, sometimes lemon or orange flavored. There are a lot of heladerias (ice cream shops) in Sevilla, which is not surprising considering how hot it is. There are also a lot of little tiendas de alimentación, or food shops, which sell sodas, snack foods, and a little bit of everything else. Many of these are run by Chinese people who, my guide informed me, due to an agreement between Spain and China, do not have to pay the sort of start-up business tax, giving them an advantage.

Most of the streets are really narrow, and the names are either not listed or on buildings above the street itself, which can cause problems for unfamiliar college students. You can't really locate yourself when every street is like an alley. It also causes problems for motorists. In a street only a dozen feet wide, there's not much room for a pedestrian and a car. However, there's a lot of cool architecture, old churches and such. In my intensive history class, we've been going around the city and learning about it. There's an archaeological site under one of their modern art projects, popularly called Las Setas (the mushrooms, look it up to see for yourself), called the Antiquarium, stylized with a Roman V, that incorporates artifacts and history from the first to the thirteenth century AD, showing Roman, Visigothic, and Islamic periods. It's a really cool city, and I'll be learning more about it for sure.

We'll stop here for now. Until next time. I'll leave you with this, which I have seen a five-man brass band play a couple of different times in the street: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UEWikG_KaE

Orientación y Más

I'm back for the second post. The past couple of days have been orientation and we have a couple more to go. Nonetheless, plenty has been happening. We've visited the University of Sevilla, and the University of Pablo de Olavide, both places where we could take classes. On Wednesday, we sat through a few presentations and basically just took the time to get to know each other and our guides a little better. We did learn that we get €250 for the "cultural reimbursement" program, which, if we present our receipts along with photos and a description of our experience, allows us to be reimbursed for visiting other Spanish cities or going to cultural events like football matches or theater performances, etc. Later that evening, we walked around our neighborhood (Puerta Osario) a little bit as well as going into the commercial district of Nervión, where lies Sevilla's train station. How convenient! We ended up in an establishment known as Los Coloniales in the Plaza of Christo de Burgos, where we enjoyed our first real tapas experience. The first time didn't count, because CIEE had rented out the place for the orientation/welcome session.

                                          The picture's really blurry, but this is solomillo Whisky, small pork chops in a whisky sauce with plenty of garlic and potatoes.

                                          Here we have a better picture of pollo al nata, which is chicken in an almond cream sauce (with potatoes; there's always potatoes).

On Thursday, we walked around the city, especially the historical center, getting to see the Giralda, which is the tower of the main cathedral in Sevilla. The area's pretty typical, with people trying to sell you stuff, others taking pictures, and plenty of horse-drawn carriages for tours. We also walked through la Judería, which I assume is a former Jewish neighborhood, where we saw several peacocks, and I discovered that my guides (Candído, or Candi, and Elisabet, or Eli) are big fans of the NBA. We got over to the CIEE building, or El Palacio, as it is also called, which is the study center of our program. It's through a lot of narrow, winding streets, so I'm still not entirely sure how to get there. I noted a few shops, so that I can at least tell if I'm going in the right direction. We also ended up at the Plaza de España, built in 1929 for a sort of Spanish World's Fair to display the greatness of Spain. It has wonderful architecture, as well as a small canal surrounding the central area with a large fountain. All around the base of the outer area are frescos of different Spanish cities; there had to be at least 40, all beautifully done.

This was the day when we went to la UPO, as it is known here. The Universidad Pablo de Olavide is only about 15 years old and resembles an American campus, in that everything is together, unlike the Universidad de Sevilla, which is spread out over the city. It's on the other side of the city, but not too far if you use the metro, which only has about 20 stops end to end.

 Later that evening, we spent about an hour in a Movistar (Spanish movíl or cellphone provider) shop, simply waiting to get SIM cards put in our phones. The guide (Pablo) informed us that this is very typical because there are so many ways that people pay for phones and set up contracts in Spain, so it takes a while to get things done. We scrambled to get to the tapas point, but arrived in plenty of time to enjoy more solomillo and patatas. We also got to try fried cuttlefish and either fried sardines or anchovies, I'm not sure. After that, we went to La Casa de la Memoria, which is a flamenco performance center. Although I could only get about 1 in 10 of the singer's words (due to him singing rather than speaking), I really enjoyed and was impressed by the play of the guitarrista and the two dancers (male and female). It's like tap dancing on steroids, with a lot of expressive whirling of the body and hands, as well as everyone else keeping time with their hands or feet. Definitely grateful I got to go.

On Friday we went to Universidad de Sevilla for more orientation stuff about how the Spanish University system works, as well as a tour of it. I'll probably be taking most of my classes here, in the Facultades (Departments) de Geografía e Historia. Fililogía is also housed here. Overall, I think I'm getting to know my areas of the city fairly well, with plenty left to explore. We start intensive classes on Monday, and university classes two weeks later. Orientation's over, and the real deal's about to begin.

¡Por Fin Llegue!

I'm in Sevilla right now, but it was a journey. Bags all packed and ready to go, I headed to the RDU airport for a bittersweet farewell with my mom and sister. I arrived at the gate with plenty of time to spare; no, I mean I really had time to spare. The flight, initially supposed to leave at 2:25, didn't board until 3:00 and was grounded because of weather conditions at JFK, our destination, eventually taking off at about 5:00, which caused the student in front of me and the Asian couple next to me to miss their 5:10 connection to Rome. At least I wasn't in that position, right? I got to JFK about 15 minutes before boarding started, but this flight would be delayed as well. We boarded on time (7:10 departure), but the flight would not take off for another two hours. I passed the time reading and chatting with a madrileño couple sitting next to me. They had been on vacation in New York and Washington DC. We would commiserate about the flight throughout.

I can never sleep on planes, and this was no exception. 42 and Trouble With the Curve, two recent baseball movies, played at the beginning and end of the flight, but I could enjoy neither fully because of the lack of a headphone jack in my armrest. The resident infants on the flight were mercifully quiet, but my inability to stretch out foiled my attempts at sleeping. We eventually reached Madrid, and after getting my passport stamped, I went on a roundabout journey, passing through security to end up pretty much where I got off. Frustrating, huh? Anyway, it turned out that my flight to Sevilla was full of fellow CIEE students. We exchanged program and university information and half-joked about our Spanish-speaking abilities ("I'm going to be doing a lot of pointing, etc."). It was an island of English in our soon-to-be Spanish ocean.

Following the flight's arrival (mercifully on time and without complications), we headed to our meetup with CIEE staff, meeting our guides and discussing our various journeys. Next stop, homestay. Paula Garcia-Fernández is my host mother, and I'll be sharing the apartment with her son Pedro, 20, and their little cat Lola. Chicken, fried eggs and melón is not a bad almuerzo, no? I have an orientation meetup later tonight, where we'll be welcomed to Sevilla. I think I'm running on adrenaline right now, having only a few hours of half-sleep in the last 24 hours or so, but I feel fine. I'll try to get some pictures up in the next post. For now, ciao.