Cuando estás en España...

I would just like to begin this post by letting you all know that I now know where my bus stop is in my neighborhood! I figured it out yesterday and it honestly was the highlight of my entire day. That's how you know I'm a foreigner.

As promised, here's a video of the Communications building (where most of my classes are). The campus is a bit gray and so is the sky, but in the background you can see the mountains. One of the first things I learned about Pamplona is that geographically, we're in a crater surrounded by mountains. Driving down the highway, you can see them really well, and right now there's a good amount of snow on them, so it's pretty amazing.

Besides finding my bus stop, not much has happened except that I finally changed my SIM card today, so I now have a Spanish mobile number. So instead of a here's-what-I-did-today post, I'd like to share some interesting things I've learned since being here (tomorrow makes one week!)

Siesta Time: Every day between 1:30 and 5, everything in Spain basically shuts down. All of the stores close except for bigger companies, like their equivalent of Walmart, and the only things that are open are some restaurants. The buses run too, but any type of shop takes a midday break. A Panamanian girl I met in one of my classes today said she thinks it's because after lunch, everyone goes to sleep. People here usually eat lunch around 2 p.m. ("Siesta" means "nap" in Spanish.)

And on the seventh day...: On Sunday, everything shuts down. EVERYTHING.

Spaniards speak what?: People from Spain don't say they speak Spanish. They speak Castellano. Last semester at UNC I had a TA from Galicia, one of the autonomous states in Spain, and he called Spanish Castellano, which was the first time I had heard of that. Apparently only people from the Americas call Spanish Spanish.

Dónde y Cuándo?: The scheduling system at UNAV is very odd to me. Three of my classes only meet one day a week, and the ones I have twice a week are at different times and in different rooms on the alternate days. For example, at UNC, if I have a class at 9:05 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, it will be at 9:05 at each of those days, and the class would meet in the same room. Here, I'm in a class on the history of cinema. On Tuesdays the class starts at 10 in room 12. But on Thursdays I have that same class at 8 in room 11. As if I'm not lost enough already!

¡Hasta luego!