I feel like the first thing needed for this blog is a deep breath. This has been my first full week in school (and Toledo) since the end of October. That is a long time to be away (and not to have class). When I got home on Sunday, I was so excited to know that I won't be going anywhere (overnight) until the beginning of December when I go to Rome. Time to relax, enjoy time with my host family and see my other friends.
To start the week off, I turned in an essay on Monday (having written it the night before since I was in Paris... amazingly it didn't take me too long!). Class on Monday was alright. We talked about the first and second acts of the play we are reading. It's complicated, but became a bit clearer after talking about it in class. After class on Monday I headed to talk to my "abuela". I don't know what it was this week, but it was a really long hour... Anyway, I headed home for lunch and then didn't have anything until 9:00pm. At 9:00pm I had to be at the Fundación for a dinner with Arcadia people and the program director from Granada who was supposed to come with us to Morocco, but ended up not being able to make it. I think almost all of us (the Arcadia people) went. The dinner was alright... They had made it sound like the point of the dinner was so the director lady could get to know us. But that ended up not exactly happening. A bunch of the Fundación people came with us, too, and they wouldn't let us mingle with them. All of us sat on one end of the table and the adults at the other. So much for mingling... In my opinion, the whole dinner was rather pointless, AND I get better food at home.
Tuesday was a fun day. In the morning I went out to Polígono to the elementary school, like every week. The kids knew that I had been in Paris the previous weekend and wouldn't stop asking me questions about it. They are hilarious. Anyhow, the 3rd graders were angels as usual (mostly). They were learning the words for clothes this week (trainers, shoes, jeans, trousers, t-shirt, hat, etc.). I really love the way that their teacher teaches them new words. I'll have to remember that and use it in the future. The 5th grade teacher, on the other hand, is awful. Though, somehow, they managed to get slightly more done than last week. Everything I've said about those classes before was only reinforced again this week. 2:00pm can't come fast enough once I'm into the older classes, but it does eventually. I went home for lunch and was happy because I wasn't going to my class that night. Instead, I was going to see a play in Madrid with my Literature class (so I was still going to A class, just not my Service Learning class). The play we saw is the same one we are reading in class. It was sooooooo funny!! We hadn't read the whole play yet, so we didn't know how it was going to end (we'd barely finished the beginning). The actors did a very good job at keeping the audience entertained. The best characters were definitely the squires of the nobles because they were the craziest... they would randomly start dancing and/or singing and make everyone laugh (especially us!). The whole experience was a blast! We got back after dinner time (but the Fundación had given us bag dinners) and I talked with my host parents for a bit, watched whatever TV show was on and then went to bed at 12:00am.
Wednesday morning was abnormal because I had to go to the library for both my Literature class and Philosophy classes (at the same time). It sounded interesting at first because we were going to see the 1st editions of the books we had been talking about in (for me) both classes. But in the end, it turned out to be completely pointless. The activity we were expected to do involved writing down the title, author, what year it was published/written and what language it was in. For those of us in Philosophy, we were expected to write down all the information for all 19 (yes, 19) books. Most of them were in Latin, so we couldn't understand them anyway. When they are in Latin, it's really hard to tell what is the title and who is the author. Not to mention the dates are in Roman numerals, which I can't read above 99 anyway. Later in class, we didn't even do anything with them. My professor read over the answers and told us that they are there if we ever decide we want to use them. Ok, thanks. That's not going to happen for me. In Lit, we talked about the 2nd act and also our impressions of the play. That was a fun class because we all wanted to talk about the squires. After class I went home for lunch and rested until I had to leave again at 5:30pm. Philosophy class was business as usual and then I came home again. Nights around here are pretty relaxed (if you haven't noticed) and nothing particularly exciting happens, but I enjoy them :) It's my chance to talk to my "family", and my "mom" in particular. I think nighttime is definitely my favorite part of the day.
