Laundry

Most apartments in Spain, including mine, don't have clothes driers, hence:

I'm so afraid I'll drop my clothes! Although my first load went just fine. :)  Now that the weather is starting to get rainy, though, I'm not sure how this will work!

My days have been full with research (more on that soon!), buying groceries like every day (buying in bulk is not common at all), and hanging out in the apartment with my compañeros de piso Alba and Alfonso. They're from a small town about an hour from Sevilla, and their mom has been staying over for a few days. She cleaned the apartment and made us dinner tonight! Tortilla española, jamón ibérico, and a pudín that their grandma made. :)  It was nice to have a family dinner and some home-cooked food!

New apartment

I've already found an apartment and am happily moved in! Before I left for Spain, after talking to various people from Sevilla and Spain, I had decided just to wait until I got here to look for apartments, and luckily it worked out just fine. I found my apartment using a Craigslist-like website, and it was actually the first one I visited.

My roommates are Alba, who's in her last year studying law at the University of Sevilla, and her younger brother Alfonso, who studies environmental studies at Pablo de Olavide (where I am this year). They've had this apartment for a few years and have rented out this room each year to different study abroad students.

When I moved in, Alba had a few friends visiting - a French girl (whom Alba met through one of her past roommates) and her boyfriend, and a Spanish girl who had also previously lived with Alba. They're all so friendly and let me hang out with them, and it was fun hearing a mixture of Spanish, English, and French. With them I went one night to La Carbonería, a really old bar/flamenco/music place in the center of the city, and another day went to the local market to get seafood and veggies for the paella that one of the girls prepared!

Paella

So my roommates are very friendly and accommodating, the apartment is very nice and furnished with lovely Ikea furniture, and I'm close to the metro and plenty of stores, restaurants, and bars. Very happy with the apartment!

And Popi the pet turtle...who Alba found on the road :)

Documentation

THIS is where I went in Sevilla to apply for residency:

Isn't that awesome?? This is the Plaza de España, a huge plaza built in Sevilla for the 1928 world fair. Around the base are benches that separate a space for each of the 50 provinces in Spain, with a map, painting, and some info about the province. It's definitely one of my favorite places in Sevilla. I was surprised when I found out there are actually government offices in use there!

I've had two appointments there so far and one more should finally do it for obtaining residency!

Eventful first few days!

I'm loving being in Sevilla so far! I think it's a really charming city with lots of history and character anywhere you look. I've been walking ALL over and it's exciting to see in person the streets and places I've been looking at on Google Maps all summer.

Main cathedral in Sevilla...much bigger and prettier than it looks here!

For my research this year I'm working with a chemistry group at University Pablo de Olavide. They organized a conference this year (on adsorption), and the dates were last Wednesday through Friday. There were about 120 people, mostly from Spain, with some from Portugal and other European countries.

I arrived in Sevilla on Thursday, and my group very kindly invited me to the conference dinner that night, and the talks and lunch the next day. It was perfect timing because I got to meet everyone in the group! They are so nice and I am SO excited to work with them!! They've included me both during and outside the conference, helped me with my apartment search, been patient with my Spanish… more later on the group. :)

The conference dinner was an interesting cultural experience - the schedule said it would go from 9:30 to 11:30, but everyone ended up staying until 1 or so, even the old people! And the sessions the next morning started at 9 am. I joined the other students in getting drinks afterwards and I left by 3, which was earlier than everyone else. I asked one of the students, won't you be tired tomorrow morning?? He responded, well yeah. and that basically they'd all been getting so little sleep that week that one night wouldn't make a difference. And when I asked, what about falling asleep during the talks?? He responded, coffee. So anyway, I think that's pretty typical Spanish! To enjoy the moment and worry about sleep/work later.

So besides fancy dinners and tapas (I've had more alcohol, meat, and seafood in the last few days than I've had in a long time!) I've been consisting on granola bars, nuts, and food that other people have left over in the hostel. On the schedule tomorrow is opening a bank account, starting the process of applying for residency, and signing an apartment lease (!). Once I'm moved in I'll start research at Pablo de Olavide!!

Oh and thank you to everyone for the well wishes. :)

In Sevilla now

…and so glad to be here! I got into Madrid two days ago and had orientation with all the Fulbrighters (close to 100 of us in Spain and Andorra). I met a lot of awesome people (including some chemists :) ) and we got helpful info on everything from opening a bank account to how to navigate friendships.

I came to Sevilla this morning on the AVE (high speed train), after a slightly harrowing trip on the metro with my luggage from our hotel to the train station. I'm staying in a hostel in the center of the city for hopefully only a few days while I look for an apartment!

After being in Spain two days my head is spinning with thinking about getting my residency card, finding housing, and trying to understand Spanish, but haven't really had time to get nervous yet! I am proud of myself because I got cell phone yesterday…even though it's a super old-school one with a tiny screen.

I'm also really enjoying speaking Spanish again - it's a little slow and broken, but not bad considering I've barely spoken in more than a year! And even though it was two years ago that I was in Mexico for study abroad, Mexican words keep popping out of my mouth..."mande", "okay"… although "vale" is quickly becoming natural.

More soon! Now that I'm on my own in Sevilla I feel like I finally have a chance to take a breather! :)

A few days until I leave!

I will be in Sevilla, Spain, this (academic) year doing chemistry research on a Fulbright grant, and you can check this blog throughout the year to see what I'm up to. I leave in just a few days and am so excited!

First I'll have Fulbright orientation in Madrid, for all the American grantees - both researchers and teaching assistants - and then I'll be going to Sevilla and finding an apartment, hopefully sharing with other students. Then I'll start research with my group! at Universidad Pablo de Olavide.

This group does computational chemistry research on materials structured on the nano level that have all kinds of applications. For example, they use computer simulations to investigate how such materials can act as "sieves" to separate gases from a mixture. Their work is very related to the research I did at Carleton on zeolites - which are one of the materials that the group at UPO investigates.

I'll join in one or some of the group's projects, basically as a PhD student researcher. I'll have minimal oversight from anyone so I'm looking forward to doing kind of whatever I want!

This year I'm looking forward to getting research experience in an area that I'm excited about, and seeing how research and universities work in Spain. I spent a summer in Oviedo (in northern Spain) in high school and loved it, so I'm excited to be a Spaniard again for a year. I'm also hoping to travel a lot. I can't think of another way I'd rather spend this year!