9 Oct 2023
I woke up at 6:30 to get ready for my first day at the language school in Salamanca, Spain. Ana made me toast with margarine and jam with cafe con leche.
When I set out for school at 7:30, it was still dark. There were birds making a ruckus in the trees and street cleaners out in full force. I heard and saw parrots in the trees in Madrid, so maybe it was parrots here too. All the shops except for a few cafes were closed.
The school is really cool looking. The old stone walls of the former convent show through in places but the furnishings are all modern.
I was asked to speak with an instructor to gauge my spoken Spanish and I’m really happy to say, I made it to B1. In the EU they have defined levels of foreign language competency and I suppose this would correspond to a Spanish 3 or so in college. So, yeah, me, I finally get to move beyond preterite and imperfect. Javier will review the past tenses and Jesús will teach us the subjunctive.
So class seemed fun but fast. I told both Jesús and Javier that I was struggling but happy and wanted to stay at this level. I also said that I have no idea about vosotros, because they simply don’t teach that in the US. Not once, as in nunca (never).
At the first break, we all crowded the cafe and I ordered a little egg sandwich with black tea. It was good and I was really hungry.
The 50+ crowd is in multiple class levels and we only got together as a group at 5 for the tour of Salamanca. I really wish they had had us introduce ourselves.
So far I’ve met Maureen from England who has lived in Alicante for 14 years. Two very different ladies from Brazil are in my class, along with Isabelle from Luxembourg. She speaks French and only wants to speak Spanish, but she is a bit hard to hear – she’s soft-spoken. One Brazilian is named Claudia and I have forgotten the other lady in my class. There’s Caroline from England, Giuseppe from Italy, and Sian from Hong Kong (she’s young and not in our 50+ group but very nice and welcome), We and more are planning to go to Avila on Thursday for the Fiesta de Santa Theresa on the national holiday.
I had lunch with Maureen and taught her how to use Google Maps to ride a bus because her place is a bit too far away. She recently had both pneumonia and COVID-19 so she’s trying to not get worn out. Then I went to Corte Ingles department store for a few things.
I returned to the apartment for a rest and only had an hour or so. I snacked, rested, brushed my teeth, and studied before setting off the alarm at the apartment when I left and then I walked back to the school for the tour of the University of Salamanca.
I talked to my mom on the phone and had dinner with Ana. It was chicken nuggets and a mayonnaise salad with something like crab and pineapple in it. I think she bought both things at the store, but she is very helpful and we get along fine. We have lots to talk about completely in Spanish because she doesn’t speak English.
I showered and did most of my homework. I don’t really get everything we learned today about the special uses of the past perfect in Spain.
I kind of messed up the photo galleries for these first posts in Salamanca. I’m not going tp fix them now. To see more photos of Salamanca, see the next post.
