Finally in Sevilla!

I have finally arrived in Sevilla after an extremely long day of traveling. Sevilla was well worth my wait. It is what I have imagined in my mind as a Spanish town. The streets are overflowing with Spanish language, orange trees and shoe shops; the perfect trio.

My flights started early yesterday morning in Denver which flew into Chicago. My terminal in Chicago had so many people in my program. A lot of people are from Wisconsin and already know each other which was a little intimidating I must admit. I sat by a few girls who are now in my hall in the orientation hotel. The flight from to Chicago to Madrid was 8 hours and incredibly long because of my inability to fall asleep. The Madrid airport is one of the most confusing and enormous airports I have ever been in. We had to go from terminal U to terminal H which involved us going up and down floors and on trains all telling us it would take 26 minutes for our flight to Sevilla in 20 minutes. We sprinted with all our carry ons mumbling “perdon, lo siento” to everyone we bumped into. The flight from Madrid to Sevilla was nice and fast. We picked up our luggage and found the CIEE orientation leaders waiting for us with a sign to take us on a bus to the hotel.

We are staying at Hotel Becquer, which is beautiful. My window looks out to a garden and the other window opens up to the streets. We sat out there today with perfect weather and Spanish music playing in the background. Later a friend and I decided to take a walk. 1. Sevilla streets are mazes with nooks, dead ends, and narrow streets 2. The streets are beautiful. The people are beautiful and talk beautifully. Not to mention the men dress extremely well. Also, every dresses as if it is 10 degrees colder than it actually is. Men and women were dressed in scarves, gloves and overcoats- it was 60 degrees outside.

The city is picturesque and breathtaking. I can tell that it will make me stop and smell the oranges, something that I usually am in too much of a rush to do. You can feel the Spanish culture and language which is easy to want to catch on to. I’ve started picking up on some of the slang, “vale” and “va” after everything as if you are saying “yeah,ok”, and saying hasta luego not adios.

It is weird starting to talk in Spanish all of the time. The orientation leaders are awesome and of course force you to talk in Spanish at anything CIEE. Some girls and I have taken it up even while it’s just us, swearing we will be fluent by the time we leave. I’m a lot more confident in my Spanish than I thought.

I have changed my name to Elena. It is way easier for the Spanish to say than Elaine and I feel more Spanish.

We start orientation tonight and tomorrow is the big day of seeing the city. We even get to go to flamenco show and tapas tomorrow night.

Only more adventures to come!

Muchos besitos de Sevilla y hasta luego!

Elena