9-13-10

Hola readers,


I am currently sitting in the kitchen of my house at midnight sweating, not feeling tired, and working on a bunch of homework that I need to have done for tomorrow. Not so glamorous…. But I had a really long siesta and put off my homework till the last minute so that’s what brings me here.

Anyway, this past week flew by very quickly. I stayed busy with school and a professional tennis tournament that was going on here in Seville. School stuff is going pretty well. We get several things to do for homework each day and then projects that are kind of going on all the time in the background which means I have stuff I can do for school all the time. I guess that’s how they want it though. Every Tuesday we have a tutoring session with some other kids around our age which is fun. Last Tuesday my tutor was a very pretty 21 year old girl. Some of her other friends were doing the tutoring so we went with several other people to a plaza downtown. It was a lot of fun, and that group of tutors wants to hang out with some of us some time soon. They were all pretty fun and nice people. One of the guys had just gotten back from Texas where he went to visit one of the friends he had made from a previous semester. I hope I can become friends with them.

I also got my first two tests back that we had taken last Friday. The first exam was an oral job interview which was actually pretty stressful because we didn’t know what questions the teacher was going to ask. I made a 96 on that so I was pleased. The next exam was in the grammar class and was also stressful because we have covered quite a bit of stuff. I made a 96 on that test also so I’m glad to get the first round of tests over with and have done well.

There was a tennis tournament going on here in Sevilla called the “Copa de Sevilla.” I went there pretty much every day for a few hours and watched some really good tennis. The number one seed in the tournament is ranked 76 in the world so he was very good. There were also many other good players there. It was a lot of fun. The tournament happens to be at the same tennis club where I’m trying to get my internship. We didn’t have any luck getting to talk to anyone last week though because of the tournament. I’m pretty sure I’m the only student that is supposed to have an internship that doesn’t have one yet. That is going to be a major project of this upcoming week. Now that the tournament is over, we are going to try to talk to them again this week and see if we can work something out. If not at that club, there is another club that is near the school that is more of a gym but also has tennis courts. The boss of that place is on vacation until the 15th, so that will be our next option. If neither of those work, then I’ll be working somewhere else. I really am holding out hope for a tennis internship to work because if not then I really have no idea where I would work.

This weekend we went to a town called Cordoba. Cordoba has a lot of history. It was one of the cultural centers of the world for many years. It was a place where for a time, Jews, Christians, and Muslims all lived together with relative harmony which was very rare for past times. We saw a massive mosque that around 700 years old. It was beautiful. It was massive, and very famous. The mosque was built to not have many walls so it has many small pillars with a double arch on top. It is an architectural marvel of the time period. The mosque also has a very unique history. At some point the city became a Christian city, and a cathedral was built right in the middle of the mosque. So you can be walking through the mosque and then all of a sudden you are in a beautiful Christian cathedral. And the mosque was originally built on the site of an old Visigoth church and some parts of that are still visible. I took a lot of pictures that I will put up soon, but they won’t do the building justice by any means. It is arguably the most beautiful building in Spain. Also, while in Cordoba we walked across a very large Roman bridge and saw some Roman ruins. In addition to the Muslim, Christian, and Roman culture, we saw one of the only three medieval Jewish synagogues still standing in Spain. It was relatively small but nonetheless very interesting. All of this happened on Friday.

On Saturday, I went to the beach in a city called Matalacañas. The beach was beautiful, and I went with some very fun people from my program, Elliott, some people from his program, and then a few other US friends. We had a great time there it was very relaxing. This weekend, I’m planning on going to Morocco! I haven’t gotten all the details set yet so I’m not 100% sure, but several people from my school are planning on going. It does cost some extra money but when am I going to have the chance to go back to Africa or Morocco. I’m very excited and hope it works out.

Ok well, I’m getting tired finally, and I still have a ton of homework to do so I’ll end this here.

Oh Isa and I have been talking more and I think she likes us better now that she knows us a little better.