100 Montaditos and intercambios

So before we get into the details of my fabulous daily life here in Sevilla I bet you’d like to see some pictures from my picnic in the park wouldn’t you? Well here you go:

Liz, Melissa, Alicia, Me, Amanda L., Amanda B., Gilana, Marianna at our park picnic!

Zoe, Liz and I.

 That was such a fun day, I think I’m having another picnic tomorrow with the girls who don’t have many classes on Wednesdays!

This week has gone by quickly so far, I bought the Divinci Code in Spanish and I plan on reading it when I have weird amounts of time between classes to improve my Spanish and get some reading in. I’ve also been wearing my new shorts that I bought here last week. They’re very comfy and according to my mom make me look very Spanish, I showed them to my family via skype in Starbucks, probably not one of my most dignified moments but I don’t really mind. Also, when I wore them I got a “guapa” from my Señora, and she doesn’t just toss those around so I must look alright.

Speaking of my Señora, I had a little bit of an embarrassing moment with her. We were eating dinner and it was a soup with shrimp in it, so Pantera really wanted some. Eating the seafood soup got me to thinking about other ocean animals and I somehow ended up on sharks but I couldn’t for the life of me remember the word for shark in Spanish, which is silly because I’ve totally watched Finding Nemo in Spanish. I must have been staring off into space because she asked me what was up and I awkwardly asked the word for shark, describing it as “a fish that’s not a fish, with really big teeth” and then making the shark fin on my back… She understood what I meant and helped me out, the word is “tiburón” by the way. I was really excited when I heard the word which she thought was hysterical, but she then made Pantera do a gangster dance to the Spanish rap song that came on the radio so I think we’re even for now.

My Spanish for the Health Professional was really great this week, we had a pediatrician Miguel Lazara come speak to the class. Listening to him talk was very interesting. He told us what a pediatrician in Spain does, the different types of pediatricians, the vaccine schedules and finally typical childhood ailments. One thing that was particularily interesting to me is that children don’t get the chicken pox vaccine until they are twelve years old! That seems really strange to me because in the US even before the vaccine most kids got chicken pox when they were very young.  He also told us that there is a vaccine that can prevent diahrea, which I didn’t know. Additionally, in Spain children only go to the pediatrician until they are fourteen, after which they go to a family doctor. He asked how the system worked in the US and I sheepishly admitted that I STILL go to the pediatrician, and that you can go until you are twenty-one, since my birthday is in May I guess I need to start looking for a doctor. Those are just some of the things he told us that stood out in my mind or are interesting enough to share but his whole presentation was fabulous and I really learned a lot. I liked it because that was what I had expected this course to be like so I was happy that it was living up to my expectations.

 Monday night I had my weekly intercambio friend group meeting, we didn’t have it last week because too many people in the group were travelling since Tuesday was a holiday, so it was great to see everyone again. We went to our usual spot right across from the university, 100 Montaditos, for ¡Dos jarras de cerveza y una tapa por solamente 2€!, that is what the advertisement for Super Lunes says. It is really nice though because for a couple euros each we get to sit at tables right off Calle San Fernando and people watch and chat for hours. Very cheap entertainment, but it works best with an even number of people, last night we were uneven so Alfonso and Nolan split the extra cervezas. It’s funny because although we are supposed to speak equal amounts of Spanish and English, they get really uncomfortable when we speak English for prolonged periods of time and the language always switches back to Spanish. We talked a lot about the differences between public/private universities in Spain and American and about life in the US in general. It doesn’t matter what we talk about though, it is always one of my favorite parts of the week. 

Intercambio group hot spot.

 I hope all of your weeks are full of picnics and 100 montaditos just like mine ;)