How the Family Runs

I have been here for one month. Last night I went to the Carbonería, then to Orsini – an italian restaurant for pasta, met Cristina and Carlos (two Spanish friends) and two American friends in a bar in La Plaza de la Encarnación, and then stopped at the Capote bar on the way home, its an open air bar on the river that closes for the winter in two weeks. Today I am just resting, doing homework and drinking lots of water to get ready for the 12 k run (La Carrera Nocturna) tonight.

Here's some of what goes on in our daily life at home:
Dish washing duty is shared, there are a lot of dishes and they are stored in the dishwasher, the counter, a rack on the wall, and a cabinet in the dining room. The floors are mopped several times a week, rotating responsibility. The dogs are often feed scraps of meat at the table. Sometimes leftover meat or pasta goes into their food bowl – we have no electric garbage disposal. The radios in the kitchen and bathroom are often on in the morning, we make our own breakfast and eat in the dinning room. I read whatever paper is around. There are usually only one or two other people around when I wake up and get breakfast. Breakfast is toast with olive oil, margerine, or liver paté. Or an egg omelette bocadillo. There’s also little cookies and prepackeged pastries, milk from a little box carton and colacao (dry chocolate milk mix). This is the typical spanish breakfast, small and simple. A bag of bread is delivered to the front door every morning, around 7 am on weekdays and 8 or 9 on weekends. Two huge cartons holding several dozen brown eggs are delivered a couple times a week. The shelves on the door of the refrigerator are full of eggs.

Alicia, the mom, shops for lunch every morning, usually coming home with meat, potatoes, pasta, fruit, vegetables, a two liter bottle of fanta or coke, more bread and sometimes a treat like cookies, yogurt or ice cream. Every once in a while she buys certain food in bulk - milk in huge boxes full of little 1 liter milk cartons, several kilos of potatoes, onions, garlic, liters and liters of olive oil and sunflower seed oil, and lots of frozen french fries. She starts cooking around 1:30 or 2 in the afternoon, sometimes she starts soaking vegetables or preparing a soup in the morning. One or two of the older kids help her cook in the kitchen. The kids set the table. We go through lots of plates and silverware every day. Soup bowls have to be placed on top of another plate. Glasses of milk at breakfast or coffee (or hot chocolate for the little kids) after lunch are served on small plates. You use one plate, the one under your soup bowl for the first course and the second course is served on another plate. Dessert is usually fruit (lots of pears, plums, apples, kiwis and melon) and is followed by hot chocolate or coffee while sitting around the table chatting or watching tv in the living room (with the air conditioning on if its hot). Dessert, even if its an apple, is served on a small plate with a sharp knife and a fork to skin, slice and eat it. So 12 people x 2 large plates + 12 x 2 small plates + 12 x 3 pieces of silverware + 12 coffee mugs + 12 glasses for soda and water = 48 plates, 36 pieces of silverware, 24 cups and several pots, pans and serving platters to clean after the average lunch. The dirty dishes do not all fit in the sink.

Laundry is done on the fourth floor. The fourth floor is full of clothes. There is a big bookshelf in the hallway on the third floor that is full of dozens of pairs of shoes. There are lots of books and videos everywhere. The father’s study on the first floor has three desks so that he can work and help several of the younger kids with their homework. I often hear them quizing each other in french or english and working through math problems.

First week of classes

Keep the comments coming. I like hearing from everyone.

To Uncle Peter's question on Spanish beer: I was pretty excited to come to Spain and try all the Spanish beers and wines. I was excited to be of legal drinking age too, of course. At times it seems like the only beer in Sevilla is Cruzcampo. It's everywhere. Heineken is the second most common beer, followed by the other Spanish brands, Mahau, Alhambra, Estrella Damm and San Miguel. Cruzcampo is really bad, every Sevillano drinks it and seems to like it, I don't know why. Its tastes fruity and bitter, its a very light beer. Alhambra is good and cheap, Mahau Negra is a very good dark beer, Mahau Rubia is good, regular Mahau is ok, Estrella Damm and San Miguel (the British tourists call it San Miggy) are both good. There is a Cruzcampo brewery nearby so I will go take the tour there sometime.

Spanish wine is excellent and very cheap. Sangría: fruit juice, chunks of fruit, red wine and rum is very popular. Tinto de verano: red wine with lemon or orange soda, is very simple and very good too, to bad it’s seasonal and hard to find when it’s not summer.
There are a few Irish pubs that are really fun places to go. All the Irish and German beers are really expensive in bars and restaurants though, so I can't wait to go to Ireland and get good cheap Irish beer. We only go to what we call "Euro Bars" - bars where beer costs one Euro. They tend to be the student bars and the cheap local bars. If it’s not a Euro bar, we skip it. We call the one Euro coin a beer token. It’s a shiny big coin that gets you a beer - a beer token.

