Madrid!

On Thursday, Nicole and I went to the bank so she could change her money, then ran to Champion again to pick up a few more things. A couple people were supposed to go to the bank with us, but never showed up so we just went without them. We came home and I was really tired so I passed out before dinner. Then we ate dinner, and Juani had gotten a roscón for us, like a king’s cake (gallete du roi in France) with the little figurine in the middle. In Spain, Christmas celebrations only start with Christmas Day, and go till Epiphany, January 6, when the 3 Kings got to Bethlehem. It was really good, and really pretty. This week they were taking down some of the Christmas decorations since Christmas is pretty much over now. We were going to go out to the Can Can, a bar where a lot of Americans go, and they give Americans free drinks on Thursdays, but we didn’t know how to get there and what time everyone was meeting, so we didn’t go, but it was ok. We watched the Spanish version of Big Brother with Juani, then went to bed.
Friday we didn’t have class, and we took a trip into Madrid, so we could learn how to get there on the bus, how to use the metro, how to take the train home, etc. I had never been to Madrid before, but it was gorgeous, I really enjoyed it. We took the bus into Madrid, which was cool because the public transportation buses are like charter buses, really nice. We arrived in the Avenida de Américas station, where we learned how to use the metro and took it a few stops (even though I’m used to it from Paris). Javier, one of the directors, took us around and we saw a bunch of different sites. We saw an Egyptian temple that was a gift from the Egyptian government to the Spanish government, el Templo Debod, which was cool. Then we went over to the Jardines del Campo del Moro, gardens in front of the Royal Palace. The King actually doesn’t live in the old Palace anymore, it is gigantic and so they moved to a smaller one. The gardens were really pretty, and I must admit, I was shocked to see lots of palm trees just in the center of Madrid. We also went to the Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Almuneda, which was gorgeous. Saint Isidor, the patron saint of Madrid, is buried there. I really liked that. We also saw a lot of other things, like the Plaza Mayor, the town hall of Madrid, the financial district, the street where the most expensive stores are and the Corte Inglés shopping mall are, the Puerta del Sur and Alcalá, El Prado museum and the Reina Sofia museum where some of the most important paintings are, like Picasso’s Guernica, and then finally left out of the Atocha train station. We got into Madrid and walked around until about 2:30 or 3 when we left to come home. Javier, who was giving us the tour, walks really fast, basically sprinting, so we all were trying to listen but take pictures and stuff too. We finally got home around 4, so it was a long day, but like I said, I really liked Madrid. The architecture is absolutely beautiful. We ate lunch when we got home, and we were starving, and then passed out for like 2 ½ hours for siesta. Walking around for like 5 hours nonstop is exhausting! After we woke up, we pretty much ate again. I was proud of myself because we had fish again, which I tried and it was pretty good, once again. We went out around 11 with a couple friends. Between the group, we decided to do a little bar hopping, so we started out at the Irish pub, where we had Beamish beer, which was ok, but kind of had an aftertaste I didn’t like. This one older guy came up to us and introduced himself to all of us, and we weren’t sure if someone knew him, but no one did. He was kind of weird, and a little awkward, then finally went away. Apparently he told Lance that the best presidents were Kennedy and Lincoln or something. He also didn’t have any teeth. Made for a good story though. Then we went to another bar (that we closed, haha), and had a glass of red wine, which was good. Then we went to the Can Can, Nicole really wanted to go and a couple people had gone last night and had fun. It was fun and we danced a little bit. We finally got home around 3:30ish, but it was a lot of fun.
Today, we were able to sleep in which was really nice, then we had our tour of Alcalá at noon. Javier took us once again, and we went around and saw the University of Alcalá, the cathedral, an archeological museum, Cervantes’ house, etc. There are also 13 monasteries here. I knew that Alcalá was important in terms of the University and Cervantes, but I never realized how much history and importance it really has, so that was interesting. We came home and ate lunch. The Infanta Leanor, Princess Leanor, was baptized today, so that was all over the tv, and interesting to watch, she is really cute. Some of us met back up at the Plaza for milkshakes and coffee, and we hung out in a little café there for awhile, so that was fun. The boys decided they wanted to try to get haircuts (mullets are plentiful and very popular over here), so they went to a peluqueria, while the rest of us walked down the strip (down the Calle Mayor, Main Street) looking for jackets because Monica and Rose had been borrowing jackets from their families. It was getting late so we all went home for dinner. There were a lot of people out though, Calle Mayor and the Plaza were pretty hopping. We might go back into Madrid tomorrow, but who knows. The nice thing is that we don’t have class till 11:30 on Monday. Nicole and I are going to relax and watch Wedding Crashers. Most people decided to stay in tonight instead of going out, everyone is still exhausted from yesterday and last night. It’s a hilarious movie and I didn’t get much sleep last night, so I’m excited. Anyways, hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Never a dull moment in Espana

