Semester in Seville: He hecho la orientacion en 10 paises (y Ronda y la vida cotidiana)

Well, a lot has been going on the last couple weeks, so I'll try to include everything, but I'm sure I'm going to forget something. This post is basically a lot of random stories without too many details.

First of all, the exciting news in my host family is that my host parents are now grandparents! Their daughter had a baby on March 8, so Teresa went to Madrid to be with her daughter. And Alejandro had to stay here with me and Cara (plus Javier and Gonzaga), but he seemed really excited too. Teresa, Sandra, and the baby are going to come visit next Wednesday.

It was raining the beginning of this past week and the entire week befoer, so my biking was limited (I had to bus to physics several days). In my ancient Mediterranean cooking practices class, we had a "practical" where one of the professors brought in pieces of ceramics from the archeology department and we talked about those. He even passed around a 5000 year old vase! I was worried I was going to drop it! Then in class this past week, our other professor showed us other samples (this time the ceramic fragments were Roman, so only a couple of thousand years old). It was interesting to get a very brief intro to what some archeologists do.

I'm continuing to teach English to Jesus, a 13 year old who lives in the neighborhood. He initially wanted me to go two times a week, but then he decided he only wanted me to go once a week (his English class at school doesn't assign much work, so he doesn't need help with that); however his mom wants English lessons too, so I'm now teaching her on Mondays and Jesus on Wednesdays. It takes time to come up with activities (and I've realized that Lola, the mom, and Jesus learn differently), but it's fun and they're both really nice. We get sidetracked into interesting conversations about random things in Spanish easily.

I'm also going to start helping out in a math class at the middle/high school right next to my house. The class is studying trigonometry, and I might even get to help teach a class. I've only gone once since the teacher was sick last week, so I'll have a better idea of what I'm going to do after next week.

I also started going to a sevillanas (a traditional dance) class. On Tuesday after school, Madeleine and I went a cafe to go eat ice cream and study, and she was going to the sevillana lesson and asked if I wanted to join. It was about 8 people and the instructor, and the class was held in the back room of the TexMex bar. It was really fun! I was with Americans and French students, but none of them were from my program so it was nice to meet new people too. There are classes the next 3 or 4 weeks, so I'm planning on continuing. Now I'll know a little bit for the Feria.

And the other big thing that happened in the last couple of weeks is that I went to an orienteering meet in Evora, Portugal last weekend. It was fun seeing the Portuguese countryside. The meet site for the middle was right next to a vineyard, and in the model I almost ended up running through a herd of pigs but then I decided I'd go look for other controls instead.

Spectator control at the middle

I met up with Carol, Emily, and Carol's parents, and it was really fun staying with them! Carol's parents are vegan and her mom has some food allergies, so we stayed in a rental house with a kitchen, and a lot of thought went into the food. That's probably the best I've ever eaten at an orienteering meet! There were lots of fruits and veggies and everything tasted really food.

There was the model on friday, the middle Saturday early afternoon, a night sprint Saturday evening, and a long (13.4 km!) on Sunday. The course on Sunday was a bit too long for me, but I really enjoyed the race on Saturday. Some parts of the map are pretty straightforward and then you're suddenly in a really technical area with a ton of boulders. And the maps were simplified a lot, so I had trouble finding the exact boulder several times (and of course the controls were pretty well hidden behind/between the boulders). It was good training though.

Everyone at the event arena after the middle

On Saturday in between events, we drove to a megalith near Evora. It was about 7000 years old.

Megalith

Carol, Emily, Tori at Megalith

We also wandered through Evora for about 30 minutes on the way to the night-o. We saw an old Roman temple plus part of the city wall and a more modern aqueduct.

Roman temple in Evora

I took the bus to Evora, but if I had wanted to bus back I would have had a layover in the bus station in Merida between 11pm and 2 am with an arrival in Seville around 4 am or something like that. That sounded suboptimal, so I got a ride back with the guy from the club in Seville who I've been emailing since before I got to Spain. He and his family take a trailer to meets, so it was my first time riding in a trailer. It was also interesting having lunch with his family and friends before leaving the meet site just it's interesting eating with another Spanish family (we had some Portuguese dish). The family was really nice, and I got to watch Finding Nemo in Spanish with the 4 year old daughter on the drive back.

Last night, I met up with Madeleine and Katharine for ice cream after dinner, and I now have a new favorite ice cream shop! It's near Plaza Nueva. I had kiwi (that tasted very strongly like real kiwis!) and walnut cream (or something like that). We then went to a bar to hang out for a bit. On the way back, Madeleine and I passed by another bar on the street in front of the university, and a guitar player tried to convince us to go listen to flamenco in the bar where he was playing. It looked like it was mostly Spaniards inside, so we decided to enter. We were just going to stay for a bit, but then the flamenco started and we ended up staying for about an hour. It was really fun seeing some low-key flamenco with a bunch of Spaniards clapping and dancing along.

I ended up getting home around 1:45; however when I tried to get into my room (I was already inside the apartment) the handle had become disconnected from the part that moves in and out to allow the door to open, so I couldn't get in. I tried for 20 minutes or so, and Cara wasn't waking up even though I was knocking lightly (I didn't want to make too much noise and wake everybody up). So I decided I'd go sleep on the couch in the living room and worst case scenario- I had money and a camera so I could go to Ronda in the morning if needed without getting into my room. About an hour later, Javier came home, so I enlisted his help to get into my room. He went and got a screwdriver and wrench and opened the door to me. So, over an hour after I got home, I finally got into my room. That was my ridiculous and funny adventure in my apartment last night.

Today, Natalie, Tiffany, and I took a day trip to Ronda. It was a gorgeous day and the city is beautiful! We went in the bull-fighting ring and museum.