Oh right - there's classes!

We started classes this week, and it has been a much harder adjustment than I was expecting.  My Spanish has already gotten infinitely better, and we've been here for less than one week!  Getting accustomed to the eating schedule and the class schedule has been difficult though.

Classes start at 10AM, but since we have a 45+ minute commute to school, this entails getting up by 8:30.  We're taking one class that is language/grammar intensive and another class that is about the culture of Spain.  I really like our culture professor; he has a great sense of humor and is really easy to listen to for an hour.

We've had events every night this week pretty much.  Monday a bunch of us went down to Sol (Madrid's version of Times Square) and explored for a while.  We visited the Plaza Mayor, the Mercado de San Cristobal, and the magnificent Palacio Real.  It was a wonderful walk, but unfortunately I yet again forgot my camera.  Tuesday we made plans for a similar "paseo" in another neighborhood, but we ended up in the area around Sol again.  It has been wonderful to have some time to explore the different areas of the city.  Since we only have 3 hours of class per day for the next two weeks, I'm going to try and explore while I still can.

Last night we went and saw Carmen, which is a play about how Flamenco dancing developed.  In brief, it was a combination of the different countercultures (Jewish, Muslim, etc.) in Southern Spain.  Most of it was during the Spanish inquisition and sought to assimilate themselves into the Catholic culture.  Ironically, ham's popularity in Spain is a byproduct of this era as well.  In order to prove that you had converted to Catholicism many Muslims and Jewish people would eat ham.

This afternoon, I wasn't able to take my daily 30 minute siesta because we had a visit to the Prado Museum.  It was wonderful to hear about the history and the symbolism in the marvelous paintings that were there.  I'm very excited for my art history class, which is going to be two days per week: one day at the Prado and one day at the Reina Sofia.

That's about it for this week.  Things have been winding down a little bit from the weekend since we're back into classes.  Hopefully this weekend will bring some good times (and certainly some pictures).