Daily Life in Salamanca

Today was my first day of classes, and it went really well. I´m taking three classes for six hours of Master´s credit. My first class is 2 hours of very advanced grammar, my third hour is Spanish culture, and my fourth hour is the history of Spanish art. We are attending the international section of the Universidad de Salamanca, so I am in classes with people from all over the world. For example, in my advanced grammar class, there are 4 Americans, 1 Austrian, 2 Italians, 1 person from Taiwan, 1 person from Thailand, 1 person from Switzerland, 2 Brazilians, and 1 person from France. Therefore, our only means of communicating is in Spanish! The culture class probably will be fairly easy because I already know most of the information, but it will still be fun. I don´t know anything about the art class because our professor didn´t show up today. However, I´m sure it will be wonderful.

I didn´t sleep much better last night, and I found out that the garbage truck goes down our street every morning at 1:30. Lucky us!!! I plan to take a Dramamine tonight because it makes me so tired that I hopefully can sleep through the noise.

Life in Spain is good, but it´s MUCH more expensive now than it was before. This is because of the euro, which is something like $1.33. I used to be able to eat a big lunch for around $6, and now the price has jumped to 12 euros, or $16! Also, there are so many differences between Spain and Mexico. I guess I´m still used to my Mexican lifestyle, such as everyone walking into me, their style of talking, and how dirty it was over there. Spain is so much cleaner and nicer than Mexico. Additionally, most of the people are actually nice to Americans, and they don’t try to talk smack about our government, especially Bush. Everyone I´ve encountered has been friendly and more than helpful when I´ve been lost.

My typical day consists of getting up at 7:30, eating a small breakfast of toast (I have been putting peanut butter or nutella on the toast for some protein), and leaving our apartment at 8:20. We then spend about 20-25 minutes walking to the university (the weather is wonderful right now, so the walk is a pleasure). I´m in class from 9:00 – 1:20, and then I return to the apartment to eat lunch, the big meal of the day, around 2:00. So far, our señora has been a very good cook, but we are always hungry for the next meal. Anyway, after lunch, the three of us have been taking our siestas for about 1 hour, and then we´ll go to the Internet café or sit around and talk. We eat a small dinner between 9:00 – 10:00, and then many people go out around 11:00 to the Plaza Mayor to drink, eat tapas, or just hang out with friends.

Tomorrow is July 4, so our director is having us over for a pizza party before seeing a flamenco show at the Universidad. It should be fun. Happy 4th!

P.S. My friends and family who know me well will be happy to know that I have been keeping our bedroom very clean and tidy. I make my bed, put away my dirty clothes, etc. I wouldn´t want to subject Mary Beth or my señora to what I put Andy through!!! (Andy informed me that he found where I hid all the pictures that were out on the counter that he asked me to put away before I left. Well, I technically put them away, just not where he asked…)