The First Day

Finally, finally on the ground in Sevilla. The flight from DC to Madrid was only 7 hours, and as we deboarded the plane at 7:15 am local time, the sun was slowly burning red across the eastern sky; it felt sort of odd given I'd left DC at 5 PM local. Shortest night of my life, and I maybe slept an hour. My communication abilities were rusty, especially in the airport with foreign security breathing down my neck. After a few hours conversing with my house mother and her young boy Pablo I feel back up to speed.

These are both taken in the domestic terminal of the Madrid-Barajas airport. Their domestic terminal is about ten times as large as the Albuquerque airport, and there are no less than three other terminals.

It's hot, hotter than I expected. Edward (unexpected roommate, more on that in a second) and I walked for an hour and a half so that I could get my bearings and by the time I got back I had broken a sweat. It's not humid but the city feels like it is boiling, just like an other concrete jungle. It's no wonder they sleep the afternoon away. It's still comparable to the worst weeks of summer we had this year out here, and nothing moves from 2-5 PM. It's....eerie. Stores closed in the middle of the afternoon, traffic almost non-existent, the steady dripping on the sidewalks as hundreds and hundreds of AC units crank away against the heat. Don't worry though; the gym, Galisport, is open 7 AM on until 11. Gracias a Dios. Priorities and all. I believe it will cost me approximately 100 Euros for three months of use, or about 40$ a month more or less. Not a bad rate at all.

I misread the piece of my housing email that briefly mentioned I'd be sharing a double room. So I was outright surprised to find Edward and Pablo in the apartment waiting for me. Edward is a sophomore from Detroit, and he is really, really cool. I've lucked out twice on the random roommate process. Edward has been here since Saturday, incredibly, because his father's job was requiring the rest of the family to move to Brazil for 18 months.

This is our room. Big enough for two small beds and all our stuff barely. Poor Edward. This was taken at about 10 in the morning. He's been here almost a full week and still hasn't adjusted his sleep schedule.
 He got to head north, into the mountains, with the family over the weekend. Apparently they own a small cabin? Something like a small cabin in a pueblo in the mountains about 45 miles north of the city proper. The mountains looked fairly majestic from the plane, but Pablo assured me they weren't "mountains mountains"--just rollers. Still, the climate and landscape aren't what I pictured. Landing on the outskirts of Madrid I could have sworn I was touching down in northern Arizona or New Mexico. The landscape is dry and mountainous, even this far south. Sevilla is located, or more likely it grew around, the confluence of two rivers, both fairly large. The countryside is a patchwork of dry, barren terrain mixed with agricultural plots. Anyways, mi familia me dijo--my family told me--that we would be heading back to the mountains next weekend for a festival. A running of the bulls festival. Yeah, just like the deal in Pamplona immortalized by Hemingway. I can't wait.

Our apartment is small, six rooms including the shared bathroom, but very nice. Marble floors, small kitchen, an outdoor patio that looks down on our street, almirante topete. It's relatively quiet, even now at eleven at night, the height of the Spanish day so to speak. The temperature has dropped to bearable levels and we just finished dinner. Another cultural adjustment to make: the two main meals of the day are a huge lunch around 1 and an equally huge dinner served anywhere from 9-10. As Edward so eloquently put it "Man. They don't snack. Ever. What are we supposed to eat during the day? There's no snacks in here." If I'm not mistaken, Edward and I are on our own for breakfast, and Reme, our housemother, will prepare the other two major meals of the day, and two meals in it's easy to tell she is an excellent cook. Tomorrow we have a completely free day to look through the city, workout, and later we will be attending a procession in honor of La Virgen, who is every bit as popular here as she is in Mexican culture and Catholicism in general.

All in all, I couldn't have asked for a better roommate or a better homestay family. I'm going to sleep like the dead tonight, and continue to explore the city tomorrow before orientation on Friday.