Soaking in Some Culture

Hey people,

Sorry it's been so long but I've been super busy with classes and stuff since my last post. My classes for some reason have been seriously stressing me out and I constantly have to remind myself that they don't actually count. Aside from that I have been doing quite a few new typical Spanish things recently. I finally got chocolate churros!!! It's churros like in America only more plain and they give you a cup of melted chocolate to dip them in and you just finish it with a spoon when you're done. So delicious.

Then last Saturday API took us on a day trip to Toledo, which is a really cool old historical city. It became a major city in Roman times, the capitol when the Visigoths ruled, and an important center for Christians, Jews and Muslims during Moorish rule. It is also the city where El Greco lived in Spain and the sword capitol of the world. We took a walking tour through the old Jewish quarter, saw El Greco's masterpiece (no pics allowed), and went to the Cathedral. Me being such a history nerd I was in heaven the whole trip, but the Cathedral was definitely the best part. First of all it actually had the original 14th century stained glass still there! Also I don't actually know why I found this so funny but I'll tell you anyway, next to a beautiful statue that belonged to Queen Isabella was a little trophy thing that was a gift from the city of Toledo Ohio, just sitting there amid all the medieval treasures haha. Final fun fact that's not really historical at all, but still cool, is the fact that they had outdoor escalators just to get around the city.

The view of Toledo

 

14th century stained glass!!

 

Monday was another first when I went to a Flamenco workshop. I was unaware before starting that not only would I be learning an entirely new kind of dance, but that the whole class would be in Spanish. It ended up being fine and I understood everything she said, at least my listening comprehension has clearly improved even if I still can't speak it. We learned the first part of a traditional Flamenco called Sevillanas. At first we just learned the footwork, then added arms, fingers and finally went to dance the whole thing with a partner. It very quickly went from easy to difficult to impossible. You would be surprised how difficult dancing is when you're supposed to move your fingers too. However, we were told not to be discouraged because there are classes that study this first section for a whole year to perfect it. In the end I had so much fun and would gladly do it again. The only down side was realizing for the first time here how much I miss dance!

Couldn't stop turning it into ballet- fifth position lol

 

And this is a disaster

 

On Wednesday API took us to see an incredible show called Mayumana. When I showed up at the theater I still had no idea what the show was and I probably won't be able to do a good job of describing it here but I'll try. It was a group of people who danced tons of different styles and made music with just about anything you could think of- buckets, trash cans, pipes, water, and their own bodies. They also did this really cool thing where one person would make an epic song video taping each section, then playing them all back on repeat on a giant screen only to come back and dance to their new creation in the end. Of course following all this Spanish stuff my roommate Meaghan and I went to TGI Fridays and I almost died of happiness.

The theater

 

Dancing/ making a song wearing flippers
 

Well that's about it for now!

 

Love,

Sam