Exploring Bit by Bit

This past weekend was packed with fun new adventures for Kerianne and I! We now feel quite at ease trying to maneuver our way around the city. We have discovered new little treasures that reside within the city, as well as traveled to see some of the hidden gems that lie in a city outside of Sevilla (Carmona).

Saturday, we decided to pack up our things for the afternoon, and head to Plaza de Espana. There we finished some homework, met up with friends, and enjoyed the 65 degree weather that we were blessed with! We all decided to walk around the park (which is the biggest park in Seville) and check out some of the buildings. We stumbled upon an awesome free museum of ancient Roman artifacts and decided to get our "history" on. It was full of interesting ancient statues and trinkets (like most museums are) from a city called Italica, which we will be visiting for class later this semester.

Sunday morning, a group of us decided to get together and go to mass at the Cathedral, the third largest in the world. We decided to check out the inside of the cathedral before we sat down for mass, because Sundays are the only day that you can look around for free. It was unbelievable. The sheer grandness of the place just blows our mind! Plus the fact that it was literally built hundreds of years ago.

On Sunday afternoon, Kerianne and I, with friends, went on our first day trip to Carmona! It's a beautiful old city right on the outskirts of Sevilla. The city was small enough to walk through and see all the sights in one day. There were old fortresses, cathedrals, and an old roman amphitheater and necropolis. The city in and of itself was beautiful to walk through. Small winding streets, beautiful white buildings that gave me a "Greece" feel, and amazing views.

It was a wonderful day and we hope to have many more! We are excited to keep exploring this place we now call home.

Likes and Dislikes Thus Far

(this is what we mean by one of the most beautiful cities in the world)

Now that Emily and I have been in Spain for over a week, we feel like we have a pretty good grasp of what it's like to live here. We honestly love it! However, there are a some things that we could live without.

Dislikes: 

1. The caca (poop) on the street - it's errywhere. There aren't many grassy areas here, unless you go to a park, so dogs just do their business in the streets, and sometimes it's not picked up. 

2. Eyeballs in our food. Last night the shrimp was starring us down. 

3. The rude glares from the Spaniards in the streets. It's not culturally normal to say hello and smile at people in the streets. Spaniards don't feel it's necessary to invest time into people that they will never know on a personal level. Therefore, we feel a little less welcomed then we actually are. 

4. Lack of central heating. The morning and night are definitely the chilliest. We tend to huddle around the space heater in our room. 

5. Small showers - it's difficult to maneuver, almost impossible to shave, but we've been managing.
6. Sometimes Emily calls me Keri and I don't like that. At all.

Likes:
1. The weather during the day.
2. Our Senora, she's da best!
3. Siestas - America needs to incorporate this habit! 3 hours of nothing = amazing!
4. Seville - one of the most beautiful city in the world. The ancient architecture combined with a modern feel of living is mesmerizing.
5. The people in our program!
6. Comida (that has no eyeballs).
7. The night life! Everyone (including women walking with their children in strollers) are out at 12.
8. Speaking Spanish!
9.  Vita - our senora's dog. She greets us in the mornings, when we come back from school, when we come back at night, and pretty much every other time she hears us coming.
10. The patience of our profesora.
11. Our walk to school. Everyday we walk across a beautiful bridge that overlooks the city!
12. Being with Emily 24/7.
13. Being with Kerianne 24/7.
14. Reading from a calendar our friends made us every morning.
15. Travel - the potential to travel all over Europe. We already have a trip booked to Ireland and Paris in April!

It's safe to say that there are many more likes than dislikes about Spain and I'm sure we will adapt to the things we dislike (except when Emily calls me Keri!!)

Becoming Cultured

Last night Emily and I experienced the Andalucian Southern culture of Spain at its finest! A group of us from the Semester in Spain program went to Carboneria. (Which is on the top 20 list of things to do in Seville). It's a flamenco bar that captures Sevilles deep rooted history in music and dance. Also, it looks like a hole in the wall and we felt like we were going through a maze to get there!  There were 3 performers on stage. A guitarist, that let me tell you was something to hear, a man that sang songs about Seville and a women that clapped, stomped, snapped and danced... and had the most intense face ever.

Another thing that we checked off the bucket list of 20 things to do in Spain was trying the agua de Seville, which was stronger than most agua, let's put it at that.

Here's a video to better understand what we experienced! Flamenco Dancing at Caboneria

Our First Sunday

Ok, so this is a really short little blog, but it needs to be documented.
We just got back from our first church service at La Prosperidad! It was packed and really small but full of awesome people. After church, Blanca took us out to eat again because 2 Italian girls are staying at our house for this week. They seem really cool and can speak like 5 different languages! Anyway, we were eating a 5 course meal, so they brought this stuff out and looked kind of like a breakfast meal. So it consisted of potato hashbrowns with fried eggs and some peppers. Well, Kerianne and I were halfway through this dish when we realized that those hashbrowns, had little eyes. Honestly, it tasted really good, but we still don't know what it was. Our first thought was Calamari, but we just know that it was something from the sea. I guess we are going to have to keep an open mind to some of the new food that we are trying.

