And the homework (though fun and minimal) begins...

I left off just before I went to the Flamenco bar Saturday night, so that's where I'll begin.  Evidently this bar was pretty well known, even though it was in the maze of streets near the cathedral, so I have no idea how everyone found it.  A girl who works for JYS and participated in my program 2 years ago took us there, but then she left and none of us knew where we were.  Thankfully, we asked someone to point to where we were on a map when we left, but I'll get to that in a bit.  So, most people from my program went to the flamenco bar, and as we got there, a show was going on.  Unfortunately, it was ridiculously crowded, so we couldn't see much.  The dancer announced that there would be another show in 45 minutes or so in the other room, so Natalie, Tiffany, some other people in my program, and I went to the other room and sat and waited.  Flamenco is not at all what I had expected.  I'm not sure if I saw any when I was in Spain 10 years ago, but if so I don't remember it.  It is so focused around rhythm, and the dancer used her feet a lot to stomp on the ground.  She was also really focused and she looked so sad and serious the entire time.  There were two other guys in her group: one who played the guitar and another that sang and clapped out rhythms.  It was really interesting!

(There was someone in front of me, so I put my camera on the table to get a clear view and ended up getting a glass of beer in the foreground).  By the end of the performance, it was 1:45 or so, so I decided to go to bed.  After asking someone where we were, we manged to find out way out of the maze of streets and then took a taxi when we got to a main street.

I woke up around 12:30 again on Sunday and went for a run.  This time I took an alternate route to the park Maria Luisa and crossed it and rand along the river for a bit.  It's a nice area.  I then came back and had paella for lunch!  It was really good!  After lunch I met up with some other people from the program and we walked around the Plaza de Espana and the park Maria Luisa.  Then Natalie and I walked back and explored the Plaza de Nervion and the movie theater there (which are near both of our apartments).  All shops that aren't restaurants are closed Saturday afternoons and Sundays here.  I want to go buy a pair of shoes and a Spanish book, but I have to wait until after the weekend.  Cara and I were going to go meet up with some people for dinner, but we couldn't find them, so we ended up getting tapas at a random restaurant/bar.  I had this small mushroom pastry, which was amazing!  And I accidentally asked for water which cost almost as much as Cara's glass of wine.  Oops.  I won't mention water in a restaurant again.  We then met up with some other people in our program at an American bar, and when I realized that watching American football was the most interesting thing I could do, I decided it was time to leave.

This morning, I got up and met up with half my group to go on a tour of the cathedral.  One of the professors for the JYS seminars gave us a 2 hour tour and told us a bunch of interesting facts.  It was really nice (and it's the biggest cathedral - not basilica- in the world), but I'm still not overly impressed with anything after spending time in Italy a year and a half ago.  Here's the entrance:

And here's a view of inside (a side corridor).  It was hard to get a good picture since it wasn't open like the basilica at the Vatican.

And we saw Cristopher Columbus' tomb where part of his body is supposedly buried.  The rest is in Santo Domingo and/or some other unknown place.  Evidently, when his bones were sent back to Seville, parts of other people were sent with him.  They found this out after doing some DNA testing comparing what was found in his tomb to his relative's tombs (his son was supposedly buried in this cathedral too).

And we got to climb the tower, which had ramps instead of stairs!  The view from the top was great!

I then rushed back for lunch with the family.  My host family is hilarious.  One of my host brothers, Javier, always seems to be arguing with my senora (in a good natured way), and my senora's husband makes fun of my senora too, even though she's the sweetest person (and very enthusiastic).  Then orientation classes started, so I had an hour each of grammar, culture, and conversation.  I have homework due tomorrow.  :-(  It's not too much though, and it's pretty fun, but I've been enjoying not doing homework for the past month.  I have class from 4-7pm every day for the next 3 weeks, so hopefully this will give me a good review before university classes start.  After classes, a bunch of us went to a frozen yogurt place (the ice cream place we tried to go to was closed), and then headed home.  I checked email, had dinner (we had Spanish tortillas for dinner - I ate mine as un bocadillo ("a sandwich")).  Now I need to go finish my homework...