¡El primer día de clases!/Le premier jour des cours!

I decided to do a bilingual title this time because one of my friends mentioned that she misses the French titles of my blog. So now they have been resurrected for your general enjoyment! I am luckily in much better spirits than I was on Saturday, in large part because I am moving towards acceptance of the nearly nonexistent internet situation in Spain. I may have mentioned this in the last post, but it seems that, in more ways than one, Spain hasn't really embraced 21st-century technology yet, so, coming from one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world can be a bit of an adjustment. Silly me for assuming I would have an internet connection comparable to the one I had last semester, based solely on the fact that it said in the information I got on my host family that they had Wifi. Silly me. I should have known better.

I thought that Sundays in Strasbourg were dead, because, as I mentioned on several occasions, nothing is open on Sundays. Well, not only is nothing open on Sundays in Salamanca, but, if you go out for a nice Sunday afternoon stroll, NO ONE is out and about. It's sort of a ghost town. I met up with three of the Georgetown girls for chocolate y churros (the latter of which continue to disgust me) and two hours of conversation. An ENORMOUS group of what appeared to be fresh-off-the-boat Americans came into Valor, Salamanca's premier chocolate y churros venue, and, to make ourselves feel superior to the newbies, we spoke almost exclusively in Spanish. The truth is, our level of Spanish is probably a lot higher than those in other groups, because Georgetown is one of the only schools to offer direct matriculation programs. Many of the Americans I have met are coming here to learn Spanish, which to me is a silly idea. To start out with no Spanish is a big gamble, so I hope it pays off for them.

After leaving Valor, I went to the Irish Rover, a bar and my venue of choice to get internet, mostly because the connection has been the most consistent out of all of the places I've tried. I felt a lot better after talking to my parents again and getting a chance to surf the web for awhile. I'm still working on putting up pictures, which is proving to be a painstakingly long process when an internet connection is less than perfect.

So you're probably wondering what sort of classes I'm taking, because, after all, I did partly come here to study (although I certainly appreciate the traveling/going out part of the experience more). So here's my schedule:

Monday:
9-11 Politics and violence in Spain in the 1930s
12-2 Introduction to Spanish Poetry
4-6 Modern Spanish History: The Inquisition
7-8 Latin American Literature

Tuesday:
9-11 History of Spain from 1939 on
1-2 Introduction to Spanish Poetry
6-7 Modern Spanish History: The Inquisition

Wednesday:
9-11 History of Spain from 1939 on

Thursday:
10-12 Latin American Literature
1-2 Politics and Violence in Spain in the 1930s

You'll notice that I only have 5 classes this semester! Only 5! Compared to France, this is already a vacation, although I get the sense that I WILL have a little bit of work to do throughout the semester. I already had my first class today, and the professor seemed really nice, and, unlike a lot of European professors, seems to believe in class participation as a way to further the learning process. What an idea! There were a few foreign students too (3 from Germany, 1 from the UK, 1 from France, and Carter, me, and one other American, who goes to Roanoke College and knows my friend Marett), and she seemed very happy to have us in the class. So I still have 4 classes to go to, but the first one made me optimistic about how this semester will go!

Sending you my love,
Kristen