Sunday, October 25, 2009

Sevilla Orientation

Ok so...this past weekend I had an orientation for AFS in Sevilla. I got there Friday night and met up with Hillary Miranda (living in a town called La Victoria outside of Cordoba and she is from Florida), Maha Sounbel (living in Badajoz and is only here for 3 months and is Austrian), Petra Krizco (living near Malaga and is from Austria), Lisa Unger (who i forgot where she lives but is she is from Germany), Phillip Pfleger (living near Malaga and is from Austria), Christopher Orr (living near Granada and is from Texas), Helmi Liikenen (lives somewhere in North Africa and is from Finland), and last but CERTAINLY NOT LEAST, Birita Poulsen (a.k.a muy guapa) (living near Cadíz and lives in the Faroe Islands (which is a part of Denmark though they have a different language and there are only 80,000 people living in the islands)). The first night we spoke almost entirely in Spanish we went for a walk into Sevilla and saw an amazing church. (During this im going to put randomly in hilarious quotes when they are in my mind...almost all of them by Chris Orr. During that night Chris sat on a bench and tried to say ´´I like sitting´´ in Spanish (me gusta sentantando) but instead said ´´me gusta sientiendo´´ (I like feeling) and another one was ´´¿tiene un movíl?´´ (do you have a cellphone?)...´´no, no tengo un novio´´ (no i dont have a boyfriend). We stayed up till about 3 that morning just talking and hanging out....the next day (Saturday) we talked in Spanglish and Danglish (german and english mix) and we did typical AFS activities and we talked about problems. That night we went out to dinner at a local bar and we stayed there for maybe 2 hours and just talked. Some interesting things we learned Saturday night was that everyone in the world had Pokémon (and still likes it) that we all love disney movies and know them all by heart......everyone know the song you dance the waltz to. Everyone knows the song head, shoulders, knees, and toes, knees, and toes (in english cause thats helps them learn english). I learned that only my family calls our dog dog-face occasionally. That conversation was over the table.....´´Hillary! do you ever call your dog dog-face?´´ ´´Do I ever call my dog what!´´ ´´you know like dog-face....like come here dog-face or hey dog-face.´´ ´´No! why would you ever call your dog dog-face?´´ ´´you know just like a nickname´´ ´´no thats ridiculous´´ ´´hmmm hey chris...´´ (turns out only my family) so that was hilarious. Everyone can speak english to some extent...which makes it very sad that the large majority of americans go through life without ever learning 5 sentences in another language....the truth is we should all be at least bilingual if not more. Everyone there could speak their own language, spanish, english (some fluent, others good enough to say what the need to say and have a conversation) We stayed up till 5 in the morning then forgot to change our clocks so we got up and raced to breakfast cause it was about to close (but actually it was just opening). Today we just hung out and talked more...there are only 9 kids in Andalucia which I think is great because it prevents us from forming cliques and splitting into our separate groups. It was amazing how all of us around the age of 16 could communicate in a language that only a few years ago none of us had known. It was so much fun....especially all the Spanglish like ´´so ahora´´ ´´mi also´´ and just talking in spanish and when we got into a rough spot we would just switch to english for a few sentences. The whole time there would always be one person talking in Spanish talking with a person speaking English (normally the americans always in spanish and the others in spanglish). I can´t even describe to you how much fun it is when we all know the same things such as Pokémon or when somehow someone starts up head, shoulders, knees, and toes, or the song we dance the waltz to, or the super mario theme.....and everyone starts singing it....or what it´s like to sing time after time with a girl from the faroe islands who sings better in english then I could ever dream of. Or how we all know the same you tube videos such as matrix ping pong, or that guy who sings both parts of a whole new world and its incredible even though we live on other sides of the world. Or just simply talking in a language that if foreign to the both of us yet still we are communicating out thoughts and feelings and getting to know each other. It´s amazing how the world fits together....and i cant wait till we have our next orientation.

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