All Moved In!

We moved in! And we got internet within the first 48 hours!

Moving in has been quite an experience. Obtaining our keys was very overwhelming. We met Manolo to get our keys and he brought along two friends. And our landlords (2 brothers) were in our apartment. So, in all there were 9 people present at our contract signing. This was very different than anything that would ever happen in the US. We still aren't really sure why Manolo's two friends came along, but no pasa nada.

The best part of moving into our place is that we don't have to live out of suitcases anymore, which was a HUGE relief. We each have our own room and so much space to invite friends over. I think we are going to invite some people over soon to show off our new place. Here are some photos!

 

Our landlords are super helpful and one of our landlords is married to an American woman. She is very nice and told us that if we ever need anything we can ask her. It is nice to have someone who speaks the same language to help us solve problems. The biggest problem so far is that our washing machine does not seem to work correctly. I wanted to wash the sheet set that I bought before using it so that they would be clean, but it didn't work out so well. The landlords said that we should turn the machine to a certain point and that when it stopped, it was done. So, I opened the machine and a ton of water spilled out all over the floor. I closed it up, but the water is still inside. I am waiting for my landlord to get here to help fix it.

I can't wait to start school on Monday! :)

Eggs were a bad choice

Last night we had the opportunity to meet some of Bridget's friends for dinner. Their names are Rafa and Angel and they were both very funny and nice. Making friends with Spanish people is an adventure because you have to cross the language barrier. Rafa and Angel were both very helpful at answering our questions and I cannot wait to get to know them better. Rafa said that he will DJ at our apartment because his life goal is to become half as good as David Guetta at DJ-ing.

Today was a long day where not much was accomplished. We had a meeting with Manolo el carinoso (the man who showed us our apartment) this morning during which we expected to sign contracts. In the Spanish way, we did not sign anything yet and all we did was talk about the finances. Apparently Manolo forgot to mention that he charges an 800 euro fee for his services. Divided between the four of us, it only adds 22 euro onto our rent per month and we are still paying less than we expected, but it was still a pretty big shock.

For lunch, Emily and I went to a cafe around the corner from our hotel. We ordered fried eggs and potatoes, which sounded good to both of us, but ended up being a poor choice. We both had bad stomach issues from the eggs. After lunch, we hailed a taxi to move us from our frist hotel in Plaza del Duque to our hotel for orientation in Nervion. It was stressful moving from one hotel to another with all of our bags and it was funny trying to fit everything into one cab. We made it fit and got everything into our new room after being told that we have the most luggage the check in desk has seen so far. After getting checked it, I took a siesta since I was not feeling well. Then we had our first orientation session.

After orientation, we headed to our piso to meet Manolo to get our keys and sign our lease, but we had a misunderstanding about the meeting being today when he said tomorrow. Even though it was not the right time, tonight ended up being a great night bonding further with my roommates. We went to a place called Sloppy Joe's Pizzeria  which is right up the block from our piso. They have pizza, pasta, burgers and sandwiches. We had a lot of food and laughs at dinner joking how Manolo is not so carinoso (kind/caring) with his 800 euro stipend. Tomorrow I have meetings all day then Wednesday we move in! I can't wait!

Excitement!

I am proud that I have kept up with my hope to blog as often as possible seeing as it's day 2 and my second post from Sevilla!

Yesterday was a really great day and I am beginning to feel more comfortable about the city. We walked around a lot again and I feel that I know how to get to where I need to and how to get back. Emily and I met up with Kathleen and Bridget in front of the University so that we could get a few things done for our piso. We went for montaditos (sandwiches) at a place called 100 montaditos that has literally 100 different sandwiches on their menu. They are very small, so one ususally orders a few different kinds. I had on with salmon and cream cheese and one with tortilla de patatas. They were both delicious.

After lunch, we tried to figure out how to get WiFi in our apartment. We walked to Orange and talked with a woman who worked there and the only problem we found is that it will take 20-ish days for them to come out and set it up. We had hoped to visit a couple other internet providers, but it was seista, so we headed back to Hotel Derby to hang out and relax until 5:30. We found that Orange is the best deal, since the other providers said that we would have to have an 18 month contract and it would cost 150 euro to cancel the contract early.

We also walked into Corte Ingles (which is a huge department store that sells EVERYTHING) to look at sheets and towels. Even though our apartment has some, we thought it would be more hygenic and safer to buy our own. In Corte Ingles we could only find really expensive sheets, blankets and towels and were pretty disappointed leaving the store. We happened to pass a Zara Home store. If you know anything about me, I love shopping at Zara and I was really excited we passed their home store. Their sheets are much less expensive and are 100% cotton, unlike Corte Ingles where they were 50% cotton, 50% polyester. We also found cheaper towels at a store called Butlers, which we weren't going to go into, but I stopped to take a picture (obviously...) and my roommates walked in. Yay Butler!

After we got done with our browsing, we decided to take a break on our hotel terrace before getting dinner. We went to Flaherty's which is an Irish bar for dinner. It is literally right across the street from the Cathdral and it was so pretty at night. We became good friends with a two year old Spanish boy who was eating two tables down from us. He was absolutely adorable and kept offering us his gusanos (means worms, but were like white puffy cheetos). We also were bombarded by a gypsy who was looking for money. Emily told her to leave us alone and the woman spit on her and later (when she was leaving) yelled in her ear. So, we learned the lesson to just ignore the gypsies, no matter how annoying they may be.

