Ok so I know I've been really bad about updating this thing, I've been busy with a lot of stuff lo siento!!
This weekend was pretty relaxing, I didn't really do a whole lot. Went out to the bar one night, and just chilled and went to bed early Sunday night before the first day of class on Monday.
I love all my classes for the most part! I have 2 Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday and 4 on Tuesday. They are each 1 hour and 15 minutes long so not too bad. I really like my teacher for Linguistics and Spanish Culture. I'm also taking International Business, Latin American Politics, and Spanish Conversation. So learning a lot, they aren't SUPER difficult but the toughest part is being able to focus and engage and actually understand what is going on :P All the classes kind of blend together in terms of subject material which is nice... it's all about Spain! Well except for the Latin American one... that one I think is going to be the biggest challenge because the teacher talks very fast! But I am interested in the subject so that should help.
Plan on going to London in March for a weekend with a few people! So that should be exciting :) Also want to get to Morocco and southern Spain and a few people have talked about doing that as well.
I'm playing soccer and volleyball but not exactly sure when that's all going to get started, hopefully soon!
Hmm the food here is hit or miss but more often it isn't my favorite... the desserts are delicious! Seems like we always have some sort of pudding for dessert... and flan is AMAZING! I really miss my American food as I knew I would... craving a pizza and a cheeseburger really bad right about now. First chance I get to find me some good greasy American food I am pouncing on it. A lot of cooked vegetables which aren't my favorite... especially cauliflower... Ew.
Hmm sorry for such a lame update but not a lot of exciting stuff has happened this week other than classes and stuff. Maybe after Madrid this weekend I will have more interesting things to write.
jueves, 22 de enero de 2009
jueves, 15 de enero de 2009
Dia 2
Ok so I have decided I'm gonna try and keep up with posting a blog about my experiences here in Spain. The flight went really well. On the flight to Atlanta I sat next to a young couple who were going to go have sex on the beach somewhere (and I don't mean the drink)... they were pretty stupid and had a really hard time on the crossword they were working on. They said some of the questions out loud and were so clueless... I just kept quiet and tried to ignore their obnoxiousness.
Got into the Atlanta airport fine. A much better experience than the last time I was in Atlanta stranded all night and extremely jet-lagged. Met Ben who goes to the U who was on the same flight and he's really nice. Got on the plane and sat next to a lady who apparently is from the town in Idaho where Napoleon Dynamite was shot. Cool. She was visiting her son who is living in Madrid this year for law school.... eh anyways... she was nice. The flight went really quick actually... very turbulent because apparently we had a really strong tailwind (why we got there in like 7 hours only) but I didn't mind it. We had our own touch screen TVs which were super entertaining. I watched The Simpsons, The Office, Everybody loves Raymond, Will and Grace, and started to watch Pineapple Express but got kinda bored.... wasn't all that funny and I'm impatient so I wasn't going to wait for it to get good. Oh and they had trivia on the plane and I got the high score for that woohoo. I didn't have much competition though since people are lame and don't play the games. The airline food was crappy and nauseating like always, but I guess the breakfast croissant was pretty good. It's kinda hard to screw up a croissant.
Got in to Madrid around 8:30 AM and met up with Ben and Ellen who both go to the U. Got our bags and sat at a table for 2 hours before it was time to get on the bus. We played Rummy while we waited. They're both really cool and I'll probably hang out with them a lot while I'm here. Everyone here so far has been really awesome.
So we met up with Yuki and a few more people who were getting in on other flights. It was about an hour busride from Madrid to Toledo and I slept the whole ride there (since I didn't get like any on the flight).
