Hello everyone,

Everything has been going great over here so far. I have been adjusting to the lifestyle easier than I thought. Here is a typical day for me in Santander:

First wake up in the morning at around 8:30. They typically do not eat very much for breakfast so I either have a piece of toast and coffee with milk or sometimes just the coffee. After that I walk to school which only takes about 3 minutes for me. So nice! After that I have a Spanish grammar class for two hours with a man named Manolo. He has got to be the funniest guy I have ever met. He definitely makes the classes interesting. After that I have an hour of conversation and then a history and culture class for the last hour. Classes finish up around two and we all head home for lunch. Lunch is typically the largest meal of the day with three different courses everyday. We start off with soup and break. Then we have the main course which is typically some type of steak, sausage, or a some type of meat and then a lot of times we have potatoes, either papas fritas(fries), or mashed potatoes. After that is some type of postre. Then after that is the siesta, a little nap to recharge for the night. Then I typically study for a while during the evening or walk around town, have some tapas and a coffee. Than at 9:30pm I have dinner which is a soup and then a pasta meal. On school nights I typcally just stay in after that, but on weekends we all typically go out at 11:00pm, which by the way is very early for Spaniards. We stay on till about 2 am sometimes a little later (and I guess students our age typically are up until about 5-6 in the morning.

So far I have had two excursions. The first excursion we went to Altamira and las cuevas del Castillo. They are prehistoric caves with art dating back 18.500 years ago. Altamira was actually a replica in order to preserve the original. But we were able to go into the original cave of el castillo which was extremely cool.

The other excursions was a trip to Comillas and Santillana del Mar. Comillas was really cool because they had a house there that was constructed by Gaudi who also did Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. A lot of his stuff is not found outside of Catalan so it was great seeing it in Cantabria, the region that I am in. Also we took a tour through a neogothic palace called el Palacio de Sobrellano. After Comillas we went to Santillana del Mar and wondered the old town. There was a medieval feel to the town. The church there was called Santa Juliana and was constructed in the 12 century. So far the excursions have been awesome.

Anyways, sorry I have been unable to get any pictures up. I have been having a lot of problems with both my camera and my computer so I am trying to see what I can do to get something up as soon as possible. Take care and I will write soon and have pictures.