¡Mucho tiempo sin hablar!

CIEE Study Center (Where I take cl

Hola! Mucho tiempo sin hablar....which essentially means, long time no speak! I made a goal to try to write four blog posts per week, but I'm not keeping up with my end of the bargain! The past couple of days have been really busy and I'm STILL getting adjusted to the Spanish schedule, so please forgive me. Anyway... We started classes on Monday! We have a two week intensive language session for three hours a day (Monday through Friday). During our regular class session classes are only Monday through Thursday which gives us an extra day to travel! Vale, but this class is kicking my butt into Spanish shape. That sounds wrong. It is exactly how it sounds though, a two week intensive grammar class. Its very weird. I sit in class and I understand everything that the teacher is saying. I nod and smile and can comprehend literally everything she says. Yet when she calls on me to give her an example or if I have a question I feel once again like I'm in third grade! Puedo entender mas que puedo hablar! Ay ay ay. Somehow it's all so intimidating. This has gotten better throughout the week though and I'm able to form coherent sentences in class haha. Out of class I'm totally fine! I don't know why I was so intimidated!

The workload for this class isn't too bad, its just the three hours of straight Spanish grammar that's a little bit of a killer. But I really enjoy the assignments. On Tuesday morning a girl from my class and I went to do one of our assignments. We had to go through the Museo de Bellas Artes on what was essentially a scavenger hunt and answer multiple choice questions about the artwork. After we answered the questions we had to write a short response, in Spanish of course, about our experience and what we thought of the museum. Hey, for a homework assignment I had to go and look at art. I'm not complaining at all. One of my favorite paintings was actually one that we were assigned to answer questions about. It's called "Las Cigarreras" and it is a painting of the old tobacco factory in Seville. This building is actually now the University of Seville where I'll be taking two classes...more about that later.

The other night I we went out by the river to celebrate Kelsey's birthday and also went to a botellon, which I think I talked about in a previous blog, but here's a picture to give you an idea of what it's like... For another one of my assignments I had to interview 4 students from the University of Seville and ask them questions about the differences between U.S. universities and those in Spain. At the University of Seville most majors or specializations are all 5 year programs. They come out of the university with a very specific idea of what they want to do. From day one at the university they have to choose their academic path and major. There are no mish moshed messed up students like me in Seville with a major in Music Theatre and a double minor in Spanish and Political Science. They have a set course. Also, most student commute from home and live in Seville or pueblos (villages) very close to the University. The thing that was most astounding to me was that tuition is only 700 Euro. That's about $910 per year! Sorry mom and dad...

Oh, the other night I was walking home from meeting some friends across the river and stumbled upon "Duffin Dagles" which yes, looks surprisingly like Dunkin' Donuts. However, I asked around and its apparently not....because they have Dunkin' Donuts in Spain! This is a competitor trying to trick unsuspecting donut and coffee lovers! Check out their website...everything is essentially the same thing as Dunkin' Donuts! http://www.duffindagels.es/  Anyway, I might have to stop in a try it to see if it compares to the real thing.

Hasta que volvamos a ver!