Spain, bitches!
Well, today is the official halfway point of my trip in beautiful, sunny Spain, and that means it´s time for a journal to keep all of my loyal readers up on what is up. In brief: Spain is sweet.
I´m living on the top floor of an apartment building in a street called the Via de Roma in a city called Segovia, about an hour´s drive northwest of Madrid. Segovia is famous for its very well-preserved Roman aqueducts in the same way Avila is known for its murallas. They bisect the city into ¨Vieja Segovia,¨ and ¨Nueva Segovia¨; the one is full of heart-wrenchingly picturesque little tiendas and enormous catedrales, and the other is full of car exhaust. Everything in the old city is well within walking distance, and I´ve already worn my new pair of chucks into scuffed grey things tramping all over town. Not to mention Madrid! Ugh, on the overnight excursion I got completely lost not once but twice with another guy from the group and we ended up literally walking 32 miles trying to find our hotel. No joke: his cell phone had an odometer in it.
So even though my feet are sore and swollen, I´m having the time of my life. I have to give credit where it´s due, though - my biggest fear on the plane was that I wouldn´t get along with my host family, and thankfully that has not been true at all. Maricarmen Gomez de Montes has really made the trip for me. She´s loud, affectionate, patient, kind, understanding, and a great cook to boot. Her son-in-law is a vegetarian too, so she wasn´t even thrown by having to cut out meat from her recipes. She´s a widow who works in a social service agency (she´s set to retire in a week, so we´re going to throw her a party!), and her husband was a doctor who worked in a free clinic for the poor. She´s that kind of lady.
My classes, of course, are supposedly why I´m here, and so far they´ve been pretty decent. Professor Lopez is this hilarious Puerto Rican guy who´s basically just been ignoring the book and talking for three hours about whatever he feels like. It´s actually the best way I can think of to work on my listening and speaking, since we´re all hanging on his every word and laughing the whole time. For example, today he taught us all about the grammatical nuances of the noun ¨cabron¨ and the social situations one should never, ever, ever use it.
I had originally planned to type more, but I´m in an Internet cafe and I´m out of euros.
I´m living on the top floor of an apartment building in a street called the Via de Roma in a city called Segovia, about an hour´s drive northwest of Madrid. Segovia is famous for its very well-preserved Roman aqueducts in the same way Avila is known for its murallas. They bisect the city into ¨Vieja Segovia,¨ and ¨Nueva Segovia¨; the one is full of heart-wrenchingly picturesque little tiendas and enormous catedrales, and the other is full of car exhaust. Everything in the old city is well within walking distance, and I´ve already worn my new pair of chucks into scuffed grey things tramping all over town. Not to mention Madrid! Ugh, on the overnight excursion I got completely lost not once but twice with another guy from the group and we ended up literally walking 32 miles trying to find our hotel. No joke: his cell phone had an odometer in it.
So even though my feet are sore and swollen, I´m having the time of my life. I have to give credit where it´s due, though - my biggest fear on the plane was that I wouldn´t get along with my host family, and thankfully that has not been true at all. Maricarmen Gomez de Montes has really made the trip for me. She´s loud, affectionate, patient, kind, understanding, and a great cook to boot. Her son-in-law is a vegetarian too, so she wasn´t even thrown by having to cut out meat from her recipes. She´s a widow who works in a social service agency (she´s set to retire in a week, so we´re going to throw her a party!), and her husband was a doctor who worked in a free clinic for the poor. She´s that kind of lady.
My classes, of course, are supposedly why I´m here, and so far they´ve been pretty decent. Professor Lopez is this hilarious Puerto Rican guy who´s basically just been ignoring the book and talking for three hours about whatever he feels like. It´s actually the best way I can think of to work on my listening and speaking, since we´re all hanging on his every word and laughing the whole time. For example, today he taught us all about the grammatical nuances of the noun ¨cabron¨ and the social situations one should never, ever, ever use it.
I had originally planned to type more, but I´m in an Internet cafe and I´m out of euros.