Thursday, March 1, 2007
"Tour" Part 2, Casco Viejo
Cathedral de Santa Maria/ Plaza de ?
Very old cathedral/Pathway to lookout over old city walls. This section is part of the old city, behind the walls, looking down over the river, fortified and safer because it is higher ground. I like this part of the city a lot. It is peaceful and beautiful.
"Tour" of city photos
Cow for advertising in C/ Carlos III/ Suyoun in Calle Carlos III/Plaza de ?
Same plaza, church I have attended, and play ground/ Suyoun and I
Sunday, February 25, 2007
24 febrero
This Wednesday Clem turned twenty years old. This was her first birthday away from home, but I think that it was a good one. Her three best friends here showed up at the flat at 12 am to bring in the birthday with cake and candles. Clem’s mom had sent a huge box of goodies for here birthday as well, with expensive champagne from France. The cake was two small cakes covered with melted chocolate and sugar cookies stuck over it and decorated with candies. It was supposed to be a house and the candies represented the four friends. We all ate together in the living room and watched as Clem opened the champagne, spilling it on the floor as it gushed forth from the bottle. I didn’t like the taste of the champagne, but it is exciting. Her friends are so good to her; I hope that by the end of my time here that I have friends like that as well.
This Saturday I toured the city by foot with Suyoun, an exchange student from South Korea. We walked and took lots of pictures. We also explored the other side of the river and the old walls of the city. I don’t like the neighborhoods as much on the other side of the river, but there are some old churches and the river is picturesque at the points where there is not litter. Part of our walk took us close to a mountain, and I could see a old stone building on the side of the mountain. A building means that there is a road. Sometime I want to walk up the mountain with my backpack and a lunch and explore what is there. We ate lunch in a bar on the other side of the river, some tapas and dessert. Tapas are like snacks to eat while drinking. However, I just had café con leche (coffee, milk, and for me three cubes of sugar). It’s a less expensive way to sample the food here and kind of fun too. Each bar has different tapas, though there are some more typical to the area. I also found a Protestant church, which I am going to attend tomorrow. I’m not sure how long the walk is though, perhaps more than 30 minutes, so I’m going to take the bus.
This Saturday I toured the city by foot with Suyoun, an exchange student from South Korea. We walked and took lots of pictures. We also explored the other side of the river and the old walls of the city. I don’t like the neighborhoods as much on the other side of the river, but there are some old churches and the river is picturesque at the points where there is not litter. Part of our walk took us close to a mountain, and I could see a old stone building on the side of the mountain. A building means that there is a road. Sometime I want to walk up the mountain with my backpack and a lunch and explore what is there. We ate lunch in a bar on the other side of the river, some tapas and dessert. Tapas are like snacks to eat while drinking. However, I just had café con leche (coffee, milk, and for me three cubes of sugar). It’s a less expensive way to sample the food here and kind of fun too. Each bar has different tapas, though there are some more typical to the area. I also found a Protestant church, which I am going to attend tomorrow. I’m not sure how long the walk is though, perhaps more than 30 minutes, so I’m going to take the bus.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
febrero 21
I was thinking the other day about how much is different here, things I didn’t think about before I got here, and what is the same. I bought Colgate toothpaste because I wasn’t sure what the other brands contained. The food in the supermarket is different, such as there is not cheddar cheese, only white cheese from Denmark or here. There is no spaghetti sauce here either that I’ve seen. And vanilla comes in a powder, which I haven’t found yet. Instead of peanut butter there is Nutella (a great invention, might I add). The cold medicine is not in pill form, instead it is dissolved in water and the efforts to make it taste nice failed. There is a phone in my apartment, but it isn’t used ever except to answer from below the building and let someone in the door. Instead, people have cell phones and we message each other important info with text messages and there are pay phones on many corners. There are lots of small food stores/pharmacies and everything is in walking distance. I don’t even have need to use the bus.
The first weeks have not been too hard, except communication. I am not used to hearing Spanish all around me, so I have to concentrate hard to understand. I mishear things that people say a lot. Asking questions is hard for me too, but not too bad. I try to look up words ahead of time…I delayed going to the bookstore to buy books because I didn’t know how to ask the bookstore if they could order the books from another store.
I am resigned to sounding like I do (well, like a foreigner who doesn’t speak very well). I know that I am improving, little by little. There is nothing else to do other than speak the way I do, and at times I may provide humor for others. Or at least they try hard to understand me. I called a basket a chestnut the other day on accident at the grocery store. Basket=canasta; chestnut=castaña.
