Catch Up

I've been in Spain for a week and a half now. It's high time I wrote down what I've been doing.

Classes are going pretty well. I'm a little disappointed in the Narcotics and Terrorism class. It has mostly been an overview of international law in general. It's good, because I have never had a class in international law, and it's good to learn the basics of how it all works. But we only talked about narcotics trafficking one day. Tomorrow is the last day of that class. It was a two-week class for one credit. We are having a final exam sometime next week. My professor for this class is really cool. He's a Judge in Orange County, and has been an attorney in Vietnam, and in the U.S. He's so cute and funny. Tomorrow we are having class at his apartment, and his wife is going to make us all lunch. It's been nice.

The other class I'm taking right now is International Sports Law. We have mostly been focusing on the Olympics, because that's the biggest portion of international sports law. But we've also been talking about all other kinds of international sports competitions - tennis, soccer (oops, I mean futbol), and whatnot. This class is for the entire four weeks, but after this week we're getting a new professor. For this professor we are writing 2 papers - 4-5 pages each. They are to be opinion papers, so that's awesome.

Next week I start my third and only other class for Spain: Music Law. I'm interested to see what that will be all about.

The food here in Spain is pretty good, but it's a little on the bland side. Everywhere you go, they have the same stuff. It's kind of expensive, though. My roomates and I have a kitchen in our room, so we've been doing a lot of cooking to try to save money. We've made pasta, chicken, quesadillas, tacos, more pasta, etc. It's been fine.

I'm finally on a decent schedule. It's so hard to get used to the schedule here. Everyone goes to work around 10 or so. Then at 2 p.m. it's siesta, and everything is closed for 2 hours at least - except restaurants. Then everything is open again until 8 or so. Then restaurants open for dinner at aroun 8 or 9. You can't get dinner before that. Night clubs don't open until midnight at least. It's strange.

Most days we get up around 8 and eat breakfast. We get to school at 10 and I go until about 12:30 every day. Then we come home and eat some lunch. If it's nice, we go to the beach. If it's not we take a nap. Then we have dinner and most nights everyone goes out. Wednesdays are designated social events with the professors and all students. Last week we went somewhere and got tapas and sangria. This week we had a group tour of two old cities nearby. It was pretty cool.

One night last week we went out for the birthday of one of my classmates, and it was really fun. But we didn't get home until after 4. Groups have gone out several nights with the same type of schedule, but I'm old, so I only went out late the one time.

Not only am I old, but I have also been sick. I finally figured out how to say cough syrup in spanish (thanks Mike!), and I've gotten some. I finally slept well last night and didn't wake up coughing.

Our apartment is pretty nice, and the beach is right across the street. So, life here doesn't suck. I'm slowly getting my pictures organized, and they'll be up on facebook soon. Viva Espania!