I'll start with yesterday: classes started officially, and I had four classes starting at eleven and ending at 6:15 (with an hour and a half break in the middle). My first class is Phonetics and Phonology, one of my Spanish classes, and I'm glad it was my first class because it eased my nerves completely. My professor is extremely nice, very friendly and also encouraging. I'm excited for the class because it is one of the few classes in my college experience that unites both speech pathology and Spanish. I love to learn about sounds and accents, and my goal for the semester of achieving much more fluency in speaking will be much easier to reach with this class. At the end of my preliminary quiz, which we took one by one so the professor could get to know each of our levels of Spanish, she told me that with some hard work, I could learn to speak like a native by the time the class is over. I actually don't believe that is possible for someone who started learning a language at age 12, but it was really encouraging to hear her say that to me!
Next I had my Latin Dance class. It was SO much fun. My teacher is young and funny and I can already tell she is an amazing dancer. We are starting with merengue, then we will learn salsa and finally either bachata or cha-cha-cha. Apparently there is a performance at the end of the semester and other students are going to go and watch--which sounds frightening!--but I think it will be fun.
Then, I had Modern Trends in 20th century Hispanic Drama (whoo! What a mouthful). It is going to be very difficult. I finished the day with my World Literature Class. We are starting with The Odyssey, and we are also reading the Aeneid, Don Quixote and Dante's Inferno. I'm very excited.
Today, I went shopping in the morning to search for contact solution (I found it finally!) and chapstick. Then I walked to school for my one and only class of the day, Early Latin American Novel. To my surprise there were 4 other girls from Baylor in that class! It looks to be interesting, very challenging but I think I will appreciate it a lot. We have about 6 full length novels in Spanish that we are reading over the course of four months. It sounds extremely overwhelming but I'm excited. I hope it doesn't kill me!
Then, after class, I was talking with my friends and they mentioned they had decided to go visit the Prado Museum! Naturally I tagged along... and I'm so glad I did. We took the metro (my second time) and visited the Prado and since it was after 6 it was free. I was able to see a very extensive Goya exhibit and some Diego Velazquez. Here are some of the paintings I saw!!!
We were only able to spend about an hour and a half there since the museum closed at 8, so we walked for a bit in that area of Madrid because it is GORGEOUS. Of course, I picked the perfect day not to bring my camera. However, I'm sure I will go there many more times. It is a beautiful part of Madrid, with many trees, and gorgeous old buildings. After we walked for a bit, we went down to the Metro and I rode it back to my area of Madrid, got back to the apartment and had a nice dinner with María.
Also, I've finally been able to purchase a cell phone! It's pretty expensive to text to the U.S. so I found an app called textplus which lets me text for free from my iPhone (only if there is wifi though). It won't charge anyone from the U.S. Let me know if you want my number so we can talk! I miss all of you. It is very lonely here sometimes!
Well, I hope everyone is doing well. Hasta luego!!
No comments:
Post a Comment