Setting Goals in Seville

What I call home is a first floor apartment with a wonderful host mom and a student from Japan who is also studying at CLIC, the school where I am taking Spanish language classes. I have my own room, which feels luxurious after having a double at Northeastern the past two semesters. It was strange at first, getting into the routine, as I was not sure what kind of schedule I was going to have. Now, though, I can count on breakfast before school, lunch a little after I get back, and dinner usually around 8:30pm (which is early compared to many other home stays). I get to practice my now less-broken Spanish with my host mom, who corrects me politely when I make a mistake, and always seems to know exactly the word I can’t think of. Plus, now that I can finally consistently find my way home without the beloved crutch of Google Maps, it really is becoming a home.
Most of the other students live across the river in a town called Triana, and are all living in separate homes. This makes it different from the college experience I had, where I was constantly surrounded by my friends in my dorm or at most a fifteen minute walk away. Now, my friends might live upwards of thirty minutes away and I’d probably get lost trying to find them. However, we have language classes every Monday through Friday while in Seville, which is a huge unifying factor in the trip. On top of that, there are always group activities and tours, so there is always opportunity to spend time with other students. Plus, thanks to the culture, it’s only natural to get tapas or café after an event and hang out for a while, since we don’t have to be home to eat meals until late hours. Everyone has been really friendly and eager to get to know each other, as we are all experiencing a little bit of culture shock.

Now that I have gotten to know a lot of the other students in my group, my next goal is to try to meet some locals of Seville. Although I have already made a few friends at the local bank due to some unforeseen debit card difficulties, I don’t think they would want to get tapas with me on their coffee break. Some other students and I have passed through the really lively parts of town where whole streets are filled with people eating tapas and drinking Cruzcampo, but we have always been intimidated to stay there, afraid that our overwhelmingly apparent American vibes would set us apart from the crowd too much. However, with time, I think we will be able to do it, and delve even further into the culture of Seville.