Jeréz y la Playa

Can't believe it's already my fifth day here in Spain! My study abroad program, CIEE, has had a lot of orientations and activities planned so my days have been busy. Yesterday we went to the town of Jerez, a beautiful southern city full of vineyards. There we got a tour of a bodega (winery), and it was one of the most beautiful/interesting places I've seen. Interestingly enough, the winery is owned by Jim Beam but still uses its own labels. We got to try their infamous fino, sherry, and brandy. While I'm sure they're delicious my palette wasn't too fond of the taste :)

After the bodega we went just a little further south to the beach. We laid out in the sun there for a few hours and took a dip in the semi-warm Atlantic Ocean. The surrounding area was picturesque and had resorts and plenty of restaurants and bars. My favorite drink here is tinto - a mix of red wine and either fanta or sparkling lemonade. It's very refreshing and was nice to have on the beach.

I don't have many pictures because they're all on my nice camera and I'm unable to put those on my iPad, but here are three from yesterday's excursion!

Sevilla Day One

After close to 24 hours of traveling yesterday, I made it to Sevilla! I tried to keep a good outlook on my hellacious day of traveling and multiple airports, but it was hard. My layover in Madrid was definitely a shock to my system. I tried to talk to at least four people at the airport but they hardly knew any English like I thought they would. I had to find my way to my second airline (an unfortunate 10 minute shuttle ride), find the self check in (which only had Spanish options), wait in line to check my bag (which cost $40 when I thought it was included), wait in line again for my boarding pass because the machine was faulty, and proceed to race through security. It was an experience for sure, just not one I'd like to relive.

My homestay family is great, there's a daughter my age who spends a lot of time studying engineering and then the mother. Both are very nice and patient with my slow, broken Spanish. They say I speak well though, much to my delight and surprise. I can already tell I'm becoming more comfortable speaking and my thoughts are now 100% Spanglish which is an interesting development to say the least.

Today I walked around the "downtown" part of Sevilla with my orientation group for about 3 hours. Sevilla is much bigger and spread out than I thought. Hopefully my familiarity with the city will improve and I'll be able to find my way around by the end.

Right now I'm avoiding taking a siesta like everyone else because I'm forcing my sleep schedule to be normal. After being awake from 3:30 to 6:30 last night I really want to have a solid nights sleep. I calculated that I've gotten around 9 hours of sleep in the last 50 hours, a strange concept for me! Tonight I will sleep like a baby.

Besos,
Lindsay