Differences

So I posted earlier about how walking on the street in Spain is different than walking on the street in America. Which led me to dig out another post I'd been working on since I got to Spain, which is a list of the differences I've noticed while I was there. Some of them are interesting, some of them aren't, but I feel like it merits posting because it describes some of the daily life that I forget to mention in my normal posts.

• You always wear socks & shoes in the house. Always. You want to go to the bathroom across the hall? You wear your flip-flops.
  
• There is graffiti everywhere and it doesn't seem to be a very big deal. It's on the garage doors over closed shops, abandoned buildings, walls of the city… everything. Some of it is artsy, a lot of it is scribbled words, kind of like the USA.
  
• As a foreigner, you get to walk that tricky line between taking large amounts of money out of the ATM to avoid too many fees and then being hated by cashiers for handing them 50 euro bills when your coffee & pastry comes to a grand total of 3.20.
  
• ALWAYS turn off the lights, because electricity is so expensive here. The government controls it, and they keep raising the tax on it. María likes to talk about this. A lot.
  
• People don't go over to one another's houses very often. Houses are for family and close friends. I wouldn't even ask María if a friend could come over to the house to study or watch a movie. Everybody does those things in town. I once had a conversation with my host brother about the kind of house parties that happen in the USA, and he can barely wrap his head around the idea.
  
• They don't use dryers. Which is probably really good for my clothes… it's just annoying when it rains for two weeks so when you pack for Morocco, half your clothes are wet and you have no idea how to pack.
  
• People don't sit at cafés by themselves. If I'm wandering around town on my own, I usually get coffee to go and find a library or some other location to sit at in lieu of taking up a whole table to myself.
  
• People are much better at conversations here. There's a lot fewer awkward pauses when everyone just decides to get on their phones because the topic ran out. That's something I'm going to miss. Plus they all talk over each other, so following a conversation is like trying to watch a crazy ping-pong match, I'm surprised I haven't gotten whiplash yet.
  
• Lunch is the main meal of the day. You know how in America (at least in my world) kids tend to eat lunch with their friends or out of the house, but for dinner you go home and eat with your family? In Spain, you go home and eat lunch with your family, it's the biggest meal of the day. Dinners are much, much lighter (María just eats fruit or something little), and if you're going to eat out with friends, it's usually at dinner.
  
• They have ham-flavored potato chips.
  
• They also have paprika-flavored Pringles.
  
• Pharmacies here are like going to the medicine aisle of Target. If you're sick, you go in, you tell them your problem, they give you something to fix it. Even if you just need something like Nyquil or Ibuprofen, you still go talk to the pharmacist.
  
• Dinner isn't until 8 PM at least, which means kids don't leave to go out with their friends until around 10, depending on the age. I meet my friends in the Plaza around 11 most nights.
  
• It hasn't snowed here. And some of the trees still have leaves. It's rained like nobody's business (although I've been told repeatedly this is not normal…), but I've seen no snow.
  
• Gyms are expensive. So I haven't been to one for months, given that when I asked about a pass for the month, I was told it would be 75 euro–50 for the gym + pool, and a 25 euro joining fee. It's nonsense. I tried to do push-ups and stuff like that, but there's so little space in the apartment. I really can't wait to go back to the gym at home, even if it will be overrun with people who just made the New Year's Resolution to work out more.
  
• The food… is just not same. Don't get me wrong, I love María's cooking. And they do breakfasts right, especially at the hotels we've been staying at on our excursions. I don't know exactly how to describe the difference, because the only words that come to mind are "bland" and "heavy", and those ones sound so negative to me. They just use a lot fewer seasonings, and a lot more olive oil. And especially coming from Colorado where people are stereotypically in love with salads and anything fresh-tasting, and believe fats and anything fried is food of Satan, food with this much oil just makes me feel heavy.
  
• If you go out to eat, there is rarely a host to great you. Depending on the caliber of the restaurant, you either just seat yourself or a waiter will snag you between waiting tables to tell you where to have a seat.
  
• People are much more direct. This is something I was personally prepared for from everything I'd learned about Spanish culture and from having a native Spanish professor, but my family was not. It came to light one night at dinner, when my English-speaking family was under the impression the waiter was annoyed with us, when to me he seemed just a little rushed because he had a lot of tables to get to.
  

