Short note

Tonight we met with our compañeros de conversación. It's a way the program helps us to interact more with people outside of PRESHCO. The compañeros are comprised of either current UCO students or recent graduates. I had a great time. I'm actually starting to believe that my spoken Spanish is pretty good. I got a lot of compliments from the various people I talked to. Maybe my goal of one day becoming fluent in Spanish isn't out of my reach. I hope I end up hanging with some of the people again. They all seemed pretty cool.
I love my Sevillana dance class. It is so much fun. The class will probably be one of the things I miss most about Spain when I have to leave in December. It's surprisingly hard. I always leave class sweating. 50% of my sweat is probably caused by the fact that there is no AC in the dance room and it's always sweltering, but the rest is totally from all the dancing. Hopefully I don't lose everything I've learned immediately after getting back to the US.

Settling in

I have officially been in Spain for three weeks now. So far it has been pretty nice. A lot of interesting tings are normal here but never happen back home. The majority of dogs I've seen walking with their owners have no leash on them. They follow along very obediently and don't run off into traffic or anything. Clearly people do something magical to make their dogs super well behaved. I need to find out what they do and get them to teach me their ways so I can become a dog whisperer. People are definitely more open here. I was walking down the street with two of my friends one day, and we came across a vending machine filled with condoms and other sexual products. Just sitting there in a vending machine. Originally I didn't notice because I just assumed that, like all vending machines, it was filled with Twix bars. That's just mind boggling to me. Along the same vein, the husband of one of my host mother's daughters told a penis joke at the dinner table. In front of all the kids and everything. I can't really imagine that happening in the US. Maybe just in the most liberal of houses.

Today at lunch, I was eating with my host mother and her daughter, Mery. We somehow got on the topic of food and the differences between eating here and in the US. In Spain people cook everything with olive oil. EVERYTHING. However, they hardly ever use butter. Complete opposite of us in the states. Also, being a vegetarian has got to be close to impossible here. Every meal usually has ham in it. And if not ham there's another kind of meet, you can count on that. My host mother told me the program has never sent her a vegetarian. At the end of the discussion she said that when you're here, you should eat meat, then you can go back to being vegetarian when you return home. I can understand where she's coming from. Their meals are predominantly made up of protein, and it would be difficult to have to completely change your cooking style for a student. Meat and bread at every meal. I think i may have died and gone to heaven.

Another thing that's hard to get used to is how late everyone stays up here. The streets are usually filled with people even at 1am. One night I came back a little before 2am and both my host mother and father were still awake. The next day my host father commented on how "early" I came home the previous night.....???!! My host parents don't normally stay up that late, though it isn't uncommon for them to be awake until midnight or even 1am.

It still remains difficult to get myself completely immersed in the Spanish language. I'll try to only speak Spanish with the PRESHCO students, but lately I've started to give up on that. Most of the time they will respond in English so it isn't really worth it. I'm afraid my Spanish won't improve at all. I can finally accept that my Spanish is at a level where I can get around without too much trouble. But I came here to get closer to being fluent, not remain in a state of perpetual adequacy.

There are definitely days when I wish I had picked the UK as my study abroad destination. For one thing, the weather here is so hot. I miss fall, rain, overcast skies. Where are they?!! And while my classes here do seem interesting, I think I would have preferred some of the classes I saw offered in the UK schools. The classes I'm taking here are going to be really easy. Two of my classes just have one 3 page paper due at the end, and one has two written exams. And I know I should be glad that they're going to be easy, which I am, but at the same time, it means I'm not really working at my Spanish much for my classes either. I will say though, my Sevillana dance class is fun. Hard work. We'll see how good I get by the end of it all.

If I'm being completely honest, I could leave Spain tomorrow and be satisfied with the trip. I don't think I'll end up being one of those people who dread returning to the states, and who say that studying abroad changed their life. I'm very glad I have this opportunity, but at the same time, it's very lonely here. All of my friends and family are very far away. Except the friends I've made in PRESHCO, who are all very wonderful and lovely. I'm not big on traveling. I'm always ready to go home at the end of a trip. And after three weeks, I'm ready to go home. Gotta wait another three months though.

First Impressions

That's the first picture I took of me in Cordoba. I think I have a total of two photos here that have me in them. I'm so bad at asking people to take my photo. Eventually I'll get better at that I'm sure. Anyways, today was our first day of classes. I enjoyed both my Romans in Spain class and my Spanish Medieval Art class. I feel bad because I don't like it when professors or tour guides speak so......slow.....for an hour. However, I need to step away from obnoxious Sara and embrace that it is really thoughtful of them to do that. Though short anecdote, the last tour we went on there was this tour guide who translated all the cognates like "obstaculo" and "cisterna." That just gets me. If it sounds exactly the same in the other language, I'm pretty sure it doesn't need to be translated. But enough ranting about that.

Life with my host family has been going pretty well. I find I'm not in the house all that often. When I am in the house I'm usually so tired that I just want to take a nap. Wellesley women are women who will take naps. That banner was made for me. I don't have too many problems understanding my host family when they speak to me. Obviously there are moments when the words they use fly straight over my head. And if they are speaking to each other then I don't have a snow ball's chance in hell of understanding.

On our last tour (aka the tour that never ended and killed our feet) we got to see the Mezquita. It was quite beautiful, and I loved the arches. It's really cool how the oldest part of the church is from either the 8th or 9th century. Now THAT'S what I'm talking about :) But hilarious fact: we saw a person walking their pig in the courtyard of La Mezquita. That's right. Walking their pig.

That's all for now. Hopefully it continues to go well.

