¡A clase!

Today, lunes 2 agosto, was the first day of classes. I woke up to a pouring rain and no idea where my class was, other than that it was most likely at the university. So I trudged out the door at 8:15, an hour before class started, so I could hopefully find this mysterious Spanish class and with it my American amigos. Luckily my plan of waiting outside the door of the Centro de Idiomas (Language Center) promptly at 9, when it opened, worked out in my favor:

I walk up to the desk.
Hombre working at the desk: “Dime.” (Tell me.)
Me: “Tengo una clase de español hoy, pero no sé donde está mi clase.” (I have a Spanish class today, but I don’t know where it is.)
Hombre: “Cómo se llama?” (What’s your name?)
Me: “Hillary Richard”
Hombre: “Jilari de Cornell?” (*very Spanish pronunciation of Hillary* from Cornell?)
Me: “Sí!!”

Success! So nice guy at the desk told me to go to Aula 7 (Room 7) in the philosophy building for my introduction meeting at 10. I had some time to kill (it being about 9:15) so I sat down in the hallway outside of this “Aula 7” in what I thought was the philosophy building and started to read a book. Lo and behold it was suddenly 9:58 and not a soul was in sight. So after another not quite so quick but just as semi-successful conversation with someone at another desk, I dashed off to the real Aula 7 and was only a few minutes late for the meeting.

And who did I see but my American amigos, Caitlyn and Josh! Turns out we are all in the same class along with 5 German girls and 2 older women (one Italian, one Dutch.) I can tell this is going to be an interesting class already- our professor, Esther, is about as stereotypically flamboyantly Spanish as you could get. She is also very knowledgeable, however, and makes you feel very comfortable in the classroom. And so funny! Our first task was to write a biography of Superman and read it aloud to the class. After I read mine she remarked, “Oh these Americans, of course they know the story!” We had 2 hours of grammar and vocabulary, then took a tour of the university given by 2 Spanish students, then had an hour of culture lessons (my personal favorite.)

Esther really got into the culture hour- she started by asking us what words came to mind when we thought of Spain. We said toros, mañana, siestas, paella. We then went through some of these words and some other stereotypes and compared Spain to our own countries. Esther informed us never to trust Spanish men, that German people live to work while Spanish people work to live, and horrified the German girls by telling them that American women take 30-40 minute showers just to enjoy the water. It was all in good fun, however, and before I knew it I had successfully completed my first day of Spanish class.