Where to start?

#thatawkwardmomentwhen you have so much to write and don't know what to include/exclude.

Anyhow, I think I'll tell you about where I live. I'm on the ninth floor of an apartment flat about a 25 minute walk from the school. It's a bit of a ways, but I really like the area. Luckily, I got my Sevici card today (Sevici is a public bike service) so now the time to get to school is cut in half. I love biking around the city (Mark likes to ride his bike around? What?). Wow. Speaking in the third person feels kind of pretentious. Dang it, I used "pretentious" in the last blog post. I need more adjectives. I think I'm okay on the adverbs though ;)

I biked to Parque de los Príncipes today to practice trumpet. Not sure what was more awkward, practicing trumpet in a public Spanish place or seeing an old man urinate in a public Spanish place. Just kidding, playing trumpet was a lot more awkward.

I also got called "guapo" by an old grandma on the street. Scratch that off my list of life-long aspirations.

The keyboards at school don't have apostrophes (or at least I couldn't find one for the life of me), so you'd get: "The keyboards at school don´t have apostrophes (or at least I couldn´t find one for the life of me), so you´d get..." Whoa. That felt kind of like Inception.

Moving on...

I talked to a guy on a fixie the other day (he was on the fixie, not me, just to clarify). Just want you guys to know that hipsters exist in Europe. Surprising, right? He had a tripod and a Lowepro bag, so I asked him what kind of stuff he shot, and he said rollerbladers. Definitely hip. He probably shot rollerblading before shooting rollerblading was big.

Hmmm, what else? I had hot dogs for dinner with my host family yesterday. Spanish food is fine, but the hot dogs were definitely a welcome treat. Another day I had this lasagna with what I'm pretty sure was liver pate inside. Along with a side of toast with what I'm sure was liver pate on it. Today we had a potato/some kind of sea food that I know isn't clams but is rather similar/mushroom soup. They're definitely big on sea food here in Spain. On liver lasagna day, I had bread left over after I finished the meal, so I asked if I could have some jam to finish off my bread. My host mom thought having jam (they call it marmalade, but it's definitely jam) after lunch was the strangest thing ever. I guess that's just a breakfast thing to eat. I wonder how they would feel about brinner...

My family is awesome. I live with Victor, Maricarmen, their adorable 2-year-old daughter Alba, Waka the cat, and Chispa the evil cat. I brought Alba a Tangled coloring book and a set of markers (washable; good advice Alison... they got all over Alba's hands within the first minute :) but she insisted on going to sleep in her crib with the markers.

Vale, how about some pictures.



This is right by my house. I walk down this street to get to the Sevici station/my school every day. The Sevici bicis are parked a tiny bit past that green kiosk.



I go down either big main streets or tiny one-way streets like this to get to school. The one-ways are awkward because the sidewalks are two narrow to allow a bike and a pedestrian by each other, but if you're in the road a lot of times your going against the flow of the automobile traffic.



This is Plaza de Cuba. It's right next to the river and our school is right over the bridge that connects to this roundabout.



On the right is Torre del Oro, reflecting en el río Guadalquivir.



The obligatory "I went to Europe and saw a red Vespa" shot.



These orange trees are everywhere.



Literally.



As well as mopeds/scooters/whatever Rafa wants you to call them.



A view of the cathedral from near the city center. The top is getting restored right now.

Speaking of restoration, my brain/feet need some of that. Good night!