¡La visita de Kate!

El castillo de Peñafiel

Thoroughly enjoying our wine tasting

Georgetown group (and friends!) at the castle

Sorry to disappoint you, but this is going to be another one of those painfully long catchup posts that you all know and love, so if you don't have a lot of time on your hands, read no further.  I would like to think that you're sitting in Saxbys, or some equally amazing coffee shop, nursing a small skim hot chocolate or a café au lait, and reading my blog, but I know you all have busy lives, which brings me to another point- KEEP THE UPDATES COMING!!!!  I love hearing what's going on with all of you and how life is going back in the good ole USofA.  But in case any of you were wondering what on earth is going on in Salamanca, here goes.  Nothing really earth-shattering has happened, but, rather, little victories and losses.  Hopefully you will find some of the anecdotes amusing!

The internet continues to be an issue, but I am slowly accepting the situation.  There are certain times when all I want to do is sit in my bed and watch an episode of The Daily Show (thanks, Kate, for getting me thoroughly addicted to it!), but I know that that's just not a possibility.  The connection at home has been decent (knock on wood) recently, but I'm thinking that won't last forever.  So, for those of you who haven't noticed, I've put a disclaimer as my Skype status: if I'm supposed to be on Skype and I'm not, I haven't forgotten (in fact, I don't think I've ever forgotten about a Skype date), but I'm most likely having some sort of internet disaster.  So bear with me, and I'll reschedule as soon as I can!  I do have an anecdote along these lines: I was supposed to Skype with a friend about a week ago, and, literally the second he called me, the internet connection in our THIRD café/bar of the day completely died.  We started out in a place called Café Novelty, which has the best ambience but a shaky internet connection.  And each time the internet dies, I have to ask the elderly waiter if he'll unplug and then restart the modem.  He always does it, but is sort of nasty about it, as if to say, "Do you REALLY expect me to know how to do this?".  So we decided that skyping at that café wasn't going to happen, and we migrated to Irish Rover, a bar that, surprisingly, has the best of any internet connection I've found.  Well, that was great, but they were setting up for a concert, so we knew that skyping would be impossible.  So we moved again to Café y Té, which is my least favorite place (my internet connection is never great there, and it's REALLY smoky).  We successfully skyped with Kristin, but right as Josh was calling, it decided to die.  I felt awful, but, luckily, he understood about my internet situation (or lack thereof).

I've really been missing Georgetown lately.  Maybe it's because I still feel like I haven't gotten into a rhythm here (last semester it took a few weeks after class had started for me to really start feeling comfortable), but part of it is that I really DO miss Georgetown- the place itself, as well as all of my friends.  It also seems that my Hoyas have forgotten how to win games, and also how to get along.  At the beginning of the season, The Hoya, the student newspaper, sent one of their reporters to practices to talk to many of the players, and also to JTII.  All of the interviewees, when asked how the team was getting along, said that this team was gelling better than any previous team.  However, that story went to hell when the boys started losing a few games (five in a row, to be exact).  Not only were they losing games in pitiful fashion, but they were also starting to turn on each other (apparently Chris and Jess got into a physical altercation during a game).  I mean, they're obviously playing badly because their biggest fan isn't there in the front row, pep band side, 2nd seat in from the aisle, but that doesn't give them an excuse to turn on each other when the going gets rough.  I honestly don't know how the situation reached such a low, and, to be honest, I'm shocked that Coach Thompson let it get to this point.  But luckily, my Hoyas finally broke their losing streak, but it's pretty clear that something isn't (or multiple things aren't) right.  And while any lesser fan would take this as an opportunity to distance themselves from the team, I am no such fair-weather fan.  I love my team whether they win or lose, although God knows I'm a much happier person when they're winning and getting along with each other.  And, before I forget, in other random sports news, Red Sox spring training starts tomorrow!!!! Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In other Georgetown news, I was really excited that, on Thursday, I got a shout-out on Georgetown Radio.  Ever since I figured out I could, I have been streaming Georgetown Radio live on iTunes, and two of my friends, Henry and Allison, have a show that I particularly like- they have incredible music taste!  Anyway, the show is from 2-4 p.m. my time on Thursdays, so I have time to listen after lunch.  I was listening on Thursday, and wrote on Allison's Facebook wall that I was listening from Salamanca, Spain and loved their show.  Another girl had just posted that she was listening from Seville (also in Spain).  After the next commercial break, Allison announced that there were two listeners from Spain, one from Salamanca and one from Seville, so I definitely felt more connected to my beloved school.  Being able to listen to Georgetown Radio, which I didn't even do at home, is really comforting and is a very nice reminder of home. 

