February

Is it already February? I guess 5 weeks of Christmas break makes January pass quickly. The temperature finally broke 50 and it’s been sunny for a few days now. I hope this pattern continues.

One thing that I’m coming to appreciate about my program is that dinner isn’t included in the price of admission. It sounded like a rip off at first but now I see where they were going with it. Since I can’t have Pepita make dinner for me every night (although she offers once in a while and I’m free to take advantage of that), I either have to go out or make something for myself. Until Tuesday I had just gone out with friends. I told you about tapas—awesome—but that can get expensive, not particularly healthy, and if it feels like a stay-in night, tapas are not the answer. So Tuesday evening I went to the grocery store and bought myself some bread, cheese, ham, and yogurt. Think about that: going grocery shopping for myself in a foreign country where I’ve only been for a weekish. What? Crazy. But really cool…true cultural integration :)

You know how I don’t like oranges? Well, I like oranges here. Orange trees are everywhere and all the oranges are super fresh and actually good. I especially like the little mandarin ones. Yum!

A ridiculous story about “class” yesterday: We were supposed to meet our teacher at the University Plaza at 10am, but a few of us had meetings about our class schedules so we stayed behind and were going to meet them in the Social Sciences department at 11:00. Well……we got there at 11:05 and they had left us, so these 2 other girls and I were trying to follow over-the-phone directions to meet back up with them, but it ended up being mostly just a wild goose chase. They told us they were at “Fuente Nueva”—there are 3 fuente nuevas: a tiny street, a huge street, and a park, all by the same name. We went to each of them, but we couldn’t find them for over an hour. Finally one of us texted someone else in the group to tell them we’d given up and we went back to IES to sit in the sun on the terrace for a while until “class time” was supposed to be over. No pasa nada. :)

I have started reading a book called Manolito Gafotas which apparently is written for 12-13 year olds, but it was recommended to me by a native Spaniard as a good book to start “reading for fun” in Spanish with. I’ve read two chaptes so far. I know I’m not getting every detail but in general I understand what’s going on. Maybe after this I can advance to more literary reading.

So I’ve heard from pretty much everyone I know about the “snowpocalypse” that’s occurring in the US right now… Very strange. I can’t say I’m sad I’m missing it… Maybe it would be cool to see so much snow but in general I prefer the 50 degrees of here to the idk how far below freezing and wet and bad roads of a snowstorm. I hope you all survive ;) because I’d like to see you when I get back home :)

This afternoon I had the oral aspect of my language placement exam, which I think went well. Hopefully very soon I’ll get the results back. I’m so excited to start “real” classes; orientation has been extremely helpful but also perhaps longer than necessary. I’m looking forward to getting into a regular routine so it doesn’t feel like I’m still in vacation mode.

I put up more pictures on fb if you want to see.

Also Hannah and I finally got our churros y chocolate last night. yum.

¡Gracias por leer!