Back in Europe!

So, after being home for about a month, I flew back to Europe to study in Spain for a month.  I've been here for a little over four days now.  I got a little lost in Avila on my way here because I went to the university building first and not my residence, but other than that everything has been going well!

I live in a university residence run by a religious community (I'm not sure which one and they don't wear habits).  Although the university is about a twenty minute walk from the main part of town, our residence is situated right in the center of everything!  Since school is out for the summer for normal university students, the place is mostly empty.  Aside from the women that run it, the only people living here are two Spanish teachers from Chicago who are here to teach English for the summer and then five of us who are studying in the Spanish summer program.  Three of us are from UD, me, Jessica, and Nicole (but Jessica is from Mexico, so she speaks Spanish very well!), Mary, a girl from Egypt (who speaks Arabic, English, and Spanish, but isn't fluent in either English or Spanish), and Andres, a Korean priest who lives in Rome and speaks a mixture of half Italian/half Spanish!  There are a few guys from UD over here too, but they live in a seminary in another part of town.

The classes I'm taking (in Spanish!) are Spanish Mysticism and Panoramic Spanish Literature.  In Mysticism we study St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, and in Literature we do a general survey of Spanish Literature from the 18-21 centuries.  Our teacher in Mysticism is Polish, but he speaks Spanish fluently.  The only problem is that he likes to talk softly and quickly and mutter, which makes it hard to understand sometimes.  Our Literature teacher seems really good, but we've only had one class so far because she had to cancel two of them because she had to be in Madrid (don't worry, we had to do lots of homework to make up for it!).  There don't seem to be very many advanced students here, because aside from me, Jessica, and Joe (a boy from UD), there aren't any other advanced students besides two girls from Loyola and two professors from Bogota, Colombia.

In order to help Nicole, Mary, and Andres, who are all in Intermediate Spanish, Jessica suggested that they not be allowed to speak in anything but Spanish the whole time they are here.  And she and I can't talk to them in English either.  If we catch them talking in anything besides Spanish (English, Arabic, Italian, French, etc.) they have to put 10 cents into a bowl.  Since we started this yesterday, Andres already has to pay 2 euros and 30 cents!

Last night was a big futbol (soccer) game here: Spain vs. Portugal.  They had a big screen set up in the Mercado Chico and it was packed full of people watching the game.  The square erupted when Spain made their goal, and once they won, it turned into a giant party!  I thought I was going to go deaf for a while.  It was quite the experience!