Hello again!
This week has been much more laid back than last week. We've had a lot more time to roam around the city and do some exploring. We've had a few orientations, but we've mainly had our Cursillo de enero (Mini-course about Spain). I've been looking for pisos (apartments) too and I registered for classes this week too!
1. Cursillo de enero: Our mini-course has focused on grammar in Spain and barrios (neighborhoods) of Madrid, Flamenco, the economy, and politics. Our professor for grammar (Francisco) was awesome! He was hilarious and made going over grammar way more interesting. Some of you maybe thinking "Kelsey, you've been taking Spanish for 8 years, why do you have to take another grammar class?" (It's okay, I thought the same thing when I found out we were taking one!), and the reason was mainly to learn the vosotros verb conjugations. Basically, its the informal "y'all" form for all you non-Spanish speakers out there. In the States, we don't learn vosotros because we learn Latin American Spanish. It's been hard to get in the habit of using it, but I think I'm slowly starting to catch on! I'm also starting to pick up on the "th" sound for cs and zs (so I pronounce gracias like this: grathias and plaza like this: platha).It's been difficult to understand the accent when people are speaking to me, but I'm getting used to it! Like I said, we've also talked about the different barrios (neighborhoods) in Madrid. I've mainly been exploring Sol (the center), Cuatro Caminos (lots of zapaterias (shoe stores)), Chamberi (a little north of the center), and Arguelles (the student area).
The prof that talked to us about Flamenco was nice, he played a bit of Flamenco for us on his guitar and he also taught us some of the basic rhythms.
The professor that talked to us about the economy was a bit...dry? I didn't enjoy that part as much. It was hard to understand because I didn't know the equivalent of the concepts he was talking about in English so it was hard to follow in Spanish. Basically what I got out of it was that Spain is in a major crisis right now and about 26% of the population is unemployed.
I loved the part about politics. I though it was really interesting and I liked our professor a lot. We learned about la Familia Real (royal family), and about the coat of arms that's on the Spanish flag. It was fascinating. Brief history lesson here: Each of the 5 parts on the coat of arms represents Castilla, Leon, Granada, Aragon, and another I didn't catch the name of. The one in the middle represents the Bourbon kings. The crown represents the monarchy. The pillars are the pillars of Hercules. They represent the Rock of Gibraltar (which according to Greek mythology marked the end of the world or in Latin "Non Plus Ultra"). When Colombus passed through the Strait of Gibraltar, he proved that the world didn't end there and went on to discover America. So now, on the Spanish flag it says in Latina "Plus Ultra" which means there is more. Also, the ribbon wrapped around the two pillars is where the US dollar sign ($) comes from! How fascinating is that?!2. Piso Hunting: This is the part that I was/am most stressed out about before coming here. My coordinator, Amy, gave us a whole orientation about how to find an apartment using websites, what to say to people, and even gave us some contacts to use. I've seen 4 so far this week. I've been looking in Arguelles, near C/ Princesa (one of the main streets, huge shopping center, really close to the metro, and only like 10-15 minutes from the Facultad). We're supposed to call and talk to people in Spanish (which has been extremely nerve wracking!), but the first two pisos I called seemed to notice I was struggling and switched into English, which was a bit frustrating because I wanted to practice my Spanish. The first one was pricey for how much space there was (and two of the people were leaving, which was a little weird), the second was a definite no. It was in the basement of a building and there wasn't a whole lot of room. The third was okay (and it was the first one I spoke Spanish at--I didn't do too horribly!). The fourth was awesome! I'm in the process of trying to get a contract written for me to live there! It's in Arguelles (the student area of Madrid) and its only about a 5-10 minute walk to the Metro stop and the huge Corte Ingles (Spain's version of Walmart) and a ton of stores on Calle de Princesas. If I get the piso, I'll be living with three other girls, all students. One of them is Spanish (from Salamanca) and the other two are French! I'm really really excited about this one!
3. Registration: I registered for classes on Thursday. I'm taking: Pintura Espanola de Museo del Prado II, La Mujer en la Literatura Hispanica, Historia de Hispanoamerica, Introduccion a la Cultura y Mitologia Clasica, Cultura Andalusi.