At last, Cordoba

Finally arrived in Cordoba. I'm so glad to finally be here. I've met my host family, and there are tons of people, and tons of dogs, but they're all very lovely. The photo is of my room, which I will live in until December. I can't believe it. And I'm so ready to get into a routine. Everyone from our program was exhausted on the train ride because nobody went to bed before 3am if I had to hazard a guess. Spanish cities never sleep, it seems. Not much of note happened today, but I was so good and unpacked everything in an organized manner. I'm so proud of myself. Tomorrow we get together with all the PRESHCO people for a pool adventure. That'll be nice.

Sorry for the short entry. Hopefully more to come.

Barcelona

So I tried to upload a photo to this post and it didn't really work, so unfortunately there won't be a photo accompanied with this post. Today is our first whole day in Barcelona. We woke up this morning and went on a bus tour of the city. The only place we really stopped to explore was the public park that was designed by Gaudi. The park was really cool, and I really like Gaudi's designs, probably because he tries to make his structures reflect nature. The problem with going on a bus tour is there are very few opportunities to take pictures while riding around. And I think more than half of us fell asleep during the tour. It's hard, the bus is nice and warm, and we've been traveling around so much that the exhaustion just takes over.
An observation I must make is that Barcelona is hotter than Madrid. This makes no sense to me because Barcelona is further north than Madrid. Thankfully, the landscape around Barcelona is much greener than in the south of Spain, which I expected. It was kind of sad on the bus because we finally reached a place that wasn't just arid desert, and that reminded me of all the green space in Boston and Portland, my two homes in the US. I know I'm so lucky to have this opportunity, but I don't think I'll be one of those people who doesn't want to leave Spain at the end of the semester. I am a homebody, and proud.
On Saturday we leave for Cordoba. I have to say, I can't wait. I'm ready to settle down into a routine of classes, and finally be able to unpack. I want to meet my host family. I want to start using my Spanish the majority of the time. I think that will help with the homesickness.

Holy Toledo!

I just have to say that I love Toledo. It's a really old medieval city that is known for its swords. That has Balzo written all over it! We went on a guided tour of the Cathedral, the Synagogue, and we saw the painting of the burial of this guy de Orgaz done by el Greco. The Cathedral is spectacular. Apparently it's the second largest in Spain. It took 200 years to build, so it combines Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque elements. This city used to be the capitol until one of the kings of the Austrian dynasty decided to move it to Madrid in the 16th century I believe. Anyways, now it only has around 80,000 inhabitants. The streets are very narrow and I still don't understand how cars can drive on the streets of Spain. All of their cars are about 1/6 the size of the cars in America though so that definitely helps.

I've tried really hard not to buy anything besides food while we've been in Spain, but I saw these little tiny swords and I just couldn't help myself. I stood by the stand for probably five minutes or more trying to force myself to walk away, but something came over me. I tried to find the sword for Richard the Lionheart but it was too hard to search. Thankfully though I found this one that says Charlemagne on it. After all, last fall I did take a class called Barbarian Kingdoms where we discussed Charlemagne and the other Carolingians.
Anyways, that's about it for Toledo. We get the day off tomorrow in Madrid. I'm so excited. Sleep all day. And all night.

El oso y los madroños

Today we took a tour of Madrid, first on foot, then by bus. I have to say, all these scheduled events are making me tired. Thankfully, after we got done at 14:30, we were given the rest of the day off until tomorrow morning. A much needed siesta was taken by many of us, since everyone was out and about in Madrid last night till the wee hours of the morning.
Anyways, during the tour we got to see the three different zones of Madrid. The area of the Hapsburgs (Las Austrias), the area of the Bourbons (Los Borbónes), and modern Madrid. Most of the city seems to be a shrine to Carlos Tercero, of the Bourbon dynasty. He seems to have had the greatest impact on the city of Madrid. Anyways we walked through the city and then took a tour of El Palacio Real. It's really cool that the royal family still uses some of the palace for various ceremonies. Apparently the Spanish World Cup winning team was received by King Juan Carlos, and Queen Sofia in El Palacio Real. What I don't understand is why NONE of the Queen's quarters of the past are open to the public. We only get to see where the various kings lived.

Me in front of El Palacio Real. And now I'll explain the title of my blog. On the flag of Madrid, there is a picture of a bear reaching up and grabbing food from a tree. This symbolizes an agreement that happened between the State and the Church that happened around the 13th century, I think. The two factions were arguing over who had the right to the land, and what the land produced. A compromise was eventually reached, and it was agreed that the Church had the right to the land, but what the land produced belonged to the state. The flag is a symbol of this agreement. A pretty cool story in my opinion
Tomorrow we head off to Toledo, though we will return to Madrid for the evening. More adventures.

Segovia

I'm going to start this blog off with a shout out to Jill Migliore. Hello. :) I'm glad to hear you like my blog. I'll try to make it detailed enough to paint a picture of what we're all getting up to in Spain. This morning we left Salamanca and began our journey to Madrid, stopping for several hours in Segovia. The photo above was the first view we got of El Alcázar. We went on a guided tour of this castle, which was pretty cool. There were a bunch of rooms filled with armor, which always make me happy. And various types of medieval weapons. Awesome. It is a pretty cool building because all the kings and queens of Spain would stay there, not on a permanent basis I don't think, but if they visited Segovia this is where they were at. There were some paintings and sculpture like things of Isabel and Fernando, probably the only Spanish royalty that I know anything about. There is a huge Roman aquaduct in Segovia, which is good for me since I'm also obsessed with classical things.

Me in front of the aqueduct. Pretty cool looking. Still haven't really figured out how an aqueduct works but that is not important. We had about 3 hours of free time after the tour to twiddle around Segovia. It's a cute city. And then we got back on the bus and have arrived in Madrid. Going to go check out Madrid tonight after dinner. Dinner is so late. I'm always so hungry by the time we eat. Anyways, I'll check in with more news later.