Hello everyone!
First of all I’d like to start off this post by apologizing
for missing out on so many days of blogging. I had a pretty rough start to this
adventure, dealing with credit transfers and bad course scheduling, but luckily
it’s all fixed, so I finally have a chance to breathe and update you all on my
life here!
I absolutely LOVE Spain. The city is gorgeous and I often
feel like I’m walking through a movie set rather than to class. The only
complaint I could have is the uneven cobblestone roads, while pretty, they
wreak havoc on my feet with my slightly over a mile walk to school. Yup, that’s
right. I’ve been walking around 5 miles every day just going back and forth to
class. I also have this gigantic uphill stretch, which makes the fifteen minute
walk home sometimes seem impossible. The good news is that I’ll be in awesome
shape and the Stairmaster will be a breeze after my time here haha.
Classes
So I’m really excited because this semester I am taking
almost all electives, which means that I have a lot of freedom in my course
choices. I’m enrolled in History of Music, Spanish Linguistics, Spanish
Language, Politics of Spain, and Art and Literature in Salamanca. I absolutely
love my History of Music class at the University of Salamanca. I have an
amazing professor and each day I go to class he manages to completely change my
outlook music and society. Currently we are studying Gregorian chants and the
evolution of written musical notes. Art and Literature in Salamanca is another
rather engaging class as well, half the time we review the literature or art we
were asked to analyze for class and then we spend the rest of the class
visiting the settings or the places the pieces are held. I love going to class
every day because it’s like I’m going on an extended tour of the city I’m
living in. When else do you get a chance
like that and get credit for it too? I have a total of 20 hours of class every
week which is hard, especially keeping up with the Spanish, but hopefully it
will get easier with time (I’m already starting to have more confidence and
participating too!)
Food
I don’t think I have ever eaten as much as I do here. The
food is delicious and my host mom is an amazing cook. My favorite dishes are
sweet empanadas (they taste like tapioca inside), abobóndigas which are basically meatballs in veggies and tomato
sauce, and leche helada which is in
between ice cream and frozen yogurt and has cinnamon/lemon flavored (trust me
it tastes waaaaayyy better than it sounds). Also every morning I have the most
delicious coffee, it’s very strong but since I’m an espresso girl it works out
just fine for me. I have two shops that I visit once a week, which are my panderia and my heladeria aka baked goods and ice cream! My goal is to try every
flavor at the ice cream shop before I leave, and I have done a better job at
doing so than I’d like to admit hehe. Also, my host mom makes me pizza every
Friday, it’s our tradition :).
Culture
So I kind of cheated in terms of taking true Spanish dance
classes (which would be Flamenco), but twice a week I go to a dance academy a
few blocks away from home at take Latin Dance! I think those two hours are my all-time
favorite moments of the week. I’m pretty sure I don’t stop smiling the entire
time and I am so goofy and sassy in class everyone laughs. Right now we are
working on Bachata and I’ve learned both the male and female parts (since it
seems to be universal that all dance classes lack sufficient male members). The
professor is kind and patient, especially if I don’t understand her
explanation. If you are every struggling to learn your directions, I suggest
taking dance lessons in that language. The classes have forced me to remember
long sequences and know my rights and lefts without having to translate it in
my head first. I’m also the only foreigner in the class so I’m surrounded by
Spaniards who know the city and have recommended some great sites. I can’t wait
to dance more and make better friends in this class!
During orientation week we went to Camelot,
ordered a ton of pizzas, and the program hired a tuna for the night (basically a student music group with classical
guitars, accordions, mandolins, ect). The students dress in funny traditional
outfits like those of the 16th and 17th century:
doublets, puffy white shirts, breeches, tights, and becas (colored bands to identify which school the student comes
from). The lead tunera was hilarious
and cracking jokes the entire night, however our IES group was a rather tough
crowd. So in order to help break the ice, he got down, ordered his group to
play a song, and then dragged the six guys on our program onto the dance floor
to dance with all of us girls. Unfortunately, no one in my generation knows how
to dance anymore so we looked a lot like this scene from Harry Potter:
scuffling feet, crashing into one another, unenthused facial expressions, and
general lack of rhythm. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtp0-sWbgzc
Because we Americans were so bad at dancing, the tuna sacrificed some of their members to dance with us in order to
help us copy their steps (I was chosen by one of the guitar players and I'd say I held my own fairly well). By the end of the night, all of us were doing the
chacha and laughing. In terms of orientation activities, I’d say this one was a
success.
Home
I have this gorgeous room and a bathroom all to myself in my
home stay (which is a big deal after living in a residence hall for two years
haha). My host mom’s name is Esperanza, and she’s like my Spanish grandmother.
For example, before I leave the house, she makes sure that I take an umbrella
if she thinks it’s going to rain. Let’s just say that after the first day she
was right and I came home drenched, I didn’t doubt her Spanish intuition again.
On weekends we like to share our favorite songs, surprisingly she has a whole
Bruce Springsteen CD! I’ve also been introduced to The Puma and Julio Iglesias,
who I would like to think are the Spanish equivalents of the oldies. This a
song that I really really love by them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGGZTtB6wW4
.
My host mom and I also have another weekly routine: every
Monday and Wednesday we watch a serial drama together. Monday nights are
Isabel, her show about the king and queen of Spain Isabel and Ferdinand. It is
fairly historically accurate and I love the costumes from this period piece
Wednesday nights are Broadchurch, my show about solving this grand murder
mystery in a small beach town. It started the week I arrived and we’ve been
hooked watching it together ever since. Surprisingly each week is getting
easier to understand and I’m learning a fair amount of historical and criminal
terminology. Looks like in this case television isn’t so bad after all :p
Missing everyone at home!
Xx,
Carolyn
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