Moving and First Day of Classes

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For personal reasons, my roommate and I decided to move out of our original housing and into a different house today. We felt like we lived in more of a dorm type setting rather than a traditional Spanish house, and that we weren't getting the same experience that everyone else in our program is getting. Other students in our program have meals made for them by their senoras every day, and then their senoras sit down and eat with them. At our old house our senora had 2 hired cooks who did all the cooking for us, and eating was similar to eating in a cafeteria. We could easily go whole days without seeing our senora, and it just seemed like we weren't getting the experience that we were told we would have and that we paid for. After talking to our program director, she essentially decided for us that it would be best if we moved out, so this morning we did. Our old senora seemed a little upset, but not terribly insulted which is good because I was really nervous that she would be really angry and explode on us.

So anyway, this morning we moved into a new senora's house. Her name is Carmen, and she is absolutely adorable. I liked her as soon as I met her. She's a cheerful abuela, and she loves to cook. Which is especially good because I like to eat. She doesn't speak a word of english, which will be difficult but good in the long run as the main objective in living in Spain for 4 months for me was to become as fluent in Spanish as possible.

The home we live in now is much more traditional. The room Jen and I share is about the size of a college dorm, so there is definitely not a lot of extra space for anything. Two other girls in our program, Kia and Sam, already live here, so we basically also gained two roommates, which I think will be really fun because they seem really cool. Although there isn't much space, the water is hot (unlike in some of the other homes) and there is wifi (which we are actually stealing from an unsecured network that is nearby, but don't tell anyone). Our new place is a lot further from the school and shopping district, but closer to some of the other students in our program, so I think it all evens out.

Today we had our first day of classes. Our program is designed so that only the Americans in our program attend the school, so the entire school consists of only about 36 people.

I decided to do the intensive language track, so I'm essentially taking 16 credits of all Spanish classes. It's 3 hours a day, Monday thru Thursday from 11:45-3:00 with a 15 minute break in the middle. 4 other students are in this class with me, and we have the same teacher for the entire time period. Needless to say, I think we're all going to get to know each other pretty well by the end.

Our teacher, Leila, doesn't allow any english whatsoever in her classroom so once again I only get about 1/2 of what she says to us. I think it's good though, it really forces you to use Spanish.

Other than that, I've just been unpacking and getting adjusted to the new place. The only thing I really miss from the old place are some of the other Spanish students who lived there. I was just starting to get to know them. Oh well, we can still easily see each of if we want, I'm sure I'll see them downtown. I don't think I'm doing anything interesting tonight, for the first time since I've been here.

I was able to watch the Packer game until 2:00 a.m. last night. We ended up losing, I was pretty disappointed about that. I guess I'll just have to start looking forward to baseball season and following soccer, because everyone here is obsessed with soccer.

I did talk to my mom and my aunt Char last night, and they're interested in visiting me while I'm here, so I'm probably going to start looking for flights for them.

I'll try to put up some pics of the new place.

Chao!

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