Los pensamientos sobre mi barrio (Thoughts About my Neighborhood)

Hello from my new apartamento!

We have been stealing some wireless here (the apartment doesn’t have wifi ((wee fee, as it’s pronounced here)) and the connection goes in and out. Hopefully I can finish this entry in time to put it up when I write it!

So yes, I said “we.” I live in an apartment with another girl from the program, Katie. Katie goes to Penn and we get along really well. And, funnily enough, we have a mutual friend who went to high school with me and now goes to Penn. I don’t think I could have gotten assigned a better roommate. She’s a pescetarian, too, so that makes dietary stuff within the family really easy.

Ah, our family. Mayte is our senora—the woman in charge of the house (ok, or apartment in this case). I would say she’s probably in her early 60s. She lives with her husband, Fernando, and one of her sons, Hernando. Hernando is 35. In Spain, the norm is for kids to live in their parents’ house until they establish their own family. Housing here is really expensive, and it makes things easier and cheaper for sons and daughters who are trying to establish themselves.

Mayte is wonderful. When we first left the hotel, I was asking her what she wanted Katie and I to call her. (In Spanish, there are two ways to say “you”—formal and informal.) I asked her using the formal voice, and she stopped, smiled, put her hand on my shoulder and told me that we should always use informal when talking to her. It was just a really nice way to start. Mayte has been having students live in her house for 18 years, so she’s an old pro at this. She helps us with our Spanish and gives us new vocabulary to learn. She’s very friendly. I was expecting to feel a little bit like a boarder in someone else’s house, and I don’t feel that way. Maybe a tiny bit, but I think that’s more because it’s the beginning and Katie and I aren’t fully comfortable moving around the house and things like that yet.

Mayte’s husband, Fernando, is great, too. He’s a joker and just an all-around nice guy. He reminds me a bit of my Grandpa: he likes to do crafts, and he also makes jam and other preserves and has made a good deal of the furniture in this house. What’s interesting, though, is that Katie and I are clearly Mayte’s responsibility and Mayte’s doing. We gave the family some little gifts we had brought from home. The gifts were clearly just for Mayte—Fernando came over to see what the things were and she shooed him away, saying that the gifts were for her. I guess it makes sense… she does the cooking, she does the cleaning, she does our laundry… being here has basically been a visualization of what I’ve learned in my class about the way gender works in Spain (especially southern Spain). My sense is that Mayte doesn’t go out of the house much unless she has to do some shopping.

And, last but not least, Hernando. There’s not much to say about him. If I understood Mayte correctly, she has three other kids. Hernando must be the only one who is not married because he is the only one who lives in the house. Mayte has 2 (3 in a few months) grandkids and she has a room on the other side of the apartment for them. It’s really cute.

The apartment has an interesting layout, but I think it’s probably pretty popular. The living room and dining room is in the center of the apartment. It’s one big room. There is a balcony off the living room. Then there is a hallway on both sides of the living room. Off that hallway on either side of the living room are the bedrooms and bathrooms. The two hallways dead-end at the kitchen, which, if you were looking at a floor plan, is above the living room. The kitchen is small but cute. They just redid the bathroom that we use and it looks like it’s straight out of Ikea. The walls are rainbow tiles, the shower is new and modern looking, the sink is made of angular shapes… it’s a really, really nice bathroom. I’ll take some pictures and upload them sooner rather than later. Our room also feels a bit like living in the Ikea catalogue. It’s a really tiny room for two people, but the use of space is insanely efficient. I feel like the room should go on TLC or something on one of those model shows about how to create space in a small room. There is tons, tons, tons of closet space—we have a lot of extra room. We each have shelves mounted to the wall above our bed for books and whatever else, as well has a place to hang stuff from and a mirror. I took some pictures and I’ll upload them, too, eventually… it won’t work from here right now because the internet connection is too weak.

