The weeks are rolling by faster, now that I find myself looking forward to each weekend. For a long time, we didn’t have class for many weeks in a row, and the breaks always gave me something to look forward to, even though I was always happy to get back to classes afterwards. Now, this is my last week of CIEE classes, so I’ll only have my three afternoon classes at the university. Of course, the free time that I’m getting will most likely be filled up with reading over the notes from my university classes, as I attempt to make some sort of sense of what to study. But time is flying…
Last weekend, with an extra day off, I managed to finish up my big papers. As well as spend plenty of time in Seville’s various parks, and also go on a hiking trip on Sunday! The area that we went hiking can only best described as very similar to the landscape in “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!” with pancake-stack pillars of rocks all around. It was an extremely unique place, and of course, I forgot to bring my camera.
I’ve been going out at night lately with some Italian friends that I’ve acquired. One of them is in my economy class, and I met the others through him, but it’s interesting to see how their study abroad is similar or different to ours (that of Americans, I mean.) First of all, they are a lot closer to home, and almost all of the Italians that I know have gone home for a week as a break from Spain. The education system is much more similar, that is, they’re used to professors not showing up to classes and one big exam at the end of the class, which are both fairly normal here. The Italian economy, which switched to the euro near the same time as Spain, is also suffering in a similar way – that is prices adjusted to the euro standard, but income didn’t, at least not at the same level. Socially, the Italians are extremely talkative, outgoing, and accepting, which I’ve had difficulty finding in Spanish people that I meet on the street. It may come simply from the fact that they, too, are foreigners in a new city, but I think it has something to do with the stereotype of their culture as well, of being extremely open and expressive. They also have a sense of humor that I can relate to. Like us Americans, they’ve made friends among their fellow countrymen here – when I go out with the my few Italian friends, next thing I know, we’re in a group of ten or more, and everyone is yelling, singing, and joking – in Italian. Perhaps not the best arena for me to be practicing my Spanish, but at least when we talk directly to each other, we always speak Spanish.
Of course, it is now that I’m almost finished my time here that I’ve made these new friends, but I hope that we keep in touch. My current opinion is that there could be nothing better to have in the world than a friend to visit in Italy.
Looking ahead, this week we have our CIEE goodbye party, which will be held at a rather fancy place right on the river that we’ve all wanted to go to, and finally we’ll have a reason! Saturday, an epic park day is planned, complete with picnic, soccer, and games such as wheelbarrow racing and tag. You may have forgotten how fun those things are, but open, grassy spaces bring back great memories, mostly of elementary school gym class… In other news: I will be leaving Seville June 14, to go up to France and stay with Claire for about a week. I still haven’t seen Natalia, so I hope that can happen while I’m there, and we’ll also spend a few days in Paris. I’ll be back in the states on June 25th, and although I know it’s going to be sad to say goodbye to Seville (well, mostly to the friends that I’ve made while here) I’m looking forward immensely to being home!
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