After siesta yesterday, Nicole and I went to the Plaza to walk around and check it out some more. We just kind of walked around, no specific destination in mind. We found a church at the other end of Calle Libreros, I’m guessing it is one of the main local ones. It was really pretty from the outside. We also found the Tourism Office, which was right across the street from the church, and got a few maps of Alcalá, Madrid, and a list of cultural events. After walking back around the Plaza for awhile taking a few pictures of different buildings and things, we decided to go home since it would be time for dinner soon. We came home and had fried eggplant and fish for dinner. Anyone that knows me (and my sister for that matter) know that we always said we had a “fish allergy” because the few times we actually had tried fish we didn’t like it, and therefore never had tried it since. I tasted it and it actually wasn’t bad, it didn’t have a fishy flavor or anything. I was really surprised because Nicole had never had eggplant before. On Monday she also had kiwi for the first time ever, which I was somewhat shocked to find out. Sometimes she says things that crack me up. The other day she asked Juani where the stairs were in case of fire/emergency. A valid question, but kind of random and funny. Juani showed us where the stairs were, and also assured her that the firemen are only 3 seconds away, so not to worry, and there shouldn’t be any fires. There was also another time when there was a loud crack-like sound outside. Nicole freaked out and asked if it was a pistol shot, but Juani once again reassured her that Alcalá is a safe city, and that it wasn’t. During dinner, and after, we talked with Juani about a couple different things. She can be a very intense woman, and opinionated, which is good but sometimes she starts going off and it is hard to understand everything that she is saying. The Spanish eat a pretty balanced diet, lots of meat, vegetables, lots of fruit, for example. She was saying how she didn’t really understand how people eat pizza for dinner as a meal, and that she will never have pizza in her house. (I think we were talking about fast food at this point). Another thing we were talking about was how Nicole and I are both education majors. She was saying how in her opinion, it is important to learn not only the language, but the culture of the people, and teach it to the students, which I agree. It is pointless to teach a language, but not know what the people actually eat, do for fun, how they live, the geography, etc. We have also talked to her about the school system. Spanish children (and Europe in general) start school much earlier, at about 3 years old, whereas in the United States we start around 6. She was showing me things that one of her grandsons had done at school. At 4 years old, he was coloring within the lines and making shapes, and stuff like that. I know my brother can’t do that, and if you give him a crayon you don’t expect much more than scribbles. It is just a different philosophy. Home life is also very different here. The home is considered a “sacred” place, kind of like a sanctuary for the family. Other people aren’t allowed to come to our piso (like our apartment), and we aren’t allowed to go to other people’s pisos. It is seen like an invasion of privacy, and only very intimate friends go over to each other’s houses.
Today we had school early, and Juani went to work. On the way to the busstop, I saw a rat on the street-can you say gross. I was thoroughly disgusted, not to mention how fat and furry it was, and it’s tail was long and skinny, eww. Another thing I forgot was that at all of the crosswalks, there is the sound of birds chirping when it is ok to cross. It is like the ticking that we have in the States for blind people to cross, but here it is a bird sound instead. People are crazy drivers here, and I can’t tell you how many people are this close to getting hit. I saw a man walk out into the street with a car coming full force, but it screeched to a stop for him. One girl told us how her mamá almost got hit, but when the car came up to her, she put her hand out and said “!Calláte!”, basically telling the car to shut up. We had 3 classes in a row, the lit class where we talked more about poetry, ugh, then civilization and culture, where we learned geography of Spain and watched a movie, then finally composition and conversation. A bunch of people finally got their cell phones today, so that was exciting for them. We came home for la comida and had pasta with meat sauce, and then siesta time of course! That is probably the thing we love the most about the Spanish schedule. As for them changing the schedule, I think it would be difficult because the day is pretty divided. We have school in the morning, and everything is open around 9 or 10, then closes down for lunch around 2:30ish and reopens around 5 or 5:30 until 8, or depending on what kind of store it is, a little later. The bank, for example, is only open in the morning during the week, but then reopens on Thursday afternoons for a few hours, so we are going to head to the Plaza in a little bit to change some money. Then we may go out tonight, apparently a lot of people go to the Can Can on Thursday nights. It’s nice because we don’t have class on Fridays, so we are done for the week. Tomorrow we are going into Madrid so we can learn how to get there and touring and stuff, and then we are taking a cultural tour of Alcalá on Saturday. It should be a fun weekend, there is definitely more to do here than Oxford, Ohio!

