Getting Real.

So for the past few weeks that we've been here, we haven't really had many responsibilities.  No complaints!! I really enjoyed just relaxing, hanging out with friends, exploring, and going out at night! Though there is so much more I need to do!! But, it has changed within the past week and is about to change even more!  This program is different than those of a lot of people I know, being that we work off of a Spanish class schedule, with classes on Fridays. What? Classes on Friday abroad? How do you travel? Exactly.  So we are going to have to work around that a little bit.  Our second round of classes start this week. We are now adding two more classes to our course load.  These are with all Spanish students and only a couple of Americans in each class, which will  be great for immersion but is a little intimidating.  This week I will also start meeting with my intercambio, who is another student- a native Spanish speaker- learning to speak English.  The idea is that we meet for an hour or so and spend half of the time in each language.  I'm super excited! Apparently this is a great way to make friends!

This past week I started teaching English.  This is a job for one hour twice a week where I go to a Spanish home to act as a tutor to these kids.  I tutor 3 kids-- they are all between 2.5 and 3 years old and are a little crazy.  But great at the same time!  It is a little difficult because of their attention spans and also because the mom only wants me to speak in English.  I agree that the immersion is very important but it is just going to be tough at first because they are so young and don't speak any english, whereas it was possible to tutor a kid who has been working on English for a while.  Anyway, this pays 18€ twice a week. Not too bad!  I mostly sing songs with them, show them pictures and talk about them, and play with them too.  The mom wants me to bring a CD on Tuesday, so I guess that is my mission for tomorrow.

This week I also tried a choir practice.  I am not sure why I am doing it.. I thought that it might be cool to meet other Spaniards, but I don't know if I will. This week there were 5 girls from my program there and 8 Spaniards.  I haven't sang in a choir- just taken voice lessons- since high school, and I forgot that the actual choir wasn't my favorite part of everything, but the people.  So we'll see how it goes!

New Experiences of the Week:
1. La Misa (Mass):  On Sunday I went with a few friends to la misa at Almudena Cathedral in Madrid.  It is right across a courtyard from the royal palace and was one of my favorite things I've done so far.  It was all in Spanish, por supuesto (of course) and was a little different than what I've been used to the last 20 years of my life.  There was no singing, only an organ that would play once in a while and a cantor who sang a couple hymns.  Also, during communion time, there was no order to people going to the altar.  Instead, some people just kind of went when they felt like it, and others didn't go at all.  We were pretty confused by this but ended up going right before they finished communion.  The whole mass took a maximum of 40 minutes.  Here is a picture of the outside of the cathedral:

2.  Tapas! Okay, so I have been eating some tapas, but there are a few things worth mentioning.  First of all, there is this chain in Spain (and in Miami, for some reason) called 100 Montaditos.  Montaditos are little sandwich/tapa type things.  This is important purely because on Wednesday, everything on their menu is a euro.  Yes, even a pint. So it was PACKED on Wednesday, but we went and it was so good! New tradition! This Wednesday is moving day (aka, moving to my new piso!) and I am recruiting the help of one of my friends from home. This is how we are celebrating!!!!!!! I think it is a good idea. But what I mostly wanted to mention about tapas is that on Friday, I went on a Tapas tour with some people from my group.  We walked around different neighborhoods of Spain trying some of the best tapas restaurants in the city and got sangria with each one! They were all really good, and I really enjoyed trying some new food! (Octopus and fried anchovies?)

3.  Salamanca!!!!!!!!!!!  We last minute decided to go on a trip to Salamanca, Spain this Saturday and Sunday.  It is about a 3 hour bus ride or so and it is northwest of Madrid.  Maybe it wasn't the best plan, considering it was cold, to go north, but we made it work! It wasn't actually cold, we are just waiting for that beautiful Spanish weather, which is rumored (by weather.com) to continue at the end of this week.  We got to the city and found our hostel and went exploring.  First we ate at a restaurant which only had locals and got the menú del día, which is a multi-course offering for about 10 euro.  This meant we filled up on wine, bread, paella with chicken and shrimp, tortilla de jamón (spanish tortilla with ham-tortilla from eggs and potatoes), patatas fritas (french fries), and helado (ice cream). Done eating for the day. 

In Salamanca we walked around a lot.  We stopped at Plaza Mayor, the grandest plaza in Spain, allegedly.  It is made of granite and it beautiful. There were so many people out socializing in the Plaza, even on a cold day like yesterday.  We walked to the cathedrals also.  There are two- the old and the new.  The New Cathedral is free entry and we looked around inside. It was crazy beautiful.  We had plans to go to mass this morning but that didn't end up happening.  Then we walked around Universidad de Salamanca, the oldest university in Spain. We also stopped along the bridge leading into the city.  My Rick Steves Spain guide (thanks mom and dad for the suggestion!) helped a lot!!

All in all, Salamanca was absolutely beautiful.  A quaint town with stone streets and beautiful old buildings everywhere, full of history and all so architecturally interesting.  It is so completely different from Madrid and other places that I've ever seen! That being said, I don't know how I could live there after living in Madrid.  This week, I completely fell in love with it and pretty much decided I don't want to leave. We'll see how that goes.

This week is bittersweet- I have to leave my lovely señora but am moving into my new apartment finalmente! It will be so nice because so many people from my program will be living in the same area, and it will be SO FUN!!!!!!!!  Wish me luck!