well today is monday and quite an interesting monday! so because i dont have internet at the house which is a great and bad thing emily and i went to McDonalds to skype our moms :] yes that is right mcdonalds! i also would like to mention that it was at 11pm and POURING RAIN! we walked a good 15 minutes to do so... okay so monday morning we wake up and it is pouring! i am so over the rain here, but when it is raining it is not frigid so that is a blessing. i had another examen and that went well. tomorrow i have my last exam for my FIRST CLASS... yup that is right spanish 101 is done with on tuesday! we went to the cathedral for class today. it is the third largest cathedral, but the largest gothic cathedral! it took oh about 500 years to build... can you believe that? it consists of gothic, baroque, arabic, neo-classism, and romanticism styles! we went to the very top which is like 34 stories and i believe 90 kilometers high... the highest building in sevilla. in fact no one is allowed to build higher than the cathedral! i saw where christopher columbus is buried inside, also there are lots and lots of legends about spain! one of them is the following, the outside of the orange patio has two figures of men on the sides of the gates. one of the men has three hands, if you find that third hand you will get married! hahah i laughed out loud at this legend. okay so that is just but i have more :] so that was the cathedral, but then i went to flamenco lessons again today and my teacher sylvia only knows MY NAME? how is that? i am not sure... ;] but she always seems to find me and starts to laugh which then makes me laugh... so lessons are pretty funny! afterwards i met with this missionary here! she is great and we were talking about the prayer walk and much more... i have a test tuesday so i am going to study some more!

ps some things i learned today... DONT ever stand on the corner of a street when it is either raining or it has rained. take my word for it. tonight i was standing on the same corner i do every day right by my school and it was kind of sprinkling and well a car was going real fast past me and i got sprayed by the CHARCOS (puddles)! awesome. also walking across the bridge... note to self... dont walk close to the cars walk against the railing... :] i laughed out loud. today also was the first day that i wore work out pants and my roommates hoodie. i was judged... but i could care less! oh and i met that missionary at starbucks here in sevilla (there are three on the same street this is sickening... sea lo que sea (it is what it is)) and i ordered a lite caramel frap with whip and the guy rolled his eyes at me... apparently starbucks here are not all about the specialties! oh and once again my food had eyes! i told isabel that in the united states normally you arent served shrimp with eyes, legs, and everything else... she said oh well i can get that, but it is less expensive? i was a little confused, i think she enjoys the head, eyes, and legs!!!

so today is tuesday and it was a pretty good day! woke up and again raining... but then i walk outside my FRIGID house and it is hot? okay humidity? my roommate likes to make fun of me because i am always like ‘it is SO humid...’ she like to smirk and say that i couldnt survive where humidity really takes place... thank you california? so i finished class number one today! now i start class number two! i am excited :] after our huge test (the equivalent of a final) we came home and watched the olympics. oh how could i forget, before we went home for lunch at 2:30 we decided to go on a mission to find brown tall boots for me and some soccer kicks for her... we FAILED! apparently Spain doesn’t carry ‘fashionable’ shoes/ boots in size 43? 44? it is tough having huge feet! so i am not a fan of shopping here...

wednesday... once again it was rainy, but emily and i were able to go running right after school! i got a package from my AUNT DEE!!!! (thank you thank you) i started my new class today! so now i am in spanish 102 for three weeks!!!! today was a great day! after dinner i met up with my friends at our local bar/ cafe called Pudilo! We have become locals :] We just hung out and talked (and yes when i say after dinner we finished dinner at 10:30 pm), these hours that spaniards keep are LOCO!

one thing that was hard today was i found out my concentration for my major is not going to be offered until i graduate. what this means is that i am still a liberal studies major, but i have to choose a concentration (special ed) in order to get my degree. so i am not exactly sure what i am going to do because i really only needed to take only those units to graduate! this is a bummer, but i can still get my masters in special ed! they have a concentration in phycology so i am seriously thinking about doing that!

