As I don’t have Internet at home, and because I will be logging most of my thoughts and actions in my Moleskin, this will not be a daily update. So check one a week or so, or maybe I’ll send an email when I update. Now don’t get too excited.
The basics: I am living in Cordoba, Spain until 23 May. Cordoba, in southern Spain, or more specifically Andalucia Province, is historically a really interesting and pertinent city. It key geographic location (upstream of Sevilla and the Atlantic on the Guadalquivir River) is a key reason. (picture: old ROMAN bridge, with an awesome park on the far side.)
It has a serious Moorish influence, an ancient Jewish quarter, and obviously a Catholic history to accompany. Example: the Mezquita (Spanish for mosque), when completed in the 11th century, was the third biggest mosque the WORLD had ever seen. Look here!: 
. And the bell tower outside: 
Cordoba, the city, also had a population bigger than Rome for a significant period and WAS THE BIGGEST CITY IN EUROPE FROM 929-1031 under Muslim rule. What is most rewarding is learning all about the city’s, region’s, and country’s past in class, then actually seeing it firsthand – everyday. I am living with a Spanish family and attending classes at a Spanish university. Classes are all taught in Spanish but my classmates are all fellow Californians (all a part of the UC system). MANDATORY class four days a week with MANDATORY excursions most Fridays. And while the classes are great (Spanish grammar, Spanish History, and European International Relations in the 20th Century) and the excursions are most enthralling, if you know me at all, you know that I hate being told what to do, especially if it’s something I have to do everyday, starting at 9:30am. Three allowed absences before it starts to affect your final grade – frankly, it’s a stupid rule. What’s more, because I have opted to take the European International Relations course (EUR), I have the most inconvenient schedule. I thought I have seen bad schedules at Cal, but this tops them all – allow me to explain. I live in a small piso (own bathroom, own small room:
) in the center of the modern city. (Cordoba has a population of about 350.000 people, so it’s not the biggest city ever). The apartment is about 8 minutes by foot away from the central, and biggest plaza, Plaza Las Tendillas
(picture: me at the at pedal-powered drinking fountain on the very first night) and about 5 minutes by foot from the big department store, El Corte Ingles. But what’s not so close is the University, which happens to be located a mere 45 minutes (by foot) away from my piso, and also happens to be the location of the classes for which I am MANDATED to go to. Now, how the EUR class fits into this all, is that because the professor has scheduling problems of his own, he holds class from 1715-1915 (5:15pm- 7:15pm) on Mondays and Tuesdays, which means I have to go to school in the morning, come back home for almuerzo (lunch) and siesta (nap!) in the afternoon, the go BACK to school for two more hours of class on Mondays and Tuesdays. What’s more, last week and this week, instead of having two hours of class on each Monday and Tuesday, we have one hour of class Monday through Thursday, which means I spend 1.5 hours walking for only one hour of class. I’m obviously a little bitter. It’s a good class with an amazing prof, who also happens to be the prof for our history class, so merece la pena (it’s worth it). More basics: there are 32 Californians in the program, each of whom stays with a family somewhere in town. Most live closer to school than I, but further from the city center. My family is a single woman with a 28-year-old son, who lives at home (it’s common here) and is looking for work (Spain has been hit especially hard by the world financial crisis). He isn’t around too much, and as I am the sixth or seventh student they have hosted, doesn’t really care much about what I do. My madre, Rosa, is very nice and seems slightly more interested in what I do, but it’s no match for the family I am used to. She cooks great food and speaks to me in Spanish (she doesn’t speak English, so that probably explains it). Apparently the directors of our program advise the host mothers to speak slowly to the students (us) for the first while, as we learn the language and become accustomed to the Andalucian accent (which is extremely difficult to comprehend) – apparently my madre thought ‘a while’ was the first four hours we met, and so, since then, she speaks to me as if I were born in the heart of rural Spain – I wasn’t. The accent here, contrary to what most Americans like to believe (and make fun of) is NOT a serious lisp. Yes, the ‘C’s are a little softer than what one would assume, but don’t get carried away. Rather, the local accent (if you can call it that) is to drop the ‘S’s from the ends of words. For example: ‘adioS’, becomes ‘adio’ and ‘graciaS’ becomes ‘gracia’. What’s more, and my favorite, is that something as simple as ‘hasta luego’ is destroyed, and pronounced as what sounds like (although our Spanish teacher tries to convince us otherwise) ‘haluego’ – one word. It’s fun – try it. But it’s pretty problematic when trying to specify numbers. For example: ‘las casas’ sounds almost exactly the same as ‘la casa’. I find that one can most easily speak with the local accent (or all of Spanish for that matter) when slightly inebriated. My Spanish has improved noticeably, especially my comprehension, but not as quickly as I had hoped. I remain confident that it just takes time and practice.
More essentials to come shortly.
