julie's Path of Growth

One week ago I started my “six-month-studying in spain-adventure” and right now I’m sitting in my room with no wallet to be found and a sunburned ass.

Let’s rewind for a second.

Last Tuesday I took a plane with two suitcases to Seville. Like a “real Austrian” I was not less than three hours early to my flight. For context in Sevilla it has on average 36°C by day and 25°C by night. But when I arrived I got showered by rain.

I got to my apartment, started unpacking and went to get a few groceries. I heard there was an Erasmus party at a club in town but since I still didn’t know how public transport worked here and the fact that I was already up 22 hours on three hours of sleep – it convinced me to stay home. Also, I knew I would have to get up the next day because it was “Welcome day” at the university.

On Wednesday I was late and I was lost. No surprise – for anyone that knows me just a little bit.

Welcome day was fun, and we got a tour on campus. They showed us the gym, the library and all the important offices. It still feels kind of surreal to go to such a big university. I’m used to my Fachhochschule in the center of Vienna, but this -Pablo de Olavide- is big, american style.

In the evening I joined an ESN event to get to know people. I also bought a Sevici card. It’s the coolest thing, where you can bike around the city and get to almost everywhere by paying 33€ for a whole year.

Afterwards we went to a white party on a terraza. Really fun! They did like an open bar for half an hour with Sangría.

On Thursday I got to explore the city a little more, when I went out to eat tapas with two German girls, and a girl from France. (Theresa and Franzi I love you guyys < 3 ) Even though I got a little lost in the old city center it was a very fun evening. Especially when we ordered a dish. And the waiter brought out this in greasy dripping meat, like almost a cordon bleu, but disgusting.

On Friday I went to university again. I figured out that apparently my Spanish course, which I paid 460€ for, had already started this week. Anyways, I went on an ESN activity called trivial that night, which was like a games picnic in Maria Luisa park. Not knowing that that evening my first week would take a dramatic turning point.

Like the main character that I sometimes am, I got my wallet stolen that night around 11p.m. The shitty thing is apparently we all saw the guy that did it, but since he was just sitting there smoking, eating his bag of chips, nobody acted. Once I spotted him, and asked a friend if he was one of the Ersamus people, he was gone, my bag open, and my wallet gone.

“Lucky you! Now you are 20€ richer and also have an Austrian drivers license, the health insurance of a twenty year old girl, and lots of other unusable stuff.”And all I have is a shitload of bureaucratic work…

To finish the day, I must say I was pretty upset. Two very kind people from ESN took me to their local favorite bar. I had the best tapas (yet) and some cerveza. And also I got to ride on the back of a motorbike (bucket list!!)

On Saturday I returned to the park, looked around a little bit, and asked the cleaning personnel if they had found anything. Then I went to the police station. And waited two hours just for my turn. They spoke not a single word of English. (Like almost everyone here) And I could do mi denuncia/my report/meine Anzeige. So what else can I say except it was a shitty experience, I don’t wish it on anyone, especially not on their third day. But on the bright side, I learned lots of new vocabulary in Spanish, like: how to tell someone that you got robbed, how to describe a robber to the police and how to do a denuncia in general.

After the police, I went to a Pool party at the Ocean club which was really pricy. But it was fun to be at a club, and go swimming in your bikini at the same time.

And then on Sunday I went on a beach trip to Isla Canela near the Portuguese border. We went swimming in the sea, played volleyball and drinking games and danced.

So if will try to update on my blog every week, hopefully, if not every two weeks. But here are some of my very important learnings from this week:

• use enough sunscreen
• don’t drink too much sangría
• your rent is debatable, you just have to speak up and be smart about it (at least when there’s stuff that’s wrong with the apartment)
• Five bikinis are too many bikinis for one beach trip
• don’t let your wallet out of sight, or better yet don’t even take it with you!!!!

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