There was a large group of students for today's activity. It was my first activity with the new teacher. I like her a lot, but she spoke really fast - not sure how well everyone else kept up, but for me, I was exhausted after an hour of trying to focus on her every word. We visited a fun neighborhood organic garden that is tucked in behind a fence between two rows of houses in the old part of the city. Mostly, it was impressive how out of place the space seemed in the otherwise super-developed part of the city. They have a community oven where they meet to cook bread on Monday mornings, lots of individual garden plots and some community garden plots (which are mostly tended by children), a community toddler library, lots of benches for reading, and open spaces filled with lots small tricycles. The neighbors have fought to make sure it stays undeveloped and basically keep it tended and organic.
Between school and the garden is another fun site - the oldest bar in Sevilla - founded in the 1600's. If I had known then how hard class was going to be, I might have stopped in for a quick beer between the cultural activity and class.
In class, we spent the first few minutes talking about how it seemed cool today in Sevilla (barely making it to 60 degrees and a little rainy this afternoon) - but then expressing our serious gratitude that we were not in the FRIGID midwest in the USA - the crazy cold temperatures and wind chill have been on the news here and my teacher was appropriately horrified. She wore a heavy coat and scarf today since it was only in the 50's when she left her house.
In general today, class was really hard for me. So, I came home and spent a little time trying to figure some things out - hopefully sleeping on it will help. If not, tomorrow is another day.
