Cosas de Sevilla #8

6 March 2020

Dear Friends and Family of The Texas Tech University Center in Sevilla,

¡Hola once again from Sevilla! We are back with more news from The Center. Thank you Lidia for a fantastic review last week!

This week marks the beginning of the second half of our semester. Students in Dr. Sara Guengerich's Introduction to Hispanic Life and Culture, Phillip Guengerich's Advance Language Skills and Andrew Cosper's Beginning Spanish class finished up with their final exams. Sergio Ruiz-Pérez will begin an Intermediate Spanish class with Andrew's students, and Dr. Luke Mayer will continue teaching his Engineering classes, as well as Elisandra García and Dr. Ángel Martínez with the Architecture course. Dr. Jonathan Deen will be instructing Spanish Cinema for the upper level Spanish students during the second part of the semester. In addition to these classes, I will continue with the Survival Spanish course.

As Lidia already anticipated in our previous newsletter, the Spanish students had a fun activity last week. They created authentic Sevillano ceramic tiles. Julio Sanchez, a local professional art teacher, came to The TTU Center to give a lesson on the history of Spanish tile work and teach the students to make a ceramic tile. They then painted a tile using the same technique used here in Sevilla for centuries, which Julio took back to his workshop to cook; it was exciting to see how they turned out when he brought them back!

Also last week our students could celebrate the Study Abroad Day here at The Center. They enjoyed some Spanish tapas and snacks, such as Spanish omelette, olives and picos (bread sticks) and could wear some of our traditional flamenco dresses. They all looked great and had a great time!

Last Monday the Engineering group learned all about the workings of the Port of Sevilla. One of 28 port authorities in Spain, the Port of Sevilla is the only inland port in the country and ships more than 5 million tons of cargo per year. We started the tour at the Port´s museum where we learned about the history of the Port and saw several engineering feats that are crucial to the function of the port. After the museum, we moved on to the lock. We were very fortunate to see a ship passing through the lock while we were there! The lock relies on a series of pulleys to open and close the floating gates that allow the water levels to raise or lower as necessary. We were all impressed to see this system in action as we watched the ship pass through the lock.

Another fun activity that has continued throughout the program is the Sevillanas dance class. A group of students is doing great practising this local dance from Sevilla. They have already learned some of the four Sevillanas pasos, or sets, in addition to some fun Salsa moves. You can tell that students are really excited watching them practice their moves between classes! I'm including some pictures and videos Lidia took so you can see their improvement.

That's all for this week; more updates next Thursday.

¡Hasta pronto!

Myriam

P.S. Enjoy the pictures from the tile worshop, the sevillanas classes, the Study Abroad Day, and the port!