So I have had my first classes. Phonetics and Phonology is taught by a really nice professor, a woman in her mid 30s. There are 17 students. We talked about what phonetics is and discussed possible music and movies to watch from Andalucia, Madrid, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, etc. so that we can listen to the accents and dialects from those different areas. The Andaluz accent is surprisingly different from the Spanish that Madrileños (Madrid residents) speak. In the second class we talked about all the sounds in the Spanish language, the codes and symbols we use are a little confusing at first.

Politics and Society of the Contemporary Arab World has only six students, three are from Madison, including me. I know four of them and there is one girl from a different program who is of Iranian descent. The professor is a Spanish man who is fluent in Arabic and has lived in Morocco. He wrote several things on the whiteboard in Arabic, his name, and the names of countries and regions. Fortunately he writes it in Spanish as well. He specializes in the Magreb countries – northern Africa from Morocco to Libya. The syllabus seemed very ambitious, we are going to cover the geography and basic information of the Arab world, the history, the political systems, the cultures, Arab women, and current issues such as terrorism, arab-european immigration and the Iraq War. I’m excited to learn about all of that. He is also excited to teach us some Arabic words and phrases that we can use in Morocco. Three of us in the class, including me, are going to Morocco next weekend.

Contemporary Spanish Cinema is taught by Ángel de Quinta, who was my favorite guide on the Granada trip and also does optional tours of sites in Sevilla. It was 20 students in a small classroom. We are starting out with basic themes in film and watching some old old movies. It seems like it will be a very interesting class. My last class is syntax, the Spanish title is gramática comparativa, it is a grammar class focusing on syntax and the order of words. The professor ran the online tests that we took this summer to show our level of Spanish, so he knows us really well, our names and how much Spanish we know and what our weak points are. We started going over common mistakes that we make in Spanish because we try to directly translate English to Spanish in our heads. This causes us to make many grammar mistakes because the grammar rules of the Spanish language are not the same as in English. The class will have lots of practice, speaking and written assignments and worksheets. It was a big class, about 20 students, many of them chose to take it because they heard from advisors or past students that it is the most effective and helpful Spanish class for improving fluency. That made me feel really good about the class too.

My family just spent a lot of time playing around with Google World. They were looking at Sevilla and Córdoba, where some of their relatives live. I’ve meet two cousins, both are around my age. There are 25 cousins total, including the 10 kids in my family, so there are 13 that I haven’t met. They are now watching the Betis game versus a team from Belgium. It’s a Champions League game on pay-per-view, Betis is winning 1-0 in the second half.

Maria Garoffolo called me on Monday and we talked for a bit. She is going to be in Sevilla this Friday to watch the run that I will be in. She did it for years but has not the last two years. I might be able to see her on Friday, she is going to Madrid to help her daughter move there this weekend.

I played basketball and volleyball again on Tuesday night, I played one game of 5-on-5 basketball with 9 Spanish guys. They were all really really good. Then I played with a lot of my American friends, then played volleyball with 14 people, a mix of Spaniards and Americans.

Formula One racing, which is as big in Europe as NASCAR is in the US, ended its season with a race on Sunday and a Spaniard won it for the first time ever, Fernando Alonso. He is also the youngest world champion, at age 24. He’s super popular, as you can imagine. One of the first questions that 13 year-old Bernardo asked me on my first day with the family is if I knew who Fernando Alonso was. Well I do now.

I went to a meeting for the Morocco trip I am taking next week. A young guy who is one of our guides came to talk to us and show us pictures. He grew up in East Berlin, near the wall, so he couldn’t travel much until the wall fell. He fell in love with traveling after traveling through Europe, Asia and South America solo. He explained how meeting people and connecting with people of different cultural backgrounds is the best part about traveling. In a large tour group you only interact with people from within your culture and the places you visit are only two-dimensional. I like how he explained the benefits of traveling in small groups and how seeing the world and meeting people very different from yourself can be a profound experience. He seemed like the perfect person to take us to Morocco. We will visit Tangier, stay with a Moroccan family one night, meet a Moroccan professor and his students who study English. American students will be paired up his bilingual Moroccan students to see the city. We will also go to the mountains and take a hike. The trip is about 18 students, through a project within our program that puts together a magazine every semester. We will interview Moroccan students and Spanish Muslims to write articles about Muslim immigration in Spain. I am pretty sure that I will be one of three students chosen to go to Madrid to interview Turkey’s ambassador to Spain. I get a free AVE ticket to Madrid out of it!

I am writing an entry on how the family operates on a typical day. It’s very interesting to see how things are run so that 13 people can live comfortably in a small apartment. I’ll try to have it done soon and post it this weekend.

