Already March

It is already March and the days are counting down quickly.  86 days until my flight home and much like this past month and a half, I am not going to waste a day.  There is a network in Spain called "intercambios", where you join a group on facebook and send a message saying that you are looking for some spaniards to meet and speak spanish with.  It is a great opportunity to practice spanish as well as get some inside information on where to go and the great places that only locals know about.  Usuallly, you meet for about an hour either over dinner or something like that.  For half an hour you speak constant Spanish where they will help out as best they can and then for the last half an hour you speak all English helping out their vocab and grammar.  I had my first intercambio last night where we went out to eat and spoke a lot of Spanish, to a point where my head was starting to hurt due to the amount of new vocabulary I learned.  I am definitely going to take more advantage of this, trying to meet with one or two people a week.  I think it is the best way to improve my speaking.  This week, in general, was pretty typical.  Classes and lots of soccer filled my week and nights.  Soccer is going very well, after all I am playing soccer is Spain.  I can see the improvements in my game already especially the speed of play.  I have my first friendly match March 11 and I am already getting prepared.  It is going to be a great opportunity to show myself even more and you never know who is watching, possibly the Real Madrid coach.  I might have dreamed about it.  

Many students in the program have fallen in love with Seville.  It is hard not to honestly, this city has it all from great restaurants to running trails.  Besides the unemployment rate, the city offers a lot especially to the younger crowds.  Several students want to move here permanently after they finish college.  I ask the question about missing their friends and family and surprisingly it falls to the wayside especially due to fact that family situations aren't the best.  I think about whether I could move here after college and I don't think I could be this far away from my family.  I am so fortunate to still have all four grandparents, that I know so well and have a great relationship with.  Even my aunts, uncles, and cousins are so close to my heart that not seeing them for a year is hard.  I am slowly finding out that I am a traditionalist in regard to being close to my family.  I will never live in the Northern Neck, let's get that straight but being close is so important to me.  Especially, with a new member of the family about to join in April, I can't express the excitement and desire to be the best uncle/godfather there is.  I am very upset I won't be able to be there for the birth of my first nephew/niece but I will make up for that over the summer.  I know this is definitely more of a journal post but I felt the need to express the importance of family in my life especially because most of my family keeps up with what I am doing here!  I never realized the full extent of how lucky I am to have a family that seriously epitomizes how a family and love for each other should work.  My brother and sister have influenced me in such a positive way throughout my whole life but I'm particularly happy that I have grown so much closer to both of them as I have gotten older.  I look up to them in so many ways, most importantly because their lives now seem to incorporate the best that life has to offer, happiness.  Thank you for reading through my journal for the week, I promise that I will continue my normal blogging here next week!  Until next time ¡Adios!