Arrival in Jerez

i have arrived safely in jerez de la
frontera, my new city! it is very cute and the people are quite
friendly. in that way it kind of reminds me of buffalo. it is a
walking type of city with winding cobblestone streets, not very good
for running, but nice for wandering around and getting to know the
place. there are a ton of plazas, basically around every corner, and
lots of shops everywhere. there is one main street that runs through
the city which has all the bigger shops. i have already found a
grocery store and a daily fresh market that sells fruit, meat, fish
(of course) and clothing too.

the food has been an experience so far but i´m sure it will get better
once i have a place to live. we had a farewell dinner with the group
before leaving sevilla and everything had fish in it. finally they
brought out soup and i asked if it had any seafood in it. the waiter
said CLARO! which means of course! i was like yes, of course....
ick. i have been trying some new things but even my roommate who
likes seafood didn´t like those particular foods. i hope she will
introduce me to some not-so-nasty fish here. today was the first day
i found a banana - at the fruit market- and it was heavenly.

yesterday i arrived in jerez with another fellow teacher, jessi, who
is also my roommate in the hotel. we started wandering around, and
heard someone speaking english on her cell phone in the plaza. i
thought hey maybe she is one of us, so when she hung up i said hello
and she is another CIEE teacher! haha. we met up with the whole
group and went to lunch, took a walk around the city then got tapas
and beer. they are a really fun group, we were laughing all night,
and we had a great time. it was such a great way to spend the first
day here, especially because the city seems to be pretty dead on
sundays and there would have been nothing to do.

today i am running a few errands and starting the apartment search.
one of the teachers from my school contacted me about living together
so i am going to try to meet with her tomorrow for coffee and to see
the school. my coordinator seems very friendly and i am looking
forward to meeting all the teachers and staff at my school this week.
my first official day is thursday, october 1.