Granada

I just got back from Granada at 9 pm and had dinner at home. It was a whirlwind 36 hours. Here is my recount of the weekend:

I was in bed by 2 am on Friday night because I had to get up early Saturday morning – the first time I have gotten up before sunrise here. We walked to the University at 8:30 am, where two tour buses were waiting for us. We stopped once on the way to Granada – spanish truck stops are very similar to american ones. As we got closer, the land got hillier and soon we were in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. We got to Granada around noon and went straight to the Cathedral for a tour. It was about 70 students, everyone in my program, and some of the guides that we’ve gotten to know well. Angel, a professor who knows everything about the history of Spain, came with us. I always made sure that I was in his group for the tours. A few other people who work for CIEE (my program) that we don’t get to see much came along too so it was fun to hang out with them. The Cathedral was ok, its huge and all white inside. I don’t think the pictures I took will capture the size of the building well – the ceilings were about 150 feet high. There was lots of scaffolding and restoration projects. The little museum with old clothing, swords, crowns, silverware and jewelry used by the royal family was cool to see. Granada was the home of the Royal Family during the 16th century and to most important King and Queen in Spain’s history, Ferdinand and Isabel. The christians built the Cathedral in the 16th century on top of some important muslim mosque soon after they expelled all the muslims from Granada. The Christians also decided to destroy some of the Alhambra and add on to it several buildings and “improvements” that don’t compare to what the muslims built. It was also almost blown up by Napoleon's army, someone decided to cut all the fuses and save the place from being destroyed.

After leaving, we walked around the Cathedral where there were lots of shops selling spices, scented soap, incense and tea. One of the guides tricked my friend, telling him to stick his finger in a bag of saffron and lick it – his finger and teeth were stained orange for the rest of the day. There were some decent stores and bazaars but I can’t wait to go to a real arab market in Morocco and buy something cool (maybe a monkey claw or magic carpet?).

We got back on the buses and drove up a mountainside next to the city towards the Alhambra and our hotel. Our hotel was really nice and was only a five-minute walk from the Alhambra. We got our rooms and had a buffet lunch at the hotel, and then we walked to the Alhambra (a Muslim palace/fortress) for a tour. We were there for several hours and I got a great tour from Angel, all in spanish. It was cool and relaxing inside the buildings and in the gardens. I saw large tour groups from Japan, France and Germany, and lots of American, British and Spanish tourists. It was a lot of walking, a lot of picture taking and by the end we were all exhausted. We kept climbing higher and higher, and the Alhambra goes on and on, it’s like a little city on a mountain. At the end, we had the option to go to the hotel for a couple hours or take the bus the to center of the city to see more sights. Almost everyone went back to the hotel. I ate a bocadillo that I had brought from home and then was out instantly and slept for two hours.

At 8:30 we went back to the city and split up into small groups to get tapas. We got a really cool view of the city lights at night on the ride down the mountain. In Granada, almost every bar gives you a simple tapa with every drink you order. You get tons of free food. We wandered around for a while before finally picking a place. We stood around a giant barrel turned into a table and had some tapas and drinks and then decided to sit down at a table and get raciones – full dinners. It was my best dinner so far in Spain. I split a red pepper salad, with tons of olive oil, and grilled shrimp, with tons of garlic, with a friend. I ate platefuls of bread because it was so good dipping it in the garlic sauce and red pepper olive oil sauce. The city was much more beautiful at night, we saw several fountains full of bright lights and the streets were packed with people.

We went to a bar across the street from where we ate to watch the Real Betis – Barcelona soccer game. We got more free tapas with our drinks there, I was stuffed. We had some wine and lots of Alhambra beer. Almost everyone met up at a bar on a street full of student bars. Granada has even more college students than Sevilla, over 100,000. It was really fun at the bar with everyone in the program and all the guides there. They played a lot of spanish songs which is rare, its usually mostly american music. We left the bar at four a.m. and got falafels at a little restaurant nearby, there were about 6 middle eastern take-out places on that street. There are almost no restaurants open that late in Sevilla. After a few hours of sleep, we had breakfast in the hotel and then checked out and headed south to Almuñecar, a town 30 minutes south on the Mediterranean. Granada is only 15 minutes from a really good ski resort. In the winter you can ski and go to the beach and swim (in reasonably warm water) all in the same day. I wish we had more time to spend in Granada, it is a really fun city and we didn’t get to explore the old parts of the city or much of the center on our own.

The drive to Almuñecar was the best part of the day. We drove through the biggest mountains in Spain (and Spain has the second highest average elevation in Europe, after Switzerland). All the Colorado-Boulder students on the bus had to compare it to the Rockies. There was a lot of Colorado pride. Most of the students say that the midwestern kids have the most pride, though maybe its because there are a lot more students from the midwest than the west or east coast. We saw so many stunning cliffs, dams and huge bridges over valleys and gorges. As we got closer to the Mediterranean, we saw lots of tomato, olive and avocado farms and big irrigation systems and greenhouses.

