Porto, Portugal

This weekend Kate, Mindy, and I went to Porto, Portugal. It was a very long 3 hour bus ride from Santiago on windy, hilly roads. We all felt a bit carsick, but for 40€ roundtrip I couldn’t really complain too much.

Now, as I have already said, this was a new experience for me. We got off the bus and literally had no idea where to go. We stopped and admired the view for a moment before we made our way to what we believed to be the center of the city.

At first, I didn’t really notice much of my surroundings because I was a little bit anxious to find a hostal before it got dark. Mindy and Kate felt assured that we’d find something without problem and I took a deep breath and knew they were right. We ended up staying at a hotel, www.hi-porto.com that not only offered our own beds, hot showers, and a place to keep our things, but also free breakfast (and consequently lunch. I kept the very American mindset of “I paid for it, therefore I will exploit it to my full advantage” and snuck food in my purse back to my room). It only cost 50€ a night for the room, thus making it only 16€ per person per night. Not bad at all, and I didn’t have to endure the legendary communal shower of the European Hostal.

After we got settled, we left to see what Porto had to offer shopping-wise. Walking around I began to notice the differences between Porto and Santiago. Like Santiago, Porto had an old European feel. There were many monuments and ornate buildings built in varied styles. Unlike Santiago, Porto wasn’t as clean. Not even close. There were a lot of homeless people who would get right in your face to ask for money – it was really easy for us to ignore because we don’t speak Portuguese. There were a lot of abandoned buildings that at first seemed to stick out, but the more I saw of them they began to look like rotting teeth in a way next to the buildings that were lucky enough to have someone care about them.

We also got to see a protest by Communist. From the flyers they were passing out I was able to deduce that there is an election coming up. I will admit, it was a little bit jarring to see Communist parading in the street. There was also a lot of graffiti supporting the Communist party.

For dinner we went to the Majestic Café, which I guess is a highlight of Porto according to the part of the tour book that Mindy read out loud the night before we left. It was a very elegant restaurant, in my mind it was like eating at one of those restaurants during the 1900’s when everyone thought it was at the height of civilization and the men would wear tuxedoes and top hats and the women would wear beautiful dresses with jewels dripping from their necks and ears. There were beautiful carvings on the walls along with sculptures made of gold which also doubled as light fixtures.

We had an absolutely amazing dinner (I had the Tropical Salad, which you can see below), along with dessert and wine. It was expensive, however, not as expensive as I thought it would be. Using what little economics I know, I realized that it was because the Majestic Café no longer is the exclusive members-only restaurant that it once was – evident by the fact I was able to eat there, in jeans nonetheless – the very rich have left Porto leaving the Majestic Café to exist only on offering affordable meals and atmosphere to the tourists and middle class.

There wasn’t really any night life in Porto, at least none that we could find. Porto wasn’t on Spain time – meaning there was no siesta and therefore things were ACTUALLY OPEN at 2 pm and consequently everything closed around 10. Since it was pretty questionable anyway, we hung out at the hotel at night.

Saturday we walked around Porto. I love this picture because it says so much about how that day was - I felt like I had no idea where we were and Mindy/Kate kept reminding me that it didn't matter. In the end, it really didn't.

We were able to take our time and enjoy every view.

I began to understand the feeling that I had about Porto. Porto seemed sad to me in a way of lost importance. The buildings were tall and impossibly ornate with their carvings and exquisite tiles, maybe at one point the Portuguese looked at them with a sense of pride – a symbol of their success and prestige. Yet now to this foreign tourist many years later they looked out of place and unkempt, borderline tacky when compared with the reality of the desolate and dirty surroundings. This felt to me the part that I wasn’t supposed to see, the anticlimactic reality that history readily forgets. The only things I know about Portugal are the imperialistic highlights of discovery and triumphant success of forcing assimilation on people a continent away. Yet I had never heard of this Portugal, the tired and mournful place that seemed to be simultaneously aware of the pride that was once attached to being from Porto and the contrasting reality that can’t be escaped.

