Off to a good start

Last night was the second Cafe Ingles event. It was really cool to get to talk to so many Spaniards in English and Spanish. Oh, by the way, the house flooded last night because of all the rain in the street. That was a fun clean-up project... Really put the Semester off to a good start!

And we got a new refrigerator in our apartment-- one that works! So exciting!

Some observations on Spain:

1- There are very few convince foods to be found here. No one bakes with cake mixes or frozen biscuit dough, or even condensed soup. In retrospect, it's probably a good thing for their health-- they probably consume a lot smaller quantity of sodium and preservatives, but it makes it harder to cook things that I'm familiar with.

2- Lights in the hallways of apartment buildings are not on all the time. They have switches in all the halls that when pushed, turn the lights on for two minutes or so, and then they go out again. I'm sure that keeping the lights on when not necessary saves the dueños (landlords) a lot of money on electrical bills.

3- Traffic rules and road construction are just different enough to be quite confusing. The highways here don't have exit ramps. Rather they have roundabouts, and the cars all go in the same direction, and exit the circle at the proper cross road. This makes it extremely difficult to sleep on the busses we take on our excursions with the language school. Also, the crosswalks aren't at the intersection of the roads, but back a little bit, so that there has to be a stoplight in the middle of a straight-a-way. That's one thing that I think makes much more sense that in America. Finally, the traffic signals make a beeping noise when it's time to walk. It's supposed to help blind people, but I've found it to be helpful when I zone out while waiting to cross the street.

4- A Spanish deck of cards is different than an American deck. The suits are: clubs, swords, cups, and coins. Also, the numbers go from 1-12. This might make it different to play any card game that I already know...

More observations to come!!

intercambios

I'm finally getting to be able to use some of my Spanish skills. The Spaniards are all pretty much done with finals and are starting up with their spring classes soon (or have already started them. I'm not sure that I really understand very well the Spanish University education system). Point is, that students are coming out of their study holes to come hang out at En Vivo, the CMF campus ministry here at University of Salamanca.
Last week, we hosted a finals breakfast type of event where we offered free pancakes and coffee to any and all hungry (or exhausted) university students seeking a break from studying. It was a really cool event for me because I ended up talking with one Spanish girl for about an hour! It was cool to run the gamut of conversation topics, and understand and be understood. I also got to join in on other conversations with some students who had never been to En Vivo before. Hopefully, they'll feel good about coming to one of the weekly events hosted by the ministry, and that we'll be able to build awesome friendships with some really cool Spanish students.
This weekend, Meredith and I were able to go on a day trip to Toledo. Toledo was beautiful,and we had beautiful weather (sunny, and up to 21 Celsius, although windy....). There was a lot of history in the city, it's where the painter El Greco lived when he moved to Spain. There was also a lot of patronage from the Royal family in the past, so the cathedral and monastery are gorgeous, and filled with extravagant symbolism that was mind-blowing to look at. Toledo is located in the province of Castilla y La Mancha, of Don Quixote fame. Meredith had the amazing idea to walk a bit out from the Plaza Mayor after our lunch break, and we ended up getting a fabulous view of La Mancha (the countryside). It was really cool to think that we were standing in some of the same places that inspired famous painters like El Greco and writers like Miguel de Cervantes.
This coming week, myself and all the other exchange students will be starting up our intercambios. An intercambio is a language partner, where they will help me speak better Spanish, and I will help them out with their English skills, all over coffee! Really, what could be better? Intercambios are also an important outreach tool for the En Vivo ministry, so I would really appreciate your prayers over my intercambio partners; that they would be willing to visit the campus house and get to know some of the amazing Spaniards and Americans that run the ministry.

Skiles in Spain

For those of you unfamiliar with Skiles walkway, it is one of the more heavily traversed walkways on Georgia Tech's campus, and is often lined with people passing out fliers or free snacks to advertise for their club's events. Well, that's what the exchange students have been doing all this week-- taking turns passing out free coffee and fliers to advertise for one of the events, Café Inglés, that happens weekly at the En Vivo campus ministry house. This is an awesome event because it's set up like a coffee house and all of the exchange students and ministry staff get to help people learn English. Anyways, apparently the concept of free food and drink is more than a little foreign to Spaniards. Almost all of the students were reluctant to even talk to us, much less take a free café con leche and a flier.

After the coffee passing-out, en vivo hosted a welcome-back party for some of the staff that had been gone the previous semester. This was the first event that the campus house hosted that the exchange students were a part of. It was really cool to get to talk to Spaniards. I've found that once I start talking to them, it's not too hard to keep up a conversation in Spanish!

first day of school....

So far, we've had two days of class. I have 4 hours of class from 9-1. It's not bad. I even understand everything that my professors are saying! The only thing is, is that I have 9 am's 5 days a week, and it's FREEZING cold here. Literally, it's like -2 degrees Celsius every day here.

So, another story about us getting lost... Today, we went to the Carrefour (like a Spanish Wal-Mart), and on our way back, we tried to take a bus back to our apartment, but alas we ended up on one that goes to an industrial park across the river from where we live. Luckily, the driver told us at the last stop before the industrial park which bus to get on. awesome. not at all... Oh, well. that's life. full of little adventures, that usually involve us being lost and carrying lots of stuff...

a second chrsitmas

So, after a few (much more successful days in Madrid), the four of us girls, along with jared, one of the guys on our En Vivo team, travelled to Salamanca via a bus. I slept most of the way, wich was good because i was super tired after being lost in Madrid for 2 and a half days, besides, the countryside wasn't really interesting-- everything's really flat and cold. blah
Anyways, once we got to Madrid, we met one of the campus ministers, and another of the staff. Today is Three King's Day, or Dia de los Tres Reyes, which is when all the Spanish children recieve all of thier Christmas presents. Anyways, last night there was a big parade in the Plaza Mayor, with floats and children throwing candy, and fireworks and balloons! two christmasses this year!

Our address here is:
Rebecca Gray, c/o En Vivo
Calle Placentinos 3 Bajo
Salamanca, Spain 37008

I expect to recieve quite a bit of mail from you guys!!
can't wiat to hear from you

ps- my new skype address is rgray3. i'll try to get on as often as possible!

toto, i don't think we're in kansas anymore...

So, first things first. We've all arrived safely in Madrid, and after some interesting maneuvering of the streets of Madrid, we finally got to our hotel. I say, some interesting maneuvering because we were given some incorrect directions by the people making our hotel reservations. The hotel building WAS NOT right across the street from a metro station bearing the same name. Rather, it was a couple of blocks down. And by down , mean slightly uphill. with three girls with two huge suitcases each plus carry ons and an electric violin (just to liven things up...). So to get there, we asked a nun who then argued with another older lady who then asked the metro police who pointed around a corner and laughed as we tried to get our 6 bags, 3 carry ons, and electric violin up 2 flights of stairs. From there, we walked and chose to ignore the drivers laughing at us from their cars, and ask a newspaper stand owner how to get there. Well, we crossed the street at the wrong crosswalk, and so we missed the hotel, and received advice from a young woman, an old man, and a taxi driver to tell us to cross again and go back half a block. 

So, long story short, we are now in a land where our hotel door keys turn on lights, and you have to open elevator doors with handles. 

no, toto, we're not in kansas anymore. (no, christina, that was really not meant to be a kansas joke at all.)