El Conquistador: Acclimating to Spain

Its now Friday around 8 o'clock, so far Spain has been incredible. I am loving everything about it.

     We started off Wednesday with orientation, the first day we go with our Madre so she can show us how to get there, we took the bus but it was late so of course then we were late, it wasn't a big deal though. The school is very nice, its a new facility and all of the staff is very helpful.

     At orientation we learned the rules of the school. They have a very strict no English rule. If you speak English you get written up and have to talk to the school director, they don't mess around.

     There are 32 students from MSU and then 120 from the University of Virginia. We got our schedules, I have a 8:30 every morning, kill me. So far the 8:30's have been kinda brutal, eventually I am going to have to learn I can't stay out so late during the week. My classes seem like they will be fun. I am in a class about Spanish literature, Spanish culture, and media and conversation. All of the professors have their PhD in whatever subject they teach and are very good at teaching so it makes the classes fun. However we did have a bad first experience with the professor in Spanish culture (who also happens to be our program director, good teacher to piss off, no?), one of the guys in my class kept pushing the teachers buttons until he snapped and reminded us that he has the right to send any of us home when he wants. It was quite uncomfortable, but he does seem like he will be a cool guy.

After orientation, we took a tour to the historical center, it is beautiful there, lots of cathedrals. It is a very old city that started off as a roman city so there are underground ruins below the city. Here are some pictures from the historical city center