Class, Culture, and Fashion!

Woo, I have a little time to write!!

The last few days have been absolutely crazy! Carrie, the other girl living with my host family, got here on Monday at 2 and I've pretty much been busy since then! The first night she was here, we explored the neighborhood a little more and got to see Parque del Oeste. Nieves emphasizes that you can jog there (she pretends to jog and be out of breath whenever she reminds me of this hahah.) Anyway, Carrie and I are 99% alike, and it's super cool :D

My orientation was crazy too, but at least that went by really fast. Everyone was stressed when we started talking about changing your schedule!! I get stressed from other people being stressed, so by the end of the day, I was stressed too, and I don’t even have to change my schedule.

My first class started yesterday, my Spanish class for exchange students. It’s great because we’re mostly all the same level of Spanish, so if we struggle, it’s okay, because most of the time we know what the other person means. And the professor is so nice! This is really weird to say but she reminds me a lot of Miss Grotke from the TV show Recess. Ahahah, nerd alert! Anyway, the class is easy so far, but we have to go through a week of “intensive” Spanish, which means class is every day for 3 hours straight. It can be a little boring, but I’m actually doing well.

Fashion! Oh the fashion. All the boys reading this can just skip over this paragraph since it’s girly stuff. Here’s what’s in: purple, black, scarves, tall boots, and tights. Seriously, there is so much black and purple here, it’s almost bizarre. Scarves and black tights are almost a necessity with outfits. Everyone and their mother have a pair of tall boots. And black is what outfits are based upon. This is the winter season clothing though; now that we’re coming into spring/summer season, the stores are putting up a lot of khaki, white, and lighter colors. So far I’ve bought a Spanish designer purse from Salvador Bachiller, a leather jacket from Stradivarius, a skirt from Zara, and short boots from El Corte Ingles. It’s stuff I wouldn’t normally wear in the United States, but I love it 8)

Culture! Wow, things are different here! I can’t even begin to explain all the differences. Things are similar to the United States here, but not, at the same time. The toilets flush weird. Everybody owns a washing machine in their kitchen, but nobody owns a drier: they just hang clothes to dry in the courtyard. They iron EVERYTHING because it all dries funny from hanging on a clothesline. They have blinds outside the windows in the bedrooms, which makes it really dark in the rooms, if the blinds are shut. I can’t even tell if the sun is up yet when I get up in the morning, even if it’s already 10:00.

Oh, and sometimes, the water shuts off. (I’ve only seen it once, but it was really bizarre. I went to turn on a faucet and all that came out was an airy, creepy sound.) The city is supplied from aquifers in all of the parks, and there’s a monitor of the water there. Sometimes, if people are too wasteful with water, the city shuts the water off for a little while to scare the crap out of everyone. Generally this works, but it creates some other odd customs. Nieves always keeps two giant bottles of water in the refrigerator, because if the water turns off and you’re thirsty…well…

Man, I’m tired! I went to Carnaval today (that’s the Spanish way of spelling it,) and it was so awesome. But I’ll write about that later since I’m about to pass out. Hasta luego!