February 19

Hola
It´s been a few since I wrote a blog, so I thought I´d catch you up on my life. Not much exciting has happened since the Granada trip. Just school as normal. It´s the end of the second week of classes, and things are settling into a nice little routine. I suddenly got loaded with homework on Tuesday, but most of it isn´t due till next week, so I´ve gotten it all done already. Which is good, because I don´t want to have to worry about it this weekend. I think my favorite class so far is Spanish. We´re learning phrases and expressions that are actually useful in everyday life. How to invite someone somewhere, how to ask for things at stores and restaurants, that sort of thing. The professor is really nice, too. She´s the one who teaches Colloquial Spanish, which I wanted to take but couldn´t, so she knows all the modern phrases and stuff. I also like cultural studies. We watched La lengua de las mariposas yesterday, which means The Tongue of the Butterflies or something like that. It´s a movie about a boy going to school during the second republic in Spain, right before Franco. It was really good, but had a sad ending. The professor in that class is really cool too. In literature we started reading a book called Sonata de Otoño (Fall Sonata) that´s from the beginning of the 1900s. It´s really flowery and romantic and hard to follow. Luckily, it´s pretty short. We had to read half of it for next tuesday, and i finished that yesterday. Not sure I understood all of it, but hey, that´s what class discussion is for. History, the class I was most excited for, has turned out to be kind of boring. I like learning about the history of Spain, but it´s nothing but lecture for 3 hours a week. We just got into the middle ages, after the fall of the Roman Empire. Maybe once we´ve gotten into material I know more about it´ll become more interesting. My last class is film, and we´re studying surrealism now. We´ll be watching Un perro andalúz (An Andalusian Dog) today. He gave us a sheet with a synopsis, and it makes absolutely no sense. I don´t think I really like surrealism. Maybe I should hold back judgement until I see the movie, but I don´t have high hopes.
Tomorrow I´m getting together with Katie and Jen to plan a trip to Segovia this Saturday. It´s about an hour and a half bus ride away, so we´re going to do a day trip. Jen´s host mom is going with us. Apparently she knows a lot about the city and where we should go. I´m looking forward to it. We´re also going to plan to go to Austria for the beginning of spring break. I´m really excited for that! I´m glad I´ll be able to go then instead of in May because it didn´t sound like Brent and Danny were that interested in it, and then we can spend more time in places where they really want to go. I really want to see Vienna, Salzburg, and the Alps. I think we´ll go for 3 or 4 days, depending on when Jen´s other plans start. Katie will be in London, so she won´t go with. I don´t know yet what I´m going to do for the rest of spring break. I have yet to figure that out. I´m thinking about spending a day or two at the end of Holy Week in Toledo or Segovia or somewhere close by so that I won´t have to pay for a hostel. All the hostels are probably sold out already anyway. Holy week is a huge deal here. They have processions all day where they take the statues out from all the little churches and march them down the streets of the city to the cathedral and back again. It´ll be interesting to see, but I don´t necessarily want to spend two days looking at processions.
This weekend is Carnaval. Patricia´s sending us a link to the website that has all the activities. I want to check out some of the parades and stuff. A lot of the bars and stuff have free drinks, and I´m not really sure what other things there are going on. I think it´s not like Brazil where everyone dresses up everywhere. Some people dress up, but not as many.
Next weekend I´m going to Barcelona with Katie and her friend! I´m very excited!! Her friend is studing in Germany, I think, and he wants to see Madrid. So they´re going to hit the Madrid hotspots on Friday, then we´re taking the midnight bus to Barcelona and staying there till Sunday night. It´s about a 7-8 hour bus trip. Katie´s dad knows someone whose sister or something has a hostel in Barcelona, so we´re hoping to stay there for cheap or free (cross fingers).
Well, I´ve got to go to class. Ta ta!
Bethany