More Santiago

It's been harder to find time to write in this blog than I originally thought it would...hopefully once we get to Madrid and finish orientation I'll have more free time. This week has been completely packed. I've been waking up around 8am every day for breakfast (which most people sleep right through)...breakfast definitely isn't Spain's strong point, but it isn't bad. 9-10:45 is our literature class, where our professor tries to fit 100s of years of Spanish literature into 7 class days. Then comes siesta #1 of the day, which I desperately try to fit in before the 11:15 class (which some people come late to after sleeping through their alarms). 11:15-1 is our history of Spain class, where our professor Domingo covers about 200 years of Spanish history a day (Domingo's son, also named Domingo, is the monitor that has been taking us around Santiago). Luckily, the professors are used to lecturing to American students, so they talk at an absurdly slow pace that I can actually understand. It's been giving me a false sense of confidence though...I still can't understand most Spaniards on the streets, but I always expect that I will be able to. After class is siesta #2 until comida, a groggy lunch of mysterious foods (usually some kind of rice dish, potatoes, ham, and a "salad" that consists of a plate of lettuce), then siesta #3 after lunch. The number of siestas we take is definitely not indicative of Spanish culture though...we just haven't been able to find time to sleep that much at night, and calling all of our daytime sleeping "siestas" makes us feel more Spanish. Apparently, most Spaniards don't sleep anymore during their post-lunch siesta time, just relax, which is a little bit of a disappointment. I could really get used to daily naps.

Sometimes in the afternoons, we have culture class with Maria Jove, who attempts to mitigate any faux pas we might make. Never ask for tap water at a restaurant, for example. You're not expected to tip at Spanish restaurants, so you pay for absolutely everything at the table...including water and any bread they may bring you (even if you don't ask for it). She's showed us how to greet people with 2 kisses on the cheeks, and taught us how to subtlely make space between you and any unwanted male predator at a bar (hold your drink way out in front of you, or else Spaniards like to talk to you inches away from your face).

In the afternoons, we've been meeting with an art history professor in Santiago's cathedral, and he's been explaining Santiago's long history to us. The cathedral was basically the first thing in the village, then as pilgrims began coming to visit it, a town grew around the cathedral. So around the cathedral are narrow cobblestoned streets (that cars still somehow manage to maneuver), and are part of the old town, while farther out from the cathedral is the more modern area of the city, known as new town. We spend almost all of our time in old town, since it's generally where the best restaurants and bars are (...and for the history, of course). Thursday we got a tour that allowed us to go on the roof of the cathedral, where there were absolutely gorgeous views. I'm pretty sure the tour was something that wouldn't have ever been allowed in the U.S...the slopes of the roof were kind of steep, and I'm sure some American would find a way to roll right off the roof and sue. But anyway, it was amazing for us to be able to go up there. I couldn't really understand much of what the tour guide was saying, since she was talking way too fast, but oh well.

That night, Emma, Jordana and I went to a delicious Italian restaurant for dinner...we all needed a night where our main dish wasn't tortilla española. As delicious as Spanish food is, the Italian break was much needed. Afterwards, we went to Matate, Santiago's chocolate bar. It's my new favorite place. They have the most delicious chocolate (which is like hot chocolate, but SO MUCH BETTER). For some reason, every time we go we're pretty much the only ones there, but I'm kind of obsessed.

Yesterday, after our second to last day of classes of orientation (and multiple siestas), our monitores attempted to take us to a traditional Gallego concert. (Gallego is the language they speak in Galicia, which is kind of like a cross between Spanish and Portuguese.) Unfortunately, the concert didn't happen, so we ended up wandering around parks with our monitores. Nico, the most outgoing and friendly of the monitores, was running around with a light-up star wand claiming he was "Nico Potter". We later ended up going to CoffeePop, which is Nico's favorite bar and the one we start off with just about every night we go out. After several times of being there, we finally realized that it was a gay bar...as was every bar that Nico had been taking us. How we missed this I'm not entirely sure. They were all a lot of fun though, and seeing as how Nico was our link to the Spanish nightlife scene, none of us were really complaining. After CoffeePop we ended up at a bar that was playing some American music, so we danced there for a while. Americans seem to dance a lot more at bars than Europeans do...at this bar, Europeans were dancing too, but at a lot of places we've gone we end up dancing in the middle of the floor while the Spaniards just smile at us. I'm not sure how well we're assimilating in Santiago, but I know that Madrid will be a completely different scene.

Today, we're going shopping at the centro commercial, then potentially going out later. Tomorrow morning we're going on a excursión to Portugal, and then we have our finals on Monday! I'll try to be better about updating more regularly, so I don't have to write such long posts every time.