"Sevilla a tu ritmo"

It's almost been three weeks since I arrived in Seville! I am starting to get used to living here...becoming a true Sevillana. Kind of. Conversations with my host family are starting to flow a bit more easily, my thoughts are beginning to transition to Spanish, and I'm even starting to get used to the eating schedule here, not to mention the vast quantity of bread and meat served at every meal.

After the past few weeks of biking and running around the city, I'm starting to get a mental map of Seville in my head. I love getting up every morning and going on a run around Nervión to familiarize myself with all the stores, restaurants, and other landmarks in the neighborhood. This morning, I actually saw two Chinese restaurants! It's really hard to find foreign cuisine here in Seville, and a few of my new friends here and I have been talking about how much we miss spicy food, so we're definitely going to have to check those out in the near future! I also saw a few bookstores I want to check out. Although my speaking skills have improved here, I'm going to have to work on reading. So gotta get my hands on some tween Spanish novels!

Right now I've been biking back and forth from orientation classes using my Sevici membership. Sevici is a bike service within Sevilla (its slogan is the title of this post - "Sevilla at your rhythm"). Basically, there are a bunch of bike stations throughout the city where members can rent bikes for 30 minutes at a time. It only cost 25 euro for a year's membership (!), so I got on it as soon as I heard about the service. The 30 minute rule is really no big deal, since it's easy to ride for half an hour and find another station to switch bikes and keep going. Besides, the ride from home to class is only about twenty minutes.

Speaking of rhythms, next week will be the start of the actual semester at the University of Seville! I have final exams for orientation tomorrow; can hardly believe it. Starting Monday, I will be attending my cursos concertados, classes specifically designed for exchange students, as well as regular classes at the university. It'll be a shopping period next week, so I guess things won't be set in stone, but it'll definitely be different from the laid-back schedule (or lack thereof) I had during the past three weeks. I'm anxious to find out what classes with Spanish students and professor will be like, but also pretty excited to meet some new people and get into my own set routine.

Meanwhile, I've been taking advantage of all the free time I have right now by going to some shows downtown, trying out different Spanish tapas at various restaurants, and spending time with my host family. The other day, Diana and I chilled on the roof with little Teresa (Paula was sick with a fever...it's currently flu season here) and started having a bit of fun with photobooth!