first day of school.

Yesterday was my first day of school at UPO. I had two classes Reading & Composition in Spanish and English-Spanish Translation in Spanish. I really like my Reading and Composition class and I definitely think it will be good. Merillat and Christine are taking the class with me and I hear good things about our professora. I’m not sure if I’m going to stay in English-Spanish Translation, it was different from what I thought it would be and I think it’s going to be one of my more difficult classes. My Tuesday/Thursday classes are a little more complicated because I am still switching around my schedule and I need signatures to get into the classes. I want to get into Advanced Spanish I (which is more of like a Spanish Grammar class), another Spanish elective, and Spanish Civilization and Culture in English. Hopefully everything works out and I get the schedule & classes that I want.

We are still figuring out how to try to get internet or some kind of wireless rowder/card at our house. I need to set up my wireless at school too but really I need internet most at night or in the early morning before I go to school, when I’m at home. Because of the 9 hour time difference with California and the 7 hour time difference with Texas it makes skyping people at home a little more difficult.

I talked to my mom & dad yesterday on the way to school so that was really good! Matt has a vonage phone which includes international phone calls and my phone receives calls from the US for free so really I can talk to them as long as I want. Now only if Kelsey would have a vonage phone at school too that would be ideal.

I have no school on Fridays so Ally, Erica, Liz, and I are going to explore the city and go walking, or maybe rent bikes. I'm really excited to have the day off so that I can adventure, take pictures, and see more of Sevilla.

living with the espinals.

We moved in with our host families two days ago. I’m staying with Manoli & Antonio Espinal and they are hosting Traci, Merilatt, Danielle, Liz, and I. They live in el barrio de Triana (the Triana neighborhood) in Sevilla, which is one of the safest neighborhoods, says Manoli. It is very close to Hotel Zenit where we had TCU orientation with Mary Alice so we walked over here with our bags when Manoli & Antonio came to pick us up. Their home is a four bedroom apartment on the third floor with no elevator so moving in with my overweight bags & over packed backpack/carryon was quite an adventure. Liz & I are sharing a room, Traci & Merilatt are sharing another room, and Danielle has a single & she is from the Adelante program. So there are 5 girls living in a tiny apartment and we all share one bathroom!! It’s definitely going to be an adjustment living in such close quarters with so many people. But also, Manoli was explaining to us that water is really really expensive and they have water tanks with only a certain amount of hot water. When that water is gone, there isn’t any more hot water for the rest of the day, so we are only allowed to take five minute showers. This morning was interesting because we all needed to shower. Usually I shower at night too but the hot water is turned off at 11pm at night, so that’s not an option either. Once we get our school schedules we will be able to plan out the mornings better and showering schedule. Also, heating/air is expensive so they keep the house cold! Ah! But fortunately we have lots of blankets on our bed that Manoli gave us and thick socks/slippers that we brought.

It has also been very different time wise because Spaniards have a completely different way of eating, sleeping, and just living in general. In the morning we eat a light breakfast, like cookies or bread with jam or nutella, fruit, and coffee or hot chocolate. Then we eat almuerzo (lunch) at 2:30. Lunch is different because it is later than it is in the US and it is the biggest meal of the day. After lunch we tomamos una siesta (take a nap) from 3-5 and this goes for all of Spain. Stores close for siesta, people go home from work, and the city basically shuts down durante siesta. Dinner is at 9pm for Spaniards and it is usually something lighter like soup or sandwiches. Then Spaniards go out to barrios or discotecas at medionoche (midnight) and stay out until 5am or 6am in the morning. It’s crazy. I’ve come to realize that I need to for sure sleep during siesta and not try to finish up random things that I need to do. I love napping anyway but it’s different from that because people go out so late at night, it’s like siesta is really necessary to get a full night’s sleep. My body has to adjust to make it part of my sleep cycle so I actually get more hours to rest. I’m still a little jet lagged and have anxiety about school starting so I’ve had a more difficult time sleeping. But in terms of food and eating things have been gone pretty well. Part of our homestay is that we get three meals a day from our Senora. Manoli is an amazing cook. She knew I was a vegetarian before we came. Liz is a vegetarian too but she eats chicken and fish. She was telling us how she was muy preocupada (very worried) about what she was going to cook me! So far she has made vegetable paella, vegetable/pasta soup, cheese tortellini, fried eggplants with honey (she told us that it was an Arabian dish), and the best ensalada con frutas (fruit salad with oranges, apples, bananas, carmel, chocolate sprinkles, and sugar milk). She prides herself on using only organic food when she cooks and using olive oil to cook everything instead of butter. In Spain, everything is eaten with olive oil! It’s taken some getting used to but it’s so good for you. Manoli’s cooking has been wonderful so I’m definitely eating well.