We are now in the midst of our third week of classes at USAL, and, for the most part, they're fine.  The fact that the Guerra Civil is one of the more complicated events in modern history is a little scary, especially given the fact that two of my classes deal, to varying degrees, with it.  I also missed a history class where my professor did an intro to the political climate in Spain in the 1930s (I was trying out a social anthropology class that met at the same time and turned out to be a disaster), so I had tog et the notes for the class I missed.  It was something I was really nervous about, probably unnecessarily, because I had never even asked anyone for  notes in France.  However, there was a girl sitting next to me in class the next day who seemed to be taking really good nots, and one look at her note-taking style and choice of pen set French tricolors waving in my head.  You see, French students don't take bullet point notes- no, they write, essentially verbatim, in paragraph form.  And the pen was a fountain pen, which is very quintessentially French.  So I knew, completely based on stereotypes, that she would have incredible notes, so I asked her during break (in Spanish) if I could photocopy her notes.  She said sure and took me over to the photocopy room, and once we discovered that we both speak French, we spoke it until it was time for class to start again.  I was completely psyched to practice my French, because, frankly, I'm going through France withdrawal.  When I was bored in class last week, I drew a picture of the Eiffel Tower et environs in my notebook, so it's pretty clear where my head was.  And then, yesterday in my Latin American literature class, we were reading an excerpt from our latest text, and there was a quote from Villemain talking about his perception of historians and how he thinks that they should not be purely objective and unattached emotionally to what they study, but, rather, affected emotionally.  This was in French, and the professor asked if anyone spoke French and would mind reading the passage sot that the class could get the full sense of the quote.  Well, my hand flew up right away (I'm such a dork!)- the opportunity to speak French?!?  Do I NEED to be asked twice????  So I read it, and once I was done, the professor asked if I could translate it.  Oh shit.  How did I not realize that she was going to ask me to translate it to Spanish?  Well, I got about 2/3 of the way through, and then there were two words right next to each other (souhaiter, which means to wish, and espérer, which means to hope) that are very similar in French but identical in Spanish, so I got flustered and the professor had to translate the rest.  I felt like a little bit of a fool, but after class, a guy came up to me and asked where I was from, telling me that my French accent was really good.  I felt a lot better after that!  

On Friday, and American expat psychologist came to talk to us (us being the Georgetown group), about culture shock.  Before the workshop, we were all whining, because essentially all of our orientation activities thus far have been completely worthless.  But this one was incredibly helpful!  Claire was really nice, and had gone through a lot of the same emotional turmoil when she arrived in Madrid to study decades ago.  It was so nice to have a licensed professional be able to sympathize with what we're going through and actually ask, "How are you doing?"  It made me really miss Dr. Hennessy, though, because some of the things that Claire said reminded me of her.  One thing she said that really stuck was that, when you're homesick, you should do things that make you happy.  She showed us a picture of the woods and said that, for example, if hiking makes you happy, you should go hiking.  Of course, when she said that, I thought of all of the hikes I've done with my dad, and started to cry (surprise surprise).  So I decided that, among my diverse interests, there are a few that I can definitely partake in while I'm here:

1) Exercise: Molly and I joined the gym a few weeks ago, and, while I don't have time to go every day, I went three times last week (and would have gone more if the weekend hadn't been so busy), and absolutely love the gym.  Like FreeFitness was in Strasbourg, my gym is an "American-style" gym, with lots and lots of cardio machines!!!!!! I always feel so much better, about myself and about life in general, when I work out, so it turns out that this gym was a great find!

2) Having visitors: Kate, our first visitor, came this past weekend, and, besides the fact that she WAS our first visitor, it was absolutely amazing to see her!  The last time I saw her (at the very beginning of November), she wasn't engaged yet!  And now she is (although she isn't getting her ring back from being resized until this coming weekend)!  It was so great to catch up with her and hear all about life in Firenze- it sounds like she's going to have an amazing semester, because there are five new Georgetown girls there, AND she's having a ton of visitors.  And plus, she is clearly madly in love and so excited about planning her wedding.  I can't wait until next year, so we can all help plan!  I think our apartment will just about be Wedding Central!!!!!!  we got to take Kate around Salamanca and show her some of our favorite tourist sites, restaurants (she was especially excited to try tortillas- not in the Mexican-food sense- and chocolate y churros) and bars.  We had a really great time on Saturday night; even though we were exhausted from having gotten up at 6:30 to go to Peñafiel and had been on buses and tours all day, we still had fun.  We found one discoteca, Camelot, that we really liked, and spent awhile dancing there, after having gotten a beer each at dinner and a couple of shots at Niebla.  We decided to check out Irish Rover (yes, the internet place), but discovered that it was actually sort of lame, so we went to Dollhouse, another bar where we had gone on Kaley's birthday and really liked.  However, we had gone on a Thursday and didn't realize that Saturdays were basically old peoples' nights.  There was a lot of "Twist and Shout"-esque music, with some '70s, '80s and current hits thrown in for good measure.  The lowlight (as in embarrassing moment) of the night came when an oldish man (probably in his '40s) grabbed my shoulders and made me lead a train around the bar.   I grabbed Kate's shoulders in desperation and made her lead, and after one go-around, we were done.  And the funny thing is that, in the US, people of that age would have been in asleep hours before.  We called it a night at the respectable hour of three, especially given the ridiculously long day we had had.  After chocolate y churros (I couldn't bring myself to get the latter again) the next morning and visits to a couple of tourist spots (the rana, the Cathedral and the Roman bridge), we said our goodbyes to Kate and prepared to se Jésucristo Superstar (yes, yes, the Spanish version of Jesus Christ Superstar).  It was pretty hilarious at times, even though it ended not with the resurrection of the title character but with his death.  So the ending was sort of depressing.  When they played the title song, though (the one that pep band plays), I couldn't help but smile!!! And Molly and I have been humming and singing it ever since!  but, going back to Kate, I realized that the next time I see her will be when we're both back on American soil and are both preparing for life as the Fantastic Five in our apartment next year!  I can't wait!!!! AND, there is a very real possibility that Lauren is coming to visit not this weekend but the next, so I'm already freaking out a little bit (in the best sense!) at the thought of another one of my best friends coming to visit!!!!!

