Zaragoza

This weekend I had the enormous pleasure of visiting Zaragoza, the 4th largest city in Spain located in the central north and filled with eye candied guapos. And one of the more wonderful human beings to grace this planet, a fellow classmate-to-be who is studying in the Rotary International Program there.

We shall call my friend Smith, (although Gyllenhaal would work as a code name equally effectively), as I am enamored with code names.

I was given the most thorough twenty four hour tour of the city, complete with a high school band type gig (songs mostly in english, and a cafe of multilingual spanish students) and a graffiti exhibit. And a delicious cookie, covered in dark chocolate. An internet search failed to find the name, and succeeded in distracting me enough to go eat a cookie, and resume my weekend summary.

Zaragoza has a gigantic church, shown in this photo I stole from the internet.

Most visitors to Zaragoza only go see the church, and so I counted my lucky stars to be given a personal tour of the many statues, streets, museums and cafés. We were also invited into another, much smaller church by a man who appeared to be the priest. Inside were stone carvings (dating from a ways back... 1300?), a crypt, and a very disturbing nun dummy trapped in a glass case with a expression of dread and despair. I think the mannequin was from more recent times (just a hunch). Lutherans don't have this sort of nonsense. Where are the coffee and doughnuts?

Super Smith and I also spoke only in spanish/castellano, upon my request (I am here to learn, after all). My conversation skills are still fairly basic, and it was a mostly auditory experience for me. Paying super attention to every phrase paid off however, as 24 hours of only spanish has got me into automatic mode.

Speaking of spanish, some songs I've been analyzing/enjoying.

I don't understand everything, but I've been translating the lyrics and can follow the simpler lines easily enough.

With only a week to go, I'm trying to cram as much spanish, activities and excitement as possible into the next seven days. There's a picnic at the beach (22 degrees! Celcius, mind you.), three libraries, a concert and likely more things to tackle, while thumping my head with ser y estar, por y para and masculino y feminino. If those six things would straighten themselves out, I would be much happier/saner.

Hispanohablantes, tienes ideas/consejos?