Thursday was fun, too. I had class at 11:30am and it didn't take very long, which was nice. While waiting for lunch, Moriko and I went wandering around the shops in Zocodover. I ended up getting two scarves for 5€, which isn't so bad! I didn't bring any scarves with me from home, so my neck was getting a bit cold... Lunch rolled around and we met up with everyone to eat. After lunch, we still had an hour and a half before class, so we continued wandering around. 3:30pm rolled around and we went to class. It looked like we were going to get out early, but of course that wasn't the case. On the bus home, Moriko and I decided we wanted to go the mall. So we stopped by my house to drop off my backpack and then hers so she could do the same thing and then off we went to the mall! It was really fun just wandering around and looking at all the clothes. I wound up buying 2 long sleeve shirts because I only brought two with me from home (what was I thinking?!), one of which is my "lounge around the house" shirt, so I really only had one to wear out of the house. It was time for new ones. They weren't terribly expensive, so I bought two. I also needed a new pair of pajama pants... again. The last pair I bought here turned out to be too small around my legs (even though the waist fit fine) and I wound up with a huge hole in one leg. So the ones I bought at the mall this time are HUGE, which is alright because they are just pajama pants after all, AND they are flannel!!! :D And they are Disney! I love Disney! We got back from the mall around 8:30pm and I ate dinner and then watched El Barco with my family (the first time in 3 weeks!) and then went to bed because I knew I was going to be up early the next morning.
Friday was Segovia excursion day with the Fundación. How I ended up going is actually a funny story... I was talking to my "mom" at some point during the week and she asked me what I was up to this weekend. I told her nothing that I knew of, but probably nothing on Friday since my friends were going to be in Segovia. She all but shooed me out the door, telling me to put my name on the list. So I did. And I'm really glad I did! Segovia was one of the cities I wanted to go to, but was afraid I wouldn't have the time and/or money to get there. It's biggest attraction is the Roman aqueduct. I had learned about it in various Spanish classes and was eager to see it in real life. It was amazing!!! It is held together with pure gravity and no cement or anything and it's been like that for around 2000 years. Besides the aqueduct, we also saw that Alcazar (got a tour of the inside, too) and climbed it's tower. 150 stairs. Really really steep stairs. We were all huffing and puffing by the time we got to the top. José Luis told us that they once brought a group here and they were stuck behind a group of old people trying to climb the stairs. He said it took 20 minutes to get to the top. We just laughed at that and were very glad that it wasn't us! From the Alcazar we made our way towards the aqueduct. We passed many plazas and a number of churches. For a better idea of what the walk was like, check out my album on Facebook. When we got the aqueduct, we all stopped and went, "Woah." We got a brief explanation about it (how it's only held together by gravity and no cement or anything between the rocks and how it's been there for at least 2000 years or so) and then we were allowed to go off and take pictures and whatnot. Then at 2:00pm we were escorted to a restaurant (with "eh" food) for lunch. After lunch, we had 30 minutes to wander before making our way back towards the bus to come back to Toledo. We got back to Toledo much earlier than we thought, so Kami, Moriko and I decided we wanted to go see Breaking Dawn ("Amanecer" it's called here) in Spanish. So we went with another friend, Bárbara, and headed to the mall (again). I think we decided that it was wayyyy better in Spanish. Bella actually had emotion in her voice! It ended and all of us were like, "What are we going to do until July when the next part comes out?!" We enjoyed our Spanish movie experience. My favorite part was how they assign seats in the theater, so you don't have to get there ridiculously early to get good seats. That was quite nice. I wish we did it that way in the States. I got back around 12:00am and only my "brother" was home. I tried to stay up and wait for my "parents", but I was so tired that I crashed around 1:00am before they got home.
Saturday was just a normal weekend day, we went to Paraíso to my "grandparents'" house where we ate lunch and they did some house work stuff. I fell asleep and ended up sleeping most of the afternoon. Which turned out to be almost a good thing because I was going to go out with Kami and Moriko. But they accidentally missed the last normal bus and wound up waiting at least an hour for a late night bus to come by, but I'm not sure whether it did or not. After waiting for an hour, I got cold and headed home again. My "parents" were really confused when I was back so early... Haha... Anyway, when I got back I couldn't feel my toes, so they told me to go climb in bed. I did and was asleep almost immediately.
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