The Start of School!

We started school on Monday! Despite what my dad thinks, I am actually excited to finally have a schedule and start classes. I am taking three Spanish classes: intro to literature, conversation, and spanish for business and a culture and civilization class that is required. I have two classes a day and they are an hour and a half each which isn't too bad, only Monday through Thursday. My classes so far have been pretty interesting. I am especially enjoying my culture and civilization class. It is interesting to learn about Spain's past and how they came to be what they are today. My classes are all in Spanish except my culture class.

This week we also went on a walking tour with the school. They took us to the Palacio and to Plaza Mayor. It was so beautiful and I definitely plan to return to go inside. The palace was modeled after Versailles. Our group has been so fun and it has been nice to meet so many new people since I really only knew two people going to Spain with me. Hopefully we will continue to meet more students in Madrid for the semester!

Tomorrow we are off to Segovia for the day. It is only about an hour away so we are leaving around 9 tomorrow and we get back at 7:30. I am excited to get to know another city. Segovia is known for its Roman aqueducts that still function today. The weather has been so awesome recently, almost too chilly to wear shorts in the morning! I am definitely not missing the hot weather and I am excited for Fall. It has been hard to not do any shopping because all that is out right now is sweaters and boots. Hopefully winter will come sooner than later.

I am excited for the weekend and to see what next week will bring!

Discoteca Part II

Last night the group ventured out to another discoteca. We decided to go to El Kapital, the most famous club in Spain. On our way in the metro, Allie and I met several Americans studying with USD and NYU. It is so crazy how many students we have met studying here. Once one of us hears someone speaking English we immediately go over to them and ask them where they are from. It is nice to know that is easy to meet all of these kids and we can expand our group. Some of the people in my group from SMU have other students living with them as well. Its been really cool to meet people from around the US.

El Kapital has seven floors and each floor has its own theme. The first floor is techno with crazy dancers on stage and a huge dance floor. The rest of the floors vary from rap to a Bacardi Floor to the roof top deck on top. We of course had to visit each floor and check them all out. We soon found that the first floor was our favorite. The music was so loud and during certain parts of the songs, a huge, crazy, cold blast of white smoke would shoot down over the dance floor. The build up for the smoke was amazing and fresh air was a great way to stay from getting too tired. I don't think I have ever had so much fun. We stayed until the club closed at 6:00 and caught the metro home because it starts running again at 6. That is the latest I have ever stayed out and I wasn't even that tired when we got home. It was an amazing night. This is the first floor of El Kapital.

We slept until about 1:30 and then headed to Plaza de Santana to meet some girls visiting from London where they are studying abroad. We had our first paella and walked to El Parque de Ritero for some gelato and to see the sights. The park is so gorgeous and it is nice to just find a shady spot to relax.

Our madre is back in town now, she went to visit her daughter for one night and for a celebration. I am so excited because Dorothy Shain is coming tomorrow. She is my sorority sister and one of my very good friends who is doing semester at sea and they are stopping in Spain for a week! I can't wait to show her around and catch up!

My feet once again hate me even though I wore flats last night because there is always so much glass on the dance floor. At the clubs, they give you really nice glasses to drink out of and then people just drop them on the floor and they of course shatter. It is not a very good system and it's kind of dangerous. Overall, last night was amazing and crazy and I can't wait until next weekend to do it all again! :)

Discoteca: 1, Curry:0

Allie and I are currently sitting in our "siesta room" which is actually our TV room just for us and I am soaking my feet in freezing water because last night we went out to the discoteca and my feet have finally given up on me. We met up with thegroup in Plaza Mayor to have a couple drinks before the club, Joy, opened. We ended up taking a few wrong turns thanks to some bad directions so it took us about an hour of walking to get there. We left there and walked to Joy which was the coolest place I think I have ever been. It was three floors of dancing and bars along with a stage for the VIP tables. The atmosphere was amazing and we danced until 5 in the morning. We met lots of people including a big group of Scottish guys who were there on a bachelor party. While dancing the night away in heels, I got stepped on numerous times causing half of my toe nail to fall off and then a piece of glass stabbed my foot. When we got home around 5:30, my shoe and foot was covered in blood. Bad news bears.

We were pretty hungry from the whole night of dancing so we raided our senora's fridge and finished off the lasagna we had for dinner. I hope she doesn't notice haha! We woke up around 1 this afternoon. It was definitely the most fun night here so far.

We headed to the Ritero Park this afternoon and met up with some people in our group for lunch by the lake. It was so relaxing and beautiful. Allie and I walked around for a little and then decided to head back home. At this point, my feet were dying. I don't know how I am going to do it again tonight but I will find a way. The Spanish night life is unbelievable and we never know what to expect each night. I can't believe I get to be here for four months and see these amazing places and go out to these incredible clubs every weekend. This semester is going to be nuts if every night was like last night. This is the lake that we sat next to in Ritero Park when we were having lunch.

