Las clases han empezado

Me with my host parents, Antonio and Mari

Plaza Mayor, the center of town

In front of one of the cathedrals on the first day

Yesterday was the last day of my first week of classes at Universidad de Salamanca, and it was quite the experience. The weekend before classes started was pretty lazy because I had absolutely nothing to do. That was a pretty weird experience for me; even when I’m home for vacations I always have some sort of project around the house I can work on, but here that’s not the case. I’m getting used to, and enjoying, the slower-paced life here, although once classes get into full swing the lack of stuff to do will not last. Last Saturday Kristen and I attempted to run and ended up walking through the city. It was nice to get some form of exercise given the huge quantities of food my host mother serves me! I had a marathon internet session at a wifi café in the afternoon, and I got to skype with my parents for the first time, which was fun. That night, we decided to see a Spanish movie. We settled on Bride Wars (Guerra de Novias) because we figured that anything with a more complicated and serious plot line would be too hard to follow. It was really funny to see Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway with Spanish-dubbed voices, but it was still kind of hard to understand. I got the gist, though, and now I’d like to see it in English. We were going to go out after the movie, but both of us were really tired and I was starting to get sick, so we called it a night. Oh yes, the latest movie showings here are around 1am, when people are just starting their nights. Tickets are way cheaper, too.

Sunday I was feeling pretty sick (stuffy nose, sore throat, head ache) so I stayed in all day and spent a good chunk of time laying in my bed watching Gilmore Girls on dvd. Classes started on Monday, and that’s when it hit me that I really don’t speak Spanish! Sure, I may have been taking it since the 7th grade, but that does not qualify me to take actual university classes in Spanish! I’ve become really envious of all these foreigners who aren’t doing direct matriculation and therefore aren’t taking university classes. I know that it will get better eventually and that I’ll slowly and surely improve, but it was a stressful week for everyone in my program. Not only are we trying to work out satisfactory class schedules, which can be a chore even in the States, but we’re trying to learn an entirely new educational system as well as improve our Spanish. I’ve changed my schedule multiple times and had to drop a few of the classes I originally signed up for. The most disappointing one I had to drop was North American Literature. Since I’m an American Studies major, I was looking for classes here that have something to do with the US. I found a bunch of American Lit. classes, but all of their syllabi were in English, so I couldn’t take them. Finally I found one in Spanish and was so excited that I would get to take American Lit. in Spanish! I went to the class on Tuesday and was the only foreigner. I felt terribly out of place, and it gave me a whole new respect for minorities. I was really nervous, but the professor seemed nice and the class seemed interesting. But then, he passed out the syllabus, and it was in English! So I had to drop the class, and the literature nerd in me was very disappointed that I would be missing out on all that classic American lit. After lots of tedious changes, I think I finally have an acceptable schedule. I’ll be taking Introduction to Spanish Poetry, Modern History of Spain (Inquisition and Society, 16th and 17th centuries), Hispanic American Literature, 19th and 20th centuries, Prehispanic and Indigenous American History, and Symbolism and Art Noveau. I have 15 hours of class a week and never start class before 10am. I get out by 2pm on Thursday and have no classes on Friday, although I do have evening classes on Monday and Tuesday. It’s a pretty awesome schedule. Also, we didn’t have class on Wednesday because it was some saint day, so I’ve only had 3 days of class so far! And my class this afternoon was cancelled. Oh, Spain.

One of my best friends from high school, Mary Kathryn, is also studying in Salamanca this semester. She arrived on Sunday, and I bumped into her in the Plaza Mayor (the center of town) on Monday. She’s doing a different program here, but she’ll be here through May and I think we’re going to get to hang out a lot together. On Wednesday, she, Kristen, and I planned our spring break, which is the first week of April. We’re going to England for the first half and Ireland for the second half, and we’ll be spending Easter in Ireland! I went to London for spring break last year to visit my cousin Beth, so I’m hoping this year I can see some more of England as well as London. And I’ve always wanted to go to Ireland (I went through a bit of an obsession in middle school) so I’m really excited for this trip. I’m anxious to start traveling, there’s so much of Spain and Europe I want to see. I just hope classes don’t get too much in the way!

I’ve been sick with a cold pretty much all week, which has made me very tired and worn out, so I haven’t done much other than go to class and lay in bed watching tv on my computer this week (to the few who care, I’m almost done with Gilmore Girls!) Plus it’s been really rainy and gross all week. But last night I finally did get to go out because it was the 21st birthday of one of the Georgetown girls. We had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant, and the food was delicious, but our meals didn’t turn out quite as we expected—our Spanish culinary vocabulary is rather limited, so we didn’t exactly know what we were ordering. I think the biggest surprise was the raw egg that came on one of the pizzas (it was gross). But it was fun to eat out and hang out with the whole group. Since I’ve been here, I’ve only eaten out for a meal once because my host mother provides me with 3 meals a day, so it was nice to do something different. After dinner we went bar-hopping and took advantage of Spanish nightlife. I went home at 4am, and all the bars were still packed. Spaniards certainly know how to party. It was a really fun night, and today I don’t have class! I’m a big fan of the 4-day school week. Plus, it’s a gorgeous day today, which is a nice break from all the rain we’ve had, so I’m looking forward to a lazy afternoon out.

