Hey Screensaver,

Hil #2 aka Hil B is completely showing me up in the email department so I feel that I should send more updates to you , and feel free to post – provided that you fix my mistakes. Look I’m using punctuation and everything. Damn Spanish keyboards.

I survived the plague and am back to 100% now, luckily the advisors who run my program are really amazing and took me to the hospital right away when I asked and the hospital was really efficient – I was in and out of there with a handful of prescriptions in less than an hour. I don´t know what it was that I had, but my friend thinks it was scarlet fever or strep that I let go for much too long before taking antibiotics.

Now I am appreciating being healthy much more and as classes are picking up we are all slowing down a bit. I am doing a LOT of reading in Spanish and I use my dictionary so much the pages are actually starting to fall out.

The housing situation has gotten much better. My roommates and I decided that we were not going to switch families after all for several reasons. 1- we are in a really great part of the city. We are right off of a main street and we are in a safe place. I am not scared about walking home from the bus stop at night whereas some other people have to worry about that, and all the other available housing options were in questionable neighborhoods. 2- most of our close friends live within a 10 minute walk from us and we spend so much time with them moving away would isolate us. 3- We spend a lot less time at the house than I thought we would. After classes I usually go to the library on campus to use the internet, like I´m doing now, or I go to a park or somewhere outside to do homework or read.

The biggest park in Sevilla is a short bus ride from me and I love going there because there are water fountains and doves and peacocks and GRASS which is really rare here because it is dry as a dessert and grass is a waste of water. 4- Our house mom, Yolanda, has actually become more receptive to us. She has been with our program for a few years and one day was explaining to us what her previous students were like. She said they were “siempre barachas” which means “always drunk” and they spoke really poor Spanish and were not friendly to her. So I can´t blame her for being wary of us. Yesterday I saw she was reading a book about Buddhism so I struck up a conversation with her about philosophy and we had a great talk about it and other subjects and we definitely bonded. 5- My roommates are amazing. There was a pretty good possibility that if we moved we would be split up, and we would rather stay together. Both of my housemates (not roommates i guess because I have a single room and they share a double right next to me and we 3 share a bathroom) are named Natasha and they are both Indian. Weird coincidence, right? One of them is a complete introvert and is quiet and independent, but she is so interesting and insightful she slows me down and centers me. The other one is an extrovert and loves being around people 24/7 like I do, I joke that she is the Indian version of me. She is from New Mexico and the other is from Maryland. Somehow the 3 of us are a perfect balance and I really love living with them.

I have been doing a good amount of traveling, and the next few weeks are going to be really crazy with that. 2 weekends ago my whole group went to Granada, a city a few hours from here. The main attraction was the Alahambra, an ancient walled Muslim city with beautiful gardens and huge elaborate palaces. This past weekend we went to the monastery where Christopher Colombus lived when he drafted the proposal to Isabel and Ferdinand to go to America, and we got to see some things he had actually hand-written and the first map of the world that had America on it. Afterwards we went to the beach!

This coming weekend I don´t have school Thurs, Fri, or Mon, so I am going to London! Matt Dinneen is studying there so I am going to stay with him and he will show me the city. I’m going to meet up with my mom’s friend Joanna who lives there too. I have never been to London so I am so excited! The weekend after that I am going to Morocco with my group. I wasn’t going to go because it’s a little expensive, but when I found out that we would be riding camels in the desert, I decided it was worth it. Camel rides in Africa!! I can’t believe I get to do this.

After Morocco are midterms and lots of presentations and possibly a trip to see my sister in Switzerland, money permitting. The weekend after that my mom will be here. I know she is never going to want to come back home after coming to this city though, so say your goodbyes because she will be posing as a student here with me till December. The day after my mom leaves my whole group is going to Paris for three days. Then my grammy will be here for a week, then my sister comes for Thanksgiving, and then, as our dear Cortney says, “holey manoley” it’s December. It seems so quick when I look at it like that week-by-week, so I’m trying to enjoy each day.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you and Mateo should come visit if you get bored in Action Acton. Wyoming’s got nothin on Sevilla.

Since you love cathedrals and you should definitely come here. I like them too, but it always feels like I’m sneaking into them, like I get to see a window into a different time and place, like its a secret that belongs to someone else. There is a little tram that runs in from of the big cathedral in the center and I always think about the juxtaposition of the new and the old. I don´t think the people here appreciate what they get to walk by every day.

I get to do live people watching every day and the people here are honestly a feast for the eyes. The things they do, the way they dress, how they dress, the use/misuse of personal space, concepts of time, what is acceptable to do in public, and so much more is so fascinating.

How are you and Matt doing? Is this the hard part now, when everything settles, but not back to “normal” because you have to figure out a new “normal”? Is Matt working/enjoying working at Middlesex? Are you taking good care of my mom? Not that she needs it, but you know what I mean.

Will write again soon.
Much love
Hil
(NICKNAME!!
suggestions: mousepad, hard drive, printer, Linux…)