miércoles, 3 julio

This morning we only had class until 11 because of a presentation in the afternoon. During class we gave our speeches and reviewed each other's speeches, There were a lot of speeches about family members, one of Michael Jackson, and one of Tyra Banks. I did alright but I could've memorized more of it. During our break I got café con leche because I was so tired. After the mini-break we started talking about películas and different genres of movies. We then read a small essay about movies and answered questions. And by then it was finally 11. I went with some of the girls from Ohio to the café and got this treat called "Kinder Bueno" and it was white chocolate candy, sort of similar to a kit-kat.

Kinder Bueno!

We then met everyone in our building and walked over to the building where the mayor would give us a welcoming presentation. When we got there most of the Nebraskans were on the sides in front and had a really good view of the presentation. It started by representatives of Jordan, China, U.S., and Brazil giving presentations about their experiences and thanking everyone for the opportunity to learn here. And then two other government officials spoke for a few minutes and then the mayor finally spoke. I understood almost all of his speech. He welcomed us and then told us about the universality of coming here to learn not only the language, but the culture as well. I was really surprised that the event only lasted 30 minutes because typically presentations like this can take a lot longer than needed here in Spain. we then received goody-bags with a poster of Toledo, a booklet about Toledo, a map, a bookmark, and a notepad. I'm going to have so many things to scrapbook when I get home!

Erik, I, Sonja, Brittney, and Katie at the welcome party.

For almuerzo we had ham with carrots and broccoli. I adore the vegetables here- they are super fresh and very delicious. We also had pan and salad, and for dessert we had melon. I couldn't fall asleep during siesta so I set up youtube to some of my favorite spanish artists and organized all of the scraps of souvenir papers, business cards, post cards, receipts and anything else that in theory could make their way into a scrap book into a pile on my desk. I will definitely be making a scrapbook and I'm thanking past-Whitney for starting this blog so I have all of my experiences in words in one legible spot.

After my pretend siesta, I headed up to Plaza de Zocodover to meet with some people to go to the centro comercial- the mall. Olivia, Sophie, Emily, and I waited until the rest (Colby, Alex, Natalie, Mariah) were Spanish late- more than 20 minutes- before sending them a text and learned they were still on a tour. But since they were okay with us leaving for the mall we hopped on the bus and headed out of the city. We realized that we weren't going to pull right up to the door of the mall but there was an American teenager from University of Minnesota on the bus and we befriended him and followed him to the mall. When we were in the mall we enjoyed the A/C (it hit nearly 40C or 104F here this afternoon) and waited until Colby scared the daylights out of Emily. We then wandered around splitting up and rejoining as we shopped. I didn't find anything that I liked but it was fun just walking around and comparing the centro comerical to malls I've been to. On our way home we stopped through what is equivalent of a Wal-Mart in a shopping mall and Mariah bought a kinder-egg. When we got to the bus stop it took the five of us who were left at that point to put the prize toy together- lots and lots of team work. We got onto bus 92 and made it back to Toledo and weaved through the streets and then realized that we had taken the wrong bus. We got off at the next stop, crossed the street and caught a bus that would take us to Zocodover. Once we were in Zocodover Olivia and I caught another bus that would take us to our neighborhood.

Kinder egg shenanigans. 

I got home at 9:58- two minutes before dinner. We had three types of pizza tonight and all were delicious! Alba was out for dinner with friends, and Alfonso had to work late, so it was just me and Sandra. We ended up sitting at the table for over 2 and a half hours talking about everything under the sun, especially about Independence Day in America, my crazy family (I love you all, but y'all still crazy) and differences between my family and American stereotypes, and the differences between stereotypical Americans vs stereotypical Spaniard, and the differences between their family and stereotypical Spaniards. It was a great night but I started losing my ability to think in Spanish a little after 12 30, which meant my spoken words were basically gibberish, so I decided it'd be a good idea to go to bed.

¡Buenas noches!