Kate really wanted to see the caves, so most of our walking around was so we could find them. After three hours of walking in the right direction, we finally found the bridge that we needed to cross. Immediately once we crossed the bridge we saw this sign:

Then it occurred to me…THE WORD CAVE THAT KATE HAD BEEN THINKING OF WAS IN PORTUGESE, NOT ENGLISH. They are not the same!!! Caves in Portuguese means “wine cellars”. So we went searching for three hours for caves that do not exist. We should have wised up to the fact that we were NEXT TO A RIVER, but oh well. It was not all lost, because we went to one of the caves and got a tour of the wine-making process and at the end got a wine tasting of authentic port wine, which is, if you are not already aware, much sweeter than regular wine. That night we ate at the McDonald’s which was an oasis in the foreign land with the indecipherable tongue – complete with English speaking servers and the beloved Big Mac and fries. The only difference was the surroundings – I bet it is safe to assume that this building was something else long before it was McDonalds.

Our last day we didn’t have much to do because it was Sunday and everything on this entire continent is closed. After sleeping in and enjoying a free breakfast/lunch we walked around by the river and eventually ended up having a nice dinner by the river. After we enjoyed a glass of wine at another café near the river, and then despite my protests, Kate and Mindy leaded the way up the ancient stairs in the dark to the highest bridge so we could see the whole city.

It was an incredible view of the River Douro. Watching it in the inky darkness I could almost see the big ships that once made Porto a merchant town – with the big white sails and towering masts, complete with the commotion of the people loading and unloading their ships. The river seemed very empty without them, a large divide between Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia.

Monday we went home, by bus again. It was a very odd feeling to go “home” to Spain.

I don’t think I will ever feel like I belong here, but things are familiar. I have come to understand that it makes no difference where you live – it is the people that make the difference. This will never be home to me because my family and my friends aren’t here. It really makes me think about what I want to do with my life – I love Kansas City and I see myself eventually coming back but at the same time I also now know that I could function in another city. In the age of cell phones, Skype, and email even with an ocean between here and there I feel that my home is never far away.

Speaking of, I would like to wish a very happy birthday to my Aunt Suzy who had her birthday on Saturday (This picture was taken the same day!). I saw this and had to take a picture for her. I have no idea who those people are in the background, but I am sure they want my Aunt Suzy to have many happy returns as well :)

Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road

This whole trip has been about leaving my comfort zone – my country, my language, my family and friends – to come to Spain to learn the language and gain more perspective. I knew this from the moment I walked out of my first appointment at the Study Abroad Office at KU, but there are still things that throw me from time to time.

I am pretty much used to

· their crazy time schedule - I wake up at 8, have class at 9:30, get done around 12, eat lunch at 2, have my nap, go to class again at 4:30, eat dinner at 8, go out with my friends around 11, get home at 2 and go to sleep.

· their food – not bad on the whole, but it is SO SALTY. I really like all the sea food, but I miss having free water in normal size glasses and water fountains. The pastries are incredible, Kate and I always have to admire them in the bakery windows as we walk by. Also, they have Kinder (a German type of chocolate) that I would eat every day if I didn’t care about being obese. The produce is really fresh, although my American self still can’t buy fruit off the street where the elements/pigeons/people influence it. On the same note, they don’t refrigerate milk or eggs – they aren’t pasteurized – which I still haven’t gotten the nerve to try.

· The fashion – I am still not, nor will I ever be, a fan of the mullets. But I really do like the boots that the women wear (I now own a pair!) and they have such cute clothes. I plan on returning with many new things.

· The weather – Once I figured out that it rains every day without fail I was able to deal with it. Some days it will rain all day, other days just a couple of five minute showers. There are two stories as to why it rains so much here. 1) Santiago is where Noah came to practice with his Arc 2) Saint whoever who is buried in the Cathedral is sad that Santiago wasn’t named after him so he cries every day.

I cannot get used to these freaking bathrooms. I hate them. First of all, they aren’t a fan of soap, so my Purell is always in my pocket. Second of all, they don’t flush things like American ones do. I’ll spare you the details, but if you are a woman REMEMBER THAT. NO ONE WILL TELL YOU THAT YOU CAN’T DISPOSE OF THEM LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE. I don’t mean to be so bitter, but I had to manually fix my ignorant mistake and it almost put me over the edge. Gross, ick ick ick. Thirdly, they aren’t really big on privacy. If there are two rooms, one for the toilet and one for the sink they will just waltz right into the sink room if you are in the toilet one.