Family Visit: Part 1

12.22-23: Madrid

Oh, my jet-lagged family. Nothing like trying to find a coffee shop in the middle of the overpacked center of Madrid because people are so tired they can barely stand. After visiting the Cathedral and deciding the Palacio Real was too expensive for tours, my brother literally fell asleep at the table when we stopped for coffee near the Plaza Mayor. Jet lag? Jet lag. At least he didn't snore that time.

On Saturday, Jake was still in Madrid as well, so he and Cordis could at least keep each other entertained with football talk (of which I understand nothing, since I've been away from the sports news for so long!) and the new game they made up just for Spain–scarf spotting. Jake absolutely refuses to get a scarf… Cordis wanted to buy one while we were waiting in the train station when we left Madrid.

Trying Mom's scarf on...

Sunday was museum day. Lucky for us, museums are free on Sundays! We visited the Museo del Prado and the Reina Sofia for free. Win. Win win win. So I showed my parents La Guernica by Picasso, Las Meninas by Velazquez, Goya's dark period, the family portrait of Carlos IV's family where they painted in a faceless woman for Carlos V's wife (he hadn't married yet), religious paintings by El Greco, and we looked at a lot more art than I'd seen on our big group tours. Quite the day of paintings, but I guess four months in Europe makes you a lot better at surviving the art museums!

Prado Museum... may have gotten in trouble for this photo. Oops.

12.24-27 Salamanca

On the morning of Christmas Eve, we embarked on the train to Salamanca! Our hotel was right next to the Catedral Vieja, and the room Cordis and I were in had the best view of it. It made me so happy.

Merry Christmas!

On Christmas Eve, basically everything was closed, as could be expected in a largely-catholic country that takes a daily nap time break. It was like a ghost town. We managed to find a place that sold empanadas for lunch, and ate them in the Plaza Mayor.

I took Cordis scarf-shopping (since we didn't find one in the train station…) and we found a reasonably-priced one at H&M on Calle Toro. I'd like to just put this into the universe–I got my brother to go shopping at a store he'd normally avoid like the plague, a place that sells skinny colorful jeans for dudes. I feel that should be stated for the record. We did find a pretty spiffy scarf though, he looks very European (and enjoys saying so at every opportunity).

European Munchkin

Dinner was at a cafeteria I've walked past every day, so I finally got to see what the food was like! The Cafeteria Casino is delicious, just so you all know. We all got food we were quite pleased with, and since we eat really early by Spanish standards (we tend to be the first people in the restaurant after it opens…), we were able to get out of their hair before it was obnoxiously late for the employees to go home to their own Christmas festivities.

Christmas involved a lot of sitting around, walking around aimlessly, and sitting around some more. We bought snacks at the supermarket before, so we had a feast of pistachios, chocolate, and "gourmet" potato chips. And Fanta Limón, the drink I will miss so much when I go home! But more places were open for dinner at night (for the Spanish, Christmas Eve is very family-oriented, while on Christmas Day it seemed to be more acceptable to go out), so we found a place from Mom's guidebooks on Rúa Mayor, where we had fantastic food! I got some kind of mystery cut of pork, I still don't know what the menu item translates to, but it was delicious.

The next day we finally got to have our tourist day, soooo we did everything! We went to my favorite coffeeshop, the famous Mandala, for breakfast, where I discovered that my favorite coffee comes in a large size instead of the little baby one I usually order. Too bad I won't get to take advantage of that… but who needs that much caffeine anyway?

We explored the Cathedral and I showed my parents the human arm that's in one of the chapels along the sides. Main attraction. Still don't know why it's there.

After that, we went to the automotive museum, and I'm so sad Jake was too sick (and I was too busy) to make it to this, because he would've loved it. 100 cars, 60 motorcycles, and a whole lot of old stuff. The greatest delight for anyone who loves both history and cars. Like my dad!

Next, the Cathedral towers. Unfortunately, it was super foggy, meaning my family didn't get to see the amazing view from the top that I was hoping for. Plus they're restoring the bell tower, so there's scaffolding up all over the place. At least it's pretty enough that all this didn't totally ruin the experience! I love the top of these towers.

