The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly in the Plain and tends to freeze everything in the process...

Hola Chicos,

Today is the second day of classes, first day for the TTh schedule. Waking up this morning was a real bear. once I finally decided to wake up, I didn´t have enough time to shower, so I feel grungy. Sorry if that´s TMI. Anyways, I stayed up way later than intended because I watched Spain´s version of Dancing With the Stars. Not gonna lie, it was pretty crappy. I mean, beyond the fact that I´ve never heard of any of the ¨stars¨, none of them could actually dance. However, they did use styles of dance common to Spain, like Flamenco and Pasa Doble. Also, the program was on Channel 1, which I think is owned by the government. Somehow they can´t make any money off their station, so for maybe an hour of program I got stuck with a full 30 minutes of commercials. With all the free time during comercials, I taught Concha how to dance the ¨Texas Two-Step¨. I played some good ol´ George Strait on my laptop and she gave me a straw hat to wear. She caught on quickly, so for a while we were scootin´ around the living room! I´ll have to get a picture of us sometime!

This morning I had my Theatre class, which I am 95% positive I will drop in the next three days. The class is comprised entirely of reading 6 plays, attending 3 plays, writing 6 long papers and 3 short papers. Not so sure I want to do all that for an elective (since I´m not majoring in Spanish!). Oh well. I´ll give myself time to think about it, so we´ll see (yeah right!). After class, a group of us went out to coffee at Starbucks. I promised myself that I wouldn´t go to any ¨American¨ chains like Burger King, McDonald´s, etc. Oh well. It´s actually pretty popular here to go to Starbucks and since a group was going... yeah. After that, we walked to eat lunch at a sandwich place that my friends had been wanting to try. I ordered the Alemán, or German, which was supposed to come with sausage, cheese, and a tomato sauce. I apparently can´t translate much, because it was a hotdog sandwich! Though a simple hotdog, it was probably the best one I´ve ever had! Who ever serves hotdogs with fresh cheese on a footlong french baguette?! I wanted to take a picture, but I didn´t have my camera on me. For about 3,50 €, it was the cheapest meal so far, though I´ll definitely need to grab some fruit on the way home today to snack on before dinner. Since lunch is the biggest meal of the day, a hotdog sandwich might not suffice.

Oh, and it´s maybe raining, snowing, or sleeting outside. I prepared by wearing tennis shoes, my north face, and a bright blue jacket. I definitely look like an America, but while the Spanish are ruining their leather shoes and trendy coats, I´m dry and semi-warm. Beat that, Europe. :-D

I have culture class and business Spanish later today, so I don´t get out of class until 6. I smell like a cigarette from the café, so it would be nice to go home and change at some point. I´ll probably rest tonight, per the usual. Some people have been going out most nights, but it takes me a while to get over a night out and back in the swing of things. We´re going on a field trip to Segovia this Friday, and a few of us are thinking about staying overnight on Friday and coming home late on Saturday. We´ll see.

Hasta luego.