Valladolid must be a synonym for vacation.
Trip Start
Aug 27, 2009
1
31
45
Trip End
Dec 21, 2009
Valladolid, Castile-León, Spain and Canary Islands
Thursday, October 29, 2009
At least we had a fair amount of work to do this week. We had two papers both due on Wednesday. One was for art, and had to be 5 pages long (not too bad if it were in English, Spanish is a different story). I did mine on the life and works of Pablo Picasso, since he was born in Spain and all. I think I'm the one of the few in the class that didn't do Antoni Gaudi. The other was for literature, and wasn't too difficult. In any case, they're both done now and aside from an art test on Tuesday, I have very little to worry about this weekend.
Cool fountain at the bus stop
This week has been nice, as I've had a bedroom all to myself. Jessica has been away in Granada with her family, and is now staying with them in a hotel in Valladolid. We actually got to have a dinner with them on Wednesday. They came over for lunch to meet our host mom. She made a REALLY fancy lunch for us, complete with sangria, paella (famous rice dish), salad, bread and natilla (a spanish dessert). I think the best part of the meal, however, was the boost of confidence in my language skills. Jessica's parents don't really speak any Spanish, and our host mom doesn't speak any English, so we spent the whole 2 hours translating in between the two so that everyone could talk and understand each other. I'm sure a few of our translations were a little different, but for the most part...everyone understood pretty easily. Our host mom also told Jessica's parents about how hard of a time we had with the Spanish in the first couple weeks...and how much we've improved since then. It was one of those really uplifting moments, where all those struggles trying to learn the language paid off. Jessica's parents were really nice people...very friendly and open. Her mom is a teacher and her dad is a pharmacist, so they were both interested in going to check out what those systems were like over here. They absolutely LOVED the climate. They said that Wisconsin is pretty rainy and cold right now...and they were a big fan of the temperatures in the 60s that we've had this week.
Last night, we went to our first soccer game. It was a match between Real Valladolid and Mallorca. It was 30 euros but we had awesome seats, and it was tons of fun. I always thought soccer games would be too dull to hold my attention, but I think you have to go see it live to understand it. The energy in the stadium is amazing. In all honesty, the craziness of the fans put football fans to shame. They don't just yell and cheer. They have a 20 song line-up that they sing throughout the game. People are out of their seats, jumping on chairs and running around waving flags. It was really cool to see...definitely worth it.
That's about it for now. I'm having a relaxing weekend, hanging out with my host mom and whatnot.
