And so it begins!

Hola chicos y chicas!

Over a week in Sevilla and I'm finally getting around to posting something!

So let's start from the beginning...

After a loooong flight from Newark to Madrid, Marie and I wandered around the Madrid airport for a while trying to find out where the hell we were supposed to go and bumped into 2 other people on our program (another Penn Stater named Russ and Zoe from Colorado U). Finally we figured out how to get on the bus to the next terminal and rushed through security. A ton of other American students were sitting at the gate to Sevilla and even though I was on 2 hours of sleep and cranky from being stuck in an airplane, it was finally hitting me that we were going to Sevilla bitches!!!

I slept the whole flight to Sevilla (only an hour but I needed it) and followed the rest of the Americans to baggage claim. Of course Marie and I are some of the only ones left still missing a bag, so we have to talk to the damn Iberia people and figured out where the hell our bags were. Thank god they delivered them to the hotel the next day bc I would've flipped a shit if they lost it for good...

We stayed in Hotel Becquer right downtown (across the street from a KFC hollaaaa) and met everyone else in our program. The first night we walked across the bridge to Triana and just wandered around exploring...found a little hole in the wall bar and got 1 euro beers. The owners were probably like "what the hell are all these Americans doing here...".

The next day we had to wake up at the asscrack of dawn and had breakfast then walked down to the CIEE Study Center for orientation. The walk there is absolutely gorgeous through all these smally windy streets....so cool. We had a bunch of classes about housing and survival spanish and safety and stuff like that...nothing to exciting except finding out that me and Marie were actually living together :) We live in an apartment close to the center of downtown with our Senora named Macarena (or Senorita since shes only 30!) and her husband Danny (26, hot spaniard training to be a policeman. SCORE). Macarena is actually 7 months pregnant so we're gonna have un bebe running around the house soon...Macarena's brother Alvaroz and his girlfriend (dont actually know her name) live with us too but they're moving out as soon as they get their own apartment. We have a little Yorkie named Lulu (so cute) and Danny always sings to her (also SO cute). Marie and I each have our own rooms and we share a bathroom which is pretty nice. We couldn't have lucked out more.

So that night we went out for paella with our CIEE tour guide Ricardo and then we all went to this Flamenco show downtown somewhere...I was so exhausted and was like half falling asleep during the show but it was still cool. Then we went to some bars to pregame and had my first Spanish discoteca experience at this club called Catedral (lots of Americans and American music...and lots of Spanish guys that like to dance with American girls haha). Woke up early again the next morning and went on a scavenger hunt through the city which was pretty sweet just to be able to wander around and see what there was. Then our families picked us up and off to the apartment we went! Our first lunch with Macarena and Danny was delicioussss and just a preview of how good of a cook our Senorita is :) That night, me and Marie came home at like 2:30ish and couldnt figure out how to open the front door in our drunken stupor...so we had to ring the doorbell and woke up Macarena. I felt soooo bad but then we got a lesson from Danny the next morning on how to open it so it'll all good.

All last week we started our Intensive Spanish class...4 hours a day of straight Spanish starting at 9:30am...when I say it was rough, thats only an understatement. Went to a couple bars during the week but nothing too crazy since we had class so damn early. Tuesday we went to this bar called Fundicion for Beer Pong Tuesdays and we discovered Long Island Bar down the street...a bar with 50 different chupitos (shots) for every state in the US. We became BFFs with the bartender Pedro and had like a 20 minute convo with him in compeltely broken Spanish...but I'm sure he's used to it with so many American students coming in there. Wednesday we went on a tour of the huuuuge cathedral downtown which was fuckin sweet. Then we all went down to Nervion (another area in Sevilla a little bit outside of the center) and went to an awesome bar at the mall there for beers and tapas. Marie bought us 2 40's of Supersol brand cerveza that cost 0.76 centimos each and we snuck it into the bar. Everyone was there pregaming for the futbol game since the stadium is right next door and it was absolutely packed...fans singing all the Sevilla FC cheers and stuff...so cool. We went to the game at 10 and I have never seen people so freakin excited for a soccer game! It was ridiculous..not quite a PSU football game but it was definitely up there.

Friday we had our first exam and after a loooong siesta that afternoon I was ready for my first real weekend in Sevilla. We got a bunch of people together and went out for tapas at this place called Levies, had some tinto verano (red wine mixed with Fanta...delish) and headed down to Triana to visit Pedro at Long Island Bar and play flip cup at Fundicion. Then at like 1:30ish we got a cab and went to Catedral which was RIDIC. We took 2 euro shots and danced our asses off until 5am...and when we left then the club was still PACKED (crazy spaniards...). On the way home, 4 spanish high school guys started following me and Marie and tried talking to us in English...they kept trying to scare us and were being so annoying. Like seriously? You're 16 what the hell are you doing wandering the streets of Sevilla at 5:30 in the morning? psh...crazy kids.

Yesterday we slept til like 2 and then had lunch and chilled til like 4ish...then we headed over to the Plaza de Espana (this huuuuuuge building, not too sure what its for) and took some pretty damn touristy pictures. We discovered that it's a lot easier (and cheaper) to buy a bottle of something to pregame with then to go to the bars so we bought a bottle of rum and drank some rum and cokes down by the river with a bunch of people. Then we headed over to some hippie bar with one of the CIEE tour guides Oscar and then took a taxi to this club where one of the other tour guides' friend was DJing...but they had 4 euro beers and I was not trying to spend all my money so we left after like 20 minutes and just went home..I was still recovering from the night before so it was all good :)

Now it's time for our weekly Sunday lunch with Macarena's parents across the street...they have 2 CIEE students too so we're one big happy familyyyy

Whew, sorry that was such a long first post but I had a toonnnn to catch up on. More to come soon :)

Hasta luego chicos!