Also, I am learning/trying not to be so rigid. I am a planner. I like to know what I am doing, where I am going, how to get there, and how to get around. However, there is a lot about life that you have no ability to plan ahead for and it is important to know how to roll with the punches. Not that I lock up in an unplanned situation, but I am pretty anal at times about planning things out. So, in the spirit of “going with the flow” I agreed to go with Mindy and Kate this weekend to Porto, Portugal, which is two hours away from Santiago by bus. My first thought was ARE YOU KIDDING?! We don’t know the language, we don’t know anything about the city, we don’t know where to stay, we don’t know what we’ll do once we are there, for crying out loud – we don’t even know where the bus station is here in Santiago!! Yet, in all reality, when will I ever get this opportunity again? I didn’t know a thing about Santiago and look at how well I have managed here. And it will be so much fun. So I went after class and bought a round trip bus ticket with Mindy and Kate. We leave tomorrow at 11.00 and will return on Monday (we don’t have class on Monday because it is the patron saint of student’s day) around 20.00. I’ll take lots of pictures, fear not!

Tonight we are going to a concert of Kate’s friend’s roommate’s then coming home early to pack.

Hasta luego!

Coffee Machines and Other Wonderful Things

Today began very melancholy. I was jarred awake by the incessant hammering outside, I think they are doing work on the roof or something. After showering and completing my “homework” (which was only a sheet of verbs that I needed to fill in…) I checked my email and read one from Clark. Between the Clark’s email and skyping with Anne I began to get very sad that a) not only was I having this tremendous experience without many of the people I care the most about and b) life was going on without me back home.

I left for class still in a funk, but after walking for a few minutes in the rare and beautiful sunshine I began to remember what almost everyone has told me – how lucky I am to have this chance. So far I’ve felt like I have wasted a lot of it resenting how hard everything seems to be and missing home and everything about the life that I am taking a brief pause from. Right then and there I vowed to be more positive, to start taking it all in and not focusing so much on the difficult parts.

Things began to look up immediately. When I got to class Mindy and I walked down to the vending machines and for 0,35€ I got this little coffee that is well in the competition for the best coffee I’ve ever had. It was nice to get a morning coffee again, not only that, but I was also able to (unlike the majority of the class) stay awake during this weird Spanish gangster movie we watched in our literature class.

After class I went with a few girls from my class and we had lunch at the cafeteria. Only here the “cafeteria” means you sit at a table and there are waitresses that take your order. It was a lot cheaper than eating at a café, and it was very good. I had another ensalada mixta which is lettuce, onions, tomatoes, tuna, and asparagus. I also grabbed a paper because part of my being more positive about Santiago is making more of an effort to learn Spanish. Learning another language is not a passive process. Nothing will just “come to you”. Even here, completely immersed, I won’t learn a damn thing unless I start really trying. For starters, this means for me looking up words that I don’t know and really learning them instead of just glossing over them and practicing reading out loud. This has been a sore spot for me – I sound like a mentally challenged hick when I read out loud in Spanish and it really is embarrassing because everyone else in my classes sound if not fluent, at least well practiced when they read out loud. So tonight after Gabriel left I sat on my bed and read from my newspaper out loud. Hopefully after a few weeks I’ll start to sound better.

During my break I should have gone home. Yesterday the roomies and I had a heated argument about cleaning. Christina is our landlady, but not really. Mila filled me in that she’s not really the owner rather just in charge of the apartment because she’s here for the long haul and the rest of us are international students here only for a short time. We still pay our rent to her, but then she pays it to someone else. Anyway, she wanted to make a schedule of cleaning. Not a bad idea, I have learned that if you don’t have some sort of order you’ll live in filth. However, this quickly soured because Christina not only wants things clean, she wants them cleaned her way. Which irritated all of us, especially Gabriel who argued and argued with her about what our protocol should be for putting away clean dishes. Christina wants whoever cleans the kitchen that week to put them away for the whole week, and Gabriel wanted a simple system of when it is full, put them away. I agreed with Gabriel and tried to communicate this but Christina kept talking as if I wasn’t there or couldn’t understand. This made me really mad because even if I can’t keep up with your pace I UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. Then she wanted everyone home at 2.30 this afternoon to show us how to clean. As if! I know how to clean and uh, last I checked she wasn’t my mom, or any type of authority figure for that matter. So I just didn’t go home until after my classes were done. Unfortunately, she was home and had told me that she rescheduled the cleaning demo for tomorrow night at 10.00. She is also really pissed because the toilet broke and she wanted to blame someone for it but Mila and I kept telling her it was just because it was old, no one actually broke it. Seriously. I love Mila, she’s super nice and we talk a lot every day (in Spanish) so living with her totally makes up for Christina. But I foresee Christina not being my favorite roommate by far. I don’t want to intentionally make her mad, so I went ahead and did my chores for this week (vacuuming the hardwood in the hallway, I was going to sweep it until Gabriel said Christina would flip out if I didn’t use the vacuum).

