Chanchi's accident, Cacti, and the nicest Peruvian I have ever met.

My flight from Chicago to Madrid was incredible. Not only did Iberia give me free wine with dinner (yes!) I at one point had an entire row of four seats to myself! I had an aisle seat, and when the people a seat next to me got up to sit with their friends, I moved in and enjoyed three seats to myself. Nothing like my flight to Florence, where I was scrunched in the five seat row and couldn't even get to my backpack.

When I got to Madrid, I almost missed my transfer because my other flight got in just in the nick of time.

The flight to Sevilla was filled with Americans kids, all doing my program. We got to the airport in Sevilla and found Paloma, who was with the big CIEE sign. We were walking to our bus when I met Pol (pronounced Pole.) He was from Lima, Peru and offered to help me with my luggage...I was struggling (Diva packer for the win). So a few of us chatted with him, asked him where he was teaching and so on. He lost his luggage during the flight like some other teachers did. Then, he went to check in with Paloma and learned that he wasn't on our list. He wasn't even in our program...he was just a random traveler who joined our group. OH POL!!!!!...I felt kinda bad that he helped me with my bag and wasn't even coming with us...but hey, the bag was heavy....and he offered.

I found out later that Chanchi, my three-legged Chilean good luck pig, was destroyed during the flight. He is now a one-legged pig and is also missing an ear and part of his nose. So sad. But maybe he risked his precious little life so that I could arrive safely. Thanks little boo.

We got to our posh Hotel Hesperia and checked in. I got a nice nap in and then found Sam in his room. We had a little welcome session in the lobby and then some great tapas and sangria cocktail hour. The tapas would not stop coming!!!...the sangria too!!!! After the meet and great, ten of us went to a little cafe and had cervesas. An eclectic group of people, everyone was funny, we had a lot of laughs.

(A picture of the cafe, we were at the table by the red and white umbrellas.)

The next few days of Orientation were really fun. I took a siesta every day and am kind of obsessed with them. Hey, when in Espana, right? During our class time, we learned about how to live and work in Andalucia and tips on making extra money, what to do with our free time, and how to travel around Spain. Helpful stuff. 

I didn't feel like I really got to see all of Seville, considering we spent the most time in a school near the hotel and in our hotel, but that's okay. Sanlucar is less than two hours away from Sevilla, so I'll be back.