Andalucians, Quijote, y El Alcázar.

So maybe I lied. This one isn't shorter. Just letting you know so you don't feel swindled when you realize how much time you've wasted reading my random musings...

I was typing in Spanish the other day, thought the word "cuando," and typed "when." Go figure.

The accent in Andalucia is really interesting. Spanish here sometimes sounds a bit like Italian. For instance, the first night that I got to my house, Victor (whose name they pronounce "Veetso") was showing me around and it took me a little bit to realize that the word "etse" meant "este." But that's just how they pronounce things! In the Andalucian accent, it's also common to drop the letter "s" from the ends of words. For instance, "hasta las nueve" becomes "hatsa la nueve." Another idiosyncrasy, to use a shnazzy word, is swallowing the "d" in words ending in "-ado." So, when I meet people now, I say "encantao" instead of "encantado" (they're not as big on "mucho gusto" on this side of the Atlantic). Regarding words that aren't said here, you'll get looked at funny if you say computadora, ahorita, chido, refrigerador, etc. Here they say ordenador, ahora mismo, guay, frigerífico. Oh Spain.

Other differences between Spain and Mexico: THE FOOD. For some reason (and I know I'm not the only one to have made this rather naïve assumption), I expected Spanish food to be at least a little bit similar to Mexican food, seeing as they speak the same language. Well, definitely not true. It seems that people here in general aren't bit fans of spicy food. And not just spicy food, but most spices in general. They like mayo, frying things in olive oil, and seafood. But that's ok. A lot of the food is pretty good actually. Just a lot more European than I expected.

More words I'm learning in Spanish before English: appertain, picaresque, Bucephalus.

I'm also realizing how weird some things we say in English are. For instance, let's consider the word "any." It makes complete sense to me in contexts like, "Are there any cats left in the catamaran?" However, what about the sentence, "Can you turn the music up any louder?" What does "any" mean there? Or how about the word "never." Often when we forget to do something and later realize it, we say, "Shoot! I never went to Costco!" However, that's in fact not the case. We've definitely been to Costco before. So why do we say "never?" Just some food for thought.

Classes. My classes have been good! I start off the day with Spanish literature with Salva, who is hilarious! The first day of class he told us about the time he visited the states. He was staying with a family in Moorpark, and one afternoon decided to go on a walk. He knew he just had to remember that his house had an American flag out front and a basketball hoop...hahah, needless to say, he got lost. Also, he was astonished at American flooring. You see, carpets don't really happen much out here in Spain. They've got hard floors pretty much everywhere, or at least everywhere I've been. My next class is Don Quijote, with José María. He is incredibly knowledgeable (I was gonna say smart, but it didn't sound as sophisticated). He also teaches my fourth class, Tres Culturas. He calls himself more of a historian than a literature type of guy, but he definitely knows his lit, especially since he's teaching a whole class on one book. My third class, between Quijote and Tres Culturas, is Gramática Avanzada with Carmen. I love this class. It always goes by really quickly, and I feel like everything we're learning comes up all the time when I head home for the day. I've also really liked the Quijote class. The language is definitely archaic at points, but Cervantes is a genius. The whole book is a huge parody on a really popular genre of the 16th and 17th century, los libros de caballerías (books about knights-errant). The fact that he wrote a novel as immense as Quijote that is complete satire is really impressive. And he wrote it so well that a lot of people at the time thought it was just a really good book within the genre of the caballerías. Here are some facts that we learned in that class yesterday:

Don Quijote contains 88,431 words, of which about 22,800 are unique.

The normal person in the 16th and 17th centuries had a grasp of 13,000-15,000 words.

In the 19th century, the number had diminished to 10,000-12,000 words.

Hoy en día, the average person has a grasp of only about 5,000 words.

On top of that, kids that drop out of school early (or I think that's what José María was saying) utilize only about 500-1,000 words for all their communication.

Pretty crazy. I remember our 12th grade English teacher comparing the book 1984 to what's happening in our world today, and he brought up that example.

PSA: It's really windy outside right now.

Anyhow, on to some picture! For Steph's birthday, we went to the palace. It was really beautiful. Hope these pictures convey that!



This is what we thought was the entrance, until we tried to enter and found out it was the exit. Whoops.



Here's Stephanie, me, and Caprice! Steph and Caprice are rooming together here and both go to Wheaton.



A couple details inside and outside the palace.



Caprice, yours truly, and Jules enjoy probably the most elaborate bench we've ever sat on.



Pots.



Stairs.



Old Stuff.



Ladies. By the way, our program has 9 guys and somewhere over 30 girls. Westmont ratio, anyone?



I'm done writing captions. Feel free to think of your own!







They had peacocks!

Well, I'm out. Next blog post: our trip to Córdoba! We went yesterday with our whole group (instead of having class :) and I'm excited to show you guys pictures of the cathedral/mosque we visited (the building's been both Muslim and Christian; crazy!).

Tsa luego!