Ai! Dios mio! Este has been a very long first few days in Spain. When I first arrived finally at the airport on Monday, I was soooo tired. I had managed to sleep for an hour on that flight as well, so the first jump start on this adventure was with two hours of sleep. Arriving at the airport, I unfortunately realized that one of my bags was missing. My winter suitcase arrived just fine, but my summer suitcase as well as toiletries were MIA. I filled out a slip at the Iberia desk letting them know that it was missing and headed to the exit, where a Teach in Spain helper was waiting to help me hail a cab. There was one other girl there from NY that was also in the cab conmigo and was doing the program. When we arrived to the hotel, I was assigned a room and told that I had to be at the orientation session in 15 minutes. I quickly took my things to my room and took a quick shower and then went downstairs to the orientation. I was so tired it was hard to pay attention, but it was basically explaining what we were going to be doing for the next few days. After that we were supposed to the "Welcome Cocktail". Antes that, I went to my room to skype my parents and let them know I had arrived safely. By this time, it was 8 pm Spain time and I was so ready for bed, but I decided to go get some free food and some free drink. I had a bit of wine and some amazing tapas and socialized with the others in my group. I made a pretty good friend named Wade and really enjoyed his company, but retired around 10:30 I think. My roommate at the hotel is not very friendly and from Tomball, but apparently I talked in my sleep to her whenever she came back to the room. The next day we had breakfast at the hotel from 8-9 and then walked to the Universidad de Sevilla for our orientation classes. Well, the classes in the school were very informative and taught me things about how to get a phone, and a bank account, and how to find housing and such. The classes were very long, and we didn't get any breaks, so this week was very hard. On Tuesday we went to lunch with our group members from the same province, so my province group was very small. We then went on a tour of the Alcazar which was beautiful. I loved all of the pretty gardens and such. One notable thing about our lunch was instead of gumballs in the machines that take coins, they had canned olives. How weird! After the tour of the Alcazar we went on tours of different neighborhoods around Sevilla. I went to Triana because I knew that is where my homestay was. It was okay, we had tapas there. Spain has a weird thing about mayonnaise. Like instead of dipping things in ketchup, they chose mayo. Ugh. On Wednesday we went to more classes where I learned that one thing about Spainiards is that if you are gonna live in Spain, you have to learn how to argue. If you don't like to argue, leave. Well, I guess I have some work to do! Today we went to go buy our tickets for the train to our provinces (for me, Granada). I am glad that they went and helped us to do it because that train station is crazy and the people talk so fast! By this point I was so tired, and really frustrated that I still did not have my luggage. I was told at the cocktail party on Monday night that they had found my luggage and it was flying to Sevilla and would be delivered to the hotel in the morning, but to no avail, it was not there on Wednesday. When I was in the elevator down to leave the hotel, I heard somebody say that a random suitcase had appeared in their room, and after asking, yes it was mine. Well, at the same time, all of the keys in the hotel stopped working, so I could not get my bag because we had to leave. Tapas was really fun, but took a lot out of me, so by the time we went to the Flamenco show at 10:30, I was soooo tired, I could barely stay awake, although it was very interesting and not at all what I thought it would be. It is pretty much like tap dancing with attitude. I enjoyed it, but when I got back, I was more than ready to bed, but I really wanted to get my suitcase. The guy at the front desk made me wait a bit before he would take me to the room to get my bag, but I just wanted to have it so I waited. I finally got it but did not get to bed until 2 and had to get up at 7. Thursday was more information at school, and then we got a free afternoon. I went with my friend Wade to get some take out food and went back to the hotel to relax for a bit. We went to go get telephones after a while, which was an adventure, finding a place. We had fun walking around town together. We saw this really awesome art exhibit that was all refrigerators that were decorated in to different art pieces. I will try and post a picture of my favorite. We went back to the hotel to drop our stuff off and then we went to the goodbye cocktail at this Irish bar. It was fun to get free food and drinks, and then we went to this square with lots of bars to meet the 4 week CIEE participants. This was very fun because it was crowded and we met a few Spanish people our age and made plans to go out with them on Sunday. Let's see what happens! Anyway, the next morning was rough with the surplus of alcohol and lack of sleep, but we checked out of the hotel and then went on a scavenger hunt with different groups around town. We came back to the hotel to meet our Senoras which was so exciting! My Senora's name is Maty (for Matilde) and she is 45 and lives with her sister Manuela y their mother. My Senora's niece, Manuela's daughter, left 2 days ago to study abroad in France and she is 20 years old. They were skyping with her when we arrived at the very small apartment in Triana. They are so friendly! They talk to me so much in Spanish and make sure that I understand. They keep repeating themselves and talking slower for me and I am very grateful. They are like, "We have 15 days to make your Spanish much better!" They do not speak ANY English to me, so it is a little intense, but this is what I came here for. The food they made for me was fabulous and after taking a much needed siesta, I went out to walk around town for a while and then met up with Wade again to have dinner. We met up with 2 other girls that we walked by and had one of most expensive meals in Sevilla, which I was not thrilled about, but I should have looked at the prices before, and we were right on the river, so prime location, and it was very good. I got back not to late and got some much needed sleep last night. Today when I finally arose, I went on an adventure to put more minutes on my phone. It did it, but it took me like 3 hours or something to find it and come back. I had a wonderful lunch and spent the very long afternoon organizing my suitcases in my room so I can only use one while I am here, because the suitcases take up half the room and I needed some more space. Tonight is my friend Annie's birthday (she will be in Granada as well) so we are going out to some discos I think! I am very excited! Should be fun! Spain is great!
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