Had to be at the Plaza Isabel de Catolica at 8:40 this morning. Had the alarm set for 7 to wake up, review my Spanish, eat breakfast and relax a little. I didn’t get out of bed till 7:40. I even snoozed my alarm multiple times (which I never do so that’s how you know I’m really tired). It rained again in the morning but ended up getting sunny and nice later on. Got to the Plaza Mayor at 8:30 but no one was there. Took me about 5 minutes to realize I was in the wrong place. I asked a policia if this was right and he basically told me no and to keep walking so I did. I met the rest of the group (Suraj, Liz, and John) and Julio (one of the program advisers). We went to the classroom where we took our tests (oral, written and grammar). University of Granda is beautiful!
The tests were harder than I thought. To my surprise, I liked the oral part mejor (better) than the written or grammar (which I normally am better at/more confident). I got placed in level 3: Low Intermediate, but the lady said I would be able to move up after a few days in class and if I think I could handle it. Liz was placed in 5, Suraj in 6 and John in 1. John basically came to Spain taking one introductory course and dropping it. So he is fresh to the language; we keep telling him we are going to teach him Spanish while were still learning Spanish. Liz is from LA- she graduated from UCLA and is studying here then traveling. I was happy to find out she basically only brought warm clothes too. The four of us used the computers at ISA’s office to reconnect to life. Everyone else has internet at their house, but me. Once I got on the computer, I didn’t know what to do first. I wanted to check my e-mails, go on facebook, send e-mails. I refrained from checking out my usual sites (Perez.com, People.com, etc.) but will have to do that another time. We also met some other students through ISA who have been here a semester, which was nice even though we were the “new kids on the block”.
We walked around the city and took some pictures of Dia de la Cruz celebrations and some of the people wearing costumes. We also bought tickets together to see La Alahambra, which were going to do next Saturday. We went back to our homestays for lunch. I have come to accept I will probably never learn street names, which is fine with me because I don’t know street names in America- so why would I start learning in Spain? I do have a pretty good sense of direction here though. At one point, when we separated to go back for lunch I was going to the opposite direction than the others because my homestay was the other way. John just looked at me and asked about 5 times “Are you sure you know where your going?” and I did. Got home great except went to the wrong apartment. Went to 2C instead of 1C and the Spanish man who opened the door was not too happy to see me. I had trouble using my key to open up the main door. Maria and Julio heard me struggling and showed me again how to use the keys again.
Below are pictures from "El Dia de La Cruz"
Just your typical outfit..
Streets were so crowded!
Flamenco dancers and loud music in El Plazo Mayor
The kids were so cute!
More flamenco (some of these woman should not have been wearing these outfits)
Decorations all over the city honoring the day
After walking around for a few hours, I came home and had dinner with Maria y Julio. We had tortilla with rice and vegetables. It was really good. I always take pictures of what I eat and Julio and Maria probably think I'm nuts. I try and tell them it's because people won't believe me when I say I tried a lot of food in Spain. I’m definitely broadening my horizons when it comes to food ( your welcome Emily)
Tortilla (very common in Spain) and rice with vegetables
I asked Maria questions about ice cream and how to order so I can go tomorrow. Everyone has ice cream here. You can’t walk down the street without seeing someone eating ice cream. We watched some of the FC Barcelona and Madrid game and I learned more about the teams. Turns out, the goalie for Madird is the boyfriend of one of the students Julio and Maria had stay with them. Hasta luego!
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