El primer día fue un exito! Today was amazing, we explored the city and learned a little bit more about our host family and the history of the city we will be living in for the next 5 months. After sleeping in to a normal time in Spain, (a little later than I'm used to) we had a normal breakfast of toast and colacao (pretty sure that's the right spelling) which is basically just like hot chocolate. Following this, we had orientation. On our walk to the building where we had our first meeting, my host dad pointed out some of the famous buildings in Valladolid which include el teatro (the theatre) where they are playing Sister Act right now ( in Spanish of course). After this, my roommate and I were reunited with the other 45 students from Eau Claire who are here with us. Then we had orientation with some of our professors who told us what we will be doing for the next 5 months and talked a little bit about the city we are living in and about the excursions to other cities we will be taking. After this, we began our tour of the city. We started in the building we were in and saw a model of the city and learned about when it was occupied by the moors and how there is a Moorish cemetery somewhere in the city that was discovered. After this we started our tour. Although I don't quite remember the names of all of the places we visited, I'll name a few. The first stop was the place where Ferdinand and Isobel (the old king and queen of Spain that sent Christopher Columbus to the United States) were married. If you don't know the story, it's kind of like Romeo and Juliet. Their families were the royal families of two different parts of Spain and they were constantly in conflict. Then these two married and unified the two kingdoms. After this, we saw a few cathedrals which are old monasteries which are still in use today as well as many cathedrals. We also saw the statue and house of Miguel de Cervantes (the writer of Don Quixote) and the statue of Zorilla (the writer of Don Juan Tenorio). After these, we saw both the oldest cathedral in Valladolid as well as the biggest. One of the Cathedrals had a cross on top of it that was taken from a Mosque when the Christians recaptured Spain over the Moors. We also visited the oldest building of the University and walked through el Plaza Mayor. All in all, it was a very productive day.
Hasta mañana