Ávila

This Friday a small group of us went on a day trip to Ávila. Ávila is a small town about and hour and a half north of Madrid. It is most famous for St. Teresa of Ávila who was a nun there and did all kinds of crazy things. You might recognize her from this kind of ridiculous statue

 

Also, Michelle and I read her autobiography for a class last semester so that made it even more exciting. 

We took a very cheap bus. 

The city is also a fortress so it is surrounded by this really old and cool wall

 

We paid 2 euros to be able to climb up it and walk around the city. The view was amazing, here are some pictures. 

 

We also went into a church and ate pastries made by nuns. We didn't actually see any nuns... and th pastries were kinda gross. 

We did go into the museum of Saint Teresa where they kept lots of artifacts from her life including her actual finger! With ring. It was gross and amazing. We could not take pictures :( 

It was a really fun day, wondering around the little city, looking at old things, and hanging out with out friends. 

Well thats all for today. Here is a picture of Michelle and me under a really old sign about Saint Teresa. 

More Madrid Adventures

Hi everyone,
Sorry that I haven't blogged lately. A few exciting things have happened. Last Friday we went on a kind of self guided tour of the downtown area which is called Sol. We had to look at a lot of buildings and answer questions about them. Of course, I forgot to bring my camera.
On Saturday, we went to an event with the school called an Intercambios. Its where you meet with people who live in Madrid (or wherever you are) and you practice speaking in the languages you are learning. All the people on Saturday knew English but needed practice and of course, all of us need practice with Spanish. Its a really good idea because you can get to know people, make friends and learn about the city at the same time as you are practicing Spanish. The only problem with this event on Friday was that there were way more NYU students than Madrileños. At my table, there were five girls from NYU and one girl from Madrid, so I hardly got to talk to her at all. My roommate Michelle had better luck and talked a lot with one girl at her table. They exchanged numbers and have plans to get tapas and hopefully I will be able to join them!
On Sunday, Dasha, Michelle and I went to Madrid's famous and gigantic outdoor market El Rastro. They litterally sell almost everything there. Clothes, jewelry, electronics, AS SEEN ON TV MERCAHNDSIE, car parts, antiques. It was a lot of fun. I bought a dress for 10 euros.
Here is a picture of the first street you walk down, but then jsut imagine that there are 12 billion more booths

 The only other exciting thing that has happened was the cooking class today. A group from NYU went to this cooking school that these two ladies have set up in there apartment. They demonstrated how to make a few dishes and gave us the recipes (in Spanish). They made sangria, paella, and tart de santiago. Then they made tortilla española and we each got to make out own individual one!

This is a tortilla española http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortilla_espa%C3%B1ola

It's not like a mexican tortilla and they eat them ALL the time here. The ones we made were delicious though! 

The whole thing was fun although a little confusing since the chefs only spoke Spanish. Tomorrow we have to go to a lecture about the history and culture of food in Spain, or something like that. I'll let you know if I learn anything interesting.

Oh also this weekend I had churros con chocolate for the first time ever!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churro

They are served with a whole mug of melted chocolate and when you finish the churros, you drink the chocolate from the mug!! Its the worst thing you can ever possibly eat, I'm pretty sure.

Thats all for now!

School

Hola!
Well I just had my first two days of classes. I've been to each of my four classes so I thought I'd tell you a little about them.
My Hispanic Cultures in the US Today class is on Mondays and Wednesdays and it seems very interesting. The main point of this class is to improve our Spanish skills through class discussions and stuff. The whole class is taught in Spanish and our readings are in Spanish. The best part of this class is that we don't have a book! All of our readings are online and we have 400 pages of free printing at the NYU computer lab if we need to print them out.
My other three classes all meet on the same days- Tuesday/ Thursday.
Spain Today is very similar to my first class. We are learning about the politics and culture in Spain but the main point is to improve our Spanish skills. This class had a very cheap course packet with all our readings in it. Only 7 euro, thats like $10, books back home are never that cheap!
My Spanish grammar class is Intermediate Level II. We have 2 small books (also pretty cheap) and kind of a lot of homework but I think it will be easier then classes at NYU. For one thing, my professor for this class is great! She explains things really well and is very energetic (unlike all my Spanish professors in New York...).
All of the classes I jsut talked about have only 8 students in them. Its great because we'll all get to learn so much more then in a larger class.
My last class is called Masterpieces of the Prado Museum. It is taught in English and has maybe about 20 students.
On Tuesdays we meet in class and at least for today we looked at slides (old school!) and talked about art and stuff. On Thursdays we actually go to the Prado Museum which is in Madrid and has a lot of classical Spanish art. I know nothing about art but when we went around and introduced ourselved only 2 or 3 people had any real background in art history, so I will be fine.
All of the classes have a few short essays, a midterm and a final. (except for the Intermediate Spanish which has 3 tests and a final). There will also be several oral presentations mixed in there too.