When we got to Almuñecar we saw an arab castle on a peninsula. The coastline was dotted with little towers that were built by the arabs to guard the coast. Signals were transmitted from tower to tower by fire and smoke. The castle was high up and had great views of the rocky coast and harbors full of little fishing boats and newly built high rise hotels and resorts. There were very few tourists even though the town was very built up. We also saw some Phoenician ruins (some little stone walls) from around 200 BC. The Phoenicians, who originally founded the town as a shipping post, named it Sexi (pronounced sexy). We saw a bakery called Sexipan. Almuñecar is an arabic name. We had lunch at a place near the beach, it took forever for the four courses to be served. Four of us left as soon as we could to spend as much time as possible on the beach. We saw people cooking freshly caught fish and shrimp on the beach over a fire, played some soccer with a group of 8, 9 and 10 year-olds, got ice cream, and then hung out on the beach with everyone else once they were done eating. It was a really good time, but we only had about an hour at the beach as a whole group. There were quite a few big jellyfish in the water and old men in speedos sun tanning on the beach. The ride home was uneventful, we did see a bright orange sunset.

I’m loading my pictures on to my computer right now, 137 pictures from the two-day trip.

Regular classes start tomorrow - I’m excited. It feels like a four-week vacation in Spain is just coming to an end and the school year is finally starting.

Food

I heard from Pau in Barcelona, he’s glad that I’m back in Spain. My final paper is done, Alicia (the mom) was a great help. She explained to me the arab influence on food and words in Spain, especially in Andalucía. No one in Andalucía used ovens because its too hot and there was never good firewood. Today most people have modern ovens and microwaves, but in small towns spanish women still prepare their baked goods and then take them to a bakery to bake them there. Most meat and fish is fried because for centuries people slowly cooked food on stone or tiles heated by coals. Baking was not done. Our oven, like most other ovens in Andalucia, is rarely used for baking, instead it’s used to store pots and pans. She also gave me her gazpacho recipe. Its obviously a recipe she knows from memory and makes to taste. Her recipe calls for half a glass of olive oil and half a glass of vinager. I had to ask her to be more specific. What size glass? The amount of salt in the recipe is “lo que cabe in la mano cerrada” (what you can hold in your closed hand).

On Thursday night we played basketball at a public park nearby with the dad, Pedro, Ernesto (a 19 year old who lives nearby and has an american student), one of my classmates and two other young guys who are friends of the family. It was three against four. We played a halfcourt game to 40 points, win by two. The court was really small, with a fence around it and the hoops were only 9 feet above the ground. I scored most of my teams points, lots of layups, dunks and putbacks. We had a solid lead for most of the game, but I was spent after reaching 37 points. We lost 42 – 40. The game lasted over an hour, I was exhausted. I had dinner and showered around 11:30. After watching the end of the Real Madrid – Atlético Bilbao game, I went to the Carbonería bar for my friend’s 21st birthday. It was my first time at the Carbonería, I had heard a lot about it, its the most well known bar in Sevilla. It used to be a place that sold coal, hence the name, now it’s a huge sprawling bar. The front is an unmarked, big red wooden door. I wasn’t sure it was the Carbonería until I walked in a ways. The front area is like a cave with a piano and lots of art covering the walls. Behind that is a long bar and a bunch of long tables, like a cafeteria. The back is a nice outdoor terrace full of trees and vines. We hung out there for awhile and then went to the front where two guys were playing the piano and clapping and singing. A few people danced sevillana, which is very similar to flamenco.

The last day of class went well on Friday. I am done with 1 of 5 classes this semester. Amancio and Alicia taught me how to make mojo picón on Friday. It’s a really good, spicy sauce used on roasted or grilled meat and potatoes. Two jars of tomato sauce, half a jar of water, half a jar of olive oil or sunflower oil, one whole garlic, two cayenne peppers (I think they were cayenne), some salt and pepper, and two little jars of oregano, blended. I ate about half a baguette just dipping it in the sauce. She said that it can be stored at room temperature for months in a sealed jar if you add a layer of oil to the top of the jar.

I am going to Granada at 9 am tomorrow morning. We are also going to a beach 30 minutes south of Granada on Sunday.

Week Four

We went over the 20th century in Spain to finish our quick overview of Spanish history on Friday. I never realized how much violence and political and social change has occurred in the last 80 years in Spain. There was a liberal government in the 1930s, a civil war started in 1936, the country was fascist until 1975, then it quickly became a modern and normal country and was ruled by a socialist party for 16 years. We’ve learned that several streets in Sevilla are named after policy makers or military leaders under Franco. That’s all that is left of that era around here. The streets around my neighborhood are all Virgen del ____. The sevillanos joke that it’s a confusing area to find anything because dozens of streets are Virgen something or other. My street is Virgen del Monte and it is intersected by Virgen del África, Virgen de Aguas Santas and Virgen de la Consolación.

Friday’s headline of the sevillano nespaper Que! was “Necisito ir al baño. Estado de emergencia!” (I need to go to the bathroom. State of emergency!) in huge font, referring to George Bush being caught passing along a note asking to use the bathroom during a meeting. We all thought it was hilarious and couldn’t believe that this was the biggest news story of the day in Spain.