3) Traveling:  Molly and I have been getting antsy to travel for several weeks now, and Peñafiel was a good way to get our feet wet a little.  It was a lot of fun- we drank our fair share of vino at a bodega wine tasting, ate our body weight in food at a lunch paid for by Georgetown, and toured a castle atop a hill in freezing cold temperatures and whipping winds.  I felt sort of bad, since all of us besides Kate are taking classes in Spanish, but I was truly impressed by the amount of Spanish Kate remembered from one year of taking it in high school (and, if there was any ambiguity, she spoke Italian and we basically got the gist of what she was trying to say).  So this weekend, Molly and I are going to Switzerland!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And I have definitely been building up my favorite country in anticipation of our trip.  We're staying in Zurich, and are hopefully taking a day trip to Strasbourg on Saturday.  In any case, I will be ecstatic to be back in the country where I feel like I'm breathing fresher air, drinking cleaner water, and interacting with the friendliest and happiest people in the world.  The next weekend, we're planning on doing a trip to Ciudad Rodrigo (hopefully with Lauren), where they apparently have an excellent interpretation of Carnaval festivities (yes, Lent is almost upon us, thank God!  And yes, I'm doing my usual giving up of all sweets, although I am going to let myself have cake on my 21st birthday!).  The weekend after that, we're doing an all-weekend Georgetown trip to Extremadura, which includes Oviedo (where part of Vicky Cristina Barcelona, an excellent movie for those of you who haven't seen it, takes place). I think we're basically going to have something going on every weekend in March (including, hopefully, a trip to Portugal the weekend before my birthday) and then we have our eagerly-anticipated spring break trip to England and Ireland in April!!! I'm already dying of excitement for that trip!!!!!!!! I can't wait to start traveling again, and I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to do so!!!

4) Talking to family and friends: As usual, Skype has been a godsend, however flawed the connection may sometimes be.  I don't really have anything else to say about it, but whoever invented it is a genius/my new best friend!!!!

5) Movies/TV: I have done my best to stay up-to-date on my favorite American TV shows, especially now that I've finished Gilmore Girls.  I have iTunes season passes for The Office and Gossip Girl, so have stayed tuned-in as the action has unfolded.  I am also working on catching up on the Daily Show, because I think Jon Stewart is one of the most hilarious people ever, and I just love his political commentary!  But one thing Claire said was to surround ourselves with things that make us happy, so whenever I need a good laugh or a dose of gossip, I tune in!!!!

I hope all is well with you, and, as always, I am sending you my love,

Kristen

¡Vamos Rafa!/Allez Rafa!

Georgetown chicas out celebrating Kaley's 21st

¡Vamos Rafa! El número uno mundial y el ganador del Abierto de Australia de 2009 (el primer para un español)

Nadal (1) derrota a Federer (2)  7-5, 3-6, 7-6 (3), 3-6, 6-2

Translation: Let's go Rafa!  The world number 1 and winner of the Australian Open 2009 (the first for a Spaniard)

So why do I have all of this about the incredibly good-looking Rafa Nadal?  Well, for starters, you all know how big of a tennis fan I am, so it's only natural that I would pay attention to the season's first Grand Slam.  Also, Rafa is Spanish (from Manacor, Mallorca) and is the Spanish people's media darling.  I figured that talking about the match would give me something to talk about with Jesús, my host sister Noelia's boyfriend.  I know that he loves sports, so today at lunch, we talked tennis, so I was happy to finally be able to find something to talk to him about.  The second lunch was over, we rushed into the living room and turned on the match, only to find that it was match point in Rafa's favor.  The second the match was over and the lovable Spaniard collapses onto the court in elation, we could hear car horns blaring outside in celebration of another Grand Slam (the 6th for the 22 year-old, well on the way to breaking Pete Sampras's record of 14) for the Matador from Manacor.  

