Sitting in a café, by Anna Mae Frey

My favorite experiences in Sevilla were when I would go to a coffee shop and sit for a while. I would take the metro from where I live in Nervion to the Puerta Jerez stop and stop at a coffee shop in that area. I always enjoyed the peace and quiet, and it gave me some time to reflect on my experiences in Sevilla. As my Spanish is not too good, I would get nervous about ordering in Spanish, but as I got more used to the environment, speaking a little Spanish no longer made me anxious. I enjoyed people watching from the windows facing the cathedral, even though a large majority of those people were tourists. Listening to other’s conversations was especially interesting once we learned about the linguistic similarities between languages and the universality of emotion. Even if I could not understand word for word what people were saying, I could often understand through their facial expressions, body language, and tone if it were a happy conversation or a stressful or sad one. I took the picture included when I was sitting in a café finishing up from presentation for my chapter presentation on cultural cognition. It was a sunny and warm day, and I think the picture shows that.