Holy plethora of English speakers.

So the entire time I was getting ready to come to Spain people kept telling me that no one really speaks English here, so I'd have no problem coming back completely fluent. All lies. I'm basically in a college town full of foreign students. There are English speakers everywhere. And since it's my job to do nothing but speak English, I'm going to have to find a way around this. Anyway, here's what's been going on over the last little bit...

The first couple of weeks I was here were full of apartment searching, finding my way around Sevilla and dealing with people from the internet company. Needless to say, it was a mess. Either way, I now have a tiny apartment I'm sharing with two other people from the program I'm in and it's right in the middle of everywhere I need to be. So the fact that we handwash the dishes and hang-dry our clothes, or that there's no microwave or oven, seems a little less important. As far as the kitchen goes, we're just all getting really good at making things on the stove. And have discovered the Spanish version of Ramen.

I've also started my job! I work as basically an assistant English teacher in a school right outside of the city. I go to eight English classes, one bilingual P.E. class and one bilingual art class a week. The kids are anywhere from 3 to 12 years old, so it's kind of a wide range, but I really like it this way. The 3-year-olds are crazy to work with, though, haha. Today the teacher I was with got a kid to stay in his seat by putting a picture of a spider next to his chair and telling him if he didn't want to squish the spider he couldn't get out of his seat. And he really didn't want to kill the poor paper spider. I love it. My mom always refers to teaching as the "T word," but I get to have all of the fun of teaching with none of the responsibility. No grading papers, no parent-teacher confrences, no disciplining kids when they misbehave - it's awesome - I get paid to play. The downside? About an hour and a half commute each way. But even that cloud has a silver lining. Here's just a small example of what I get to see on my way to and from work each day:

The last one is actually from a photo exhibit they have on one of the main streets next to the cathedral. It's all pictures of these crazy/amazing flamenco dancers. On that note, I'm starting flamenco classes soon!

On top of everything else I'm tutoring a couple of little boys. They're two brothers I call Gonzo and Pepe, 5 and 7 respectively, and are hilarious. They're also very concerned for my social well-being. They know it's my first time in Spain, so they're very anxious for me to align myself with the right soccer team - picking the wrong team seems to be social suicide in their minds haha.

Go vote.

Wednesday, after another day of sitting through orientation sessions, I went out with a couple of friends to an area called "La Macarena." From what I understand it's an area with a mostly artsy/hippie type population. It's also very popular there to have large dogs. Which aren't on leashes. Honestly, while I sat at a cafe eating some of the best quiche I've ever had, I watched this guy walk around the same area for like 30 minutes with his dog. He was on the phone most of the time, so he would start walking down one street, realize his dog wasn't with him anymore, and then go back, get his dog, and start the process all over again. He also kept stopping to chat with everyone he met on the street. That's another one of the amazing things here, everyone knows everyone else and they just stand in the streets talking for hours on end. It's incredible.

Then we went to a little wine bar and walked around the plaza that's supposed to have the best feria parade in Sevilla. Ok, correction, it's supposed to have the best Virgin Mary come through it. Feria here I guess is kind of like the Spanish/Easter version of Thanksgiving. A week-long religious holiday with a parade full of saints rather than Snoopy and Garfield. Supposedly it's pretty intense. It's really making me look forward to the spring.

Thursday was mostly just more classes followed by a tapas (things that are kind of like appetizers) dinner that CIEE put on. I got a call before the dinner, though, that made things a little more interesting. See, for my job I'm supposed to basically be an expert on American language and culture, but I'm called an "auxiliar" for my school. Well there's another auxiliar assigned to my school and she's already been there for a year. So that's fine, no big deal. But last night she calls me to say that the director of the school got the official auxiliar assignment sheet and my name's not on it. After freaking out momentarily and calling the CIEE director, I calmed down and now I'm just waiting to figure out where I'm supposed to go on Monday. And whether or not I'm supposed to go to the school I was originally assigned to. The CIEE director says I should just go, the school director says don't, it's interesting to say the least. But hey, I'm in Spain, either way, life's good.

Today I spent most of the day apartment hunting. I got to see a heck of a lot more of the city than I had before, which I was really glad of. The only thing is, it's kind of been hard to find a place close to where my bus to my potential school leaves from. There's only one bus station it leaves out of, so it makes my choices kind of limited. But I looked at a bunch of places today and I'll look at some more tomorrow. I'm sure I'll find something, I'm not really worried.

After that I went to a pub called Merchant's to meet up with a bunch of other Americans to watch the Vice-Presidential debate. The debates come on at 3 a.m. here, so the pub owner (who's Irish) lets us hook up a computer to the screen they use to watch football matches to watch the debates. There was an amazing mix of people there - all the way from retired ex-pats to study abroad students. It's crazy how much the Spanish people have paid attention as well. I was at a bar the other night and I say a Spaniard offer a girl 30 euros for an Obama/Biden pin she was wearing.

On that note, I got my absentee ballot today - wohoo!