Damasiado Tarea!

First impressions can be misleading.  Like when you start taking a class it might seem pretty chill, and then you find out that it is the academic equivalent of DEATH!  And that is exactly what I would say about my Don Quijote class.  I thought it would be a nice literature class, you only have to read one book, how hard could it be, right?  WRONG!!  The first thing our professor said to us when we went into class is “Siempre digo que las estudiantes que toman esta clase son muy valientes”…not exactly what you want to hear from your teacher on the first day.  I was tempted to stand up and tell her I’m not that brave and leave, but I decided to stick it out.  She proceeded to lecture for the entire class period (actually a bit longer than the class period) about the history behind Don Quijote, and while that was a lot of information to take in, I thought it might be ok because it was pretty interesting, so I decided to tough it out.

Then I read the prologue.  Or should I say I tried to read the prologue?  Cervantes uses words in Don Quijote that don’t even exist anymore!! It’s like reading a book that uses “Old English,” except it is “Español antiguo” which I can assure you is WAY worse!  Sooo after struggling through the tenish page prologue (which took me about two hours to read!) I decided that Don Quijote was going to kill me if I didn’t try to get out of it.  So I talked to my professor about the possibility of switching to another one of her lit classes and I did all the work to catch myself up in that class (while ignoring my Don Quijote work of course) and hopefully tomorrow she will let me in, because I would like to have a life in Sevilla and I would not like that life to revolve around Don Quijote!!

This week one of my favorite activities was a thing called “Salir con Españoles” which is where some Spaniards come and meet with people from our program.  We were hanging out with this guy Fernando and we just went to a Cervecería and ate some tapas and practiced our Spanish.  He was really nice and it was super fun!

Also, this Sunday we had the privilege of going to mass at the Cathedral (which, in case you haven’t heard, is the third largest Cathedral in the WORLD! Pretty awesome right?)  Of course, I am not Catholic, so I definitely don’t know what to say during Catholic services in English let alone Spanish!  I could tell when they were saying the Lord’s Prayer, or I guess in this context I should call it an “Our Father” and I could understand the mostly everything the priests were saying so it was still a wayyyy cool experience!  Even literally, it was freezing in there!  But we made it through and I only sat down once when I wasn’t supposed to, but the guy in front of me sat down so I assumed he knew what he was doing! 

I feel like I am really starting to settle into life here and form a routine of sorts and I like it a lot!  Now I am just ready for it to get HOT!  I can’t wait to break out the shorts!

Hasta Luego!