Study! Speak Spanish! Be Sung to...?

well, now I'm once again a week behind - I guess that is what happens during midterms...

Spain = Mars?

On Saturday of last week my program took a day trip to the town of Aracena. We started the morning at las Minas de Rio Tinto which is essentially a mine in the middle of the hills/mountains which is currently being investigated/explored by NASA since the conditions are similar to what they're finding on Mars. (From what I've been able to gather NASA is convinced that if there can be life in España then there can be life on Mars... Not sure what that says about the Spaniards?) After the tour of the minas we went into the little town of Aracena where we had a delicious lunch of tapas and walked around the small little streets for about a hour before we went into la Gruta de las Maravillas - which is a huge cave. It was really cool. Sadly we weren't allowed to take pictures but if you're ever in Aracena you'll have to see it for yourself. It almost made the Mars theory seem more plausible though since many of the rock formations in the cave seem to be.. well just impossible to create and therefore must be from an alien life form.

Saturday night was Elysha's birthday so a big group of girls went out for Italian food. I have to admit it was a bit disappointing - Spanish dishes are pretty bland, and sadly, the Italian food made here seems to be similarly cursed :( But Nikki saved the day and had brought a box mix for cookies with her from Minnesota and baked a cookie-cake. Best dessert ever! (Okay, maybe not the best ever since I've had some pretty delicious desserts both here in Spain and back home but it was wonderful!)

¡estudiar en el sol!

Sunday marked the start of la Semana de Study. (The week of studying.) I had 3 midterms last week, 1 on Wednesday (marketing) and 2 on Thursday (Negotiations and International Finance). So I spent all day Sunday with Sarah sitting at Starbucks in Puerta Jerez out in the sun studying. We did the same after our morning class on Monday - only I branched away from the Starbucks when she had to leave for a different class at 3 and spent some time in the park by my house. Luckily we had beautiful weather last week and I was able to enjoy the 70 to 80 degree warmth! (Take that icky rain that was here for a MONTH AND A HALF!) I got a tiny bit sun-burned on Monday. Oops!

On Tuesday I had classes pretty much all day (from 11 to 4:30) and therefore missed out on the prime-sun-studying hours. But leaving la Facultad at 4:30 and being able to have some nice fresh air was amazing. Rumor has it the building we're in used to be a prison... I definitely believe it... and it some ways think it still might be. Tuesday night my friend Sarah and I studied at our Starbucks in Puerta Jerez and had a bit of trouble focusing. You see, there is this man who lives in Sevilla and well... we're not quite sure what he does. I've seen him almost every day since I've first been here. He just walks around Puerta Jerez, by la Fabrica (the main Universidad de Sevilla campus), and up Avenida San Fernando all the way to la Facultad. It's a bit creepy. He just walks up and down the stretch of the street... and does nothing else. He's always wearing some sort of "exercise" clothes/wind suit which is NOT a Spanish thing to wear at all... and making matters worse he has approached most of the girls studying here in Sevila and tried to start conversations and become our "friends". Well, I think it's entertaining and have begun to keep a tally of the number of times I see him. I have yet to talk to him (and don't plan on doing so any time soon) but I see him enough I feel like I know him well enough to write about him in my blog. He's taken a special liking to my friends Sarah and Nikki, and while Sarah and I were trying to study he walked by the Starbucks and saw her through the window and smiled and stared at her while he continued on his walk. About 10 minutes later he walked by again. We couldn't figure out how he possibly did that because he was walking in the same direction he had been earlier but we never saw him turn around. He's a rather odd man. Luckily our friend Armando was out in the area running (read: running along side/racing with the Tramvia- light rail) and came into Starbucks when he was done to walk back with us so we didn't have to have any interaction with "Walking Man." However we told Armando about him and now Armando wants to meet him...

