La Primera Semana

It’s officially been a week since I got to Sevilla!

This week has been amazing, tiring, and overwhelming. It’s one thing to stare at photos and to wonder at the places I’d be, but it’s a totally different thing to be here. Truly.

When I thought about the ways I’d describe my first week here, the word that immediately came to mind was “uncomfortable.” I got sort of embarrassed, because I don’t think negatively of my week so far. Far from that!

But there’s no way around the fact that “uncomfortable” es el mejor manera para decir que there’s a lack of comfort. It’s hard to talk about this more without first digressing to talk about my study abroad program…

The CASA Sevilla Program (!)

The CASA–a.k.a the Consortium for Advanced Studies Abroad–Program is (as the name states) a consortium hosted by multiple American universities. There are about 35 of us this semester, each one from the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Vanderbilt, or Cornell. Some of the basic facets of the program include…

La Universidad de Seville

We’re all enrolled at the University of Seville, which begins classes February 5th. US is a public Spanish university; as so, all our classes are in Spanish. We’re also currently enrolled in about 8-10 classes, but by the time that we narrow down classes (within the next week or so) we’ll be taking 3 classes at the university. Further, everyone is also enrolled en una facultad, which is basically a college within the university.

  • Mine is la facultad de historia e geografía, which is basically the college for humanities. I’ll be straying from hotel administration this semester and taking some classes in sociology, ethnology, and anthropology!

Housing

We stay in home stays, each of which are in different neighborhoods or barrios of Sevilla. Because of this, we live with families, each of which are different, too. Most of us have roommates who are also students from the program.

  • I live in an awesome apartment in El Centro, which is one of the most central barrios of the city. My home stay family has María, our host mom, Juan, our host brother, and Rocio, our host sister. Our home stay family is amazing! They’ve been so incredibly kind and have helped us so much with correcting us when we say something incorrect or can’t think of a word.
  • Us=my roommate Sal and I! Sal es mi compañera aquí and is also from Cornell. She’s so cool and I’m so lucky to have her as a roommate.
  • One of the aspects of this is that it’s less easy to be in a bubble of English and less easy to remain a tourist. It’s harder to only use English when you have to use it at dinner, when you have to use it to socialize with nearly all the people around you.

The CASA Center

The CASA center is sort of our main hub. In addition to classes at the university, we also take 2 classes at the center. One class is called Más Allá de los Estereotipos, which we’ve already started. It’s a class that’s designed to encourage us to become more than just tourists. It’s part of the reason we are in home stays, and because of it, we will also get involved with local community organizations. The other class is one of three that we choose. The three include one about Spanish history, Spanish and Latin American trans-atlanticism, and Spanish nationalism and autonomy.

  • Más Allá de los Estereotipos has been having us do projects in which have to explore, research, and report on different neighborhoods of Sevilla. Through it, we’ll also be judged on our linguistic improvement, for which we will also have mentor groups to ask questions and research.
  • The center provides us with multiple resources, and is where we’ve been spending a good chunk of our time. We take classes there to introduce us to what we’ll be doing this semester in our 2 center classes and to encourage us to get into the city. The classes that we take now are also meant to prepare us for our actual university, which will all be in Spanish.

Back to this past week…

You thought that you were okay at Spanish. That was, until you overheard a conversation…of which you understood…maybe a fifth? (Andalusian accents are a REAL THING, I am still getting used to them.)

You thought that you were good at navigating. That was, until you realized that the streets here are…not quite…linear? That there are multiple names for what might appear to be one long street. And until you can use cellphone data, you’re alone and spending time with a map.

You thought that you could buy some toothpaste in a pharmacy without much of glitch. That is, until the pharmacist had to explain to you in Spanish that wait, are you sure you want to buy that? because see, look, it’s actually the glue to put dentures on…oh. oh, wait this isn’t tooth paste? no? no, okay, okay, thank you, that’s fine, sí, voy a tomar esto, gracias, muchas gracias. (Yes, this happened. Shame. Shame, shame, shame. ¡Que vergüenza!)

You thought that you might not miss your family as much as you do. Because even as much as you dreamed about being abroad, ~in the unknown~, doing cool things, they’re still the ones you wish were there to see it all with you, and who, out of all the people, deserve to be the ones eating tapas and drinking some tintos (mom) and some cervezas (dad).

You thought that you were someone who felt confident standing alone in a crowd of people. That is, again, until you remember that when someone yells “fuego,” you’d still yell “fire.”

I am still a stranger. I am living in someone else’s house. In another people’s country. Still trying on a tongue that is not mine and trying to fit into a culture that is even less mine.

But as with most things…

This past week has still been filled with great firsts.

  1. Hey, I came to Europe for the first time on my own!
  2. I ordered my own drinks for Sal and I in Spanish and at a loud bar! (We split a gin and tonic. Fue muy buena.)
  3. I already feel like I’m improving in my Spanish
  4. I already feel at least somewhat familiar with a good deal of the city!
  5. I realized that I am surrounded by so many incredible people who are all in the same boat. I’m so excited to become better friends with everyone in the program.
  6. I’m so excited to hopefully make some Universidad de Sevilla friends!