Today we are just sitting around, hanging out on the patio because NOTHING is open in Sevilla on Sundays. Tomorrow I start orientation :)

Planes y Pisos

I am finally in Sevilla! It took a long time to get here, but I am here and a lot has happened.

I got to the airport in Chicago at 1:30, even though my flight wasn't until 4:40. The man at the check-in counter laughed at me because I had my two fifty pound bags to check and a huge carry on and a purse. He laughed at me while I zig-zaged through the line markers, but then said he was impressed that I fit everything in two bags. Then, on my first flight, I sat next to a woman named JulieAnn who is from Phoenix, but lived in Sevilla for 25 years teaching English. I learned a lot from her about where we should try to live and the struggles of being an American in Spain. She was very comforting, which I needed because I was freaking out. I told her that I was really excited, but nervous and she helped calm my nerves. I landed in Madrid at 7:15 am while it was still dark out then I watched the sunrise from the airport. After that, I took a short plane ride to Sevilla and then after a struggle of getting my luggage off the conveyor belt, I took a taxi to Hotel Derby in the Casco Antiguo zone.

I finally got to meet all of my roommates after a quick shower. Their names are Emily, Bridget and Kathleen and they all seem really awesome! We have a beautiful terrace on the roof of our hotel, so we sat up there and got to know each other a little bit and talked about finding apartments. They had already toured 3 and were not very impressed by any of them. The biggest problem they were finding was that the landlords did not want to set up a lease for less than 1 year and we only need a place for 9 months.

Anyway, we set out to walk through the zones we were interested in living in after a quick bite to eat and some tinto de verano (yum!). We walked around and wherever we saw a Se Aquila sign, we would call the number. We found that most of the signs were either for office buildings or were already rented, they just forgot to remove the sign. We toured an apartment in El Centro that was really awesome. They were brand new, like they hadn't even finished furnishing them yet. The problem was that they were pretty small and we would have had to share rooms, which would have been fine, but there was no closet space. Four girls need closet space for sure, so we set out to look at a couple other places.

We met up with Manolo, a very kind older gentleman who showed us two places, one in Los Remedios and the other in Triana. The first was a bit older, but had 4 bedrooms with a second bed in one of the rooms, two living room areas, a kitchen with everything we need to cook and two bathrooms. The decor is what I would describe as grandma decor, but it was HUGE! The second apartment Manolo showed us was really gross. We all walked in and felt like we needed to shower after leaving it. It reminded me of a fraternity house and was not at all what we were looking for.

Anyway, after all the looking and viewing, we were all exhausted, especially me since I had basically been up for 24 hours straight. We discussed our options and decided to take the first apartment that Manolo showed us in Los Remedios! It is really cheap (much less than we were expecting) and in a great location on Monte Carmello right around a lot of shops, restaurants and cafes. We move in next Wednesday and cannot wait!

9 days!

Wow, I can't believe that I will be leaving in 9 days for Spain. It is so crazy to think that what I have been waiting for since February is finally going to happen.
I started packing today, which is going to be a huge adventure. I am having a lot of trouble deciding what to bring and what to leave. I went through my drawers and pulled out things that I wear a lot from each of them and it is all sitting on my dresser in a huge pile.

Unfortunately this is only half the battle because I hang all of my professional clothing and pants. Also, I feel like my shoes are going to take up a lot of room. I think that I am going to do a trial to see if my stuff is going to fit tomorrow because I don't have anything going on.

I now have 3 roommates that I will be trying to find an apartment with when I move over. Their names are Bridget, Emily and Kathleen. I am looking forward to moving over there and getting to know all of the girls better. I know that it will be a great living situation, hopefully my best so far :)

A couple people were asking about my teaching placement. I will be living in Sevilla (probably either in El Casco Antiguo or Triana), but my school is in Bormujos. Bormujos is a small town 15 minutes outside of Sevilla on a bus. It is a CIEP, which is a school that works with children ages 3-12. The previous person who worked in my school worked mainly with the 1st, 2nd and 6th graders. I will be in charge of teaching English and American culture. If you have any unique ideas about how to teach American culture, I am open to any feedback!!

I know that the bilingual coordinater at my school is looking forward to my arrival. I sent an email introducing myself to her and she responded the same day and said "Ok, let's meet tomorrow!" I had to email her back and let her know that I am not in Spain yet, but needless to say I was excited to meet her as well.

I probably won't update again until I am in Sevilla, so check back in awhile!

23 days!

So, I have never written a blog before, but I figured it will be the best way to keep everyone updated on my life when I move to Sevilla.

I move over on September 22, 2011 and will be there until June 10, 2012. I leave in 23 days (not like I am counting or anything...). I cannot wait to move over. Even though I won't start teaching until October 3rd, it will be great to just get over there.

I am only nervous about one thing, finding where I am going to live. My program doesn't do a whole lot with living arangements. So far all I know is that I am going to be living with a girl named Emily and we are thinking about finding some other roommates. Emily moves over a couple days before me, so she will start looking and then hopefully we find a place before September 28th because that is when orientation is over.

Packing is looking really difficult right now. I am not worried about packing clothes, shoes and toiletries. I am worried about picking teaching materials. I have SO MANY books in my personal library and the program told us to bring one. How am I supposed to pick ONE book out of my hundreds?? I am also still trying to figure out what else to take. Hopefully I figure it out!