Hola, this past week has been crazy! I have started school, changed host families, and done so many other cool things. But let me start with the host family situation. With different cultures and people sometimes when staying with a host family you don’t get the perfect match the first time. That just happened to be the case with me. However, I am now with a lovely woman and her mom with their precious dog Niron.
School in Salamanca has been great. However, on the first day when we took our class placement tests I was put in the beginners class with a bunch of 15 year olds from Massachusetts! They all looked at me like deer in headlights as I was talking with the professor about how I need to be switched to a harder class. One of the students even told me “ I was wondering why you were put in there when you spoke so fast”. Now I am in a level appropriate class and I’m being challenged. We work fast on topics and surprisingly I understand it. I think the main difference in the education between Tech and Salamanca is that the teachers don’t teach directly out of a book, they have us use our life experiences and open discussions to learn. We have workbooks for grammar but to be honest that takes 10 minutes of class time. Another thing that is interesting is that there are students from all over the world coming in and out of the school. This upcoming week we will have new classmates from Africa. At the moment there are girls in my class from South Korea, Taiwan, and China.
Some of the cool things I have done so far have been a tour of the cathedral in Salamanca. It was amazing. Although, my legs were sore for days after. The stairs are very narrow and steep so trying to climb up and down them without falling was definitely a task. My program has also taken us out for Tapas, a welcome party and a weekend trip to Porto, Portugal. Portugal was so interesting. Most of the buildings have tiles on them that are very detailed. While in Porto we went to the beach as well/ The water was super cold since it is from the Atlantic ocean.
My favorite people to travel with are Brisa, Liz, and Victor, my new friends that came from Tech. They are so funny and nice. We have made a little friend group with some other people who are also attending our school. They are also from the US. They are from completely different states: Rhode Island, Texas, and Idaho.
¡Vale! Talk to you soon
Grace
