Boots, Jazz, Opera and Classes

(Apparently the comments function was disabled on the blog, but I fixed that so now you can all make me feel loved and comment away!)

It´s only been two days since the last post and I´ve already got so much to write about. Let´s work backwards. So I found out today that two girls from my European Union class go to Maryland too. They´re both government and politics majors as well, and it was so weird to be talking about classes back at home with people I just met here. Nonetheless, it is nice to know there´s someone here who can understand when I complain about advisors or classes or how I hope the apartment lease stuff for next year goes through.

Moving on to yesterday. As I mentioned earlier, one of Señora´s daughters, Maria Carmen, is an opera singer, and this month she´s in town performing an operetta. Well, guess who Señora asked to accompany her to the performance! That´s right, this Friday yours truly will be enjoying a lavish evening of high class culture with some personal connections to the performer herself! I told you I love this woman.

Yesterday evening, Amber and I went to a jazz concert at one of the cultural centers in the northern part of the city. Now, nothing against classical music, but boy was the jazz a refreshing change. The concert started off with the four guys tuning their instruments, but amid all the ruido, or noise, there was some semblance of a tune. The more they played, the clearer it got, and then, all of a sudden, it was music. I loved seeing how the musicians were able to change the sounds of their instruments, for example giving the trumpet a more nasal sound by putting something into the bell or playing the drums with these brush-like instruments instead of sticks to give it a softer feel. Things like this are why even in the age of recording and digitization, live music will never go away. Kind of like how in the age of television and internet news, newspapers still survive. (Geez, I really am a journalism dork :-P)

I must admit though, the music and the invitation weren´t the only things that made it such a good day. You see, I went shopping on Monday after having a somewhat frustrating day at school, and I finally found the perfect pair of boots! Well, no, that´s kind of a lie. I found these boots a few weeks ago, but weren´t sure if they truly were "the ones." But I gave them another try on Monday and decided that they, in fact, were. (It didn´t hurt that they were 10 euros cheaper from when I first saw them). And although nothing seemed to fit when I went shopping on Saturday, Monday must have been my lucky day because everything finally did.

So, yesterday I was finally able to dress like a true madrileña, rocking the whole skirt with tights and boots look that these Europeans pull off so well. (And, no, it is NOT the same as the skirt with leggings and Uggs look that all the Americans unfortunately wear). I guess it´s a true sign of materialism when articles of clothing make you feel that good, but hey, feeling good is feeling good, right?

Anyways, seeing as we´re now a week into the semester, and after all I am here as a student, I´m sure you´re wondering how classes are going. So here goes - first up, EU class:

The European Union: History, Culture and Institutions (My only English class): Seeing as we´ve met three times so far and have yet to even begin discussing anything that remotely resembles the European Union, I´m not expecting to actually learn a lot from this class. Which kind of sucks because I would actually like to learn about this strange organization, since it´s too confusing to attempt to understand on my own. The professor gets off-topic very easily, and he likes talking about obscure ´80s bands.

España Contemporánea: This is my Spanish politics class and I love it. Marisa, my professor, also taught the culture portion of my January course and she´so animated. I love this class because I´ve never taken a European history class, which I regret now, because European history is so much more interesting than American history. As Marisa said, American history is like a straight line. We´ve had one constitution, one form of government, and everything, for the most part, has gone pretty well for us. Things in Europe followed a slightly more bumpy path, and that´s what makes it so interesting. For example, since 1812, Spain has had 11 different constitutions. Eleven! For us that is totally bizarre, because, for me at least, constitution is almost synonomous with "set in stone." Today, we were discussing golpes del estado, or coup d´etats, and how the military was going around the peninsula from 1814 to 1820 declaring that such and such town was no longer under King Fernando VII´s rule, until they finally stood up to the king himself in 1820. That is completely incomprehensible to us, that the military can just go wandering around taking control. Anyways, I could go on and on, but I´ll save that for another entry. Overall, I´m going to be learning a lot in this class, and I love it.

Literatura Medieval: Yes, I am taking medieval literature. In Spanish. Originally I was taking a Spanish linguistics class, but it turned out to be boring, and it wasn´t going to count towards my Spanish minor, so I switched. I was a little nervous about blindly switching into this class; I´ve never studied Spanish literature of any time period and I´ve never even attempted medieval literature in English. I had it for the first time today and although it seems pretty challenging, I think I´m going to enjoy it a lot. There´s only five people and my professor Pilar really knows what she´s talking about. It´s funny because the reason why I signed up for the linguistics class in the first place was to learn about the evolution of the Spanish language. It turns out though, that half of this literature class consists of exactly that - studying the evolution of Latin to Castellano. Plus it really is nice to be in a literature class again; the last one I took was AP English Lit in 12th grade, and it was one of my favorite classes ever.

Arte en el Museo del Prado: When else will I be able to learn about the techniques that go into a painting and then go and see the actual painting itself at one of the world´s best art museums. As I´ve mentioned before, being in Spain is making me appreciate the beauty and the symbolism of art a lot more, and I figured I´d better take advantage of this class while I can. (Oh how proud Vicki must be to hear me say this).

Arte y Civilización: This class discusses the history of the Iberian Peninsula, especially the art and architecture of the various civilizations that occupied this land. Parts of it overlap with the arte en el Prado class, but I´m sure I´ll grow to appreciate the similarities when it comes time to study for exams. And Marisa teaches both the Prado class and this one, so at least she keeps things interesting.

Okay, now I´d better go and get some real work done. I heard about the ice storm and all the crappy weather back home. Hope you all are keeping warm! If you aren´t I´d recommend this article from the Washington Post. If you aren´t lucky enough to find a cup of hot chocolate that delectable, well, at least you can read about one :)