Spain Update

ok so i'm going to try and get y'all caught up on all the fun events in my life in spain so far, including but possibly not limited to, academic stuff, town outings, and room trouble. and in that order. so if school stuff bores you, you can skip the first section.

so. we had our placement tests thursday morning. first there was an oral comprehension part that i pretty much bombed. then while we were working on the multiple choice part, they would take three students out of the room at a time and have us each talk with a professor and carry on a small conversation so they could tell we were with our speaking skills. i did ok on that part. the actual "test" test part was iffy. it started hardish, got worse, and then got really easy at the end. which was good cause my brain was about fried by then. thankfully, as i found out the next day, i tested well enough to get in the advanzado 1 (B) class. which means that i'll be getting 300-level credit for my primary classes which is a very VERY good thing (it means i SHOULD be able to get ALL the classes i need for my major this year alone). woot. so now i am taking conversation (ana fernandez), composition(pepe lopez), grammar (juan antonio lopez), DELE (ana fernandez) (preparation for a proficiency exam at the end of the year), history of spain (luis amoros), spanish culture (luis amoros), and spainsh music (juan antonio lopez) (for jacque's benefit, i have listed my professor's names after the classes). so far classes are going well. the only ones that i'm a little worried about are those with luis amoros cause he tends to talk faster and i don't follow as well. but whatever, i'll make it.

on thursday, after our placement test, lunch, and a tour of campus, we had a bunch of free time so a bunch of us decided to go to the beach in puerto sagunto. at first we were going to ride our bikes, but there weren't enough for everyone and plus, the dean (lourdes), said that she was going into town anyway and could take some of us to at least the bus station where we could catch a bus to the beach. getting to the beach was no problem (my first time ever riding public transportation!) and it was amazing!!!
the mediterranean is so clear and it wasn't freezing like the pacific. and the sand was so soft. i loved it! except of course for the nasty old ladies that shouldn't have been wearing bikinis and the guys in the speedos. but at least there weren't any topless women. thank goodness.

however, the ride back to the school was somewhat more interesting that the ride to the beach. none of us remembered to get the name of the bus station we had gotten on the bus and we weren't even sure about where the bus station was at the beach. so we were standing around what we thought was the right station looking like a bunch of american tourists when a police car drives up. thankfully one of the girls, jessica (from wwu for those who care) knew spanish pretty fluently since she's half spaniard/half mexican/full american (you know what i mean). so she was able to tell the police officer where it was that we were trying to go. the hilarious thing about this encounter was that the police officer was pretty much flirting with her the whole time. and he had to be in his thirties (graying temples too). he even asked her if we were going to the festival in valencia on saturday and then gave her his cell number. lol! nevertheless, we got the help we needed and got on the next bus for sagunto. apparently we were at the right bus stop but we were on the wrong side of the road for the direction that we wanted to go.

when we got back to the original bus stop (which we were lucky enough to recognize from the bus) we learned after waiting awhile and also speaking with a native that no taxis came by there (we had to take a taxi back to the school because lourdes was not able to come back and pick us up). thankfully, a lady helped us call a taxi service. but of course when it got there, the driver told us he could only take four passengers, and there were six of us. so after arguing over whether or not we could fit more people in the car, he called another taxi for us and three went with him while the rest of us waited for the next taxi. which it came in five minutes and the driver knew where the school was (we now know to ask for "el CAS" [colegio adventista de sagunto]) and we made it safely back. the funniest thing that we learned about this excursion is that spanish men like to unbutton their pants while driving. both the police officer and one of the bus drivers that helped us had to button their pants and fasten their belts when they got up out of their seats and vehicles. it was kinda funny/awkward having a police officer get out of his car and button his pants in front of you while saying "perdon, perdon." i guess it's not so weird to have them undone when your job is to sit down all day in a vehicle, but couldn't you fix them BEFORE getting out of the car?

the next time that we went into town was on friday. every friday they take us to carrefour which is basically like an expensive walmart. i was able to get some school supplies i needed and also laundry detergent. that was a fun item to buy; all their detergents reek!!! but finally i found an ocean breeze one that wasn't TOO bad.

then, of course, friday night we had vespers. which was fine except for the fact that i was tired and it's really hard to try and follow a language you don't really know when you're tired. but i did some blessing out of the music. thankfully, for most of their songs they do powerpoint so we americans are able to sing along with our iffy pronunciation.

