So I've survived my first week at uni! Just... I'm not going to lie it's been hard - very hard in fact. All of my magistrales (lectures) and semanarios are at least an hour and a half in duration and some are supposed to last 3 hours, though none of them did this week since most of the content was the standard 'what to expect' nonsense. But if I thought it was hard to concentrate for a whole hour at Birmingham then doing so in a Spanish lecture is on a completely different level of mentally taxing. I spend all of my efforts trying to translate what's just been said but my brain doesn't have time to process it and makes notes before it has to move on to trying to decipher the next sentence! And what makes it really more depressing is watching my Italian Erasmus classmate I met write swathes and swathes of notes!
Outside of taught contact hours, I've gotten on fairly well with the reading, although it takes me loads longer to do than it does in English as I can't scan read as well in a language that I'm not as confident in. International Public Law is very similar to International Relations Theory (at the moment anyway) and so this has been one of the easier ones to read for as I'm familiar with the vocabulary and concepts already. Introduction to Penal Law was hard. I didn't really have any idea what was going on in the magistral, but the only good thing was that he had a powerpoint that I could take notes from which none of the others did! Difficult too was Theories of Democracy, the content of which starts in Ancient Greece with Pericles' Funeral Oration. If reading Spanish slows me down, then reading Ancient Greek with its unfamiliar sentence structures translated into Spanish turns me into an ancient snail. But I do love the law library - it's been so empty this week! Hopefully that stays the same as the term goes on...
One interesting thing to note so far is how dissimilar the whole university culture is in general compared to English uni - it reminds me a lot more of Sixth Form or College! All I've heard this week from lecturers is how attendance is mandatory, and that the doors will stay shut after class starts. They treat the students like students, which is very different to how UK lecturers put themselves on the same level as us and don't really care if the work isn't done, as they know that we're only wasting our own time.
Outside of class this week I met up with my Canadian friend, Mathilde (pretty sure I call now call her a friend?) for tea at Distrito Vegano (on my list). It was super! Had a fantastic beetroot burger with some amazing little cooked potatoes on the side (which were a bit like patatas bravas but not sure that they were?). I also went back to City Life's meet and speak which was good fun. I met José there again and turns out he follows road cycling, so hopefully I'll be seeing a bit more of him!
Today I was supposed to be hiking with Aluni.net (my housing provider who also puts on activities) but it was postponed for a week because of bad weather. Yes, that's right, I've been here just shy of two weeks now and have had my first taste of Spanish rain! It's very much like English rain actually. So I used the opportunity to check out some mouldy old paintings as my mum would say at el Reina Sofía, one of Madrid's golden triangle of art. I appreciate that I can't really appreciate art. But all of the stuff I saw today was so weird! Not bad weird, but you do wonder Picasso and co. were taking in the 1930s. I also went to the nearby Atoche Renfe station because it has an indoor botanical garden section right in the middle of the station which was pretty cool.
Not a lot else to note really from this week without being too mundane!
Hopefully going to see the last stage of la Vuelta tomorrow! Cannot wait!
Not sure when my next post will be, probably when something else noteworthy happens I suppose. But until then, un saludo cordial!
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