Before lunch, I had been listening to the match on Australian Open radio on my computer, and I decided that I wanted to experience the moment on Spanish TV, watching it with Spaniards.  It was really cool.  I said to Noelia that I hope there are Davis Cup matches in Spain while I'm here, because I really want to go to one!  Well okay, I just looked it up, and there IS a round against Serbia March 6th-8th in Benidorm (which would most likely also feature Novak Djokovic!), which, I think, is basically in the middle of nowhere outside of Alicante.  And the cheapest ticket is €160 for a three-day ticket.  Ugh.  Expensive.  Also, I don't know how I would get there.  But it IS very tempting!  It would be incredible to watch a Davis Cup match.

So besides tennis, which is probably boring you all, what else is going on in Sally Manca?  Well, not much.  It's still raining pretty much every day, and a trip that we were supposed to have to Peñafiel for a wine tasting yesterday got postponed until next weekend (which means that Kate will be able to come with us!  Yay!!!), so we basically did nothing yesterday.  Molly and I came to the realization yesterday that there really is not much to do in Salamanca.  We have spent the majority of our time in cafés, especially since those are some of the only places that have internet.  So our days are spent surfing the World Wide Web, and, since I've been sick this weekend, we haven't gone out.  

HOWEVER, on Thursday night, we did actually have a real night out.  Kaley, one of the girls in my program, turned 21, and we took her out for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant and then out to several bars.  We got to the first bar at around 11:30, which is way before Spaniards start going out, but by the time we left that bar, we were already incredibly tipsy.  Even though Spanish shots are about half the size of American ones, and a lot of them are very sugary, they don't have the same effect as American ones.  But we were still having trouble standing up straight.  Our remedy for tipsiness? Dancing, of course!!!!!!! At another bar.  It was a lot of fun!  Then we went to another bar (I think it was our 5th of the night), and it was soooooo packed that it really wasn't fun at all.  So we left, at about 4:15.  It was a really fun night though.  It was just a little frustrating, though, because, so far, the Spanish boys we've met at clubs (note that I call them boys, NOT men) have lived up to their reputations of being skeezy.  The catcalls never stop once they see a few tall, blond, or American-looking girls walking around, so it's left us wondering where all of the nice Spanish MEN are.  They HAVE to exist somewhere!  

One good thing that came out of this weekend was that we joined the gym!  I'm so excited!!!  I can't wait to start working out again!  I decided that, after Thursday night's boozefest, I would go out for a run.  That was a great idea.  But when I got over to the track across the river, I decided that it would be a good idea to do lunges halfway around the rather large track.  BAD IDEA.  I am still in an incredible amount of pain, pain that no amount of Advil will remedy.  I need to get back into shape.  This gym seems amazing, though, so I'm really excited to start working out there!

I just sent off a batch of postcards on Friday, so hopefully you'll all receive them soon!  I hope all is well with you, and I'm 

Sending you my love,

Kristen

Lo último de Salamanca/Le tout dernier de Salamanque

Hoyas celebrating Obama's inauguration!  (2 people from our group are missing)

l-->r  Kaley, Pam, Molly, me, Carter

OUR NEW PRESIDENT!!!!!!!! (I had to include this one!)

Plaza Mayor by night

Overlooking the Old Cathedral

Everything looks better in black & white!

As promised, I finally have some pictures!  By now, you are all well aware of my well-documented quest to find internet in Salamanca, and, miraculously, I'm actually online at my apartment right now (knock on wood, because who knows how long it will last?!?)!  But things are definitely better now in Salamanca, even though each day presents a new struggle (i.e. the fact that it rains EVERY day, and no, I'm not exaggerating- I'm glad that I learned my lesson while living in D.C. this summer and now bring my ellaella everywhere- umbrella for those of you who are not Kate, Dave, or anyone who I lived with this summer!).  But I'm settling into life as a salmantina, even though I'm afraid I'll always be seen as a gringa.  I am slightly confused when I walk down the street and am not harassed by many of the people giving out pamphlets or asking you to give blood.  Is it because I don't make I contact with them, or do they know my dark secret, that I'm an American???  Sometimes I feel like I'm walking around with a sign on my back proclaiming my nationality, such as yesterday, when Molly and I were leaving the bank and heard a guy yell over to us, "Do you speak ENGLISH?!!!!!!"  Really?  Are we that obvious?  The guy, an Australian, pretty much did a victory dance when he saw us, which was actually quite funny, except for the fact that we have no sense of where anything is and couldn't help him find the language school he was looking for.

