Hola! I have survived my first week in SPAIN. These last few days have been a whirlwind of information, people, and spanish. I successfully made each of my connecting flights to Spain and was fortunate enough to have my bags arrive with me. I met a few people from my program on my plane rides so that was a plus. Me and two other girls split two cabs with parts of my luggage in each taxi. Once we checked in, showered, and got our selfs oriented we decided to go out to dinner. We ate outside at an outdoor cafe and enjoyed the beautiful night. Choosing what to eat was a challenge because nothing on the menu looked familiar. Being that it was the first night i stuck to what i knew and got pork. We ordered a bottle of wine and toasted to our new adventure in Spain. We were all apprehensive about finding an apartment, applying for a residency card, opening up a bank account, and actually teaching kids or adults English. It was nice to know that everyone felt the same way and we all had our doubts about these things regardless of our Spanish abilities.
We were all pretty zonked out so we called it an early night and headed in. It didn't really hit me that I was in Spain until I walked out on my balcony and saw two giant soccer fields across the street full with little kids playing. Yup, I'm really here.
The next day was a big crazy mess. Everyone from all over the USA was arriving and checking in. I took advantage of my free time while I could and explored the city. I found the Sevilla F.C stadium a block away from the hotel as well as this beautiful church that i distinctly remember taking a picture of in the eight grade when I came to Spain on a class trip for the first time. When I returned I discovered my two roommates had moved into my room. The one was from MN and the other from WI. We decided to go out to lunch together with one other girl to get better acquainted since these were the girls I am planning on living with. Lunch was just a whole mess of awkward conversation. Me and this girl who is living in Granada were the only ones talking, or attempting to talk. The other two were mutes with one word answers. I understand being shy and quiet, trust me I'm an expert at it but this was painful. Not even the usual "where you from", "how was your flight", "have you been to spain" ice breakers. Just silence. It got better, we decided, check that I decided since no one would make a decision, to run some errands (adaptor, shampoo) and they walked BEHIND me the whole time. ?????? I slowed down and tried to walk in step with them but it was painfully slow and didn't really help since no one wanted to initiate leading the way. Sigh it wasn't a good start.
Later on we had to meet everyone for a cocktail reception and introduction meeting. I would estimate that their were about 80 of us in the hotel for orientation. That amounts to repeating and hearing the same information 79 times over the course of five days. I could count on my hand the number of people's names and information i retained from orientation. It was intense.
My goal for orientation was to make at least one friend in each of the major cities (Sevilla, Huelva, Granada, and Cordoba). I think i succeeded but I won't know until i end up contacting them again to arrange lodging logistics for when I visit :)
Everyday of orientation was scheduled to the T with 4 hour + long meetings on topics such as Banking, Housing, Tutoring one on one, Teaching Grammar, ect... as well as group lunches, outings, and siestas. Basically it was 24/7 quality group time. People who know me well know that I need my alone time and I definitively didn't get that. The only way i could get some alone time was by waking up a good hour before everyone. So i did. I ate breakfast at 7am after going to bed at 1am. Yes i was sleep deprived but i got to eat in peace. What made it worse was that one of the girls snores at night and leaves lights on. Who doesn't know to turn off ALL the lights before going to bed? I just couldn't understand that. The first two nights i woke up @ 3am (prob b/c of the time difference) and couldn't go back to bed (b/c of the snoring). The joys of roommates.
The informational sections were extremely important. The information we learned really helped me understand my job position and my duties as a Language and Cultural Assistant as well as get me super excited to work with kids. This one girl told us how the little kids will just come up to you and constantly hug and kiss you. They are very affectionate and will look up to you since you prob the first American they have ever met. Learning about what it would be like to teach made me so excited to teach kids. they are really receptive to pictures, maps, books, food, movies, and so forth. I consider myself a pretty creative person so I think I really enjoy my job. Everything that comes before the start of school is what freaks me out.
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