A week of firsts

Although the actual school week has just begun, I have attended one session of each of the classes I will be taking during my time here, and have decided on a schedule which I think will, straight from In Bruges(one of the best movies of 2008), "strike a balance between culture and fun". I have 8 books to read, a paper to write on each, a small handful of mid-terms, and 5 finals to take. All my classes are small, the largest I believe has 26 people in it, and I anticipate getting to know my classmates fairly well, if for no other reason than necessity.
In the mornings I have my funner classes, Spanish Grammar and Spanish Conversation. I think these will tend to resemble high school spanish more than anything, even these first days there was a lot of group activities whose sole purpose was to facilitate discussion in spanish. My new friend Brady is fortunately in both, everyone else who walked in seemed to know someone else from their home university and these pairs immediately sequestered themselves. After lunch and a little siesta, I come back for Spanish Linguistics, Analysis of Spanish Literature, and Spanish Literature and Cinema, which will probably be the most challenging Spanish courses I've ever taken. Here are the papers, the presentations, the books to be read. In these classes, being able to understand and produce Spanish is just the beginning, now we take those language skills and apply them to a subject besides the actual language. It's like taking and American literature class, except in another language and about literature I've never even heard of. It's less about understanding each word that comes out of the professor's mouth and more about understanding the concept that he's talking about.
After walking to the bank 3 times, on Monday I finally got around to changing a few of my dollars into Euros. The previous times I discovered you need a passport to make the switch, and that the bank has different hours than what you would expect. With this cash burning a hole in my pocket, I went today to the Zubiarta, a large mall right across the river from the aparment, and bought myself a body sponge. Apparently, washcloths aren't customary, it was either a sponge or a lufa, and having tried neither before, I went with the manlier of the two(time will tell if this was a wise choice, as I took it out of its packaging, the sponge bore a rougher texture than I imagined). Tomorrow or the next day I'm going back to buy some floss, another toiletry item I neglected to bring along.

After a week, I find myself missing some things that are expected, and some that surprised me:

1. Of course, friends and family, Ann most of all.
2. Pumpkin Pie. On the first dinner back in the states, that's what I'm going to ask for as a dessert.
3. Koin. It's been an interesting transition from living in complete community to being extremely isolated, especially the first few days.
4. Campus Rec. It's not even that I miss the physical place, but having a job in general. Beyond the financial reasons, I miss spending time I know I'm getting payed for.
5. Going to church. On Sunday I listened to Dr. Boltinghouse's sermon from the previous week, and had my own little worship service in my room, but I genuinely missed worshipping around other believers. Even if I don't have a clue what they're saying, I'm going to a Cathedral next week just for that reason.
6. Peanut Butter. You have no idea.
7. Animal Crackers. These have been the first times I've watched Gossip Girl without a tub of Animal Crackers beside me, and it honestly just isn't the same. Obviously the lack of Jer and Miller's presence throws me out of my element anyway, but no animal crackers was the straw that broke the camel's back.
8. Singing along with Jordan Meiss as he plays the guitar. Our favorite is a folk-esque version of "Hey Ya" by Outkast, and I miss making my way down to the Icebox(his room at Koin), already hearing him pluck away at the guitar, then sitting down on the couch and getting started with "My baby don't mess around..."

Tomorrow, and on all Wednesdays, I don't have class until 4, which probably means a run, doing some of my first homework assignments(just some reading for now), and taking it easy for most of the day. I'll get some of the books I'm supposed to read throughout the semester tomorrow, and will be interested to see if I can actually read them. One of the exchange students who lived here before left a Spanish-English dictionary behind, and I expect I'll be cracking that open once every other line, give or take.

Hasta later