And then, they got to meet María! This was a little more difficult than when Jake met her, because my family speaks about 20 words of Spanish all together. But body language and gestures will get you halfway there! And I got to eat María's tortilla one last time (she makes the best tortilla!).

Both my mamas!!

And last but not least, we went to the building of the old Universidad. Sofia from ISA was a much better tour guide than I, but I remembered a fair amount of her stories from the tour I took before! Plus, my dad loves reading museum descriptions, even I learned some things.

Boyfriend Visit!!

Madrid

So a very tired Corinne picked up a very tired Jake at the airport on Saturday morning, and we managed to find our hotel in the city without too much trouble!
From there, we decided to explore the city, given that we had very little time in Madrid. We went to see the Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor, and the Cathedral of Madrid. Puerta del Sol and Plaza Mayor were insanely crowded, given that it was Saturday during the holiday shopping season. The Plaza Mayor also had a Christmas market set up, where they were selling everything from Nativity scene characters (they have really complex nativity scenes here…) to bubble guns. Because of this, it seemed like roughly half the population of Madrid was in this square. Extremely overwhelming.



To get away from the epic mass of people, we went to visit the Catedral de Madrid, and to see the Palacio Real. Unfortunately, the Palacio Real was closed for tours by the time we got there, but we did get to see the cathedral, one of my favorite parts of the city!



On our way back to the hotel after the cathedral, we spotted a Wyoming Cowboys sticker on one of the cars!!

That night was a bit of a trip. First, we both slept only two hours and felt like it was the whole night, and then I kept waking up every two hours… because I'd gotten food poisoning from either the terrible sandwich I ate earlier or the raspberries I'd bought afterwards to make up for the terrible sandwich. In any case, poor Jake's first night in Spain involved taking care of his sick girlfriend. Slightly unfortunate!

Toledo

Toledo unfortunately began with a missed train and a very grumpy Corinne. Not a good deal for Jake. Plus, I was still sick and Jake was jet-lagged. Not good conditions to travel in, not at all! I literally have no pictures of this day… Sorry team. I was pretty miserable. But we at least got to see some cool landmarks in Toledo, and had a pretty decent lunch in the city.

Salamanca

Sunday night we headed back to Salamanca, since I still had classes and finals during the week. I wasn't sure where to go for dinner after our bus finally got to town (I barely eat out because María cooks so well!), so we went to get kebabs at a restaurant called Isatis, where my friends and I go a lot when we're out in Salamanca. It's basically a gyro, for those of you who are wondering. But it's simple and only 4 euros, so we were happy.
It was also at this point that Jake started feeling sick… and we eventually decided (based on the ever-reliable internet) that he had strep throat. But because Jake's insurance doesn't carry internationally, we tried to get by on over-the-counter medicines for a few days. On Thursday we finally bit the bullet and went to the doctor's office, and she gave us an antibiotic for strep throat, after we'd navigated the maze of the Spanish medical system.
Before that though, he spent most of the days sleeping–which was a slight blessing for me because I still had finals to do (one of which was a surprise my professor dropped on me on Monday! SO much fun!). And I was a frazzled mess trying to get it all done, so at least Jake wasn't impatiently waiting for me to finish… Even if that did mean he was sick. Plus, he's now the only person from home who's seen where I have classes–that's cool, right?
We did make it to the big things in Salamanca though. The old university facade, the cathedrals (and towers), and the plaza of course. He also got to meet María, which was quite the experience! She's just so full of energy and he was still feeling sick… nothing like that mix of energy levels to make a visit interesting!

Segovia

OK, this is actually a good part of the trip, I promise! Jake was finally not sick, I was done with my finals and didn't have food poisoning, no one missed a train, and we got good food! There was a short chunk of time at the beginning where there was a chance of Jake getting sick on the bus… that's what I get for forgetting my boyfriend gets carsick. But we made it there without incident, and the hotel was right next to the bus station!
We made to all the big tourist spots in Segovia, those being the Alcazar, the aqueduct, and the plaza mayor. It's a small town. But I think this one was Jake's favorite.
The aqueduct was pretty simple–walk down the street and find the giant stone thing. Woo!





The Alcazar was really cool to see again. I didn't quite remember everything I'd learned on my tour (it was in October, after all) but I remembered just enough to make it a little more interesting! If y'all remember my previous post on Segovia, there's a painting in the palace of Isabella leaving the church after her coronation in Segovia, and in this mural no one actually has eyes, which makes it a little creepy. When Jake and I saw this painting, it was sunset and the castle was essentially empty, which made it a whole lot creepier. Two rooms later, in the king's bedroom, we saw a girl who looked just like Isabella from the painting, with similar hair and wardrobe. We're pretty sure we saw Isabella's ghost. (She did turn out to be a real person… but it was a freaky moment!)

In any case, the place was pretty great. We climbed the tower, which was a lot easier this time, I think because the weather wasn't swelteringly hot outside!
Plus, I got to have a little square of ponche segoviano in the Plaza Mayor again. I still don't know what's in this dessert, but I'm pretty sure it's magic. And possibly a whole pound of butter and sugar… But if you come back from study abroad rich and skinny, you did it wrong. So I'm going to eat my ponche!

Ponche Segoviano in a bakery

Plaza Mayor lights

For dinner, we found a pretty good traditional-Spanish place, and got a pretty great meal. The town was all decorated for Christmas too, it was so pretty!

Madrid (again)

Saturday morning we headed back to Madrid to meet up with my familia! Our day with them was kind of a repeat of Jake's first day in Madrid… but with better food at least! For dinner we went to a place recommended by the hotel where we had some super classy food that Jake and I never would've had if we'd been on our own. Yay for family vacations!

And on Sunday morning, Jake went off on the Metro to catch his flight, and I began my family vacation!

12.12.12

• I developed what I'm now calling the Salamancan plague, since being sick with the plague sounds far more legit than being sick with a cold. It's much, much better than the Moroccan plague, on the bright side. Just a cough and a runny nose, but it made me feel very sorry for my poor classmates who had to sit next to me when I started coughing up half a lung in the middle of the front row. Nothing like being the sick kid. Especially when you're already the foreign kid…
• I got better! Moving on.
• My classmate decided we were going to speak English more often–which led to me teaching her curse words. In my defense, she said them first when we were talking about our presentation. But the really fun part about this was that I have a much better personality in English than I do in Spanish–mainly because I actually have a personality when I speak in English, and my Spanish personality is a very simplified version.
• We had a magical palindrome day! Which meant that my American brain could relax and not worry about messing up the date when I wrote it on my Spanish notes. It's the little things. Happy 12/12, everyone.
• I started writing an essay about cancioneros del renacimiento–which basically translates to "song books of the Renaissance." That basically translates to me metaphorically banging my head against the internet for a million years (I exaggerate during finals week, get used to it) and hoping something that sounded vaguely like an intelligent Spanish thesis. Minimal success, owing largely to the help of a few classmates. Note to future study abroad students–if you decide to take the hard classes, MAKE FRIENDS. They will keep you sane and afloat come finals time.
• I also drank a lot of coffee–Mandala, Pancake, university café… This also means I consumed a lot of sugar, since I put so much in my coffee.
• Fake New Years! Basically, since Salamanca is chock-full of international students who go home for the holidays, the Salamantinos decided to start doing their own New Year's celebration in December, before everyone left. This way, the international students get to see how the Spanish ring in the new year (it involves grapes), plus they never turn down a chance to celebrate.
  
  In all reality, it involves packing 30,000 people into the Plaza Mayor, aaaaand it's incredibly crowded. The countdown was a lot of fun, and then we all dispersed and every girl in the world had to use the bathroom–meaning every bathroom in town had a super long line. It was sheer nonsense, and meant we went home pretty soon afterwards. The plaza part of it all was fun because they gave out grapes to eat during the countdown, which is supposed to be good luck! They had a giant stage set up and everyone counted down together to midnight, when our "new year" started!

• I packed up my suitcase a little bit and grabbed my backpack to go meet Jake at the airport in Madrid! And I ate my last dinner with Megan at our little kitchen in María's apartment–spinach tortilla. Yumm!

