Excursion to Toro/Zamora and the first couple weeks of class

Hello all! It's been a week or so since I updated so...sorry about that! It's been pretty stressful here adapting to classes, picking new classes because the spanish students don't like the date and time....etc.
I am currently enrolled in 3 classes with IES and two at the university and until this week I had no classes in the afternoon but a hiccup came up with one of the university classes and now I have to switch to afternoon classes that go until 6 or 7 in the evening 3 days a week...kind of a bummer but at least now i'll only have one class on Friday and it's at 10 am instead of 9. So now when I go on excursions with the program I will only have to feel guilty about missing one class! On the topics of classes...my punctual self arrived to class 15 minutes early the first day only to find all the lights off and no one in the classroom. I thought "uh oh. I must have the wrong classroom!" So I went downstairs and checked the list of rooms again (by now it was the time class was supposed to be starting) the room was still listed as P-9 so I went back up and flicked the light switch on and sat there. A couple other people meandered in around 9:05 and by 9:15 the professor was just walking in. (class started at 9 according to my schedule). The same thing happened with my next class! So I asked a couple British people yesterday what was going on and they told me all the classes start 15 minutes after the hour...This boggles my brain. Class says it'll start at 9....but it really starts at 9:15....and only lasts 45 minutes then. Not only that but the professors all fight to cram all the info they need to talk about into that small period of time. Why not just start on time?? oh well, more time to get tea or coffee in the mornings!!

This week has been non-stop rain and wind: there was a hurricane that came through the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa and decided to come visit us and just sit over Spain =/ Not cool (actually quite cool).

Anyways! Last weekend I went to Toro and Zamora with the program. Toro is a town that as far as I'm concerned is just a huge vineyard with a wine factory....and that's it.

Vineyard!!

Olive trees (I'm not sure what they use the olives for though...)

Castle

Needless to say it was really revolting to smell fermenting wine at 1030 am

They have to keep the room at 75% humidity so the wood barrels don't shrink and leak wine.

11:30 am wine tasting

Another view of Toro

Look at those calves :p

After the wine tasting we headed to Zamora to do a little tour and then eat lunch in a Bodega!

Old Roman Wall

Zamora Cathedral

Ruins of the old Zamora castle

View from on top of the castle ruins

All the Americans freak when they see this....no it's not the KKK these are the traditional outfits for Semana Santa (Easter week)

Totally didn't realize how much frozen yogurt I was getting until it was too late....this was 30 minutes before lunch too.

We walked through this brushy area and on the "Trail"...
 

.... 

...past these little hut things which are all "bodegas" (underground restaurants)

until we got to our restaurant....Part of me wants to meet the interior designer and part of me doesn't....

The food was amazing!! Zamora is known for it's grilled pork so we had ribs and other grilled meat =] om noms

Anyways! Next week I have an excursion from Fri-Sun to Seville and Granada in the south of Spain. Then the following weekend I have tentative plans to go to Lisbon, Portugal with some girls from the program. More updates to come!!