As the say in Italy, Bon Appetite!

A New Beginning

Family, friends, and creepers :)

We are coming to you today from Seville, Spain! We arrived safely on Wednesday evening and were greeted by some of the people that work at Acento (our school). Everyone was very welcoming and they drove us via bus to meet our Senora, Blanca. She is wonderful! She loves to talk, cook, and do all the things that good mothers do. She also has a little dog named Vita (which means life in Italian).We brought our bags to our little apartment, dropped them in the door, and she said that she needed to bring us to her second home, a cafe called Don Diego. She bought us cafe con leche or coffee with milk and introduced us to one of her friends. All in all, it was a wonderful night. We were able to unpack, eat, and head to bed by eleven because we hadn't slept at all during our overnight flights. Both Kerianne and myself were getting pretty nervous, but Blanca made us feel right at home.

In the morning we had a typical Spanish breakfast consisting of toast with marmalade or nutella and cafe con leche. This is supposed to hold us over until 2 p.m., which might be a problem for us haha.Our Senora escorted us to a hotel where we had a couple hours of orientation. After, we headed back for our 2:00 much needed lunch, and took a nap in our first siesta (we are really going to like these). In the afternoon, some locals took us on a tour of the beautiful Sevilla. We saw the Cathedral, the Plaza de Espana, the large bull fighting arena and much much more. After our tours, a large group of us went out for tapas and drinks. :) These was our first legally purchased drinks! We headed back to our casa for dinner at 9:00 p.m. We had sopa (soup) and a tapa consisting of eggs and potatoes. We headed back out to check out the Sevilla night life and see what this beautiful city has to offer with some of our new friends.

This morning, we had registration for classes ( yes, we are taking class here) and a short spiel on culture and safety. We are now sitting on steps by the cathedral, listening to beautiful music.
Sevilla is at our fingertips, and we can't wait to grasp what there is to offer!

em and ka

Bienvenidos a España

Here we are, sitting on our 8-hour flight to Madrid writing in a Word document (since there is no wireless). This will be uploaded as soon as we get wireless.

Wowza, it’s here. In a few short hours (2 1/2) Emily and I will finally be in Spain! Not quite Seville just yet. We have an 8-hour layover in Madrid, which hopefully will fly by.

Technically we should be sleeping right now. Yes, we’re landing soon. However when we land it’s going to be 7 in the morning in Spain and really feel like midnight for us! Hopefully we can sleep in the Madrid airport (fingers crossed).

We’re not too sure what this week hold. Besides having orientation for two days at some point this week, and possibly taking a web cap Spanish placement test to see what classes we will be taking. We should probably brush up on some Spanish! However, seeing that the weather in Seville is around 65 degrees and sunny right now, we aren’t complaining much. (Sorry everyone in Chicago, we get to miss out on the crummy weather!).

So what are we most excited for?

1.     Exploring Seville! We want to get to know the beautiful city we’re living in for the next four months.

2.     Meeting our home stay mother J

3.     Seeing what the Spanish culture is like and getting immersed in it!

4.     Meeting other students who are apart of the SIS program and simply getting to know the people we will be around quite a bit!

5.     Catching up on sleep (hopefully this goes fast)

6.     Eating Spanish comida!

7.     There are many more, we’re just tired….

We should probably try and get a bit of sleep, seeing that if we don’t sleep now or in the Madrid airport we will have completely missed a night of sleep.

We love and miss everyone already! It was definitely difficult to say goodbye to friends and family en los Estados Unidos!

- em and ka 

Diez Días

Well, I think it is safe to say it has been awhile. Emily and I decided to give the blog a bit of a rest while we finished up our semester at school and then get back at it once Spain became more of a reality. Well, whether we are ready or not, we are heading to Spain in 10 days! Personally, it hasn't really hit me yet. We've both known that we are going to Spain for awhile and we've been counting down for Spain from about 88 days. Now, our semester abroad is right around the corner!

We have tentatively planned what trips we want to take while in Spain. A few places we talked about going to are Paris, Barcelona, Ireland, London and possibly Amsterdam or Italy!  Also, we found out who we are going to be living with. We live fairly close to the school we are attending with a women. She looks so wonderful and we are both excited to get to know her more, and for her to become our Madre de España!

We are both "stressin" a bit when it comes to packing...how can one pack for a whole semester? Also, we aren't sure if we will be able to take our longboards to spain. Que triste! We were hoping to longboard the streets of Seville, however there still is hope! Packing will be quite the ordeal for the two of us..somehow it will get done!

Our group flight that we are taking "over the pond" leaves on Tuesday the 17th. España, estamos llegando pronto!