This Year I'm Thankful...

(Warning: Cheesiness abound in this post)

This Year I'm Thankful...

My mommy and daddy love me enough to let me run away to Europe for a semester.

I have the type of friends who send me silly cat photos and
travel budget postcards because they miss me too.

My boyfriend is the kind of guy to help me with my fantasy football lineup
even though I haven’t been there to watch a single game with him this season.

My brother is a super smart engineering nerd and seems to be kicking butt at it.

My host mom is an awesome cook & my host brother corrects my Spanish.

I got to visit two different continents in the last month
(but also thankful I don’t live in the Sahara...).

I have new friends I made an ocean away from home
but will hopefully keep when I go back.

But mostly, I am thankful I am taking a picture of this outside one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen in one of the most amazing cities I will probably ever live in. And I am so thankful to everyone who helped me even the littlest bit to get here! So, that is to say pretty much everyone who reads this. Thank you to everyone! Even though I don’t get a “real” Thanksgiving here, that doesn’t mean I’m not thinking of you all and how happy and lucky I am to have every single one of you!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Social Struggle Bus

So here's the way my day went. I woke up, ate breakfast, then got back under the covers to read Bossypants on my iPod. When María knocked on my door to tell me she was leaving, we had a conversation about me being back in bed, in which I decided it was easier to let her think I was napping than to explain I was reading a novel on a 3-inch touchscreen.

Anyway, I finally got productive and went to class, came back fro lunch, and looked up hostels in Rome & Madrid & Salamanca for future voyages & visits (more on that later).

At 6, I had to go to a rescheduled musicology class, which began a series of events that put me into a slightly unnecessary fight-or-flight-or-panic mode.

1. I didn't know which classroom we were meeting in. I made it to the right floor, then stood around like an idiot until I ran into some other kids who were like, "It's room 24, right?" I have no idea. I'm following you guys.
2. I was having a harder-than-normal time picking up the pre-class chatter. Usually, I get an idea of the conversation (even if it's not a good enough idea to participate in the conversation), but not today.
3. Several of my classmates had photocopies of papers I'd never seen before, leading me to believe I'd once again missed the memo on something I had to get printed to prepare for class.

At this point, my homesick, frustrated, stressed brain went int panic mode, and decided my desire to avoid yet another class where I felt lost, unprepared and alone was so strong, it was time to bail. (Mom & Dad, I know that's not what you want to hear, but sometimes at the age of 20, you have to bail on things for stupid reasons. No one died or got arrested. Or skipped class in the end.)

I almost got away with it, except I decided to take the front stairs instead of the back ones. And as I started up the stairs, I saw one of my almost-friend classmates coming down them (We bonded two days ago over the fact that we can both pop our knuckles loudly and the fact that my ability to pop my thumb out totally freaks him out. I'm not sure if our professor didn't hear us laughing or just ignored it because I was finally doing something other than sitting there like a terrified deer in the headlights). This put me into panic mode again.So there I am, taking the stairs 2 at a time with my head down, but halfway up I hear, "Hey man, where you going?" in a Spanish accent. Now tell me, is there any possible way you could ignore that and just keep going? The answer is no, because it was just too awesome to hear out of nowhere from a native Spanish-speaker.

So my knuckle-cracking friend, two other friends from class, and I had a weird bilingual conversation on the stairs where I gave them my silly panic-mode reasons and they basically shut them down.

"I don't have the copies"
"But the printer is downstairs…"
"Well, yeah. I'm already late."
"So are we."
"I don't have the copies!"
"You can look at ours! Come on!"

And that was that. Class was not the torturous disaster I was apparently expecting (Panic-Mode Corinne is beyond overly pessimistic). I wasn't prepared. I was definitely lost part of the time, but no more than usual. But I survived. And I swear my life had one of those movie moments, one that belongs in a new-kid-in-school movie where the tortured protagonist finally has a table to sit at during lunch.

