Rowing a Boat

Today was day two of school. My friends say my Spanish is improving day by day and that I am using the new vocabulary that I am learning. Our class was great today. We had the same nice young lady in our first session. We continued our discussion about the different stereo types we have for all countries. For our second class we had a new man named Fernando as the professor. He is a lot better then the last professor we had yesterday who was mean. In class today we discussed the education system in Spain and around the world. It was a good day in class for me. I did not feel pressured or overwhelmed like yesterday.
After class my friends and I grabbed lunch at Cafe & Te, a restaurant close to the school. I ordered a famous dish in Spain and shared it with Monica. Afterwards Claudia, Rosa, Monica and I walked over to my  apartment to put down our materials from school and headed off to the Parque de El Retiro.
I had already been there with Ralph last week but the park is so huge I didn't get to see everything. The girls and I got lost in the metro trying to get to the Park because Rosa was reading the map and guiding the way. We then realized she was not wearing her contacts and was not the best person to be giving directions. We finally made it to the park. As we walked the park we saw Adam a guy in our group from UTA. We asked him to take a couple of pictures of us. He introduced us to his friends from Peru and Ecuador. We all walked around for a bit then headed toward the canoes.
The girls and i all got on one canoe. Rosa and I were in charge of rowing the boat. For a while we were just going in circles because we had no clue how to coordinate ourselves. Finally we reached a really nice spot to take some pictures. I kept messing with the girls by rocking the boat. Claudia was freaking out because she does not know how to swim. She kept asking us to save her in case we fell in. We freaked out at one point because our canoe was heading straight towards a baby duck. The baby duck went underneath our bot and we thought we killed it. But he came out through the other side. YAY!
We had a lot of fun learning how to row and also just goofing around with the girls.
Afterwards Claudia and I walked back to school for a cultural lesson about Spain. The topic was Pablo Picasso. I was so excited to hear stories about him and his art work.
After class we came home and found out we had two new roommates. Ina is from Russia and is 18years old. She knows Russian, Spanish, English and  German. She is very nice and miss home just like me. We talked for a bit about the US and Russia. I am enjoying all the new information from different countries and cultures. Well, we had dinner and then went to bed. Still using my ipod for sleep cant sleep without it.
Cristina Ibarra