What is this business about homework?

This past week was mostly characterized by sorting out classes and finally making an official list. By Wednesday, three weeks after classes actually started, I had a final list of classes. I’m taking Political Cultures of Spain at the program center and Anthropology of Contemporary Societies, History of Prehispanic America (Maya, Aztec, etc), and History of the United States all at the university. If the last one sounds like a cop out, yes it sort of is since I think it will be a lot easier to learn about something in Spanish when I have a good background in English, but I actually do think the different perspective will be interesting. Already in class one Spaniard pointed out how he thinks it is strange that the colonists decimated the Native Americans but kept the names they had given to the land – something I had never really thought about before. Also, in the readings about the colonization by the British it describes how a lot of the early British explorers and colonizers were actually pirates trying to steal from the Spanish boats – something we tend to gloss over. So maybe I am learning something new! It’s a big relief to have a final list of classes since it was getting pretty stressful as the number of classes I couldn’t take mounted. Now I just have to start thinking about actually doing homework. I can’t believe it’s the middle of October and I’m just beginning some classes – halfway through my time here and school really starts, how crazy! Another relief of the week is that I finally signed up for tennis classes – now that I know my schedule, I can sign up for a class and know it won’t interfere. I’m excited to have a regular exercise routine built into the week (other than the minimum of three miles I walk or bike to class every day) and to finally play tennis regularly again. On Thursday, Dunia ate lunch with us too (she was back for the week to pack up her stuff) and we discussed the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama – Mati and Dunia think it was premature because he hasn’t done anything yet nor had time to since he hasn’t been in office for even a year and I would agree with them. Dunia also asked if we were Republicans or Democrats and was relieved when we said Democrats but mentioned that to Europeans, both political parties in the US seem conservative. On Friday I don’t have classes, so Maureen and I went to the Archaeological Museum. I love student discounts in Europe – it means I can go places like museums or other cultural sites repeatedly because I don’t have to pay. Anyway, the museum is fairly small but it has some interesting pieces from the Roman empire and cool glass and ceramics from different cultures. The temporary exhibit is the treasure of Carombolo, gold jewelry and decoration from the Tartessians that was discovered 3km outside of Seville. There was a lot of reading to go along with the exhibit, which we didn’t have time for but it was still interesting to see how intricately they decorated their jewelry even thousands of years ago. The reason we were in a rush at the Archaeological Museum was that the program had gotten us tickets to the symphony that night and we had to eat dinner really early to get there on time. I know, museum and symphony in one day – I’m so cultured! Well the symphony was really impressive – they played 3 different pieces and then one encore. The encore was after the second piece because there was a violin soloist who was very good – I’m pretty sure there is no such thing as standing ovations here because everyone was cheering very loudly for him and obviously impressed but no one stood up. After the symphony, a few of us decided to go to tapas because we don’t really eat out very much since we have all of our meals provided but we still want to know some different restaurants in the city. The tapas were really good, especially the stuffed zucchini and the fried eggplant with honey – mmmm. After we got ice cream – it’s seriously impossible to avoid in this city because there is a “heladeria” (ice cream store) every block and with the heat it’s hard to say no. While eating our ice cream, we wandered over to this Tex Mex bar where a lot of our other friends were watching the Phillies game. Even though I’m so sad and disappointed that the Red Sox are out, it was nice to see baseball again. I don’t think it can really be fall without some baseball playoffs! Saturday Eduardo (who came back on Friday to help Dunia with her suitcases) and Dunia were leaving for Zaragoza so we had a huge lunch with everyone. Mati really outdid herself – she tried an amazing new recipe for stuffed eggplant with strips of zucchini wrapping it like a ribbon – it looked beautiful and tasted amazing. We also had sweet potato puree, slaw with orange dressing, fritters, manchego cheese, and jamon iberico (Spain’s version of prosciutto). It was so delicious, I could have kept eating for hours but luckily I didn’t because my stomach would have exploded. After lunch I decided to explore a new neighborhood of the city, Alameda. It’s a bit younger and funkier since a lot of the Erasmus (European exchange students) live there. On the actual Alamada (a boulevard/park) there are lots of cafes/tapas bars with people sitting out on the street. There was also this house that looked kind of like a museum so I decided to go in and discovered a card game club happening on the top floor. I guess Dungeons and Dragons is an international game. I also wandered around the plaza de San Lorenzo, which is a very pretty small plaza surrounded by a church with red walls and filled with little children playing tag. I walked into this small church next to the big church of the plaza. It was very pretty and had a big statue of Jesus that evidently is fairly famous and there is space to go behind the statue and touch the back of the cross. After spending a little while sitting in the pews, I left and got a bike for the trip back. The path is really pretty because you can do a lot of it biking by the water and the sun was getting lower in the sky, so I took my time biking and enjoying the scenery. We decided to go to another movie, which turned out to be an Argentinian movie. It took me a little while to figure out that it was Argentinian but I felt better about it when I did because I was having trouble understanding and at first I though it meant I was regressing in my Spanish abilities. But it was just the Argentinian accent, which is really hard to understand after becoming accustomed to the Andalusian accent, and difficult even for Spaniards so I didn’t feel so bad. Even though I missed a lot of the dialogue, I got the gist of the plot, which was very weird and a little melodramatic. Not as good as the Spanish movie we saw a few weeks ago. On Sunday Maureen and I wanted to go the gardens of the palace to do some homework because it’s free for students and a gorgeous location but there was a long line to get in, so we went to a park instead. I can’t believe how beautiful the weather still is – it hasn’t dipped below 80 since we got here. Sometimes I miss fall and the leaves and the crisp air but mostly I can’t believe that I haven’t needed a blanket even once at night. The park was great even if not much homework was accomplished. After we went to the Feria de Naciones for one last time (it closed on Sunday) and bought this incredible goat cheese that tasted like walnuts and some fluffy bread to go with it. We also got another bottle of Sidra and figured out that the small bottles are so good because they are bubbly so it’s basically like apple champagne.

Museo Arqueológico

one of the many cool objects in the museum

little church in Alameda

perfect picnic