So I realize that I'm pretty bad at this whole blogging thing since I haven't written in this thing for about a month now, whoops sorry. This is well overdue.
My birthday turned out pretty swell if I do say so myself. I didn't do 21 shots, but I did have some amazing sangria with some amazing friends. They really made my birthday special even they had only known me for a short while, I really hope they know how thankful I am. A special thanks to my host family as well, they bought me a delicious cheesecake and a lovely new scarf. My host sister even drove Jenna and I to and from the bar, such a big sister gesture. Kinda of a weird feeling since I've never known what that's like, me being the big sister and all back home.
Coming home from my birthday bash I was still in 'it's my birthday mode,' which is code for I still wanted to drink. I tried to crack open a bottle of wine that I bought that was only 0.90 euro cents! Yes I kid you not, you can buy wine for under a euro here, mind you, it probably wont be very good but hey, college students are not foreign to shitty cheap alcohol. Well, I literally cracked the bottle open with an equally cheap wine bottle opener I bought at a tienda de Chino (Chinese store...kind of like dollar general). Don't you think the name is a bit racist? Maybe I'm just surprised by the directness here since I come from a country that worries about being politically correct all the time. Anyways, in my semi-inebriated state I cracked the side of the bottle with the cork screw, but, successfully pulled the cork out. I poured some into a cup but hesitated and asked my roommate Jenna, 'are there glass shards in this?' We both burst out laughing at the absurdity of the question, and I ended up dumping out the bottle for fear of ripping my stomach lining. Well, at least it was only .90 euro cents down the drain.
The rest of orientation went well, with a trip to Toledo to end the opening week for exchange students. Toledo was just as I remember when I went in 10th grade. It is arguably like many Spanish cities, ancient looking with long, narrow winding roads, but there's something different about Toledo. Maybe for me it's the quaint shops on just about every street, or maybe it's in the air (corny, I know). Following the trip was my first experience at a disco. It was pretty much what I expected, a lot of fog and expensive drinks, nevertheless a lot of fun. I was actually surprised how much American music they played. I'm still taken aback by the American influence on music and movies here. We had to leave a bit early, and a bit early being around 3:30am, and the disco was still ragging. These Spaniards really do go hard.
Then it was on to the first week of classes...lets just say I didn't know the meaning of disorganized until I experienced my first week of classes at UEM. They kind of warned us to go with the flow the first week, but that was really sugar coating it. Classrooms would change literally last minute, resulting in people running around buildings looking for the right room (me being on of those people), professors wouldn't show up or would be extremely late. In one of my classes that I thought was a translation class, the teacher kicked me out because the office signed my up for an English learning class. In all, my schedule changed about three time in a span of two weeks because my classrooms where still changing well into the second week. I've never experienced such a thing when it came to college, coming from a university where punctuality is very important. I am still adjusting to 'Spanish time,' everyone is usually late for everything. I'm not going to lie, I'm usually late for just about everything as well, but school is the one thing I like to be punctual for and that is just not the case here. The exchange students later learned that most of the students usually just don't show up for the first week, and come the second when things are a bit more organized. Wish I got that memo.
Other than the initial crazy-ness, my final schedule didn't turn out too bad. I have one class in English, which will be learning and writing about a region of the world, and it turns out my region for the rest of the semester will be Europe so that just works out perfectly. My other three classes are in Spanish, history, literature, and comprehension and writing in the language. I'm glad the majority of my classes are in Spanish, I'm starting to feel improvements, especially in comprehending when people talk to me and watching TV. Hopefully it stays that way! I've come to the sad realization that I will not be fluent when I go back to the states. This whole process of learning the language is a lot harder than I expected, but I want to come back a hell of a lot better. It is easier than I thought to find a group of people that speak English, and to stay with what your comfortable with. But, it helps to have a host family that only speaks Spanish and meeting more friends from the area and Mexico. It also helps when Jenna and I speak to each other in Spanish to get in some practice and it sounds weird, but to gain some confidence. I've always felt less confident around native Spanish speakers, but I obviously need to break that habit. Yes, I will probably make a grammatical error, and yes, they will probably know I'm American from my accent, but at least I'm learning the language and that is one of the main reasons I'm here.
Next day trip was with Allen and Jenna to the Valle de los Caídos (valley of the fallen). It was one of my favorite places on my 10th grade trip so I was really excited to go back. It was way colder than I expected with some snow on the ground! But it was absolutely beautiful, the scenery is truly breathtaking. This past weekend Jenna, Rory, Carolina and I went to Segovia, which was SO much fun, and this coming weekend is Granada!
Oh and tomorrow is my host moms birthday dinner, cumpleños feliz Conchi!
