day 3 in valladolid-sorry i missed a few days

DAY 3
We are now in Valladolid!!!!So today was our first official day of classes. I had Spanish in the morning, two separate classes with two separate professors, and it was amazing. However, when the day began I had a slight panic attack. This was because I was expecting to be placed in a certain level, where most of my friend ended up being placed, but I was put in one higher. Yes, I should have been excited because apparently I know more Spanish then I thought and did better on our placement test then I thought. But, it was still a bit scary. The world didn’t end though. My first class was Spanish grammar and my professor was Christina Garcia. She is a very sweet and funny lady although she knows how to speak pretty fast. Everyone in the class is very supportive so it ended up being great. The next class I had was my oral class and it was one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced. This was mainly because the class is filled with students from all over the world and the only way we can communicate is to speak SPANISH!!! I made some friends from Taiwan in class too. SIDE NOTE: last night we went out and I met about ten new people from all over, germany, Italy, London, france, Sweden, and then Wisconsin. Long story short, Spanish classes are going to be a challenge but they are divertido (fun) so they will be perfect!!! After class we came home to have lunch with our families, we have breakfast dinner and lunch with mi madre, mi padre, and su perro “Beethoven”. Then we went early to class and checked e-mails, talked to mom and dad ( you guys are adorable) and headed off to class. So our Spanish classes in the morning are at centro de idiomas but our night classes with cal poly are in the law school building which is amazing!!! Not many students are even allowed in the building I guess so it is unbelievable that we get to study there. It is a huge building with old, what I believe to be renaissance architecture, and pillars and stairs that split in the middle like palaces do. Kelsey, my roommate, and I are lucky enough that we can walk to both locations whereas other students in our program have to take the bus to and from everyday multiple times. Classes tonight were very interesting as well, I am taking a culture of Spain class as well as the with-hunt in Europe. In addition to these classes we have another two unit class but that will be completed on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The two unit class consists of a lot of sight-seeing and paper writing I believe. All in all we have about 20+ hours of Spanish classes a week, home in time for lunch, then back to school until 8, making our cal poly courses about 8 hours a week. Sum it all up, we have a very busy schedule but it doesn’t put a damper on us having a good time at all. Tonight we might join some friends for an exchange of international students and go from “café” to “café”. However, we are pretty loaded with reading and tarea so we will see how much we get done first. This weekend we are going to burgos with our cal poly group which is very exciting so hopefully I will have more pictures to show you guys soon.

Our house: it is small but great. We have 3 bedrooms but one they don’t let people use haha. So Kelsey and I share a bed large enough to fit two beds, a mini closet and our bodies standing up J we have a bathroom that we share with our padres and then a living room (we aren’t supposed to go in unless our family is already in there) and a kitchen (which we cannot cook, clean, or do anything but sit and eat in). we are allowed showers of five minutes and must wear socks everywhere in the house but no shoes allowed. Our mom is extremely anti-germs. After our shower we spray down and clean the walls too. Our room stays clean, bed made and all, and we are allowed a load of laundry once a week. We don’t have internet in our house but we also don’t have much time to use it anyways. We have four other girls in our program that live in our building so we have been going to and from places together a lot.

I am having the time of my life still and am so excited for this experience. It still soaks in more and more everyday but I can already tell that I am learning Spanish quickly. Thank you mom and dad again for being so wonderful. Brother, if you read this I would love to hear about how life is going in south America. I miss you all. I love you!!