mama ooOooh

day 3 in seville. today we check out of the hotel ingleterra, where we've been staying for orientation, and move into our homestays. our host families picked us up in from the front lobby at 10:30am. it was weird because everyone in the program brought their luggage down and so everything was crowded, and we left our luggage to go sit in the waiting area. each of the 4 groups had their little corner, and one by one we were called and had to exit the room and head out to the lobby to our awaiting families.

it felt kind of like an orphanage, or even a pet store, and i kept hoping that i wouldn't get picked last. we were joking about how the families probably received a photo of us, and we wondered how many of us got rejected by the first family because of our less than stellar mug shots.

i don't know what to call my host senora! the double last names here confuse me just as much as the hyphenated names do in the states.

hmm, i'm sure a plaintive sounding "mamaaaaa" will do just fine. i just finished unpacking at my homestay; i'll be living in an apartment building for the next 6 months. my room is tiny, and i feel like gigantor on my little bed. i can stand in the middle of the room and touch both walls (this of course could all be a result of my big-ass-ness-ism). hahaha but this should be a good thing, as larger rooms are harder for me to keep clean.

i swear the first thing my host mama said when she opened the door was "this is your room; it is tiny." thanks, ma.

my host brother pepe lives down the hall and across from his room is an empty room where the last exchange student lived. it's bigger, but i think that's where my host dad paints and where they store random things. they've had 11 exchange students so far, and there's this american map with flags sticking out of it and all the names of their conquests, orphans, students.

the apartment is nice. 4 bedrooms, kitchen, 2 bathrooms (get my very own, which btw i just finished christening).

i'm not sure of how my internet access will be. i'm supposed to talk with my host dad when he gets home from work b/c he knows all the technological stuff. i have high hopes though, since the other 2 bedrooms have computers. right now, i am jacking a WiFi connection but i have no idea where it's coming from or if it'll always be an open connection. if that doesn't work, i still have my 40 free hours at la internetia cafe that ciee gave us. just a matter of walking my ass the hour+ there.

hahaha this little lady just came in and said she was my host mom's mom. so i kissed her twice. i've been kissing so many random people since i got here. they do the same thing in santiago, and mason thought i was on crack when i came home and kissed him. my bad. oh yes, back to the little lady. she put on an apron and started cleaning/cooking and i was thinking oh did she say she was the host mom's mother, or the host mom's maid? and then, omg did i just make out with the maid???

it's the abuela though, so phew. that would have been awkward. she said i was hermosa and kept approving of me, which is a good thing b/c i really don't want to get sent back and exchanged for some aryan looking skinny bitch.

here is a pic of my room hot off the press:



my table and bed.

and at the foot of my bed is a dresser and shelf:



it's all marble floor so it's really cold right now. perhaps i'll sneak around later and take pics of the rest of the apartment.

lunch soon. i can hear the two of them cooking, and it smells good. afterwards i'll be meeting up with some other students who live in the triana area so we can walk to the palacio together for our ciee interviews.

we're heading out for tapas tonight. i don't mind getting lost on my way home, but the thought of getting lost by myself late at night spooks me.