St. Cayetano

Today me and Melissa attempted yet again to go to the museum...let's just say the third time will be the charm. So instead we decided to go in search of churros con chocolate. Which is basically fried dough dipped in chocolate. We eventually found this little hole in the wall place and got some to share. It's a good thing we did because one portion was rather large.

After that we decided to just walk around and explore. This brought us to one of the more well known places in Seville, Las Setas. You can go to the top somehow but no matter how hard we tried we could not find how to get to the top. So we decided to go home, look up how, and try again another day.

 We then started to head to the CIEE center so I could get to class and she could ask about joining a choir. We decided to take a route we didn't know and despite a missed turn or two we eventually made it to the center! I then had my language class, which turned out to be way better than I anticipated! The highlight definitely being that our professor brought us to a cafe and bought us all something to drink. I had a nice strawberry smoothie. She also brought us to a church dedicated to non-other than jolly old Saint Nicolas. Apparently, every Monday people go there to ask for a gift from the saint. 

Speaking of saints, this afternoon my senora asked me to go with her to church when she went to pray to her saints. I decided to tag along to see what this was like. Catholicism is an important part of Sevilla so I thought I should see it in action. I have to say the church was very beautiful with a large courtyard. But I couldn't help but feel something wrong with the place. You know that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach? Yeah, I had that. Maybe it's because I don't believe that I have to pray to saints when I need something from God. I simply need to call on Him and He hears me. Jesus is my way to God, not saints. 

My senora prays to one saint in particular and she prays to him daily in her home too, but only goes to the church once a week. This saint is St. Cayetano and his the saint of good fortune and jobs. As she explains this to me I really just wanted to ask "Why do you need a saint to tell God this?" At any rate it was a good bonding experience with my host-mom as she showed me around the city. Ending our time by going into the candy shop right next door to our apartment complex. 

I also live next to a Chinese restaurant...

The owner of the candy store is a good friend of my senora so I got to witness some hard-core gossip, Spanish style. Complete with looking out the door to make sure the person they were talking about wasn't around. They were talking too quickly and quietly for me to hear the gossip but it was still an interesting interaction to observe. Maybe someday I can go in and get the scoop too!