and if you've been paying attention and remember the order of things i said i was going to talk about, now is the time that you get to hear about the adventure of the dorm room. so the room i have is pretty good, balconey view and all that. however, friday night we discovered that it had some problems. i got up around 1pm to go to the bathroom and when i got back, i realized the floor by my bed was kinda wet. not thinking much of it, i went to the sliding door to the balconey to close it, thinking the water on the floor was just from the wind blowing the heavy rain in. not so much. the water was actually coming from the ceiling. we're on the top floor and there are apparently about five or six holes in the roof. which was NOT good news. cause not only was there water on the floor (where my backpack and suitcases were), but there was water on the desks. and i mean a LOT of water.

at first i panicked and actually rescued and dried off both my camera and laptop before i even realized that saray was still sleeping. so i woke her up and we both continued to move stuff up off the floor and off our desks. she called the assistant dean and also got buckets for the main drips. there was one hole where the water wasn't just a steady drip but rather a stream of water. After everything was pretty much safe from the water, Marisel (i *think* that's the asst. dean's name) opened up another room for us so that we could sleep away from the water. which was really nice of her but i still didn't sleep well that night. i kept thinking about my laptop and camera that might have been ruined. and every time that i tried to stop thinking about it cause i couldn't do anything more, the sound of the heavy rain (it almost seemed like a monsoon) kept reminding me. and of course during church the next day, it kept raining on and off again and distracting me.

so now i'm in a different room, without a balcony :( and having to keep going between both rooms cause we're supposed to move back in once the roof is fixed. which i think they were supposed to do monday but i'm not really sure. however, thankfully my laptop wasn't ruined. unless it has a secret that it's not telling me cause i'm using it right now to write this. and my camera's working too. so i should soon have pictures for those who want them of the view and of my room, both dry and wet. but first i have to figure out how to put them in a blog. i tried once already and it didn't work. so we'll see.

oh, one more thing before i go. they appear very liberal here. the academy girls are allowed to wear jewelry etc and some of them were wearing jeans to church. and the weirdest thing was that saturday night they played "click" the movie for us. and it wasn't watching the movie that odd, it was where we were watching it. right there in the sanctuary of the church. talk about awkward. but whatever. cuando esta en espana, hace como los espanoles.

and that's about all for now, so, que tengas un buen dia y hasta luego!

¡Estoy en España!

Well here I am, safe and sound in Spain. I left Wednesday morning at 9:25 from Boise and flew to Denver. There I had a 2-hour layover before boarding a 10-hour flight on Lufthansa Airlines for Munich, Germany. As a sidenote, why don't we as individual countries call other countries what they call themselves? Why is it Munich in the US and Munchen in Germany? Why is it Spain in the US and España in Spain? Hmmm? Can anyone answer this question? Why not just have all countries call España, España and be done with it? Thankfully that flight went pretty well. I had two seats to myself (yeah!) and the first movie was actually pretty entertaining. It was a British movie called "Mr. Bean's Holiday" and it was hilarious. Y'all should watch it some time. And the food was good too. I was a little worried because I had forgotten to request vegetarian meals but I was just fine. For supper we had a choice between chicken/rice or pasta with marinara and then for breakfast it was an omelet and potatoes. So I had no meat issues and all the food was really tasty besides.

Anywho, moving on. From Munchen (ha! even if no one else does, I'll use original names), I flew to Valencia. This was AFTER sitting in the airport for four hours and working on intensive development of smoker's cough due to the smoking that was allowed in certain areas of the airport. Even though it was only a few small places where you could smoke, as Mike Dewey says, having a smoking section in a building is like having a peeing section in a pool. Grrrrr....
Moving on again. My apologies for the rants. You would too though about the smoke. I arrived in Valencia and found some other ACA students in the baggage claim area that had been on the same flight. So after we walked out of the airport (no customs or passport check whatsoever…really weird), there were five of us waiting around trying to figure out where the people from ESDES were to pick us up. After waiting awhile, we decided to call the school. Once we figured out how much to pay for the phones, we finally were able to get a hold of the director. Apparently they were confused about when we were coming in so they were hoping that either we would call them or they would see us when they came to pick up other students who were coming in at various times that day. Thankfully they already had someone on the way there since two others were coming in an hour after us. So we found them when they got off the plane and then all seven of us waited together until the school guy came and got us.

And so now I am living in the girls' dorm at Colegio Adventista de Sagunto (CAS) and am enrolled in the Escuela Superior de Espanol-Sagunto (ESDES).


Woot woot! And thankfully my roommate, Saray – a Spaniard, is nice and we've got a balcony with an amazing view (I can see the Mediterranean from my room!!!!).


Unfortunately, as most of you know, I'm not a great conversation initiator and when that's combined with poor Spanish skill…..you get my drift. But Saray's nice and so I'm sure we'll be fine.

And that's about all for now. Look for more updates later telling of the first full day and then the first day of classes. Love and miss you all! ¡Que tenga un buen fin de semana y feliz sábado!