Cheesiness aside, turns out going to class was a good plan. Because I finally actually participated in class too! Mostly because we were talking about the silly way of calculating when Easter or the festival of Corpus Cristi was… or something… and my professor brought up the American presidential elections. Because (in case you didn't know) those are held the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November. So it can't be November 1. So I got to explain that to the class, and show them I'm not a complete moron, I just don't know how to answer music questions.

So I'm not sure if anyone but myself finds this interesting (I hope you at least enjoyed that my friend knows enough English to feel comfortable saying, "Hey man, where you going??" because I found it to be hilarious), but this is the highlight of my week so far. Although I am going to Karaoke tonight. And we have a Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. And I go to Lisboa on Friday. So there are more interesting posts coming. I just really felt like writing about my social struggles and why they sucked a little less at the end of today!

Saturday Afternoon

Things to do in Salamanca on a rainy(ish) Saturday:

• Get café con leche and a a pastry. Sit on steps, watch the tourists.
• Get cold. Go tourist shopping. Finally get thimbles. And a photo of the famous facade of the Universidad de Salamanca. Watch tourists try to find the "lucky frog" on the facade. 
• Go to the Catedral Nueva because it is a) free and b) warmer. Watch more tourists.
• Realize the brilliant marigolds planted outside the Catedral have been replaced by pansies. Have a mini sorority-girl freakout moment because that's one of Tri-Delta's symbols. Take artsy photos of said pansies.
   
• Try to find headphones. Everything is closed. Happy Saturday.
• Try to use the ISA office bathroom, realize that they're closed too. And the University buildings are closed. Time to go home.
• Finally get a photo of the Plaza Mayor. Take a photo for an adorable passing tourist couple. 
• Find a cool painting/poster for the upcoming general strike on November 14.
   

Yesterday

I'm going to say yesterday was an awesome day. In the morning, I went to the train station and got my train tickets for my upcoming weekend jaunt to Córdoba, and for 30€ less than it would be if I bought online. Get ready for all kinds of photos of old buildings next Monday!

My musicology class is getting much easier, and the professor even asked me a question I might've been able to answer... If I'd only seen the movie Psycho. We were using movie plots to describe song "plots."At least I said a full sentence in the class for once. 

At lunch, Megan, David and I had a conversation about horror movies, stemming from my earlier predicament concerning Psycho. We all hate horror movies, is really the moral of that story. And David was surprised by how few movies we'd seen... I don't think he realized we were in middle school when half the movies we were talking about were released. 

I was supposed to have my culture class at 6, but it was cancelled for some reason. For this, Camila, Samantha and I went to Mandala for coffee and snacks. I had a café bonbón (coffee and condensed milk), and a tostada with tomato sauce and olive oil. Absolutely delicious. 

After sitting in the cafe for two hours and talking about everything from travel visas to haircuts, I went to French class. And, like most of my classes this week, understood a pretty good portion of it. The Spanish thing finally seems to be clicking a little bit. I also went to a tea shop today where I had a whole conversation with the shopkeeper an we understood each other almost perfectly. Best. Feeling. Ever. 

School Week Roundup

• On Tuesday, one of my professors had lost his voice. Nothing like a professor, who you don't completely understand to start with, not being able to talk. He ended class early though, so there wasn't too much material to struggle through.
• David and I had a conversation about names on Tuesday night, because he thought my name was spelled all kinds of weird (Cornine... what is this nonsense). So then I told him that my brother's name was Cordis, and had a really tough time trying to explain where the name came from and still make it sound cool in Spanish (minimal success). And then he asked what's up with our names and if our parents don't love us or something. Because, while I love my name a lot, Cordis and I really do have horrible Spanish names. Like, if we grew up in Spain, we'd be those awkward kids teachers felt sorry for because of their unfortunate names. Sorry Mom and Dad...
• One of the girls in my Music in Spain class offered to loan me her notes at some point since our professor goes so fast that even the Spanish kids get lost sometimes. Given that I usually look at this girl's notes to try to catch up and figure out what's happening when I get lost anyway, I was pretty happy with this offer.
• Thursday afternoon, ISA offered a tour of the original university building, the one that was built after the city started growing and the Old Cathedral couldn't contain the size of the university anymore.