Today before my afternoon class the class all met for coffee. Anna, the girl in our class from France, told us that if we wanted to come to France for a weekend and stay for free with her family we were welcome (as long as her parents agreed to it). I AM SO EXCITED!!! It would be so much fun to go to France and with someone who knows the language/city AND STAY FOR FREE!! I really hope this works out. Class was really fun too, it is our conversation class and we have a really nice profesora who makes the class a lot of fun (or maybe we make it fun and she doesn’t impede).

Tonight the Kansas kids are going to the Jazz bar near my piso. Tomorrow night there is 5€ large pizza night at another restaurant near my piso and if I was a betting woman I would say it will probably last past 10.00 J

The Spanish Apartment

Sorry that it has been so long since my last post. I have been really busy, and the last few days at the hostel the Internet gave up working at all so it was pretty much like living in the dark ages for a few days.

Now I have officially moved into the apartment! We were supposed to move in on Friday, but we missed the noon check out and wound up spending another night at the hostel (who could really pass up a free breakfast and long, hot free showers?) at the program’s expense. Moving was anything but easy. So we were all prepared for things to be different in apartment living – water costing more so taking shorter showers, having smaller appliances, never being able to walk around without shoes – but no one prepared us for the keys. I was stuck outside of my apartment for a whole hour before the landlady/roommate finally woke up to let me in and discovered that I had a key that didn’t work. Kate and Hannah (they live in the same apartment, which is really just a hallway with rooms) got five keys to their apartment but only three of them actually open anything.

Here are some pictures of the apartment.

The entry way/the German's room...

a more detailed picture of the candles in the entry way. I think it is really neat.

One of the best parts...wireless internet. Here they call it "wee-fee"!


The hallway. The kitchen is the first (closest) door, mine is the second, Gabriel's is the third, and the door at the end is my/Mila's/the German's bathroom.


The bathroom. The best part - instant hot water! (you think this would be a given, but some people in our group have apartments where you have to turn on the hot water two hours before you want to take a shower.)

The kitchen, which is also our only common area.



The washing machine. Yes, it is supposed to be for clothes. No, there is not a dryer. No, I am not kidding. I don't actually plan on using it, there are places where you can take your clothes and they will wash/dry/iron them for you and that is how my clothes will be cleaned.


My shelf in the pantry (the top one, I need to go buy some groceries)


My shelf in the fridge (the one I am pointing to)


My room!!

My room, another view. It is small but I don't really need anything bigger than this. The only thing that I wish I had is somewhere to put my suitcases, but I will survive.

The heater. There is another one next to my bed, but oh how I miss central heating.

I love, love, love my roommates. I live with Mila who is a journalism student from Brazil, Gabriel who is studying medicine and is from Italy, Christina is our dueña who is also a student, but much older and from Spain. (Come to find out, she’s really not the landlady per say, she is just in charge of the apartment.) Manuel is a student from Germany, but he doesn’t move in until next Tuesday. I’ll have pictures of them later J They are all so fun, nice, and patient with me. My first day here Gabriel was making real Italian pizza and had his webcam set up so his mom could talk him through it. I helped a little before Mila came home with her friend Jefferson and we went into her room and talked. Gabriel came into join us and we talked about Santiago, student life, and futbol. After a few minutes I could get used to their Spanish and not only was able to keep up but I made a few jokes as well. They laughed, I laughed, and I felt like I had really found a home not just an apartment. Gabriel asked Mila what these ribbons were that she had on her dresser and she explained that it was a Brazilian custom to have someone tie them on your wrist and before each of the three knots were tied to make a wish and when the bracelet eventually fell off your wishes would come true. We all tied them on each other, and so now it is like we all have friendship bracelets. Gabriel had to go tend to his pizza again, and Mila and Jefferson came into my room and I showed them pictures. Mila offered to take me around Santiago to see where the cheapest place to get things are, and I very excitedly accepted. Jefferson kept asking me questions about the Wizard of Oz, so I had to show him the pink luggage tag that Tyra got me. He just about died when he saw it, and put it on the outside of my door. (every time I look at it, I think about you Tyra!! I miss you!!) I feel so grateful and lucky to have gotten the chance to live here.