I have not had to buy any books except two for my Spanish class…the professors have bibliographies and everything is in the library. I haven’t had any readings to do yet, but I read on my own to gain necessary vocabulary. I still need to finish signing up for classes. I am taking four classes, and attending five. I was going to take five classes, but I realized that it would be too much for me if I want to cook and see things and talk to people. I am taking a women’s studies class, “Mujer, Educación y Trabajo,” a class about the history of education, a Spanish class for foreigners, and a religious studies class, “El Hecho Religioso.” I talked to the professor of the fifth class, “Surrealismo en la literatura y el cine” (surrealism in literature and movies) and he said that it would not be a problem for me to attend and listen without signing up for the class. That’s two less papers and presentations for me! I am enjoying all of my classes so far. It is hard for me to understand everything, but I am told it gets better. I am understanding enough to get the gist of each lecture. The class on Surrealism is the hardest to understand, but I don’t have to worry about that now. My favorite class is the Spanish class. It is very relaxed, the teacher, Javier, is very personable, and the other students all want to learn as well, unlike in the university at home. It is a better format than the classes at home also, with conversation at the base and written exercises as well.
My campus is built in a rectangle, with a green in the center and the buildings around the periphery. All of the classes are in the first building, the Aulario. The main library is the next large building (I posted a picture of it earlier). The other smaller buildings are for each facultad, or school in the university. However, there are not classes in these buildings, just labs and offices and meeting halls.
It has been pointed out to me that my English is pathetic/awkward in these blogs. So, if it is, I am sorry. I am hardly ever speaking English, and perhaps the sentences are phrased more like Spanish grammar. Maybe. Or maybe I just can’t speak English.
The first weeks have not been too hard, except communication. I am not used to hearing Spanish all around me, so I have to concentrate hard to understand. I mishear things that people say a lot. Asking questions is hard for me too, but not too bad. I try to look up words ahead of time…I delayed going to the bookstore to buy books because I didn’t know how to ask the bookstore if they could order the books from another store.
I am resigned to sounding like I do (well, like a foreigner who doesn’t speak very well). I know that I am improving, little by little. There is nothing else to do other than speak the way I do, and at times I may provide humor for others. Or at least they try hard to understand me. I called a basket a chestnut the other day on accident at the grocery store. Basket=canasta; chestnut=castaña.
I have not had to buy any books except two for my Spanish class…the professors have bibliographies and everything is in the library. I haven’t had any readings to do yet, but I read on my own to gain necessary vocabulary. I still need to finish signing up for classes. I am taking four classes, and attending five. I was going to take five classes, but I realized that it would be too much for me if I want to cook and see things and talk to people. I am taking a women’s studies class, “Mujer, Educación y Trabajo,” a class about the history of education, a Spanish class for foreigners, and a religious studies class, “El Hecho Religioso.” I talked to the professor of the fifth class, “Surrealismo en la literatura y el cine” (surrealism in literature and movies) and he said that it would not be a problem for me to attend and listen without signing up for the class. That’s two less papers and presentations for me! I am enjoying all of my classes so far. It is hard for me to understand everything, but I am told it gets better. I am understanding enough to get the gist of each lecture. The class on Surrealism is the hardest to understand, but I don’t have to worry about that now. My favorite class is the Spanish class. It is very relaxed, the teacher, Javier, is very personable, and the other students all want to learn as well, unlike in the university at home. It is a better format than the classes at home also, with conversation at the base and written exercises as well.
My campus is built in a rectangle, with a green in the center and the buildings around the periphery. All of the classes are in the first building, the Aulario. The main library is the next large building (I posted a picture of it earlier). The other smaller buildings are for each facultad, or school in the university. However, there are not classes in these buildings, just labs and offices and meeting halls.
It has been pointed out to me that my English is pathetic/awkward in these blogs. So, if it is, I am sorry. I am hardly ever speaking English, and perhaps the sentences are phrased more like Spanish grammar. Maybe. Or maybe I just can’t speak English.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Photos near apartment
I took these photos two Sundays ago with Ximena after mass (in the church that appears at the end). I need to take a photo of the church I attended this past Sunday and post it too. All of this is a 15 minute walk from the church, at our farthest point of the walk. The Tennis Club (Club de Tenis) is right by my building (across the street and up half a block).
Monday, February 19, 2007
febrero 19
¡Qué lío! What a mess. The hot water heating system has been malfunctioning for about a week now. In that time frame, I have taken one shower. For some reason, there was enough hot water Saturday for two showers at 5 pm in the afternoon. I’ve been heating water on the stove and filling the sink with hot water to wash my hair so I don’t look like a ragamuffin, but what I’d like to do is to turn on the faucet in the tub and feel warm water, not freezing water. Friday Ximena called the owner, José Antonio Calderón, of the apartment to advise him of the situation, and he called the repairman. This morning, I received the repairman into the apartment. He fiddled around, removed the outside panels of the heating unit, and made disapproving noises. Then, he told me that for the work to be done, he would need to be paid 100 and some euros. I had him call Calderón on my phone to talk about the price, but no one was there. No owner, no money, no work, no hot water. Hopefully the repairman gets a hold of the owner today, because all of us in the apartment want to take showers! I don’t have class until 5:30 today, so I am waiting around the apartment to receive the repairman, should he return.
