Ha

Today Kathleen, my roommate, and I decided to go to the mall. I was really excited because we decided to go to the one that's a good 40 minute metro ride away but has an IKEA. We got off the metro in this very strange neighborhood. It was strange because it was just so...I don't know. It just had this very prefabricated feel to it. It didn't look like Madrid at all and instead felt like we were on some sort of movie set. It was also weird because there was practically no one outside on the streets. I told Kathleen like it looked like it was the day after the zombie apocalypse (sans zombies of course...I guess the non-zombies won). Anyway, we trekked over to the mall and I was really weirded out by the fact that there were no cars there. We got in the mall and then realized that only the food court was open--today is Madrid's San Isidro festival. I knew that, but forgot to think that because of it all stores would be closed. So yes, my effort to put off studying for my exams by going to the mall turned out to be an epic fail.

School is officially done. I have one kind-of exam for language on Monday, and then my finals for history on Tuesday, art history on Wednesday and lit. on Monday the 25th. I know that if I actually study I'll be all right, but it's really hard to sit down and do it. It's been especially hard because people that I've gotten to know from other programs are starting to leave now, and it's just hard to focus in the middle of saying goodbye. One of my really good friends is leaving on Sunday...

The two pictures at the top of the post are ones my friend Sonya took of these two mosaics up in Sol. They're recreations of the paintings the 2nd and 3rd of May by Goya. Apparently they made them with over 80,000 pictures sent in by Madrileños! They're really beautiful at night when the lights from the windows illuminate them from behind.

Oh! In other exciting news there was a small fire in the building across the street from my apartment building. I don't think anyone was hurt and the firetruck was only on the street for about 15 minutes, so I don't think it was a bad fire, but I did see smoke!

School

Hi all,

Well, I started school yesterday. I know, I don't sound very excited about it, but that's just because yesterday was strange. We were supposed to have an orientation yesterday and then start classes today. Then we got to school and they told us that we would be starting classes on Monday. Oh. So yes, I had to sit through all four of my classes yesterday even though I was totally unprepared and technically not registered for any of them.

Everything actually turned out all right. I met a lot of new people yesterday and found a few that I think I'm going to get along with very well. I have all four of my classes on Monday (from 10-2), three on Tuesday and Wednesday (from 10-1), NONE on Thursday, and one on Friday (12-2). It's a rather bizarre schedule seeing as how I have my language class for an hour on Monday and then two hours on Friday, but things in Spain are just kind of like that--just a bit different. I really like my literature and art history professors. At first I thought my history professor might be a bit boring, but he is really passionate about history, so I'm warming up to him. I have to make up my mind yet about my language professor. All of the girls love him, but I just don't know...it's probably not so much him, but just that I'm the least confident about that class.

University classes in Spain are very different than what I'm used to in the U.S. Pretty much almost all of my grades are determined by one final exam (like about 95% of the grade is the final, maybe 5% is attendance) except in my language class where we have a midterm and a final. My classes are almost 100% lecture as well. There's very little student participation. For me that's a bit difficult as 1) I usually have an opinion (especially about literature) and I want to voice it and 2) it's really easy for me to let my mind start wandering and then get off track...and it's just so hard to get back on track in a foreign language. I thought it would be difficult having all my classes in Spanish in a row, but it's actually a bit easier. That's because the longer I sit there listening, the more the language embeds itself in my head.

It was my birthday yesterday. I had an ISA meeting at night and the ISA directors made me a card. After that Julie, Sonya and I went out for dessert and found this cute little plaza with a statue of Federico Garcia Lorca (one of my favorite Spanish poets/playwrights) in it. The picture accompanying this post is one of Julie (right) and Sonya (left) with Lorca.