What a whirlwind!

I apologize for my lack of posts in these past couple of weeks but my life has been the busiest its been in a while.  In the past three weeks I have seen how the finest Spanish ham is made, discovered some pretty incredible caves, laid on a couple beaches, started working with 12-13 and 15-16 year olds in the schools to help them learn english, took a little trip with the CIEE program to Morocco (4th continent…no biggie), then when my parents arrived we spent the week reveling in the amazingness of spain in: Madrid, Toledo, Granada, Marbella, Gibraltar, and Jerez.  Next up I have to give two presentations, write a paper, and prepare a lesson plan for this week, have a week off for the Seville Fair in which I’ll be studying most of the time, then finals the following week and home by the following Sunday.  It really is amazing how much I’ve been able to do and how fast it has all gone by!

So as to try not to make this post as long as the others and risk you not reading it or falling asleep halfway through I’m just going to give you a few pointers on what I’ve learned from my travels in the past three weeks. 1. If you are a pork lover you have to try 5J (cinco jota) ham, its pretty expensive but I hear its the best you can get anywhere, 2. When you’re in Morocco you have to barter everything and don’t wimp out otherwise you won’t get good prices or may end up with nothing at all, 3. Camels are fun to ride, but nowhere near as fun as horses, 4. Talking to foreign tour guides (especially attractive ones) can teach you a lot about the culture of the country, 5. day trips to any city in Spain is well worth it, and pretty inexpensive, 6. even if you’re not into art a trip to one of the worlds greatest art museums are well worth it (and that you can get into the prado from 6-8pm free and the Reina Sophia museum from 7-9pm for free), 7. Sometimes the touristy towns that everyone talks about aren’t as great as the non-touristy little towns in the countryside, 8. its always nice to show something off to make your parents go ‘wow’ (especially if its your ability to speak in another language), 9. Sanlucar de Barremeda is the only place in the world that makes Manzanilla (sherry) wine and 10. no matter how much fun you have with taking trips with your friends abroad, sometimes its just nice to spend a week doing that exploring with your family

Come aboard for a trip around the coast of Spain

So last weekend was the end of my string of weekend travels and I have to say that although it was a lot of fun it was also tiring, so I’m glad to be getting to spend a few weekends chilling out/exploring Seville.

While I have heard many people in my program talking about going to Prague or Paris, I was making my way around the coast of the Iberian peninsula.  Instead of getting caught up in what weekend was where I’ll just start from the southwest and make my way northeast.  The first stop on our little journey was in a little beach town called Lagos, Portugal.  Here I was able to see just how beautiful nature can really be.  We took a boat to the very tip of Portugal then walked to the top to see it from another view.  Our next stop was in another small town called Sanlucar de Barremeda, I’m pretty sure that I have written about this one already so we’ll go ahead and continue our way to Cadiz which has miles and miles of beautiful beaches and was once Spain’s main trading port with the Arabic nations.

Malaga is our next stop.  This town was full of life and rich with history.  This trip was our trip to round out our modes of travel in the fact that it was our first train trip.  Here we got to see some of the lesser known works of Picasso, and one of the bars that Antonio Banderas left his mark, because both of these guys were born in Malaga.  By plane we took a leap to the eastern coast of Spain to get a little taste of their Carnaval celebrations as well as partake in learning a lot about Spain’s history before the middle times (Archaeological Museum) as well as learn a little bit of the culture of that area by seeing groups of people playing music and dancing in the streets just because they can.  Our last stop to bring us to where I was last weekend:  Barcelona.  This is definitely a BIG city.  Seville is the fourth largest city in Spain, but it doesn’t feel like a big city like Barcelona does.  Barcelona was hopping with people and filled with breathtaking architecture, definitely a city worth visiting.   Overall I would say that my favorite city would have to be Sanlucar which is why I would highly recommend that if you are studying abroad, go to the smaller cities, they have less people and usually a lot of cool stuff you can’t get in the big metropolitan cities.

The wonderful thing about being in Europe is that you can travel one hour or ten hours and it will feel like you’re in a completely different country (sometimes you are and sometimes you’re not).   The best part about this traveling is that is easy and relatively inexpensive as compared with the states.  Another nice thing is that the hostels here are not the horror stories you hear, there are so many webpages that you can look through to find the best ones with lots of real people giving their honest opinion.  And where else can you say that you’ve tried (almost) every type of transportation?  Planes, trains, metros, bikes, foot, boats, buses and cars?

