Free Day

My fellow Stony Brook student in the Canary Islands, Beverley, pointed out to me that I neglected to introduce myself in my first post (it's never most effective to do things last minute) so here goes:

My name is Christine Bilfinger and I'm a sophomore at Stony Brook, majoring (currently) in Religious Studies and Spanish. I grew up about 10 minutes from the University and had decided in high school that it was a goal of mine to study abroad in college. I love travelling and the Canary Islands seemed like an amazing opportunity, especially because so American schools have programs here. Also, it's 70 degrees or higher year-round. Also, the island of Gran Canaria is renowned for it's beautiful preserved land and beaches. Paradise!

I've been taking spanish for several years now and continued to pursue it at Stony Brook, but have yet to become fluent. What better way than to visit Spain? My only goal coming here was to attain fluency, so I elected to study at the Facultad de Filología, which is essentially the linguistics department. I'm now torn between taking classes in the translation department and my original choice, so when I choose my classes permanently I'll probably be split between the two.

Okay, enough introduction. Today Beverley and I did some errands around town and on the way I took some pictures...

This is a view from across the street from the administration building, where the study abroad office is located.

This is the eagle, a symbol from the Spanish civil war. To the Spanish it represents the fascist regime, although they are aware that in the United States it is a symbol of pride and patriotism. We were still told not to wear the brand American eagle...

This are the "colored houses". Early in Canarian history there existed a law that each house had to be painted a different color, in order that officials could know which family owned which house. When the settlement grew this became difficult, but houses are still brightly colored.

And finally here is the main shopping street. Right now there are insane sales. Beverley and I had a hard time resisting :)