This is the famous façade the University is known for. Unfortunately, this is a terrible photo because they currently have equipment set up so you could go see the facade up close and personal, and while that's fun and all, it makes my photos turn out really badly. I'll take another photo when they finally take this down. In any case, it's super intricate and one of the things that tourists always want to see at USal.

So here's a super old classroom...

And one of the many really awesome ceilings in the building

This is the diploma of the very first female student in the world, who attended the University of Salamanca. Also, the first female professor in the world was at USal. And it was one of the first universities to be technically separate from the Catholic Church.

Theology classroom

University Chapel

Multiple fun facts about this chapel. First, only students are allowed to get married here. There's a 3 year waiting list, but you could do it if you wanted to. And because I'm at USal, even for just a few months, I could technically get on that list. Also, I mentioned before that Franco had his headquarters here in Salamanca back in the day. His house is just outside the back wall of this church. And because Franco wasn't exactly the most popular kid on the block, he had places set up all over the city in case he had to go into hiding for political reasons. One of those places is behind the painting in the very middle of the altar. Apparently, the painting is actually just a screen that you could roll up, and there's a whole room back there–sneaky.

Bleh Class Bleh

Good news: One of my professors likes giving readings in English. Win! Except I don't know why he would give readings this difficult to students who don't speak fluently. Even I am having trouble getting through it… I mean, here's a quote from the article I'm reading right now: "it tends to preserve Zeitgeist thinking after all, because it privileges the notion of an ‘essential’ relatedness across diverse domains and decades." Now, does anyone know what class I'm reading this for? No, you don't. Music in the 18th Century, for the record. But seriously, it's crazy. If a professor at home gave readings in another language (for a non-language class, obviously), the students would probably riot.

Other good news: My other musicology professor told me I speak Spanish well. Which makes me very happy because I feel like every time I open my mouth in her class, I sound dumber and dumber. She's also far less terrifying face-to-face than when she's doing lecture during class. 

Bad news: having a cold here sucks. For starters, the kleenex I have are in those little travel packs (10 packs of 10 for 0,73 euros!) so I can basically count how many tissues I've gone through in the last 24 hours. (It's roughly 30, in case you wanted to know that.) But at least I have a day off class, and María is making sure I drink lots and lots of water.

Random discovery: These chips, which are (don't be surprised) ham and cheese flavored. Of course. Also, someone should look at a pack of potato chips and tell me how many ingredients there are, because the unflavored ones here have literally three: Potatoes, vegetable oil, and salt. I feel like there's no way a manufacturer just left it at that in the USA.

Chinese Food & English Practice

Last night, we decided to go out for Chinese food. So this is what it looks like when six American girls order Chinese food in Spain

They also set Orange Duck on fire when you order it... my friend's face looked like a little kid on Christmas, it was priceless

And we cleaned up pretty decently. Very good food, and the best part was it comes in slightly smaller portions. We all ordered two plates and just shared among the table. Deliciousness abound. A very good find, especially since if we just want to do one plate each, it's just 3-4 euros per plate. Last night we were all kinda starving for some reason...

Today was back to the grind of school. Bright side: Even though I have to do a partners project, I did not get stuck with some super awkward quiet kid, my partner seems really nice. And like she has a cold, but that's kinda irrelevant for now.

Also, when I got home, I ended up helping David practice his English for a little while. We talked about jobs, and I found out that his first job was a pizza deliveryman. However, if you put in just the word for "deliveryman" on Google translate (without adding the "pizza" beforehand) it spits out "dealer." So I then explained to David that he was definitely a deliveryman because if he told people he was a dealer and left off the pizza part, people might assume some not so good things. Definitely one of the better conversations we've had, just saying.

First Day of (Real) School

So today was slightly terrifying. Because today I had to begin classes at the actual university, not the silly culture-conversation-grammar classes I took with International Courses when I first got here. And I swear, I was more afraid to go across town to my first class than I was to get on the plane.

The street my music classes are on–I was too nervous to take a closer photo!

