A bit of catching up

A bit of catching up

I've been in Spain for over a month now and done a ton. I'm not going to try to write a post for everything so far because that would just be crazy and my pictures on Facebook have kept people a bit updated on what's been happening. But just for some highlights of the first month...

Orientation:

After a flight from Boston to Toronto to Frankfurt to Madrid, a bed was all I wanted and exactly what I got :) Arrival day we were picked up from the airport and had sleeping time in our hotel until dinner when we got to meet the other students on the program. We had a day of orientation, then got our home stay placements and spent the first week going to orientation at American University's building here in Madrid. AU has 4 programs in Madrid so there are 34 of us total. I only knew one other student coming into the program because nearly everyone is a junior, but I've made some great friends. Pic = me with friends from my program.

Toledo:

At the end of orientation week, we took a group day trip to the city of Toledo (about an hour southwest of Madrid). Most gorgeous city ever. The background picture for this blog is actually a pic I took of Toledo. While there we saw the mosque, synagogue, cathedral, El Greco’s famous painting “The Burial of the Count of Orgaz”, a monastery, and some really great views of the city.

Classes Begin:

For the first few weeks I went to almost all of the classes (that are in Spanish) that are offered because if you know me, you know I’m cool like that. AU caps us at 17 credits a semester and my internship counts for credit, so I can’t take all of them, but besides the ones I’m enrolled in (Spain and the European Union, Spain Seminar: History and Culture, Spanish Literature and Film) I really like the “Security Issues in the Basque Country” – about the ETA terrorist group and nationalism in general in Spain – and wish I was a business student and didn’t need to take all my classes in Spanish to take the “Spain’s Soccer Obsession” course – the title kinda explains what that one’s about. Four hour classes are something to get used to, but luckily there’s a coffee machine downstairs and we get a small break halfway through.

Ávila and Salamanca:

Our first group overnight trip! The program I’m enrolled in here is called “Spain: The Iberian Experience” and my seminar class counts as two classes, so as a group we do some trips around the Iberian Peninsula where we learn about the place before and during our visit. We spent a weekend visiting Ávila and Salamanca (both northwest of Madrid). On Saturday we drove to Ávila and did a quick walking tour of the city. Ávila is the only city left in Spain with it's original wall still intact all the way around. While there we got to see St. Teresa's monastery, the cathedral, and we climbed a portion of the wall. Saturday evening we drove to Salamanca and, as it's a college town, enjoyed the busy night life. Sunday we got to see the main plaza, cathedral, and the old university (Salamanca is home to one of the 4 oldest and well-respected universities in Europe) and then enjoyed the nap time that was the bus ride back to Madrid.

Internship:

As part of my program I have the option of having an internship for credit instead of another class so after about 2 weeks, it was off to an interview I went. I got an internship with Fundación Cives where I work on Mondays and Wednesdays and go to conferences when there are ones to go to. My first day was amazing - I got to translate a memorandum to the European Council from Spanish to English that Cives was sending to ask the Council to denounce the new Spanish government's (The Popular Party won the last election) educational reform (which removes Citizenship courses and promotes more religious education). Since then, I've worked on creating a new Facebook page for them, a new logo, updated Twitter, translated more stuff, and I'm working on learning the coding for creating a new wikipedia page. I also went to my first conference at a think tank downtown which was a panel talking about religion in public schools.

Southern Spain (Andalucía):

Our second overnight trip was an extended weekend to the cities of Córdoba, Granada, and Sevilla. In Córdoba we visited the Mosque/Cathedral, which is really cool because it's a mosque built on top of the roman center of the city with a Cathedral built in the middle of the mosque by the catholics when they took over. In Granada we visited the Alhambra - the old palaces of the Moorish Kings who ruled Granada for a long time before the Catholic Kings (Isabella and Fernando) took over, the cathedral, a chapel, and went to see a Flamenco show done by a family of gypsies a little outside the city. Our last day was in Sevilla and the weather was beautiful. There, we visited the bull fighting ring and museum, the cathedral, and my friends and I tried bull meat tapas for lunch. We walked by one of the main plazas, which was gorgeous, and then headed back to Madrid. Pics = Granda mosque/cathedral and me and Leah in the bull fighting ring.