Playing Catchup

So we moved in with our host families Friday, and I haven't really been able to get internet since then. Our housemother is fantastic. She's really friendly and pretty easy to understand but not at all overbearing. Also, her cooking is fantastic. Nice and simple so I don't have to be a picky eater. She also has a Siamese cat named Eros who is absolutely adorable. I've already done some shopping at the Spanish version of Neiman Marcus and it was great (and also air conditioned). Saturday night we found a great bar called (you'll like this Sarah) La Martina! I have lots of pictures from our adventures that night and the day before in this beautiful park, but alas I failed to realize that my memory card for my camera doesn't have a slot in my Netbook, so now I have to try to track down a cord to connect my Sony camera to a non-Sony computer. Awesome. I don't have a lot of time right now as I am illegally writing in English in our center and class is going to start soon, so I will definitely elaborate later, but we went to the beach yesterday where I proceeded to get extremely sunburned on my back. But I think it was worth it, because the beach was beautiful, the water was warm, and there were lots of topless women....:-P

Locks and keys?

So I'm not doing so well on coming up with witty and interesting blog titles, and this one will be super short anyway, but on our quest to find a non-touristy restaurant in Sevilla tonight, we crossed the river, my first time on the bridge. All along the bridge there are locks locked to the railing and on the locks people have written their names and the names of their amantes, some have dates and some have hearts drawn on them. It was very romantic, or would have been had I been strolling along the river with an amante of my own. I'm left wondering, though, what do they do with the keys? Throw them in the river?

Arrival

This first post is going to be rather uncreative, as the title suggests, and with only one semi-exciting adventure to tell about. All my travelling went well, and I even managed to hook up with other students in the program at the Madrid Airport, which made the last leg of the journey much less steressful as we were able to share cabs to the hotel, although my one attempt at actually using my Spanish was quickly thwarted. I got off the plane and through Passport Control in Madrid to find myself at a loss of where to go next. I was 99% sure my bag was checked all the way through to Seville and that I didn't need to pick it up and take it through customs to recheck it, but I also didn't have a boarding pass for my flight from Madrid to Seville and had no idea where to get it. I tried going through the "connecting flights" security pass, as that seemed the logical solution, and explained to the security guy that I didn't have my boarding pass, and didn't know where I needed to go to get it. He started speaking a lot of gibberish back to me, and finally took my passport and left. He returned within a few minutes with an English-speaking security person and she told me there were several ways to get to Seville. Once I explained to her that I already had a plane ticket, and I only needed a boarding pass, she explained to me I needed to exit the airport and take a bus to another terminal. All in all, it ended well and I got on the bus and the plane at the right time and to the right place, but was slightly embarrassed that my first attempt at speaking Spanish failed.