Hats off to the housing department.

This semester hasn’t been great just because of the wonderful orientation, there is a significant factor that is contributing every day to the complete comfort I am feeling this semester…………we got an apartment!!! I must say the housing department has out done itself. Last semester Ryan, Greg and I all decided we wanted to live together next semester (present) and so we filled out our forms accordingly and added Ashley (a friend of Ryan and Greg´s from Boston), and guess what? Now we are living in an outstanding apartment 5 minutes from school.... Huge...Almost perfect...single bedrooms...and a kitchen the size of 3 dorm rooms together. So far my roommates have been extremely fun to live with and the way things are going it seems it will remain that way. We cook, which is a hobby of mine, (although not very good at it), but hey we live and learn. I am truly enjoying my living situation now and every once in a while I still go to my last host mums house and have a wonderful dinner, practice my Spanish and feel like I have a family here. I have friend from school living with her now, and we always talk about the great times we had there last semester and how Eddy (my last roommate) and I built our
Flintstones car for the Halloween party. All in all both semesters my housing has been outstanding --Hats off to the housing department!.

A semester gone, a semester begins.

The year 2009 is here, and with it comes a new semester. So far orientation for the new students is over, and we have started our day-to-day routine. The orientation trip to Sevilla was exceptionally enjoyable for me because Andalusia (southern part of Spain) is my favorite area in Spain. It was well worth visiting the beautiful sites, spending the first day in Cordoba, where we saw the impressive mosque, then we continued to Sevilla where we had an interesting night out. The next day we learned about bulls and how they are raised for bullfights and then got to see a Flamenco show. There wasn’t anything that we really didn't get to do. Meeting the new students is always fun getting to know who is from where and why they are in Spain. I think it’s especially interesting to see how different people react to the cultural differences. I got to know some new students really well and hopefully they’ll become friends, and anything that ends up with having more friends is good in my book. This Friday we went back to our usual routine of playing soccer and everyone was out of shape - and by everyone I do mean just me, but “we” have the whole semester to build up that stamina again. So far the return to this “city of cities” has been exciting, and the new semester seems more promising than the one that has passed. All I have to do now is take it as it comes - and make the best of it.