Life in a Spanish household

Today in class we practiced the subjunctive tense and commands, as part of that exercise we had to come up with sentences about what we thought of Sevilla so far. Some of the prompts were: "The best thing about Sevilla is ..." and "The worst thing about Sevilla is ...", this really got me thinking that while I love it here there are definitely some major lifestyle differences. Since all I did today was go to class, get back an exam (which I did well on, YAY!), plan a trip to Portugal and go for a run, I thought I would take this time to fill you all in on some of the fabulous lifestyle changes I've had to make here in Sevilla. Some of these are specific to my house but a lot of them hold true for most families here.

1) You turn off the lights, always. Even if you are just leaving the room to go grab your phone, you turn them off. 

2) I have to light the hot water heater before I take a shower. Yup,  every time I want hot water this is what I have to do: 

The water heater in my kitchen.

• Step 1- slide knob over to the second notch
• Step 2- light match
• Step 3- push in REALLY hard on knob to turn on the gas and stick the match in
• Step 4- remove match and continue holding knob in for about 10 seconds

Pretty glamorous, I know you're all jealous. 

3) I also have to light the burners on the stove whenever I want to use them, that is significantly more scary than lighting the water heater. 

4) Speaking of showers, here you take short ones. But that isn't really a problem because I have a detachable shower head, that doesn't attach to anything, so you have to hold it above your head the whole time you're showering. 

5) My Señora doesn't have an oven or a microwave, so everything she makes everything on the stovetop. I thought that was really interesting, and she makes some delicious things in the pressure cooker. 

6) People walk really slow, I think my desire to walk quickly is one of the few things that screams "American!" to everyone on the streets. 

7) Las palomas, or the pigeons. I hate them. They are fat and fearless. I am always afraid that they are going to fly up in my face and peck my eyes out. 

8) My gatita constantly bugging me to give her attention. Okay so this one doesn't actually bug me...

Pantera, destroyer of bedside tables. 

She is a little bit of a spaz.

Despite all of these inconveniences and partially because of them Sevilla is the most amazing place I have ever been and I love it here. Hope you all enjoyed getting a little look at life in mi casa.