El 12 de febrero 16:42

Well, I just woke up from a delightful siesta on a cold and rainy Friday afternoon. It has rained somewhat frequently here, but usually clears up by late afternoon. The apartments here do not have central heating though, which makes for some very cold mornings. I´m not sure if I already said this, but the hot water is not always turned on. In order to take a hot shower, one needs to start the fire and then turn it off when done. There is a space heater in our room and in the family room to turn on if we are cold. Electricity is very expensive though, so we don´t like to use it too much. Today for almuerzo, I had another food adventure. We had this soup with beans, that was actually better than I thought, but then she brought out eggs for us. I don´t really know-I think it was kind of an omlet-but I ate it. I never thought I would be eating the few foods that I don´t really like here :) This week , our first full one in Sevilla, has been quite busy. Yesterday after school, I went shopping for an outfit for the Carnival de Cadiz this weekend. I believe people dress up like Halloween, but not scary. Speaking of scary, today in class, we talked about clowns and our profesora remarked at how many Americans do not like them, but the majority of Spanish children do. I ended up buying this funky hair piece...I will put up some pictures after the weekend. In the late afternoon, we took a guided tour around the Universidad de Sevilla. I am now really glad that I didn´t take a class there because the building is very confusing! It was built as a fábrica de tobacos, but was later converted into the university. La matrícula is about $2,000 per year! Our tour guide said that it is more common for the students to live with their families. That has seemed to be a common theme here, wish some students living with their mom, dad and their middle-aged son. It seems as if it is more acceptable for los hijos to live longer with sus padres (good news for Sam!). Earlier in the day we went on a field trip to Alcázar, an old castle where the kind and queen used to live. Actually, we saw on the news today the the príncipe is there for some kind of conference! The place has a mix of old and new architecture from the arabs and then from the Christian when they conquered Spain. It is the most beautiful place with intricate archways to lavish gardens containing peacocks! I can´t wait to go back there and explore even more.