Urgent Post

I haven’t completely given up hope of updating the blog, but for now I need to make a post detailing a situation that happened today. Today marked the first day of my semester-long classes at the University of Sevilla, which is an absolutely massive building that is school for over 80,000 students. I was happy to finally be starting “real” school, but around an hour ago I walked into the library for the first time, on the hunt for whatever I needed to obtain wifi. As soon as I walked into the room, a couple things happened. First, it felt like everyone was staring at me. Second, I realized that this library was about the size of one half of the computer area at Ellis Library, and it’s totally inadequate for a university of such magnitude. But the third and most troubling realization was that the entire library smelled absolutely horrible. Not the kind of horrible that makes you leave immediately out of nausea, but the kind of lingering, pervasive horrible that you know will make it impossible to spend more than a half-hour at a time in this room. I cannot believe students actually study in this room. In fact, the looks on their faces made it seem like unfortunately, this is normal.

Honestly, I should’ve seen it coming. The symptoms have been all around me this whole time:

Symptom 1: Stylish coats. Spaniards take great pride in stylish outerwear and I’ve gotta give it to them, they do look good. All ages, really. But something I’ve noticed is that pride goes before the fall, and it can feel like 90 degrees in a crowded café, and they refuse to take off their impressive coats. It’s no less than 60 here during the day so they need to downsize in the first place. I had thought that maybe their bodies are just used to the elevated Mediterranean temperatures during the summer months, and they really are cold here. What I learned in the library today is that their bodies have not adjusted. They may be able to hide sweat-stains with their jackets, but it takes a lot more to hide the smell. Which brings me to symptom 2.

Symptom 2: Lack of anti-perspirant deodorant. I was on the search last week for some degree/old spice deodorant and came up short. I simply could not find anything more than a “deodorant spray” or just cologne. I might as well just pretend the shower I take every morning will keep me fresh all day. Yeah right. How can they not have a plethora of anti-perspirant here? It’s over 100 fahrenheit for most of summer! With such a void in the economy, it’s no wonder their libraries smell.

Symptom 3: Lack of ventilation. Whenever my window is open, my senora knows, no matter what room she is in, because she says it’s windy. I haven’t seen one fan yet, and again, I have no idea how this can be in such a warm region. The library is on the 4^th floor of the school, and its air is more stagnant than air in airplane cabins. They have an entire wall of windows that don’t open, and any students that sit by them probably walk out of the library feeling like a boiled egg, and likely smelling worse too.

I know you all don’t read this blog to hear me complain about my adjustment issues, so I want to make it clear. This is not an adjustment issue. This is a hygiene issue, and one that I can only assume leads to many academic issues. No amount of fast wifi is worth the smell of this library, and it was very distressing to think I had just lost another viable option for internet as I walked out…but then the door closed behind me, air began to clear, and I was just glad to be breathing again.