La vida española

At this point in my narrative, I need to introduce more characters. The first is Vicenta, my señora. Vicenta is maybe 65, loves to give advice, cooks a mean paella, and runs the household that I am staying with. She speaks loudly and quickly, but generally clearly, and I can usually understand her unless she´s saying something important. Character two: Benito. Also in his sixties, Benito is Vicenta´s husband. He is smaller in stature than Vicenta, quiter (unless he and Vicenta are argueing in raised voices, something that seems to be a favorite passtime of many Spaniards), reserved, and absolutely one hundred percent impossible to understand. Most of my conversations with him usually end with me saying, "Si, si. Vale. Te entiendo." (Translation: "Sure, I understand") and thinking "God, I hope that wasn´t anything important." Character three: Cristobal. Chris is the other American student living with Vicenta and Benito. Chris studies hard, runs a lot, and refuses to speak English (which is a stark and refreshing contrast to many people in the program who only speak Spanish when in class). Cristobal is a font of good vocabulary, despite not having spoken a word of Spanish before he got to Salamanca in September for a month intesnive program. The only thing that I can hold agains him is that his room has wireless, and mine does not. Finally, enter the chorus: Vicenta and Benito´s family. I think they have two sons and a daughter, most of whom have spouses and some of whom have children. However, I have yet to really nail down family relations, since most people seem to come and go rapidly and at random. The end effect is an often full house, even though only Vicenta and Benito live in the apartment.
Now the set:
Salamanca is beautiful, a labyrinth of tan sandstone streets, hidden parks, baroque churches, and college students. Everything is within walking distance, because walking is really the only way you can navigate the inner city, but it always seems to take a little longer than you think to get somewhere, because straight streets were apparently a moral afront to the city planners. As a Spanish city, life begins around 10:00, completely stops between 2:00 and 4:00 pm for lunch and siesta, and then doesn´t really get going again until 9:00 in the evening. That is unless you´re a college student, in which case life doesn´t really start until midnight ish. If you´re really a foreigner, you can usually get away with going out at 11:00 and coming home at 1 or 2 am. But that´s only if it´s a week night.

In terms of action, last week I was mainly getting used to the city, classes, my host family, and trying to speak Spanish. Classes, despite the fact that they´re in a language that I only partially understand, should leave me plenty of time for traveling and tasting spanish culture. Luckily, there is a lot of culture to taste, and I find myself uncomfortably full almost every day due to the giant meals that Vicenta feeds me.