February 4-11

Friday and Saturday I slept and ate at a family’s apartment paid for by the university. I was glad to not have to pay for a hotel, and I found the family to be very nice. The mother’s name is Mariana and the eight-year old son Aitor. I met the father, but he was not in the house very much except to sleep because he drives a taxi and works many hours. There was another girl sleeping there too, Susana from Czech Republic. Friday afternoon, after arriving at the flat, I went with Mariana to pick Aitor up from school, a block away, and to listen to the students, five years old and up, sing a traditional song in Euskera, the Basque language. Saturday, I spent the day inside going over information that I had received from the university and took a walk in the afternoon around the neighborhood and parks for an hour or so. I spent the evenings with Mariana and Aitor watching TV and playing card games with Aitor. I taught him how to play “Go Fish” and then we played a game like “War” that he taught me. Sunday morning I awoke in time to walk a half hour from the family’s apartment to mine on the other side of the city to pay rent to Wibke, a student who was leaving the apartment to return to Germany. Monday the Spanish class started after a placement quiz at 9:30 in the morning and lasted until 2:30. Every day has been the same, Monday-Friday. I come home, eat lunch with Ximena, and read some, then go out in the evening.

This first week and a half has flown by quickly. Being a foreign student is like being part of a colony of foreigners who create their own little community within another cultural system. It’s a mixture of people from all over the world, all struggling to communicate with one another in the common language: Spanish. Almost every night I have gone out with a group of girls to a bar of some sort for café con leche (coffee with milk) or something else to sip while talking. Last night I went out with the rest of the Erasmus students to a bar to talk and dance. It was different for me, but kind of fun. This week is different from the rest of the weeks because no one has “real” classes. A few students who were already here last semester have exams, and most of us were taking an intensive language class, but it isn’t as much work as the regular school semester will be.

This morning Ximena went with me to mass at the church for la Parroquia de Cristo Rey (parish of Christ King). It was good to be with other worshippers, but I couldn’t understand a lot of what was being said, since I’m not that familiar with the order of the sayings/don’t know them in Spanish. After the mass, we sat in the middle of the church to look at the building. Imagine space, taller than two stories, made all with enormous smooth slabs of stone. The columns support the arching stone that join in the ceiling. Smaller pieces of stone are organized like tiles crisscrossing in the ceiling. It’s quite plain, full of old wooden pews with kneelers, yet it is a feat of architecture and it’s enormity is awesome. I forgot to take a picture of the church, but there are some pictures of the building connected to the church building that is used now (it has a blue copula with a cross atop).

After mass Ximena and I took a walk outside the city a bit. I had no idea that the countryside was so close to my apartment building. Every day I discover new things! Tomorrow I have my meeting with my coordinator here to sign up for classes. It’s a little strange to me that I won’t be signed up for classes until after the classes start, but oh well. I’ll attend classes on Monday nevertheless. No one here has to have their matriculation finalized until March, but I do because everything has to be approved back at Ball State University.