As was the case last semester, getting a bank account has proven to be a complete hassle, and an experience that leaves me eternally frustrated, but not a bit surprised.  Last Friday, we went with Celia, our program director, to Caja Madrid, one of what seem like hundreds of banks in Salamanca.  We were informed that, in order to open an account, we had to go to the police station and obtain a form saying that we don't permanently reside in Salamanca.  Great.  It was in a part of town that I was not familiar with, and when Celia proposed that we all go on Monday, I panicked.  I have class during the time they wanted to go, and I really didn't want to go to the police station by myself (yes, I know I'm a wimp).  So Molly and I decided to bank shop, heading next to Barclay's, a bank that held the promise of English-speaking employees.  We did manage to talk to the one English-speaking employee in the branch, and, after taking all of our information, he told us that our accounts would be ready on Monday. 

We had class all day on Monday, so went back on Tuesday.  The second we got there, though, he told us that he couldn't open accounts for us, because Barclays' policy is that you have to live in the given city for at least a year (which we're not- we're leaving in June).  Go figure.  I actually started laughing.  Of course.  This seems to be my lot in life- difficulty opening a European bank account.  One nice souvenir from the Barclays employee was that he gave us the name of another bank, Santander, that he thought had a special plan for students.  And sure enough, we went to Santander and found that they DID have a plan for students!!!!! And, while we have to wait another 5 or 6 days to get our cards, at least we HAVE bank accounts!!!

So enough about banks, I know you probably don't want to hear about it.  It's just a funny (or not so funny, depending on how you look at it) anecdote from my European adventures.  So, classes.  Yeah, they've started.  And the excitement of the first week, of finally getting into a routine here, has most definitely worn off.  I just had such a terrible academic experience last semester that I'm hoping, with all of my being, that this semester is different.  One major difference that I've already noticed is that participation is actually a word Spaniards know.  As in participation from students.  Wait, you mean that's allowed?  Not only is it allowed, but it's a way of evaluating students!  All of my French professors would blush at such a heinous idea!  So that's a big, and welcome, difference.  Another difference, this one not as welcome, is the fact that I have reading- as in LOTS of reading- for my history classes.  For one class, I have a 200-page packet that I have to read throughout the course of the semester.  Great.  I have a feeling I'll be doing a lot of reading on planes, trains and buses during all of our travels this semester.  One nice thing is that I only have one class without other Georgetown people, and even WITH those Georgetown people (which means awesome study seshes once it gets closer to exam time), I've managed to meet a few other people.  In our history class today, Carter and I started talking with a German Erasmus student, who turned out to be really nice.  So at the end of class, he asked for my phone number and told Carter and I that he would call us to go out for drinks!  Yay!  We have a foreign friend!  Someone we speak Spanish with!

So let's see, what's on tap for the foreseeable future?  Well, next week I'm joining the gym (I wanted to wait until February 1st so I wouldn't be charged a full month price for 2 weeks), and I couldn't be happier.  I REALLY need it, especially with all of the drinks I have to buy in order to get internet.  One of the highlights was on Tuesday, when Molly and I went to the Irish Rover, a bar/internet lover's heaven.  In lieu of the usual coffee (for her) and tea (for me), we decided to go a little crazy and get vodka y limón (the latter being Fanta lemon soda).  YUM!!!! It was 6€, so we're definitely not doing that very often, but it was really good.  But yeah, I need to join the gym.  There's a really good one by my house, so I'll go sometime early next week when I have time. 

Another thing to look forward to is Kate's (yes, bride-to-be Kate!!!) visit.  She's doing a tour of Spain, since she has another few weeks before classes start up in Florence, and she's arriving in Salamanca on Friday.  We'll spend Friday night here, and then will head for Madrid on Saturday.  AND, to make it an even more amazing weekend, Lauren is finally in Madrid (thank God she made it safely!!!) after her whirlwind trip around the Middle East.  I can't wait to see both Kate and Lauren, so I think it will be a good bonding weekend for the three of us and Molly! (and hopefully Mary Kathryn too, who got here on Sunday!).  

Finally, yesterday Molly, Mary Kathryn and I finalized our spring break plans.  Our spring break is from April 3rd to 13th, which is a really good chunk of time.  Our original plan was to go to Ireland for the majority of that time and go to Barcelona for the Coldplay concert on April 9th. Or so we thought.  So yesterday, Mary Kathryn was booking the Coldplay tickets, and it wasn't until her order had been confirmed that she was told that the concert was, in fact, on SEPTEMBER 9th...meaning that we reversed the digits.  She feverishly sent an email to the web admin and will be getting a refund, but it was a hectic few minutes!  So we decided on England from the 3rd to the 8th and Ireland from then until the 13th.  I'm sooooo excited that we have booked at least one trip, and I think it will be a lot of fun!!!!