But the first class went really well. I know that I definitely didn't understand everything he was saying, but I got most of it. And when he asked me a question in front of the whole class, I was actually keeping up enough to answer it. Even if I didn't know how to say trumpet. Turns out it's trompeta so I felt really smart after that, but at least I wasn't that foreign kid who's just like "uh…" the whole time. And I made friends with a girl from Granada and another girl from Salamanca. Win.
The other fun thing about being an exchange student is that errybody knows who you are, because the professor always asks you something about where you're from or what kinds of music classes you've had before (uh, roughly none), but no one else. My second class was a lot more terrifying than the first, partially because the professor asked what kinds of musicology classes I'd taken and I had to say basically none, and we actually started on the material. Here's a fun fact: the Spanish don't take notes like Americans. Most of them had notebooks with either blank sheets or graph paper (I was the only one with a lined notebook) and instead of bullet points, they basically write out entire sentences. It's insane, I do not understand how they do it. I couldn't even do that in English!!
But on my way home, while in my Spanish-fog-headache, I overheard some lost American tourists, so I stopped to help them out. I was basically the farthest thing from helpful, since I had no idea where the restaurant they were looking for was, but we totally had a small-world moment when I found out that one of them was from Steamboat Springs, CO! Plus, her daughter is best friends with one of my sorority sisters! Plus, that sorority sister is currently studying abroad in Sevilla, another town in Spain. Small world indeed.

Weekly Roundup

• Sunday–we stayed in most of the day and I was finally able to Skype my mommy and catch up on all the Broomfield gossip. Always a good time. Later, we went el cine (movie theater) and saw the movie Las Aventuras de Tadeo Jones. We were the oldest people in the theater who didn't bring kids, but we could actually understand this movie, so it was all worth it. It was a cute movie too. Apparently it's known as Tad, the Lost Explorer in 'Merica, so just imagine that in Spanish. Except the song "That's What Makes You Beautiful" is still in there too, don't worry.

• Monday–we had to run down to the ISA office to pay for part of our Morocco trip, so that was a fun time. And then we went shopping again, because it's just too easy to do on our way home. On the bright side, growing up with my mom means I shop nothing but sale racks so I'm not broke yet! Woo!
• Tuesday–Megan had to work all day, so I went wandering all over the city. Really nothing exciting happened today, sorry team.
• Wednesday– Today I realized that a) I was out of eyeliner and b) I have no idea where I'd even buy makeup. They don't sell it at supermarkets. Thus began my exploration of (slightly expensive) makeup stores in the city. I finally found one that sold cheaper eyeliners, and lucky for me it's right on the way to the Plaza from my apartment so I'll actually remember where it is!
  Also, I went to this gym that María was telling me about and finally got a semi-decent workout in. I was still super nervous despite the fact that it's basically all the same equipment as back home (the directions are even in English on half of them...), so I didn't get a super great workout in, but it's a start! I'm going to try to go again when it's not so busy so I can get a workout in and figure out the gym a little bit better.
• Thursday–I went back to the gym in the morning, got a real workout in and felt awesome! In the afternoon I had a tour with ISA of the various buildings on campus so we'd know where our classes are on Monday. I have one right across the plaza from the Catedral Nuevo, and another kind of by the building where our intensive classes we just finished are. I know that means relatively nothing to those of you reading this blog, but that's okay! I'll take photos sometime.
  And it rained today! Finally a little bit of relief from the heat, plus I love the rain so much.
• Friday–So today there was this ceremony and parade in the Plaza Mayor in honor of the military, which David (my "brother") was going to be in so María was over-the-moon excited to go. It consisted of a lot of standing around and listening to speeches in the blistering Salamanca sunshine, but it was kinda cool to see. María and I went separately, so I ended up being alone watching it and had a conversation with this guy who was there to see his son, so he kept pointing things out to me so I wouldn't get too confused. I also realized that I don't know the Spanish national anthem, but when they play the British one (see the flags they put up in the photo below) I sing "My Country 'Tis of Thee" instead of "God Save the Queen". Thank you, elementary school music classes.

 Flags of Portugal, Spain, France & the United Kingdom

Stage where all the speakers sat

Some of the military. Don't worry, they just swing their arms really high, they don't actually walk like that!

The guy in the middle there is my super-serious host brother David being super-seriously serious. He was very entertained by the fact that I told him he looked angry in the photos I took at the parade.