I am having a good time here, but it is hard. Nothing is easy. I don’t know where anything is, and half the time I don’t know how to say what I want to say. I feel stunted. In English, I always have a million things to say – thoughts, opinions, observations, jokes. Here I still am the same person with the same thoughts, but I can’t show that as easily as I could in English. It is not impossible, it is getting somewhat easier, but it is frustrating. It feels like learning to walk all over again. Things that I took so for granted – how to buy groceries, how to ask people for help, where to buy shampoo, how to do laundry, how to buy things in a store – are suddenly huge undertakings with a steep learning curve. I know that I have really accomplished a lot in my only week of being here but it is frustrating because I am really not doing anything more beyond simply getting around.

People here are for the most part nice, but there are those occasional people who aren’t sensitive to the fact that you are a student learning Spanish and get irritated when they have to keep repeating things. Students are more sympathetic, and they are who we mostly hang out with. I want to learn as much as I can here, and I have come to the conclusion that you learn a lot more when you fit in – you don’t have to keep constantly fighting the system and you get an entirely different perspective. I keep thinking about a lesson I learned in one of my early Spanish classes. Our teacher, Paulo, was from Argentina and one day he told us how he got really mad watching Oprah one day because the show was where she had a bunch of women from other countries come talk about what they thought about the United States. He was mad because, in his opinion, Americans are obsessed with themselves and no wonder they have such a bad international reputation. While I don’t agree with him completely, it has helped me a lot in interacting with people. When someone is talking about Santiago or their country it is very easy to chime in what the same thing is like in the United States. However, if the person didn’t specifically ask about the United States it most likely because they don’t care. Unlike how I have been taught, the United States is not the center of the universe and not everyone envies my citizenship. I am not an Ambassador to Spain invited here to educate about our culture. I am a student here in Spain to learn the language and the culture. They are two different things, and I think it is important to remember the difference.

altas y bajas

They told us at our first orientation that we would have high points and low points during our stay here and these past few days, I feel like I am more on a rollercoaster. So I'll list the good and bad things about the past few days:

PROS

• I HAVE AN APARTMENT!! I am so relieved/excited to have one. It feels like a tremendous weight off of my shoulders. I live on the third floor right above a radio station and a few offices. The apartment is much nicer than any other student one, it really feels grown up. I have my own room and a shelf in the bathroom as well as in the fridge. I live with the duena (landlady), a girl from Brazil who is studying journalism, a guy from Italy who is studying medicine, and a guy from Germany who will move in sometime in February. The only language we have in common is Spanish, and they all seem really really good at it. Hopefully I will be too since it will be the only way I will be able to communicate! (hand/facial gestures aside) I paid my deposit and got my keys today and I move in on Friday and will put pictures up prompty :)
• I haven't gotten lost. I really feel like I am beginning to know the city. I am still a one-trick pony when it comes to getting anywhere (I know one way and stick to it), but I end up where I want to be which every time feels like an accomplishment
• I really enjoy all of my classes. The topics are very interesting (especially the Spain is Different (the lit class) and my Spanish for business) and the professors are very engaging. Plus, I will probably only spend 50 euros tops for books. (!!)
• Going out at night is a lot of fun. There are so many elements to the city that seemingly only come alive at night. Everyone is super friendly and the Irish pub and Rock cafe (which serves chocolate rock which is hot chocolate spiked with Frangelica - to die for!) are for sure highlights.
• Walking everywhere. No worrying about gas, parking, or anything! I feel like I have/should be losing weight.
  
• My Spanish. Surpisingly, I know something. It really is just like everyone has said: you'd be amazed at what you know when you are forced to use it. So far I have (on my own)

1. Found/Rented an apartment
2. Bought a SIM card for my mobil, and a monthly plan
3. Fed myself
4. Made a friend (Theresa, she is a nanny from Germany. The word really is o-pear, a French word, but I have no idea how to spell it)

CONS

• THE WEATHER. Today was horrifying. I forgot my umbrella in my grammar class, and thought I would be ok until this afternoon when I would be back on south campus. I WAS NOT OK. I WAS SO NOT OK I CAN'T EVEN RELATE THIS IN WORDS. It was colder, and it rained almost every single minute of the day. and if the cold rain wasn't enough, there was wind so strong that it made me lose my balance a few times. The combination of the two ment that in many places the street was littered with inside-out umbrellas. I was one of the lucky ones without long pants and a raincoat, so I stayed relatively dry. But it was miserable.
  
