Friday, January 16, 2009

El Comienzo

The flights went smoothly, aside from an unexpected 5-6 hour layover in London. We finally arrived in Toledo around 9pm on Wednesday night and went straight to sleep since we had all been awake for over 30 hours. Thursday morning we got up early for our language assessments and class registration. I am taking classes on Spanish culture & literature, grammar, conversation, and film. Then it was siesta time! Everyday from about 2 to 4pm the entire town shuts down for almuerzo y siesta (lunch and a nap). We fell in love with la siesta right away since we were all still jet-lagged from the day before. After siesta we explored the town, had orientation, then dinner. The streets are very narrow, most of the streets are only wide enough for one small car - and they go very fast. Whenever we're walking and hear a car coming we have to stand against the building walls to make room for the car. There are no separate buildings, they're all connected and 3 to 6 stories high. La Fundación is very nice inside, my friend Mel and I share a room, and we share a bathroom with 2 other girls. We have wireless internet, meals made for us, and the classrooms are just one floor above us so its a pretty nice setup.

My friends Rachel and Mel met a lot of new people, mostly Americans though. After dinner we spent some time talking then got ready to go out. Around 11:30, 5 girls and I went looking for a fun bar...it took us a while but we found one called O'Brien's (yes, it was one of 2 Irish bars). A lot of students from La Fundación were there also. After that, we all went to El Circulo de Arte which looked like a museum but was actually a club. It did not get crowded until around 1:30 or so. They played a lot of American music and we all danced and had a lot of fun. We left around 3:30 (which is early for Spaniards) and proceeded to get lost in the maze of streets that is Toledo. We eventually found our way back to La Fundación. Friday morning we took a guided tour of both the old and new parts of Toledo. After the tour we went to Movistar and bought phones for the semester; 29 euro for the phones and we pay by the minute so its a decent deal. After lunch and siesta we did a little shopping then had dinner. Tomorrow we're planning on taking a bus to the mall outside old Toledo (Toledo antigua).

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