Today was a long day, especially after a leisurely Sunday. I woke up early and got ready for my first day of orientation at the University. I took the metro and met up with the rest of the group. Some people are within walking distance, but I unfortunately am not. Luckily, one girl from the program lives in my building and another guy is on the same block. We had our conversation groups and language classes in La Facultad de Filologia (or basically the College of Filology). The university is made up of many facultades. This Facultad was the first building of the university and it is gorgeous. With high cathedral ceilings and gardens, it takes up a few blocks. After our classes, we took the metro as a group to the main part of campus which is not near La Facultad de Filologia in the Old Town of Barcelona. The reason that the campus was built in two parts, was because during the late 60’s, when many young students in the U.S. and all over the world were especially unruly and desiring changes, Franco did not want to expand the school in the center of Barcelona, but rather on the outskirts. The logic was to prevent any turmoil among the young from affecting the main part of the city. We walked around all the Facultades, because all non-program classes are held on this campus. I saw the Faculdad de Economica which has 20,000 students. In all the school has 90,000 students. Unlike in the U.S., students don’t go away for school, but they live at home and attend the university. Also, the students don’t take classes outside of their Facultad; they have a track to follow in each of the Facultades.
After our tour of the campus, we returned to the Old Town and walked around La Facultad de Historia y Geografia. We had a two hour break from lunch and I went with some girls to Starbucks, where they bought ice coffees (so hot out today!) and we ate our bocadillas. My host mom packed me a bocadilla con jamon (ham) and a bocadilla con salchicha (sausage). I had eaten my apple and pear earlier in the day because I couldn’t wait until two for lunch (which they refer to as comida and not almuerzo, like we have learned in Spanish class every year). After lunch, Carmen, the director talked to us about classes at the university. We had a break and I spent it doing my homework with a few other people. After our break, we had class from 6:30 until 8. We take a mini course on art history, and the professor who will be teaching class for the next few days, will also come on our trip through northern Spain this weekend. We leave on Friday to visit Leon and Castill, and a few other places. Our professor will also teach us on our trip. In our first class, we were lectured on the period of Greek art in Spain, specifically the Classical period and the Neoclassical period. It was our first non-grammar class and I had no trouble following, as the Spanish classes I take at Bowdoin are lectures in Spanish as opposed to learning how to conjugate verbs. For a lot of people in the class, it was a new experience to actually be taught history and not the language in Spanish. I think I am very well prepared to take these classes compared to some other students. After class, I took the metro home and my host mom made a dish with cooked spinach, beans and raisins. The other plate because there are always two, had fried fish (no idea what kind because I am no fish connoisseur) and cut up tomatoes. I had a kiwi for dessert. For the rest of the night, I plan on studying some Spanish, more specifically I want to review the subjunctive tenses and when to use them. I know generally when, but on our homework there were some tricky questions. Hasta manana.
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