Today also marks the beginning of my fifth week of classes, which I have yet to even discuss in the blog. This semester only lasts six weeks, so I'm a LOT behind on the information. We meet for class everyday from 9-11:50 and then again from 12:30-2:10. In the morning we have a language/grammar class and after the break we've had a few different seminars varying from movies and history to the European Union and the food and culture of the regions in Spain... a little bit of everything so that when we start our next semester of classes, we're not morons with no concept of the country we live in. I LOVE my morning class and my professor, Ana. She's an adorable 30something woman with red/maroon hair and weighs about as much as one of my legs. Our classes are ran in a very informal manner, and feel like more of a guided discussion than an actual lesson. Somehow she always tricks us into learning something though. I've learned an insane amount of vocab in the time I've been here: agobiada (overwhelmed... from week 1), callejear (to walk to discover a city -- no real purpose but wandering), guiri (the blonde tourists on the beach that ALWAYS get fried), tener pluma (to be flamboyantly gay), chulo (cool, or a pimp, depending on the context)... notice how there is no common theme among any of these words. This class functions like my brain; a random word or phrase sparks another completely different conversation and then all of the sudden you think "hmmm... how did we get here?!?". Our afternoon classes are taught by different professors, depending on the subject. One of our professors is from Burgos, but came to Western to get her doctorate and teach classes, so she can relay things to us on a Kalamazoo level. A few of the students even had her for a class in previous semesters. After these last two weeks of class, we get a 10 day vacation before starting our second semester, which is ten weeks and will end December second (happy birthday Colin Neil!). When put into perspective, I really don't have that much time here.
Last weekend was busy. We had a Mexican fiesta at the house of Tim, a WMU student. Everyone brought or drinks and we worked like Top Chefs to create a super tasty meal! The house has a garden in the back where Tim's madre set up some tables. She had lawn chairs and tall boxes we could use to sit on too. After the meal, both Monica and I had our boxes cave under us... obviously some of us enjoyed the food a little too much. Afterwards a group of us frolicked in the rain to get a glass of wine before heading to bed for the night.
The next morning we had another class trip, this time to Salamanca. Salamanca is near Madrid, and has the oldest university in Spain and a really big cathedral. The city also has beautiful architecture but is definitely more of a college town. Today in class, our professor joked that students who go to Salamanca to study don't learn much Spanish, but they get really good at drinking. The cathedral is huge, and full of ornate paintings, murals and carvings. Very awe inspiring, even when you realize that each room has a few dead people housed in it. We had some free time to explore on our own and buy things before meeting up again for formal tour of the city, then it was a three hour bus ride home to Burgos.
Thursday, Hannah, Monica and I are headed to Barcelona for a long weekend. We're taking the overnight bus and arriving in the city Friday morning to explore. Thanks to a class assignment from P. Fox, I've been obsessed with the artist Antoni Gaudi for a looong time. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_Gaud%C3%AD) I've been secretly dreaming of skipping the Park Guell for many, many moons! There will definitely be a mega-post after this epic vacation. Hopefully I don't explode with excitement in the next three days!
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