One challenge of starting classes has been finding school supplies. I'd heard that there was not as wide of a variety of school and office supplies here.
What I had not heard was that in Spain (and many other parts of Europe) people write on graph paper.
I looked in a few stores and that was all I could find. I finally just bought some small notebooks with this ridiculous paper. Of course, after starting all of my classes and using at least the first page of all of these notebooks, I found a store that sells notebooks will real lined paper for the same price.
Oh well, I'm jsut going to stick with these for now!
Here's some pictures so you can fully appreciate this.

Well, now that classes have started, I do have some homework. It doesn't seem like anywhere near as much as I would have in New York though!
There are a few exciting things coming up. On Friday we have and "Out and About" in Madrid where they give us a list of places to go to (like stores and resaurants in certain neighborhoods) and we explore in small groups. Also, sometime next week my roommate Michelle and I are going to a cooking class!

Segovia

Hola,
We had a lot of events the past few days. On Thursday we had our last day of orientation classes. Thursday afternoon we went the the Museum Reina Sofia which is a modern art museum. We had a guided tour and looked at a lot of pre-Spanish Civil War art. The second most exciting thing we saw was Picasso's Guernica which he painted to bring attention to the massacre the occurred in a town called Guernica. It was huge and really interesting to see in real life because you see it in Spanish books all the time. We weren't supposed to take picures but I didn't realize that until after I took this one:

The first most exciting thing was that Robert Downey Jr. was also there. In fact, he was looking at Guernica at the same time as my group.

On Friday, NYU took us on a day trip to Segovia. It was about an hour on the bus and we went on a really long guided walking tour. I was pretty tired by the time we got back to Madrid. Anyway, here's some pictures from that.

This is the giant aquaduct that was build by the Romans and can still bring water to the city. It was pretty impressive.

This is a church that used to be a synagogue and has a lot of Muslim architecture.

This is the view from Segovia.

Castle where Queen Isabel lived.

Blurry picture of the throne where Queen Isable gave Columbus permission to explore the new world.

Dasha and me in a gazeebo. 

This is me in front of the aqueduct.

Well thats all for now. Classes start on Monday! 

Pictures

This is my adorable but tiny bed in my adorable but tiny room at my homestay in Madrid.

Also pictured: my pickpicket-proof purse and folders full of infrmation about Madrid and NYU Madrid.

This is the desk that Michelle and I share in our room.

This is Michelle! On her bed! I realize that these pictures don't give a good sense of our room. There is a closet next to that dresser. We share both of them.

This is a Coca-Cola light. (Diet Coke). It was the first thing I bought with euros while I was still in the airport. It tasts different, but you all probably know this because everyone but Rachel has been to the Coke Museum.

This is my suitcase in my room after 2 days of being in the Frankfurt airpot.

This is our adorable blue bathroom with bidet!

This is our sink!

Ok thats all the pictures for now! Sorry they're all inside, its way too rainy and yucky outside to take any cute pictures.

Suitcases, Cell Phones

Hola,

I didn't blog yesterday because everything was still out of place. We had orientation at the NYU Madrid building. I learned that my suitcase was still not in Madrid. The orientation was long but they gave us a lot of information about Madrid culture and about our homestays.

For example. Staring at people is ok, not rude at all. Water and electricity are really really really expensive. We are not allowed to take more then one short shower a day. Also there are never any extra lights on. The lobbies are always dark which is kind of scary.

After orientation, the people in charge took all the students to lunch at a restaurant nearby. We had paella and it was SO good.

After lunch, we went to a store called El Corte Ingles which is like a big department store. We tried to buy phones but apparently the phone system was down in all of Spain so they could not activate our phones. They told us to come back later or the next day. Also at El Corte Ingles I was able to buy a loofa. Apparenly, wash cloths do not exist outside of the U.S.


Yesterday evening, my Señora's daughter came back (she lives here with us but was in the country for the weekend). When my Señora introduced me she said "She is from Georgia like 'Gone With the Wind!'" and her daughter, Latisia said "Oh Scarlett OHara! The men are so romantic there, no?"

It was probably the funniest thing that has happened since I've arrived.


