Wait, it's week three?

Had a little reality check today: as of tomorrow, it will be my third week in Spain. I feel like we got here yesterday. We started classes two full weeks ago, which was interesting. We started a few of our classes right off the bat, but the rest didn't start until the second week. The first "culture shock" I had was when I, being a typical uptight and planner obsessed American student, realized that they couldn't tell me when classes were, or even WHAT class I would be taking. A week through my Political Economy of the European Union class, we found out that they were switching it to The Economics of Globalization, which had been the original class until they changed it in August. Then we found out that they were adding an eight am class that I swore I would be the last person to take.... my seven am alarm is my worst enemy right now. I had the option to take either twelve or fifteen credits; most students take twelve, as that is all that is required to stay enrolled in college in America, and because our credits won't effect our GPA, there's really no point in loading on the hours. But the three classes that I need to take for my major are being offered this semester, which means that they might not be offered next semester. So I am now taking six hours of spanish, and my additional nine for my major. That's life though, I figure I'll work really hard right now, and save money and learn the language, and next semester I'll take more time to myself to go hiking, explore, etc.

The group here is really bold/weird/interesting/American sorority and frat style. Which is amusing for me, because in Steamboat, you grow up dreading the idea that you would ever know someone in a frat. We have so many strong personalities in our group, and people from every background and part of the States, so we have a really intense mix. I love the differences, but am really learning the value of being alone and having time to myself. I think Harry Potter is going to be read approximately seven times this year. Three down, four to go by the New Year. Totally likely.

I went for a run tonight, on the path that runs right along the beach and then I took the sneaky short cut up onto the outlook that Adela (my madre) showed me our first day. It runs around the cliffs of the coast, it's about an hour round trip walk out from my house to the point and back. Tonight, I jogged most of it and stopped to stretch, so it was about 45 minutes. I got to watch the sunset, and it was so clear so I could see the mountains out behind the city. It's always comforting to see mountains :)

Our first weekend after arriving in Santander we went to the Guggenheim in Bilbao, and we went to San Sebastian. There was a wine festival in San Sebastian and Gloria, our director, warned everyone about riding the twisty bus after drinking wine.... boys don't listen though and a kid definitely lost his lunch on the back of the bus. Classy.

The Guggenheim was anything but what I really consider art.... there was one "work of art" that involved this:

A white wall, with the corner. A cannon pointing into the corner. Five gallon buckets of red wax.

Every hour during the week, a man walks in, and sits and reflects starting at the wax covered wall.

Then he loads the cannon with a bucket of wax, and stands staring at the wall. Then all of a sudden after like a minute he has a spaz attack and fires the cannon at the wall.

The result is this weird wall of wax. It looks like human flesh. Which is kind of cool, but it is supposed to symbolize sex, and the red wax is a woman's period (really no nice way to avoid this explanation, as it is so ridiculous) and the metaphor is supposed to be that man can't create anything unless he has sex with a woman on her period, and that women are most creative when they are, thus that creating life is the most creative act a human can have. And at the same time, while that metaphor is kind of cool, the other half is that it is a monument to ancient artists who used their blood to paint with, thus the red wax and it's extreme resemblance to flesh.

I might be able to appreciate this all a bit more if the man firing the cannon wasn't dressed in a janitor's jumpsuit, who stopped cleaning the bathroom to fire the cannon.

That's all for now :) Buenos noches de Santander! Besos.