09-11/14-07ToTheUni!

Last day of K2 (intensive Spanish classes) with our amazingly awesome teacher Anais. She, in her amazingness, took us to the central market to walk around and give us a little tour. She took us to see the invisible swordfish (there are usually half-swordfishes hanging from hooks in the market but the stall was on vacation). The market is pretty great. There are tons of vendors selling tons of crazy stuff. I love how that type of market can be mixed into the explosion of development and technology that is Spain.

Classes finally were going to start! For the first week we are required to attend every single class (4.5 hours a day, straight). Our first class was cancelled meaning the night before was a night on the town. I went yet again to the Irish pub with millions of people from the program but left soon after with some friends who took us to a Gay bar. Now, it would have been tons of fun had the place not been filled with old men, not dancing. To top it all off, as we walked in and started up the empty dance floor, they all sat there watching us with “hungry” eyes. Now since not even one of the 3 gay guys I was there with was remotely interested, we QUICKLY exited and headed up the street to a bar I knew and has become a favorite.

The first class of Thursday, History of Art, was interesting and surprisingly easy to comprehend despite its complete Spanish content. I can see that my Spanish comprehension has gone leap years since getting here though I REALLY need to get the vocab on a college level since the words used are now more complicated and not a given that they’ll be used the same. Though I though that the class was going to super boring (even though it’s exciting having classes in Spanish), it actually was pretty interesting considering the amount of history art contains. Styles and plain art aren’t too interesting to me, but why they did what they did (intersections of cultures/current political situations/etc.) and the intersection of art and intelligence/technological development are great and seem to be incorporated into the class.

The next day we started our college language classes with a really nice and young professor by the name of Victor. He seems to have planed a curriculum similar to K2 where we learn vocab in bulk, cement correct grammar, and learn little by little more about Cadiz. We found out that in October the city all of a sudden changes as the Spanish university term starts. All the students move back in and the streets and bars become a little more crowded. Cadiz is more or less a college town it seems and I can’t wait to see the change in nightlife that the Uni of Cadiz brings, as well as meet all the people that come with.

After a few rainy days, back came the sun to burn the white out of us. I’ve been talking a lot more with my ‘parents’ here. They’re still great folk and the convo’s range from 15th century Spain and global warming to raising kids and the ‘mothers’ of other kids in the program. I have a sneaking suspicion that my ‘mom’ is one of the best and I couldn’t be happier (unless I, of course I was being taken care of by you “real mom” ☺ ). My ‘dad’ gave me a little bit of the scoop on Sevilla so that Saturday I could get out of Cadiz for a bit and give northern Andalucia’s tourist center a second look.

Now during these first few days of school and the couple nights before I had gone out quite a bit just to be sure to squeeze in as much fun as possible before actual work had to be done. I went out Tuesday and Wednesday….and Thursday - and you can’t not go out on a Friday. Friday, though, was quite a burn out. In my half asleep state I started home only a few hours in (making sure to break Vanessa’s flip flop on the way) and got back at an early 3:30.