Don’t worry, this isn’t the last of my travelling stories, I have only made it through a little over half of my stay and I still have Morocco and central Spain to conquer, but while I have loved travelling around I have to say that my heart still belongs to Seville

My first trip to a Spanish doctor

So, somehow I managed to hurt my foot, so bad that I cannot walk on it.  To be honest, I have no idea how it happened.  It just seemed like one day it was fine and the next day I could barely walk on it.  So after waiting a day or so for it to get better and having to miss a trip to see the castles around Seville I finally figured it was time to get  a professional opinion.

Unfortunately the doctor that is recommended by the program is over the river and through the woods (or just over the river) and a pretty good distance, so I took a cab and ended up at a door that had the sign for the doctor but it looked like an apartment building where you would have to ring to get buzzed in, so I pressed a button and was let into a shady looking ground floor and figured since there were only stairs and an elevator I’d try going up one floor.  By the time I got into the office it looked pretty normal, magazines on a table and a receptionist on the phone with one of  her friends…the usual.  So when I got in to talk to the doctor the hardest part was that she didn’t speak any English.  Although I have been here for about two months and my Spanish has improved greatly, I still wasn’t so good at medical terminology especially things having to do with feet.  After stumbling through that and having her poke around my foot she scribbled down what I was supposed to take and what to do, and somehow I ended up going out of there with two prescriptions, directions to soak my foot twice a day and to avoid walking in the streets as much as possible, and the directions to the radiologist for x-rays.  I also found out that apparently having a broken arm doesn’t stop guys from  piropos.  So as I was hobbling out of the doctors office the guy with the broken arm sitting in the waiting room with his friends started making comments towards me.  In a doctors office?  Interesting….

What I figured would be a short taxi ride to the radiologist ended up being a painful walk to the radiologists office nearby because on all of the streets I needed to take to get there, there were no taxis to be seen.  Once I got there they were really nice and after they found out I was American they tried to speak to me in English, which was a nice gesture but eventually I asked them to speak in Spanish, and surprisingly I understood them soooo much better when they were speaking in their native language as opposed to mine.

So I would love to say that the radiologist  was the end of my adventure, but sadly no.  I figured that since I was already out I would go and pick up my prescriptions.  I ended up having to hobble to three different pharmacies to find one that had the medicine that I needed, not so fun when you can’t walk.  But the interesting thing was that separately the doctor visit and the radiologist visit were about three to four times as expensive as the combined price of the two prescriptions I got.  Kinda backward from what I’m used to.

Overall the good news is that my foot isn’t broken, but the bad news is that I have to stay off it as much as possible so not only did I miss the castle trip I also missed the trip to Cordoba to see the world famous Mosque, and I have to go back to the doctor and the radiologist in 6 days.  The one good thing that came out of this is that since I have to pretty much just stay in my room the entire weekend I can use that time to study for the four midterms I have this week.  Hopefully it’ll be healed by Friday so I can go to Barcelona.

Los politicos en una perspectiva diferente

When it comes time for lunch and dinner we all crowd around the table that is perfectly situated in the middle of two lazyboy-ish chairs the couch and the television, keeping relatively warm by the heater situated under the table, and watch spanish television.  Because of this I have come to the conclusion that my senora prefers to watch the Simpsons (with spanish voices instead of english), a show called “De Buena Ley (basically a mixture of Judge Judy and Jerry Springer), a funny version of the news called “intermedio” (which has a part where they sum up the news in a minute…impossible to understand), the regular news, and occasionally futbol.

The interesting thing is that by watching a mixture of all of these shows, except the simpsons, and chatting with my senora, her husband, and occasionally her son I have learned a lot about politics within Spain as well as what they think about the recent crisis in Egypt and Libya, as well as politics in the States.  From what I’ve heard not many people are too fond of Zapatero(socialist party)  right now, some say it might just be because of the internal crisis like unemployment or just because there is such a large Populist Party (PP) against him.  Besides the smoking ban that was put into place on January 1st, 2011 (highly controversial) he has also recently put into affect a new law which reduces the speed limit on the highway from 120 km/hr to 110km/hr to try to conserve gas, again, some agree and some think its kinda ridiculous because it is so expensive to replace all the signs even though they are only putting a sticker over the 2.