Today, we had two orientation classes. My roommate Michelle was in my section for the first class. Its the history of Spain taught in "Spanglish," which apparently means all in Spanish with very few things translated into English, such as "rio" which we definately already knew...

After that we were divided into groups by our Spanish level. I'm in Intermediate II with about nine other people. We had a pretty good class. It was mostly stuff we already knew with a lot of practicing and grammar. Then we went on a tour of the NYU building, really cute.


After that we were free all afternoon. I went to lunch at a place called VIPS with Michelle and our friend Dasha. Then, we all went to try to buy phones again and this time it worked!


You can email me if you want the number. I receive texts for free and outgoing texts are 15 euro cents. Incoming calls are free for me but I'm sure they will cost a lot if anyone calls me from the states. So, texting, email, and skpe are still the best ways to communicate with me. Oh, also facebook.


I also had a doctor appointment with NYU's bilingual doctor to get prescriptions for insulin and test strips. I had to take the bus which was way easier then I expected. So that went really well.


On my way home I stopped by the school and my suitcase was there!!! Yay!!!

So now I am all unpacked and happy. We have 2 more days or orientation and then, weather permitting, we are going on a day trip to Segovia.

Speaking of weather, it is raining here... a lot... all week. And I forgot an unbrella and I only just bought one.

Our Señora showed us all the places to shop around her and right across the street is this little shop owned my a Chinese man that sells everything. Or at least a lot of random things. They had an unbrella and batteries for cheap.

Spain

I am in Spain. Finally.
We left at a good time this morning. Then the GPS took us to the emplyee enterance. Luckily we finally found our way there and I checked in fine. Mom and I hung out for a while, ate lunch, and turned my dollars into euros (which are SO pretty and blind people friendly).
Then I went through security with no problem. My flight was a little bit later then it was originally supposed to be. The flight itself was not bad. I couldn't sleep because I was nervouse and it wasn't really that late. I watched Up, How I Met Your Mother and Desperate Housewives on the little seat TV things.
And they served us TWO meals! It was so much fun.
Then, when we landed in Frankfurt apparently they don't pull up to the terminal and you have to take a bus from the plane to the actual building. And it was snowing so the buses took forever. By the time I got inside and through the passport check, my plane was already boarding! I had to go to security AGAIN and follow these really confusing signs. I made it to the gate JUST as they were making the final boarding call.
On that flight, from Frankfurt to Madrid, they gave us ANOTHER meal!!!!
Then, we arrived in Madrid and had to take another bus from the plane to the actual airport. I went to the baggage claim area and waited.. and waited... and waited. My suitcase was not there. There were about 20 people in the lost baggage line there so I stood in that line for a looong time. Finally I got to the counter and they told me that my suitcase is still in Frankfurt and it will get here tonight. Hopefully they will ship it to the NYU building first thing in the morning. I was freaking out but at least they know where it is!
Then, I went to find a shuttle to take me to my homestay, as suggested by NYU. Well the line took forever for that as well because the people in the line were long lost relatives of the woman who was working at the desk! I did get a shuttle fairly quickly for only 17 euros. Half the price of a taxi. I even ended up sharing it with another NYU student! However, there is a huge soccar game here tonight and many streets are closed. I had to be dropped off 2 blocks from my homestay with vauge spanish directions. And the driver didn't even have change for my 20 euro!!!
So I had to wonder down this snowy street, yes it was snowing, asking people "Donde esta calle panama?" Finally this one child knew and I found my apartment builing. But then, no one was home! I rang and rang the doorbell until a man walking out let me go inside the foyer. Once inside I found the door but stil, no one was home. A neighbor came out and he spoke english and told me that the other student had been here but he didn't know where she or my house mother (my Señora) had gone. Just then my roommate walked up the stairs! We still had no idea where our Señora was but I finally got the put my bags down and be warm!!!!
Our Señora did come home and she gave me my keys and was so nice. Her name is Moncia. She made us pasta dinner and we all talked, mostly in Spanish, while we ate. There is another student living in the other room and Monica's 25 year old daughter lives here too. The other student arrives on Tusday and Monica's duaghter is spending the weekend in the country so I guess we will meet her on Monday.
So now Michelle and I are sitting in our warm room with full tummies and we will probably go to sleep soon.
Adios!

Hola!

Sorry for the lack of blogs over Christmas break!
Today is my flight to Madrid. I leave from Altanta at 6:15pm and arrive in Madrid at 2:00pm Madrid time (6 hours ahead of us). I'm all packed and ready to go.
I'll update you when I get to my homestay!