¡Bienvenido a Sevilla!

Welcome to Sevilla! So after months of planning, I've finally made it! My flights took me from Cincinnati, to Philadelphia, to Brussels, and finally, after a grand total of 24 hours of travel, I made it to Sevilla! I secured an apartment before I left the country, so my flatmate Marta left me specific instructions on the best way to get from the airport to the apartment, and things went off without a hitch. I arrived and met my landlord, Manolo, and one of my other flatmates, Oscar. The apartment is better than I could have expected! It's very spacious with a newly renovated kitchen and bathroom, and fully furnished with Ikea furniture. It has four bedrooms and I am looking forward to meeting my other two flatmates when they arrive later this week.


Since arriving I've had several administrative task that need to be completed as soon as possible. The first: register for classes at the University of Sevilla School of Medicine. My apartment is conveniently located about a  5-10 minute walk from the school, so I walked over bright and early this morning to take care of business before things got too busy. All of my paperwork was submitted so I am just waiting to hear back about final tuition costs so that I can pay and officially become a visiting student of the University of Sevilla! The rest of the day was then committed to the essentials: the supermarket, buying sheets and other items for the apartment, and most importantly, getting a Spanish cell phone. Though my U.S. phone still works over here, it is far cheaper and more convenient to use a Spanish phone for local calls.


One of the more interesting conversations I've had since I've been here, and I had it with both my landlord and the man who helped me register at the university, involves quite simply, my name. Pamela Frances Marcott. You see in Spanish, everyone has two surnames. The first is the first surname of their father and the second is the first surname of their mother. After a little investigating, I found this example on Wikipedia:
"If a man named Fernando García Pons marries a woman named Paula Rodríguez Pérez, their child Salvador would be named Salvador García Rodríguez, more likely than not."
Confusing right? Well not as confusing as me trying to explain that no, Frances is not one of my surnames. It is my middle name. It turned into a pretty entertaining conversation :)


Tomorrow I have another list of things to accomplish, so I'll have more to report soon! Thanks for reading!