Art, The Theater and Salamanca!!

Ah this week has been busy and crazy without much time to post. I'm going to try and update on the events of this week...so sorry if this one is long!

The second week of classes was decent. They're diving right in with the work and really not skimping on the reading assignments. But for the most part I'm enjoying my classes, especially art history which is still my favorite so far. On Wednesday instead of having regular theater class, the class went to see a play! We saw "La Duda" by Galdos (a Spanish author and playwright who I'm actually studying in two of my classes) at this cool, underground theater in Madrid. It was really fun to get out and see a play (although I'll admit I couldn't understand every word). The play was good, a little slow, but good. We saw a pretty early show on a Wednesday, so the audience was mostly filled older women in their long fur coats (I swear, you're not a cool old Spanish woman if you don't own a floor-length fur coat) so it was fun for people-watching too!

On Thursday, half of the program went to the Reina Sofia, Madrid's contemporary art museum (the other half will go next week) after our art history class. The Reina Sofia houses some fantastic collections of artists like Picasso (including Guernica!) and Dali, so we spent the majority of our time looking at their pieces. Our art history prof, Paco, was our guide for the trip so it was really great to have someone narrating while we were viewing the pictures. Seeing Guernica was really amazing, both because of its size and because I have studied it in so many classes and so to see the real thing was really cool. Same with many of Dali's pieces, which I've studied in past classes. And Paco's insights really helped us to understand the context of the paintings. I wish I could bring him with me to every museum I visit!

On Friday I took a train with a few people from the program to Salamanca! It's about 2 and a half hours away and I'm so glad I decided to go. The city is absolutely beautiful! It is wonderfully preserved from the city's days as a medieval center in Spain and the little streets and old buildings were so pretty. We got in pretty late Friday afternoon, so after finding our hostel we decided to just walk around for a bit. It's great because Salamanca (or at least the old part of town) is such a small area, that it's so easy to go for a little walk and see all the sights. We did a little touring and then got some tapas. The next day, after lunch and a long night of pubs and clubs, we set out to do the sightseeing. Salamanca houses one of the oldest universities in Europe and it is almost the same as it was when it was founded so it was fantastic to see such an old place, where students are still studying! We also saw beautiful cathedrals (we climbed the towers to the top of one for some beautiful views) and the Roman Bridge (which my friend and history buff Garrett told me has 17 of the original 21 arches still standing...very impressive). After we saw all of Salamanca's main attractions, we split up for a bit and the girls did some shopping. Then we rested up for another night of Salamanca's fun nightlife (which is so much cheaper than Madrid!). Salamanca's still a college-town so it was really fun going out and exploring what it's like for students there. We caught an early afternoon train back and now I have to catch up on the sleep I didn't get and the homework that I didn't do this weekend. And I'm also debating going to watch the superbowl late tonight (but we'll see...).

I took some pictures this past week so if you're interested you can see them on my picassa site: http://picasaweb.google.com/carlygoldsmith

Hope everything is great in the states! I miss you all! Hasta luego!