This past Saturday marked the one month point since we all arrived here. Crazy. I'm not sure if it feels like we've been here longer than that or if time has flown by. I think it's a bit of both.
Either my allergies are really acting up or I have a bit of a cold – regardless, I’ve been really congested and have a cough brought on by a never-ending trickle down the back of my throat. I should probably make it over to the pharmacy to get something for it but that would require spending money and I’m not sure if it would even do anything anyway. Also, major thanks to my allergy medicine for majorly failing.
My Tuesday night class got switched to Thursday, to a time where I cannot take it. When did we find out about that? As we were sitting in class waiting for almost 30 min for the professor to walk in, and when he didn’t, decided that even 30 minutes is late for a Spanish professor and we should figure out what the hell was going on. And what did that mean? It meant that I was screwed, because it took me an entire day to figure out a schedule that worked. I was tempted to take an intro Italian class since I already know a little bit and it was going to be almost the only thing that would fit into my schedule. Luckily, and by chance, I ran into my friend Matt as I was walking back from what should have been my class Tuesday, who’s taking some basic drawing class at the university. This drawing class happens to be the only thing to fit into my schedule, and well I used to draw a decent bit, so hey why not. So there, problem solved. Of course, the facultad de Bellas Artes is on the edge of town in the completely opposite direction from the rest of campus. This is actually only a 20 min walk from my actual home, but we went to something during lunch that Thursday and so we actually had a nice 40 min walk to the building. And this is why I don’t feel bad about eating so much here. The professor for the class talks really fast but it’s a good thing that over half of the class is drawing. Of course, seeing how the title of this class is Dibujo 1 (Drawing 1), I assumed we would be starting out small and working our way up to things. Nope. First day, first class, right after the introduction we moved into another room and started drawing the naked model. I haven’t drawn anything in months, and this is the first thing we’re doing. Needless to say, I also had no idea that we we’re supposed to use the entire sheet of paper we had, and so my drawing was a bit small to scale. Well as it turns out, my friend Matt’s turned out to be a bit larger than it should have. So what happened when the professor was talking to us after we were finished drawing? Both Matt and myself were pointed out and used as examples, at which point the other 18 Spanish students turned around to check us out… “Hi, we’re the apparently retarded foreigners. Nice to meet you.”
I really can’t remember anything specific I did during the week last week. Classes are going well, minus the fact that I’m still teetering on vacation mode and school mode which has been resulting in extreme procrastination of schoolwork. Although, the most work I had was last Wednesday night and I finished everything in like 2-3 hours when I had started around 10 at night and didn’t have to be up until like 9 the next morning anyway, so it’s not like I feel inclined to hop on everything the second it comes up like I usually have to back home.
This past weekend we went to Seville and Granada. The timing was perfect seeing how it was Shank’s 21st birthday Friday night into Saturday and that was the night we were in Seville, so major win there. We left early Friday morning, around 730, which was unfortunate for my housemate when I was waking him up that morning because at 715 I realized he still hadn’t gotten up. It was a nice little 6 hour ride down to Seville, and after checking out the cathedral down there we were done by 5 and had the rest of the day to ourselves, at which point I met up with Shank. We had walked around a bit and grabbed some food with a couple friends of mine at a bar and chilled. Seville is a bit hotter than Salamanca which was kind of unpleasant; I’m dying for the fall weather to kick in. Anyway afterwards we checked out more of the city, pictures of which you can see on FB. They had this fair type thing going on in the one park, with like areas with tents for food/beer from a bunch of different countries, which was pretty sweet. There was an Argentina tent which I got extremely excited about and naturally had to grab a beer from there for nostalgia’s sake. A little bit later we met up with my friend Sean, also from home, and grabbed dinner at the fair thing. Then we walked the 15-20 min back to my hotel so I could shower and change, then 30 min to their house, and then after hanging out for a little bit, another 15-20 min to the club that we were heading to because it was free to get into before 1, and everyone loves when you don’t have to pay for things. But yeah, it was a good night, minus the like 40 min walk home, but that didn’t really seem too bad especially after stopping for food.
We headed to Granada the next day, about a 3 hour ride, which I naturally passed out on from lack of sleep the night before. We went to this giant palace called La Alhambra, which, again, you can see pictures of on FB. We grabbed lunch at a buffet at a hotel/restaurant nearby and then went to our hotel. Took a siesta at the hotel, grabbed dinner with some friends afterwards, and then that night we went to a Flamenco show, which I’ll post a video or two of below for you guys to check out.
The next day we visited the “molinos de viento” (windmills) in Castilla La Mancha, and had a like 6 course lunch of food typical to that area at a place not too far from there. The ride back was around 8 or so hours in total not counting the stops we made, but I slept for about half of it or so.
I feel like I’m forgetting something, but oh well if I remember it I’ll randomly throw it in later.
Here’s a clip of one of the flamenco dancers. Also, I have no idea how to rotate it back to the upright, so I suggest either a- turning your head or b-watching it on a laptop and just turning the computer.
Here’s another clip of the like the woman who was in charge. She was by far the best out of all of them but every time I stopped recording she did something really cool so unfortunately I can’t share the best of the show. Guess if you’re that curious you’ll have to go check it out yourself.
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