Hola from the USAL campus

Buenos dias! Well, for you all over in America, at least. I'm sitting on a conveniently placed bench in one of the academic buildings here taking advantage of the WiFi before my Spanish grammar/language class starts at 1. The wireless in my apartment has been a little spotty in the mornings, so I've taken to bringing my laptop to class with me.

Anyway, since I last wrote things have continued to be good. The bullfight was...an interesting experience. I'm definitely glad that I went, because I feel like it's one of those things I couldn't NOT do, but once is also certainly enough. There were three toreros (bullfighters) and six different bulls - they each fought two. We were all the way up in the cheap seats (and in the direct sun, grah), but we could still see perfectly. I've already posted pictures with a good bit of description, but basically a bunch of toreros would get the bull riled up first, poking it with lances and such, before the actual torero would come out. Then there was this elaborate cat-and-mouse game, with a lot of passing and lunging and whatnot, before the torero finally just did the bull in with a sword to the spine (eek). What was terrible was when the guys on horseback would get flipped off, because the bull would inevitably go straight for the horse's underbelly and they'd fall, and you'd just hear all this clanging as the bull tried to ram through the horse's armor (all I could think of was Liz and how her love of all things equestrian would have cried out in horror). Then all the people would wave their handkerchiefs, programs, and other paper-like things to indicate their approval - sometimes, like when the torero took too long or fell himself, they wouldn't wave at all. And the president of the plaza or whatever he was awarded the prizes based on their cheers. There are three different prizes for a fight - you either get one of the bull's ears, both, or both ears and the tail. Yeeeeah.

So that was Sunday. On Monday, classes started (at least the IES ones). I was really excited and so far I haven't been disappointed. My Spanish grammar/culture profesor is really nice. His name is Javier, and he said that the thing he most wants to help us do is improve our conversational abilities so that we don't make so many of the usual errors extranjeros (foreigners) make - interchanging words like "gente" and "personas," for example, which both mean people but are used in different circumstances. We're also doing a bit with slang and cultural norms in addition to the strict grammar stuff like preterite and imperfect. My history class, History of the Spanish Republic and the Civil War, also seems really interesting. I've never really learned about that period at all, in any classes. Taking notes en espanol proved to be a bit challenging, but she also gave us a couple of photocopied pages of notes to follow along with as she lectured, so I can combine my notes with those. Today I have Regionalism and Political Intersections in Spain as well as Comparative Religions, then my university class, Introduction to the Spanish Novel, starts next Tuesday.

Last night, Whitney and I went to dinner with her dad, who's in town for the week. We went to a really nice sidewalk cafe close to Plaza Mayor, and then got some helado (ice cream!) afterwards. He was a really nice guy, very friendly and easy to talk to. So a fun night! The two of them are leaving for Madrid for the weekend tomorrow.

I might be going to San Sebastian in Pais Vasco for the weekend with a bunch of the other IES students, which would be fun. We'd take a train out on Friday morning and stay through Sunday afternoon, and it's pretty affordable which is nice (yay hostels). So I'll see how that goes.

Anyway. Off to class now. Hope everybody's doing well - love you and miss you all. :)