School, shmool, ...Uhl?

Oh yeah, I´m in Spain to go to school. Shucks!

 

Classes have officially started. I missed the first one or two days because of the trip to Morocco, but apparently I just missed the annoying introductions and nothing important.  I met everyone the first day I was there during our break between classes. My class of 11 is a very international bunch. There is one is a very international bunch. There is one person from London, Taiwan, China, Turkey and Cyprus (I think that´s right because he is really hard to understand). Then there are us 6 Americans, but none of us are from the same place. Among us 6 we represent Iowa, Indiana, Washington, Pennsylvania, and 2 are from New York, but one from New York was born in Sudan. It´s crazy how we can all come together and communicate in a common language.

 

So to back track a little, I tested a 3 on the pre-test so I would have been placed in Intensive based on that test. We took the post test before leaving for Morocco and I received a 5 which would have placed me in Lengua y Cultura. However I weighed my options and decided the Intensive program has more pros than Cultura, so I stuck with the lower program. So how this program works is that I´m doing one level a month. At the end of February I will have a final exam to see if I move on to the next level. Ultimately by May I should have completed level 8. Intensive only goes through level 9.

 

Now that we know our calendar for the rest of school, we can start planning trips. Roseanna and I have spit balled a few ideas. We are thinking about Ireland/London combo for Spring Break. That would be awesome to see London before the upcoming Olympics, and Ireland is pretty self explanatory, right? There is a holiday coming up at the end of this month for about 5 days including the weekend, and we were thinking about going to France or Germany. Roseanna and I both agree that Berlin has a lot of history and would be rewarding to see. I personally want to make it to Italy at some point, but I still have time to plan that out. There is also a program to go to Portugal at the beginning of May that I am most likely going on with a bunch of friends throught the Central program. The possibilites are endless.

 

This past Friday I went and saw The Help at one of the movie theaters here. The title translates to ¨Criadas y Señoras¨ and I´m not quite sure how that is. The move was very good as always, but they lost a little emotion with the voice overs. The Southern accent was gone which is an essential characteristic of the movie. Also the part where Abby and the little girl say ÿou is kind, you is smart, you is important¨had no impact like it did in English. They translated it to ¨tù eres buena, tù eres lista, tù eres importante¨. Not at all the same. I´m glad I saw it in English first because I knew the correct translation. If you haven´t seen this move in English you are honestly missing out.

 

The weather is taking a turn for the colder. Northern Spain is getting snow which is somewhat normal, but some things are a little out of whack. There is an island to the east of Spain that got about a foot of snow. Thanks to my geography class last semester, I know that water is supposed to regulate temperatures and snow is out of the ordinary. This island is half the size of Oahu and they should not have significant, sudden drops in temperature. In Granada, our river is starting to have a sheet of ice over the running water. I don´t know what happened to the beautiful weather we had in January, but I miss it. I suppose you Iowans would like to trade me your snow for my freezing temperatures. I think I will pass, but thanks for the offer. I´ve had enough Iowa winters, I can skip one.

 

Until next time, talk to you folks later!