Ay que lluvia! Everyone was surprised, especially the spaniards, when it started to rain. And boy did it rain! I actually wore a jacket today, it was quite chilly :/ Hopefully tomorrow it will be sunny again.
Before I forget, some interesting things I noticed/encountered today.
I don't know if I've mentioned her before, but my senora has a nieta (grandaughter) whose name is Pilar and she is the cutest baby EVER. Pilar was at lunch with us today, and my senora was trying to teach her how to count, and when she did it, she counted out loud uno, dos, tres (except with the andaluz accent it was more like uno, do, tre) and pointed at her fingers--just like we would. Except instead of going index finger, middle finger, ring finger, she went pinky finger, ring finger, middle finger. Que raro!
Today at lunch we had a very strange dish--a platter of white rice with halved hard-boiled eggs covered in what appeared to be the spanish equivalent of Campbell's tomato soup. Not completely awful, but strange nonetheless.
Anywho, today was a loooooong day. 5 hours straight of classes is a lot more draining than you would think. I do get a break though. From 9-10:50 I have class with Gracia, and we focus more on vocab and culture. Then I have a break from 10:50-11:10, and my friend Carlos and I (American, not Spanish :P) go to a nearby cafe and get toast and coffee. Then from 11:10-1:00 I have class with Montse. She's a little nutso. We focus more on grammar and conversation and so far it has been extremely frustrating. We're working on an area of grammar that is particular to Spain spanish and therefore very different from what I had learned in the past, basically requiring me to rethink the way I do the past tense for a month. It's very difficult and to make things worse, she is very difficult to work with. She teaches how I think I would teach (hence why I will never be a teacher)--she gets very frustrated when we don't understand, and even though she has a ridiculous fake enthusiasm on, you can tell she's getting pissed off and thinks we're dumb. Needless to say I do not often leave the class happy, but I do think I'm starting to understand it, so hopefully it will get better.
After that class I have a 15 minute break and then I have business spanish from 1:15-2:15. My professor in that class is quite the firecracker. I don't remember her name but she is taller and tiiiinny, probably weighs under a hundred pounds, with this deep spanish-woman voice that is sooo loud she echoes :P She's spunky for sure. I've been learning some interesting things too. Mostly it's just a basic business course but with spanish vocab, but today I learned about the Inditex group, which owns Zara.
Speaking of Zara, the shopping here is INCREDIBLE. It makes me wish that I'd been saving up for years for this trip. I haven't let myself go into any stores yet, because I want to make sure I have enough money for the rest of the trip but boy do I want to! Increible!
Tonight I went to la Capilla Real, which is the cathedral in which los reyes Catolicos (King Ferdinand and Queen Isabela) as well as their daughter (Juana la Loca) and her husband (Felipe el hermoso) are buried. Man was that some interesting history! I would love to read more about it sometime.
Pues, tomorrow and friday is more class (ugh) and then this weekend we are travelling to Sevilla and Cordoba! Yay! And tomorrow I signed up for intercambios, which is wear 8 people from my program meet up for drinks and tapas with 8 spanish students studying english, and we practice with eachother. Should be lots of fun.
For now its deberes (homework) and maybe a little reading. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep better tonight since it's so cool out :)
Abrazos y besos,
Meredith
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