Monday, March 15, 2010

The Brits are HERE!

Another week has gone by in Sevilla. Last weekend was the 46th anniversary of our spanish family. Christine went to portugal with her parents, so I was alone. They had people over, and I got to hang out with some of the aunts and uncles and the little grandkids. It was a little hard at first being an outsider, but by the end of the night we were watching the Sevilla -Real Madrid soccer match on TV and joking together. I actually ended up enjoying myself! They were a fun bunch and I'm glad I got to join in with the family.

Also last week, Christine's parents took us to this really cool Italian restaurant called San Marco in Santa Cruz barrio/neighborhood. It was really pretty because it used to be arab baths that they converted, so the arches were pretty and it was a nice atmosphere overall. Another night we went to flamenco at the Carboneria which was fun to see for my third time!! Never gets old...

Last week was a blur overall. There was a night out sponsored by one of the companies here in Sevilla with free specials and the theme was country music! I LOVEDD it and felt like i was back at IU or at least in the states. Another night, a friend of ours was a DJ at one of the discotecas so we made it out to see/hear him play.

Finally, to the good stuff. This weekend we did day trips with our program. The first one was Gibraltar. This is British Territory on the southern edge of Spain, and everything is in english and they use pounds there! (or euros for a higher price). Gibraltar is a very skinny strip of land that is famous for its monkeys. The main street is all shops, but you can either take a cable car or a tour to the top of the "roca" or mountain in town. Once you are at the top, it is gorgeousss. You can see Africa, the Mediterranean Sea, Straight of Gibraltar, the Atlatic Ocean, and then Spain and all of Gibraltar. You can pack a lot into one little visit. Not to mention the monkeys. Once at the top of the rock there are little monkeys roaming around freely. If you get a guided tour to help you, you can hold one. Otherwise- they say to be careful or else they can bite or scratch you which results in a hospital visit. EEEeek! However, the monkeys were very calm and let you get pretty close to take pictures. It was a gorgeous day and everyone got a little sun in too. I'm hoping to take my parents back there when they come (in one week!). Hence, this is the reason for my post title...the Brits are kinda here ; )

The next day was another trip sponsored by our program. We went to Aracena which is a town in Huelva, Spain. It is west of Sevilla and we got to see some other national parks along the way. The first one we saw was the mines in Riotinta. It was a small mine, but at the end you see the river, and all of the water is RED! Our guide told us the minerals in the rock make the water red, and not even the animals will drink from it. Next we made it to Aracena, grabbed some food and then made it to the caves there. They are famous for being millions of years old. The humidity in the caves can reach 98%, and we could definitely feel a little bit of the humidity that weekend. The caves were special though because the minerals made the rocks look like ice at certain spots. We weren't allowed to touch or take pictures, but it was still cool to see. My favorite parts were the pools of water in the caves. Apparently, the water levels never rise, but are constant year round. The water was so blue and clear. I just wanted to jump in and swim! It looked like something out of the movies.

This week we have midterms, and Katelyn and Olivia get here tonight (Amanda gets here Wednesday and is staying with me! It's Katelyn's 21st on Wed, aka St. Patty's day so I'm excited to see them. Also, my parents come on Friday!! It's gonna be a great week and I can't wait to see everyone. Sooo exciting!!

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Work and Play

I finally began my internship! I just finished my first two weeks. Through our program and IU, we are required to work 100 hours (appx 10 hours each week). I have classes monday and wednesday, so I work about 5 hours each day Tues and Thurs. It's not a bad schedule, but I feel like I am constantly moving. A lot of other kids don't have to do an internship, and I think I would have a lot more free time if this was true. However, I am working in the tourism office through the city of Sevilla, so I get to spend a lot of time using Spanish. Mostly I am in the front office helping people with their questions of Sevilla and guiding them via map of where to go. Although I am using a lot of spanish and talking with my coworkers in Spanish, I still speak english when the Brits come in! Or occasionally I'll get an American. Or a french/german etc that only knows english. Overall, its not hard and I enjoy the people I work with. It's a good 35-40 minute walk to work each day and I'm starving by the time I get home (close to 4 for my lunch) but I think it has already started to improve my Spanish.