On Friday night we went to Plaza de Cuba to drink some wine and then to the bar, El Desván. The cool bartender we’ve gotten to know there, Jose Luis, had some new tricks this time. He would hold three tall glasses in one hand and flip ice cubes into the air with his other hand. The ice cube would land wedged in between the three glasses, then he would pinch the glasses together, the ice cube would bob up and down in between the glasses and then shoot up into the air and he would catch it in one of the glasses. Then he pours wine and soda from several feet above the glasses, rotating just the glasses.

On Saturday I went grocery shopping with some friends. Someone who lives nearby had the apartment all to herself this weekend, the mother and daughter she lives with went to the beach. We ate grilled cheese, bruschetta, pancakes, cookies, yogurt and watched movies.

My family changed my room around on Saturday while I was gone. They moved the closet and bookshelf and replaced the bunk bed with a nice big bed. The bunk bed was too short for me and was really squeaky. The new bed is wide but still too short. I do like the room a lot more now.

Later that night i met up with a friend and then went to a discoteca to meet Jesús and Amancio. We had to walk around a lot to find the place. It was the first time that I've gone out with them, we ran into some americans that we know there and left at 4 am when the place was starting to get really busy. The line to get in when we left was huge, we still can't believe how late people stay out.

On Sunday I went for a really long run, I got a little lost and went further than I intended. Betis played in town, 0-0 was the score. Real Madrid lost to Espanyol, a really bad team, they have been a big disappointment this season. I watched Gladiator on tv. All of my classmates see the same shows and movies on tv so its always a topic of conversation the next day in class. The Spanish love Gladiator because Russell Crowe's character came from a small Roman town, Murcia I think, that is in western Spain. It's everyone's favorite movie here, they see him as a Spanish hero standing up against an evil empire.

On Monday we started to work on our final project in class, a group written script. I went to a meeting for some student org. Martha called me from her house, it was nice to talk to her. The parents insist that I visit and stay at their house.

I really want it to rain at least a little bit. We learned the spanish saying, "está lloviendo a cánteros." Its the equivalent of "its raining cats and dogs," it literally means "its raining buckets." It probably won't ever rain buckets though. Another common expression that people use here for something useless is: "es como un paraguas en Sevilla," which means "its like an umbrella in Sevilla," in other words, its completely useless. I guess you could say that the saying, "está lloviendo a cánteros" is as useless as a paraguas en Sevilla.

I played basketball for over an hour on Tuesday night, then played some volleyball, both with a mix of americans and spaniards. It was really fun, this time everyone was really good. I got a blister on the bottom of my foot, the same thing happened two weeks ago while playing basketball but I was able to run ok. We’ve learned a lot about Semana Santa and the Feria de Abril the last two days in class, saw slides and listened to music. Most of the students in my class will not be here for either, unfortunately.

I got my passport back today. It was sent somewhere along with my application for a student residency card. All I got back was a letter with a stamp on it. I have to wait several months for everything to go through and the card mailed to me.

Play, Soccer, Birthday

For the first time since I have been here, the entire family was at home. The mother and the 5 youngest kids came home from the beach on Monday afternoon. We ate dinner in shifts because one of the two tables in the dinning room was full of clean laundry. We don’t all fit at one table. We had lunch with 11 people today, the most so far. I love the mom, she cleaned for hours on Monday, the kitchen and bathroom had gotten really messy while just the oldest kids were living at home. Everything is neat and organized and she shops once or twice a day so there is tons of food. She is also a really good cook and feeds me a ton. They always do. When the table is set they always point me to the seat with a plate with twice as much food as everyone else.

My class went to see a play on Tuesday night. It was during the Real Betis – Liverpool soccer game. Quite a few Liverpool fans were in town to go to the game. Unfortunately, I had to go see the play and we had an exam on it the next day. Jesus text messaged me an update on the game. Betis played poorly to start and fell into a 2-0 deficit. They played much better in the second half, but lost 2-1 in the end. Anyways, the play was Llanto, based on a poem by Federico Garcia Lorca. The poem (and subsequently the play) is about a matador in the 1920s that Lorca fell in love with (he was gay) and then the matador was gored by a bull and died. We read the poem earlier that day and the play was a very dramatized interpretation of it. There was beautiful singing and the first half of the play was really good, it was simple and the music carried the play. The second half was full of women dancing horizontally on a wall, held up by rope and harness, men with shaven heads danced around and the dead bullfighter was hanging on a cross, he was glorified as a god. It got kinda weird. The theater was unbelievable. It was in the city's old port building, though it is several blocks from the river. It was built in the 12th century so maybe the river ran a different course back then. It was largely ignored for years until arqueology students began working on it recently and uncovered more and more. It is the port that Christopher Columbus embarked from on his second and third trips to the New World. It’s a huge, empty stone building, only a little of the original roof is left. A small stage covered in sand, some light fixtures and a set of bleachers is all that’s in there now, along with a few displays on the history of the building.