‘Til the next post,

Gabi

p.s.: here are some photos 🙂

La vista de nuestra ventana
Una casa en Barrio Santa Cruz
La Torre del Oro
otra casa en barrio santa cruz
Carne Carerillo (?)
El Archivo de Indias
Jamon
Un apartamento
Sal y yo
Las croquetas

Hahahaha oh, boy

Do you know that disc scratch sound that backs TV and movie scenes when something goes laughably—perhaps comedically?—wrong?

If not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK-RxM85Www

*Disc scratches very loudly*

I was originally set to leave LAX on a Norwegian Airlines flight at 6:35pm on Sunday and then get to London Gatwick at 12:50pm on Monday. After that, I was supposed to take a British Airways 4:50pm flight to Sevilla and would have gotten there at 8:30pm. Easy peasy, right?

However, on Sunday morning I learned that my flight was to be delayed an hour and 5 minutes. Okay, that’s not too bad. I can probably still make it to my second flight. No worries. I reassured myself. Hah.

On Sunday evening, at 7:15, I board the plane. Perhaps an hour into the flight, the flight crew requests that any doctors come to the front to attend to someone who wasn’t feeling good. It didn’t seem like an emergency, so I continued watching my movie.

Fast forward to a few hours later, and an announcement over the PA system wakes me: the same passenger that wasn’t feeling good earlier must get immediate medical attention. We therefore must backtrack a little over an hour in the opposite direction to Minneapolis and then land. We spend over an hour and a half on the tarmac while the passenger is treated and the plane is refueled. When all is said and done, the flight that was supposed to get us to London at 1:55pm (with the first delay) doesn’t land until 5 pm. I miss my flight to Sevilla.

While waiting on the tarmac in Minneapolis, I found that my next best* option was a flight leaving London at 8:20pm that would take me to Madrid, then leave Madrid the next morning at 7:25am, to get to Sevilla at 8:30am. However, I wasn’t able to book it because 1) I wasn’t sure how soon we’d be able to get to London, and 2) I ran out of time before having to turn my phone off.

Before delayed planes and medical emergencies were thrown into the mix, getting onto my second flight was already going to be a bit of a production. Because there were no direct or same-airline flights to Sevilla, I had to book two different airlines. Meaning: I had to exit through passport control, get my suitcases, exit customs, and then re-check in, check my bags, and then go through security again. And this was before I had to buy a ticket that I wasn’t sure was still available.

From this, I knew I had to hustle. As soon as I de-boarded the plane, I made my way to passport control, went through, and then went to baggage claim. From baggage claim, I waited about 10 minutes until I was able to get both my suitcases. I got to the counter as quickly as I could, booked the ticket, and then checked my bags in…

*”best” means that it would get me to Sevilla sooner than later. There were some flights that were shorter, but didn’t get me to Sevilla until Tuesday afternoon or evening.

I PUT THE COAT ON HER!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjYeSsEgWlA

While I was in a hurry, I had put my cellphone and passport in the small top pocket of my suitcase. While I was checking in, I pulled my passport out of my suitcase and held onto it, but forgot to take my cellphone out before placing my suitcase onto the conveyor. It was only a few minutes later when I realized what I had done. I immediately got back into line and asked the attendant if there was anything I could do. She shook her head. I was sans-phone for the next 11 or so hours until I got to Sevilla. On top of just not having my phone, I was afraid that since I had left it in an outer pocket (that may or may not have been unzipped), that it might be broken, lost, or stolen.

The take-aways/the carry-ons

It’s now Wednesday night and I am happy to report that I am finally in Sevilla and my phone is fully intact + in my possession. I have gotten to see some of Sevilla and am continuing to explore the city. I hope you were able to laugh about my story, and rejoice in the next ones. Tomorrow I will be meeting my host family and visiting the place where i’ll be living for the next 5 months. Stick around to hear more 🙂

Nos vamos,

Gabi

¿Dónde están mi gente?

Hola a mis amigos y mi familia! I created this blog because I wanted to be able to tell people what I was up to while here in Sevilla.

And I won’t lie. It feels a bit ironic to finally have started a blog for this semester. I have been historically bad at documenting life, experiences, and even moments. I probably have less than 5 legit pictures of my best friend (I LOVE YOU, AMRITA RAMAMURTHY!). Oftentimes, documenting things feels like what I imagine trying to follow a Bob Ross video feels like–you just don’t get the full beauty of whatever scene you were trying to capture, AND, you now have paint thinner all over your wall. Just kidding.

But anyways! This semester is different. I want to make sure that I’m not letting myself not take the time to pause and share with so many people who have supported me in getting here. That I am documenting, because attempting is better than doing nothing at all.

To funny stories and mispronounced Spanish words,

Gabi