It's the weekend for me now, and we're actually going out for a friend's birthday tonight, which will be really fun!  And on Saturday, the Georgetown group is going to Peñafiel, where there is a castle (obviously right up my alley!!!!!!!!!!!), and then we're having a wine tasting (ALSO right up my alley!).  I'm excited to do something different than sleep in on the weekends (which I NEVER do at home but find myself embracing now, because I figure I need it) and watch Gilmore Girls for the rest of the day.  But, on that note, I have finished Gilmore Girls!!! (after it essentially took over my life last week!)  I was really sad to finish, but was at least somewhat pleased with the ending.  Not that that interests many of you who are reading this, but it's sort of a big deal for my housemates for next year (and friends!).  Anyway, I should go get ready, but I hope all is well with all of you, and I'm

Sending you my love,

Kristen

¡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

Algunas dificultades

I don't really have much to say, so I guess this will probably be the shortest and least epic of all of my posts, but let's just say that Spain isn't everything I was expecting it to be. Much of this frustration stems from the fact that, for the past three days, the only place I can get internet is in a café, which means that communication with my family is scarce and communication with my friends is nonexistent. I don't mean to sound like a little spoiled kid who can't survive without stuff, as has been alluded to, but when the internet is your only lifeline to the people you love, it's a big deal if you can't get it. I realize that I was spoiled last semester, because I lived in a country where the internet is a lot more common, because it seems to me that Spaniards haven't quite graduated to 21st-century technology yet. So please excuse me for saying that my experience, thus far, has been anything less than perfect.

So if I have a Skype date with you and you find, at the agreed-upon time, that I'm not online, don't be offended. I'm not not online because I don't love you or don't want to talk to you, but I'm not online because I haven't been able to find anywhere with sufficient internet access. As you can see, from my lack of enthusiasm in this post, I feel, basically, blah. And yes, I realize that this was MY decision to spend an entire year in Europe, but that doesn't mean I can't have difficult times during this process. I'm not expecting (nor do I particularly want) sympathy or advice from any of you, just understanding. So hopefully, I'll have the chance to speak to all of you who are reading this sometime during my semester in Salamanca! I hope all of you are well, and, as always, I'm sending you my love. Hopefully I'll be in better spirits for my next entry!

Kristen

Una gringa en Salamanca

Yes, I am a "gringa," or a "guidi," a foreigner in Salamanca, and I'm enjoying every minute of it! Salamanca is growing on me more and more every day, even though the Internet connection in my house seems to worsen every day. I sort of want my host grandmother, who I have had absolutely no interaction with, to leave so that I can get back in the room with the router. Oh well, at least I SORT OF have Internet.

Before I go any further, today is my mom's, and my friend Mary Kathryn's, birthday, so I want to wish them both a very happy birthday from Salamanca! I'll see MK in Salamanca in a few days, but I don't know when I'll be able to Skype next with my mom, since my internet has been acting up, so happy birthday Mummy! <3

I didn't talk too much about my host family in the last post, because I didn't really know them yet, but the many long meals that I've had so far on Avenida de los Comuneros have been excellent for getting-to-know-you time with the host family. My host mom is a really good cook, and, to tell you the truth, I really like the eating schedule that Spaniards are on. They have a normal-sized breakfast, a larger lunch, and a slightly smaller dinner. This week, with my 10am orientation classes, I have been having breakfast at about 8:45. Typically, Spaniards have a "pincho" (another word for tapas) in mid-morning, which for them is noon. Then, at 2 or 2:30, they have "la comida" (lunch), which, in my house, usually consists of some sort of soup, salad, and other main plate. Dinner sort of changes. Some of my favorite things that my host mom makes are: pumpkin cream soup ("sopa de calabaza") and a salad with pomegranate seeds ("granadas") in it. Sooooo good! And I have salad once a day, and fruit after every meal. I have never eaten more healthily in my life, and, even though I'm still planning on joining a gym, the fact that I'm eating really healthy food, am not hungry enough to snack (which is typically my Achilles heel) in between meals, and am walking everywhere makes me feel a lot better than I did with the endless supplies of bread in France. In fact, I'm never hungry enough to eat the ridiculous quantities of food that my host mom thinks I should be eating. Spaniards have the right idea, and that's why they're all thin (they also smoke like smokestacks, though).

Related to the smoking issue, I thought France, with its walls of smoke outside every classroom building, was bad, but Spain is about a gazillion times worse. Not only does everyone smoke, but smoking is allowed indoors (unlike in France, where a smoking ban in all public indoor places was recently enacted). So an hour in a café leaves all of my clothes smelling like cigarette smoke. It's really chilly here now, and I'm running out of sweaters! They all smell of smoke, and I can't bear to wear them again until after they're washed.