There are a lot of other kids from the program in our barrio (neighborhood), and I haven’t figured out if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I guess there are advantages and disadvantages. We are about a 25min walk to el centro, which is nice. The walk is interesting. It slowly goes from more of a strip mall, high rise atmosphere back to the picturesque, insanely cute Seville that I’ve written about before. So yes, I do not live in the picturesque, old, touristy part of Seville anymore. I get the feeling that most people in Seville don’t live in the city center, though (I think it’s probably pretty expensive) . I have mixed feelings about living where I live, too. The 25min walk isn’t bad, it’s just not terribly scenic. The advantage to it, though, is that it’s a major road and there are 3 different buses that go from the apartment straight to the university. I’ll also apply for Sevici, which is an awesome service Seville has. It’s like zipcar, only for bikes, and there are a ton, ton, ton of them. There are different stations of bikes all over the city. For 10 Euro a year, you can pick up a bike at one place and leave it at another. Really convenient.

Katie, me, and another girl who lives in our barrio, Amelia, explored a bit of the area today (and we spoke in Spanish the whole time… it felt good). We’re about a 15min walk to the soccer stadium and an indoor mall (complete with movie theater). Unlike when we walk around in downtown Seville, there are no tourists here. I get the feeling that living where I do, although it’s not as scenic, is a much more realistic perspective of what it’s like to live in Sevilla, rather than be the foreigner who is here strictly for tourism. But, to be honest, a part of me does wish I was just in the heart of Seville. It makes things easier and more scenic… but then the other part of me knows that this is more real, this will force me to see more of the city and more diverse parts of the city, so this is better.

Basically, it’s in my nature to question everything that ever happens to me (it’s my curse), but overall I’m really pleased and content with how my housing worked out. Ultimately, it’s the roommate and the family who matter most, and both of those are winners. Katie’s only going to be here for the semester, so at the end of the semester I can reevaluate the situation and decide what I want to do. I think it’s more or less the perfect set up. Oh, and (after we pass the high rises and construction) we pass an insanely beautiful palace to get to class. Not bad, huh?

Comprando una tele y otras actividades esenciales (Buying a Phone and Other Essential Activities)

Ok, there's no time to make this a fancy blog post, so the pictures will come first.

My life packed up for the year. Taken in my room at home before I left.

The first picture of me and Liliana in Sevilla. And I'm sure there will be many more to come (Angie, note the shirt)!

I'm hesitant to put this picture on my blog because it doesn't do the place justice, but it's the best photo I have for now. I'll have to go on a photo excursion at some point with my nice camera. This was taken at dusk.

Plaza de toros (bullfighting). It's a landmark in Sevilla. I have walked by it each day to get from the hotel to el centro.

Ok, and now for the writing part that will be totally disjointed:
ahem:

Today there isn’t too much to report. I don’t have the same urge to recount everything detail after detail like I did for China. I think it’s because European culture is, in many ways, much closer to America than China is (duh—we’re both western!).

This week our schedule has been class, break, class, lunch (at 2pm, which is early for Sevilla), massive siesta (literally the entire city shuts down until 5pm), then more free time. Starting next week (once we get put in our home stays), the schedule will change to class, go home for lunch and siesta, class in the early evening, and then a free evening. People here stay out and about until the late hours every night. They aren’t cavorting around drunk or anything like that; because it’s so hot here, people rest during the day and spend the evenings out socializing. Last night Liliana and I ate around 10pm at a little café outside on a cobblestone street. There was a guy playing an accordion across the street. He was a totally legit accordion player, too—he wasn’t there for tourist entertainment. Oh, and our table was in between two orange trees. It doesn’t get much more picturesque than that.

Today the main extra thing that Liliana, me, and two other boys (one from Cornell and one from Michigan) did was get a cell phone. It was a decent amount of work, but we chatted with two different sellers at two different places. We each had some amount of dialogue with the salespeople to get our questions answered. We read all the fine print, compared prices, etc. Finally we each ended up with a pay-as-you-go plan on Vodafone. Pretty sweet. I can get international calls for free, so if any of you feel motivated to get a calling card, we can chat that way.

Side note: internet is going to be irregular until things get settled. We have a pledge to only speak in Spanish in el centro, so I’m not sure if we’re allowed to skype from the center. That doesn’t make things impossible, but it does mean that I’ll have to scout out an internet café that’s reasonable and make that a regular thing. Just one more routine to settle into.

It will be nice once I settle into my routines, that’s for sure.