Toledo

Wednesday was the first real day of my program in Spain! Allie and I walked to the school today with our bags to go to Toledo. We live only about two blocks from the school so it is so convienent! Some kids live a 30 minute bus ride away so we definitely lucked out! Our host mom is so sweet and nice and we both love her so much! Yesterday during the afternoon we sat on her in-door porch and drank Tinto de Verano, the spanish wine drink with juice in it. It is so good and definitely my new favorite drink! I am loving the laziness of Spanish life so far. Yesterday Allie and I napped and read and just laid around for about 4 hours haha we were feeling pretty lazy but that's exactly what our madre did too!

We all met at the school at 9 this morning and had a brief introduction of rules and ways to stay safe. The school seems really chill and hopefully the classes will be pretty easy. I am taking three spanish classes and a required culture class that is in English. I am looking forward to seeing how classes go on Monday. The bus ride to Toledo was only about 45 minutes and we are staying at the sister school from our school in their dorms. We had lunch when we arrived and then we had about 3 hours of free time before our first lecture. Allie, William, and I set off to explore the city and ended up walking around for about two and a half hours just wandering the streets. It is so hot here and it was definitely a work out with the cobblestone streets and massive hills. I can't imagine living here and basically walking straight up hill or down hill every day. Allie and I bought some cheap bracelets and I bought a postcard and a shot glass to add to my collection.

We came back and rested for awhile until our "class" started at 4:30. Since it was just orientation, the classes were about things to help us adjust to Spanish life such as Spanish culture and living with our host families. They were kinda boring but helpful I guess. We just hung out the rest of the afternoon after that and got ready to go out. Since it was basically a torrential downpour outside, we weren't sure what there was going to be to do but we braved the rain and went out anyways. We found a cool bar that had tombs underneath it that you could see through the floorboards. It closed at 12 though since Toledo isn't a party city so that kinda put a damper on our first night out but it was really great to see and meet everyone in our group!

The next day was fun because we got to go on tours of the historical part of Toledo. We first went to the Mosque which was so gorgeous and then the Synagog. Toledo is very interesting because it is the only place in the world where the Moors, Jews, and Christians lived peacefully. We also got to see the church where El Greco's painting, The Burial of Santo Orgez, is hung in Santo Tome. I loved this part of the tour because I studied the painting in Art History last year so it was really surreal to see it in real life. Later in the afternoon after lunch, we saw the Cathedral. It was incredible. It took over 5 centuries to finish and it has been my favorite thing we saw so far. I think it is so cool that people in Spain or in Europe in general, have these churches as their churches they go every Sunday and people in America fly over the ocean to go see it. It would be so amazing to have a church like that in the United States.

That night we had our welcome dinner and the school gave us sangria which was a nice treat. The dinner was amazing and I think I had three plates haha. We all decided to go to a discoteca that night called El Circulo del Arte which was an old church that they converted into a club. It was so much fun. We stayed out until 4 in the morning dancing. We had to get up at 8 which was definitely rough though and drive back to Madrid.

Allie and spent the rest of the day walking around Madrid exploring for two hours and we are definitely going to have a little siesta now!

Settling In

So after almost a week in Madrid, I am finally at my host mother's house. For the past five days I have been visiting with my family that lives here. It was a really great transition into Spanish life. This past weekend I went to Astorga which is a small country town three hours north of Madrid. It was really interesting to see such a small town in Spain since I have only been to the major cities. In Astorga, the weather was very cool and it got me excited for fall! It is about 90 degrees everyday in Madrid so it was definitely a nice break. Laura, my cousin, taught me how to play paddle which is the Spanish version of tennis. It was really fun! We also got to do a little shopping while we were there because they have a great market at night from 11pm-2am that sells purses, jewelry, and everything you could imagine!

I have learned very quickly that the Spanish love to eat and they love to watch you eat. Thanks to this past weekend, I definitely learned how much they can eat. For every meal, I was given two Fanta Limons, oreos, and cookies...even for breakfast. Yes, I love all these foods but not every day and definitely not right when I wake up. I almost felt force fed because they didn't believe me that I could be full off of a bowl of cereal. It was hard to say no since they were so sweet and welcoming but by the end of the weekend, I ate enough for the entire week.

That tradition was very strange to me because my mom always says to just eat until you are full and skip out on the bread one in awhile. Whereas in Spain, your plate should be empty and you should ask for seconds. Also, a full loaf of bread is eaten at each meal. Lots of carbs!

I arrived today to the house in which I will be living for the next four months. I have my own room which is really nice and Allie and I share a bathroom and a TV room. My madre is very sweet and I am so blessed to have gotten her! Our apartment is five minutes walking from the school and about a 15 minute walk to the main street of shopping! I am so happy with our living arrangements! Surprisingly all of my clothes fit in a small closet. The lack of air conditioning hasn't affected me too much except for the first day. My madre gave me a fan to put by my bed so that helps a lot!

I am really excited for Allie to get here since it is just me and my madre at the house. For dinner, she cooked me delicious chicken and potatoes. I am glad that she likes to cook and not just heat meals up like I have heard other mothers do. She is taking me out to get a drink with her and one of her friends tonight so that should be interesting.

I can't wait to see what this semester brings and what exciting adventures and schenagians I am going to get into! I am actually so happy I chose to go abroad this semester as I can't imagine being at SMU right now after being in Spain for just five days. I am sure this semester is going to be the best one yet! :)