Got to Toledo and they let us off right outside of the town since the streets are super narrow so buses can't go in them. Walked down a street and voila, the fundacion! Went in and discovered I was in room 15 B (quince b). Single room but I share the open space and bathroom with Carlos who is from Puerto Rico. He's really nice and helpful so that's awesome... We got a tour of the whole building... real real small school atmosphere which I am loving. The cafeteria, rooms, classrooms... everything is all in one building which makes things very convenient. And at the very top there is a tower that you can look out and see the city from all directions. It's a fabulous view and I'll get pictures up ASAP. I love the town of Toledo... it reminds me a lot of Segovia which I went to when I came to Spain with my high school a few years ago. It's very medieval and old. Pictures soon :)
So we had lunch which wasn't super exciting especially considering I was dead tired. It was like meatloaf and some vegetables.... oh and spaghetti with red sauce (no meat) not the best food I've ever eaten :P After that Ellen, myself, and a girl named Kim who I had Spanish with last spring explored Toledo a bit. Whenever cars drive through you have to squeeze up against the side walls to make sure you don't get hit lol... I love just walking in the narrow streets though. We walked up what we've named "Fish Street" because there are several Pescadorias. The smell didn't really bother me that much though. There's a ton of sword stores and we walked into one and looked at all the fancy, gold, antiquey type of stuff in it. After that walked back to the Fundacion.
After that I got to take a nap which was awesome. Slept until 8 and then rushed to get ready for dinner at 8:30. I was sure to take a lot less since I really still was not hungry at all.
After dinner I went out walking the town with 4 girls and we stopped at a bar. Two of them got a cerveza and some tapas while the others just chatted while I watched the futbol game. We stood out as Americans when we walked in but after a while they ignored us which was nice :) Stopped and got some pictures with the Cervantes statue (Cervantes wrote Don Quijote which I read the condensed version of in high school Spanish) but yeah so that was pretty neat. I still have barely seen Toledo but I'll be going out in an hour or so to explore a little bit and then tonight I'll be going out as well.
The weather is about 45 degrees which is beautiful compared to the -20 I left behind in Minnesota. I love it! But it is very promising to hear that this is the coldest it will ever be here, so hopefully in the weeks to come it will be even nicer... T-shirt weather would be cool.
Breakfast here was good.... I always loved Spanish breakfast. Had some cereal, orange juice, and a roll and actually began speaking in Spanish the whole meal. I'm trying my best to hang around people who want to speak Spanish even though it is so easy to just start speaking English since most of us are American here. But I'm fighting it. I get to talk/write in English online all the time so I get my fill.
This morning I had my written/grammar tests and I ended up doing really well in them. They said my abilities were intermediate so I can take all the classes I need/want to take. Then I met with a woman to figure out what my schedule is going to be... I have an international business, linguistics, spanish culture, latin american literature, and a spanish conversation course.... Monday-Thursday and I'm done by 2 on Thursday so that will leave me a lot of time to do some traveling on weekends.
Staying in Toledo this weekend and just relaxing before classes start on Monday. Then next Friday we take a group excursion to Madrid and a few of us I think are going to try and find a hostel there and stay in Madrid for the weekend and explore a bit. So that should be pretty fun hopefully.
That's mostly it for now. I was going to take a nap but ended up writing this huge long blogpost. Maybe I'll just lay down for like a half hour or something.
Oh and for anyone that wants my mailing address here, here it is:
Andrew Stutsman
Estudios Internacionales
Fundacion Ortega y Gasset
Callejon de San Justo, s/n
45001 Toledo, SPAIN
You can also facebook me or email me at stuts006@umn.edu. And I have a webcam now as well so I can talk live via MSN (stuts18@hotmail.com), AIM (stuts006), or skype which I have to get set up still.
Adios :) See you soon
Got into the Atlanta airport fine. A much better experience than the last time I was in Atlanta stranded all night and extremely jet-lagged. Met Ben who goes to the U who was on the same flight and he's really nice. Got on the plane and sat next to a lady who apparently is from the town in Idaho where Napoleon Dynamite was shot. Cool. She was visiting her son who is living in Madrid this year for law school.... eh anyways... she was nice. The flight went really quick actually... very turbulent because apparently we had a really strong tailwind (why we got there in like 7 hours only) but I didn't mind it. We had our own touch screen TVs which were super entertaining. I watched The Simpsons, The Office, Everybody loves Raymond, Will and Grace, and started to watch Pineapple Express but got kinda bored.... wasn't all that funny and I'm impatient so I wasn't going to wait for it to get good. Oh and they had trivia on the plane and I got the high score for that woohoo. I didn't have much competition though since people are lame and don't play the games. The airline food was crappy and nauseating like always, but I guess the breakfast croissant was pretty good. It's kinda hard to screw up a croissant.
