No hablo Portugués

As part of our program here we take 3 different weekend excursions to Barcelona, Madrid and Andalusia. Since we have two free weekends our group decided to use our first one to take a trip to Lisboa, Portugal. Only about 4.5 hours from Salamanca this seemed like a great idea. The trip ended up taking more than 6 hours because I later learned that there was a "governor" on the engine that wouldn't allow the driver to go over a certain speed.
On Saturday we decided to take an open air bus around the city so that we could see some of the sights. It proved to be a pretty city with lots of dramatic sculptures and some good views. It also proved to be a city with extremely temperamental, it would go from 70 and sunny to torrential downpour and 50 in a matter of minutes. That made the bus ride all the more fun...
We also had time to catch the Eurovision final, which Rodolfo Chikiculatre unfortunately lost, although his song somehow managed to beat France, Sweden, Poland, Finland, Germany and the UK. I have no idea how.
The trip was great for our group from JMU to get closer and we certainly had plenty of time to do that with the 7 hour bus ride back! I do want it to get warmer here soon, the temperature today is barely pushing 60 and it is raining now! I thought that Spain was some mecca of warm weather, seems I was misinformed.
One of the cool things about Portugal and Spain has been the number of Smart Cars that I have seen in big cities. These are cars which are solely designed to be drive in a big city, and they are for the most part not allowed on out on big roads. The appeal to them is that they use either very little gas or no gas depending on the brand and model you have. They are also extremely maneuverable and can fit almost anywhere for easy parallel parking. Saving energy in general seems to be the norm here in Spain, in restaurants the bathroom lights are only on by motion sensor when someone walks in. Soda bottles are almost all glass bottles which are reused at restaurants. There just seems to be a bigger commitment to taking care of the environment over here (I haven't seen a single Hummer).
Well, that's all I have for now,
adios!

First Class

Yesterday was the first day of classes.
I am taking a Spanish conversation and composition class from 9-10, Spanish art history class from 11-12, and Spanish civilization from 1-2.
All classes are taught in Spanish. This is definitely different from the Spanish classes that I have taken in high school and even in college, which most of the class is taught in some form of Spanglish.
2 of my professors understand that we are students from the states and that we just can't understand Spanish at the rate they speak it here. The Spanish civ professor on the other hand... she basically told us that she speaks fast all the time, and that there will be no slowing down for this class. The whole first class she spoke at breakneck speed. Only stopping for air and the occasional question from a student. The cool thing was that I could understand a lot of what she was saying and I could follow along with the lecture, but boy was she flying.
I am getting 9 credits in Spain in 6 weeks of class so each class meets M-F. I haven't had classes before 10 or class on a Friday in almost a year! So it might take some adjusting for me. haha.

Tonight, Pedro (my roommate in the homestay from JMU) and I are going to get Tapas with a group from JMU. Rumor has it that these Tapas are usually some sort of delicious appetizer that all of the restaurants serve around 9-11 pm. I'm excited.
That's another thing that has been interesting in Spain. The schedule of a day is very different from the states. We wake up around 8 and have a breakfast (el desayuno usually consisting of coffee and little cookies or muffins. Then we go to class from 9 until 2 and we come back to our house at 2 for "la comida". La comida is the biggest meal of the day, today for example we had a big fillet of steak, fired potatoes, peppers, and bread. After la comida is the time for the siesta. Arguably my favorite time of the day this has been a great time for a nap, some reading, or writing this blog entry. Most businesses are usually closed around this time for 2 hours (our Padre closes his carniceria during this time and usually eats with us. Most stores open back up for the 4-8pm time and "la cena" is usually between 9-11 pm. This is not as big of a meal as "la comida".
The Uuniversidad de Salamanca is the oldest existing university in Spain and one of the oldest in Europe! It was established in 1218! Now it has about 32,000 students and some of its notable graduates include Hernán Cortés and Miguel de Cervantes. Hopefully I will be able to get some pictures of the university up here soon.
Adios!

First 3 days in Spain

HOLA AMIGOS!
Well it's been a crazy couple of days. I flew out of JFK on Wednesday night and arrived in Madrid's airport at 9 am (Spain time). The flight over was... haha... way too fun to be flying. I was flying on Iberia Airlines in their business class due to some frequent flier miles pops had accumulated (gracias mucho!) And had some wine with my duck dinner, we had hot towels, seats that could recline, room to stretch my legs as much as I could, and personal screens with headphones to watch movies. I could keep going but I don't want to make anyone jealous.

So I get off the plane and soon realize that Barajas Airport is HUGE! We went down probably 5 escalators and took a tram to the baggage claim. After getting luggage and putting my suitcase in a locker I got on a Metro to get out of the airport, there were two more Metro stops for different terminals in the airport! Seriously, it's huge. I had directions to a hostel in downtown Madrid where I had to stay for a night since I had arrived in Madrid a day before the rest of the JMU group.

The Metro in Madrid was definitely the most organized metro system I had ever seen. I had to switch onto 2 other metro lines and there were always signs pointing me in the direction I had to go. I found the hostel with ease and checked in and got some sleep and read before taking a walk around Madrid. When I got back to the hostel I met some girls from UC-Pacific who had just graduated and were backpacking eastern Europe for 6 weeks. They were real cool and we ended up getting dinner together in the city.
In the morning I woke up and went back to the airport to meet up with the group. We waited for a long time before everyone's flights got in. BUT, 3 of us were walking around the airport looking for lost JMU people when we looked up and saw Spanish News cameras filming someone who was walking into the airport. When we got closer everything got ridiculous. A big crowd gathered and the videocameras filmed this guy checking into the airport... CHECKING INTO THE AIRPORT. This guy had hair like Elvis, big glasses, and a gold vest over a purple dress shirt. I figured this was a joke and the people in the airport were getting "Punk'd" or something. So, we asked some people standing nearby who he was and they told us his name was Rudolfo Chikilicuatre, and that he was muy fama "very famous". He was literally showing fans his pink plastic guitar and doing interviews in the airport.
I later learned that there is a big European music competition over here and each country gets one representative in it. Check him out, I keep asking my host family if this guy is a joke, but both of my "sisters" know all of the words to his song. We'll see how he does in the competition this week.
We finally got out of the airport and rode on a bus 2 hours to Salamanca, to the west of Madrid.
My host family has been a lot of fun. My buddy Pedro (Peter) and I live on the fifth floor of an apartment with mi madre, mi padre who owns the carniceria (meat shop) underneath our apartment, and their two daughters ages 13 and 11. The daughters are a lot of fun and really like talking to Pedro and I. The big plus about having a padre who owns a meatshop is that we are guaranteed to be eating good meat while we are here.
Pedro and I have had a lot of time to walk around the city and it is obvious that there is a lot of history in this city. I look forward to exploring further.
Last night our group from JMU went out on the town. 23 of us total, we are so American it is funny. We found some good discotecas and I even got to practice some merengue/salsa.
Well sorry for being so long-winded, but it's been fun so far.
adios.