Well, that was an interesting tangent. To go back to my host family, they're absolutely awesome! As I said, my host mom is very accommodating to my vegetarianism, and, even though she tries to push food on me (in vain), I still really like her cooking. I had a very significant linguistic victory yesterday when she told me that I can "tutear" her (refer to her in the informal "tú" form, rather than the more formal "Ud." form), which is very significant. Spanish, like French, has very strict rules about who you can refer to informally and who you must refer to formally. Adults, people you have just met, and others generally worthy of respect are referred to formally, while you refer to people your own age or people who you are very comfortable with informally. So for me, the fact that Inés told me to tutear her means that she thinks of me as a part of the family, which feels very nice. I referred to Angelita (my French host mom) in the formal "vous" form for the entire semester, and, after only two days of living with Inés, she told me to refer to her informally. For a language nerd like me, these things are exciting! She also told me almost instantly that I speak very good Spanish, but I think she was just being nice when she said it, because, at that point, I was still inserting French words into my Spanish conversations. Surprisingly, though, my Spanish has come back to me very easily, so I'm pleased and am not feeling as lost as I thought I would at this juncture. She said to me yesterday, though, that she thinks that I speak Spanish with a French accent. Her 26 year-old daughter, Noelia, disagreed, and when I asked her what specifically sounded French to her, she couldn't give any examples, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Today, I also dealt with the more administrative side of things. I still hadn't broached the subject of payment to my host mom, so I finally asked her today. She said that it's fine with her if I pay her at the end of every month, which was sort of what I was hoping for. This semester, instead of paying a lump sum to Georgetown for the university tuition and room and board, we have to pay Georgetown for tuition and then pay the families ourselves every week, biweekly, or every month (the cost is 20 euros per night). This is the system that Kate has with her host family, and I remember thinking it was strange when I visited her. I still don't like it, but that's what I have to do, so I'll do it. Then, I asked her about laundry: if your host mom does your laundry and irons, it's 12 euros per week, but, since I don't need to have my clothes ironed, I'll hopefully get my laundry done for half-price. I asked the question in a way that suggested that I wanted to wash my clothes in our machine myself so as to avoid the charge, but she said that either she has to do it or I have to go to a laundromat, which would basically be a waste of my time. So I'm hoping I can get the reduction for not needing ironing done. Lastly, I told her that my mom wanted to send me a package, and got my pre-orientation packet with the address on it to verify the mailing address. Afterwards, she read through much of the packet to me, which includes, among many other things, a list of general house protocol that Celia, our program director, compiled for us. As she read through each do or don't, she would nod or shake her head in disagreement, so basically, without really meaning to, I got the rules of the house. So basically, as a courtesy, I'm supposed to announce when I arrive and when I leave, generally keep her informed of my plans, and not have friends over (although I may ask her once or twice if I can have a friend over; I'm hoping that, as long as I clear it with her ahead of time, it will be fine).

Our first actual night here, we finally got to meet Celia and the other Georgetown students in our program. There are 7 of us (6 girls and a guy), which is a small group, but I think that study abroad participation is one of those things that goes in waves, and this just seems to be a light year for the particular programs that I'm in. We went out to eat and got to know each other a little bit, and then five of us went out. I was still incredibly jet-lagged from my sleepless 36 hours of travel, but I didn't want to me the lame-o who doesn't go out, so I went. It was a lot of fun. We went to two bars, and I had three shots/shooters (my first!), for which I paid a total of 1 euro!!!!!!! I bought the first one, and then Carter bought a round for all four of us girls, and then, at the second bar, the bartender gave us each a free shot. I'm glad that drinks are so cheap here, and they sort of have to be in order to entice college students to come to bars. I'm hoping, though, that I have enough sense not to drink way too much, because that's when Spanish guys take advantage of girls, when they're at their most vulnerable. I'm not a native, I'm not very familiar with the city, and I don't want to get in a situation where I can't walk home. Salamanca, and Spain in general, is more dangerous than Strasbourg was, so in that respect, I just have to be on my guard more. I was able to enjoy those drinks and feel absolutely fine, so I'm going to try and be sensible about it. Nonetheless, it was a really fun night, although we left at 2 (which is incredibly early for Spaniards, who don't normally leave bars until about 5).

I would like to end with a little reflection on tomorrow, the inauguration of our 44th President, Barack Obama. I am excited beyond belief to begin this new chapter of American history that promises to be full of change and hope. I wish, more than anything right now, that I could be there, even though I probably couldn't get anywhere near close enough to actually see the ceremony without Jumbotrons. Just the idea of being there, of seeing history being made, makes me want to stand for hours with a few million of my closest friends. I mean, come on, waiting outside in the cold with tons of people to see an exciting event- sort of my forté ;) (à la Georgetown basketball, in case you're lost right now). The idea that some people at Georgetown, who can WALK downtown, won't be going makes me upset, because they don't know how lucky they are to have the opportunity to go. Anyway, my biggest hope is that all goes as planned and that there are no security/safety issues, both for our President-elect and for everyone gathered in downtown D.C. I'll hopefully get to watch video of the event tomorrow, and our group is most definitely going out tomorrow to celebrate, sporting our Obama gear of course. God Bless America!

Sending all of you my love, and I promise that I'll post pictures when my internet lets me!

Kristen

¡Hemos llegado!