I also went to the bookstore again today to try to find the two books I need to buy for my Spanish language class here. Luckily, this went a lot better, communication and everything. I am to call again this afternoon after the proprietor gets a shipment of the book, and then I will have it. Phew.
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The repairman came back at 12:30 and is working now. Clem, Ximena, and I are splitting the price (35 apiece) and Calderón will pay us back. After a week without hot water, it will be good to have it working again.
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I think that I have eaten the same thing for two weeks, but I haven’t tired of it yet. Toast with milk for breakfast; tuna with mushrooms and/or zucchini, and tomato sauce cooked together as a sauce, noodles or rice, and spices (garlic, cayenne pepper, pepper, oregano) for lunch, and fruit and bread and hot chocolate or tea for “supper”. Saturday Ximena cooked something that she eats in Chile, chicken cooked with a little oil, water, garlic, red pepper, and shaved carrots; and rice cooked with garlic and shaved carrots. Food is more important and present here than in the United States. We take an hour or more break in the afternoon to cook and then sit and eat at leisure. I suppose that most people do the same, since all the stores are closed between 1:30 and 4:30 in the afternoon.
Sunday morning I went to mass at a different church, this one just a block from my building. It was not as old as the other, and I went alone this time at 9 am in the morning. I was the only one awake, and wouldn’t have gone so early, but I received a newsletter in our mailbox from the church and learned that there would be a special group singing in the street before mass and then singing as part of mass at 9 am mass. I understood more of the mass this week than the last, and recognized when the congregation was praying the Lord’s Prayer so I could pray along, in English. I have pretty much given up finding a protestant church in this city. It makes me sad that I won’t be able to take communion until I return to the United States if I can’t find a protestant church. It is different living in a world where I don’t know anyone (personally) who actively seeks God and lives a life of faith.
I miss you all! I check my e-mail nearly every day, if you feel like sending a message. Also, if you know any “American” recipes that aren’t too expensive, and don’t require special dishes (I have something for the oven, frying pans, and pots), send them to me through e-mail if you could. I especially would like a tested recipe for pancakes. There is no syrup here either, so if anyone knows an alternative to maple syrup, I’d love to know!
I also went to the bookstore again today to try to find the two books I need to buy for my Spanish language class here. Luckily, this went a lot better, communication and everything. I am to call again this afternoon after the proprietor gets a shipment of the book, and then I will have it. Phew.
------------------------
The repairman came back at 12:30 and is working now. Clem, Ximena, and I are splitting the price (35 apiece) and Calderón will pay us back. After a week without hot water, it will be good to have it working again.
------------------------
I think that I have eaten the same thing for two weeks, but I haven’t tired of it yet. Toast with milk for breakfast; tuna with mushrooms and/or zucchini, and tomato sauce cooked together as a sauce, noodles or rice, and spices (garlic, cayenne pepper, pepper, oregano) for lunch, and fruit and bread and hot chocolate or tea for “supper”. Saturday Ximena cooked something that she eats in Chile, chicken cooked with a little oil, water, garlic, red pepper, and shaved carrots; and rice cooked with garlic and shaved carrots. Food is more important and present here than in the United States. We take an hour or more break in the afternoon to cook and then sit and eat at leisure. I suppose that most people do the same, since all the stores are closed between 1:30 and 4:30 in the afternoon.
Sunday morning I went to mass at a different church, this one just a block from my building. It was not as old as the other, and I went alone this time at 9 am in the morning. I was the only one awake, and wouldn’t have gone so early, but I received a newsletter in our mailbox from the church and learned that there would be a special group singing in the street before mass and then singing as part of mass at 9 am mass. I understood more of the mass this week than the last, and recognized when the congregation was praying the Lord’s Prayer so I could pray along, in English. I have pretty much given up finding a protestant church in this city. It makes me sad that I won’t be able to take communion until I return to the United States if I can’t find a protestant church. It is different living in a world where I don’t know anyone (personally) who actively seeks God and lives a life of faith.
I miss you all! I check my e-mail nearly every day, if you feel like sending a message. Also, if you know any “American” recipes that aren’t too expensive, and don’t require special dishes (I have something for the oven, frying pans, and pots), send them to me through e-mail if you could. I especially would like a tested recipe for pancakes. There is no syrup here either, so if anyone knows an alternative to maple syrup, I’d love to know!
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