I didn't realize fried fish meant the whole thing...

¿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!