For the few of you who don't know, my name is Griffin and I'm a junior at Notre Dame, but this semester I'm studying in Toledo, Spain. This may be a bit cocky on my part, but I figured that one or two people back in the states or in any of ND's other study-abroad programs might want to keep tabs on my daily comings and goings, so I thought this blog would be the best way to keep everyone posted on my glorious semester across the pond. I'll update it fairly frequently, though I make no promises. If nothing else, I'll be sure to throw a few pictures up every so often and make sure everyone knows when I'll be traveling both in Spain and around Europe.
Now for the basics. I got to Spain yesterday (around 7 a.m. local time) after an 8-hour flight from Chicago. Luckily, I've got 26 other Domers with me, so if nothing else this should be quite the adventure for all of us. We will be studying at La Fundacion Jose Ortega y Gasset in Toledo, and most of us (myself included) will be living with host families. All of the classes will be in Spanish and if they talk anywhere near as fast as one of the administrators at the Fund, we'll be in big trouble. Let's just say I was lucky to catch one of every four words out of her mouth...made for quite the interesting meeting about host families this morning.
Since our arrival, we've basically been trying to figure out a little bit of the geography of Toledo, as well as tracking down cell phones for ourselves (viva Movistar!) and converting our money to Euros (yay for the strong dollar...oh wait...). Oh yeah, that whole lack of sleeping bit was fun for the first day. Luckily, all was not lost; after a long day of meeting host families and adjusting to the time difference a group of us decided to seek out the legendary O'Brien's Pub. It's been a popular spot for ND students in the past and last night we saw why. It might have been that we were the only people he'd heard speak English in a while, or it might have been that some of us dropped 20 Euro all by ourselves, but for whatever reason Emilio, the bartender, seemed to like us. We'll definitely be going back...look out.
Today, I finally moved in with my host family and while I was nervous for a bit of a culture shock, I'm surprised at how oddly...American this whole experience has been thus far. My parents, Eduardo and Begoña, are incredibly nice people and have been nothing but welcoming since the moment they met me. They have two sons; Eduardo is 13 and Ignacio is 9, and while they're handfuls, I'm already a big fan; they play ping-pong and FIFA '10 like it's their job. I'm thinkin' it's gonna be a good semester.
Right, well, I've rambled sufficiently for a first post. I look forward to keeping this up and I hope at least one or two of you out there decide to read the thing from time to time. Now, though, I've got an RA application to work on, so I'll be off. Until next time, ¡Viva España!
Ta luego,
Griff
As far as figuring out the geography, make sure to check out Mariano Zamorano's store for the swords! He's ridiculously nice, prices are reasonable and the swords are legit. I know this will probably seem random now, but it's certainly one of the places to go see! It's behind the Cathedral and a bit hard to find, but there is a map on his website:
ReplyDeletewww.marianozamorano.com
Keep it up Griff! You'll thank yourself later for keeping tabs/a journal on your adventure now~ I did the same thing when i went to Japan and eventually ended up printing out all of my old Blog entries and put them into a hard-copy scrapbook.
ReplyDeleteBuena Suerte!