Oh: today I also had my interview with Luisa, one of the MCP staff, about my housing preferences. It went well… I didn’t have much to say except explain my vegetarianism and my preference for no smoking. She asked me if I have a certain neighborhood I prefer and whether I want a roommate or not. I gave pretty un-opinionated answers for the most part. I feel like what’s important is how my family is and where I am placed relative to the friends that I will make here, so where I’m placed in my home stay is kind of just a luck-of-the-draw sort of thing.

Anyway, so yes, all in all I am one step closer to living with a family and I am now also the proud owner of a Spanish cell. Today gave me more confidence that I can indeed function in Spanish. I’m actually doing a lot better than I thought I would.

El comienzo (The Beginning)

So. Hello from Sevilla? Yes, I am here. It feels really strange. I have been anticipating this for so long and normally that would provide plenty of time for me to think about where I was going and what I was doing, but I don’t think that it worked that way in this case. Anticipating studying for a year in Sevilla became an idea—something vague and far off—rather than a reality. It was hard for me to grasp what doing this would really entail; it was hard to visualize myself functioning as a Cornell student in another place.

Visualizing it ahead of time or not, I am definitely here and am managing to function. But let’s back up.

The flights over were alright. We were checking in for our first flight from Detroit to Frankfurt when Liliana stopped chatting really suddenly because she recognized the voice of the girl checking in next to us. The side profile was totally different than what we remembered (ha, funny how the growing up thing works), but it turned out to be none other than Rachel Goodman, a friend of ours from high school! She’s studying abroad for the year in Bologna and we were on the same flight. That was really funny. While sitting in the Detroit airport together, it felt a little weird… the last time any of us had flown to Frankfurt was with our entire high school band, the summer after our senior year of high school. We felt like we were missing some 100 other people who were supposed to be on our flight!

The takeoff was one of the most sketchiest things I have ever experienced on a plane (it freaked Liliana out, too, so it isn’t just me being anxious). There was a large noise that sounded like an engine coming from under us towards the back right, and it kept shutting off and restarting in a very uneven way. It also didn’t feel like we were going very quickly, like it normally feels when you take off. Everything was really lackadaisical, but not in a good way. I had to keep craning my neck to look out the window and see if we were, in fact, going up into the sky. Anyway, we got there in one piece which is what’s important. The 11 hour layover in Frankfurt was not the most fun experience of my life, but it could have been worse. After Frankfurt to Barcelona, we went Barcelona to Sevilla and arrived late last night.

We got to the hotel after the welcoming festivities had ended, but that was alright (I have a strong suspicion that they were a waste of time, anyway.) A very nice dinner was waiting for us on take-out trays in our room and we were left with little note explaining the activities for the next few days and the upcoming activities. For the next 3ish (maybe 4, I can’t remember) weeks, we will be taking the Michigan/Cornell/UPenn pro-seminar. Basically, it’s one course (that we get graded for and it counts as credit) where we review grammar, learn about Southern Spanish culture (and the do’s and don’ts that go along with it), and go on field trips and day trips to see local tourist attractions and important things in neighboring cities. The farthest and longest trip we go on is to Madrid, which is for three days. It feels weird to be plopped all of a sudden back into school—we got the grammar books and things we’ll need for this class today and do indeed have a decent bit of reading for tomorrow—but it’s also good that the program functions this way. We a re pulled immediately into the world of Spanish and the world of school, but in a much more comfortable way than if we were just dropped into the Universidad de Sevilla. I think that might be a problem.

The Michigan/Cornell/Penn center is really nice. I will call it “el centro” from now on. It is right in the heart of Sevilla and incredibly close to the University, which is great. El centro is a converted apartment. It has a room with several printers, computers, and open tables for laptops, which is where we can go for wireless. There are also 2 offices and a main reception desk for the staff here, as well as a cute little library room that we can use to study in. It has walls lined with bookcases and empty tables and chairs. The front of el centro looks out onto the river and the pedestrian walkway that runs through Sevilla and the back windows (where the library is) look out over a little, curvy street. It’s gorgeous.

