Dinner with Mundo Lengua

By Tori Ravenel and Amanda Hatfield

¡Hola from Spain!

We can hardly believe it is Thursday already; this week has gone by so quickly. Today in school we learned how to conjugate verbs into future tense. We have already learned past and present tenses, so this was an exciting step. Afterwards, we worked on our play, which is based on a classic Spanish legend.

After school, we had free time the rest of the afternoon! Most of us went to a street market where we found all kind of cool things. Some stuff could also be found in every day stores, but at the street market they were cheaper. I am sure parents will be glad to know that some of us had a lot of fun with the awesome deals. Others went home and had a nap to escape the oppressive heat.

Later this evening, we all dressed up and met at Starbucks around 9:00pm to walk to a nice restaurant for dinner with Mundo Lengua. The lucky winners of the previous week´s scavenger hunt all received T-shirts. Congrats!

The dinner was very good and we thank Mundo Lengua for their kindness. By the end of dinner it was almost curfew and we were quite tired, so we headed home right away.
Be sure to check out the pictures. Everyone looked so spiffy tonight!!!

Cathedral and Barrio Santa Cruz

By Mary Karasek and Courtney Berger

¡Hey Padres!

Today was a really fun day, as all of them have been! We started out this morning’s class going over the (immense) amount of vocabulary we have acquired so far. The winner of our vocab competition was Jack Hannon! After our morning break, we returned to class where the cultural topic of the day was everyone’s favorite thing: food!

After that, we continued to work on a play we are writing about Susona, the daughter of jewish conspirator, Diego Suson. When the text was finished, we were assigned roles. My roles (Mary Karasek) were la chica and a dead conspirator and my roles (Courtney Berger) were Christian and authority we are performing Friday. After school, we had our picnics that our parents packed us then met in the plaza by the cathedral. We toured the church and went up 40 ramps (!) to get to the top of La Giralda (the tower, the 2nd highest point in Seville)


Then, our tour of the cathedral, we toured la juderia, or the jewish barrio and learned about the history of said neighborhood where the jews were confined a long time ago. During our free time tonight, we (Courtney and Mary) went shopping and got ice cream (which Spain is Really good at making) then returned to our house for a dinner of pasta and yogurt.
See you soon! M&C

¡Flamenco Lessons and Professional Performance!

By Mason Harris and Hudson Farren

The day started out with classes at 9:30am until 1:30pm. We learned about Spanish grammar and the language until about 11:00am. In the second part of class we learned about the flamenco dance, the parts of it, and the things involved. After class we walked home and had lunch with our families. We then had to meet back at the school at 3:45pm for flamenco dance lessons. So after lunch we all went to the school. Once everybody was there, the group headed to a studio or building that had a dance floor and a teacher. We arrive at the building and are waiting to begin our lessons.

The teacher taught us the flamenco dance and we spent about an hour doing that. It was not as bad as I thought it would be. When that ended we had some free time to do what we wanted. We walked around the city looking for food and shopping. At 8:45pm we met behind the cathedral and walked to a small theater in a hotel. We watched flamenco being performed by 5 people. One sang, one played the guitar and the others danced.

When this was over we had about an hour and a half to do what we wanted after that we went home and went to sleep.

Shopping Day!!

By James Atkinson and Hunter Frank

Today we started the day as normal, getting up at about 8:00 to get ready to go to school. At 8:45am we met up with other kids studying abroad and went to school. At school we reviewed sentences related to bullfighting that we had prepared the day before. Then we went over the rest of the material “El Torero”, and took turns writing on the board. Then, we reviewed vocabulary that had been building up from the first class period. Afterwards, we read an article about different Spanish movies on it, and that ended another fantastic class period.

For the afternoon we had no activity planned, so we all looked around shopping for a bit and went home for lunch. We planned to meet with the group at 3:30 on the corner. After, everyone arrived we broke up a little and Roddy, James, Whitney, Grace, Amanda and Tori all went shopping together. We went to jewelry shops, Hunter and others shoe shops. In H&M James had a little shopping and got 2 T-shirts, jeans, and 2 sweaters (all chosen by Roddy). After shopping, we went to have dinner. Tomorrow we are going to learn how to dance flamenco and watch a professional performance. We all are very excited!!!