After the play, which started at 10 pm, we went to a nearby bodega (a tapas bar that specializes in wine) and drank moscatel wine. It’s a really sweet wine made in a small town nearby. The wine was brown-colored, it looked like brandy and it tasted like caramel, it was really sweet. I thought it was gross. There are many world renowned sweet wines and vino fino (sherry wine) made Andalucia. I’ll try to sample a little taste of everything, there are so many different wines here, but it might take me awhile to start to really like wine.

I watched a lot of soccer this week. The first round of the European Champions League was this week. Barcelona won 2-0. Real Madrid lost 3-0. I also played soccer at a place with a ton of dirt fields at the edge of the city. There were about 12 americans and 12 sevillanos. Some of them were really good and I was covered in dust after playing for almost two hours.

At Plaza Alfalfa on Wednesday night our favorite bar ran out of Cruzcampo beer. I met some more cool people, some guys from Barcelona this time.

In class on Thursday we learned about phone etiquette and phone language and then simulated phone calls. That was really helpful. We also did an exercise where the professor read numbers out loud and we tried to write them all down. It was surprisingly hard, but I also realized that just a little bit of practice can make a huge difference with things like numbers. Seisenta (60) and setenta (70) are really hard to distinguish when spoken quickly. You gradually develop an ear for spanish pronunciation and every syllable starts to stand out.

We celebrated Jesus’ 25th birthday today at lunch today with none other than some fine spanish ham. We bought a smoked pig’s leg for his birthday. I also gave him the University of Wisconsin coffee mug that I brought – he loved it. I discovered a ham store the other day with hundreds of pig’s legs; I want to take a picture of it sometime. The fried bread at lunch was really good too. I had ice cream for the first time at home too. I also had some really good banana gelato with fudge and walnuts the other day. The italian gelato is really good here. Friday night I am going out with Jesus and his friends, he’s been waiting to take me out for a long time. I had regular sliced bread for the first time here at dinner. We had grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. I eat lots of bread at every single meal, its always baguettes and rolls. We had ice cream cake, Jesus received gifts from the family and we I took a few pictures of the whole family. Everyone but the oldest daughter, Alicia was there.

new pictures from the past weekend

the weekend

My first week of class is done. I’m already 1/3 done with a 3 credit class. During Friday’s class we learned about the history of Spain. It made me really want to visit the city of Cadiz on the coast an hour south of Sevilla. It’s the oldest city in Europe, over 3000 years old and it has been home to about 10 different civilizations. For the last hour of our three hour class we went to a big market nearby to learn words for all the types of fish, fruit and vegetables sold there.

A Starbucks about 200 feet from my house opened for business on Tuesday. Right next door is a convenience store with a little café and grocery store that is open late every day. Right next to that is a McDonalds. The back door to the McDonalds is directly across the street from my bedroom window on the ground floor. The street is a narrow, quiet one-way street and the only noise I get is from the McDonald’s workers taking out the trash and talking outside during their breaks. It’s a little ironic that I came all the way to Spain… and I live right behind a McDonalds and a Starbucks. Americanization is everywhere.

I went to Plaza Alfalfa on Friday night, the streets and sidewalks are always packed yet people still try to drive down the narrow streets there. I woke up for breakfast and then went back to bed. Two friends of mine went to the Plaza de Toros (bull ring) to buy 20 tickets for the bullfight on Sunday.

On Saturday afternoon we walked to a really big internet café where we all go to hang out and use the computers occasionally. From there five of us went to the train station and took a train to the town of Utrera about 30 minutes away. Utrera had its feria (fair) this weekend. We had to walk to the other side of the town to get to the fairgrounds. The town was eerily quiet, we later realized that everyone was at the feria. About half of the fairgrounds was filled with casetas (little houses and tents) set up by restaurants, businesses, churches, and political parties that were packed with people dancing, singing, eating and drinking. Flamenco dancing was going on everywhere. We hardly saw any other tourists and almost all of the women were wearing traditional flamenco dresses and some of the men were wearing the traditional black pants, black heeled shoes and loose dress shirt. A lot of little kids were dressed up too. The other half of the fairgrounds was the typical carnival stuff, rides, games, cotton candy and ice cream and lots of bright lights and loud music. We had tapas and drank tinto de verano (red wine with lemon or orange soda). We also went on one ride. We ran back to the train station to catch the last train back at 11:05 pm. Tons of people got off the train coming from Sevilla, the feria really gets going late at night. It was a busy and fun feria for a small town, I can’t imagine what the Sevilla feria is going to be like in April. The stories I’ve heard about it are unbelievable.

We got back to Sevilla around 11:30 and went out to a few places I hadn’t been to yet near my house. On Sunday I slept a lot, had a late lunch and then went off to the bull ring. There was about 40 or 50 people that I know at the bullfight, it was our last chance to see a bullfight in Sevilla until next spring so almost everyone in my program went. All of the americans there (there were a lot) had no idea what was going on and some had a hard time watching. I was really into it, I was excited to get to see a bullfight after reading a book about it recently.

