Sevilla day 3

Today we explored the city a little more and we had our first day of classes. We have about thirteen people in our class and it was interesting to have a class with them. Six of them attend the same college and the rest attend small liberal arts schools like ours except for one who attends USC. We also had a meeting for our trip to Cordoba tomorrow. After we were done with class at 1, we walked across the bridge to the pool that we have a membership to. Although we got lost, we had a few minutes to swim. We managed to get in about 500 meters in about 20 minutes. We had neglected to determine if our lock would work and this was a problem when we discovered that our lock was far to large for the locker. We each had to take turns swimming (We also learned that in Spain you need to wear caps when swimming (or at least with this pool)). The lanes are also labeled from fastest to slowest. Furthermore, it is required to shower before entering the pool which is very different than the US where they say you should, but no one does. After our quick swim we managed to walk back to our residencia to have lunch at 2:30. Today we consumed a soup that was called puchero, that is very popular in Spain with meat, but as we don't eat meat we had it without. It had pasta noodles, broth, and garbanzo beans.

We then took a break during the rest of the hours of the day  -- "siesta." After our break, we went to meet H's speaking partner. Since we haven't had time to walk the city much, we walked around with him and spoke in both Spanish (for my benefit) and English for his. We discovered that it is isn't too hard to get around, but we appreciated the help. We hope to explore the city more on Sunday. We then took a bus with the group around the city to see all the far away parts of the city. This ride was air-conditioned and greatly appreciated. After the ride we walked back to our barrio (neighborhood) very slowly as we had walked a long way and our feet hurt. After the walk we visited a park that is called "Parque de los Principes." It was very pretty outside and the trees were blooming. We sat down on the bench for a while and people watched. We then had dinner at 9:30. Tonight, we had pizza and apples. I decided to try to post some pictures. Our internet connection isn't very good, so I will try my best. We took these pictures on our walk back. The building is an old moorish building that is called Torre del Oro. It is a good landmark for us because we know where we are in relationship to the bridge that we need to cross. We also took some pictures of the river that is called Rio Guadalquivir, but chose not to post them.