Jan 15th – Second First Day of School

On Tuesday my day starts a little earlier which my first class at 9am. It’s called Icons and Traditions of Spain which is a composition, conversation and lecture class. I think that this will probably be my favorite class. The teacher is really animated and he is also one of the directors for the other groups studying abroad from the states. In this class we are learning about everything in Spain; the culture, habits, slang, current issues, the civil war (only a little), art and festivals of the country. I’m really excited about what all I’m going to learn in this class. The next class I have is at 12:30 and is my History of Spanish Art. This class is basically where we look at different genres of Spanish art and talk about it. Carlos is my professor, and I think this is his favorite subject. In all of the classes, the teachers have day trips that we go on in places around Spain that pertain to the class. So in the civ class we go to old medieval castles and some historic towns; art we go to the Prado (famous art museum, like the Louver in Paris) and one other that is well known for contemporary art; and in my comp class we go to places that the professor feels like we should see. After class, I go back to my host home to have lunch and take a siesta. After I wake up and eat dinner, I go to meet up with my friends to (finally) go to the pastry shop in the main plaza. I walk by it everyday and see all the extremely tasty treats and want to go in, but haven’t had the time to devote to it. Being away from home, I have really been craving sweets and it doesn’t help that I have a massive sweet tooth. After we were going to Whelan’s to hang for a bit and then turn in. Since it is only Tuesday and we have early classes, we only wanted a few drinks and to hang together. Sadly when we met in the plaza, the pastry shop was closed! Ugh! And I really wanted something sweet, especially the chocolate roses I see everyday. They look so pretty and they are intricately shaped as if you were holding an actual rose (minus the stem). Dang….so we planned to go tomorrow after class when we knew they would be open. At Whelan’s it was packed, which we thought it was because of the two-for-one deal on Tuesday nights, but we saw what all the commotion was for. Segovia and Barcelona were playing each other in futbol and all the fans watching the game packed in the pub like sardines. Made me think of Evan when I saw a guy that was cheering on Barcelona with his jersey on. After the game ended, we finished our drinks and went home.