I left the USA one month ago, today

In the past week I have:

- ~Completed the tedious process of extending my visa. Pros: was necessary to stay here in Spain legally for the year, so didn’t really have a choice. The office we had to go to is in the Plaza de España which is one of the major sites to see when in Sevilla because it is an amazingly beautiful building. Cons: La Plaza is NOT so beautiful at 7am, 2 hours before the Oficina de Extranjeros (Office of Foreigners) opens at 9:00am, when you are in line behind about 200 people, most of whom have extreme problems with body odor and happen to Romanian. Not that there is anything wrong with Romanians.

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~ Made a successful bus trip to IKEA. This may not sound impressive, but my roommate Jennifer and I were very proud of ourselves considering that we had no idea what bus to take, where the bus station was or exactly where said IKEA was when we set out on our quest. But we made it there and back and even had time to pop into a nearby Zara. Yay.

- ~Made friends with some Spanish speakers! We have gone out a few times with 2 Colombian students that are super nice and speak obviously Spanish but also great English which is helpful when you want to translate something. Also, we have made friends with some Sevillano boys who like coming over to our apartment. They have kind of developed a habit of just stopping by, but its ok because 1. They are cute 2. They speak Spanish and can help us practice. 3. One of them has a car, bonus. The other night we went out in the true Spanish tradition: we left out house at midnight, hit the bars by one, got home at 5, then went with our friends to get breakfast at 6:30 and made it to bed by 8am.

(our Spanish amgios, Jesus, Hugo y Borja)

- ~Made an appointment for an interview tomorrow for teaching some private lessons! I believe it will be a long bus ride, but since my job is only about 15 hours a week, I have the time to spare on the bus so I do not think I will mind, especially if I can get €30 a week out of it.

- ~Have walked a complete lap around the entire city of Sevilla, well at least the center. The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous for the past week or so. Yesterday Jennifer and I took about a 4 hour walk around the city center. We walked down by the river and saw countless people sitting on blankets having picnics by the river, making out (PDA is huge in Spain, fyi) and soaking up the sun. We have decided the next lazy Sunday in Sevilla we shall follow the example of the locals and do the same.

along the river, where we shall have a picnic very soon!