Outside of Zapatero, the crisis in Libya and Egypt have been broadcast all over the news here.  It could be due to the fact that the news people are talking really really fast in a language that I’m not completely fluent in, or because its so new, but I’ve really only heard the facts and there isn’t much controversy about what is actually going on.  Of course everyone thinks its horrible, and that it was great that the dictator in Egypt stepped down, but they are a little worried about the fact that the military has taken over and that there is so much unrest in Libya.  Something that someone mentioned to me over here that kinda got me thinking was that in the US it would be something that is halfway around the world and kinda affects us but only if our government tries to intervene.  Now I am halfway around the world and it is literally across the Mediterranean from where I’m at so it kinda worries me a bit more.  Also, we are supposed to take a trip to Morocco through the program so our advisors are keeping a close eye on that, hopefully I’ll still get to go!

To avoid putting my political opinions in this I will just tell you briefly what I have heard about their thoughts on Obama and US politics.  Mostly they are in favor of Obama, and as I was talking to a spanish political science major, it is probably due to the fact that right now the Spanish government is very liberal so that is why they are such huge supporters.  I have also heard that they were not fans of the most recent Bush, but I have also heard that the Spanish people tend to oscillate back and forth between which president is in office.

This isn’t really political, but I had my sister mail me measuring cups and measuring spoons so I could make cookies, and when I showed them to my senora she just couldn’t get over them she kept saying “Que gracioso, que precioso” which was interesting because she has had american exchange students for 11 years and she’s never seen a measuring cup?  My plan is to leave them here for her and write up a bunch of american recipes for her.  I ended up finding almost everything I need, except vanilla in liquid form (they only had powdered) and I had to bake them in a microwave…..sounds odd I know, but hey they turned out pretty good and I’ll probably try again soon

Studying in Seville?

After a request from my biggest fan (my mom) and after reading the posts of my fellow amigos abroad I have realized that although I have had two weeks of intensive session and a week and a half of real classes I haven’t even talked about my studies. I’m only ‘studying’ abroad who would have thought the studying part of it was the important part? Haha But one of the main reasons that I haven’t been able to update so often is precisely because of this. First I’m going to answer a couple questions that you may have on your mind. Are the classes in English? No. They are completely in Spanish and taught by Spanish professors who also teach at the Universidad de Sevilla. Are they difficult? In one word: Yes. In more words: They are difficult because you have to not only know what they are saying; they are also introducing new topics that you have to wrap your mind around. Basically think of it as trying to wrap your mind around the concept of the stock market while at the same time translating every word that they say from Pig Latin into English. One of the cool things about this experience is not only that I am rapidly increasing my ability to speak in Spanish (and surprisingly losing some of my English…weird phenomena), but I am also getting used to walking in class and finding it perfectly normal that the professor is not speaking English. The interesting thing is that I have a feeling that it will feel really weird to walk into a classroom when I get back to the States and hear the professors speaking English. The major problem right now is getting the professors to understand what I’m trying to say when I try to answer a question or respond to one of theirs. This is mostly because the way that Americans are taught Spanish is mid-American Spanish (like from Colombia or the Dominican Republic) as opposed to the Spain type of Spanish, so its like going to England and asking where the elevator is and them looking at you funny because 1. You have an American accent and 2. Because they call it the lift not the elevator.

Another interesting thing about studying here is that I have classes in three different buildings. Those of you at Purdue will probably say no biggie I do too, the difference is that in Seville there are two Universities 1. Pablo de Olavide which is more compact and like the universities in the states (or so I hear I haven’t visited there yet) and 2. Universidad de Sevilla which is an entirely different story and where I technically attend. The Universidad de Sevilla has one main building in the center of town which has the history, philosophy and geography sections then has random buildings around the city that host the law, education, audio visual, business and other schools or facultades within the university.

So two days a week I go to the main building which many years ago was an old tobacco factory and is an absolutely gorgeous building for my History of Slavery in Latin America, and the CIEE center which is another old renovated building more towards the older part of Seville for my Culture of Flamenco Class. Then the other two days I go to a more modern building which we call FCEYE (Facultad de ciencias economicas y empresariales = the business school) for my Managing Diversity, Finance and Marketing classes. The worst part about having the classes in different places is that from my homestay it’s about a 15 minute walk to FCEYE, 20 minute walk to the old Tobacco factory and a 30 minute walk to the CIEE center….all of them in different directions. But as Mindy said in her post, there is no need for an iPod because the city creates a music of its own, and I get to walk by the Plaza de Espana twice a week to get to the tobacco factory, so I guess that’s not too hard to get used to.

