May 29, 2011

May 29, 2011

I made it to Sevilla and wow is it hot! The weather says it will be high eighties all week and it's pretty humid! Woo hoo! 

This morning, we woke up early and got all of our stuff in our suitcases and got ready. We ate breakfast and then took pictures with Ana. Ana has been the most wonderful mom while I have been here in Spain. She took just wonderful care of us and wanted us to have the best time possible in Salamanca. We were definitely spoiled. So after we took a few pictures and gave us our keys, we put our luggage in the elevator and we were off to the bus stop!

We loaded all of our things and got on the bus. We drove for a few hours and then stopped in Merida, which is a town that used to be occupied by the Romans in the first century. They had a ton of cool ruins that we got to look at and we went through a museum of things they have found and preserved like statues and tools and stuff. Way cool! 

Then we drove for another three hours and arrived in Sevilla around 5:30. This time, we just had to find our place by ourselves. Liliana also warned us that Sevilla is a lot more dangerous than Salamanca and there is a lot more theft here so I will have to be really careful with my things. Anyways, Adelay and I started walking towards our apartment and a woman came up to us and told us that she was Mercedes and that we were staying in her house. The apartment complex that we live in now doesn't have an elevator so we had to lug our huge bags up two flights of stairs. I don't mind taking the stairs, but my bags were soooo heavy!

So anyways, she brought us in and showed us to our room. It has two little twin beds, a small armoire and a desk. That's all. So it's s little small, but I don't mind. Fitting all my stuff into the armoire was an adventure, but I like the room. The apartment itself is very large. Unfortunately, however, we do not have Internet here. I actually found myself getting really homesick. It's hard because at the beginning, the craziness of being in a new country masked the homesickness. But now, that has kinda of worn off and I still have 4 weeks to go! It's just when I'm not doing anything, though, that I get homesick, so I just need to keep myself busy. 

At 7, we left to go find the school and walk around Sevilla. The school is only about a 5 minute walk from our house so that's nice. We walked around the plaza and down to the river. Sevilla looks a lot more like what I imagined Spain would be like. It has a lot of Arabic influence, so that is interesting. They also have orange trees growing everywhere! Too bad it's illegal to pick the oranges. While we were across the river, we heard these loud drums playing a pretty steady beat so we went to go see what was going on. There was this procession going on with all of these people playing instruments and then at the front there was a few people holding up this huge decorated thing. I don't even know how to describe it, but it was strange. 

We returned home and had dinner of French fries and some breaded chicken. We were able to sit and talk about Mercedes and we found out that her niece lives in Utah! She didn't know where in Utah, but then she said that her niece was a Mormon so she asked if we were Mormon, too! So that was cool! She also complemented us on our Spanish, so that was comforting!

Now, we are exhausted, so we are calling it an early night! Good night!