España!

it´s tuesday here, i think...
the rehearsals have been going really well. my section is pretty cool, and we´re all having a blast playing the bernstein! i am already anxious about the solo in the "somewheré" section of the work. (there´s a plaaace for us, somewhere a plaaaace for us...). one cool thing they do here is after someone plays something well, everyone takes the time to applaud. makes it feel like we´re all in it together, and not out for each other´s throats like it can feel sometimes in orchestra at school.
i think my favorite part of the city so far is the paseo marítimo. it runs all along the coast, and i´ve been taking this route up to the torre de hercules almost every day. there´s something about running along the ocean that is just incomparable to anything else. phil, keith and i (los americanos...) have been hanging out with a cool group of spaniards. mostly violinists and violists who can speak little to no english, but somehow we´ve managed to become fast friends. i think the hardest part for me has been trying to order food! they have so many specialities here that dont exactly describe what food it contains, so i´m never really sure quite what i´m actually eating, but i´ve figured out the safe foods are: tortillas (what we call omlettes), and sangria. everything else, i´ve either forgotten the name of, or not had anyone able to actually translate what it is! i´m learning too many new words a day to remember any of them im afraid....
hopefully later this week we´ll have some time to go to santiago de compostela, or some other neighbooring cities because i think la coruña has shown us all her charms.
hope this finds you all well and happy! i´ll be back in a few days, and exhausted i´m sure, but i´ll try to post some pictures when i can (cant connect my camera here).