• Stress of finding an apartment. It was cutthroat because there wasn't enough apartments for everyone to live where they wanted to. So I was really proactive and got a great apartment, but it made me feel guilty because other people wanted it too. It made the group feel really tense but now that everyone has an apartment it feels a lot better. But seriously, this was not a good experience. In my opinion, KU needs to secure housing for us in advance. It is stressful enough trying to get around and take care of yourself in a foriegn country without having to constantly worry and compete to find somewhere to live.
• Walking everywhere. This I will get used to, but as of now I have shin splints and my thighs hurt. Still, whine whine whine.
• Spanish costumer service. WHAT AN OXYMORON! they do not care at all about you. When you go to a resteraunt to eat, you have to chase them down for the check. If you go to a shoe store, you have to patiently wait for them to finish talking to a co-worker/paper clipping some papers/staring into space before they'll even acknowledge you are there THEN they act very inconvienced when you open your mouth to ask something. If you want to change your rent check into euros, you have to wait for them to finish their conversation at the copier and then wait for them to do their personal transactions (I assmue it was that, either that or he straight up stole from the bank). If something doesn't work or you aren't happy, don't bother taking it back or asking for additional help. they don't care.
  
• Vosotros. For all of you non-Spanish buffs, it is a form of verb that translates you "you-all". For example, dormís hasta cuatro means you all sleep until four. I have had teachers who have taught it, and others who say no one uses it. So instead I learned how to say things this way, duermen hasta cuatro which means you (plural) sleep until four. Not a big difference, people still understand what I am saying, but it is frustrating because it is really hard for me to use it because for most of the verbs I know I don't know/never learned the vosotros.

Thank you all for your posts/emails. It really stems off the homesickness. :)

Less of a tourist, More of a student

Sunday we had our second orientation at the Hotel lobby where we met our professors and got more information about acclimating to Santiago. We got a walking tour of the noteworthy parts of the city, then a very traditional Spanish almuerzo. They served us squid, ham, peppers (not anything hot), tortilla Espanola, and some wonderful desserts and a good red wine. I did, however, learn a cultural lesson the hard way – the BIG glass is for wine and the SMALL glass is for water. Whoops. I was able to cover my mistake by chugging my water before the wine came (classy!).

On Sundays, EVERYTHING is closed save restaurants and tourist shops. After being scared by the orientation about being prepared for the rain (the director even told us she has hair dryers in her office if we ever need to dry off!) Mindy and I went in search of an umbrella. I will admit, I am feeling very shy about speaking Spanish. But as I have been told time and time again, you never get better without practice. So I started up a conversation with the clerk about what umbrella I should purchase. Apparently when it rains here it is really windy, so she told me to buy an umbrella with lots of spines so it won’t turn inside out so easily. Here is what I bought:

I also asked her about these, which are at the front of every building you enter:

Because, quite frankly, I was worried that if I did this mine would get stolen. But the clerk told me that a few expensive umbrellas get stolen but for the most part people don’t steal umbrellas because they don’t want to bear the shame of being caught around town with a stolen umbrella and labeled as a thief.

I am my father’s daughter, so I kept talking to the clerk about the weather in the States. She looked surprised and told me she never would have guessed I was American because my Spanish was so good. Now, before you start thinking I’m blending in seamlessly and my Spanish rivals that of a local – she clarified by saying that every American she’s ever met doesn’t try to speak Spanish and just speaks English to her right there in the middle of Santiago. Still…I felt validated and proud! :)

Today were our first classes. They weren’t lying when they said it was a half hour walk to the North Campus. It is a beautiful walk thought, through the new part of town straight to the old part, past the cathedral and across what Kate has dubbed “make out look out” that overviews the valley of the city.

We get to campus and are immediately told NOT to go through the doors with red circles on them; they are the emergency doors and will set off an alarm. (apparently they get really pissed if you do this on purpose) But notice how close they are to the green circle doors? I foresee this being problematic.

