Why are this place and the people here so amazing?

Plaza de España

Parque Maria Luisa

On Sunday evening, I took an amazing walk around Parque Maria Luisa and Plaza de España. I knew these places existed but I had somehow not yet made it over there for a leisurely stroll. Oh my gosh, it is so beautiful! I entered the park and literally just wandered around, following whatever I found gorgeous, which was most things. The Plaza de España is a big arched building with tiles of all the cities of along it. I did not even make it all the way to Sevilla...that is for another long walk. I am excited to show all the people who visit me here these incredible places. I know my mom will enjoy walking around it for hours. After that, I was very tired and went to bed before midnight for the first time since coming to Sevilla.

On Monday, Rebecca and I got our passport photos taken to get our residency card. Hopefully I will get that on Friday and they will let me stay here for a while. We found a delicious kebab restaurant near my apartment that was bustling with university students. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to talk to some of them and make Spanish friends. I headed off to the mall to look for clothes/shoes. Nothing seemed incredible so I didn't buy anything, but I'm sure I'll go shopping soon and make some purchases to snazz up my American wardrobe. The girls here look way too good to compete.

Last night, I met up with my British and Dutch hostel buddies to cook dinner. I got to see their apartments, which are in Triana (across the river), and they were quite big. We (mostly Xanthe) made a delicious chicken curry and Jonny whipped up an amazing brava sauce. It was great catching up with all of them because a few days apart seems like forever here. I hope people start doing more dinner gatherings at apartments so we don't fork up money for dinners out all the time, although we are very lucky that tapas can be a cheap meal.

This morning, I boarded a bus with several other auxiliares and headed to our Sevilla-wide orientation across the river in some unknown area. It was actually in a very cool place, with many modern buildings and a sciencey-feel. All of the street names were famous scientists, like Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, and Max Planck (yeah, Josh!). We found the building with the help of some locals and entered into a huge IMAX auditorium. Unfortunately, we just got a Powerpoint presentation, not an IMAX movie. The orientation was all in Spanish, which made it a bit hard to pay attention (I may have fallen asleep for a little while), but I was happy that I understood the majority of what the presenters (people from the Education Department of Andalucía) said. The first half about business-related information was pretty boring, but the second half had some more useful information. It was too bad that after sitting there for three hours I was very fidgety and just wanted to leave. It was great visiting with the friends I had met the other night, and we hung out during the break where they fed us coffee and pastries (we had all thought there would be a real lunch so this was disappointing). After it finally ended, a big group of us headed to Plaza de Armas to eat some real food (on the way, I finally saw El Alamillo Bridge that Josh has been bugging me about). We went to a restaurant called Montaditos that serves little sandwiches. I had some delicious ones, including a sandwich of white chocolate with fruit sauce. A little strange but pretty good. I absolutely loved the people we were with, and I'm so glad I've found this group to hang out with. After a long lunch, a smaller group of us headed into city center. We obtained some requisite gelato and sat for a few hours on the steps of the Cathedral. It was literally perfect sitting there, chatting away and people watching/talking about them and hoping they didn't understand us. When 7:00 rolled around, we headed home with the intention of hanging out again very soon!

I got home and found Jesús and Inma there, ready to enjoy English Day in our apartment! We should literally be filmed. Inma finds everything hilarious because she understands both languages, and Jesús talking in english might be my favorite thing in the world. He is quite good, but he often confuses he/she and his/her. For example, Inma's aunt came to the door, and he said, "I think it might be his uncle." Classic, but I would definitely make that mistake in Spanish so I can't be critical. Jesús said we should start a television show similar to "Big Brother," where one of us gets voted off each week, and we should call it "Big Pronunciation." It was all his idea, but I love it. Inma would kick our butts, though.

Tomorrow, I have to wake up at 6:30 am to go to my school, hopefully via a carpool. It is my first day with my regular classes, so I hope they like me. Now, I should go to bed to try to get some sleep, but tomorrow is bound to be interesting, one way or another. At the orientation today, many of the people were returning auxiliares, and, so far, I can definitely see myself considering staying here another year. Sorry, folks back home, but this place is just way too amazing.