THE BEGINNING

Mission 1: get to spain. Status: SUCCESS!

For some reason, the concept that I was going by myself to another country where I was going to live with random different people for 9 weeks didn’t ACTUALLY hit me until I arrived at the hetherow airport scared shitless that I was not going to find my connecting flight to Madrid at “terminal 3. It was more nerve racking because they insist on taking forever before posting the damned gates assignments.. whatever… I also had a connecting flight from Madrid to Sevilla. Madrid’s airport looks really cool but actually sucks because everything single thing is in Spanish and even those that SPEAK the language can’t figure out where they’re supposed to go. I had been freaking out about customs but they didn’t ask me a single thing, just looked at my passport and stamped it. I should just stop freaking out. Everything went very well and I arrived in Sevilla at 4:50 p.m. after having left the day before at about 5:00 pm, but with a very confused inner clock.

Interesting people met:

Maria from Serbia on her way to Belgrade to meet up with her fiancée. Recent graduate of UMass Boston, studying social justice regarding gypsies for a year before graduate school, very nice, very talkative, very much a fan of those little mini wine bottles that they served…

2 Swiss women on their way to Sevilla for the week. Very nice. Made me very jealous that they live in Switzerland for like 800 reasons including a rocking currency and the ability to go to spain for a week, no problem.

Mission 2: figure out what the hell is going on. Status: unsure…

I arrive in Sevilla with a woman holding a sign with my name on it. She’s driving me and one other girl through the city which is for the large part abandoned (Sunday evening – fair, but makes it look sketchy even though it’s totally not). She drops me off at this random apartment building. Another moment where I think to myself, good god, what the hell am I doing??? But then I meet Ana, my host mom who is very very nice, my roommate Meri and the next day another CLIC student, Aleshandra. Thank God for these people who fed me, showed me how to get to school and pretty much saved my life.

Aleshandra: Northeastern international business student here with a Northeastern program using CLIC, lives next door, has showed me around, taken me out and helped me translate.

Meri: Emory student here with an accelerated Emory language program so that she can finish her language requirement faster, lived in my room for a day before moving out to be closer to CLIC, took me to school the first day (as she had been with Emory for a meeting the night before) – this is big, sevilla streets are a bit like wtf and the map we were given sucks butt.

Mission 3: learn some Spanish. Status: I already understand much more but I still sound like a belligerent retard. I hope to stop frustrating Ana by one day understanding everything that she says!

Mission 4: find somebody else to buy me drinks. Status: preliminary success.

Aleshandra and I are getting ready to go out with her group(Tuesday? So what!). She asks “So what’s the goal tonight?” ummm have a good time? No! flirt with Spanish boys? No! get their numbers? No! hook up with them? ?? ?? No….. Get them to buy us free drinks! Ahhh yesssssssss, genius =D

Some Spanish guy (friends with some northeastern kid) gets us into this place without a cover! Very niceeeee!

Boy 1: From New Zealand. Very cute, tall, etc. Went to university, not sure what for, but has travelled all around South America and Europe and is continuing his travels to the U.S. shortly. Left to go buy a drink myself, oops! (but good practice)

Boy 2: From Morocco in his third year of medical school in Spain. Also very cute, tall etc. Bought me a drink after I told him the story of my road trip. I took a vodka shot (because I’m CLASSY). Will be on his way to the U.S. shortly as well. Jacksonville is on the itinerary. Neither of us could figure out why.

Man : Attractive Spanish man, but maybe around 30? Talked to me for a very long time about a lot of things, said he lives around the area where I am au pairing, said if I needed a place to stay I could stay with him and his girlfriend…. Gave me his drink. Spoke some awesome spanglish with me. Gave me his business card…. Put his tongue in my mouth?! Parate chico! He stops, apologizes. Talk some more. He does it again. Rescued by Aleshandra! But I still have this silly man’s business card! He is the director of “matchmind: ideas & technology for business.” Se llama Jose Ignacio de las Llanderas. Queries su movil? Porque lo tengo! Jaaa!

Some observations on the Spanish people as a whole

-They walk as slow as the goddamned snails that they are so enthralled with consuming. When I walk to school I must resist the urge to push these meandering souls out of the way. Don’t they have somewhere to be?! God, this is a CITY!

-Girls my age like to wear these pants that I call “crotch pants.” Low slung, tight around the calves with enough crotch space to house a 2 ft. long dong. Denim, soft, colorful… why, so many varieties! Perhaps I have only yet to acquire the taste for this style….

-Some people are so small. Like, just really really tiny. Like, literally I cannot tell how old they are sometimes because they are just so petite! There are also normal sized people but I have never seen so many small people in such a concentration.

A few random things

-I’m walking down the street. A little boy is looking at me right in the face as he walks by me coming from the opposite direction. Whatever. I hear something behind me. Little bugger has his hands in my purse. Pocket was empty, fool. Now SHOO!

-The food that Anna cooks for me is awesome, but I don’t get dinner. I am also cheap. So I only eat two meals a day! Perhaps I will meet me weight-loss goal… jajaja

-One of my Spanish teachers is hilarious. He is as much of an actor as a teacher and spends the class running around, having imaginary love affairs with himself and reciting lines from movies while they are being shown. Para Anna Feingold: se llama Jose Miguel.

There will be so much more.

BESOS!