Week 2 by Lindsey Balamut

The second week here in Caceres was so much better than the first. I was able to communicate more with my family and sit down with them to have conversations. My host mom and I sit at the table most nights and have a conversation, which I was not able to do last week. She said I am speaking much better than before. I love seeing my improvement with the language everyday here. I also met a lot of people through the program here during the first week. We all meet up and hang out everyday with one another whether it is doing homework together or going to a café to have some drinks.

            During the second week, we had two tours of historic Caceres and a trip to Sevilla. The historic part of Caceres was very interesting and beautiful. The Churches had really pretty architecture, as well as all of the buildings and homes there. My favorite part of historics Caceres was the story of Isabelle and Juana. I enjoyed learning about their story of how the homes of the people who had power, had the tops of castles on them. Once they no longer had power, the tops of the homes were beheaded. I thought that was very interesting to learn.

            We also had a trip to Sevilla, Spain. Sevilla was an absolutely beautiful city. When we arrived to Sevilla we had a little free time to do what we wanted. Couple of us went to this little restaurant to have some lunch. It was very hot in Sevilla and just from sitting outside for lunch, I was already burnt. After lunch we met up with the whole class and went to visit the Cathedral of Sevilla. The Cathedral was big and beautiful. So much work was put into it such as the art and architecture of the building. We climbed up the tower of the Cathedral, which was 37 levels, to see the landscape of Sevilla. The landscape was very beautiful and awesome to see. After the Cathedral we went to the Museo del Baile Flamenco. The museum was very small and the seats were close together. There were two dancers along with one guitarist and one singer. I really enjoyed watching them perform and dance. Sevilla was definitely my favorite part of the trip so far.