Here Comes the Sun... Do do do do... It's All Right

Things have definitely been looking up the past few days. The culture shock of earlier this week was much stronger than I had anticipated. But, we quickly are getting into the swing of things and are beginning to really enjoy the time we have here. The weather has been much friendlier, which has a big impact on my mood.

A typical day for me begins by waking up at 8:30 am, showering, eating breakfast and walking about 20 minutes to school. My first class starts at 10 and it is a culture class where we cover Spanish movies, music and television. My teacher is super cool and it's a very upbeat class which keeps me awake and going. Then we have a 30 minute break to finish up homework, drink cafe con leche, talk to friends or scan the internet. After the break, I have another culture class which is much less exciting, which I'm sitting in now. The lady is really nice but the material is more about politics and geography so of course I don't like it as much right now. It will probably be more useful in the long run than my other class.

After classes, we normally go home for lunch around 2:30 and work on homework or take a siesta until about 4:30. There is normally an activity around 5. We have taken tours of the various barrios, gone to churrerías (where they sell churros) and heladerías (where they sell ice cream), visited several important historical Spanish buildings and spent time in the cathedral (one of the biggest and oldest in the world). The activities are extremely interesting, but sometimes they go into too much detail and it's all in Spanish, so it makes it hard to pay attention. We generally go home after that for dinner around 9 and then we either do homework and go to bed or we go out with the group in El Centro.

El Centro is so beautiful. The streets are extremely small with no rhythm that I can figure out yet. The buildings are so beautiful and look just like they do in the movies. They have tons of little bars, cafes and restaurants at every corner and people are out all hours of the night. My favorite place we've been is the carbonería. It is an authentic Spanish bar and every night they have flamenco dancers or musicians play. It is by far the coolest thing I have done in the city so far.

And finally, there are so many beautiful gardens here! I am going to go picture crazy, so keep looking out for my flickr account I'm about to start!