My Wisconsin roommates left Wednesday morning; they will be replaced with some French people on Sunday. It’s very common here for people to just open up their homes to boarders, which is nice for traveling students. Some other observations I’ve had since I’ve been here:-Spaniards don’t drink water. I’m used to drinking a ton of water every day, but nobody here really does. I miss free water at restaurants! I also miss all the fruits and vegetables I’m used to eating. I eat a LOT more meat and bread here.
-Spain is much more conscious of water and electricity use. All the lights in public spaces like hallways and bathrooms are on timers; you turn them on and they go off again after a few minutes, which I think is really cool.
-Smoking is allowed in many if not most public places, much to my dismay.
-American music is everywhere here—in the bars, in the stores, on commercials on tv. It’s striking how pervasive American culture is around the world. I really can’t escape it.

I miss you all and hope you’re doing well!
Love,
Molly

La primera semana

Hola a todos! I have now been in Salamanca for a full week, and I love it! I’m having so much fun living in a foreign country and learning about Spanish culture. Before I talk about the past week, let me rant a little about my internet situation: my host family doesn’t have wireless internet in their house, which made my first few days here really hard. I wanted to be able to check my email, skype with people at home, and read up on all the inauguration coverage, and it was especially frustrating because everyone else in my program has wireless internet where they live (albeit rather inconsistent wireless). I bought a portable internet device, but I had to go back to the tech store where I bought it 3 times before it worked; it still only works about half the time, so that whole situation was really frustrating too. So, being a spoiled American who has access to internet wherever she goes, I was really upset about not having internet for the first few days. While it’s still hard to not have internet whenever I need it, I’ve gotten used to the idea of using internet cafes and my portable internet during the rare times that it works. And once classes start on Monday I’ll have access to the network at school. So things are not as bad as they seemed (they rarely are, I suppose), but just to warn you, if I have a skype date with you and I don’t show up, I apologize in advance; I probably just wasn’t able to find an internet connection.

Now, my journey to Salamanca. I left Georgia on the afternoon of Thursday Jan. 15. My friend Kristen from Georgetown is also studying in Salamanca this semester, so she came down to visit me in Georgia for a couple of days, which was really fun, and we flew out of Atlanta together. Thursday morning I finished up my packing, ran a few errands, and took my sister Meg lunch at school. She was practicing an a cappella song with her friends for their upcoming talent/rock show (Coffee House), and I got to listen! I’m glad I got to watch them, but it really made me miss my a cappella group at Georgetown, the GraceNotes. Then Kristen and I went downtown to have a final lunch with my friends Jennifer and Mary Kathryn, and my parents drove us to the Atlanta airport afterwards. It was hard to tell my parents goodbye, but I wasn’t as emotional as I thought I was going to be. (I will admit, I did cry a little bit Wednesday night as I was packing. I was pretty nervous.) We flew overnight from Atlanta to London and then had a 7 hour layover in the London airport, which was primarily spent surfing the internet and fighting off jetlag. It was during this first part of our journey that we realized that we weren’t going to arrive in Salamanca until about 11pm, and we started getting really nervous about getting to our host families late at night with no means of communicating with anyone. So we decided to hastily book a hostel for Friday night and deal with contacting our families on Saturday. It was extremely nerve-wracking trying to book a hostel and figure out all the transportation, and fortunately Kristen handled all the details, for which I was very grateful. After landing in Madrid, we had to take a bus to Salamanca. Our bus platform wasn’t posted until minutes before departure time, and once we got down to the platforms the numbers kept changing, so Kristen had to race around finding our bus while I tried to keep an eye on our 6 bags and not get trampled by the traveling Spaniards around me. The 2.5 hour bus ride felt about twice as long, but we finally made it to our hostel (fortunately the reception desk was still open), took showers, brushed our teeth, and crashed. It was an exhausting 30 hours.

We checked out of the hostel at noon on Saturday, and Kristen and I parted ways as we went to find our host families (we are living on the same street though). When I buzzed up to my apartment, I was told that my host mother wasn’t there and to come back at 2. I knew they were expecting me, but I didn’t know what to do other than wait until 2, so I lugged my suitcases to a neighboring park and settled down with my book. It was actually quite nice. When I returned at 2, my host mother told me that she had been expecting me to come between 1 and 2, which is probably what the person I spoke to before (either her husband or son) told me, but I failed to understand. I really love my host family, despite their lack of internet and their tendency to fry everything they cook. The mother, Mari (nickname for Maria) is really sweet and always helps me with my Spanish and offers to help me with homework. She calls me “amable hija,” or kind daughter. There is also a father and a 26-year-old son—people tend to live at home for much longer here than they do in the US. I’m also living with 2 girls from Wisconsin, although I’m technically not supposed to live with Americans, but they’re leaving next week so I figure it’s not a big deal.

