Oy oy oy oy oy (That's what the old spanish women say)

This past week was one of the most satisfying, but busy, weeks I've had. School is getting increasingly more difficult, but still nothing compared to my work load at Lewis & Clark. I'm actually enjoying most of my classes here and learning about things I never would otherwise. For example, in immigration, we're reading and discussing how Moroccans and other Africans immigrate to Spain in cayucos (boats) and about the rights/lack of rights the immigrants have once they reach Europe. We have to write a 10 pg paper by the end of the semester and I think I'm going to focus on the problems Moroccans and other immigrants and children of immigrants have integrating into Spanish life. The other class that's really interesting is art history because we're now learning about artists like Greco, Velázquez and Goya, whose art I am somewhat familiar with but had no real knowledge about. I also like art class because we get to take lots of "field trips" instead of sitting in class. We had a funny experience last week when we visited the Museo de Bellas Artes to study Baroque, but the entire room was filled with moms and their 2-3 year old children. My professor was very upset because they were making a lot of noise and disrupting her lecture. I was just confused and wondering why 3 year olds were being dragged to a historical art museum...But what really made the situation hilarious was when one of the little girls wandered off from her mama, took off her pants, and carefully squatted in the middle of the Baroque art room. Her diaper was still on, but you could tell that the damage had been done. Her mother finally realized her daughter was not at her side, and ran over, looking about as embarrassed as she should. They all left soon after.

Well that's school. Tuesday of course was St. Patrick's day and since I am Gram's granddaughter, I felt I should celebrate. So a few of my friends and I got our green on and headed over to one of the only Irish pubs in the city. The place was a mobscene-inside and out. We squeezed our way through to the bar where we ordered our big glasses of Guinness because what else could we drink on St. Patty's day? The bartenders all wore green shirts that said "Irish I were drunk" and Shamrocks and Guinness signs covered the walls. There was an interesting mix of people there, and surprisingly, not all American and Irish. I guess it doesn't surprise me that the Spanish will take any excuse for a party.

The next night, Claire and I met up with our friends Hunter and Patrick, and Patrick's girlfriend who is visiting from the states. Despite the bitterness I felt at watching Patrick and his girlfriend be cute and romantic (where is Jack!?), we had a really fun night of eating tapas and watching flamenco. We randomly stumbled upon a tiny bar that had 1 euro tapas and ended up discovering a great hole in the wall! The tapas were delicious and cheap and the young woman who worked there was really sweet and eager to talk to us. I'm pretty sure she gave us some of our food for free because the grand total was 16 euro for the 5 of us! From there, we took a fairly long walk to and old monastery that has been converted into a contemporary art museum. Every wednesday night there is a free flamenco performance there, in a beautiful chapel. The show was very unique: There was just a guitarist, singer, and male dancer. The dancer was incredible! I don't know what type of flamenco he was doing, but his legs were moving faster than I thought humanly possible and he was jumping, stomping, and twirling from one side of the stage to the other in less time than it takes to blink. In combination with the live music, it was definitely worth the walk, and would have been worth an entrance fee.

After Patrick and his girlfriend had mentioned a food market in Alameda (my favorite area) on Wednesday night, Claire and I decided to check it out yesterday. After breakfast we walked over to the Alameda plaza and looked for the market that Patrick had vaguely described to us. We spent a good 1/2 hour walking around the side streets looking for the same huge grapes and musque wine they had bought, but couldn't find it, so instead we stopped at some white tents on the plaza that looked like they were selling things. Although it wasn't the market we'd been referred to, we bought some delicious candied nuts, dried fruit and fresh orange juice. Then we asked one of the guys working if he knew of an outdoor fruit market nearby and he pointed us back to where we'd been walking before. Since we still had some time before lunch, we just walked back and tada! We just hadn't been looking closely enough before. So we joyously bought our musque wine (We don't really know why its called this, but its a sweet white wine that the guy at the market makes and it tastes like juice) and our gigantic red grapes. It was a very successful outing and I'm still enjoying my dried strawberries and candied almonds that I bought.

My host mom has been gone this weekend, which has been relaxing, and tonight I'm having a night in and watching chick flicks with Claire. (Her roommate was smart and brought a collection of dvds with her to Spain). I think we're going to start with Holiday starring Cameron Diaz and then watch Notting Hill. Yay, I've missed good old American chick flicks! I haven't seen a single movie since I've been here. I just got back from the store and bought assorted candy and even found microwave popcorn! I'm not sure how it's going to taste but I was excited to find it at all. Well she should be here any minute to start our lazy girl night, so Adios for now!

Besos, Theresa

PS. I officially got the research job with the Roger's program this summer in Portland! I'll be working with 2 other students for one of the LC psych professors in her lab for 10 weeks, starting sometime in mid-late May. The study is on college drinking behavior, so it should be pretty interesting! And it pays pretty well so assuming I can find a fairly cheap house to share or apt to rent, this summer will be perfect.