All of our classes are in the same room, which is this one…

The classes seem really interesting. My espanol de negocios has half of the classes in the classroom and half the classes around town talking to Spanish businesses about how they operate. My cultura islamica class sounds interesting, and we don’t have any books! My afternoon classes are just the grammar and speaking ones, and today we took a placement test. I’m not super confident that I did well, but it doesn’t matter because I will get the same sequential credit regardless of the class I am in.

I started to notice that the room was a little strange and come to find out it is a dorm. Our one classroom is on the top floor of a dorm! I go to class in a dorm but have to find my own apartment?! However, they did tell us that the dorms were about twice as expensive as the apartments were.

Speaking of apartments, I went and saw two today. The first was an absolute shithole – small, dirty, and two of the girls smoked. The second one was much better, but I didn’t really like the roommates. Tomorrow I am seeing another one, so hopefully by tomorrow I’ll know where I am living.

Tonight, after a 45 minute detour (because I asserted that I really did know where the place was) Mindy and I made it to Moore’s Pub which on Monday nights turns into English trivia. They play a game where everyone puts in money and the tables compete against one another to see who can get the most questions right. The questions are hilarious – for example, “If water is freezing, how many degrees Fahrenheit is it?” “How many states are in the United States?” “What was the top grossing movie in America in 2006?” I’ve never felt smarter in my entire life! The British students who are studying here would cheat off of the Americans and the Americans off of them. It was a great time, and it has quickly become my new favorite Monday activity!

Contact Information

**EDIT - I had my cell phone number wrong. It has been corrected!**

My mailing address (it is the University, but I am there every day and they told us it is a thousand times more secure and reliable than trying to get mail at your apartment):

Valerie Tarbutton
c/o Programa de Kansas
Residencia Universitaria "Burgo das Nacions". Campus Norte.
15782 Santiago de Compostela
Spain

Mobile Number: 662 41 15 48 (this is a Spain number, so you'll have to call internationally)

If you would like to talk to me, a great alternative is Skype which is free and super easy to use (even my parents think so!) if you have a microphone for your computer.

Skype Name: valerie.tarbutton


it feels so good to be connected again :)

The First Real Day

So today I was a tourista about town!

Mindy, Kate, Katherine, Frashita and I woke up and enjoyed the carbalicious free breakfast that the hostel provided at the restaurant next door – a hard roll and a croissant with café con leche. We bought some groceries, which were incredibly cheap. A liter and a half of water is only 13 euro cents! After dropping off our purchaces, we wanted to see the Cathedral, and Katherine who had gotten lost getting there the day before, fearlessly led us in several correct directions.

Santiago, from where we are staying, doesn’t look any different than any other city. There are farmacias everywhere, marked clearly by the flashing green neon crosses. The closer we got to the cathedral, the more European the city started to become. The streets became narrower with cobble stone and suddenly it was like walking into a movie.

Not everything was picture perfect. There were some dirty looking buildings...

Graffiti...(but at least it wasn't threating, despite the anarchy and ambiguous use of some sort of tobacco (wacky or otherwise) the person still finds a reason to smile)

And mullets.

We made it to the Cathedral and it was breathtaking. No pictures I took really do it any credit, the ones inside all turned out dark and there really is no way to capture the dimensions of it in a picture. But trust me, it was really something to see. (note the altar, it was solid gold)

This was above the altar....creepy!

Who are we kidding, I really embraced the tourista thing!

On the way back we noticed all of the sales. Kate and Fro bought two really cute jackets, i wanted to get one too but nothing fit.




We got back to the hostel and got a moment to catch our breath before we had an orientation where we got insurance cards, our class schedule, and more reassurance about finding an apartment which we'll get another orientation about tomorrow.

After the orientation, I decided to be brave and go do some more searching for a sim card (in typical Valerie fashion, I am without a phone and it makes me nervous, the others make fun of me but i would like one ASAP) alone. The place I needed to go to was closed, and so i found a bookstore and spoke to the owner about getting a book. I told him I was an English speaker (no need to broadcast that I am an American) and wanted something. At first he pulled out a few learning spanish books, but after I was able to communicate to him that I was a student and wanted something authentically Spanish he recomended La sombra del viento by Carlos Ruiz Zafron. I have no idea what it is about, but I was so pleased that I was able to relate in Spanish to another Spanish speaker what I wanted that I bought it as a victory prize.

Well I am off! Lots of people just piled into my room because Mindy got the KU game over the internet and suddenly I am in party central.

Hasta luego!