Last few days in Sevilla

  Seville, Spain
Saturday, March 29, 2008

Last night in the apartment

So we decided this week that we should take a chance and go to Barcelona. We love Seville but there aren't a lot of job opportunities for people who aren't yet fluent in Spanish (other than teaching English). The good news is that I had some subbing work in a school teaching English to kids and adults and I have another interview next week with a company in Barcelona that I have been connecting with for the past two weeks. It is a part time marketing job so I hope it works out. Andy is looking for engineering opportunities in Barcelona and there seem to be a number of companies that hire native English speakers. So fingers crossed... The plan is that we'll go to Granada for a couple of days then take the train to Barcelona on April 2.

So our last week in Sevilla was fun. I taught some classes at a school near to the apartment we've been staying in. The adult classes were good and the teenage kids were surprisingly well behaved. But the six year old girls were a handfull. They were just starting English classes and since I was a sub they were trying to test my patience... One of the chicas said, "Senorita venga!" (Miss, come!); a comand usually reserved for pets... Anyway, I had to explain a few rules of the classroom after that.

In addition to teaching, we finished our classes at LINC and had a couple of evenings out with our classmates. We went out with Dmitry from the Ukraine and some of his friends from Sweeden and Finland. Luckily the common language is English so we could converse just fine, although we should have been practicing Spanish!

Seville Cathedral

On Friday we went to the Seville Cathedral (finally) and it was spectacular. It is the third largest in the world (so Andy tells me). The catholic cathedral is stunning and the adjoining bell tower (Giralda) is beautiful too (it was originally part of a mosque). It is quite amazing how the christian and muslim styles come together in this place. The Real Alcazar is similar in that it has christian and muslim influences based on the different rulers that added to the complex.

So other than that we just walked around and made the most of our last few days in Seville (for now). We hope to be back here again someday to enjoy the lifestyle here. But first things first. We'll get work, make some money, get fluent in Spanish, start a business, and then... well maybe then we'll be back in Seville!