Got in to Madrid around 8:30 AM and met up with Ben and Ellen who both go to the U. Got our bags and sat at a table for 2 hours before it was time to get on the bus. We played Rummy while we waited. They're both really cool and I'll probably hang out with them a lot while I'm here. Everyone here so far has been really awesome.
So we met up with Yuki and a few more people who were getting in on other flights. It was about an hour busride from Madrid to Toledo and I slept the whole ride there (since I didn't get like any on the flight).
Got to Toledo and they let us off right outside of the town since the streets are super narrow so buses can't go in them. Walked down a street and voila, the fundacion! Went in and discovered I was in room 15 B (quince b). Single room but I share the open space and bathroom with Carlos who is from Puerto Rico. He's really nice and helpful so that's awesome... We got a tour of the whole building... real real small school atmosphere which I am loving. The cafeteria, rooms, classrooms... everything is all in one building which makes things very convenient. And at the very top there is a tower that you can look out and see the city from all directions. It's a fabulous view and I'll get pictures up ASAP. I love the town of Toledo... it reminds me a lot of Segovia which I went to when I came to Spain with my high school a few years ago. It's very medieval and old. Pictures soon :)
So we had lunch which wasn't super exciting especially considering I was dead tired. It was like meatloaf and some vegetables.... oh and spaghetti with red sauce (no meat) not the best food I've ever eaten :P After that Ellen, myself, and a girl named Kim who I had Spanish with last spring explored Toledo a bit. Whenever cars drive through you have to squeeze up against the side walls to make sure you don't get hit lol... I love just walking in the narrow streets though. We walked up what we've named "Fish Street" because there are several Pescadorias. The smell didn't really bother me that much though. There's a ton of sword stores and we walked into one and looked at all the fancy, gold, antiquey type of stuff in it. After that walked back to the Fundacion.
After that I got to take a nap which was awesome. Slept until 8 and then rushed to get ready for dinner at 8:30. I was sure to take a lot less since I really still was not hungry at all.
After dinner I went out walking the town with 4 girls and we stopped at a bar. Two of them got a cerveza and some tapas while the others just chatted while I watched the futbol game. We stood out as Americans when we walked in but after a while they ignored us which was nice :) Stopped and got some pictures with the Cervantes statue (Cervantes wrote Don Quijote which I read the condensed version of in high school Spanish) but yeah so that was pretty neat. I still have barely seen Toledo but I'll be going out in an hour or so to explore a little bit and then tonight I'll be going out as well.
The weather is about 45 degrees which is beautiful compared to the -20 I left behind in Minnesota. I love it! But it is very promising to hear that this is the coldest it will ever be here, so hopefully in the weeks to come it will be even nicer... T-shirt weather would be cool.
Breakfast here was good.... I always loved Spanish breakfast. Had some cereal, orange juice, and a roll and actually began speaking in Spanish the whole meal. I'm trying my best to hang around people who want to speak Spanish even though it is so easy to just start speaking English since most of us are American here. But I'm fighting it. I get to talk/write in English online all the time so I get my fill.
This morning I had my written/grammar tests and I ended up doing really well in them. They said my abilities were intermediate so I can take all the classes I need/want to take. Then I met with a woman to figure out what my schedule is going to be... I have an international business, linguistics, spanish culture, latin american literature, and a spanish conversation course.... Monday-Thursday and I'm done by 2 on Thursday so that will leave me a lot of time to do some traveling on weekends.
Staying in Toledo this weekend and just relaxing before classes start on Monday. Then next Friday we take a group excursion to Madrid and a few of us I think are going to try and find a hostel there and stay in Madrid for the weekend and explore a bit. So that should be pretty fun hopefully.
That's mostly it for now. I was going to take a nap but ended up writing this huge long blogpost. Maybe I'll just lay down for like a half hour or something.
Oh and for anyone that wants my mailing address here, here it is:
Andrew Stutsman
Estudios Internacionales
Fundacion Ortega y Gasset
Callejon de San Justo, s/n
45001 Toledo, SPAIN
You can also facebook me or email me at stuts006@umn.edu. And I have a webcam now as well so I can talk live via MSN (stuts18@hotmail.com), AIM (stuts006), or skype which I have to get set up still.
Adios :) See you soon
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