First Day of Class

We got our class assignments when we arrived at Alcalingua today (the part of the university in which I take classes). There are seven classes, 1 being the lowest and 7 the highest. Based on my placement test, I got put in class 5 with Matthew and Calen. I was surprised by how high this was, but I'm really excited about taking challenging classes. My first class, from 9-11, was taught by Vega. It is a language class. When calling roll, my teacher roughly gets out "Rachael" and I raised my hand. She looks at me with this smug face and goes "Estados Unidos?" (United States). She did this with the two other Americans in my class, Matthew and Calen. We were marked from the beginning as "those Americans". It turns out she was kidding and was a really fun teacher. We got in groups of three and asked a set group of questions about each other. I was in a group with Matthew and Yumika who is from Japan. She is so funny and energetic. I enjoyed being in her group! After that we discussed our answers as a whole. The teacher spoke very quickly, and the best part was that I could completely understand everything she said! We had a break from 11:00-11:30. During my break I decided to get some chips out of the vending machine. There was a sticker covering the flavor, but they were Lays, and seemed to be cheddar flavored. I opened them up, and they smelled deceivingly delicious. After my first bite however, I decided to check the flavor. Not only were they not cheddar flavored... They were ham flavored!!! What the heck? Spanish people really like Ham. The best part is I conned at least six other people to try them. Needless to say, no one enjoyed them.

After the short break, we had a Spanish culture-ish class from 11:30-1:30. We discussed Spanish geography and different things Spain is known for. Both my teachers were very entertaining and discussed topics openly that may not necessarily be talked about in the US, such as boys, drinking, and personal opinions (the teacher said on the last day of class she is bringing us sangria! You would never see that in the US!). Besides being able to understand my teachers, the coolest thing about today was all the different cultures in the classroom. We only have 14 people in our class and we have people from China, Japan, Russia, Iran, South Korea, United States and Kazakhstan. For most of us, the only way we can communicate is in Spanish. This is so fascinating to me!

After class, I came home and Andrea and Angelica taught me many Spanish words, including the parts of the body. Once I asked them how to say one word in Spanish, everything became a test. They pointed to many objects in my room saying "qué es esto" (What is this). It actually helped me a lot! For lunch we had some sort of bean and potato dish and mango after. It was very filling. Now for my favorite part of the day...siesta!!!! I slept for around 3 and a half hours, and it was glorious.

At 7:30 we all met up and went to a restaurant called 'Bras and Beers' . This place is probably the closest to an American restaurant we will find in Alcalá (besides McDonald's). It had hamburgers and chicken fingers and all the works! To end the night we walked back to the plaza and had fruity drinks from an outdoor vendor. When you order a drink in Spain, some sort of food, or tapas, comes free with it. This was by far the most interesting so far. They gave us chips, jelly beans and chocolate covered peanuts!

The drinks were fairly reasonably priced and stout! Most places we have been to, they pour your drinks at the table so you know just how much alcohol is in your drinks. Sitting on the plaza with friends is amazing.

The picture below was our view from our table at 10:00 at night!! I still can't get over how bright it is!



To make the night even better, the third round was on the house, thanks to our kind waiter! After drinks we walked around the plaza more and headed back to our houses. The blogs might slow down a little now that I'm getting settled in. I will be posting every weekend for sure, since I will be traveling so much!