Orientation: Sevilla

Last week was orientation in Sevilla. Wow, what a whirlwind. Breakfast was super early, then we had seminars all morning until a typical late Spanish lunch. On Tuesday, after the seminars we had a quick tour around the city and saw the Alcazar of Sevilla. (An Alcazar is pretty much the royal hotel for the region). It was absolutely beautiful and reminded me how much I loved the Mudejar style of the Moorish culture that can be found everywhere in Andalucía.

In this particular Alcazar, the Catholic King (I don't remember which one), was so fascinated by the Mudejar style that he had this part of the Alcazar modeled completely after the Moorish style.

After the Alcazar visit, we had a quick tour around the city, seeing the main sights. And by quick, I mean real quick like. We pretty much just passed all the main sights, hardly stopping to even take a picture. I feel like everything orientation week was done in this fashion. But it is still a beautiful city.





Wednesday was full of more classes. Good seminars on how to incorporate our culture into the classroom, what was expected of us in our jobs, and a quick Spanish review. Then we had a meeting with a couple of people who did this program last year and we got some good tips from them. Then in the evening we saw a Flamenco show! I love Flamenco. The guitarist was so great and the dancer danced with such emotion and power (not to mention lightning fast footwork).

Thursday after our seminar classes, we finally had free time. But of course, this free time was not used to catch up on sleep or slow down the pace. Instead, we went to the Cathedral for a tour. Luckily, since we have student ID cards from the University of Sevilla (through CIEE), it was free for us. We headed up to the tower of the cathedral and had a beautiful 360 degree view of the city. After the cathedral visit, we kept going and saw the Plaza de España which was gorgeous!

There was absolutely no down time this week. Even in our "down time" we didn't use it as such. What a whirlwind. Even though I did so much in the city, I feel like I hardly saw it. I'll probably end up going back at some point. But for now, I'm glad orientation is over and that I can start to get to know Málaga.