La música viva

Tengo amigas quienes fueron en el extranjero para estudiar en el pasado.  La mayoria de ellas tuvieron la oportunidad de ir a un concierto mientras fueron en el otro país.  

Este semana voy a muchos conciertos.  Martes fui al concierto de jazz, y voy al concierto de la banda sinfonía anoche.  Mañana hay dos conciertos, uno para una amiga, y el otro para una amiga de mi compañera de cuarto.  Domingo estoy en un recital con mis hermanas de mi fraternidad, y finalmente el martes que viene voy al concierto del coro de los trombones.  

También compré boletos para un concierto de uno de mis grupos favoritos.  Este concierto es el semana antes de que me despida para España.  

Ojalá que mientras me quede en España tenga la oportunidad de escuchar la musica viva.  Más, quiero ir al conciertos de todos típos de música: classica, rock, grupos que ya conozco y grupos nuevos a mi.  No puedo llevar mi trombón a España conmigo, y sé que necesito un poco de música en mi vida para sobrevivir.  

To the consulate

This weekend I ventured downtown to apply for my visa at the Spanish Consulate.  

After a week spent running around getting my paperwork in order I presented myself and a stack of photocopied forms to the consulate at 9 in the morning.  After waiting ten minutes for the office to open I handed my paperwork over to a grumpy man.  He spent the next five minutes berating me for not reading the instructions carefully enough and saying that I wouldn't be able to complete my application.  Thankfully, the crisis was averted by a photocopier in another room and a trip to the post office.  Still, it took two hours to get all the paperwork finished.  My appointment was for ten minutes.  

A note to those who are going to apply for their visas:

• Read the directions carefully.  Five times.  Then again.  I found at least three different sets of instructions online through the consulate itself, plus the set provided by my study abroad program.  Each set was slightly different.  Follow them all.
• Don't let parents hover.  Officials dislike interference and will not look kindly on their involvement.  

In the two hours that I was in the consulate building I had plenty of time to engage in my favorite form of Spanish practice: eavesdropping.  I was able to understand most of what the consulate employees were saying to the spanish citizens.  Then, the man in front of me who was applying for his visa had to read a letterhead that said "Gobierno de España" to someone on the phone.  He pronounced it "Gor-bri-er-no de Espana".  Maybe it's petty, but it made me feel better about myself; my accent may be bad but it isn't that terrible.  Between the two experiences I was feeling pretty confident about my Spanish, even if my direction reading skills need assistance. 

Hello!

I've been planning on starting a new blog to document my semester abroad for a while.  It occurred to me this weekend that I don't need to wait until I'm overseas to start writing.  So, without further ado, here's my new blog!  The purpose of this blog is to have a space to keep my family and friends updated on what's going on in my life once I'm halfway around the world.

As of today, I have 11 weeks until I leave for Spain.  In that time I'm hoping that a few things will happen.  First of all, I need to get all of my paperwork for study abroad finished.  This is quite a process, and is something that I've been working on since July.  Second, I need to start exploring the culture and the history of where I'm going to be staying.  I have a few ideas of how I'm going to do this, but haven't yet had the motivation to get moving.  Third, I can always use a little extra spanish practice.

This is where the blog comes in.  I hope that by having a space to write about what I'm learning I'll be more motivated to start putting some effort in to this.  My goal for the next 11 weeks is to keep a log of how the paperwork is going, to start exploring what I'm getting myself in to, and to write at least one post a week in Spanish.