Sevilla generally is utterly breathtaking. I came here briefly my junior year of high school and remembered that I really liked it and wanted to come back, but I didn’t remember exactly how much I love it and exactly how beautiful it is (I lost all of my pictures from that trip, which we won’t get into but I’m still bitter about). Clear, blue skies all the time (Seville has some of the most hours of sun out of anywhere in Europe, so ha, take that Ithaca and Ann Arbor), palm trees and orange trees, winding roads filled with brightly colored old Spanish architecture, picturesque shops and cafes (Jenny, you’d love it here)… it’s just stunning. Sevilla is big enough at 750,000 people where it’s a major city and I feel legitimately overwhelmed trying to learn my way around here, but it’s not a big metropolis like Madrid or Barcelona, so it retains a lot of the old Spanish charm that major international cities don’t. In my eyes, it doesn’t get more picturesque than this.

I’m excited to explore and to finally figure out my way around. The winding streets certainly don’t speed up the process, but I’m sure we’ll get there. I like winding streets a lot better than straight, parallel ones. I know Thomas Jefferson had a good idea with those Northwest Ordinances, but honestly, that layout can get pretty dull.

Overall, this is harder for me than I thought it would be and I do get sadder than I thought I would. It’s daunting right now to think about not going back to the US until the middle/end of next summer. Hopefully my homesickness will subside after more time here. It feels a lot like it did my first semester of college. It was easier to function there knowing that I was going home for whatever break was coming up. But here, I don’t have that, so time feels more never-ending. I think soon enough, though, I will view my time here as much more of a gift. Like I said, I probably just have to get settled in. That in itself is daunting too (a little anyway)… feeling at home in a totally foreign place on a completely different continent? I can’t imagine it, but that’s the goal and I assume it will happen eventually.

Alright, I should go. I haven’t taken any pictures yet because I have been so insanely overwhelmed by everything, but there will be more pictures than you can handle probably very soon. Everywhere I look is a picture waiting to be taken. The solid, bright colors of the architecture against the blue sky are incredible, especially when you pair them with a few palm trees and a winding cobblestone road.

I love and miss you all. ¡Hasta luego!

T-minus 3 Days, and Counting

These last several weeks have been a blur of friends, family, and running errands. (No joke: I think I have run more errands in the past week than I have during the rest of the summer combined.) Getting ready to leave for the year has been busy, but also really good.

My best friend from high school, Lauren, moved to CT last summer. She came to "the deuce" for a few days to visit (and very nicely picked me up with two of our other friends from the Detroit airport at 1am when I came back from China). Anyway, Ann Arbor just finished building a new high school. It's the third high school here and is very controversial. Lauren and I were with our other friend, Kenzie (oh, the bonds that are made in our high school flute section), and drove by the new high school. We decided to see if we could get in, which we could. Look at this hallway. It goes on forever. Hence the "what the hell?!" face.

Spending time with two of my closest friends, Suresh (UMich) and Lauren (American).

My time at home has also included spending time with my sister, Jenny, which rarely happens and is really nice when it does. The other day we went to Sweetwaters, a fantastic coffee shop, for a few hours. Jenny was working on her college apps (something I definitely do not miss) and I read a book. I also took some photos of her while she worked. There's something very picturesque about watching her work in a coffee shop. Plus, she's just pretty (and for those of you who don't know, taller than me!)

These last few weeks also included a quick trip to Florida to visit my Nana (mom's mom). She lives in a beautiful condo right on the beach with a private swimming pool. Visiting her and spending time swimming or reading on the beach is always fantastic. My Nana's home in Florida is my special place. I'm really glad I got to go before I left for Spain.

My other grandparents (dad's parents) also came to visit for a weekend. Spending time with them was also great. Funny story: my grandpa told me that McCain sent him some mail soliciting a donation. He took the prepaid envelope (prepaid by McCain) and filled it with iron. He proudly informed me that he cost McCain about $2 in worthless postage. I kid you not. I love my family. Anyway, seeing both sets of grandparents before I leave was really important to me, and I'm glad that I got to do that.

Back to Florida. My mom's older sister, Shelley, came down from DC on the last full day we were there with her two kids, Eli and Sarah. This is getting repetitive, I know, but seeing them was fantastic. I wish we could have spent more time together.

I guess it runs in the family.

That's my mom.

