Try it English Style

So here´s a short blog in English for my fellows (read: audience) in America.

Got a super cool call the other day, e-hem, I mean the FOURTH of July from the self titled "Best Brother." He truly is great and we talked through crazily-crappy reception for a few minutes before calling it quits--I had to get ready to go to my salsa dance lessons. I´d give the overall dance experience a 7. I subtracted the three points because I had to dance with a girl when we paired up and she really lacks dancing skills/experience, so I had to "play the guy" a.k.a. keep her on time. That really wasn´t so fun and she was pretty much hanging on me the whole time. It gives a new perspective to what guys have to deal with, though. After the lesson, we went to a chiquita club to practice our new grooves (with the dance instructor, mind you) and ended up watching the freakin´incredible end of the Italy-Germany game. Whew-ie! We did end up dancing a little, but I cut out early and went to bed--the dancing and the three hours of walking plus hour jog took it out of me....

Wednesday after class (9-1:15) and siesta (3-4), I met up to go to the pool with the API group. I don´t have a bathing suit, so I just sat by the pool and talked to our director´s sister. Which brings me to a topic about Spanish culture--the families here seem almost (key on almost) excessively close. For example, my host mother owns a building with four apartments. Her parents live on the ground floor, some random guy lives in the middle, and her sister and her sister´s family live two steps from our front door. There is an outer door that faces the street and this one remains locked, but the three interior front doors of each separate apartment are pretty much open the entire day so that any given family member can mindlessly roam from apartment to apartment (the random guy is not included in any of this, hence the title "random"). That´s the end of my little story here.

So, I did the pool thing. Then, Emily and I ran through some ab exercises--short and painful. Then, I speed walked home to have dinner (@ 9 pm) and take a 30 second rinse down before meeting up with Carmen (explanation to follow) at the Van Dyck Cinemas.*

Carmen is my intercambio partner. She is a doctor finishing up the last year of her fellowship in cardiology. She is traveling to England in September to do some research and wants to practice her English before she leaves. It works like this: we meet and talk in English for "un ratito" (a little while) and then we switch and speak Spanish. The night progresses for several of these rounds... we really hit it off and ended up walking all over Salamanca and speaking for 1.5 hours. It gets even better. She wants to meet everyday that we both can meet!! She is working a 2 hour shift today, but we will meet again on Friday evening! We have already selected topics for Friday´s conversation. That means I have "deberes" (works/homework) for school and for my intercambio!!

In case I haven´t already told you... Spanish television sucks. It really is painful to watch, more so than Jerry Springer, etc. Anyway, Simpsons is somewhat tolerable as they actually have half-way normal voices. Yesterday afternoon and today before lunch, I watched a little bit of a serie whose name I can´t remember, but it is tolerable AND understandable. So, that may become a tradition to watch it every afternoon to practice listening some more. I´ve already been to two movies--Almódovar´s "Volver" and somebody´s "La educación de las hadas". The first I could understand and I would definitely recommend. The second one appeared to be interesting and fun for those around me. I was pretty much 40% lost the entire time because that´s the amount this 8 yr. old kid talked and slurred just about every word.

Anywho, gotta go... it´s about 6 and I have to meet up with Emily to run before dance class tonight. Pictures to follow some other day (perhaps tomorrow if I get lucky =)

abrazos fuertes...

*I am having trouble pronouncing the name of the cinema with a Spanish accent and I think that I have actually offended a few people when talking about the cinemas. Side note to this side note: the cinema is having a summer film festival that I am contemplating purchasing tickets to because they are super cheap--like 6 tickets for 12 euros!