Mi blog ultimo

I spent my last weekend in Spain in Salamanca. It was great. Traveling beyond your primary trip can really take a lot out of you. At the end of your weekend away when you’ve still managed to have a great time with no place to sleep, drinks, staying up all night, soaking wet bus rides, never knowing the right way to go, drinks, overeating, sugar, walking, money spending, no privacy, and more walking, by the end of it all no matter how much fun it was, there comes a time when you are just ready to go home. And when you get back, it is not home, it is back to your vacation and you start all over again in a place that is still new to you. It was nice not to have to go through that this weekend.

But this last week in Salamanca I really started to feel like my host-home was more like my home. I got used of and looked forward to the little routines that happened around my house each day. My host-mom’s afternoon cup of coffee and mopping of the kitchen floor always put me right to siesta for I could hear, through our paper thin walls, her spoon round the coffee cup and the mop water drip to the lemon scented bucket below. And then it was off to the sewing machine where she could sew without looking in order to catch her afternoon stories and she would suddenly become hard of hearing. I would sleep for a few minutes, wake up, freshen up and leave for school again. The only way I could communicate my leaving to her was to stand in front of the television because she couldn’t see or hear anything else during these few hours.

Anyway, back to my weekend in Salamanca. I slept in until 11:00 am. (WOW, like a few of my Spanish teachers really like to say) and I spent the day by myself. This was the first day I had had to myself since I had arrived in Salamanca. I studied, wrote blogs, wrote postcards, had a bottomless cup of coffee and….. started to miss my friends here. It was kind of a weird feeling, in Chicago, I go plenty of days without seeing my friends, friends I have had for years, but this town is so social. Here I see people everyday, sure in school, but beyond that. Getting together for a cup of coffee with several people seems so easy here. In Chicago it seems like it has to be so planned out. The Plaza Mayor is such a great socializing agent. It gives everybody a central place to go, if you want to find something to do. You don’t need a cell phone, a plan, or an invitation you just need to show up if your in the mood for seeing people. Eventually you will run into someone you know or meet someone you would like to know and off you go or stay. Who needs the internet or a cell phone when you have a Plaza Mayor.

En Domingo, fuimos al Rastro, un mercado del aire libre en Salamanca. Caminamos por dos horas porque giramos en la calle incorrecta. Nuestro suerte, una pareja simpatica dijeron, podemos seguirlos. Caundo llegamos, no era que me imaginaba. Yo pense que era un mercado con productos hecho a mano, pero no era. Era mas como un “Mega Mall” en Chicago. Habia muchas cosas alli, muchas cosas baratas. Yo compre’ un collar, una pulsera, un bistec, las patatas fritas, un huevo, una ensalada, y un refresco. Yo gaste’ 8 euros.

Later in the week I also visited the Cathedral and The Art Museum in Salamanca. They were both great. I did these things by myself as well. From the top of the Cathedral you could see all of Salamanca. The stairs were so steep they started to make me feel dizzy. It is amazing the kind of detail that went into those places so long ago and with no modern equipment. To look at all of the arches and glasswork is awesome, but to think about someone making it is even more incredible to me. When I saw old buildings in the U.S. I always thought they were cool, but they are just babies compared to some of these buildings.

The Art museum was one of my favorite museums. I found a new artist that I had not known before: Masses. His colors and interpretation of the human body was really beautiful and I think I am going to try to find some prints of his work. I also really liked the size of that museum. It was big enough to have a lot of work but small enough that you didn’t feel like you had been there forever. I really don’t like to look at everything in the Art Institute in a day. I feel like it is so much to take in that you don’t give each part the time it deserves. Sometimes it can be so much constant stimulation there that you kind of become used to it after the first couple of hours and you don’t appreciate the later works as much as you would if it was the first thing you saw.

Me gusta ir a museos de arte solamente. Me gusta pasar tanta hora como deseo en cada obra de arte. Caundo voy con otras, yo siento apresurado. El arte afecta cada persona distintamente. No debe esperar que todas las personas en un grupo termina en el mismo hora. Fui a el museo de arte solamente y fue fantastico.

My roommate and I cooked dinner for my host family on Wednesday night. I made chicken with avocado and muenster cheese, broccoli, and pasta with garlic, cinnamon, and feta. I think it turned out okay especially because my host mom couldn’t stop helping. She has a really nice kitchen and I think she was a little scared I might burn it down. Plus I don’t think it is in her to not help with dinner. The only time I could really have time to prepare a meal was the evening meal. Which in Spain, is generally smaller, and I cooked American sized portions. We had leftovers for two meals later. My host mom even opened a bottle of wine and we used the dishwasher for the first time to wash all of the mess I made. It was really fun. I really liked my host-parents and will miss them. I hope I can return to Spain one day and visit with them some more, especially when my Spanish is better. When we were cleaning up for dinner, my host dad picked up this snow globe of Chicago I had given them when I arrived and said, “Everytime I look at this I will remember Jennifer”. It was real cute.

I took my tests this week in my classes. They went pretty good for the most part. My cultural exam was pretty tough. I studied hard for it, but there was so much information I guess I focused on the wrong part of it. So I don’t think my test score was very good, but I know I learned a lot about the geography of Spain and I feel like that is a good base to have. Now when we are learning about certain festivals and such I will know exactly where that is and it’s climate and landscape better. Which will help me visualize it and that helps me learn better. So I am not upset. My grammar test went pretty good too, I got a B+. Which normally I would be kind of bummed about, but I feel like I stayed in that class even though it was probably a little higher level than I was ready for, so in that case I will take a B+.

Yo aprende’ mucho en Espana. Mi vocablualrio tiene mas palabras. Yo se tres mas tiempos de verbos y la manera correcta usar por y para, yo pienso. Yo aprende' encantar chorizo. Yo aprende' relajarse. Y yo aprende' funcionar en tres horas de sueno mas una siesta.

Mi capacidad para escuchar en espanol es mejor. Pero hablar en espanol parece mas dificul para mi. Me acuerdo caundo, yo solo se una palabra para “work”: trabajo. La palabra trabajo trabajo’ para trabajando, trabajar, trabajamos. Algo asocio’ con “work”. Esos eran los dias. Ahora yo se muchas maneras usar cada verbo y paso mucho tiempo decidiendo el uno correcto. Pero yo se, estoy en una mesata ahora y yo necesito ponerlos en orden en mi cabeza y escala a el proximo nivel.