Sevilla is awesome. I feel like it is a lot like Austin... there is a hike and bike trail that goes all around the city. There is a river that runs through the middle of the city. It gets really hot during the summer and has a few months of perfect weather. I'm sure it's nothing like Austin, but that I just like Austin so much that I find qualities of Austin in every city I go to. Also, for once in my life I lucked out big time in living arrangements. I live in a 4 bedroom apartment with 1 guy and 6 girls. Below us lives Rosa, who owns the apartment. She cooks all our meals, cleans the apartment, does all our laundry and is the nicest, coolest woman I have ever met. She loves to laugh and speaks only spanish. Her food is incredible, unlike the rest of Spanish food. I have yet to dislike one of her meals, which consist of some type of rice, bread, water (they hardly drink beverages here besides water), and a meat stew dish.
We got settled in and were told by our group leaders that we didn't have any planned tours or trips for the weekend. We were supposed to get to know the city and enjoy ourselves for a few days. I'll write more about my roommates later as I get to know them better. Most the people on this trip are from the north east US (boston, connecticut, NY, etc). It's so funny to me how different these people are from us in the south. They are very rude, loud, and upfront but not in a bad way. They also swear like sailors. I think I like the south better, and I let them know it everyday. Apparently I have a Texan accent.
A bunch of the people in my group planned to go to Cadiz for the weekend which is a beach town an hour south of Sevilla. Long story short, there was a miscommunication about meeting and I missed the bus there. I decided it would be a good day to go explore on my own and get away from the comfort of the group. I got into some workout clothes and started asking locals where I could find a fútbol game. They all told me to go to this certain park, so I went to it and found some younger kids playing 3 on 3. The court was smooth cement like outdoor basketball courts and the goals were about 1/3 of the size of normal goals. I walked up and asked them if I could play...they quickly found out I was american after I couldn't understand a single word they were saying. The common thought is that when you learn a language everyone speaks that language grammatically perfect. This is not the case, so not only am I trying to understand a language I don't know very well, but trying to understand high school slang. I was by far the biggest person out there. Most the kids were anywhere from 12 to 17. They had me choose teams and we started playing 4 on 4. After you choose teams here everyone sprints to their respective goal. Whoever touches it last has to play goalie. Of course, right after I made the last pick everyone started sprinting, and I stood completely still not knowing what they were doing. So here I am in the middle of Sevilla by myself stuck playing goalie...great. I was so big for the goal that it was really hard for them to score on me. My teammate told me that I could switch out of playing goalie as soon as a goal was scored on me so after a little while I just let one go by. The kids were all pretty good, but I could hold my own. I even had a goal of my own and a sweet assist which one of the kids headed in. When the ball goes out here they say "ha salido" which literally means "has exited". Overall it was a great experience and I got really tired chasing these kids around. I got invited back to play the next week, but since I have found another game at fields with some guys in their twenties. This is going to be the true test.
Yesterday was our first day of school. I'm still working out my schedule, so I'll write more about the school later. One cool thing is that they have intramural sports, and the school team. There's a chance I can play for the school team which plays against other colleges in Spain. I think that I might have to be here for longer than a semester though, but it would be cool to be a Spanish college basketball player.
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