After a fun weekend!

January 14, 2007

Well, today starts my first day of class here in Spain! For some reason I am up really early; it’s only nine o’clock and am already at a café, drinking my tea and watching the people go by on their way to work or school. Not everyone is awake of course, it’s much too early. Even the sun is struggling to stay up on this grey and slightly misty morning. My chai tea is nice and sweet though and I feel ready to start a day of school. Of course, I don’t have class until afternoon (which is really more like after 3 here) but I decided to get up and try to get a few things done before I have any homework to do.

This weekend was a lot of fun. Friday was a pretty laid back day and Saturday was a wonderfully clear, crisp day with lots of sunshine. Yesterday was slightly rainy again, but by the end of the month we’ll have plenty of sunny days for weeks on end.

Friday was a nice day, with just a few things to do to prepare for registration and the rest of the semester. At the palacio, the main building for CIEE classes, there were program organizers and activity coordinators handing out flyers and standing by tables talking up their projects and semester activities. There is plenty to do here, and I am eager to get involved. There are several volunteer opportunities, which would be perfect, a couple of teaching opportunities, plenty of excursions around Spain, and also several places where I would be able to take dance classes. I am obviously interested in learning the flamenco, as well as the traditional sevillano dance called, remarkably, sevillanos. It is a dance that is typically performed and danced by all during the week of la feria, a huge festival during April.

My main goal though, is to join an interest group through CIEE. These groups are focused on one main topic, and throughout the semester, have several meetings and activities related to learning more about the topic. There are several that interested me, but I think I am going to choose the one that focuses on human rights. This group provides several opportunities to get out into the community and work with children, the homeless, and the underprivileged. It also focuses on the relationship between the Spanish Catholics and the Muslims. At the end of the semester there is a trip to Morocco for four days. The trip at the end really sealed the deal for me, because I have always been fascinated by the culture and traditions of Morocco and I don’t know if I would ever have another opportunity to go.

The weekend was mostly fun for me because we had a lot of free time. I took a long time on Saturday to go out on my own and walk around, explore the streets and write a few postcards at a nice café. I have to say the every day I notice little things about the culture here that I absolutely love. One of them is the Spaniards love of conversation and company. Saturday was a beautifully sunny day and I swear the entire population of the city was outside, just walking around, taking the time to catch up with friends and family, people watching and shopping and letting the children run around a play or sleep in carriages. I swear it must be the most popular medical remedy or something to dress up your baby in the most stylish outfits and promenade around the city for hours on end in the sunshine or even rain in the company of friends and families and other babies in cute carriages. While I was sitting in a sunny square, people watching and waiting to meet my friends, I saw a young mom pushing an adorable fancy carriage around. She saw the bench I was sitting was vacant on the other and came over to sit down. I saw the most adorable baby inside the carriage; she was so tiny and pink and perfect and had the most beautiful dark hair ruffled on top of her head. I smiled at the mom, told her the baby was beautiful and asked how old she was. She was twelve days old. A few minutes after the stopped, the baby woke up and began to cry a little. The mother laughed and said, she just wants to be moving along then I guess, and they continued their walk around the plaza.

I also had a fun weekend because I went out on Saturday night with couple of Spanish friends, and met a few new Spaniards as well. That was very nice because I was forced to listen to Spanish the whole night, as opposed to Americans trying to speak Spanish and then failing and reverting to English or a Spanglish of their own creation. I was also forced to respond which was really difficult, especially in a noisy atmosphere, but it was worth it. My whole goal here is to learn Spanish, and I knew it would be hard so I’m just going to have to accept that.

Sunday was another nice day, simply because I had no obligations. My roommate Bridget and I slept in really late, had a nice lunch with our Spanish mother, and met a couple of friends just outside the university. We then all walked to a huge, beautiful park located right in the middle of Sevilla. Just outside the park is a huge plaza and a beautiful old building that looks like it had once been a palace. I have no idea what it really is, but it was gorgeous. I am sure I will learn about it sometime. I took plenty of pictures and will put them online sometime soon. The park itself is huge and so incredibly beautiful and well taken care of. I felt like I back in Thailand one point because of the beautiful rivers, huge trees, and gorgeous fountains surrounded by little covered walkways draped in greenery. We walked around for quite awhile and commented on how it would be even more beautiful in the spring and summer.

There was a football game on at six and it was beginning to look more and more like rain, so we decided to head towards a small pub that always had several games playing. The boys had some garlic bread and lemonade, the girls had coffee or tea, and we sat biting our nails and shouting at the TV in various languages for an hour and half until we were able to breathe a sigh of relief for the Betis victory of 3-2 over a team that should have played much worse than it did.

Later that night, back at home, I was talking with my Spanish mother and noticed that she was reading a book by my favorite Hispanic author, Isabel Allende. I asked her about the book and told her I had read one of the other in my Spanish class last fall. She got really excited and hurried off to her room, telling me to wait for a minute. She came back with a huge stack of books in her arms, all by Isabel Allende. She told me how much she loved to read, and how her children kept buying her books for every special occasion, especially once they found out who her favorite author was. I was very excited then too, because I too love to read, and had been looking in several bookstore for another book by this author. Mercedes told me that, of course, I am more than welcome to borrow whichever book I would like, whenever I want. I am very excited about that, and I can’t decide which one to read first. I only hope that I still have time to read after classes start!

Love, love, love

Maia Jo