Wednesday was a big day of speaking Spanish for me - I started with my marketing exam It seemed to be okay, I'll let you all know as soon as grades are up. (Okay, maybe not that soon since my posts seem to be about a week off but soon-enough!) After my exam I had to head down to the CIEE Study Center to meet with one of my program directors Virginia to talk about my university class (normally referred to as mi clase horible). Since I was able to meet with my old professor (I now have new one since we're doing a new topic...?) last week after the awful exam I've been feeling a lot better (since I think I know now what exactly I'm supposed to be doing for the class.) and talking with Virginia helped a lot. Actually, talking with Virginia always helps - it's like it's her job to make us feel better/less overwhelmed about being in Spain or something :) Anyways, while I was there I also talked to Antonio about potentially accessing the wifi network at la Facultad. So quite a bit of Spanish speaking there. Then I went back to la Facultad (about a 20 minute walk) to meet with my new professor of la clase horible. After waiting for a good 20 minutes (oh how the since of "time" changes from culture to culture) I finally got to talk to my new professor. Turns out (as I had heard through the grapevine aka through Virginia) he is the husband of the professor of my Negotiations class. While he and I were talking about how the class was going for me and he was answering a few of my questions from the lecture the day before my Negotiations professor came in. Next thing I knew I had been in his office for more than a hour and a half and talked about everything from whose class was better (her's or his.), her love of the English language, their sons, and how they are going to plot against one another and give me the answers to each others exams. After that it was time for more studying - only I was by myself and ending up talking to some Spanish people trying to get into the bathroom at Starbucks (you have to use a code that comes from your receipt).. so YAY FOR SPEAKING SPANISH!

Exams and Embarrassments.

Thursday was quite possibly one of my longest days in Spain. Okay, that isn't entirely true. I mean Barcelona had me waking up at normal morning hours and staying up until 5 in the morning the next day... and really, I woke up at 7 am on Thursday and was in bed by 12:30 am but it FELT a LOT longer. The time span from 9:30 am (I went to the Facultad early to study some more) until 4-ish pm truly felt never-ending. I guess that's what happens when you have 3 classes with no reprieve. My first midterm went pretty well. It was a lot longer than I anticipated but I felt like it went okay. THEN I went to mi clase horible. Now I was feeling pretty good about it since my meeting with the professor went so well the day before but as always, being the only American in the room I get a little intimidated. I made the mistake of telling my professor this the day before, when I also mentioned that I felt as if I understood everything he said in class but that it was very difficult for me to follow what was going on when he would ask a question to one of the students and they would then have a little discussion. Not only is it hard to hear them since it's a fairly big lecture hall and they usually talk pretty quietly but they all speak rapid-fire Andalusian Spanish so I really don't stand a chance. At one point the Professor had a really awesome side-conversation going (I know it was awesome because the entire class broke into laughter numerous times throughout the few minutes of dialogue.) and decided he should check in with me to see if I understood what was being said. So from across the room he said, "Kassandra, entiendes?" (Kassandra do you understand?) And I replied, "No. As you know between the volume and the accent it's much harder to understand." (Only don't worry, I said it in Spanish.) So then he explained that this student he was talking to had a song he wanted to sing (I'm assuming it was in some way related to something the professor had mentioned earlier that I just completely missed)... so I asked if he would be singing to the professor or to the class, and the student stood up and said that instead of singing to the professor he wanted to sing it to me... so I told him to sing... and He Did. Now, naturally it was a bit embarrassing. I believe my skin grew to a bright red color as the song went on considering I had no idea what he was singing and the entire class (including the professor) was laughing throughout all of it. At the end of the class I asked the professor if he could explain the song to me... he said it was better that I didn't know. And, then I went off to take my Finance exam.

Finally at approximately 4pm I was done with my exams and able to step outside of the Prison and into the warm Sevilla sun. That night to celebrate I went to a driving range and putting green with Juanma, Juan and Juan y Medio (aka Los Juanes)... I'm not sure how that really a celebration considering they spent most of the night making fun of me but it was nice to be outside.

... okay, so I haven't quite caught up to speed but it's now officially Monday and I have class in 8.5 hours so it's off to bed for me!

Stories about my weekend are on the way! Including: Company visit, Friday night date with the Marias, sleep-in Saturday and the Moroccans, and finally Sunday's Dance-a-thon! Get excited!!!