Classes

OK, yeah, I still go to school.

The Hamilton Center is a 25- to 40-minute trip from our apartment, including the metro ride and walking to/from stops. It's very near a bunch of other schools; there are always lots of students of varying ages walking around. My schedule doesn't match exactly with my roommate's, so I usually ride alone. On the metro I've been reading and/or eavesdropping on other people's conversations (good for learning Spanish!).

The center itself is, in a word, comfortable. On the first floor are the directors' offices, the teachers' lounge, and a computer room; the second floor has the (modest one-room) library and classrooms; and the basement is basically a student lounge with more computers and tables/couches. Those make up the spaces I'm aware of daily, anyway.

Classes in general are pretty different from those at Colby, but I'm pretty sure they're also different from typical ones in Spain. My class sizes range from around 12-30 students -- typical-ish for Colby, small for Spain -- and there's never any discussion: solid lecturing, from start to finish. (They're all twice a week and 1.5 hours each, which is a little longer than I'm used to.) But we are, of course, all Americans, and still act the way we think we're supposed to. It's normal for Spanish students, on the other hand, to talk, copy, and text straight through classes, and nobody thinks anything of it. Or so I hear.

Oh, and no classes on Fridays (specific to our program, not to Spain). Good deal.

In particular:

(I like all my classes a lot, so I'm going to save myself the trouble of saying so in each part.)

1) Cervantes' Don Quijote. Not hard to figure out what we do in this class. Sometimes it's a little difficult to sit through (9 am both days) but for the most part it's tolerable. Eugenio, the professor, incorporates a lot of European literary history and philosophy, which I only got a little of in high school. He also gives everyone in the class weird nicknames, or just other regular names that happen not to be theirs.

2) Spain and the Process of European Unity. This is history, starting from after WWII leading up until today. I just took Intro to International Relations last semester, so it's interesting hearing about some of the same things in a different language/context. Tomás is a good and fairly organized lecturer, and, like all of them, is really into his subject.

3) Subjectivity and Identity in Spanish Poetry in the 20th Century. Pretty much everyone has been enamored of this class, and professor, from the beginning. I didn't want to take it initially (schedule conflicts mandated), but I'm glad I am. It's almost more philosophy than poetry, and we're practically spoon-fed daily epiphanies.

4) Advanced Grammar. Pretty standard, a more nit-picky look at all things grammar. I took a class like this at Colby, but here it's different still; in class we learn a lot more colloquial words and phrases, and maybe go somewhat more in-depth.

To reiterate, I think the best thing about these classes is that the professors are so in love with their own subjects. I'm sure that's the case everywhere, but maybe here it just shows more.

The workload isn't bad so far; other than reading Don Quijote, I generally don't have too much to do outside of class. None of the real stuff -- papers and tests -- has started yet though, so we'll see.

A Week in Madrid + Toledo

First, a tragedy: I think my camera's broken.

Yeah. Moving on.

I said I would post about classes, but a lot happened last week so I'll write those down before I forget.

Last Sunday, Joslyn and I went to a little café in our neighborhood to do homework. Nothing exciting, but it's a nice place, and we went back yesterday evening: I won't be surprised if it turns into tradition. :)

My friend Margit (from Colby) has been here for Jan Plan and so I got to see her a bunch of times, which was fantastic. She spent last spring (with Hamilton, like me) as well as the summer here in Madrid, so she filled me in and showed me around, etc. I'd met up with her the week before as well, but lastWednesday, we went to a scrumptious chocolatería called Cacao Sampaka; Friday, we had lunch with her boyfriend, Chema, and his British roommate, Yoni, and then walked around a ton after more dessert. (Desserts here are AMAZING.) It was all really great; I'm glad I got to see her.

One of the classes offered at Hamilton is Contemporary Spanish Theatre; I really wanted to take it, but it coincides with my E.U. class so I can't. Every so often the class goes to real productions in Madrid, and for the first one Luis (director) bought a few extra for the first few students who asked. :) So I got to go. The genre of the piece was Zarzuela, a type of Spanish musical, and the show itself was called "El dúo de la Africana." We didn't really understand any of it. But that's ok! Paco (director) took the whole group out for drinks afterwards and afterwards I went to dinner with Will, Elizabeth and Marie at Vips (a Mexico-based chain, ha).

Wednesday (after the chocolate place) we went out again because the twins (Elizabeth and Marie) were going to Paris for the weekend and wanted to do something before they left. We found a nice bar whose name I don't remember, and it was fun. The downside of all this though: it makes all our clothes smell like smoke, yuck.

(For Mamu: I'm not actually drinking. :) Jeez!)

On Thursday was a big celebration for the Chinese New Year, and Joslyn helpfully planned an outing for a bunch of people. After a half-fiasco at the Chinese restaurant -- they had to open early for us; and we all had to order through Tiffany, the only girl who spoke Chinese; and one of the soups was almost too spicy to touch -- we got to the stadium, which is really near our house. The event was interesting... at least the parts with song and dance in costumes. Most of the rest was in Chinese, so nothing much to say there, but I liked at least being in a huge place with a ton of people. Is that weird?

Saturday, we (Joslyn, Will and I) took a day trip to Toledo, a small town nearby. We took the superfast train (25 minutes) which was, not gonna lie, one of my favorite parts. So smoooth and fast. Haha. Anyway, the pueblo itself was really great. Lots of old buildings, cobblestone streets, stores and cafés, etc. I have no pictures though (see above). We got to see three museums for free: the Museums of Santa Cruz, of Visigoth Culture and the Synagogue El Tránsito. Definitely worth the 15€ round-trip train fare.

Hokay that's it. Classes NEXT time.