LOVING THE SUN

Finally it is a nice day! Not a drop of rain anywhere! It’s funny how everything looks so much nicer when it’s sunny. Last night I watched Smallvile with my Madre in Spanish. Everything was once again dubbed over, but the show is not that hard to follow so I understood everything. My Madre had watched the show before, so we discussed the lead character and his super powers. She really is quite a funny lady once you get past the language barrier.

We started our normal classes this week. I am taking 5 classes I think. I might drop the Spanish Art class, but I am going to see how the first few classes go. All the professors seem pretty nice. We don’t really have books either, so there is hardly any reading, only the photocopied stuff they had out. The first couple of days of classes we went around and introduced our selves and said what we were studying in the United States. The professors seemed really interested in our other studies. They went around the room asking questions, some we could not understand so it was a little awkward at times. The professors also thought our American names were really funny. Most of the professors could not pronounce my name correctly, saying the ll’s wrong and then adding a lisp to the son part. My phonetics proff of course could pronounce all of our names. I am pretty sure she can speak English because we went through the difference in pronunciation from English to Spanish.

It was such a nice day I decided to walk around a little bit before I went to the gym. I ended up in a shoe store, but luckily they did not have my size so I could not buy anything! I really hope the weather stays like this, its so wonderful. One of our professors was telling us about an old Salamanca tradition kind of like one we have in the US regarding winter weather. Salamantinos look for the big storks that return to the city in February. If the birds return in early February then winter will be over soon. If the birds don’t return, then it’s going to be a long winter. So far I have seen one nest of these big stork birds, so I will keep my fingers crossed. This tradition reminded me of ground hog day.

Another tradition we learned about was the Dia de Mujeres, or the Day of Women, which happens to be today. It is tradition for women to get dressed up and go and dance in the Plaza with out their men. I have not seen any dancing in the Plaza yet, but I have scene several processions of women through the streets playing flutes, drums and singing about this glorious day!