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Things I have done since my last blog post:

• Joined a gym with a 2o meter pool, and gone swimming (twice!) (in two days!)

• planned a trip to Italy

• planned a trip to Paris after the program ends, right around christmas time (squeee, so excited!!!)

• Decided to plan trips to Portugal and Morrocco sometime in the near future.

• gone to class. meh. There's one class I really can't understand. It was marked as an Art History class, so I thought I'd like it, but in reality it is a Philosophy class. We haven't looked at a single work of art yet. Plus, the room it's in is really echoey and I have a hard time understanding the Spanish students anyways so its pretty much 2 hours of being lost.

• Started taking Sevillana dance classes. I like it alot.

I guess that's about it.
oh, i also visited the ruins of an old Muslim city the caliph built for a member of his harem named zahra (pronounced sara), and went to the alcazar de los reyes cristianos, where cristobal colon asked permission to sail his boats west. The picture was taken from the top of the alcazar, and the tower is the belltower of the Great Mosque of Cordoba.

yours in adventuring,
Sara

Guys, I am so ready (estoy tan lista) for classes to start here. We've literally had a whole week to sit around in our houses with our madres and watch american shows and made for tv movies (the simpsons, two and a half men, the secret life of the american teenager, etc) that are dubbed over in spanish. And walk around Cordoba. And have a few meetings here and there. And be formally welcomed by the alcade (mayor) of Cordoba (and by mayor, I actually mean the representative of the mayor) for approximately 4 hours of my life that I will never get back. It may sound like alot, but trust me, I've had more thatn enough tiempo libre. I am ready to do something productive.

So I guess I am experiencing a bit of culture shock, in that we (Nina y yo) fuimos a our Madre's piso in Malaga, on the coast of spain, for the weekend. and for all of Saturday, from 10 am to 1 am, we walked from cafe to cafe, and ate and sat, and then sat and ate, and then ate, and then walked maybe a block, and then sat and ate, and talked with relatives and omg by the end of it I was about ready to die of bordom. And it doesn't help that Malaga, being on the coast, is big into mariscos (seafood) and I am not really and aficionada of whole fried squid, or whole raw anchovies, or mussels. I'm not really a fan of wilted lettace covered in mayonaise either. Or whole fried baby birds, which my Madre ordered for lunch today. So fun times.

Yay clases start manana!!!

o, and I'm going to Ireland with Kirstie and Jessica this weekend. nbd. (yayayayayay!!!!!)

pues, entonces.

funny story.
So yesterday, while exhausted, and a bit overwelmed with the amount of spanish there is in the world, our host mother starts talking about the rest of the preshquitos and where they all live. We tell here that lisa lives very close and jackie lives far, all in pretty basic sentance structure. We tell her that we are a group of 35, but there's only one boy (somos trienta y cinco, y solo hay un chico) and she says, that she knows because one of her friends is kyle's host mom, and they were talking on the phone while we were sleeping. She also says kyle and one of the girls in the group were going out. That was news to Nina and I, so we filed it away to investigate. It seemed a bit early for a relationship, but maybe they were being subtle about it, we thought.

Then, anoche (last night) Nina and I were wandering around the commercial part of Cordoba and we ran into some more Preshquitos, including Kyle. And Kyle said that one of the first things his host mom had asked him was who his girlfriend was. And he was confused, because he does not have a novia, least of all un chica de prescho. It turns out Maribel, the lady that works for prescho and sets up the houses and stuff had been telling mentiras, chistes, etc to all the host moms. So now Kyle has to find Maribel and ask her exactly who it is he's going out with, because its news to him.

Maybe not that funny, but interesting none the less. It's good to know that the host mothers and prescho office people are all huge, well-intentioned, well-connected gossips.

I

today, llegamos en Cordoba, on an overnight train. being on the train with the compact bathroom and the pulldown beds was kind of romantic feeling, like being in another era of travel. It was also pretty much impossible to sleep. whatevesies. The worst part of the train was that a mosquito got into our cabin somehow, and now i have 6 bites on my hands and neck, since those were basically the only exposed parts mientras i was sleeping.

Then we met our familia. Nina, my companera de casa, and I are living with Josefa Elias, or, "Mama Pepi." Mama Pepi is really nice and obviously wants us to feel welcome. she said that this is our house (our meaning hers, nina's and mine) and that we are a family of three now. She showed us how to turn on the gas water heater, and how to flush the toliet (the tank is in the ceiling, and you have to pull a cord) and she took our dirty clothes to wash. Mama Pepi also has an active social life. Her gentleman friend was here this morning to help carry nuestra maletas, and tonight despues de la cena, she went out with some of her amigas. apparently today is some sort of saint's day here. I'm convinced Nina and I have the best familia, because we live really really close to the faculdad de filosophia y letras, where we'll be taking classes, and really close to the mesquita (famous great mosque of cordoba) we live on Calle Doctor Fleming, 6-2-4. you can google earth it if you want, and see how close we are to the mosque

I'm doing okay with understanding her, even though she talks really fast. i get the general gist most of the time, but i know im missing a lot of individual words.

after mama pepi left for her fiesta, Nina and i roamed the streets of old cordoba and ran into some more preshquitas (students that are doing the Prescho program with me) and we hung out and talked about how mentally exhausted we were from speaking spanish, and assured ourselves it will get better. and ahora, esta en casa, and im going to sleep for at least 9 hours.

well, first i'll give you my contact information if you need it:
address of my casa en espana
c/ Doctor Fleming
6-2-4
14004 Cordoba

email:
saretonin@hotmail.com

telefono en espana:
649-020-998 (if you're calling from the US, you'll have to put Spain's country code in front, which i think is 34)

telefono solo para emergancias:
610-70-00-35

tomorrow, ill put up the address where it would be better to send mail (directly to the prescho office) but i don't have that address with me right now and I'm to lazy to find it :)

hasta luego!