Sunday morning I met up with a friend before church and we went to an art market where lots of local artists display and sell their work every week. The paintings were very, very impressive and a lot of them depicted sights within Seville – I will definitely be returning to the art market for souvenirs 😉
After this I went to the evangelical church in the suburbs again, this time with four other American college students. It was great to get out of the city and worship with other believers again this week. I think I may try visiting a service at another church sometime, but for now I’m content to go to the church in Utrera 🙂 I especially appreciate the music there!
On Monday I had my first three classes at the University of Seville. They were Introduction to Translation (really interesting, and a great professor!! And something I want to consider as a career), Spanish Art in the 20th century (I’m not much for art but it will be cool to learn about while I’m in Spain), and Cultural Anthropology of Latin America (the professor has travelled to every single country in Latin America except for Paraguay! I’m so jealous). They were all interesting, although they were two hours of class each 😛 Each class is taught in Spanish but since all the students in the class are international (almost all American), the professors make sure that they speak slowly enough to be understood by everyone. One of the advantages of taking these classes for international students is that we only have classes Monday through Thursday – three-day weekends every weekend!!
On Tuesday (today) I didn’t have classes until 3pm so I took a nice long walk through Seville, which turned out to be less nice than I had hoped because I picked the wrong shoes to wear. It was still cool to get to see new parts of the city, although I wound up in a few sections I don’t think I’ll be returning to again. The weather was gorgeous today, and as I walked along in my t-shirt and jeans I passed Spaniards bundled up in woolen sweaters, thick scarves and heavy winter coats… Seville is known for very hot summers, so I guess they consider 65 degrees cold! My Modern Spanish History class went alright in the afternoon – nothing exciting!
(this picture is of a building i passed during my walk)
In all, it was a very good first round of classes and I’ve got plans for the rest of the week that will keep me very busy! (Thankfully, very few of those plans involve homework ;))
Last week my housemate Leah went through a phase which I think of as her “I hate Spain” day – ISA had warned us that we’d all experience some sort of culture shock in the first few weeks where we felt like the culture was all wrong (they also advised us that things would get better and that we’ll come to absolutely love Seville). I didn’t feel as strongly about it as Leah did, but there are some things about the culture and life here that just feel plain old strange. Peculiarities, if you will.
Here are a few:
– The living room in our family’s apartment doubles as a dining room, and under the table we sit at for meals there is a large heater. Yes, a heater.
– Olive oil goes into every dish at every meal of every day, except for breakfast (usually).
– People drink beer as early as 11am, and everyone drinks the same kind – “Cruzcampo”, made in Andalusia (the state Seville is located in).
– Kids typically live at home throughout their college years (which are usually more than 4), and then some. It is not unusual to find a single 29-year-old living at home with their parents, with both the parents and their son or daughter perfectly content and not interested in moving out or even doing their own laundry.
– There are orange trees EVERYWHERE in Seville – but no one eats the oranges. They’re bitter and are made into a marmalade, which seems to be eaten here very seldom.
– All stores in Seville other than certain restaurants and bars are closed all day Sunday – a nice tradition, but this includes pharmacies and even supermarkets. There’s also a period every day from 2-5pm where almost every store is closed for “siesta”.
– Hot shower water is available but not always reliable 
– Soccer is by far the most popular sport, but on TV you can also find “balonmano” (kind of like soccer with your hands), which I had never heard of before I got to Seville. You can also find NBA games on TV fairly often – American basketball… but the Super Bowl is completely irrelevant here.
All these things are simply differences I’ve noticed between Seville and Pennsylvania – not necessarily bad things, not necessarily good. I’m sure foreigners have plenty of flaws to pick out when they visit America 😉 It’s been fairly easy to adapt to these differences, but sometimes I just miss the way things are at home 🙂
jamieinspain 