On Wednesday morning, we woke up and headed to school to find our assignments for our
el curso intensivo de Lengua y Cultura española that will last through the rest of orientation (friday, 1/28). With approximately ten people in each class, I was nervous that I wouldn't know anyone in my class but all the Wofford Spanish professors should be proud because Lizzy, Will, Thomas, An, Lindsey, and I all got placed in an above average language class together! Kaitlin is also in our class, as well as three other students in our program. Class was pretty interesting -- we learned some need-to-know aspects about the Spanish culture. For example, businesses are open from 10am - 1:30 pm and then close until five so that everyone can go take
siestas. Then the stores reopen from 5pm - 8:30pm. Not only do they break for naps, they also take a break around 11am for everyone to get coffee and a snack. I'm thinking this needs to transfer over to the states! When class finished, Lizzy and I walked to our bus stop and then hopped on the bus to head back home for lunch where Cristina made us a very Spanish meal of some kind of meatballs, rice, broccoli, and more soup. One thing that is very different between here and los estados unidos is that when it's okay to cross the street, not only does the little green man light up, but a very loud siren beeps. We had no idea what it was at first but after realizing there weren't ambulances driving by everytime we wanted to cross the street, we figured it out. Stuffed from lunch, we decided it was time to embrace
la cultura española and enjoy a siesta. Due to a bit of jet lag, our naps turned into sleep and we didn't wake up until around 9pm. Lizzy decided to just go ahead and sleep through the night but I was not about to miss cena so I decided to go walk around the neighborhood and find somewhere to pick up dinner. After finding a little supermercado and grabbing a sandwich and some yogurt for dinner, I headed back to the house to watch some trashy American tv (yes, the Bachelor) on my computer and head to bed.
We headed back to class on Thursday morning and our profesora, Jacinta (like the flower), focused on differences in American and Spanish culture, especially in terms of what we are allowed to do in our casas. For example, you can NEVER walk around barefoot in the house so everyone is a big fan of slippers here (but more like the grandmother slip-on kind. Just let me know whoever wants a pair because most of the them are only two euro). We finished up class, told our friends we'd meet up with them later, and headed back to our barrio to grab lunch. Lizzy and I found this great little sandwich shop right down the street from our apartment and enjoyed not only great sandwiches, but pasta salad and coca-cola light too! As we walked back into the house, we both stopped and had the whole deer-in-headlights look because we saw Cristina was making lunch for us. Realizing we had misunderstood her at breakfast (she was making us breakfast and dinner on Friday, not Thursday), we took a moment to secretly freak out and prepare ourselves for a comida segunda of spaghetti, pan, and ensalada. Absolutely stuffed, we decided that after two lunches we needed to go walk and explore our neighborhood. What started as short walk to stretch our legs turned into a three hour excursion as we kept wandering and figuring out what all our neighborhood had to offer. We're still not sure what everything is, but we found some great restaurants, little cafes, and even a few shops!
La iglesia near our apartment
After we finished exploring, we headed back to Cristina's to regroup and then met Will and Thomas for dinner at La Piteria, a pita restaurant near us, and then headed back to get ready for our big trip to Segovia the proxima dia!
On Friday morning, our entire IES group took a day trip to Segovia, an absolutely beautiful ciudad in Castilla y León. We started our paseo of Segovia at the aquaducts which were absolutely incredible. They are gigantic which makes it hard to believe that anyone could have ever built those without huge machinery and technology. As we continued walking, we came to la Iglesia San Martin, a local church in Segovia that is right next to el monumento del Juan Bravo, a local hero. One of my favorite stops of the day, however, was la Catedral de Segovia. It was absolutely breathtaking because of its incredible architecture and size. We weren't able to go in because they are restoring parts of it, but you can tell from the pictures how spectacular it is.
La iglesia San Martin
Juan Bravo
La Catedral de Segovia
Most of our Wofford group at la Catedral (Thomas, Lizzy, An, Will)
We continued our tour down the cobblestone roads and came to el Alcázar, an amazing castle on the hillside of Segovia that was home to la Reina Isabela and was used as a defense against the Muslims during her time. This was my other favorite site of the day because of the intricate detail in the interior of the castle as well as the amazing view it had to offer of the city. Our guide, Ramón, did an amazing job of telling us all about the history of the castle and the unique mezcla of Spanish and Muslim styles in the architecture. Once we finished touring the castle, we walked down the hill (which was a little steep and interesting for all of us girls in boots) to la Iglesia de la Veracruz. After looking around the little church, we got back on the bus and headed to Torrecaballeros, another little city, to enjoy an amazing meal and start back towards Madrid.
el Alcázar
La iglesia de la Veracruz
i had forgotten about coca-cola lights! ;) miss you.
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