Pintura Espanola de Museo del Prado: I'm going to be studying art movements and learning about the paintings specifically in the Prado. Every Wednesday, we get to the Prado to learn about certain paintings in person! I'm ridiculously excited for this, a good number of my friends are taking this class too!
La Mujer en la Literatura Hispanica: So this one is all about the importance and the role women play in Hispanic Lit. I've got this class with one of my friends for sure!
Historia de Hispanoamerica: This is Hispanic history, so it should be interesting. I've always really liked learning about history!
Introduccion a la Cultura y Mitologia Clasica: I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS CLASS! I love Greek and Roman mythology (slash anything to do with Classic Humanities) if you couldn't tell from my history lesson earlier. This is a Complutense class so I'll be with real Spanish profs and students!
Cultura Andalusi: This is all about Andalusian culture (Southern Spain), its supposed to look at the Arabic influences in Southern Spain. I'm also really excited for this one, if I can get in! Complutense has a rule that no more than 5 Reunidas (Northamerican) students can be in a class :( So keep your fingers crossed for me!
4. El Rastro: Every Sunday, Madrid has a huge Rastro (flea market) in Plaza de Tirso de Molina, which is only about a 10-minute walk from my senora's. A few of my friends and I got up this morning to wander around, I was amazed at how huge it was! I knew it was big, but it seemed to just keep going and going and going! There were tons of bufandas (scarves) and bolsas (purses) that I wanted to buy! We had to be very careful while we were at El Rastro because it is notorious for pickpockets, so unfortunately I don't have any pictures of my own of it. But I pulled this picture off of Google to give you an idea of how many people were there.
5. La Vida Madrilena: Nightlife in Madrid is huge. Last night, my friends and I decided to do a bit of exploring in Puerta del Sol (center of the city). At 11:30 at night, Sol was just as busy as it usually is during the day. We went to an Irish pub, where I tried Guiness (I'm not a huge fan). The best part of the night was discovering La Fountana de Oro, which is a Spanish bar that we stumbled across in Sol. It had a live band that was playing classic 80s rock! It was really funny to hear the singer talk to the crowd in Spanish and then sing all of the songs in English. The craziest thing for me was that we left around when the Metro started to close (around 1 AM), and there were tons and tons of people still pouring into Sol getting ready to go out as we were getting ready to turn in for the night.
Churros y Chocolate--The best invention ever. When I first heard about it, I thought that the churros would be like the ones we have back home, coated in sugar. But the ones here are just the fried dough which you then dip in delicious melted chocolate. So far, I've been to two Churros y Chocolate places: Churros & Chocolate and Maestro Churrero, they were good but I'm excited to go to Chocolateria de San Gines which supposedly has the best churros y chocolate in the city! I definitely recommend going to a Churros y Chocolate place if you ever come to Spain!
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| My friend Amber with our churros y chocolate |
Liz--100 Montaditos? Absolutely fantastic! Today, Victoria (my roommate) and I asked our senora if there were any good, cheap cafes to eat around Embajadores and she recommended that we go to Sol to go to 100 Montaditos. I looked it up on the internet, and it turns out that there is one thats only about a 10-15 minutes walk from our senora's piso at Puerta de Toledo. 100 Montaditos is a little place that served 100 different kinds of mini-bocadillos (sandwiches). The best part? All of them only cost 1 euro! It was absolutely delicious, I tried the bocadillos de calamares (calamari sandwich) and it was phenomenal! I've been trying to try as many new things as possible, but so far my favorite type of bocadillo is calamari.
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| Cerveceria 100 Montaditos--Sign |
5. Viajes--Over the next five months, I have so many places I want to go and see all over Spain and Europe itself. I'm excited to say that I'm officailly going to Cadiz for Carnival the weekend of February 15th-17th! I'm so incredibly excited, Carnival in Cadiz is the biggest Carnival celebration in all of Spain! Also, my friends and I are planning a day trip to Salamanca sometime this month too!
That's all I've got right now, tune in next week to see how my first two days of classes went!
Besos,
Kelsey
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