Exploring Alcala!

Last night we before dinner Nicole and I went to the Plaza de Cervantes to explore a little bit. We went to the bookstore to get our book for class, and ran into a couple of our friends who were also trying to buy the book. The book was 24, 70 Euros, which was very cheap, compared to American textbooks, but apparently is very expensive for a book in Spain. We don't have textbooks for some of our classes, they will give us photocopies so we don't have to buy books. For the other classes, the books are pretty cheap. Then we all walked around a little bit on the Calle Libreros, which is at one end of the Plaza de Cervantes. Yesterday when Susana was giving us the mini-tour of Alcala she showed us where the Champion was, a grocery store, that we actually had in France. We went there and bought a couple of notebooks and different school supplies. Two of the girls bought boxes of sangria, which was only ,68 euros, which is roughly a dollar. After walking around, it was getting close to dinner time, so we all went home around 8 for dinner, then planned to meet up later to go out. We went home and ate dinner with Juani, then hung out for a little bit and headed back to the Plaza to meet up with Monica, Rose, E-bets (Elizabeth), Mystee, Lance, and Steve. Of course, Lance and Steve were late getting there and we almost left without them because apparently they live far away. There were 2 American kids that were walking around the Plaza while we were waiting for Lance and Steve and they asked us what we were doing and then they ended up coming with us when went to find someplace to go. We walked around looking for a little bar, we didn't really want anything too fancy, and we finally found a little place. It was pretty small but there was hardly anyone in there. Nicole recommended 43 con pina, which a bunch of us ended up getting and was very good. We all hung out there enjoying a couple drinks and the tapas they gave us, chips and peanuts, the fact that we are in Spain, and each other's company. We left around midnight or so and then went over to a park, and Rose went home and got the sangria she had gotten earlier and we all had some of that and hung out some more, and it was pretty good and we had fun. Nicole and I got home around 1:30 and went to sleep. It was nice because on Monday and Wednesday we don't have class til 11:30, so we can sleep in a little bit. This morning we woke up, got ready, then Nicole and I took the bus to school for the first time by ourselves. We walked to the busstop instead of taking 2 buses. We almost forgot how to get to the busstop, but then we saw our supermercado where we turn and remembered. We had our grammar class today, and we learned about the differences between ser and estar, the two verbs in Spanish that mean "to be". We rode the bus back home, ate lunch, then time for siesta. I think later we are going to try to go into the city because it is nice and sunny today, and fairly warm, at least for this time of the year. Tomorrow is the last day of classes for the week, then on Friday we are learning how to get into Madrid, which buses to take, and taking a tour, so that should be exciting. Then on Saturday we are doing a cultural tour of Alcala.

It kind of feels like we are on vacation, just living with someone else, speaking Spanish all the time. It is funny because we hear a lot of English songs, like when we were at the Plaza yesterday afternoon they had Usher playing by the ice skating rink. We are still trying to figure everything out, but it is getting easier to understand and we are getting adjusted and more familiar with our surroundings. We are going to start planning some of our trips soon. I think a bunch of us are going to go to the Olympics, and probably see the USA women's hockey team play a game, maybe against Switzerland, and maybe bobsledding or something else like that, so it should be awesome. I'm really looking forward to that. I'm realizing how out of shape I really am because my legs are a little sore from walking, but I don't really mind, I enjoy the walking. That's pretty much it for now!

