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!