Yesterday was our first day visiting Universidad de Pablo Olividad. To get there we have to walk 20 minutes to the bus station and then take a 15 minute bus to the university. The walk is nice, I really don’t mind it. I’ve enjoyed the walking but my feet are sore most every night. Anyways, we took a placement exam at school and took a walking tour, orientation was today and we have our classes/schedule. I’m trying to change a few classes around and haven’t decided if I’m going to take classes 2 or 4 days a week. We’ll see. I’m really excited and nervous at the same time for classes to start!

Pictures of (1) the Guadalquivir river that I pass everyday on my walk to school,(2) orange trees that line the streets of Sevilla, & (3) my room!

finally here!! :)

I’m so excited to finally be here! The flight over here was crazy. My bags were overweight at the airport but the stuardist didn’t charge me (yay!). I left at 2pm from LAX on Lufthansa to Frankfurt on Thursday, on an 11 hour flight. I probably slept like 3 hours of the whole flight because I was not tired. For the rest of the time I watched Nights in Rodanthe, Journey to the Center of the Earth, talked to this Austrian guy who sat next to me, and listened to my ipod. It wasn’t as bad though because there was no one in the middle seat on the plane so I actually had more room than I was supposed to. In Frankfurt, I had a layover that was two hours and I actually met this girl who is going to be attending UPO too but with a CEA program so she was on the same connecting flights to Sevilla that I had as well. Then we went from Frankfurt to Barcelona, from Barcelona to Sevilla, finally arriving at 7:30pm on January 23^rd.

The city is absolutely gorgeous. I’m thrilled to be here. I can’t believe that it’s real yet. It doesn’t feel real and hasn't really hit me that I am actually living here because we haven’t moved in with our host families yet. We’ve had orientation with Mary Alice (our TCU in Seville supervisor while abroad) at Hotel Zenit today and tomorrow. We went out to a few bars/discotecas last night to celebrate our first night Sevilla. Liz and I ended up meeting some really awesome ex-patriots and Sevillanos, which was tons of fun. It has just been crazy exhausting. Tomorrow we will meet our Senora who we will be living with. Monday and Tuesday we have orientation at UPO and on Wednesday we start classes. We have free wi-fi internet at the hotel but I don’t know how internet is going to go where I will be living. We will find out tomorrow. Here is my address of where I will be staying so you can send me love:

Calle Felix Rodríguez de la Fuente, #3; Portal 2; 3-B

41010 Sevilla

Oh and I got a cell phone today too. So if you feel inclined to hear my voice and be charged like $2 a minute you can call me (I can receive calls from the US for free without using my minutes/money on the phone). Use the 011-34 prefix when dialing from the U.S. Spain is 7 hours ahead of Central Time (Texas time). My number is 690266430.

I will post pictures and more later.

love. love. love. -v

where are you going exactly??

When I tell people I’m studying abroad in Spain for the semester they are like, “Oh, in Madrid? Or Barcelona??” Not exactly. Then, I explain how TCU has a program in Sevilla and it’s located in southern Spain. I chose to study abroad in Sevilla because of TCU’s program but also, I am told that it has a very culturally different feel from Barcelona and Madrid. Sevilla’s population is around 700,000+ so it’s still a large city but it has a lot of Moorish historical and cultural influence. It also has less of a cosmopolitan feel than some other Spanish and European cites. Studying abroad and living with a host family while I am in Sevilla is an excellent opportunity for me to perfect my Spanish and immerse myself in the culture. This will definitely help me academically and with future goals as well, because Spanish is my minor and I’m really interested in pursuing bilingual speech-therapy someday. You can read more about Sevilla if you click on my links on the right side of my blog home page, with the aboutsevilla, discoversevilla, or tcuinseville links.

I am actually so excited to live and travel in Spain while I’m abroad because on my last European excursion (in the summer of 2006), Jenna and I were unable to hit Spain as one of our destinations. So I’ve never been to Spain before, how crazy is that?! And where exactly is Sevilla? It’s hard to explain when you’re not familiar with western Europe so I’ve put a couple maps up to show you where exactly in the world I will be in 5 days!

chats with kaysabeth.

So I’ve had skype for a while but I rarely ever use it because I don’t necessarily always have my microphone or webcam in. And sometimes I feel like it’s so much more convenient to pick up my cell phone & text or speed dial whoever I want to talk to; it’s just preference I guess. But this week I started packing for Spain (ah! I leave in eleven days!) and I pulled out my headset and videocam to chat with K bc she already went back to San Luis Obispo this week for school. It was tons of fun, even Dad and Matt joined in too!