Making mistakes already but learning a lot

Today has been an interesting day so far. This morning, we went all had to meet at the Plaza de Cervantes, which is basically the center of town. We pretty much all live in what is considered "downtown", but that is the main part. Juani went with us to show us the way, and it is pretty easy, we only have to take 2 streets to get there. Miguel de Cervantes, the author of Don Quijote, is from Alcala, so there is a statue of him in the Plaza and many things are named after him. After everyone was there, Susana, the director of our program, showed us where the post office, bank, and a bookstore are. Then we went to a little shop where we all had to get our picture taken for our transportation passes that we are going to be getting. It is really nice because we are going to get passes to ride the buses and trains for free, even in Madrid. From there, we walked to school so that we would know how to school from the Plaza de Cervantes, even though none of us could probably do it again if our lives depended on it. It wasn't far though, about 20-25 minutes to walk from the Plaza to school. We had our Civilization and Culture class, which I think will be a good class, we will learn a lot of useful information, geography of Spain, etc. After Civ and Culture, Susana took us on a tour of the school, where we saw the library, computer lab, etc. then had Composition and Conversation class with her. I think that should be a great class too. I really like Susana, and Magda, the other director of the program. They are both very sweet and willing to do anything that we need, and basically like our "aunts" as they said. For both the Civ and Comp classes, for our final project, we have to buy postcards everywhere we go and at the end write a description of all the places. That should be a fun project and a great way to look back on everything. That was all of the class that we has, but the majority of the other people had a different class after that. There were only like 4 of us that didn't have that class, so we were just hanging out and talking for awhile. There are 3 students from the University of Alabama. Two of them are girls, but they don't really talk to us much, and we barely even know who they are. When we were getting our pictures taken for the bus pass, they were there but we didn't even know it was them because we didn't recognize them. The other guy, Tom, is a lot more social and we were talking to him for awhile. He is a nice guy, and seems to be very adventurous. Nicole, Tom, Juanito (not his real name, but everyone calls him that), Nick and I decided to try to take the bus home for lunch, while everyone else was still in class. We wanted to get the #10, but we just missed it, so we took the #1, which goes to the same places, but it makes more stops and takes longer. We didn't really know where we were going, all we really knew was that the bus would take us eventually to the Plaza de Cervantes. I recognized our stop along the way, so Nicole and I got off, then walked the rest of the way home. Luckily, Juani had taken us last night, and I was able to recognize some different landmarks and knew where we were going, like the Telepizza and the supermercado. After the supermercado, we forgot where we were supposed to go, and walked a little too far, but then we came back and asked someone who told us where to go. We were a little bit lost, but not too far off. We got home, and Juani was waiting for us with lunch, a lentil soup with bread, salad and fruit, which was good. After lunch it is siesta time, since it is already after 3, and everyone rests. Later tonight, I think we are going to go to Plaza de Cervantes, maybe go to the bookstore and buy our books for class and explore a little bit, since we actually know how to get there this time, and may go out a little later and explore too. Everything is closed for lunch/siesta and the bookstore and shops don't open back up until about 5 or so.
There are a lot of things that are different. I had forgotten how fast people drive, and it is funny because yesterday when we were going to school, we had to cross the street by one of the roundabouts. Juani made sure we were looking out, and she would tell us when to go, and run across the street. People park in what seems like the middle of the street, or try to parallel park and are within inches of hitting the other car, but make it, perhaps tapping the other car a little while they're at it. Impressive, but something I could never do. One thing that is kind of hard is that the Spanish use the vosotros verb form, something that our American teachers always told us isn't necessary to learn because no one uses it, but that is almost all they use here. (It is a less formal, more familiar verb form). Most of us haven't really learned it; it is easy to understand it, but I don't really know how to use it myself. The food has been different too. It has been pretty good, we ate some kind of meat at almost every meal, something I am not really accunstomed too. I don't really eat much meat at home, so that is a change for me. The Spanish schedule is much different, our class at 11am is perfect, many people get up later, and 8:30 is pretty early for them. Breakfast is very light, then la comida, lunch, is the main meal of the day, around 2:30, and then dinner is a little lighter, around 8:30ish. I think I like this schedule better, but I've never really been one to get up early anyways, haha. We are always learning new things, how to get to school, how to get home, new vocab and everything. "Bad words" that we would think of in the States don't really have much meaning or significance for the Spanish. Anyways, we are going to go explore soon, so that should be exciting! We'll see how lost we get this time!

I don't think we're in Ohio anymore...

Today was our first full day in Spain. But before that, I’ll start at the beginning...

