La Primera Semana de Clases

Monday morning marked the start of the “studying” in studying abroad. This wasn’t something that I was completely dreading. The past few days had been amazing and I loved exploring and getting to know Sevilla and my family here but I was also looking forward to have some type of routine to my schedule.

The first two weeks of my program consists of an intensive language class; the class is three hours a day, five days a week, for two weeks. I ended up in the easier class, which I was disappointed at first but after I thought about it was happy about it. It would allow me more time to focus on adjusting to live in Sevilla and the better my foundation in Spanish the easier it will be for me to succeed in more advance levels in the future. Class is in the morning at 9am and it gets out in time to explore the city for a little bit then head back to my place for lunch.

The class overall is not too hard and I have been able to improve my foundation in Spanish a lot already. There are sometimes that the class is too easy and boring but I am able to practice my Spanish and that’s all that really matters.

After class on Monday I finalized my class selection for my classes during the regular session; not the greatest schedule but it’s only for 12 weeks and the classes I chose seem really interesting, hopefully I will be able to get into them. Then on Tuesday after class we were supposed to have a meeting about a seminar class we could take but that got postponed to Wednesday. I ended up at a café (surprise, surprise) with a few friends and ended up staying there for a few hours because it started to pour down rain and there was no way we were going to walk back in that weather.

Note about the weather: There has not been a single day that it has not rained while we have been here! My umbrella has become a necessity, much like London, but all of the locals have told me that this will pass soon and within a month or so we should have good weather most days. I hope that’s true but I also survived the wettest June on record in London this past summer so I think I can handle a little rain.

Wednesday was when we have the meeting about the seminar and I am really excited about it. It’s a two-credit class where we analyze our cultural experiences in Sevilla and how culture is perceived in both the United States and Spain. Definitely a class that is perfect for me and I think that it is going to be extremely helpful and allow me to learn a lot about the culture that I am adopting for the next four months.

Wednesday afternoon was spent working on a presentation for the following day. Then after dinner I headed to a meet-and-greet for our Intercambio program. For those of you who don’t know, intercambio in when a student like myself who is learning Spanish is paired with a local student who is trying to learn English and we help each improve our language skills. I didn’t end up meeting my intercambio partner but it was nice to get out for about an hour and hang out with friends.

After class on Thursday I went on a tour of El Catedral de Sevilla, which is the largest gothic style church in the world and the third largest church overall (St Peters in the Vatican is the biggest and St Pauls in London is the second, just in case anyone was curious). The church is also home to Christopher Columbus’ tomb, which was extremely cool to see. After a tour of the church we walked up to the top of the Giralda, which is a 90-meter tower by the church that overlooks Sevilla. The view from the top was amazing and I clearly could see how someone can easily get lost in the maze of streets in Sevilla.

Due to the short length of our intensive class, our mid-term exam was the next day (Friday). So after the tour I headed back to study and try to prepare for the exam.

After my exam I headed to a market in Triana, another part of Sevilla, and to explore the ruins that are below the market. I didn’t know it existed but it was a required assignment and overall enjoyed exploring another part of the city.