This past weekend was Día de Andalucia. Andalucia is the province that Sevilla is located in (much like our states in the United States) and this day is meant to be enjoyed and relaxed. Therefore, with a four day weekend, I went to Madrid and Toledo with a few girls. We had heard mixed results about Madrid so I will a little unsure of what to expect, but we ended up loving it. We took the 6 hours bus ride to and from madrid and left Friday morning around 10am. When we arrived, we checked into our hostal, and went to the Prado which is the most famous art museum in Spain. It was a little rushed because it was closing, but we got to say a lot of famous Spanish works. Then that night we met up with one of my friends from school, Beka! It was a quick reunion, but we got to see her apartment and talk to her about madrid. ; )

The next day we got up early to go visit Toledo, a small city about an hour away. El Greco was a famous painter who had lived in Toledo and spent a majority of his life there. After visiting we now know why! It was very tiny old town, but gorgeous. The center was more up in the hills, but it was hilly everywhere. The lookout points were amazing and we got some great photos. It had much more of a community feel to it, and overall it was adorable. We could see the majority of the town in just a few hours and went home a little after lunchtime. When we got back to madrid we did some more exploring. Our hostal was in the downtown area, so we walked around the Plaza del Sol, Plaza Mayor, and found some cute little ships to wander into. We tried some sweets from the best bakery place in town (Mallorquina) and did a little window shopping before heading back to our hostal to get ready for the night.

For dinner, we went to El Tigre which was recommended by my friend elena who had studied abroad in Madrid. Tapas were in different in Madrid because if you ordered a drink you got a huge plate of food for free! We had a lot of fun in the bar. We ordered a couple of rounds of food for dinner before leaving stuffed from the best fried food I may have ever had. The main portion of our meal was fried breaded balls of jam (croquetas which were sooo good), fried potatoes, and then ham on top of a slice of bread. It was packed in El Tigre so we decided to head out once we had felt we had experienced enough. After el Tigre, we eventually made our way over to Joy (Eslava) which was a highly recommended discoteca in one of our guide books. Apparently there were free flamenco shows every half hour so we decided to check it out. It used to be an old theater converted into a discoteca so you could sit up on top and watch people dancing down below or you could go dance! The music was really fun, American and Spanish songs (or combined giving you Christina Aguilera's Come on Over song in Spanish...Ven Conmigo!).


Also, the metro is intense in Madrid, but once you figure it out, it is the easiest thing in the world and gets you all over the city.

The next morning when we got up, we went to the flea market (El rastro) which happened every sunday in madrid near plaza mayor. Some of the stuff was really cute and the scarves were anywhere from 2 euro to 5 euro depending on which stand you went to. I bought a couple of scarves- one which was way more expensive than the rest but it was so darn cute! It was hard to pass up ; )

After el Rastro, we went over to Retiro park which is what I could compare to Central Park in New York on a MUCH smaller scale. It's a little outside downtown Madrid and its all green! It has a little lake/pond thing to rent paddle boats. We got lunch in one of the stands in the middle of the park and used this as a place more to relax. There was a cool Crystal Palace that we explored there too.

Next our original plan was to see the Reino Sofia (another art museum) but it closed before we got there, so we decided to wander around a little more and made our way to the Royal Palace in Madrid. It was really pretty from the outside, but we just didn't have a chance to make it inside either. Overall, this was probably my favorite day during the week because we got to see a lot of madrid and it was more tailored to what I would want to do (being the park and just walking around). That night we just went out and got food and called it a day.

Finally, it was Monday. We had a bus at 2 to get home to Sevilla around 8. Both me and another girl on our trip had spanish friends in Madrid and we really wanted to see them before we left. We still had to see the Reino Sofia, so we got up early- made our way to see some of Picasso (Guernica) and Dali's works and then I finally got to see Marta for lunch at the bus station before we went home! ; ) It was quick, but I was happy!