FINALLY, I can say that I'm in Salamanca!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was a miserable few days of traveling, and I was incredibly stressed out, but I'm glad that Molly and I made it in one piece and are finally here!!! It feels so surreal, and I can't wait to et out and explore (which will begin this afternoon and evening). I'm sorry I don't have any pictures to share yet- I know, you must be surprised!- but I'll make sure to put some up the next time I post! Anyway, let's go through the last few days of traveling, shall we?

Our flight left Atlanta at 6:30 on Thursday evening, and the two of us were already anxious and just ready to reach our final destination. I had been selected upon checkin for a random search (of course), and the man at the desk told me to make sure that my boarding pass was stamped when I went through security. Well, I went through security and showed the guy manning the metal detector my boarding pass, but he didn't say anything and just waved me on. So once I had gotten my luggage, I asked one of the other TSA workers what I needed to do. He took my boarding pass, and told me that he was glad that I had said something, because I would have been forced to go all the way back to security if I presented them with an unstamped boarding pass at the gate. It was a quick check and not a big deal, but something he said bothered me: he was explaining why they had failed to catch my boarding pass when I initially went through security, and said that they had already worked for 12 hours that day and were tired. Of course, I was sorry that he was tired on the job, but TSA needs to make sure that doesn't happen, because, if I can get through with a boarding pass marked with red Xs, what else is getting through security?

Finally, we were on our flight to London, and, despite all of my best efforts, I didn't sleep a wink. Molly, by now used to being so tired (from all of her all-nighters) that she can essentially fall asleep anywhere, was conked out, but I just wasn't tired enough to fall asleep. So when we arrived in London, I was still feeling okay, but knew I would be feeling it in no time, especially since we had a 7-hour layover before our flight to Madrid. We sat, for almost all of the 7 hours, and used our computers, and let me tell you, seven hours have never moved so slowly.

At one point during our flight to London, I had started to get a little worried about the last legs of our journey, the one from Madrid to Salamanca. We had chosen to take the bus rather than the train, at the suggestion of my friend Tim, who went to Salamanca last year. But neither of us had been able to contact our families- Molly's didn't have an email address, and I had emailed mine twice but didn't receive any response. So I was starting to think that, rather than wander around in the middle of the night looking for our apartments without knowing whether anyone would be home- and phoneless, I might add- maybe it would be a better idea to stay in a hotel. Not wanting to show up unannounced at a random hotel at 11pm and hope that they had a room available, I searched for hostels and hotels, both in Madrid and Salamanca. The search in Madrid was entirely fruitless, and only one option looked promising in Salamanca. And while it was 50 euros each for one night, I thought that was a small price to pay for feeling safe.

However, literally the second after I booked the hotel, our program coordinator, Celia, emailed me and told me that she was going to book us a hotel for that night (which Georgetown would pay for). I was PISSED, because I had literally just booked a 100-euro hotel room and had no phone to call and cancel. So I sent Celia another email and told her we had already booked a hotel, so the problem was solved. She said that she would contact our families and tell them that we would be coming today. Okay, first problem solved. Yes, first, meaning that we had another potential roadblock in the way. Celia also asked in her email if she wanted her to buy our bus tickets, because a lot of students go to Salamanca on Friday nights for the night or for the weekend. Great, I was thinking, now we'll be stuck in the sketchy bus station all night and won't be able to leave because all of the buses will be full. Luckily, though, we got there and were able to buy tickets with no problem for an 8 o'clock bus. We had a little bit of trouble finding our particular bus, because there were several buses going to Salamanca, and we needed the first one. They were all labeled, but the drivers kept changing them. But eventually, we found our bus. The ride was painfully long; the person in front of me had reclined their seat so that I had very little room, and my feet were in agony after having worn my riding boots for nearly 24 hours. The 2 1/2-hour ride CRAWLED. When we arrived at the station, we caught a cab and drove to our hotel, and I was wondering, for entire ride, if the desk would still be open. I had no idea what we would do if reception was closed, so, luckily for us, it wasn't. We each took much-needed showers and brushed our teeth, and, since we didn't have to check out until noon, we got a chance to catch up on a little bit of sleep.

This morning, feeling slightly more rested, we took a cab to our apartments. Luckily, Molly lives about a half-block away from me!!!! I'm so excited! Anyway, I got to my building and buzzed up to my apartment, only to find that no one was home. An old man held the door for me so that I could get into the building, and I went up to my apartment, ringing the bell and getting no answer. So I sat in the hall and futzed around on my computer until my very apologetic host mom showed up about 10 minutes later. Apparently her elderly mother was at home, but is hard of hearing, so didn't hear the bell ring. My host mom seems really nice, and I got to meet my host sister briefly, who also seems nice, so I'll give you more details when I have them. Right now, I'm going out exploring with Molly, so you'll find out more about Salamanca soon!

Sending you my love,
Kristen