The school week has finally come to a close, so I finally have time to catch up on the blogging. It is now two weeks into the regular semester, and I have only just finalized my schedule..whew! Here's a little info about my classes; it's shaping up to be pretty great semester!
1) Translation-Theory and Practice:
This will probably be the most useful class I take this semester. Transferring the same meaning and emotion from one language to another is no easy task, and I'm excited to develop this skill.
2) Methods of Teaching Spanish as a Second Language:
While I don't plan on being a Spanish teacher, I do work at UW as a Spanish tutor. In this class we are going to learn a bunch of different strategies and methods for teaching Spanish, which will most definitely be useful when I get back to Wisconsin.
3) 20th Century European Art History
This class is purely for enjoyment. I loved my Art History class so much last semester, I figured why not take another one? This is probably the last time in my academic career that I have room for a non-major related elective, so I am going to savor it!
4) Spanish of the Americas
I am really jazzed about this class for a variety of reasons. Firstly, this is a direct enrollment class at the University of Sevilla! That means I am in class with Spaniards, which will be a great way to meet students my age. Secondly, this is a super duper cool linguistics class! We learn about how the Spanish language evolved in Central and South America after Columbus arrived in 1492.
In other news, last weekend I went to the Canary Islands to experience Carnaval, a two week long pre-Lenten celebration. In my view, it was like Mardi Gras and Halloween combined. People dress in masked costumes, and there are parades and large street parties. Needless to say, it was quite an interesting weekend. It was also quite a learning experience. Not everything went as planned, but we learned to go with the flow and accept that things aren't always how you imagined.
We arrived really late on Friday night on the Island of Gran Canaria. We headed straight to bed to catch an early morning ferry to the island of Tenerife, where we were told the biggest Carnaval celebrations were taking place. We had bought tickets for just a daylong trip from 9am-8pm figuring that that would be plenty of time to experience Carnaval and explore the island.
We thought the ferry ride was only an hour long. It was not until halfway through the ride, when we asked someone on the ship, that we found out it was in fact 3 hours. No pasa nada, we thought. 9 hours is still plenty of time to view the island and see Carnaval.
We got to the island and, fell in love right away. Tenerife is quite charming. It's a mountainous island with beautiful views. The town was fun to walk around and explore, and the weather, while not hot, was better than the 60 degree weather in Sevilla. After walking around for a bit, we asked around for information about Carnaval activities happening that day. Upon finding a program, we realized with disappointment that the majority of activities would not start until 5 that evening. We were more than a little upset about missing the biggest part of Carnaval, but there was nothing we could do. We spent a beautiful day on a beautiful island. In the great scheme of things, how bad is that? Not bad at all.
The one Carnaval activity during the day were children's choir concerts in the park. Each school choir dressed in costume, and sang a few songs about Carnaval. While this was obviously geared towards the locals, and not the tourists, it was quite fun to watch.
We headed back on our 3 hour journey to Gran Canaria around 8pm. We were a little bummed out because we could hear the festivities starting, but we figured we would find something to do on Gran Canaria that evening. Carnaval was still going on on Gran Canaria (just not as big of a celebration) and we ended up finding a free concert where we danced the night away. Pop star Henri Mendez made an appearance. This song of his is really popular on Spanish radio right now:
Sunday we spent the day at the beach. While it wasn't quite warm enough to swim in the ocean, it was hot enough to sit out on the sand and soak up the sun. The beach front was so tranquil. We spent the day listening to the ocean, eating at different cafés, and relaxing.
Overall, the Canaries was quite a nice trip. We did not get to see as much of Carnaval as anticipated, but we still had a great time. We learned our lesson about trip planning. Had we been a bit more diligent in planning we would have seen more of the Carnaval that we wanted. However, we also learned to roll with the punches and savored our weekend on the islands.
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