Markets, Mérida, and Mountains

I've been so busy lately it is crazy. Last week we had orientation activities in which they told us about all the cultural faux-pas we've all been making since we got here. Some interesting facts: you NEVER are barefoot at home (always wear slippers), hands above the table as you eat, always say hello and goodbye when you enter/leave rooms, Spanish people don't say please or thank you as much as Americans (it is much more serious), people from Extremadura (the region I'm in) are extra impossible to understand, and much more.

We also got placed into our Spanish classes, and chose our University classes. My first day of class is tomorrow because today there is a general strike in Spain and the buses are not running. My first class is Archaeology of Rome (a University class with no one I know in it!) at 9 tomorrow morning-- school again? What? I'm also taking Teaching English as a foreign language with the University. My K classes (with only other students from my program) are Art and Culture, Images (some sort of culture class), and Spanish.

 On Wednesdays during the summer there's a huge outdoor market that happens, where they sell food, clothes, shoes, fabric, and jewlery. All the vendors are constantly shouting for your attention. "¡Un Euro, Un Euro, Un Euro!" (One Euro, but when they say it, it ends up sounding more like oon-eh-oorow-oon-eh-oorow-oon-eh-oorow).

All the food at the market looked so good. They had rows upon rows of fruit. Spanish fruit is so good. I don't know what's so different about it, but I've had the best peach of my life, and the sweetest melon ever here.

 They also had tons of vegetables (note the giant peppers), all sorts of breads and pastries, and of course jamón, chorizo, and queso (ham, sausage, and cheese for all my non-spanish speakers out there).
I actually went back to the market today and bought a ring and some cough drops (knock on wood I'm not getting sick).

We took a trip out to a contemporary art museam, el Museo Malpartida, created in an old wool washing facility by the German artist Vostell. The museam is out in the campo (countryside) and it was really refreshing to see some new landscape. There were also a ton of sheep, which was kind of cool to see. Vostell's art focused on critisim of today's consumer driven world, and the installations were very dark and mechanical. We then followed the docent out a door and suddenly found ourselves standing at the edge of a giant resevoir looking out over a stormy sky and beautiful rounded boulders. It was really breathtaking. It was the first day it wasn't overwhelmingly hot, and I was sad that we didn't have time to walk the path around the lake.

On the way into the museum.

Am I still in Spain?

On Saturday we had our first mini excursion to a town called  Mérida, which is only about 45 minutes away. Mérida is home to some of the most well preserved roman ruins around. It was so cool. Words probably can't do it justice, so I'll just show you:

Aquaducts

Second longest roman bridge

Amphitheater (interesting fact: sometimes they would fill it with water and have ship battles)

Theater

Me, Colleen, and the goddess of cereal (no joke)

Ruins of a GIANT roman house

Flan. My new obsession.

Among other things we did in Cáceres over the last week was to climb the mountain that overlooks the city. It isn't a mountain in the sense that you need gear to climb it, rather just a very large hill, but in Spain's flat landscape it's pretty impressive. The street winds up and up for a long time past gorgeous villas and endless landscape until you reach the top where there's a church and a huge statue of the patron saint of Cáceres, Santa María. There were tons of people walking up the mountain, and apprently there are many who get up and climb it at 5:30 every morning. I imagine the sunrise is amazing from up there.

You can see my university from the top. (Very small, but it's the lighter colored building just above the brick one in the middle right hand side)

Cáceres

View of the old city on the way back into town