There are still things to do, places to go, and people to see, but my list of what I have to get done is shrinking by the day. Pretty soon (um, 3 days), my obligations to this place will be done for the year and I will be off. Ten (or eleven, we'll see) months is by far the longest amount of time I have gone without being home. There are times when I think that going abroad is a huge deal. Other times, it seems like nothing and I'm not anxious/nervous/worried at all.

What's weird is that most of my friends are back at Cornell. I miss them over the summer, sure, but I miss them more when I know that they're back in our Cornell world, back in the world that we share and not in our separate, home worlds. What's more bittersweet is that two of my closest friends are graduating a year early, so this is their last year. When I get back to Cornell, they'll be gone. I am still thrilled to be going to Spain and I absolutely do not regret my decision. I just do not understand where the time has gone and how it is that my friends could possibly be graduating already...!

Ah, yes. Time is a tricky thing. (Good thing I'm studying it.)
Speaking of time: my flight to Seville got switched around, so I will be in the Frankfurt airport with Liliana (one of my close friends from high school who is also going to Seville for the year on the SAME program--it's a joint Cornell, Michigan, Penn program and she goes to Michigan) for 10.5 hours. Anyone know anything fun to do in that airport? I'm open to any suggestions.

Our last flight (we have three) is from Barcelona to Sevilla. It's on Spanair. I know that theoretically the Spanair crash that just happened (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/world/europe/22madrid.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin) means that Spanair will be much more careful with their flights and we aren't flying out of Madrid, but still. It's easy for my imagination to come up with things...

Anyway, I wish everyone a good few days and I wish my friends a very happy move-in/start of the academic year. I don't start school until the end of September--this next month will be all about learning to feel comfortable in Seville and exploring and the whatnot. Should be awful. :-)

I have been planning this year since my junior year of high school. And now it's finally here. It feels so surreal...
(year, here, surreal... it rhymes!)

Shanghai and Home

My computer is still fried, which means a short entry sans pictures.

Shanghai was a completely different world from Anyang. It felt like two different countries. Within 2 hours of our arrival in Shanghai (by the way, our train was 8 hours late because of the massive rainfall and flooding along the way... the storm was pretty fun, actually), me and some others were sitting outside in large wicker chairs on a pedestrian walkway, eating Subway and listening to the Maroon 5 that was playing from the speakers.

Um, Subway sandwiches in Anyang? No. Maroon 5? Definitely not. Large, comfortable, wicker chairs? Nope. CLEANLINESS?! I think not.

(Note: I am not proud that I ate at an American fast food chain in China. Let it be known that I was frothing over the idea of bread, milk, and cheese, and Subway covered two of the three. It was also hard to find a place that wasn't western on the Nanjing shopping street. Plus other people were going. Yeah, blame the other people, that's good.)

That's just one way to put how different Shanghai was. I could also tell you that there is a Starbucks on pretty much every corner. That's also a decent way to describe it. Orla, my friend, put it really well, too: in Henan Province, we were foreigners. In Shanghai, we were tourists. She's completely right.

The trip ending in Shanghai was marvelous. Lots of sightseeing, lots of hanging out with cool Orbis people that I hadn't spent too much time with before, an awesome hotel... it was nice to just frolick around for the few days before we left. I also met Tasha twice, and that was phenomenal. Um, Angie, Matan, Sam, and whoever else: you have one awesome friend.

Because Shanghai was so, so different from the rest of my experience in China (oh, they obey traffic laws -- another huge difference), it obviously got me thinking a lot about all the different experiences someone can have in China and all the different ways one can view such a developing country. I thought about how my kids and fellow teachers in Anyang were just as amazed to see pictures of Shanghai as they were of Canada or the USA, which in my mind shows how detached the two places are. Shanghai is connected with the west in a way Henan Province is definitely, definitely not, and experiencing that contrast was eye opening.

I had much more to say. Good thing I waited this long, huh?

The journey home was 31 hours. I now have 17 days before I head off to Spain for the year. I might continue to update this with more pictures of China and other little vacations I'll be taking in the coming 2 weeks, or I might take a brief hiatus. At any rate, the wonderful world of Emma will be back in action no later than the 24th of August!

(Thanks to everyone who has read this. Really. It gave me a purpose to writing and sharing everything.)