During the first week of chaos and excitement that comes along with moving to a new place, I kind of forgot that I had to attend class every day as well! Thankfully, we had a few days of transitioning where we didn’t have class, but they flew by. I took an Arts and Architecture class, where I learned a lot about Seville and Spain’s history. We visited a lot of museums and historical sites, which was really interesting. It was a lot better than sitting in a classroom everyday for almost 3 hours! One of the first places we went to was Italica, Santiponce. It’s a place in Sevilla were the Roman ruins are located, and we were able to see the community and some houses that were barely in tact. It was amazing to see that only a small portion of the foundation of the houses were there. But that makes sense, considering they’re extremely old! In my opinion, the greatest part of Italica was the Roman Amphitheater. That was incredible because it is still so preserved! You can distinctly see the different parts of the amphitheater. For those of you who are interested – I learned that the top part is called Summa Cavia, middle part is called Media Cavia, and the lower part where people sit to watch the events is called Ima Cavia. Just by looking at the layout of the amphitheater, you can tell that a modern-day sports stadium has this similar layout!

 Another beautiful view I saw that day was a place called Metropol Parasol, or what I call them – Las Setas. This building (if you can even call it that) is an observation deck that is the most unique-looking thing I have ever seen! My friends and I decided to watch the sunset from Las Setas after an amazing dinner at a pizzeria. All you can eat pizza for 5 euros! We decided we had to make that a weekly thing… It is so good. The view from the top of Las Setas is so pretty, you can see so much of the city. Is is especially beautiful at night, because you can see all of the churches and important buildings that are lit up! It was also fun just hanging out at the top, taking pictures with all of my friends 🙂 I love nights like that!

We continued to visit a bunch of museums and historical landmarks throughout Spain in my classes, and I also took a bunch of tours with CIEE. So much history and so many sights, it’s a lot!! One other place I found especially interesting was “Casa de Pilatos,” or Pilate’s house. The tour provided information that was relevant to my Arts and Architecture class, because there was a lot of Renaissance influence in it – which is indicated by a “revival of Rome” style, that shows semicircular arches, and a lot of symmetry in the building’s design. The tile work and mosaics were beautiful as well!

As far as my host family situation, the second week came with a lot of growth! After my fainting incident, I felt a sense of closeness to them. It may have been a blessing in disguise! But they literally treat me like I’m part of the family, which has been very helpful to me, considering I’m missing both of my families! My only complaint is that some of the food is a little out of my range of experimenting. I’m not really interested in eating the octopus and crazy looking fish that they’ve put in front of me. They have also introduced the idea of eating pig snout and other types of weird body parts. I gave them a firm no on the snout, I am not going there!! I’d probably be allergic to it somehow. I’ve tried a lot, but there are some things I just can’t! Maybe next week…