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. :)

Lazy Sunday.

Well, not so much hahah. I've gone to church (yay St. Thomas of Villanova), been to el gimnasio, showered, and eaten a delicious lunch (chicken not pork!), so semi-productive. And we're going to see a bullfight at the Plaza de Toros tonight as part of festival week, so that should be an interesting cultural experience (hopefully not a very gory one).

So let's see, what have I been up to the past few days?

Ohh. Well, I finally did get clean clothes, though there wound up being a big laundry debacle that totally stressed me out. I've already told the story about eight times to various different people, so if you don't already know and you're that interested, just ask me haha. But they're clean, which is all that matters.

Our second dance class was quite fun as well, although I found flamenco to be a lot harder than salsa. And the fiesta we had afterwards was nice too (although for the record, Telepizza is pretty damn gross) - they had a mariachi band from the University come and sing for us, which was so cool. They wore traditional costumes and played their own guitars, and they definitely had fun with it - they brought two girls up to serenade them, and then made four of the kids from my program sing solo lines with them (in Spanish, which just made it even funnier).

I signed up for all of my classes without a problem, and those start tomorrow. As of right now (provided I don't add/drop anything, which I can do till Oct. 3), I'm taking Regionalism in Spain, History of Spain after the Civil War (both for humanities credit), Comparative Religions (theology, obviously), Advanced Spanish Grammar & Syntax I, and Introduction to the Spanish Novel (for my English major). The first four are all IES classes, meaning they're just with the other kids in my program and are taught by IES professors. The lit class is the one I'm direct enrolling in at the University, so I'll be in a class of Spanish students with a professor there. I thought about taking two University classes, but when I looked at the reading list for the lit one, I decided doing that might be a little much if I actually have to read the entirety of Don Quixote in Spanish. So yes, I'm excited and embracing my nerddom re: classes.

Friday we had our last day of intensive Spanish classes and then an IES sponsored outing at a karaoke bar here in Salamanca. That was pretty funny, since people sang not only to songs in English ("I Want It That Way," anyone? Yay for BSB throwbacks) but also tried to sing in Spanish as well. Very amusing.

Yesterday we took a day trip to Toro and Zamora, which are both about an hour north of Salamanca. In Toro we visited a bodega (which is actually the Spanish name for a vineyard/winery) and got a tour of the wine-making facilities. We also had a wine tasting and got to sample some of the red and white wines they made right on the estancia (farm or estate, I believe; the place was called Estancia Piedra). After that we went over to Zamora, which is where one of the directors of our program actually grew up, and walked around there for a bit. He showed us the historical parts - the Romanesque cathedral, the walls around the city complete with slits for the archers to shoot through, and the ruins of the old castle. We ended the day with a very unique lunch in a converted wine cellar.

Okay, I kid you not, we got off the bus and walked through what looked like a sketchy, abandoned ghost town - we did not see one person, and I half expected to see one of those tumbleweeds roll past as eagles cried in the distance. We passed by a bunch of entrances to private wine cellars, which are basically just steel doors that open onto a staircase underground and so look like bomb shelters. And then we finally got to this restaurant and we go downstairs, and voila! People! Haha. Lunch was already - a bit too much meat for my taste. The salad and bread were delicious, but then we had chorizo (I kind of liked that, reminiscent of kielbasi at Easter), what I think was supposed to be pork bacon but was actually more like grilled slabs of fat, and then ribs (pork again). Everyone (especially Whitney, who's from Texas haha) laughed at me because I'd never had ribs before and was totally unaccustomed to the idea of a hands-on method for eating them. Anyway, then they brought out dessert - ice cream bars (yay Cornetto cones) and coffee. And we thought that was it. And then the owner was like "CHUPITOS!" and brought out two bottles to every table, one of which was a NEON green liquid that looked like Kryptonite and tasted like green apple Jolly Ranchers. We were all really, really perplexed by the fact that we were being encouraged to end our meal by doing shots, but the guys at the restaurant were very excited about it haha. (I feel like they must play it up for the Americans - "Okay, the crowd from the U.S. is here! Bring out the booze!")

Oh and also, just as a fun anecdote. A bunch of us went up to use the bathroom between lunch and dessert, and after finding out that we needed a key to the stand-alone, only-slightly-more-modern-looking-than-an-outhouse bathroom structure (guess who got to run back down the stairs into the cellar and up again with the key? Hi.), opened the door to find two toilet-like structures, both without seats, neither of which had toilet paper. Or flushed. Or had soap at the sinks. So THAT was fun. This is the reason why I carry Purel with me, honestly. I'll have to figure out how to fit the Charmin To Go in my clutch, because lack of toilet paper in Spanish bathrooms seems to be a theme. Blargh.

Anyway, that's all for now. I have to go get ready for the bullfight. I think Whitney and I are going to split a taxi there because it looks like it might be kind of far away. I'm going to post pictures from Toro and Zamora on Snapfish (for those of you who don't have Facebook), and I'm sure I'll have a bunch from the bullfight too. Love you and miss you, hope everyone's well!