¿Que es esto?

Hola! I officially arrived in Seville Monday afternoon, but I have been so busy that I have not had a chance to update my blog! I have fallen in love with Seville already..it is SO BEAUTIFUL!!! I live in the district of Triana, which is very authentic and beautiful. The streets are all cobblestone and the buildings are so beautiful!! It reminds me a little bit of Rome with its very old and historic look!

My host family is SO NICE! They actually can be too nice sometimes and treat me like a princess, which makes me feel spoiled! I live with Ana and her husband, a very old and cute grandma, and their 33 year old daughter (who seems much younger and is so nice to me!) They also have another daughter that doesn't live with them that has a 3 year old daughter who I am excited to meet! It is a bit of a strange situation, because my family has two apartments. One is on the 4th floor and that is where the parents and the grandma live, and where we go to eat and be with the family. The other one is on the first floor where the daughter lives and I live. It is really the grandma's apartment, but she is too old to live on her own anymore, so the daughter lives there. It is pretty common for adults to still live with their parents, because the unemployment rate in Spain is terribly high. My room is very small, but so cute. They had heart balloons on my bed when I came in. There is lots of closet space and it makes me sad that I literally have NO CLOTHES! I guess I will just need to buy some to fill up the extra space ;) The apartment itself is small, but very fancy. There are decorations everywhere with lots of pictures of the family. My family likes to watch muchos telenovelas (soap operas) and loves to eat A TON!! I seriously have been fed so much here that I feel like I want to puke. The food has been good so far, but I don't need so much of it! And they say Americans are fat! I also told them that I don't like coffee, so my host mom makes me leche con chocolate all of the time now (hot chocolate).....it is soooo good! I am loving it :)

 My program has split us off into small groups to do various activities and tours, so I have gotten to know some really nice people pretty well! All of the students here seem really nice! We took a tour of our University yesterday...ummm is this for real!?! It was sunny so it wasn't that good of a picture, but it seriously looks like a castle! It was so surreal to walk in and realize that I will be taking some of my classes here!!

My Spanish has improved so much in just a couple of days! It was very hard at first to understand people, but now it is much easier to communicate! My host family is still difficult to understand, because they don't try to slow down or explain what they are saying, but I am getting better by the hour! All of the other students seem to be at my level, so we are all helping eachother learn and speaking to eachother in very fluent Spanglish haha. It has been a lot of fun to finally put my Spanish to use! I also have been learning a lot about Seville I have asked many times, "Que es esto" (what is that?)

I don't have much more time, because I am going to meet some girls to go shopping and exploring before we meet up with the group again tonight. It is weird trying to make plans without cellphones...I feel so lost with out connection to the world! I only just got my wifi to work on my laptop and it still doesn't work on my ipod, so it has been rough. You may laugh, but it is a very weird feeling to be across the world with no way to communicate with loved ones! Friday I will be buying a cellphone to use here, so it should get better. Anyway, here are a few more pictures of my stay so far (I haven't really taken many yet). Hasta luego :)

My group by the river!

There are many horse drawn carriages here!

My group getting some tapas!