Overall, we had good weather, saw a lot and LOVED our time in Madrid. The city was much faster paced than Sevilla, and much more like the United States in some ways, but we had a great time. The people were also a lot more used to using English in Madrid...which was both good and bad. This was our weekend! Now back to the real world .... almost hahaha.

Soo here are a few random thoughts and other things to talk about: My roommate and I went and saw the Museo de Bellas Artes which has a Murillo exposition going on. It has continued to rain 70% of the time here. New food: breaded fried egg? Christine's parents came into town and we went to a really cool Italian restaurant that was once Arab bathrooms converted into a cute food place! We also went to the Carboneria for a flamenco show. We are in first place with Gymkhana and got to explore more of the Santa Cruz neighborhood this round. We also found out that there is an exact replica of the ship Christopher Columbus sailed on to get to the new world on the river in Sevilla.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Cádiz, Córdoba, y el Cerdo

So last weekend there was "Carnival en Cádiz" which is a city about two hours away by bus. They have their carnival which is a week long, and we choose to go the first weekend. Everyone dresses up in costumes and goes all out. It's different than costumes in the United States because these are not necessarily your typical cat or indian outfits that you can easily put together. All bets are off.. my personal favorite costume was a group of cooked turkeys. They looked like they could have been set on a silver platter and eaten on thanksgiving! ; )
However, there were a lot of chickens, pirates (myself included) and even some policemen which wasn't that unusual. I had been hoping to see more of the city, but everyone seemed to meet up at the one main plaza and then travel down the little back winding streets. There were venders in the main sections selling sweets, churros, fries, hamburgers, nuts and other little foods to snack on. CAUTION: most of the stores were closed so people resorted to peeing in the streets...and it happened everywhere so you had to be careful where you walked. When in Rome..

To sum it up, there were loads of people just partying in the streets. It was fun, but I'm hoping I get to see more of Cádiz again on a regular day. This wasn't exactly a trip for tours!

This was our second week of classes, and I don't have too much to add except that I finally met with my business to start my internship. The building is near the downtown area which I LOVE and is gorgeous (river area) so I am excited to be there, but it is a good 35 minute walk to work. I had my orientation meeting with my "boss" on friday, and everyone there was so nice. It is a tourism company so my job is going to be directing people when they come in asking for directions or any other questions they have. I think this will be VERY helpful to practice my spanish each week, and I'll hopefully get to learn a little more insight about Sevilla. I start Tuesday...

Then after my meeting with work, there is a scavenger hunt type game called "Gymkhana" through our program. They give us clues to certain hot spots around the city and we have to find the location and take a picture in our group. Pam, Christine and I are a team and we spent the rest of Friday wandering around the streets of Sevilla trying to finish our tasks. On our way, we found the BEST ice cream shop called Rayas, which just opened up from the winter. We also found what we believe to be the spanish version of Dunkin Donuts (Duffin Dagle).

Then yesterday we went to Córdoba with our CIEE program. The city is an hour and a half away by bus, and is situated on the same river that is in Sevilla (Guadalquivir). It had some roman ruins, but it is most famous for La Mezquita which was once an Arab mosque. However, after the Spanirds reconquered their lands, they kept part of the building but made it into a church with a cathedral inserted into the middle. So there are two very distinct styles in this monument. the middle is very tall and brightly lit (the catholic part) surrounded by the arab pilars and arches which is much darker and more open in general. Today, the whole thing is considered the church/cathedral, despite the two distinct styles. It was pretty cool to finally see this place that I had been studying and learning about since high school.

Next on our tour we got to see a Jewish synagogue which was kinda cool because spain is SOO catholic. So that was interesting to see. And lastly, before our break we got to see the Alcazar de los Reyes Catolicos which had some pretty gardens and some arab bathrooms and a tower that you could see the river from! It was pretty, and I love being able to look out and see all the buildings.

