Daily Diary July 17-18th

            My day began gloriously: by sleeping in! While I should have been productive and gone to the market with some of the group, I couldn’t help but take that morning to recover from a hectic few weeks! Though as seen through Facebook, it seems like the market goers had an interesting morning, filled with animal carcasses and cow brains attached to tongues (thank you all for posting those pictures on Facebook, it was lovely to open my feed to those pictures for the rest of the day). Though I don’t like to miss opportunities, I think I’m okay with having some of these stories told second hand. And, I got to have some quality bonding time with Toli (spelling?), our dynamic maid. She thought it was hilarious how long the inhabitants of the second floor slept in that morning, and we chatted in broken Spanish (on my part) about our sleep schedule, our upcoming trip to Valencia and our families. It is amazing how people can communicate even though there is a language barrier. Though I am sure she thought I was slow since I took a long time to respond, I think she just appreciated that I tried to speak Spanish with her.

For your viewing pleasure: photo cred Sonja Khan

            Later that afternoon, we all met at the palace to watch the movie Ay, Carmela!. The movie was about a makeshift family during the civil war who were captured by the Italians and made to put on a show in front of the army and the POWs. Since my project is on film, I was particularly excited to watch the film, as it gave a lot of insight into the history of Spanish film. I was not disappointed. Though we had to guess at some of the scenes since the disk was scratched, it was a very emotional movie that portrayed some of the horrifying conditions of the civil war.

            After the movie, we went to the plaza to see the 15 M meeting. When arrived, there were no obvious signs of a protest group, so we hung around awkwardly trying to scope the scene. After a few minutes of standing around, Claire and I went to get some much needed helado, and when we came back we were still deliberating on whether or not to go over to the group we assumed was the 15 M. Eventually, Mitchell got up the nerve to walk somewhat close to the group, and once they noticed him hovering, they began speaking to him and Julie. Eventually, the ‘16 M’, as we called ourselves (Edgar’s idea), merged with the 15M, and we all purchased cute buttons to commemorate our first 15 M meeting. They were discussing a march the next day that the whole country was going to participate in, and while we would not be there for it, it was interesting to see how the dynamic of the group worked.

            The next morning, we had our language class at 930. As part of the beginning class, we attempted the challenge of learning the verb ‘to be’ as well as clothing, foods, and weather. Our teacher, Marta, was so sweet and helpful as she tried to teach us all the things we wanted to learn, (such as the Spanish word for blueberry). Meanwhile, upstairs, the other group was discussing their travel plans for the three-day weekend and creating fake schools? They were having a vibrant discussion, nonetheless. This was a hard class for all, since everyone was so anxious to get to our three day weekend excursions to Valencia and Porto.

            After class, everyone ran back to the hostel to quickly eat and pack, and then we were off to the train station!