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.