As a side note, the spaniards here are SO nice. This is mostly my experience dealing with kids my age, but they are always more than willing to speak in spanish with you and talk to you. My favorite example of this was one time we were in McDonald's (free wifi dont judge) and I was asking a group about the Sevilla soccer team since there was a game that day. Anyways, I went up to a table and asked him if it was a league game and the girl farthest from me responded, "un momento" (wait), got up from her chair, walked around the table, stood next to me and then asked me to repeat my question. I could never imagine anyone going through that much trouble in the United States to answer a question. Another time, a group of kids our age were outside hanging out before the night began aka botellon and two of them awkwardly approached our group trying to catch someones eye to say hello! I was the first one to see them so we opened up our circle to include them, and they were so nice. I think part of the reason I am so surprised about this because some of the customer service here is HORRIBLE. Like the one time we were kicked out of the cafe before I had even gotten my coffee. So this is a much better impression!

Finalment, el cerdo is the word for pig which I didn't know/forgot so I decided it made a nice alliteration (besides the fact that it is pronounced as an S in that word).

Monday, February 8, 2010

Relax, we're in Sevilla

This past week was pretty crazy here for me in Sevilla. It was our second and last week of our intensive session which meant a presentation, a final exam and papers/homework to complete. Somehow a three hour class each day seemed to be taking all of my time, and I know I haven't been the only one overwhelmed by the amount of stuff we have to do.

Wednesday we finally made the boxed brownies that I brought as a gift from home. We were encouraged to bring things from the United States to show our families here some of our customs or traditions, and I heard that they don't have boxed cakes/brownies etc here so I thought it would be fun to make with the family. Our mom had been saving them for when their grandkids were over (julia-9 and cecilia-6). The girls were adorable and loved them. They also somehow managed to steal my camera and ceci had her own photoshoot.

Friday night we stayed here for an event with our program, but Saturday a group of 15 of us went to Ronda and Marbella for the day. They are both south of sevilla. Ronda was a two hour bus ride and then Marbella was an additional hour after that. Ronda was gorgeous. It had some of the prettiest landscape I've seen. It was more rolling hills of green than anything else, but the views were awesome. There were a lot of lookouts to take pictures at and I took way too many, but I figured it was worth it. Also, we got to see some of the Arabe baños which is where the Arabs had their baths. Quite interesting.

We left Ronda around 6pm and then made it to Marbella. Marbella is on the Coast of the Mediterranean Sea. We checked into our hostel which was owned by a Scottish man! He spoke english and gave us a complimentary welcome drink and was very accommodating. The next day we walked along the beach and then along the port side of the city. There were a lot of shops on the boardwalk and they were all expensive brand name labels. I guess the reason it wasn't cute little boutiques is that one of the guides told us they were going to make this port a more touristy/upscale harbor which didn't happen when the spaniards decided they didn't want to have to give up their siesta in the middle of the day! Later we walked out onto the breakwall area and took a lot of photos of the city with the mountains in the background. It was a great weekend!

Anddd to top it off it was Superbowl sunday when we got back. The game went on around 12:30 am here since we are 6-7 hours ahead. We went to the Irish pub for the game ; )

Also on Tuesday, since Christine and I hadn't started on our internship, we made it to the cathedral and La Giralda which are both very famous in Sevilla and Spain in general. La catedral is the oldest gothic church in all of europe I believe, which is pretty cool. At the top of La Girlada, (it is a tower from) there is lookout points and you can see all of Sevilla. It is pretty cool to see and climb. There was a lot of touristy looking people when we went- some from France and a lot from China too. Fun Day!

Feb. 11
This has been our first week of real classes! I am taking three classes and doing an internship which counts for three credits. I already took my two week intensive session class which was three credits so at the end of the semester all 15 credits will transfer. I am actually waiting to start my internship because my company was late in sending in some government documents. This is good/bad at the same time because I have this week easy, but we still have to complete 100 hours of time in order to receive credit. THEREFORE, i have to work more hours later which they said will just get harder to do.

However, my other two classes now are business classes and one class that I took as an elective. It is mass communication in Spain and our teacher works at the radio station in Sevilla. We actually took a field trip to the studio on our second day of class and the stations that go through her company are CanalSur, Canal Fiesta, Canal Andalucia and Canal Flamenco. She showed us where they film and two kids even got to do a pretend radio interview. Kinda cool! However it was wayyyy across town for me, and took a good 30 minutes by bus to get to. I got see more of Sevilla though ; )

If anyone was interested in the food here, we had a new fun dish last night that I've never seen before and really liked. It was like an egg pizza. YUmm. It had the dough of a crescent roll and then basically egg maybe potatoe? and onion and maybeeee cheese. I said it was a mix of pizza and tortilla de patata for those of you what the tortilla de patata is like.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

In the grooooooove

Today was our third day of out intensive spanish class. Our professor is soo cute. He is mid thirties and very energetic and spanish. Also, he speaks some words in english because it would be harder to describe certain business words in another language (survey, personal income tax, etc ) When he does speak english, he has a british accent because thats how he learned so he is just adorable.

We have class en the Universidad de Sevilla, and its referred to as La Facultad. We get to be around the spanish students ; ) yayy

My roommate and I finally bought internet!! Once you have lived with it for any period of time its hard to go without.

I also need to explain our pet. We have a bird. He knows how to do cat calls, so he flatters me everyday with a nice whistle. If you whistle back at him, he screams. hahah he is great

My roommate and I went shopping today and it made me feel like I was back at home. All of the stores play American music and I literally feel as if I am back in the states until I hear some lady ramble off in spanish. I also bought a trench coat which I am quite excited to wear! Anddd I bought nocilla aka nutella.

I'm going to add a little bit more to this post!! So while in Sevilla, IU makes the students either takes classes until June or the students can take an internship. (this is only for the business school kids) We had a speed-dating type event with a bunch of companies and then everyone chooses who they like best. I got one of my top picks which was a tourism company! I think itll be fun to speak with people this way (the point of the internship is to be in a work environment and learn the language). It is unpaid, but I'm excited and hope I get to learn a lot of cool stuff about Sevilla since it is aimed at tourists.

We've had more time for night life since being adjusted and there seems to be certain places that get repeated- at least so far. We have a place called O'neills that we usually start at or at least meet before we continue to another bar or discoteca. It's an irish pub and plays random american music that is not meant for anything related to what is going on (champagne supernova came on one night) BUT its comforting and the downstairs is a cool area. Then we've gone to calle betis which is a long street along the river with a lot of fun places to go at night. We also made it over to Buddha which is a fun discoteca with three intense floors for dancing.

Tonight we actually were able and lucky enough to get tickets to the Sevilla FC game! They played Valencia and it was a big game for some tournament that was going on in Spain. Both teams were ranked pretty highly and tonight determined something for one of them..(sorry that is vague) I wans't quite sure, but the energy was awesome and it made me miss soccer! I could easily sit and watch another game, unlike baseball or football. We were way up high, but the seats were vertically topped on top of each other it seemed. It reminded me of a quidditch game in Harry potter! haha ..im exaggerating but you get the point. I'm soo glad we got to go.. I went with 4 girls from IU. Christine, my roommate, Pam, Laura and Jen. We did tapas before the game and got an assortment of different foods. I still love it all..croquetas are fried breaded meat dumplings which are tasty, we also got potatoes with ailioli sauce (sp) and switching from tapas, but our "mom" made a stuffed eggplant type dish with meat and cheese on it. Everything they cook is with olive oil by the way so some things taste weird (aka eggs) but the eggplant was soooo good with it! I've begun to drink coffee here. It's called cafe con leche (coffee with milk) and its sweeter than in the US. I tried a differnt coffee called Bombon today too. We were practically kicked out of the coffee place today though while we were studying. The waiter was rude and told us we had to leave and couldn't use our computers...i had literally JUST gotten my coffee when he told us. I dont quite understand the customer service here, and I was warned before coming it would be like this but its just different at some of the restaurants. They are normally better but this one was exceptionally bad. Haha despite that, I still am likking everything!

Jumping around....Rabajas are going in Spain. This means that it is a huge sale in all of spain because its mandated by the government (i think!) it is in all of january and some of feb so ive been buying a lot more stuff now than I normally would. They also happen again in july/aug. I've bought a lot of scarves for 2 or 3 euro each (including a seville fc one that was NOT on rebajas) and also a shirt and some shoes!

Sorry some of my spelling is really bad but its late and I know that I'm missing some e's and punctuation is off and whatnot, but please ignore
; )


Sunday, January 24, 2010

Moved in!

So on Friday we found out our homestay, and I am actually living with another girl from IU!! Her name is Christine, and its been awesome having somone to be with for multiple reason...1. she is awesome 2. we each pick up different parts of spanish conversations and can put them together 2. its less awkward with the family when we dont know what to do 3. we can walk home together and complain-compare everything that is going on. Overall, very comforting.

Before we met our families, we had a scavenger hunt around Seville. There were five places we had to find. The post office here seemed much more intense (third point on our map). We also had to go to the Torre de Oro (on the river and GORGEOUS scenery here), la catedral (muy famoso), la fabrica (the oldest university building in Seville), the town hall, and an area of the city where all of the shops are. The tour was helpful because up until this point we had no idea that so much of the city even existed. We are in the neighborhood of Nervion, which is more east than everything else. Once you get more in the downtown area, the shops are so cute and look more like your typical european streets. By the way the little streets are litterally big enough to fit a car far in yet somehow the europeans manage. Later on Friday we met with our guide groups to go get tapas and then later in the evening we do what Spaniards call ´Botellon´ where you hang out in the plaza until the discotecas open. Pretty much all of our CIEE program went out that night and went to our first discoteca!! Lots of dancing!

During the days leading up to our homestay we´ve had meetings and appointments to help get us situated with living in a foreign country. We´ve done a lot of tapas for dinner which is basically ordering a bunch of different smaller dinner plates and sharing them with friends and getting to try a lot all at once. Also we went to a flamenco show Thursday night. It was pretty interesting..one guy sang, one played the guitar, and then there was one woman dancing. I wish I could flamenco! It looked pretty intense...apparently during Feria de Abril Flamenco is everywhere.

Also, I need to comment on the food-apartment we are in. We each have our own room (and are very thankful for that) and our ´parents´are an older couple who have grandkids around the ages between 5 and 9. They come over a lot, and its fun to here them speak in Spanish and see what they like to do. The two girls are learning english in school and like Hannah Montana.. ..I asked them if they knew party in the usa. Off course they did : ) Also the one girl apparently likes ABBA. The food that the mom makes is sooo yummy. Our first meal consisted of spaghetti with ham and egg in it, little hamburger patties with this meaty salsa (no buns though), and some white rice. Then our mom made homemade coffee ice cream. Our next big meal was a pizza like dish but the dough was similar to a croissant in the United states and there were large thin pieces of ham spread on top. As for dessert we had homemade chocolate mousse. This has by far been my favorite food since being here, and its the BEST chocolate mousse ever. SOOO good. Hahaha apprently i like the food in Spain....


I am trying to think of random things I think of that I can't post while I'm at home sin Internet!
1. there is a bike path that runs all around the city and you can rent bikes to go from place to place really cheap..which i like
2. my window shutters look like they are made for a bombshell because they close from the outside and are made of metal (ish?) material.
3. We eat really late here..which can get hard for me at times. We sat down to dinner last night at 10pm
4. There are wild or loose cats everwhere
5. There are only small dogs here...not sure why but its the thing to have and they are never on leashes
6. They do everything in army time. I still have to sit about what time it is when its 17:00
7. Obsessive PDA is apparently socially acceptable.
8. We walk EVERYWHERE. Its not like IU where your farthest walk is 20 minutes (for me at least). One of my classes is at least 35 minutes, so im getting a good work out everyother day from just that.


Wednesday, January 20, 2010

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!