ESTOY AQUI!!!!!

finalmente estoy aqui!!!!!

believe it or not, i have wireless internet access in my apartment! i'm pretty stoked about that.

So where to begin..i suppose the beginning is the best place...

After a 16 hour trip, I arrived in Seville on Friday! CEA (my program) picked us up from the airport and brought us to our hotel right in the heart of the "old town." we stayed at the Hotel Giralda Friday night and Saturday night. On Saturday we went on guided "historical" tour with local Spaniards but it turned into a pub crawl...real historical huh? I mean im not complaining it was just funny. We went to this one bar that was just tucked away in a little ally and we got to see a flamenco dancer. It was the most incredible thing I have ever seen in my life. Seriously, the intensity, and the passion is just out of this world. When I grow up, I'm going to become a flamenco dancer FOR SURE! We had sangria...which is my new favorite drink...and then continued on to a few other places. that being said I didn't get back to the hotel until around 2:30 AM but in Spain thats early! People don't start going out until around midnight.

today (Sunday) we moved into where we were going to live for the semester. I'm living with 3 other girls- Rachel (from Northern California), Meagan (from Pennsylvania) and Michelle (from Colorado). So far so good we all get along great. We're all living in one room...which i know sounds crazy, but believe it or not its not too too bad. We have limited closet/drawer/shelf space but its bigger than you would think. Its nice. It will be fun to all be in the same room. There are also two other girls living here. They go to Texas Tech- Texas Tech has a school here in Seville. So all in all there are 6 girls living here with just one woman...our mama!! I'm so excited that she wants us to call her mama and not senora because i just think thats more fun. She also has a dog..a pit bull/boxer mix and hes huge and really slobbery and believe it or not..HE EATS PAPER!!! and he likes it!!!! she was giving him a muffin this morning and then gave him the wrapper as well. its too funny because now we can actually say the dog ate my homework! haha too funny!

Mi mama is a Spanish professor at the University of Seville so the rule in the house is that we are only allowed to speak English in our room and only Spanish in the rest of the house. thats good though because that will really help me improve my skills. She doesn't speak much English...but its good.

what else...what else....i feel like i have so much to say but i don't even know where to start.

Classes start on Wednesday, but we're going to go to the school tomorrow to do some stuff and to try to get our barrings on the neighborhood.

OH!!! you will all be so proud to know that I ate paella today!!! YOU READ RIGHT!! I TRIED NEW FOOD!!!!! it was good....one of my roommates doesn't like fish and is allergic to seafood so i don't feel too bad that i don't like seafood either so our mama made one with seafood and one without. so of course...i had the one with seafood.. HAHA kidding.

I will post pictures soon.

TE AMO!!!

p.s. I have a cell phone here in Spain and I can receive calls for free. If you want the number just email me shiggin1@ithaca.edu