¿Quieres comer? (do you want to eat this?)
There is still a ton of differences between the US and here
that I have to get used to. Although I’ve adapted quite well to the different
eating times and late dinner the type of food is still very different for me.
They love salt and bread here and bread goes with everything for every meal.
But other than salt a lot of the food doesn’t have a ton of flavor. And we’ve
had squid more times than I care to recall. But dinner tonight was by far the
worst. We walked in the door from an activity with ISA and they had prepared
fried fish; but not just any fried fish. We had fried anchovies and some other
small fish I have never heard of and the whole thing: spine, head, eyes and
all. That is the one thing I am not ok with when eating: seeing the head of the
animal… It really creeps me out and the bones don’t help. But apparently in
Spain the hombres eat the whole thing, with the head and bones, they just pick
it up ad crunch, as I watched my host father do. And then we also had fried
fish eggs. Yumm…. NOT. La cena was
very interesting and I don’t think I’ve cracked up like this in a long time. I
think we entertained our host parents too with our reaction to eating the fish
whole but they said that it is not uncommon for the past students either...
ON a happier note, Tonight the activity we did was called
‘salir con españoles’ and those who wanted to met with some local Spaniards and
there were about 3-4 of us with each one and we went to a local place that has
small tapas and on Wednesdays everything is a euro so it was very nice. It was
also nice to practice my Spanish some more with someone who also speaks English
and could correct us if we were wrong and understand if we couldn’t get our
point across. The guys we were talking to were very nice and easy to talk to
and I plan to go back next week since it was so much fun.
I also started classes today; vacation is now officially
over L
I really like my first two classes. Both the professors seem really nice and
the classes seem interesting: Phonetics and phonology and Spanish civilization
and culture. They also speak slow enough to understand them easily. I am really
excited for them. The third class was really had to focus in but I’m not sure
if it was because it was more difficult to understand her or if it was only
that I was exhausted from being in class all morning. It is one of 3 lit
classes I’m attempting to transfer into so once I go to the other two tomorrow
and decide my schedule will become a lot more manageable. The other class I
have tomorrow is historia de arte española which also sounds interesting so I
hope it turns out to be as well, especially since we are in one of the most
historical cities with tons of art that I can go see right after learning about.
The school is very nice and I like having a specific campus although it is less
like the typical European school with the buildings spread out throughout the
city. They also have an international immersion program and I plan on teaching
English in some of the schools and going on their sponsored trips to
Cadiz(which is the playa/beach) and to the Roman Ruins. Although this semester
is going to be very interesting, I know it will be so much fun.
-Lindsay
Ps: Here are some other photos from my trip so far! The top one is by a fountain in Sevilla, the next two are the Giralda, then me on our roof and my room and the pool and then me and my roomie Kelsey on a street with the tower of the cathedral in the background. Enjoy!