so once again we woke up to the rain. it has rained for oh about 1 week straight now and we still have 7 days of a rainy forecast! isabel (my senora) cooks with these two spices cumin and paprika... i didnt think it was a problem but then it was in every food we were eating so we told her that it was causing a headache for emily. we thought that it might be the cause for her 2 week long headache... and it was a great excuse not to have the spice! ever since we stopped eating the spice her headache went away. BUT today emily didnt have lunch with us... SO the spices came back :[ it was like the base of the soup she made... hahah... that was sad. anyway the day went on and the rain continued to come! i got to skype some special people today and i have skype dates to come which i am looking forward to! tonight’s dinner was great. one it started off with watching the ladies’ half- pipe in the olympics. two we didnt have CHICKEN! three we got to have great new food... and FOUR we had the best conversations! our conversations were the following: us trying to ask what the word is for spelling in spanish, all the different ways of saying ‘cool’ in spanish, us asking her if she knows english (i am convinced she knows english so i asked her)... she knows the word CHICKEN and HI! lol so we taught her the word ‘COOL,’ we also talked about the meaning of ‘mona’ which is cute and people being feo(a) o bonita (ugly or pretty). another topic that we were laughing about was that she kept saying i am a bad kid! she would say “tu eres muy, mala tu eres muy mala” i responded ‘porque’ and she was laughing at me and said random stuff! i proceeded to ask her “tu piense estoy muy loco” (do you think i am really crazy)... no no you are young! this dinner was one to remember! oh and how could i forget about pami (the dog i do not like?) well pami sings! i will try to get it on tape for y’all, but pami only usually sings if isabel sings... i am proud to say that emily and i got pami to sing! dinner was oh about 2 hours tonight!!!

side note: we have been watching the olympics (obviously in spanish) and futbol! so fun!!! we get to see everything live and all the ‘bars/ cafes’ have the games going... SUPER FUN!

Friday was an interesting day. The sun decided to shine! It was very nice and warm so i was able to run for over an hour! I then skyped some more people! We were suppose to go ice skating and surprise our friend because he had never been ice skating! he lives in Indiana and has never gone ice skating? we blind folded him with my scarf and he walked all the way to the ice skating rink, which when we got there, found out they stopped it. we were really sad. while he was blind folded these girls walked by and in spanish said ‘they must be americans because he is wearing a bandana!’ we died it was so funny. after getting home late for dinner we went and got churros con chocolate! it was amazing! so we were able to eat churros con chocolate at 12 am along the river! it was a good night.

well the alarm went off at 8:10 am because we ventured to the Campo of Seville (country side)! the church that i go to here has a ‘retreat center’ in the Campo and they needed help cleaning and painting it to get ready for a camp/ retreat. nine of us from our program decided to go! we got on a train that took us about 1.5 hours north of the city. it was so nice to get out of the city and not to mention BEAUTIFUL! it was so funny because the train stopped in the middle of the train tracks and was like this is your stop. we were in the middle of no where and not even at a train stop, but there was one little building and that was it, the retreat center! so the day began! we painted like the equivalent to 5 rooms and cleaned! It was super fun and FREEZING! because i only have two pairs of pants here i wore running shorts, i froze and everyone was pointing out the fact i was wearing shorts. it was quite funny. they also told me that i would have really strong legs if i wear shorts in the cold? verdad? no se! we were gone for 13 hours. It was great tho to be able serve a church here that i go to. i ran to Pulido (our bar/ cafe to get internet) in the rain to get on skype for a second. when i was there both the FC Barcelona game was on and as well as the Sevilla FC game! I love watching futbol here and the olympics! after returning late we had dinner at you know, 11:15 pm! emily and i decided we just wanted cookie dough after dinner, soooooo we made some and ate it! isabel things we are crazy, but we didnt really care! cookie dough and conversations!

so it is sunday now and i woke up at 12:15 pm. my schedule here is not so consistent for me. i like to have a schedule and i have been in school for 4 weeks now... and still no schedule! sea lo que sea (it is what it is). today i just needed to be alone and quiet. i have been lying in bed all day just reading my bible, doing my devotional, STUDYING (i have two tests this week), homework, sleeping, and catching up on random things. it is still raining... life is good.

this week was harder, but i am glad i am here. i would not say i am homesick by no means, but i am missing people and simply things like:

my friends, family, hot shower, warm house, pasta, hoodies, sweats, and the wilderness! it is fun to live in the city tho and being able to WALK EVERYWHERE is amazing!

I hope your week has been blessed and going well.

amor y paz

katarinna