Weekends on the Coast

What a wonderful weekend it turned out to be.  A couple friends and I on a whim decided that since everyone in our program had decided to go down to Grenada for the weekend, we wanted to go somewhere without all the Americans.  So we decided to take a bus ride down to Sanlucar de Barrameda.   This place is located on the southwestern coast of Spain and is located at the area where the Guadalquivir River goes into the sea.  This was also where Christopher Columbus set sail from on his 3^rd trip to the Americas.  Also it was a very important trading port with the Indies way back when.

After almost missing our bus and having to walk about 30minutes to find our hostel.  We got settled into a cozy little room then went out for a nice relaxing dinner.  The following morning at about 6am we had quite interesting experience.   I woke up to see that there was a light on in the bathroom and the sound of someone using it.  I was laying in bed and so was my roommate no obviously neither of us were in there.  In a moment of slight bravery I reached over and flipped the light on then off and the light didn’t go off.  I nudged the girl next to me to make sure that I wasn’t making things up but she didn’t look and just told me I was crazy.  So being the chicken I am just laid there thinking to myself how to say “What are you doing in my bathroom” and “How did you get into my room” in Spanish, as well as trying to figure out if I had anything heavy to throw at them.  After a little while the light turned off, but no one came out….interesting…so I went back to sleep.  The next morning I found that there was a window above the mirror and it connected into the bathroom of the room next to ours.

The next morning we decided to go exploring and find all the wineries in the area (it was wine country after all)  Only one winery ended up being open when we got to it.  The cool thing was that this winery happened to be the same winery from which my glass of delicious wine came from the night before.  This was one of the wineries that made Manzanilla wine which was specific to this small area in Spain, more specifically a special kind of Sherry wine.  It was interesting to see that the way they make the wine is that they mix the new wine with really old wine in the barrels and then they cover the surface with ground up flowers and that is what makes it so special.  We also got to look in a few barrels to see exactly what they meant, it was pretty cool.

After we had bought tickets and were waiting in the general area for the tour to start, a bunch of older men came in and were waiting too.  So we saw the lady who sold us the tickets lead a group out so we figured that was where we were supposed to go.  Nope, we got down the street and right when she was about to start she walked over to us and said it was the wrong tour and that was a ‘special one’.  We looked down at our watches and our tour was going to start in one minute.  Crap.  So we said ok, sorry and walked quickly back to the original area and this was one time I was glad that nothing starts on time here in Spain.  We made it back and started the tour five minutes later.  Talk about luck!

After our tour we went to the beach because it had turned into a warm day  (pushing 70 or maybe mid 70’s) and went walking barefoot on the beach.  How many Midwestern people can say that they walked on the beach barefoot within the first five days of February?  Then we ate a delicious lunch at a seafood restaurant that was literally on the beach.  More exploration of the city that afternoon and we saw a few churches and castles (which were closed of course) then went down to the water intending to have dinner but unfortunately nothing was open.  So we figured either they were fancy multiple course restaurants that didn’t open until 10pm or because it wasn’t tourist season just weren’t open.  So we went back to the plaza and got dinner then afterwards we went to the candy store and got sheets of candy money, it was pretty cool, and didn’t taste too bad either

I have to say that although I have traveled to many large cities on vacations. the small cities are the real places to go if you want to know the area.  If you are going to be studying abroad and want a weekend getaway or you are just going to take a vacation somewhere I would highly recommend going to smaller towns that are well known for something, like Sanlucar de Barrameda to visit wineries

Near or Far there are always differences and similarities

There are many things that I have come across so far that makes living here so different from just visiting here.  When I was in the hotel I thought, ok this won’t be too bad just a few differences.  Boy was I wrong.  Well a lot of things are similar there are just a few small things that we take for granted that when changed seem to make a huge difference.  Two of the major things that they told us before we moved into the homestays was to be careful with the amount of water and electricity we use.  So for example when we use the shower, we’re supposed to only use water we absolutely need.  So basically you use enough to wet your hair and body, turn off the water, put shampoo in your hair, turn on the water to wash it out, turn off the water….etc. And with it being kind of chilly in the morning and evening, that makes for a chilly shower.

