Home Sweet Home?

Alright! I am now settled into my new home, where I will be staying for the next five months. I just finished my second day of school, and am exhausted from trying to take in all of the Spanish that surrounds me constantly. I am living in Sevilla, Spain, which is in the southwestern part of Spain, in the province of Andalucia.
Now! Let me just go through everything in chronological order, because at the moment I feel like I'll be just writing random, unorganized thoughts. So, after spending a night in Boston for the CIEE Pre-Departure Orientation, all of the students went on a plane headed to London (except for one, due to a delayed visa.) Now, since we landed in London, I can say that I have been to five countries so far for my gap year, but I guess that's kind of like me saying that I have been to Michigan, when the only place that I have been to is the Detroit Airport. By the way, Heathrow is by far one of the craziest airports I have ever been too! The security is a little bit more intense than the US, but before security we had to take a train from the terminal where we landed, then take an elevator to the terminal where we were supposed to take the bus to our plane to Barcelona. Quite the adventure!
We arrived in Barcelona, and still had high spirits, despite having little to no sleep. We went to our hostel, and that evening we went on top of a hill to a church named Tibidabo. It was very beautiful, and you can see all of Barcelona and the cities that surround. I wished I had done a little bit more research on the places that we had gone, so that I would have had a greater appreciation for the places we visited.

 

 
The following day we had orientation, and in the afternoon we went Gaudi's Sagrada Familia and...

Walked to unknown places.

 

On Sunday, those of us going to southwestern Spain (Sevilla, Cordoba, Huelva, Cadiz) took the bullet train from Barcelona to Sevilla, which took six hours. I'm not complaining because I know that it could have taken a lot longer!
When we arrived in Sevilla we were met by our coordinator, Henrietta Buxton, and our host families. I was met by my host mother, Margarita, and her two friends, Conchi and Eva. We drove from the train station to her apartment, and then we went to a cafe and had seafood (mariscos!) After that we had lunch at Margarita's apartment, which was several hours long.
Monday (yesterday) I started school (no break for me!) I am in el segundo bachillerato, which is the equivalent of a senior in the United States. I'm actually going to a Catholic school, which I thought would never happen, but here I am! All the students are really nice, its just that they talk really fast (they all have really strong accents because pronounce their z's and c's with a -th sound. Also, in Andalucia, they drop their s's.) I feel like a bit of an idiot at times, like when someone told me that we had philosophy class, and I thought he was saying that the teachers name was Sofia, even though it was a man.
Oh! For classes I am taking history, geography, English, math (Pre-Calculus), economics, religion, and French. I never thought I would be taking French in a different language, but after being in a very disruptive computer class, I thought "Hey, why not!" Today was my first full day of class, and the teacher was very nice to me. At first she was asking me all of these questions to me in French (I think one of them was about how I live close to Quebec) and then she switched to Spanish, which made things very confusing. It was actually kind of hard to tell if she was speaking Spanish or French at times because of her accent.
Although there are a lot of things I want to do, I am taking it day by day! Right now I am trying to get my uniform together, then all of my school things, like books and what my teachers expect of me.  These past few days have not been easy, but I need to view this adventure as an adventure. Not every mile is supposed to be enjoyable, it should be excruciatingly painful (mentally), but at the finish, nothing could be more rewarding!