May 25th-May 27th

By Kelsey Lee and Alex Hammer

We left Raleigh-Durham airport at 3:45pm and arrived in Philadelphia at around 5:00pm. From the gate we got out of, we had to hurry through the Philadelphia airport to get to our connection flight to Madrid. We boarded our second plane at 6:00pm and left at 6:10pm. We landed in Madrid, Spain at about 8:00am the next morning. Next, we went through customs, collected our luggage and boarded our buses and began our 8 hour journey to Seville. After two hours on the bus, we made a 30 minute stop for snacks, bathroom, and 1.5 liter water jugs. Back on the road for 2 hours and then another stop for an hour long sit down lunch. The food was... interesting, but the dessert was great! Then we had 2 more hours on the bus before reaching our destination, SEVILLA!!

Our families were in central Seville waiting to greet us with two kisses on the cheeks. We met our families and then each group parted our separate ways to settle into our homes. We unpacked, got situated and conversed with our families, including giving them our gifts from America. Some students went out to explore the city while others stayed and bonded with their family. Between 8:30 and 9:30 we had dinner with our families. After dinner some students did more exploring, and others went to bed. The next day we woke up around 8:00, got ready for the day, and ate breakfast. As opposed to the normal breakfast in America, our breakfast consisted of 3 small pieces of toast. Then, our families walked us to school.

At school, our schedule was 1.5 hours of studying Spanish language, a 30 minute break, and 2 hours of cultural learning, including 1 hour of exploring the city. At 1:30pm, school let out and we all walked home for the biggest meal of the day, lunch. Usually lunch is a multi-course meal and is very delicious. After lunch, some groups took a short siesta before returning to school for the day's excursion. For our excursion, we explored the religious part of central Seville. The major attraction was the "Palacio de Alcázar". This was a humongous palace with beautiful architecture and mosaic tiles and is where Christian kings lived almost 1000 years ago. Afterwards, we had a little time for exploration before returning home for dinner. Following dinner, many people went out into the city. The past few days have been wonderful, full of adventure and surprises. We feel our Spanish getting better and our vocabulary expanding with every conversation.