When it comes to electricity to save money I guess…?  There are just space heaters.  There is one in my room next to my desk and then another in the bathroom (which kinda helps with the being cold in the shower problem) then at the place I’m staying at, they keep one under the kitchen table and have a large tablecloth so when you sit down for meals its like you have a very warm blanket over your legs.  Another thing that us americans take for granted are the things that we leave plugged in, like our computer or telephones, or lights, whereas here we have to make sure that we remember to turn off the lights (they usually don’t even use them during the day while the sun is out) and to unplug anything that might be using electricity.  Also something that is less than convenient is that at night you have to turn off the space heater, and when it is freezing in your room, and you can’t use a space heater, you really hope that you have a lot of blankets….cause that was your only source of heat.

One interesting thing I found in a store today was that they have Dora the Explorer here.  Kinda redundant to have a kids show that teaches Spanish to Spanish speakers huh?  Well curiosity kicked in and I watched a part of the episode that they were playing at the store.  And instead of teaching kids Spanish, it was teaching them English….how cool is that?

Hola de Sevilla!

I cannot express how happy I am with my decision to come to Spain.  Not just Europe but Spain specifically.  I have been abroad before to other western European countries like England and France, so I kind of know what the culture is like, but Spain is very different from any of those.  Some of our guides here have told us the same thing, that Spain is quite different from the rest of Europe and especially from the United States.

One thing that I’d heard about but wasn’t sure if it was true is the nightlife, I don’t just mean drinking, but the entire night starting at about 7 or 8pm.  That is about when the Tapas restaurants open, then around 10pm the Tapas restaurants close up and the restaurants for dinner open.  And before 10pm you hardly see anyone in the Tapas restaurants, maybe a few in a local bar, but for the most part nothing.  Then at about 11pm the bars open and some clubs start to open, but for the most part a lot of clubs open at midnight, and I’ve heard but not experienced that some clubs actually don’t open until 4am.

I just have to brag a little bit to all you who are still back in the Midwest and say that I loved the fact that when I finally got out of the airport it was about 55 or 60 degrees outside and I saw palm trees.  Not only did I see palm trees, but as I was exploring the city I saw a lot of orange trees, something that is actually specific to Sevilla.  And as you can see in the picture they just lined the streets.  You can’t eat them, because they are apparently really bitter and they use them for perfume and cat food, along with other things, but it’s just interesting to see them all over the place filled with oranges, but surprisingly the sidewalks aren’t filled with fallen oranges.  They must have a good cleanup crew.

I am currently in a place where I want to say everything about this place, but at the same time I don’t have anything to say because it seems like something you just have to see for yourself.  So hasta luego for now!

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step

Studying abroad really takes a lot of time.  If I could do it over again I would have taken the time it would take to get everything together into consideration when I was planning my schedule for the Fall semester. 

However, I don’t want to scare you away from this.  I knew that I wanted to live in Europe at some point in my life whether it be for three months or three years.  So on a whim I went to the liaison in Krannert and talked to her about my possibilities of being able to study abroad.  I had changed majors a few times so I knew my schedule was tight, with hardly any room for error.  After talking with her about which classes would transfer back and writing out my plan of study for my remaining semesters I found that I really could do this! 

Since I was still a bit apprehensive about doing this, and I still hadn’t talked to my parents about it, I did everything non-100%-committal I could right off the bat.  To be honest I thought the hardest part would have been talking to my parents.  When the time actually came to asking them, I was almost sure that they wouldn’t let me, but the response I got from them was “That’s a great opportunity what do we have to do to get you there?”  Some good news for you out-of-state students like myself, is that with airfare and tuition and all that, my program actually ended up being less than a semester at Purdue (something to think about J), and there are so many travel grants that the study abroad office informs you about as well.

So to make a long story short, I made my way through the step-by-step checklist the study abroad office had made and the checklist from the program I was going through and here I am, about 15 days away from taking that long flight to Spain.  Although you may think that the semester before you go abroad is going to creep by, it really does fly so take time to make the most out of it, cause just think about how fast it will fly when you are in another country!

If you are a student even minutely thinking about studying abroad, then if you read nothing else in this post I hope that you read this: Take the time to talk to the study abroad office or your college study abroad liaison.  Even though you may not think that you have the opportunity, may it be for financial or academic reasons, it only takes maybe twenty minutes.  You might be surprised; you could be just like me, only days away from flying off to live in another country for a couple of weeks or for an entire year.  Also, take a look at Afton’s first blog, it has a lot of good tips about making it through the planning process.

All that is left for me is to tie up loose ends, grab a few last-minute necessities and before I know it I’ll be saying, Hasta Luego los Estados Unidos y Hola Sevilla!