Saludos a Todos...
I arrived in Salamanca, Spain at 5:00 pm on Sunday. It is 6 hours ahead of Raleigh time...
My ¨dorm room¨is very sparce and that is all I am going to say about that!
Salamanca is a beautiful city made up primarily of the University; it was charted in 1218! None of the original buildings from 1218 are left but we do have classes in a building from the 1500s! Very cool! The only structure which still stands from 1218 is a chapel connected to the impressive catedral. I do not know the name of this Cathedral yet but hope to go to mass there Saturday evening...We shall be taking a tour of this soon.
My classes begin at 8:30 am with 1. Evolution of the Spanish Language(wicked interesting). 2. Contemporary History of Spain (from La Guerra Civil 1936 and up) 3. Grámatica Español 4. La Literatura (our professor is heavily into La Generación 98) 5. Class of how to write the Masters Thesis. Each class is 1 hour long and I am finding them all very interesting.
Then we walk 1 mile to the cafeteria and eat comida.
At 4:00 we return to class until 7:00. Today we had a culture class (super interesting) but yesterday we did a walking tour of the University with an expert from the school. He discussed architecture, history etc. It was great.
Our group is made up of approx. 120 people. Surprisingly, most of the people are hispanic! There are very few Northamericans!
I am really glad that I decided to do this and that my family is going along with this. So far...nothing outrageous has happened, this is a good thing. I am actually quite the hand raiser in my grammar class and am finding it very easy! Yesterday I had to explain the differences between the Preterite and the Present perfect ( called Preterite perfect) to a cuban man who was sitting next to me...imagine that!!!! In his defense, he said that he was a gym teacher.....
The language is all coming back to me and I am very happy about that! It is truly like riding a bike...
One of my class mates and I are organizing a field trip on Saturday to eat Paella in a restaurant near the Plaza Mayor and then we want to go see the Leonardo DiVinci exhibit and mass....Blanca and I are sending around a sign up sheet tomorrow. This is of course not during class when the prof. is teaching!
Forgot to mention that yesterday we sat outside at a café in La Plaza Mayor and had a glass of wine and just watched people and chatted...my day is 100% in Spanish.
I´ll sign off for now as I have to go do HOMEWORK and I want to begin to study. Our midterms are coming up mid July and I want to do well.
Blessings!