We left Cincinnati on Saturday at about 2:45 for Atlanta. My mom and I were up until 5:15am the night before trying to pack everything and get ready-typical of my family to pack the night before and stay up the whole night. Woke up at about 8:30 so that we could leave early (ha!) to stop in Dayton on the way to Cincinnati airport and say goodbye to my grandparents. The flight over was fine, it was hard to say goodbye to everyone, and I almost cried, but held back the tears. I felt bad for Nicole, the other girl from Miami who is my roommate, she was crying a lot saying goodbye to her husband (she is 26, married). On the plane I didn’t really sleep much. We got into Madrid airport a little earlier than expected, went through immigration, got our bags, and headed out to look for Bowling Green people at about 9:30ish. We got out there and didn’t see anyone, so we waited, I knew of 2 other kids who were supposed to be getting in soon after us, so we kept an eye out for them. We waited and waited, and by 11 we still hadn’t seen anyone. Nicole and I were starting to freak out a little bit, because we hadn’t seen any of the other students or the director of our program, and we thought everyone had to be in by 11, and we weren’t sure if we were in the right place. Finally, I called the director, Susana, and she said not to worry, that she was coming at 12 and to meet by the information desk. So we moved over by the information desk, and then I saw a kid that I recognized, Nick, and I can’t tell you how relieved I was to find someone. Then, Steve came up and was relieved to see us. Out of the 5 of us that were there, Steve and another girl from Dayton had lost all of their bags, so they had nothing. We waited for what seemed like forever, finally Susana showed up. Steve and Nick went and bought beer, because they could, which was funny. The rest of the students finally came through, several had lost one or both of their bags, I felt bad for them and lucky that both of my came through. We didn’t get out of the airport until about 2, and we were all tired, especially of waiting there for so long. We took a bus to Alcalá where they dropped us off and we met our host families. My host mamá, Juani, is a really sweet 58 year old woman. Her son and his wife and their son were at her house when we got there. Her grandson was really cute, 2 ½ and reminded me of Chris, cars and trucks all over the house. She showed us our room and the house, and then we had some soup with rice and chicken and then more chicken. After resting a little bit and getting settled, we ate dinner again, tortilla francesa and real French fries that she made, then went to bed. One of the big differences over here is that lunch is at about 2:30 in the afternoon and the main meal of the day, then dinner is at about 8:30. I have to say, I think I win the award for bringing the most stuff (surprise!), and a shout out to my Miami roomie Nat, because our room is about the same size, maybe even a little smaller. But it’s fine and the house is very cute.
Today was the first day of school. We got up at about 6:30am, and my roommates back home can attest that that is very early for me, but I was able to get up on my own, shocking, I know! We had to be at school by 8:30, so we left at around 7:40 so that Juani could show us the 2 buses that we can take to school. After we got to school, we had our first class, which was Peninsular literature. I think that is going to be a pretty good class, the professor was hilarious and hopefully that will be a good class, I think it will be. Then we had our advanced grammar class. The professor told us that she tries to speak slowly but starts going quickly unconsciously, which we quickly learned was the truth. She talked very fast and by the time she let us out early from class, most of our brains hurt. She seemed nice though, hopefully it will be a good and useful class. We had to take a placement test, and did some orientation things, then had lunch, but had some time to hang out and chill in between. We had another orientation about culture shock, host families, and different stuff like that, then we were finally done for the day at about 5:30. We waited around for our mamás to come pick us up, like we were elementary school kids, which was kind of funny. We took the bus and then walked home to get to know the route a little better, but it was a little rainy and dark unfortunately. We walked around a little bit, and Juani showed us a shopping mall and came back for dinner, corn and veal and something else but I forget what it was.
Overall, Spain has been fun so far. Our class schedule got changed so now we only have one class Monday/Wednesday at 11am but then three in a row on Tuesday/Thursday. That will be tough, but all the kids seem really cool so far. There are three girls who were here last semester, so they were showing us the ropes a little bit. There have been lots of laughs so far, lots of moments of cluelessness and confusion also. Some people speak very quickly, and it can be hard to understand them. You don’t always know all of what they are saying, but usually you can get a general idea. We were talking about the trips that we are going to take and stuff too, and I think we there is a group of us that is going to go to the Olympics in Torino, Italy, so that should be really awesome and I am so excited for that. Other than that, trying to get used to the new schedule, the language, living with Juani and everything. It has been busy so far, lots to see and learn! Tomorrow we are going to meet and walk around the Plaza Cervantes, and then have class again. This weekend I think we are going into Madrid so that we can register at the embassy and they will teach us what buses to use to get there and stuff like that. Time for bed, we have to get up early again in the morning!
The internet is somewhat difficult to have access to here, so I apologize if I don’t post anything for a few days. Leave comments or drop me an email!