I made it here! I am at a friends house using the internet. It has definitely been a couple of interesting days. I got here on Thursday and I was exhausted but I met my two roomates and we went to the grocery store and made dinner and talked, it was nice to meet them and they both seem like they're really nice so hopefully we'll get alone. Then it was time to go to sleep so I went and I slept for about 3 hours and then I woke up with an incredible bout of homesickness. It was pretty bad that first night, but I finally fell asleep around 6am. Our apartment is okay, its not vwonderful but it is big. Its so different from home though! We have to hand-light the butane for hot water and the stove/oven and the oven has no thermometer so we just have to guess! Its kinda rough and we think getting butane all the time might add up. We'll have to see. Hopefully soon we'll get internet in our apartment.
Friday we went to our orientation and met the other people in our program. It was pretty easy and I think I understood everything the orientation leaders said which I was pretty proud of. After that we went to IKEA to buy sheets and to El Corte Ingles, which is like a giant department store of "American" stuff to get cell phones. El Corte Ingles is like heaven, its the biggest department store I've ever seen. In Spain this month they have a national sale called rebajas, and rebajas means that everything is really cheap! People keep telling us we should buy things before the end of January before stuff gets expensive again, but I don't want to buy winter clothes. Its funny here because even though its like 70 degrees every day the people dress for the season, not the weather, so they're still walking around in coats and boots. Then we went to dinner at a wonderful little tapas restaurant with some of my roomate Lara's friends. After dinner we went out to the clubs and we danced and stuff until 4am. I like the Spaniards for staying out late, but it was pretty exhausting.
Today we woke up kindof late, had breakfast and then we met a bunch of people to go to Monteguro--a mountain with a giant statue of Jesus on top. It was absolutely beautiful and we could see the entire city from the top of the mountain. Climbing to the top, however, was absolutely horrifying and I about had a heart attack on the way down. It was worth it, though, to get up close and personal with "Giant Jesus" as the natives call it. Then we went to a friend's house for dinner and just hung out. Tomorrow its Sunday so everything will be closed, I'm kindof looking forward to a chance to rest.
I'm still having some homesickness, but I'm slowly getting used to it here and every day feels a little better. My Spanish is definitely improving, and I feel like I learn a few new words every day which is what I should feel, I think. My Spanish class starts on Monday, so I'm sure that will help too. Hopefully it will be good enough to get me ready for real classes in mid-February. If you're reading this send me emails/facebook messages! I miss everyone a lot and I want to hear about whats going on in the US! I'll try to post photos tomorrow.
Words I have learned:
copa: wine glass
locutoria: place with internet and phones you can pay for
and many, many more that I can't remember because its 3:30am.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment