Huevas Are Not Huevos!!

My first few days in Sevilla were actually pretty nondescript. It rained like a monsoon the entire time so we didn't really get to explore the city much! The sevillanos all claimed that this much rain is extremely unusual... lucky us! What I did see of the city is absolutely stunning. There are orange trees everywhere and the river that runs through Sevilla, Río Guadalquivir, is absolutely breathtaking. The streets are labyrinths of winding cobblestone and ancient buildings. I have never been in a place that has so much history, culture, and art.

On Tuesday, we had our first day of class of the pro-cultural seminar. This is a month long seminar run by our program center that intensively teaches us about the culture of Sevilla and España in general. Each week (Monday through Thursday) we study a different topic. In addition, we have discussion and grammar classes each day. In the culture class we began learning about the Franco dictatorship which was interesting and I could understand Rafael very well. Then it was our first discussion class… God did I hate it.

Puri, the professor, seemed really nice and has a beautiful voice with a musical Andalusian accent. For most of the class we introduced ourselves. I hate talking in front of people I don’t know in English so I was even more freaked out to do it in Spanish. When it was my turn, I stumbled over saying the word ‘Cardiologo’ because I was so nervous. Puri said it correctly and then made me repeat it and repeat it. I was absolutely mortified! It didn’t help that Nate and Phil, two of the strongest speakers are also in my discussion class. Luckily class ended soon after that. Our first grammar class was by far my favorite of the day. Juan is really approachable and friendly and even though it is a ‘grammar’ class, he spent most of class teaching us useful phrases, slang, and cultural quirks.

The program center itself is beautiful. It's located on the 2nd floor (it's actually the third, but in Spain, the first floor is considered as 'planta baja' or ground floor) of an old building, constructed in the 1920s. It has an ancient elevator whose doors you have to manually close for it to operate. I'm not brave enough to try it as it definitely looks like it is over 80 years old! Anyways, the view from the center looks out onto a gorgeous fountain and the Torre del Oro is just around the corner so I couldn’t think of a better place to have to walk to everyday.

Wednesday also turned out to be quite an adventure. Before class, me and the girls I traveled with decided to go out for Tapas again. Wandering down one of the side streets near the hotel, we found a cute little Tapas restaurant with outdoor seating. Besides ordering our stand by dishes of paella, jamón, and patatas ali-oli, we decided to branch out and order two different dishes of huevas. Now, we knew that 'huevos' meant eggs, and we thought that 'hueva' meant a certain type of fish. Basically, we guessed that we would have one plate of eggs and one plate of fish. We figured it would be a pretty safe bet because all of us liked eggs.

We were wrong.

The food arrived and it was definitely NOT eggs. But upon tasting it, it wasn't like fish either. The texture was incredibly crumbly and dry, and broke into a lot of tiny pieces my mouth. Even after pulling out a dictionary, we didn't have a clue what this food was. So, we consulted our waiter who then amusedly told us (In Spanish) "They're fish ovaries."

Oh dear God. Yesterday I apparently ate a million little fish eggs and now they're all swimming around in my stomach about to grow into giant fish and kill me. Despite lunch being quite the adventure, the rest of the day turned out to be pretty uneventful. Tomorrow should be interesting as we move in with our families!!!! I’m so beyond excited yet terrified!

An Eventful Beginning

I am finally in Spain!!! It seems like it has been days since I hugged Mom good-bye in Detroit but really it has only been a few days – a few days of one disaster after another! The whole process of flying freaked me out. I had to triple check that I had everything and even so I was so anxious about forgetting something especially because I waited until the last minute to pack! Before going to the airport, I ate lunch at my all-time favorite restaurant (Border Cantina) with Dad, Mom, and Kyle. Everything was going smoothly up until that point, but then the first minor hiccup in the plan occurred. Apparently my backpack that I stuffed to the rim didn’t fit airline carry-on regulations. FREAKOUT! After a mad dash to Target with the family, all was well because mom bought me a new carry-on and I managed to cram almost everything in it on the drive to the airport.

The flight from Detroit to Frankfurt went by faster than I thought it would; although, that isn’t saying much as I had built it up to be this big horrible nightmare! The fattest baby I have ever seen spent most of the flight screaming in the seat in front of me but headphones work wonders. At Frankfurt, we just barely made our connection, after being delayed in Detroit because of de-icing procedures. We were literally the last people on the bus to take us to the airplane, but we made it just in time. I slept the entire flight, managing to skip the meal they offered. That excitement aside, we finally landed in Madrid ready to start our Spanish adventure, or so we thought.

The Frankfurt airport managed to misplace 9 bags and a Gayle… How is that even possible?! We waited for hours and hours at the airport for Gayle’s flight to arrive and prayed that our baggage would come with it – all in vain. In our desperate search for somebody – anybody – that could give us some sort of concrete information we managed to make three trips to different baggage claims, three between terminal 1 and terminal 2, multiple trips to Spanair and Lufthansa service desks, and two illegal attempts to sneak into other restricted areas only to be yelled at by fat security guards. Our entire marathon through the airport managed to yield the meager info that Gayle’s plane was delayed 6 hours and that our baggage would arrive at midnight. How lovely!

Exhausted and stressed to the max, we checked into our hostel and waited for Gayle to find us. The hostel provided a much needed comedic relief as the walls were plastered in ‘artistic’ hand drawn porn. Only in Europe…


By 1 AM, everyone and everything was accounted for and we managed to snag a few hours of much needed sleep before catching our train in the morning.

The train ride went smoothly and after discovering that some taxi drivers in Sevilla can be downright assholes (made us take 4 cabs with our luggage even though we managed to cram into 2 on the way to the train station in Madrid!), we finally made it to Hotel Becquer – home for the next few days!! We survived our international trip from Hell!!!!!

Part of me still can't believe that I'm actually here, in Spain, about to only speak Spanish for the next five and a half months. And if the beginning of this trip has any indication as to how the rest will follow, I can only say that it is going to be an adventure.