A day in Puerto Santa Maria

By James Atkinson, Hunter Frank, Hudson Farren, Mason Harris and David Wieand

We woke up in the hotel, got ready and began to head down to eat breakfast. We ran into some soccer players on the way down. At the hotel restaurant, they had a really hearty and big breakfast with toast, cheese, ham, cereal, milk and other tasty foods. After breakfast we gathered for our activity in the lobby with our entire group.

For the activity we took a bus to one part of the city. We split up into two groups and started the tour of the old parts of the city. We learned about the history of Puerto de Santa Maria and some old buildings and churches. We went into one very old and big church just before a service started. After walking around a little more we went to a little market with streetvendors for about 15 minutes. Then we got back on the bus to go to the hotel.

When we arrived at the hotel we had time to go to the beach and spend some time with the group. We went to lunch at a local pizza place. It took a while for us to get out food because of the big group the we brought in. We pretty much ordered cheese pizza and it was really good. After that we either sunbathed on the beach or we walked around the city. Then, we met back at the hotel and got on the bus to leave for Seville.

The ride home seemed shorter than the first one because everyone fell asleep. We arrived somewhere outside the old city and walked to the Starbucks that we met at before the trip. Then, everyone went back to their apartments and slept, because we were all tired.

At 9:00pm we woke up from our nap and ate dinner. Then we went out and met up with everyone and went around the city until 11:00pm. We all went home so we would be home before 11:30pm. Finally, we went to sleep.

Cadiz and Puerto Santa María

Sarturday, May 31

By Damien Jiang and Matt Hamm

Today was our first day in Cadiz. The group met at 11am at Starbucks in Puerta Jerez. After everyone got there, we boarded the bus to Cadiz. The trip was only a short hour and a half; and felt like in no time at all, that we were getting of the bus. After getting off the bus, the group walked toward La Torre Tavira. The tower was very tall and you could see for miles around. Inside the tower, there were mirrors set up so that if you focuse them just right, you can see the city from inside the tower.

Then, we took a long walk to the beach. We passed miles of walls used to keep the sea out of the town, and there were large concrete cubes in front of them to prevent the waves from directly hitting the wall. The beach was very nice- the sand was warm and fire, but the water was freezinf cold. Most people did not spend much time, if any, in the water, but sunbathed or napped instead. Tripp and I (Damien) built a sand castle, but we destroyed it before leaving.

While waiting for the bus to take us back to Santa Maria, where the hotel is, many of us bought ice cream. Then, we took the bus to the hotel. After a few hours of talking and TV, we ate dinner in the hotel restaurant. It was a three course meal of salad, entrée, and dessert- all pre-ordered by the teachers. There was also bread on the side. The entrée was spaghetti for vegetarians and chicken and french fries for others. The dinner was fairly good, but not the best I´ve ever had in Spain. After dinner, some of us went to the beach behind our hotel, walking around and taking pictures. When we returned to the hotel, some people played games while others watched TV and talked. At 11:30, we returned to our rooms to get ready for another day at the beach.

A DAY IN THE PARQUE

By Whitney Strong and Roddy Moye
5.30.2008

At 11:00 AM we all met at Starbucks in La Puerta de Jerez. We walked a bit and then took the bus to the Torre de los Perdigones. We got a wonderful view of Seville. The city was reflected on a disc inside the tower via a mirror (a camera obscura). We could see EVERYTHING. We went out side the tower onto a balcony and could see all of Seville spread out before us.

Then we walked a really long way to the park. We walked across the Barqueta Bridge which spans the Guadalquivir River. We arrived at the Parque del Alamillo and had lunch. We brought lots of drinks and snacks and also the “pic-nic”s our families made for us. The day was so beautiful and after spending lots of time in the park, we took the bus home. We took a short stop at the Plaza de Nueva. We had free time after that but all the stores were closed due to the holiday.

Tomorrow we are going to the beach in Cadiz! Adios!

P.S. from Traña and Gooding - sorry there are no videos but we are in Cadiz/Puerto de Santa Maria and the internet services are intermittent. We cant seem to stay on line long enough for a video to upload. We´ll keep trying and will attach more later.