Anyways, I live on my cell phone. But while I’m abroad I don’t really have the luxury of picking up the phone and texting or calling someone up whenever I want without being charged an arm & a leg. I’ll definitely get a phone in Europe for contacts over there, but for keeping in touch with friends and family from home, skype makes my life so much easier! When I am half way across the world, I will get to hear your voice & see you all at the same time, how wonderful is that? Download Skype at http://www.skype.com/download/skype/windows/, it’s free & easy (I’m even going to do it for Tori too)! You don’t have to have a webcam to use it but it’s better if you do. Skype me @ vallew2413… Love much!

101 things to do in 1001 days.

I come across Elizabeth’s blog site (www.deafvillage.com) every now and then and I was reading this on one of the blog posts.

Make a list of 101 things to do in 1001 days. I thought this was an excellent idea because I'm constantly making lists (on postit notes and random pieces of paper) to keep my life in order! I’m not big on new year’s resolutions but apparently this is going to be my ‘golden year’ and since this is also the semester I am going abroad, I decided that this would be a great way to start off my blog and it would be something interesting to do as well. And plus, Tori and I are constantly having adventures and we make lists of places we want to go, things we want to do, and see in the coming months so I figure that this is a good place to write those things down.

-work on my 101 things to do list
-go on walks more often, drive less
-wake up early to watch the sunrise
-organize all my letters & correspondence
-go to the flower fields in Carlsbad
-eat breakfast daily
-finish my red rag goals
-spend an entire day at the library, just reading
-go on a mission trip
-start scrapbooking

-go camping
-donate old clothes to the Salvation Army
-make amends
-wash my face in the morning
-visit the Fairshters more often
-balloon fiesta in NM
-print my digital pictures that are just sitting on my hard-drive
-go to sleep with my cellphone off
-spend a year reading the entire bible
-take the surfliner from San Diego to San Luis Obispo

-get a pet, preferably a potty trained bunny
-macy’s thanksgiving day parade
-buy a new backpack for the first day of grad school
-learn how to play a new sport
-clean my room
-go to the lacma
-drink less coffee & mountain dew
-send out a Christmas card
-take my mom on a vacation
-climb a mountain & watch the sunset

-go fruit picking somewhere in central California
-start blogging about my trip to Spain
-join CI circle bc Elizabeth is always telling me about it
-climb more trees
-champagne brunch @ the langham
-take an art class
-cut my hair on a regular basis
-get dad tickets to a USC football game
-walk away for the right reasons
-go to Disneyland at Christmas time

-go to bed 15 minutes earlier every night
-organize the shoeboxes
-buy a humidifier
-get a facial
-help matt figure out what he wants to do with his life
-plant flowers in my front yard
-donate my hair to locks.of.love
-buy more organic food
-scan all my Polaroid pictures
-travel Eastern Europe

-see deathcab in concert with Kelsey
-try something new
-watch the swallows migrate to San Juan Capistrano
-repaint my bedroom walls
-go to the Kentucky Derby with Tori
-have lunch with someone I’ve been estranged from
-go iceskating in Rockefeller center
-be fluent in Spanish
-get something from the bakery at Breadwinners with Christine
-learn how to sew

-exercise on a regular basis
-go to Alaska for solstice
-fall in love with the Trevi Fountain all over again
-finish everything on my to-do list by the end of the day
-write a book of therapy ideas
-find a new favorite food
-do something that scares me
-write thank you notes
-burn Tori a CD
-throw away things that are garbage

-boycott fast food for a month
-wear sunblock in the summertime
-date someone totally right for me
-expand my musical likings
-learn to wake up naturally
-have more picnics in the park
-spend an afternoon modgepodging
-take good care of my teeth
-make a book of pressed flowers
-pray regularly

-think of something creative to do with all the yarn left over from my gold award project
-enjoy San Francisco & explore Northern California
-bring reusable bags to the market when I go grocery shopping
-find an excellent face moisturizer
-be brave
-buy fresh flowers
-stop going to sleep with my hair wet
-paint my fingernails to match my mood
-learn to love Mondays (TGIM)
-work on making decisions
-do a favor for someone, even when I don’t want to

-dance in the rain more often
-own all my favorite movies
-go somewhere just to see the leaves change colors in the fall
-wear clean socks to bed
-help a parent learn to be an advocate for their child
-watch Manny hit a grand slam at dodger stadium
-buy myself an easel
-start using rechargeable batteries in flashlights
-make cookies from scratch
-read all the Harry Potter books over again

I really had fun making this list and thinking of hopeful aspirations over the past few days. Some of my ambitions are fun, easy, and inexpensive… and there are others that will require a little more time and effort, but that’s what makes them hopeful right?