1st Week of classes and Cordoba

 Well I have successfully completed my first week of real classes in Spanish in Sevilla! This week has been a really fun and exciting, but exhausting week with going to my new classes and having to learn everything in Spanish! To top off such a great week, our Liberal Arts program took us to Cordoba which is a city a little bit north of here. Now its Sunday and I'm for sure using it as a day of rest. I really don't know if I'll get out of bed! Ok, so even though I said my classes are tiring, I didn't say that I don't have a pretty awesome schedule. I'm only signed up for 4 classes and take 2 on mon/wed and 2 on tues/thurs.

Monday/Wednesday Classes
Las Escritores Mujeres del siglo XX: On Monday, my first class begins at 11 and goes til 1245. This is my favorite class by far. It is a women writer class, but more like a feminist class. I don't like this class because its all about "girl power", but I love the teacher and the topics we talk about are so interesting. Like this week we've talked about Saudi Arabia and how they still don't let girls play sports, about Spain and how all the men are still machistos (which is why they think its ok to look and stare and hoot and holler), and also about how women are still stoned to death in some countries. It's such a great class and i'm obsessed with the teacher. For that class we have to read two books. I'm already starting to read one and its really good. It's about a girl who comes to barcelona to study abroad and live with her family (i think she's an orphan, not too sure though, reading in spanish is a lot harder!).
Cine: right after my class on women writers, I leave the palacio (CIEE building) and head straight to the University of Sevilla. It is the most beautiful university I have ever seen! Everything is marble and there are statues everywhere. It really reminds me of Hogwarts lol. Anyways, I'm taking a cinema class at the university and have the cutest professor of my life. He looks just like Meredith Grey's dad in Grey's Anatomy and is so nice! We're going to be watching movies that highlight the different time periods of Spain's history, like from Franco period, the civil war, etc. Right now we're watching a movie from like 2002 that highlights spain's musicals. Its called Otro lado de la cama (other side of the bed) and is so hilarious. Its about this girl who's sleeping with her best friends boyfriend and just all these funny things keep happening. I really like it. And their songs are really funny. "Las chicas son guerrrreeerrasss!" (the girls are warriors!)

One of the many patios in la universidad

The front of the university. It actually used to be a tobacco factory. There is a movie called Carmen that takes place in the University (we're going to be watching it in my cine class!)

Tuesday/Thursday Classes:
Las Tres Culturas: Musulmanes, Judios, y Cristianos: (3 cultures of Muslims, Jews and Christains). This class is going to be a little bit harder for me. The teacher is working on his doctorate and has studied at UNC in the US and really knows his stuff. Although its going to be a tough class I think it'll be interesting. Basically every night we have assigned pages to read, then the next day we talk about them. The first night of reading was awful. It was like 20 pages in Spanish about like the Roman gods and how their religion led to/differentiated with the 3 religions we're learning about. Oh! It was so hard and took me so long to read. But i got through it and the next day when we talked about it, I felt a lot better because he was able to explain a lot of what we didn't understand.
Fonetica y Fonologia: (Phonetics and Phonology): All of my classes that I'm taking this semester fulfill my Spanish double major. I do have to take a phonetics and phonology class to fulfill my major, but I also wanted to take it because that's all Speech Pathology right there. I've already taken the same class, except in English, and also a linguistics class which has similar ties. Although this class will be really difficult trying to pick out the different phonemes in the spanish speech, I think it's going to be so interesting. I must say i'm also so thankful that I've already taken the class in English because I think I'd be lost with out it.

Laura's Birthday Party
Thursday was Laura's birthday but Friday was her birthday party. It's weird because she didn't get any gifts or anything until Friday. And when I would wish her happy birthday, her and her family would say, well it's not really anything special because her birthday party isn't until Friday. Kinda different huh? I mean in America, I like to celebrate my birthday for a week! lol. Anyways, instead of ChuckECheese as the cool place to go for bdays, Burger King is where its at. Thats where her friends have had theirs and thats where Laura had her birthday party. It's pretty cool because BK gives the bday girl a gift (a dvd!) and along with every person getting their own happy meal, they bring out cake and ice cream too! After that we were going to go watch a movie (tangled in english/enredados en espanol) but the only time that was left was a time that was in 3D. This didn't work out because Laura gets sick in 3d movies. I was kinda bummed because I wanted to see it so bad, but then Celia y Juan Louis paid for me and David (their 17 year old son) to go see it. It was SO good! O my goodness I'm obsessed! The whole movie was in spanish and I was so proud because I could understand everything that was going on. Seriously it was so fun and such a good movie! If you haven't seen it yet, I highly suggest it! here are a few pictures from the bday party

Celia y yo!

CORDOBA!
Saturday morning I got up early (730am is early for Sevilla ok?!) and joined my group to take the bus to Cordoba. Cordoba is a smaller town, but has lots of historic value and looks very similar to Sevilla. I really enjoyed it and loved the city! I think it'll be better to post some pictures and then explain what everything I got to see was!

This is the bridge that leads into Cordoba. Its the oldest Roman bridge in Spain and also crosses the same river that Sevilla is situated on.

A fort on the river. There were little forts all along the river like this to keep out the intruders who tried to attack Cordoba.

Skinny streets just like Sevilla. Also, note the potted plants hanging up on the walls. These were everywhere! 

I guess Cordoba is in the running for cultural center of Europe in 2016. Thats why they have all the potted plants!

In the king and queens palace for when they came to Cordoba (Just like the alcazar in Sevilla). 1/4 of this place is actual building, 3/4 is garden. So pretty.

One of the many fountains there.

After the alcazar of Cordoba we had free time so we went to eat our bocadillas (picnic lunches) and then found a local tapas restaurant. This place was so awesome! On the patio there were people playing guitars and inside was a bull themed restaurant which had 2 HUGE bull heads just chillen on the wall. To top it off, you could order Bull Tail for 15 dollars. Yuck! After that we went to the Mezquita/Catedral of Cordoba. I've heard it called both things so i'm still not sure what it's called. I'm not sure because that building has been 3 things in its life time. At first, it was a place that the Romans lived in (we were able to look down these stairs at the old Roman tiles that consist of the basement). Next, the Muslims came in and built the most beautiful building on top of the Romans' building. It's probably as long as a football field, and its width is also as wide as the length of a football field. There are no closed off rooms, just all open areas. I feel like photos couldn't do it justice, so i tried to take a video of it. Lets see if this can do any better!

So now you've seen the Muslim area of the mezquita which is so awesome. During the 10th century, the Christians came in, took over, and decided to build their catedral right in the same place as the mosque is. So literally you're in the muslim influenced area and can take one step in the other direction and see entirely different architecture from the christians. Here are some pictures of the catedral.

As you can see, the bottom half is from Muslim influence and the top is definitely Christian influence! So awesome!