So much to experience, so little time

I haven't posted in a while. Do you want to know why? It's because I've been super busy. Here's some highlights from the previous week:

• I participated in Solidarios for the first time. Solidarios is a volunteer organization that I am working with this semester. Their main purpose is to acknowledge and give dignity to personas sin hogar (homeless people). Towards that goal, every Wednesday and Thursday night, a group of about 10-15 volunteers prepare soup or coffee and some small packages of bread to hand out to personas sin hogar that they encounter on a specific route through the city. The offer of coffee is a way to start up a conversation with the homeless to better understand them and their situation. I'll be helping out with this organization once a week until the semester is over.

• I had a great Valentine's Day sin novio (without a boyfriend) - YES it is possible ;). I got to play checkers with my novio anciano (elderly boyfriend) at the nursing home, I got a Valentine present from my roommate, and I went out for ice cream with some friends. A successful day, to be sure.

• I met with my intercambios (exchange students) for the first time. When I first got to Spain, I was assigned an intercambio that was learning English that wanted to meet and practice English and Spanish together. Her name is Remedios. Well, I texted back and forth with Remedios a couple times, but she could never meet, so my professor, Salva, assigned me a new intercambio, his friend Enrique. I contacted Enrique aka Quique and he wanted to meet the very next day! So, a few friends and I met Quique for tapas. He is great. He is an elevator technician, about 35, and is very eager to help me practice my Spanish. He is self-conscious about speaking English, so he only wanted to practice his listening skills, but I'm definitely going to try to get him to talk some time. ;) Also (and I think this is really cool), he is a protestant! Very rare in a predominantly Catholic country. We had a very interesting conversation about Catholic vs protestant beliefs. Only 2 days later, Remedios contacted me again, saying that she wanted to meet soon! So last night, I met with Remedios for the first time. She is a great girl and speaks English very well, even though she is not secure in her skill. We met up with a friend of hers from her English class named Jesús. He is an English major, but he also studies Chinese, Italian, French, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin! Woah. And, he's only 18. His English is very good and he is super helpful for my Spanish, because he knows everything about grammar :D He told me he would like to be my intercambio as well. So, in  5 days, I went from having no intercambios to having 3!

• I went to an Arabic tea shop. We did this with Quique after dinner and it was really cool. It was pretty authentically Arabic, seeing as though we are very close to Morocco. I tried 3 different kinds of tea and sat on the floor on a pillow. It was fun :)

• I had 4 exams. That is one exam in each one of my classes. I feel like they all went pretty well. I got my grades back for grammar (A-) and Tres Culturas (A) and am still waiting on Art and Literatura Hispanoamericana, but I'm sure I did well in those classes as well. It is a lot of writing. Everything is essay based except grammar.

• I went to a baptist church in Sevilla Este (Seville East). This included taking the city bus for the first time in Seville, too. That was pretty easy, though the timetables on-line are quite hard to interpret. I really enjoyed the church! It was their 61st anniversary, so the pastor spoke about what it means to be baptist (this mostly consisted of what it means to be protestant, but he thinks it shouldn't be called protestantism because it is the way the church was intended to be in the first place). I think I'll go back next week.

• I'm improving my Spanish A LOT. Jesús told me that my Spanish was very good, with only a few small errors, and I frequently have long conversations (with my señora, with my intercambios, etc.) all in Spanish with little to no confusion! I'm learning tons of new vocabulary and colloquialisms in class and overall just loving the language. It's great.

Today, I'm going to volunteer with Solidarios for the second time and then tomorrow and Friday, there is a school excursion to Toledo, a city near Madrid, to see the cathedral and an El Greco painting. Should be a good time. :)

Hasta luego,
<3 Elena (the name that I introduce myself with because it's easier for the Spaniards and more or less the same as Alannah haha)