First Day At School

Two nights ago, I was feeling the need for some exercise after being in my apartment for most of the day, so I met up with Julie and Julia for a stroll around the city. They found me doing laps around Plaza Nueva, trying not to seem creepy while walking in circles around adorable Spanish children playing in the square. We wandered around a bit, and it reminded me of how I need to go into the city as often as possible because the lively atmosphere is so infectious. Although I live a bit outside of the city, I should try to go to the historic part more often when I am bored because it just that amazing. We had a nice dinner at Los Coloniales, a tapas restaurant, and Rebecca joined us a bit later. We headed home early because our first day of school was the following morning. I chatted with Inma when I got home, and Jesús returned from his Capoeira class later with a friend. His friend had an accent that was even stronger than Jesús's so I barely understood anything he said, but he seemed quite funny. I tried to go to sleep early but had a miserable night's sleep because I was so nervous about having to wake up at 6:45 the next morning when my normal wake up time had been between 11 and 12.

I woke up when it was still dark outside, got ready fairly quickly, and headed out to catch the local bus to the bus station. I bought a one-way ticket to Arahal, hoping someone would give me a ride back at the end of the day. Julie met me at the station, and we met another girl from Boston who is also working in Arahal this year. It took about an hour and a strong attempt at a nap to get from the station to our school. Julie and I waited for our coordinator to give us the agenda for the day. We signed our contract with our schedule and offered to go to a class with her. We visited several classes throughout the day, some where the teachers told us that the kids were very misbehaved and some where they more engaged and curious about us. One thing that was universal is that the kids were very loud! I am going to have to work a lot on my patience for constant loud noise if I am going to survive there. The kids were all very excited to hear that I was from New York -- I refrained from telling them that I am not from the city for now because that would have just been a disappointment. They had no idea what Julie was talking about when she said she was from North Carolina. Thank you, New York, for being famous. They asked us a lot of questions about our favorite foods, our age, what we like to do, and if we like fútbol. One girl asked if I have a boyfriend, and the teacher said that they would have to find me one there. Some of the kids were absolutely adorable, and I am looking forward to getting to know them all better. I got to correct some of their writings and help them with worksheets. Something that really upset me was the grammar on one of the worksheets. The "correct" sentence form were things like "Has Brenda got a new car?" and "Have the girls got posters?" The students had to fill in "has/have" and "got" into blanks on the sheet. I was very tempted to correct it, but at least it was comprehensible. We also thought it might have been based more British english. The students' levels of english ranged from barely anything to decent. We mostly heard them ask us formulaic questions, but I think at least some of the older students could probably carry on a conversation. After a last period gym class, we got rides back to Sevilla with some teachers, and there is a carpool starting next week that will hopefully save us money on bus fare.

When I got home, I took a nice siesta and made plans for the evening. I met up with my friend from Tufts named Alex for tapas. We settled on a place near the Cathedral that turned out to be not so delicious. I ordered patatas con ali oli, which is usually one of my favorite dishes, but they prepared it so it was basically potatoes drenched in mayonaise. It was disgusting. We did have some good solomillo al whisky and croquetas, but I felt bad disappointing Alex with the food during her only chance to eat tapas in Sevilla. It was nice to hear about all of her adventures in Spain so far (she is studying abroad in Salamanca) and it made me want to go travel ASAP. Afterwards, I met up with a group of girls from my program, was introduced to some new people, and chatted with them for a while. As always, that was very fun, but my feet were killing me from standing all day at school. Rebecca met up with us at a botellón (an event where people drink in the public squares) in Plaza de San Salvador, and we headed off to meet up with our friends in Triana. While crossing the bridge over the river, I ran into that super fun guy from the club a few nights ago who told me I was his best friend and tried to convince me to come to the club he works at right then. He is literally the funniest/craziest person I've ever met. As he walked away, he yelled "SIMON ENERGGGGY!" His name is Simon, but his last name is not Energy. Despite his tempting offer, we continued across the bridge to meet our friend Jonny. He took us to a party with mostly Erasmus students. Rebecca and I decided that it felt like a college party, specifically one at Tufts' International House. It turned out to be a lot of fun meeting people from Italy, France, Belgium, and Germany. A group of German guys tried to convince me that Bavaria is the best part of Germany and Franconia is the best part of Bavaria. I'm not sure if they're right, but they sounded pretty sure of it. We headed to Calle Betis to find a club, spent most of the night outside (deciding where to go with a group of about 20 people is difficult), and ended up in a bar/club called Demo that played techno music. I had some fun dancing with my new friends, but it was not an amazing place to be. Jonny and Xanthe walked Rebecca and I back towards our house some of the way, but we took a cab the rest of the way that cost us an arm and a leg. Nighttime cabs are a big scam.

I slept until the afternoon and am looking forward to a relaxing day. Tonight, we have a huge meetup for our program at a bar in city center, and I am very excited about that. Hopefully I will meet some more awesome people!