May 2, 2023--Embarrassment and Laughter

I woke up to another beautiful day in Spain and decided to go for a run (as Papa said, "That's my girl, running through Spain!")  Since I didn't know how safe it actually was outside of the university (although we had walked around last night, and it seemed fine), I tried to stick pretty close to the main square and the surrounding streets.  I actually ended up running into one of my professors while I was out and about, so I figured it was all good.  There was so much to see, including some crazy big birds on the tops of buildings (turns out, they are STORKS!)

See the storks?

Anyway, after the whole study abroad kids got together for breakfast, we headed out as a group to the entrance of the university where we are staying.  There, we practiced looking at and recognizing symbolism in architecture.  It was super cool having our teacher teach us what we can notice on the front facades of the building from mythological figures (I mean, it was crazy--Perseus was there) to God, the Father.  We did stand for a lot of it which I wasn't in love with--I like to be moving forward and not standing still...which should be a GREAT quality once we actually start the Camino ;-)  But after we got some hands-on experience appreciating what is around us, we headed to this cute little room that BYU owns to start our classes about the Camino before we actually start walking the Camino.

We talked about literature and art, some of which I already knew because I took a class on the Cultures of Spain from one of the teachers, but it was good review, and I just looked like a really great art connoisseur ;-)

For lunch, I met up with our family friends, the Carlsons! It is seriously so fun that they live in Madrid, and they just drove over super quick to see me :-) We went to a small local restaurant where we had great food and conversation.  I think I'm actually the last Kennedy kid to meet the Carlsons since we have gotten older, and it was super great!  I mean, when we knew them in Germany, I was four years old, so the memories are pretty non-existent for me, but they are favorites of my siblings...which means they are favorites of me ;-) I'll admit that I'm completely clueless when it comes to traditional Spanish food, so they just ordered a bunch of stuff and we FEASTED.  Everything was so tasty...except for the Russian salad which had mayonnaise in it....but give me the cheesecake anytime! Unfortunately we didn't have a ton of time to hang out and catch up since I got out of class at 12:30 and had to be back at 3:15, but we made the most of our time together <3

Then it was back to the classroom for afternoon classes which were for sure more interesting than the morning classes, mostly due to an unknowing blunder by me.  To preface this embarrassing moment, a little history lesson, or repaso.  Gargoyles are meant to scare away demons--that is why they are placed on cathedrals--so they can scare away bad spirits.  It seems counter-productive to me cause basically demons are scaring away demons, but ANYWAY.... My teacher was showing us a gargoyle and before he turned to another slide, he said, "This one strikes fear in my heart."

None of us responded (cause we didn't know what we were looking at).

So he moved the mouse to the darker area at the bottom of the gargoyle and said, "It's a phallus."

Since I OBVIOUSLY don't have any of those parts myself nor do I have any experience with them, I am trying to process why this phallus in particular would scare my teacher, so while I am processing this, I ask,

"Is it too small...or too large?"

The room ERUPTS in laughter for probably a good 30 seconds before our teacher can even get a semblance of control.  A funny moment which definitely got me on everybody's social radar, GOOD or BAD, but yeah, that happened ;-)

Other than that, class was just class.  Most of the men in the class were falling asleep.  We then had a bit of time before dinner (which doesn't START until 8 p.m. and goes until 10 p.m. 'cause everything in Spain starts three hours later than in the States which I'm kinda into).  I filled the time with journaling, napping and writing on my computer with some of the other students.  We also couldn't resist a quick walk before heading into the cafeteria.  Dinner was good.  I feel like I'm starting to get to know my study abroad group better, and after we had eaten, we went to see the courtyard and gym area of the school.

The university has a decent-sized gym, and as soon as we found it, we discovered that they have a PING PONG table! I'm proud to say, even though they weren't the most official games, I did come out victorious in all of my ping pong games ;-) And then, for some reason, we started a janky pickup game of soccer, and it was HILARIOUS.  Because of the size of the courtyard, there is only one turf field which is pretty small already, but there were lawn chairs on it.  Because people were sitting in them, we could only play soccer on a 40' x 40' section of grass, so the ball was constantly going out onto the concrete, or off the field, and we were just constantly yelling, "It's still in.  It's still in!" and playing it around the entire courtyard. 

And with that, I was pooped so I went back to my room, tried to have a coherent conversation on the phone, gave up and went to bed.