Ok everyone, sorry I haven't written in almost two weeks, I know that it's kind of typical and I've probably lost some of my readership ~.^ but I wanted to wait until I had new photos to upload. I guess I'll start by talking about my classes. First of all, it takes me about an hour to commute to school. I have to cross a huge street to get to the metro station that takes either two or three lights to get across (the first picture above). I was right and my classes are really interesting. I have the same professor for my language class as I have for my coloquial Spanish class and she's great. She's very enthusiastic and very helpful on a lot of the little stuff. Both classes have so far been very helpful-I'm already using a lot of the stuff we're learning in coloquial and the stuff we're learning in language is really easy to apply to everyday conversation. According to most of the Spaniards I know, I'm really improving in my speaking ability, but I don't really notice it-in fact, to me it feels like the opposite. My other class, the Spanish theater class, is pretty challenging because right now we're reading the Spanish equivalent of Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, which is written entirely in verse and old Spanish (from the Siglo de Oro, golden century). Its pretty hard to read, but the class illuminates it so much. Its taught by this short old man who wears a lot of black and wire-framed glasses, exactly as you'd expect. He's a lot of fun and gets really into what we're reading.
Last week was fairly quiet. I was fighting that cough for the whole week, and towards the end it evolved into a cold too, but I'm mostly healthy now. On Friday night, I went over to Pepa (the monitora)'s house to watch La princesa prometida or The Princess Bride with some girls from the program and some of Pepa's friends. I must say I enjoyed the movie immensely and I thought it was great to see in Spanish. Afterwards, we went out to a couple of clubs playing American rock music-the first obscure music from the sixties and the second a more ecclectic collection of American music. I had to leave fairly early because the next day I started work at Biblioketa, and it was great! I really enjoy working there and I think it's going to help expand my horizons in terms of children's lit. I was able to make some helpful recommendations and worked in both Spanish and English, which was nice. Saturday night was "La Noche en Blanco," a coloquial expression meaning "The night without sleep." It was amazing because there were as many people out on the streets at 2am as there usually are at 2pm. It was a special event where most of the museums and other cultural centers were open until the wee hours of the morning. I really wish I had brough my camera, but I didn't so the above image is stolen from Kim's Facebook album. The whole thing was pretty amazing and I suggest you check out the link above for more info about everything that was going on. I didn't get to do too much though because all of the lines were really long, but I did see a contemporary photography exhibit and a lot of the street art. It was a quite the experience, I must admit. On Sunday, I went with a group of people to see the Cuban National Ballet company perform Swan Lake and it was absolutely gorgeous. The dancing and the costumes were both first rate. I thought the woman who played Odette/Odile did a wonderful job and the prince was rather dashing.

This week hasn't been too busy-I spent a lot of it fighting off that cold I mentioned and going to class of course. On Tuesday, though, Lan and I went to the the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, a beautiful museum filled with art from the middle ages on. My favorite was the room with 19th century American paintings-they made me kind of homesick for the changing colors of fall. After that, we walked all the way from there back to my house so I could give her a book and show her my room (above, I know, ITS SO CLEAN!). We then went to observe a dance class because I'm thinking about taking some kind of dance while I'm here (and I think I've decided on salsa to compliment the flamenco I'll be learning). Other than that, I really haven't done much so far this week. Tomorrow, I'm going to try to sign up for art classes-probably drawing although I was originally thinking painting because if you can draw it makes it easier to paint, don't you think? The picture below are the family I'm living with. None of them like to have their pictures taken and Tano was especially reluctant because he didn't really get to sleep last night because of a big deal he was working on. Tano (the Dad)Pepa (the Mom) Isabel (age 18)Sebastian (age 15)Elisa (age 13)

Bueno, chicos. Un abrazo muy fuerte!!