Part Two of the first-week highlights from our summer interns in Seville!
Part two includes sampling vegetarian tapas outdoors on a terrace (The only way to eat tapas), practising rolling your rrr's like a local, glimpsing a massive solar power station whilst beginning field work, and finding hidden gems in second-hand book shops.
The highlight of my week was cycling along the river on Saturday. Our route took us past the Feria on its final day so we got a last glimpse of everyone dressed up in their flamenco dresses, drinking Andalusian sherry and dancing ''sevillana'', then we continued through the south of the city and finally stopped to have dinner (a spread of tapas) at a vegetarian restaurant near the Alameda de Hercules, which was absolutely delicious. It was the perfect end to a relaxed day out - hopefully the first of many to come.
-Emma
I have two highlights. Firstly, simply starting work at the food bank has already been really rewarding and has opened my eyes to how crucial a place like this is to the lives of people who are living on the breadline. Learning about the process of how the bank is run is really interesting, and talking about it with the local volunteers is really good for practising my Spanish. The second highlight is trying to teach my fellow intern, Katie, to roll her rrr’s like a Spanish person! Turns out it can be
pretty difficult to get the knack!!
- Hakel
My highlight of the first week was my first day in the field, where I visited an area of farmland that runs alongside the main river in Seville. The area was polluted twenty years ago from an accidental mine spill and so the soil is loaded with heavy metals. It was therefore a little unnerving that the landscape sounded, smelled and looked so beautiful – it left me wondering how amazing it would be in its natural state. I saw birds I had never seen before, and we drove home with the solar power station in the distance – a dense circle of mirrors on the ground which pinpoint a laser beam of sunlight onto a grey rectangular skyscraper. I look forward to discovering many new things in my time here. - Louise
The best thing I’ve done this week is to wonder into a VERY sweet second-hand bookshop near the Alameda de Hercules, and buy a couple of two-Euro books to practise my Spanish vocabulary! They’re all children’s books so perfect for immersing myself in Spanish without going too far into the ‘deep end’! I’ll be taking them to sunny parks in the next few weeks to browse through…
- Hannah
