Monday, September 17, 2007

First Day

¡Hola!

It's amazing what 8 hours of solid sleep will do for a person. I went to bed early last night (11:30ish) and woke up at 8:45. I think I'm starting to feel a little better, and at the very least, well rested and ready to tackle the first day of class.

My first class was my art history class about Picasso, Dalí, and Miró. It looks like that's going to be a pretty interesting class. I know nothing about art, so what better way to learn a little than to study some key modern artist? We also go on 3 field trips to each of the artists' museums.

My next class was Spanish 102 (for some reason, even though it's been 5 years since I've studied Spanish, they placed me in Spanish 2). Not going to lie, it's a little terrifying. She only talks in Spanish, and it was hard to stumble my way through the first day. It's not too bad though, I guess, and I think I'll be fine. I'll pick it up.

At the end of class, she said that we would get extra credit if we get a Spanish boy or girlfriend during our stay here. We have to present her with a picture of the two of us, and also bring that person in to talk to her. I thought that was a little humorous, and I suppose it'd be a good way to learn the language. However, it's not really an option for me. And unfortunately, I don't think I have the vocab to convince a Spaniard to pretend to be mi novia.

Oh, one more funny thing about the class. She asked if we knew any other languages, such as German, French, etc. Then she asked if any of us knew Japanese. As she did this, she stretched out her eyes to make them ¨look¨Japanese. Haha. We thought her racism was hilarious. Oh Europeans...

I then had a 2 and a half hour break where I went to go purchase my readers for class. They accepted cash only, much to the dismay of us Americans, so I had to go back because I didn't have enough on me. I then went to the supermarcado where they do take credit cards, and picked up some more food for lunches. I got some meat that I guess is made from turkey. I also noticed that, indeed, they do like chocolate cereal. About a 1/3 of the aisle is chocolate, 1/3 is Special K, and then the rest.

I ate and then went back to school for my class on the economics of the EU. I think it should be a pretty interesting course.

As I walked back to my homestay, I saw a Spanish guy yelling at these two Spanish girls as they kind of walked together (or at least in the same direction). I don't quite know what they were saying (okay, I have no idea what they were saying) but I did catch the word *****, which I do believe isn't a very nice word in Spanish.

I also withdrew some more cash. It is interesting to note that the ATM machine was in Catalan, so, to select English, it wasn't Inglis, but Angles (or something like that). I got it done though, and am interested to see if I should continue using that brand of ATMs when I view my account balance.

And on one more quick tangent, I have never seen so many lingerie shops in one city. They seem to be everywhere. However, despite this, a noticeable amount of women of all ages seem to have missed them. A little odd...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

what happened to the
weird english word of the shirt day!?
i read all the way to the bottom just for that!
JK. glad you had a good first day!
chris.

Michelle said...

Couple of things: that is a terrible word to use in your blog!! It is not a nice word, and those Spanish guys and piropos kinda of scare me. And also, i am pretty sure that if you tried hard enough you could figure out a way to sweet talk a senorita. :)