Los Reales Alcazares

Buenas Dias todos!

It’s Thursday, JUNE SECOND (cannot believe it’s June…) approaching 2 PM here. Almost lunch time! But my señora is not here yet. Hmm. Anyway I just took my first exam in Spain! It was my midterm…I’ve had 7 days of class haha. But we are halfway done this class! I hope it went well. It was on the history, culture, and dances of flamenco. I’ll be upset if I didn’t do well, even though it was pretty difficult. Oh well, we’ll see!

Yesterday morning was my first day of volunteering. I am volunteering at an elementary school by preparing underprivelaged kids breakfast and then a snack/lunch for later. Most of these kids are gypsies and their families don’t have enough money to feed them dinner, so it’s so important they eat breakfast and have a lunch to take with them. The foundation is called Gota de Leche. It’s such a sweet program and the people are so nice. Anyway the downside is I had to wake up at 6:45 and take 2 buses to get to the school by 8:10. Rough…but worth it. I met the kids (sooo cute) and gave them chocolate milk and some cookie/cracker thing. I also prepared their bocadillos (sandwiches)…all those Wawa skills came in handy after all! Haha. I stayed until about 9:20/9:30 and rushed back to class (which starts at 10) but I was 15 minutes late..oops. It was fine though haha.

After class, instead of studying, as I should have been doing, I went on a tour of Los Reales Alcazares. It’s the castle that the King stays in when he comes to Sevilla. Actually, the castles. Each major king has added onto it. It was so cultural and beautiful. There’s multiple buildings and then beautiful, beautiful gardens. It’s weird, I never thought history was interesting whatsoever until I got here. I think I like tours of buildings or places because that’s when I learn the most. The three kings that my guides talked about were Carlos (the first? I forget), Fernando e Isabel (los Reyes Catolicos – the catholic kings), and Carlos (the fifth I think…) and his wife Isabel. Carlos and Isabel had a cute love story where they didn’t meet until the day of their wedding and it was love at first site, and when Isabel died, he stepped down from king and lived in the mountains for the rest of his life…awww. Anyway, the place was beautiful and I will put up pictures soon onto Facebook.

Still loving Spain. This afternoon I’m going to somewhere a little outside of the city to see what that’s like. This weekend, we’re going to Extremadura with our program. Sevilla is in Andalucia, and Andalucia is a “state” per se in Spain. Extremadura is a different “state.” It should be very interesting as usual.

My Spanish – English switching is catching up to me. I personally think I’m getting worse at both of the languages. But I’ve gotten some reassurance lately! A few strangers (side note: when you sit somewhere by yourself you will have random people, usually men, come up and start a conversation with you. I just let it happen so I can practice my Spanish haha. Two recently have asked me for directions!) have told me my Spanish is really good, as well as the woman in charge of Gota de Leche! So excited about that!

Welp, just wanted to write a real post. Plus I had nothing to do while waiting for my senora to come home. She’s home now, so I’m going to go! Adios Amigos