I don't have any brilliant title ideas...

Alright, so it's the weekend again...but this last week went so much better than my first week!

First things first, I went to the other section of the programming class on Wednesday, and it was absolutely perfect! I understood the teacher perfectly, I understood the material he was teaching us, and I think the class is going to be one of my favorites! So, that was exciting.

Also, I found out last week that I got the job I applied for at school next year, as an RA (Resident Assistant) in one of the small houses on the East Side (which is where I have lived for the past two years). So that is also really cool. I'm super excited to be an RA, it's going to be amazing!

I'm slowly getting to know more people here, which is good because it's a little hard to find things to do when you don't know anyone. Walking around by yourself at night is mostly not a good idea... But, I'm meeting a bunch of Erasmus students in all of my classes. And I also found a cool thing through the Sociedad de Relaciones Internacionales on campus. They have "intercambios lingüísticos" (language exchanges) that you can sign up for on their website. Basically they just have a message board of sorts where you can post a little personal advertisement based on what languages you can speak and what languages you want to practice. So I posted a thing saying that I was an American student here for a semester and I spoke English and wanted to practice Spanish, and in the past four days I have gotten more than 20 email responses! It's pretty cool. So I've replied back to some people, and I've already met with two different people yesterday and today, and it's a pretty cool program. Basically, you just get in touch with the other person and meet them somewhere and sit and talk. So today after class I met with a guy named Daniel who is a student at the University who studied abroad in Ireland to learn English, and we talked for like an hour in Spanish. It was really cool because a) I understood him completely, b) we actually had things to talk about (like TV shows we liked, travel, etc.), and c) my ability to carry on a conversation in Spanish was pretty impressive. It wasn't difficult or awkward, and there were only a few times when I had to ask for a word or how to conjugate something. So anyways, that's gonna be a pretty cool thing for me to do. We're gonna meet up again sometime next week and speak in English so that he can practice.

Umm...I think that's about it for now. The weather got a bit colder here these last few days, so I haven't been going out to sit on the beach or in the park. The wind is pretty nasty when it's cold out. But hopefully it will get better in the next few days. I'm still working out a few kinks in my class schedule, but I mostly know what I'm doing, so that's good.

Oh, I got my first phone bill since being here in Spain. It wasn't too horrible, but I'm gonna have to be more careful. My parents also got their first phone bill since I've been in Spain...that one was pretty bad. We realized before I left that it was cheaper for them to call me than for me to call them, so most of our calls have gone on their bill. Well, let's just say that now that I'm settled into a house and school and stuff, Skype is going to be our new way of communicating, cuz the phone thing is pretty expensive! Oh, by the way, if any of you use Skype and wanna chat with me while I'm here, that would be awesome! My Skype name is the same as my email: phoenixrisen41.

So, that's all for now. I'll keep you posted!

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More on Sevilla

Well, things are going great here in Sevilla so far! Classes have been very fun and I’m learning a lot. I know (or knew, or was taught at some point) all of the stuff that we are learning, but it’s nice to review it. Plus we’re going over things in more depth and talking about exceptions to rules etc. It’s very nice. Plus, every single kid in the class had a huge AHA! moment the other day when Pilar, our teacher, was teaching us about when to use the four different forms of the past. She said one thing about one form of the past being about years past, and one that you use when the past includes the present (for example, a year ago versus this morning) and every single one of us suddenly understood. It was the first time it had made any sense to us, so that was pretty cool.

Today we played Tabu (Taboo in English). But we played it in Spanish and it was a very good tool for practicing defining words. It was interesting to see how hard it was, but it was a lot of fun too.

It’s interesting to notice that now, since I’ve been here for a while, I no longer can tell when people speak to me in English versus Spanish. Or say, if I read a sign, I don’t immediately recognize it for being in one language or another because I’m so comfortable understanding both now. It’s pretty cool. But every once in a while it’s weird to look back and realize that someone was saying the entire paragraph in Spanish, and I completely understood it, just as if I were in class back in the states. Jenna, my roommate, and I were walking around the other day after class and we passed a friend who recognized us and said “Hey guys” as he passed. We didn’t even notice for a few seconds and had to turn around and see him behind us when we finally realized that someone was speaking to us in English, which means it was probably someone we knew! It’s crazy, but I’m getting really good at Spanish, which is cool.

Classes finish up here next week! So soon! And then on February 1^st I travel to Alicante. But classes there don’t start until like the 16^th or something like that. So I get a bunch of time to get used to living there and figure out things like good restaurants, bus routes, places to study, etc. I’m pretty excited!

Well, I think that’s about it. There isn’t really much more to say. I haven’t taken that many more pictures since the first batch because we’ve stopped running around and doing touristy type things. But I’ll add some more up there later, I promise.

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