San Miguel

Today the university was closed for a holiday so my BU class went to the San Miguel factory. San Miguel is a Spanish beer company. We took a tour of the brewery and then they had different types of beer for us to taste at the end as well as some snacks. Unfortunately, they had olives but it was stuffed with tuna :( We also watched two really werid movies. One introductory movie at the beginning of the tour was very dramatic and told the history of the San Miguel company. It was by far too dramatic. Then there was another movie at the end of the tour which basicly suggested that every human advancement was done to make beer. For example it talked about the wheel and how that was used to brew beer. Again very dramatic but this time it had the additional benefit but have some really horrible actors. They were both certainly entertaining ;) Today lunch at the dorms has horrible...they had a dish that had rice and mixed seafood but everything was put together so the rice had a very seafood taste (which I couldn't eat because I hate seafood). Then there was this pudding things which was not very good either so I was very grateful that I had eaten some of the snacks at the factory otherwise my lunch of bread would not have been enough. Although I think I'll probably get hungry before dinner which is at 8:30 but then again I usually do because I am still not use to the Spanish eating schedule.

La primera dia de clase/ The first day of class

Today I went to the UBU (university) to have my fist class with the language professor. The class was spent learning about many of the cultural activities that are available in Burgos. There was this very amazing website that had tapas "routes". There were about 8 of them and they would list a number of tapas restaurant, one had three another eleven, and the idea is that you go to one restaurant and have a tapa (and maybe a glass of wine or at least that is what my professor said to do) and then move on to the next. However, my professor cautioned against having wine at everyone of the restaurant for the 11 restaurant route, as you would probably be intoxicated by the end. I have a huge reading for tomorrow when I have class with a different professor, but for the same class. Then Wednesday we are going to a factory for a tour.

First weekend/ La Primera fin de semana

On Friday night I went out for the first time. I went to a bar behind the cathedral and had a typical Spanish drink, red wine and coke. It may sound very werid but I was surprised to find that I liked it a lot. Saturday I went to the Cathedral and walked around a bit while one of my teachers told us historical things about it. For homework I have to write a summary of what she told us for next Saturday. Then we walked up to the ruins of the castle and took a tour of the tunnels that were built to escape from the castle and to get at the water underground. On the way we stoped somewhere that had a very good view of the city. The tunnels were a little creepy and as the tour was in spanish I didn't understand many of them. On Saturday night, I played poker with a couple of people in the dorms, it was a very interesting experience. Today I had a mini-class with the director of the program about some of Spain's history mostly during Franco's rule. Tomorrow I have a language class at the University in the morning and a meeting with the residencia (dorm) director in the evening. It snowed but did not stick a little bit this afternoon which is not common at all for Spain. Also the it has been very very windy these past couple of days which has made it very cold. The forcast calls for rain the rest of the week. I have the internet on my laptop now which is very nice. It will be interesting to start class and to get into a rythmn.

Second day

Ok so today is my second day. I went to the university using the bus system which is super easy and very nice. It is apparently a 20 to 30 minute walk to the university. But there is also a bike rental program through the university and a special bike only path that runs from near my dorm to the university. All the people I met at the university are very nice. I was given a lot of information, almost too much for how sleep deprived I am. I will be continuing orientation tonight and through the weekend. My seminar starts Monday and classes at the university start on the 16th of Feb.

Arrived

So I arrived in Spain this morning at 10am, almost a full 24 hours after I left my house for the airport. In Germany, I was asked twice if I spoke German in German, which i thought was a compliment. I am mostly moved into my dorm which is very small with like no storage compared to AU (but really that is how most dorms are compared to AU). My roommate is really nice, her name is Laura and she is 18 years old. She and most of her friends speak little if any english which is just fine by me. They are all really nice and patient with my spanish. The downside they all smoke, even in the room, so I will pretty much smell like I smoke even though I don´t...ohh well i guess just the first of many cultural differences. One of Laura´s friends, Ana, her roommate watches Gossip Girl which is just sooo werid to me (and she isn´t american). I went with Laura and a bunch of her friends to a cafe this afternoon which was interesting, i def. did not follow half the conversations they were having with each other, but when they would talk to me, like i said they were very patient. Apparently, tonight is one of the guys birthday so on the way back to the dorm they bought like a shit ton of booze and then got it in through a window. I´m not exactly sure why they had to do this, but it was def interesting and made me think of AU and our dry campus hehe. Well tomorrow I start orientation at 10:45am. We are going to the University so hopefully, I will be signing up for my classes and will be a bit more informed about how this whole semester is going to work.

About this Blog

Ok, so the other day someone asked me if I was going to be doing an e-mail update for people who wanted to hear about my abroadness...and I admitted that I hadn't really thought about it. So I have decided to use this blog and try to write about my going ons for anyone that cares :) Just 11 days til I leave for SPAIN and I absolutely cannot wait!!!!