Becoming a... Sevillian?

Hello all, and welcome back to my blog! This past two weeks have been pretty packed and I'm excited to share with you guys a few highlights. Also, I am going to try to add pictures to this blog (yes, you may "oooh" "aaah" now at my fancy technology skills).

I feel like these past two weeks I've really gotten to participate in the culture of Seville and get to know the people. I definitely am feeling more at home here and am looking forward to continuing to know the city, culture, and my new friends. One big way I got to know the culture of Seville was go to a fútbol game with some students from the program. It was wild! The stadium was huge and the fans were all singing together, waving flags, and getting upset at the calls. They let us bring water bottles into the stadium, but they made us throw away our bottle caps so we wouldn't throw them at the players. Someone in our group saw someone throw their sandwich... maybe we will have to give those up next time too.

Last weekend I went to the youth retreat with the group from my new church. We rode out to the north side of Seville where it felt strangely comforting to be back in farmland. Our retreat consisted of playing a lot of signs, an "unplanned" zombie game at midnight, two nights of staying up until 3 AM, times of worship, an obstacle course, volleyball, and much more! I really enjoyed how the group was so welcoming to Stephanie and I. I think this time was also valuable for our Spanish because we are learning Spanish mostly from literature, but these girls taught us colloquial Spanish. It was definitely a lot harder to understand them because they talk super fast and don't pronounce all the sounds in the words, but I think little by little I'm improving my ability to listen and understand.

Going back to the same church today and seeing the people who I spent time with at camp felt so great, and we were already laughing about memories from last weekend together. We are talking about getting together and having a game night soon, which you know I'm psyched about.

Finally, this past weekend I got to participate in Carrera Nocturna, which is an 8.5K in Seville. I couldn't believe how many people came out to run, and beyond that, how many people came out to watch. Everyone wore the same orange T-shirt and packed into the streets of Seville at 10:00 at night to avoid the heat. People lined the streets and I enjoyed running by saying "Gracias" to the people who were clapping, or waving at them, or high-fiveing the little kids who stuck out their hands. At the half-way point, they gave out water bottles and had a drum line there to encourage us on. However, after hydrating a little, apparently it is common to throw water really high up in the air at that time and have it land on those around you. Then we got to kick around a bunch of empty water bottles as we were running. It was a wild time, and I am truly so so sore.

I don't know how often I will be able to blog in the upcoming weeks seeing as I am going to be traveling a lot (next week, Madrid, and the following, Rome! I would definitely appreciate prayers for safety.) However, I think I will value the weekends of being here in Seville, partaking in the city events, and spending time with my new friends just as much as my weekends traveling around Europe.

Bloopers:

- Learning that "estoy emocionada" doesn't mean "I'm excited", but rather, "I'm on the brink of tears." I literally have said estoy emocionada probably like 50 times since being here.

- While trying to remember what the word for tail is, I tried to ask one of my new friends if a cat had a tail (cola) ... but what I actually asked is if a cat had a (insert slightly more vulgar word for butt).

- A lady at the church today looked at me and said something after I got a drink of water... but I had literally no idea what she said or if she asked me something, so I just smiled at her for a second awkwardly then turned and walked away without saying anything.

- I find it so awkward to be in the elevator here with someone else because you don't just ask random people here how they are doing, so I will just say nothing and "try to find my key for my apartment" for 8 flights when I only have three keys on my key-chain. One time I just walked up all eight flights to avoid riding with someone else.

- I was really thirsty, so I asked someone if the building we were in had a water fountain... but I forgot the word for fountain, so I just said "Ustedes tienen agua?" and mimed myself slurping out of a fountain, and yes, with the slurping sound effects. Not graceful, but hey, I got my point across, and I even got my agua.

Thanks for reading - hasta pronto!