Sorry I haven´t written in a few days, we had some interesting events take place. So, our classes here are ridiculously easy and terribly boring. We have them four days a week for an hour and a half a piece and it is absolute toture. My literature class was especially heinous, because it was run like an elementary school course. The teacher came every day with photocopies out of his manuel and we would spend the whole time reading useless biographies of authors rather than actually reading literature. Then he would give us a page long snippet of a work and give us comprehension questions for homework. What´s to comprehend if it is only a page long? Anyway, our director got wind of this business and had a talk with the teachers. The next day, which is halfway through the semester by the way, he shows up with a brand new syllabus for us which he pretends is handed down to us by the powers that be at our university. He had assigned us three books a week to read in spanish, and not just Spanish but 16th century Spanish, which is basically their version of Shakespeare, plus at least a two page paper for each book. We were also required to buy these books, and at three a week, for five weeks, with the exchange rate being as it is, after our teacher swore to us we wouldn´t have to buy a single book, things were looking pretty pricey. He kept saying, ¨This isn´t my fault, this is what your director wanted. You have a great opportunity here to be very well read in Spanish literature...blah blah blah.¨ So, we were basically all ready to mutiny because we would rather be experiencing Spain than sitting in our apartments studying. We called our director, and she didn´t really see the problem with it, but we couldn´t let it slide. So, all of us walked straight over to her house to have a meeting. I was terrified because I´ve always been the teacher´s pet who attends every class and always raises my hand, and I didn´t want to get in trouble or be labled a ¨problem.¨ My roommate is the same way, so we held hands to brace ourselves as we walked in to our directors apartment. Everything turned out fine but our teacher, Philipe, kind of hates us now. He was kind of mad at us for not taking our ¨great opportunity¨ and was talking down to us, which of course annoyed some of the other students, who were sassy to him, which made him dislike us even more. So yeah, that is just the long way of saying I had a major increase in homework and had to scramble to get a bunch of stuff done this week.
It was actually pretty entertaining because our first assigned book was short enough to be printed out from the internet, so we took it along with us on a class trip to the Prado. On the way home on the train, this old man with dark glasses, a ponytail, and a very scruffy mustache kept staring at us while we read. We tend to attract a lot of attention no matter what we do, so we just ignored him like we do everyone else. Then, he started asking me questions about what I was doing and where I was from, and without even having to ask, he started helping me with my homework! It was great, he broke everything down and explained the words that were too old to be in my dictionary and helped me understand the poem so much better. But yeah, in addition to the crazy homework increase, I have to share our family´s computer with two other girls, and sometimes there just isn´t enough time for everybody to have a turn.
So about us sticking out. It seems that no matter where we go or what we do, people know we are Americans. Sometimes, they think they are really cute and they will say the one English word they know to us and feel very superior about it. One trip, I was walking next to a little huddle of fourth grade girls and one of said ¨Hello¨ to me while the others giggled hysterically. I turned around to them and smiled and started asking them questions in Spanish. They were shy and a little embarrassed and after about thirty seconds they all ran away squealing and laughing. Another time, a group of us were standing outside our hotel, and a group of Spanish kids walked by. One asked, ¨So they can´t understand anything we say?¨ and the other answered, ¨Nope, nothing.¨ As the were leaving I turned and said, ¨We understand!¨ And the boy turned around, really embarrassed, and almost came back to talk to us, but his friend moved him away. So yesterday, we were in Madrid all day and we started picking out Americans. It is kind of sad how easy it is. They don´t even have to open their mouthes for you to know where they are from. I´m not really sure what it is about us that is so easily recognizable. We even were having a contest in our little group of friends to not speak English, and two Bavarian tourist came up to us in the midst of our Spanish conversation, and asked us for directions in English. Our director told us that we were never to speak English or do touristy things so thieves wouldn´t target us, but we all just hopelessly stick out anyway. It´s a lost cause.
We did some pretty fun things in Madrid yesterday. It has been raining a lot here so our weekend trip got postponed and we got the whole day to spend how we wanted. We went to a Barbie exhibit which showed all sorts of different barbies created throughout the years. Very entertaining. One time, we were in a shop, speaking both Spanish and English to each other, and the song ¨What is Love¨ from Night at the Roxbury/SNL came on. We kind of laughed about it, but then the shopgirl asked us what the song meant and we had a fun time translating it for her. Another time, we in a cafe only speaking Spanish, and a very scary bum walked in. He approached a table of teenagers next to us and talked to them for a long time. I told everyone to start talking really loudly in English, so when he started to approach our table, as soon as he heard our voices, he veered off and walked out the door. Sometimes it pays to be a tourist.