Day Six - Monday

 QUE HORA ES?!

So today was our first day of class... and because Chelsea and I are incredibly deep sleepers and were for some reason extremely tired, we slept through both alarms that she set for herself to get to her 9am class.

Here's how it went down:

7:45AM – Chelsea's alarm goes off; neither of us hear it

8:15AM – Chelsea's second alarm goes off; neither of us hear it

8:30AM – Pepita starts banging on our door saying, “Chicas, don't you have class this morning?!”; Chelsea and I jump out of bed (keep in mind, my first class is at 12) and start asking, “que hora es?! Que hora es?!” as Chelsea throws on clothes and darts for the bathroom; I start breathing again and get back in bed for a few more minutes

8:52AM – Chelsea leaves on her ten-minute walk to campus; I get up and start my day

Here's the funny part of all of this: what Jesus failed to mention to us is that there is a 10-minute grace period between the classes, so they don't actually start until 10 after each hour, and each class is only 50 minutes long (unless the professor runs over). So when Chelsea got there, out of breath and panicking, no one was there.

Gracias por eso, Jesus.

EL CUENTO

My first class (at 12pm) was “el cuento latinoamericano”, about stories from Latin America. Our professor, Eva, is a pretty nice and interesting lady that loves to get as detailed as possible. We were reminded that all of our instruction would be in Spanish, and that we were expected to avoid translating an idea that we didn't understand and instead practice our language skills by trying to explain it in Spanish.

YES. WIN.

This went off without a hitch, nothing much to report here. I had some homework (to read un cuento about three or four times to make sure that I understood what was going on) and left class to hit the library before lunch and the siesta.

DONDE ESTA MI SIESTA?

So, once I got home, I had to eat lunch (ooh throw me in that briar patch) and enjoy my siesta for a while before my 4 o'clock meeting at the colegio with Jesus! I handled it incredibly well, I think.

Lies, all of it. Here's what really happened:

1:00PM – leave class, walk around and explore various knick-knack shops

2:20PM – get home, work on homework/update blog/edit photos

2:30PM – lunch with Pepita and Chelsea

3:10PM – return to work/update/edit status

3:45PM – realize time, change into something slightly more business casual, dash out the door to meet Jesus and the other girls

Good thing was, I was not the last one there (at 4:01PM). Whew! Caitrin, Jen, Camila and I met with Daniel, the director of the English Conversation Practice Table project, and discussed possible options for our schedules. Here's how everything panned out:

Brittany: Professor 02 – Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

Camila: Professor 03 – Tuesday, Thursday

Caitrin: Professor 04 – Tuesday

Jen: Professor 05 – Tuesday (teaching the teachers!)

Here's the basic idea of our job: we will spend 1 hour with each group for 5 weeks, having conversations about random things and answering questions about grammar, pronunciation, cultural differences, et cetera. The idea is to give the students exposure to a native English speaker, rather than the Madrid-born heavily-accented English teacher that they have now. It's pretty unfortunate that the students are in that kind of a situation, because they have been studying it for a really long time but have had little to no exposure to native speakers, as well as no opportunity to practice. Our job is to provide them with both parts of what they lack. Pretty cool, right?

After the meeting, Jesus took all four of us out to coffee to hang out and practice our Spanish conversational skills (because God knows that some of us could use the help...), and then we realized – we all had class at 5! With Jesus! And we were across town! Camila said to Jesus, “Professor, shouldn't we be getting to San Isidoro? Class will be starting soon!” Jesus chuckled and replied, “Who is the professor? Me, right? So will class start without me? Probably not. Enjoy the rest of your coffee, and then we will leave. Unless you'd enjoy my class more than authentic cafe con leche? If that's the case, I'm flattered.”

I know what you're thinking. Best. Professor. Ever.

HISTORIA DEL ARTE

Seriously, I am not a history buff. I know my stuff, but it does not fascinate me as much as it apparently does some other people.

Jesus totally just changed that. Holy geez I have never been more fascinated about history ever before.

When we finally did arrive at San Isidoro (only like two minutes late), he handed out the syllabus and started immediately into the connections between history and the theories behind how everything panned out in the end. I won't bore you with the particulars, but basically Jesus took everything that I already knew about the history of Spain and Latin America and made it so much more interesting. It was like magic. Well, not really, but it was pretty darn close.

Something that I did not know about Salamanca: in the year 1101, Salamanca was one of three citites that sat on the border between Christian and Muslim territory during the Reconquista. For this reason, the original (or inner) city is in the shape of a circle because it was once surrounded by a wall to protect its citizens from attack. Also, there are several roads that have certain names because they were once the roads that led directly to the corresponding cities; for example, Calle Zamora (which I use to get to class every day) leads to Zamora, Calle Toro leads to Toro, et cetera. It's really cool!

FUZZ TREES

We all headed down to the rio, near a skate park (packed full of seriously attractive skate boarders [Chelsea, I can feel you disagreeing from here]) and took in the sights.

When we got to the river, you could have mistaken it for Paradise... The trees were dropping seeds (I think), but they had this fiber mass surrounding them that made it look like someone was sitting up in the tree dropping little tufts of Poly-fill into the breeze. It was the weirdest sight, because it seriously looked like it was snowing! Everybody was reaching for them and jumping into huge piles of them and making them scatter (which totally didn't get us weird stares from the locals, what are you talking about...) It was so weirdly awesome to see them. I have no idea what their real name is, but I have declared them to be “fuzz trees”!

MY MAN DOES IT BETTER

Ooh, I bet that title got your attention, didn't it?

After we had taken a million and a half photos, we realized that it was almost time for dinner and all headed back to our casas. Chelsea and I got home to Pepita finishing up her cooking – just in time for fish and pasta! Yum!

After dinner, Chelsea and I agreed that the food we had been eating so far was awesome and all, but we were women, and women need one thing in their life on a fairly consistent basis – chocolate. Unfortunately, Pepita didn't really offer anything but strawberries for dessert (which are so good with a little orange juice mixed in, and some sugar... aaaah delicioso), so we would have to go exploring.

We'd both had a lot of helado over the last couple of days, so that wasn't that appealing to us... we stopped off in this tiny little cafe and checked out what looked to be a promising menu... and then, there it was.

Chocolate. Cheesecake. (insert dramatic music here)

We quickly ordered two slices of the gorgeous-looking dessert and devoured it in seconds. Okay, that's an exaggeration – it took at least two minutes to do so... Though, I have to say, Sam makes his cheesecake way better than this place did. Not that it was bad cheesecake (to say so would be a cardinal sin, I'm pretty sure) – it just lacked some of the moistness, and maybe more cream. And coffee flavoring.

The title makes sense now, doesn't it? Had you on your toes, didn't I?

(I think I'm clever... let me go on thinking so, please)