In a poster store the other day I was browsing through a pile of old bullfight posters and I recognized the name of a bullfighter on one of them, Paquirri, from the book I read and then realized that the poster was from the bullfight in Pozoblanco in 1984 where he was killed. It was a weird coincidence that took my breath away for a second – I had just read about this guy and now I was staring at the poster for his last bullfight. The book, Death and the Sun, focuses on Paquirri’s son, Francisco, a current bullfighter, and the ups and downs of his season in 2002. Francisco is still a popular bullfighter, he was in the news recently because his mother had died and he is considering retiring from bullfighting.

The toreros today were novillos (junior bullfighters), so the tickets were cheap. Mine was only 10 euros for the fourth row in the sun. We weren’t in the sun for very long, though, it got dark and chilly pretty fast. The stands were half full and the crowd was about half spaniards and half tourists. The first torero (bullfighter) was very young and small. Everything went wrong with the first bull. It flipped the picador’s horse, nearly killing it, and later the bull knocked the torero to the ground, he wasn’t injured but he did have trouble killing the bull. The second bull was the biggest one, a beautiful black bull. The second torero was a really tall young-looking guy and he did really well. The third bull was another big black bull and the third torero seemed very talented. We saw two great performances with the second and third bulls. The fourth bull was ugly and scrawny and would not charge the picador’s horse. The crowd whistled and jeered so the bull was sent back and replaced by a decent bull. The fourth and sixth bulls were difficult to kill and not very good performances, but the fifth bull was a good one and the tall torero did another good job with it. I wonder if the taurine critics will write about this bullfight for the papers tomorrow, it would be interesting to see what they say.

I took a lot of pictures of the feria and the bull fight but I may have to go to an internet café tomorrow to upload them, the internet connection at home is slow and the wireless signal is much weaker in my room.

Happy birthday Dad!

Sports

Pedro and Jesus, the two oldest brothers, are really into sports, especially soccer. We watch Spain's version of ESPN Sportscenter after lunch everyday. Last night, the Sevilla football club played Brasil's national team, with some of the best players in the world. Spain is playing qualifying matches for the World Cup, which is in Germany next summer. They played Canada on Sunday and play again tonight, versus Serbia-Montenegro. Last night I went to play basketball with other American students. Someone took us to a sports complex on the southside of Sevilla where we played with a few Spaniards. An hour later 17 more students from my program showed up to play volleyball. I was pretty tired last night from all that and fell asleep, fully clothed, with the lights on in my room. I woke up at 3:30 am, so I didn't go out. I also slept through the pickup soccer game this afternoon. I think I have been sleep deprived ever since the last week of camp. I didn't sleep enough after camp or the first week here either. I napped for four hours yesterday and took 3 naps today. Its feels good to be able to sleep well, I am finally relaxed and settled down in one place.

I found out about a store that rents bikes and two places on the river that rent kayaks and paddleboats. We're also looking into salsa lessons, cooking classes, independent movies...

A stamp to the US costs 0.78 euros, which about $1.

This year is the 500th annivesary of the University of Sevilla.

It finally cooled down. Its got down to 22 Celcius (72 Fahrenheit). It rained too, we couldn't believe it. It rained for about 2 minutes today and yesterday, for the first time in almost a month. This is "bad" weather, Sevillanos think its cold right now.

A new ipod!? Its so thin.

The rest of the family just got home from the beach, Alicia - the mom, Esperanza - 13 year old, and Trini - 11 year old, and Bernardo and Pepe who I have already met. So I gotta go.

Class

On Saturday night I went out to one of my favorite places in the city. I went to Plaza Alfalfa, which is a little square near the center of the city. Its not much of a plaza; the attraction is all the narrow streets and alleys around the plaza that are lined with tiny bars. Its packed with people everynight and the crowds spill out onto the streets. Its also a good place to go because lots of locals go there. It was a very international crowd too, I first meet some young guys from Bristol, England who were traveling around Spain. They had hilarious accents. Then I meet a bunch of German students who are studying in Sevilla for the semester. Their english was very good, their spanish not so good. Then I meet some guys from Quebec, so they had French accents. At 5 am we went to the only restaurant open that late, a Mexican place near my apartment. I napped for four hours Sunday afternoon.

Today we had our first day of the intensive course, a three hour class that we have Monday - Friday for the next three weeks. I really like the professor, Magdalena, or Madeline. Her mother is Gallega (Gaelic) and her father is American and she has dual citizenship. I expected a three hour spanish grammar class to be really boring but we talked a lot and mostly learned idiomatic expressions and words in order to become better speakers of the Andaluz dialect of Spanish that is spoken in Sevilla. We also wrote a script about a funny experience we've had in Sevilla and acted it out for the class. The class is nothing like the typical spanish university class, which are all long, formal lectures. We learned some really helpful things and were directed to learn more on our own. Our final exam is not written, its an open project on anything spanish, I think I'm going to do it on gazpacho. Its nice to have the class in the main University of Sevilla building. There's air conditioning and we mix with spanairds. My classes the rest of the semester will be in another building, an old palace in the old part of the city so I think it will be a nice place, I haven't seen the inside of it yet.

I went to a bookstore after class to buy a workbook for class and a map of Europe to trace my travels this year. I have looked in several stores but have not found a notebook with lined paper. They only sell notebooks with graph paper or blank paper. I'm still looking for skim milk too, its almost all whole milk here (as far as I can tell), and no luck with US newspapers or Chinese food either.

La Playa

On Thursday night we went to la Alameda de Hercules, a big plaza on the other side of town. Juanma (Juan María - one of the program guides) has gone out with us a lot, we've meet lots of his friends and he's shown us some good spots. La Alameda was a big plaza where hundreds of young people gathered in the early morning hours to drink and socialize outside, known as el botellón. On Friday, I slept in and caught an early afternoon bus with three other students to Matalascañas, a beach town about one hour to the southwest of Sevilla. Its great to be able to get a 10 euro round trip bus ticket and go to a great beach for a day. We snacked on crackers, bocadillos and fanta and relaxed for a few hours on the beach, the water was cool. This is the last busy beach weekend. By next week the August vacations will be over and life will be back to normal. The streets of most towns are pretty empty, and lots of small businesses are closed for much of August, the whole country takes a long vacation.

Bernardo (the 13 year old), just finished his exams yesterday and went to the beach for the weekend. The grandparents are fairly wealthy and have a beach house in the southwest corner of Spain that I hope to visit sometime. The mother and three of the kids don't come home for a few more days so I still haven't met 1/3 of the family. Almost everything is closed on Saturday after 2 pm and all day on Sunday. I'll have to adjust to that and find other things to do. I just finished Death and the Sun, a book about bullfighting, several other students want to borrow it before we all go to see a bullfight.

Futbol (soccer) season started last week. Sevilla has two teams in the Liga Primera (Spain's major soccer league). Sevilla CF and Real Betis. I was told by a friend who studied here recently to support Betis and luckily my family are big Betis fans. I would be kicked out of the house if I wasn't. Betis made the European Champions Cup tournament, and they will play world class teams Liverpool and Chelsea and one other team, twice each - home and away, this fall, in addition to the regular schedule of Spanish teams. Those games, especially Liverpool, the best team in Europe right now, will be monumental events that shut down the city. I'm hoping Sevilla and Betis play each other sometime this year, that is always a huge game.

When the American students are together, we talk a lot about our families and experiences, we've noticed a lot of cultural differences that we didn't expect:
Spaniards watch a lot of tv, especially during lunch and siesta. We thought only americans watched a lot of tv.
Spaniards are vey animated and expressive, partly because of the style of the spanish language. They also just love to argue and opine and discuss everything. The elderly señoras are funny because they are very independent and love to say whatever is on their mind.
Gossip shows on tv and tabloid papers are big. So are american tv shows.
August is a strange month. Everyone is at the beach and life in Sevilla is slow because its sooo hot. I thought living in the hottest city in Europe would be great, well its not.
Spaniards are appalled by the idea of retirement homes in the US. They value family and kinship, children live with their parents well into their 20s, until they marry. The elderly live on their own or with their grown children when they can no longer take care of themselves. Retirements homes seem ridiculous to them, almost cruel. I agree with them.
We've also noticed that Spaniards are extremely proud of their language, food, traditions and way of life. They are almost snobs about it, but in a way its nice that they are so proud and protective of their way of life.
It was also surprising to see how much the US mattered to Spaniards. They care a lot about the Iraq War, New Orleans, American celebrities, American culture - and of course they give us their opinions on all of it.

Well, its 3 pm, time for lunch.

Registration

Yesterday we registered for our fall classes. I’m going to take a spanish grammar and writing course for three weeks, three hours each day everyday, starting Monday. Then the regular schedule begins, with four classes: spanish phonetics, spanish syntax, contemporary spanish cinema, and politics and society in the modern arab world. I also want to do an exchange program where we are paired with a spanish peer for different social activities, volunteer, take a cooking class, play basketball, volleyball and soccer with americans and spanairds (all this is organized through my program) in order to meet more sevillanos (locals). There is also a program where students in my program teach a english class twice a week for local companies that want to educate their employees and their employees kids in english. It's competitive to get in to it, maybe I'll try to do it second semester because I'm on the long waiting list for this semester.

The flooding of New Orleans is a big news here, we saw a lot of it on TV after lunch yesterday. Then I went out around town, the group of american students slowly grew and grew, we all found each other. I also went for a run with a friend along the river, the boardwalk is a great place to stroll or run during the evening. After dinner, we all went out again, I meet two spanish guys, a british tourist, a few american tourists, and students in other programs, but otherwise it was mostly us.

I’ve picked up a lot of interesting tidbits from the spaniards. I learned from Pedro (21 year old host brother) that the kids in my family only pay 1 Euro a year to attend college. Its about 800 Euros for most people, but because they have 10 kids, it’s a lot cheaper for them. They also pay 50% of the ticket price for the city buses. They are all finishing up their exams over the next few days.