Beach'n

Now that I have this blog, even though it’s basically just my friends and family who is reading it, I totally understand how it’s hard to keep a blog updated even when I have stuff to say. It just takes a lot of effort to type this all up and maintain my own journal, especially with all the other activities that are going on in my life, with classes, tutorias and trips. So never again will I get angry at a blog that I read when they haven’t updated in a week or so. See I am learning new cultural things every day!

Now my classes are almost over and I am started to get a little nervous, because I got my language test back and I passed but I didn’t do as well as I hoped. But this seemed to be what happened to the entire class so I am not alone especially since the test seemed really unfair because we weren’t being tested on what we learned. The test we got was just kind of a standard language test that really had nothing to do with what we learned including vocabulary that I have never heard of and a lot of the grammar questions were exceptions to the rule that we never talked about. And now we are approaching the next and last test and I am super worried because I did not do well on this last test and I feel like in the last week the professor crammed a lot of really difficult tenses and she did not do a good job of explaining them. It’s just that we didn’t have the time to devote to really understanding the lessons. We are also taking our culture class, which I think is just hard right now; everyone is feeling worn out and the teacher seems very bemused by us and our way of being in class. One time we were laughing with one of our classmates because she was just being so silly when she was doing her presentation, which is partly just her personality and how she talks but it wasn’t malicious at all. But the professor seemed so offended that we were laughing and she said this is a university class and we should be acting formal, which I just thought was so odd because at least back at Dickinson our classes are respectful but they are certainly never formal and none of my other professors her are formal at all. Of course I am also worried about this test and can’t wait till these classes are over although I really don’t want to leave Spain.

We went out this last Thursday again and this time Somia and her younger sister came out with us. This was her sister’s first time coming out to the discotheque because she was only 16 and she was so excited to be out. It was funny to see someone going to the clubs for the first time, someone who hadn’t even been burned by going out. It was fun to see. This time when I went out I actually managed to find someone to dance with who is Spanish, since most of the people we interact with are also foreign but mostly from Europe, so I got to practice my Spanish, even when I was out and about. But it was hard because it was mostly yelling so it’s hard to understand even when I’m speaking English. One of the interesting that we’ve noticed is that men will not approach you when we are out or even out on the streets when you are in a group with guys in it. So sometimes when we go out we will move away from the bigger group so that we can meet new people.

I’ve also been doing some shopping while I was here. I found a great jacket that is very classy and is something that I could do casually but also I could wear to work and it is really well made. That was a little more expensive and when I got home and showed it to my mother she was very impressed but she told me that in July everything would really go down in price and I could have probably gotten it for about 15 euros cheaper, but that did not dismay me for very long. I also found a great cheap necklace and a purse that was half off that was perfect. It’s a really bright yellow, has a zipper and a longer strap and was half off.

Then since we were going on two day trips this weekend we didn’t want to have too late of a night so we just went out for a drink on Friday. We were going to go down to the center but then we ended up closer to our neighborhood at one of the fish places by the beach. I got a mohito and it was delicious and it was super sour. We had a good time and then went to the bus stop but decided to start walking because we were closer. As soon as we passed on of the bus stop we see the bus pulling up. We run back and start waving our hands to get the driver to open the door but she won’t because she is a little past the stop at the light. So then we book it, running as fast as we can to the next stop but we are at a weird part of the street and we do not make it to the next bus stop. Then we start walking again and we see another bus passing us by, which is particularly irritating because at this point at night the buses only come every 20 or 30 minutes. So after all that running we miss both buses and ended up walking home.