Blogs from Triana, Seville, Andalusia, Spain, Europe - page 2

First day of school! We all talked about how we felt like freshmen again, lost in this huge school and speaking terrible Spanish. We'll get the hang of it soon, I hope. I went to 3 classes today, 2 of which I have decided not to take haha. One was not interesting and the other was too basic of a level of class for me. I'm going to try a few new classes tomorrow and then I think I'll have my schedule pretty much set for the rest of the week! It won't be official for another week or so though. All of my professors were very nice and not very intimidating, like I expected. I have alot of people from my program in my classes so we can study together which will be nice! This ... read more

Sevilla is 7 hours southwest of Madrid. We took a bus and left the hotel around 10 this morning, got to our families around 6:30pm. I met my family, a woman in her 50's name Paola, an older man in his upper 50's named Jose, a 14 year old boy named Sergio, and a 10 year old girl name Claudia. We had to roll our luggage a few blocks and I ran straight into a pole when I was talking with my host mom. It was pretty embarrassing but it seems to be happening a lot on this trip... When we first came to the house the family showed us around and let us unpack in our room for a while. Its pretty small, but bigger than the UW dorms in Madison. We have a large ... read more

I really should have written these up over the weekend, but getting online is such a hassle (I don't have wifi at the apartment & don't want to carry my laptop to some cafe). Besides, the first week was full of activities and kinda flew by. I don't really know how to summarize it, but here we go: Monday, June 6th: After a quick breakfast, I rushed to the school, where everyone took a written & oral test to decide what level we needed to be on. It wasn't a horrible test, but they make me so nervous! Speaking, especially, is such a nightmare. You want to speak quickly because no one wants to sound like the idiot that pauses after every three words and says, "Uh... uh..." In the end, you make all these little ... read more

Trzy wieczory flamenco pod rzad. I kazdy inny. W Sevilli trwa XVI biennale flamenco, co oznacza, ze nie trzeba specjalnie dlugo szukac, zeby gdzies natknac sie na spiew, taniec czy gitare. Zreszta, jako ze dzielnica, gdzie mieszkam - Triana, uwazana jest za ojczyzne flamenco, juz w niedziele gdy tu szlam, slyszalam dzwieki gitary. Ale co wiecej wiedzialam o flamenco? Absolutnie nic. Pierwsze, co przychodzi na mysl, to falbaniaste spodnice i duzo przytupywania. Nie mialam pojecia, jak bogata jest kultura flamenco i jak duzo moze byc jego odmian. We wtorek bylam w barze Carboneria, niby kultowym. Ale moze wlasnie dlatego przychodzi tam mnostwo turystow, a flamenco nie zachwyca. I nie trzeba byc znawca, zeby zrozumiec, ze jak kobieta rzuca sie po scenie niczym opetana i tupie miesista noga, to nie taniec, tylko furia. Flamenco przyciaga do Sevilli ... read more