After lunch Kristen and I met up to do a bit of exploring. We got some hot chocolate—the really thick kind like in the movie Chocolat, which I’ve wanted to try ever since I saw the movie. It definitely lived up to my expectations. We eventually bumped into our friend Carter from Georgetown who is also studying here this semester but came a couple weeks early for a language program. He showed us around the city, and in the evening we met up with the rest of the kids in our program and our program director for tapas. Afterwards we did some bar hopping, but the 3 of us that had gotten in Friday night had to call it quits at about 2am—extremely early by Spanish standards…they usually stay out till about 5am. It was a fun night.

There are 7 students in our program, 6 girls and 1 guy. We are doing direct matriculation, meaning we are official students of the University of Salamanca (USAL) and take classes with Spanish students—15 credits, all in Spanish. Apparently most other programs don’t do it that way; students come and take language programs, and maybe 1 or 2 classes in the host language, which kind of surprised me. I’m excited and terrified about taking all my classes in Spanish. I know I’ll improve a ton, but it’s going to be hard. At least my grades don’t go on my transcript, so all I have to do is pass to get Georgetown credit. Also, it will be fun to study at USAL, which is the oldest university in Spain and the 3rd oldest in Europe. While not quite as prestigious as it used to be, it still is quite important historically.

On Sunday we went out for churros and chocolate, which is a traditional Spanish treat (who doesn’t love deep fat fried dough dipped in liquid chocolate?), and in the afternoon we had a historic tour of the city. Monday through Friday was taken up by orientation: we took culture and language classes, registered for classes at the university (an extremely complicated process), and adjusted to life here. It was a pretty laid back week, and it was kind of weird to not have a million things to do every day. Every morning we would have pinchos (small snacks, like tapas) around noon in one of the various cafes; this typically consists of café con leche and maybe jam or a small Spanish tortilla. Tortillas are absolutely delicious and nothing like Mexican tortillas. They are egg, potato, and onion concoctions kind of like quiche, but without the pie crust. I think they are my favorite food in Spain so far. Lunch, or la comida, takes place around 2 or 2:30, and is the biggest meal of the day. Literally the entire city (and I presume country) shuts down between 2 and 4 so everyone can go home for comida and siesta. Dinner is smaller and happens around 9 or 10. It’s a different system, but I like it. It leaves lots of time for hanging out in cafes with your friends, which is a custom that I really enjoy and participate in pretty much every day.

I haven’t really experienced much culture shock or homesickness yet, just a few small annoyances that kind of grated on me. However, on January 20 I wished with all my might that I could be back home in Washington for the inauguration of President Obama. I really can’t believe that after 2 ½ years of living in that city I missed one of the most important and exciting days in American history in my lifetime. I’m so envious of all my Georgetown friends who got to go; I’m sure I wouldn’t have slept Monday night so that I could leave in the wee hours of Tuesday morning to get down to the National Mall. I’ve seen pictures of the day's events that people posted on Facebook, and they are absolutely incredible. All of the Georgetown kids in Salamanca watched together in a bar on the Madrid news, which was fun, but I could have done without the Spanish dubbing. I’m going to have to go back and watch the speech in English on Youtube. But it’s exciting to see how the rest of the world is reacting to our new president; Obama is all over the news here, and there is a general sense of happiness and renewed faith in America. I’m excited to see what the next 4 years will bring.

Please forgive me if I rambled on a bit; there was a lot to write about from my first week abroad. I’m looking forward to seeing what the next 5 months will bring!

One week to go....

Hi everyone! I'm leaving for my semester in Salamanca, Spain in a week, so I thought I would go ahead and set up my blog, which I'll use to keep you all updated on what I'm up to. Right now I'm still at home in Georgia, packing and getting ready for the big trip. My friend Kristen is also going to Salamanca, so she is coming to Georgia on Tuesday, and we're going to leave together from Atlanta Thursday evening. We arrive in London Friday morning and fly to Madrid Friday night. Then we'll take a train to Salamanca, which is about 2 hours away from Madrid. Lots of travel time. I'll be staying a hotel Friday and Saturday night and I move in with my host family on Sunday Jan. 18. Then I have a week of orientation and classes start Monday January 26! And yes, all my classes are in Spanish, which still kind of terrifies me, but I'm sure after a week of Spanish culture classes I'll be much better prepared. That's it for now....I'll write again once I've arrived in Spain!