First impressions

So once at the airport, I knew Pam from classes and I was flying over with her and a few other kids. There were 7 of us in total, and it was comforting to have friends to travel with. We flew from NewYork JFK to Madrid to Seville. It was the longest day ever.. on top of it the flight from JFK to Madrid, was about 7 hours, and I couldn't sleep comfortably so it seemed like forever.

Once we were in madrid, things got better, and we were fine once we got to Sevilla, but we were soon incredibly tired that every time someone sat down there was a possibility of falling asleep. Three of the kids in our group had their luggage lost in Madrid by the airplane. We all showered and then tried walking around the city. It was right around 5ish local time, but nothing was open because they were still on their siesta break. During the hours of 2-4ish or even a little later spaniards will take their breaks and nap. We couldn't find a place to get a meal anywhere except the restaurant attached the hotel, but we then found out that they weren't serving actual food, just pan (bread) and drinks. We were starving and decided to go get some bread and cheese from a grocery store a block down and ate it outside on the square.

Once 7:30 hit we went back to the tapas restaurant, and finally got real food. The portions were small but very tasty. I accidentally broke a glass at the restaurant and everyone STARED at our group. I had no idea what to do. I've notice the customer service in Spain is not anything like America. Finally a worker came over and cleaned it up. Outside of the customer service, our program people have been super nice and we had lunch with them the next day. There were about 6 students all around our age who were talking and joking with us. Right before lunch, we had to check out of our hotel rooms that the 7 of us were staying at re-check in with CIEE. We each had one roommate from the program. My roommate was a girl named Sheila who is also from IU! It was nice to see other familiar faces today in general, and I've seen a few other kids that I knew.

Sevilla in general is pretty warm and was almost humid. There are orange trees EVERYWHERE which is awesome, and it kind of reminds me of florida in a way. It was probably between 50-60 degrees here but a little overcast. There are a lot of palm trees too ; )

We have orientation starting soon, but tomorrow I think we get a tour of the city and hopefully find out our homestay!