Long time, no update

Life has been utterly wonderful here. No time to update about it much, obviously, but I do feel like the decision to come here has been the best of my life.

Is it sad that there’s practically nothing about home I miss? Save for being able to fluently understand the locals, but that will come in time. Well, I also miss pretty much all the homes I have ever lived in. My biggest complaint is my living arrangements here. You’ve heard me complain about the lack of kitchen appliances, but:

-There’s also no living/dining/family room/place to relax or eat here whatsoever. Just a bedroom for each of my flatmates and me, a bathroom, and a “kitchen.”
-There’s no space to put anything in the bathroom. Clothes, towels, etc., have nowhere to go so I try to stick everything on the hook that the hand towel goes on to avoid putting stuff on the floor or the [wet] sink.
-The washing machine is TINY and we’re only allowed one wash a week (I’ve honestly done more). A week’s worth of clothes barely fit, not to mention if you’re like me and you actually want to wash warm/cold loads separately it’s a struggle. I feel like as much as it costs to live here I should at least be able to have clean clothes.
-The owner’s husband (they live downstairs) is super passive aggressive. Apparently we’re not clean enough for him so he left a nasty note. Now my room is admittedly cluttered but I put an effort into doing the dishes a few times a week and taking out the garbage. Not to mention the garbage cans they gave us for the kitchen are literally the same small ones as in my bedroom. We have 2 of those in the kitchen.
-Although we do have a terrace/rooftop deck, the owner has had bad experiences with students in the past throwing parties and getting drunk so she said we’re not allowed to have any guests up there at all. Of course she initially wrote this on a sign in bad English so I didn’t understand what she was trying to say (her English is like if I needed to write a sign in Mandarin Chinese and didn’t speak a word of it so I took a dictionary and started trying to write down words I need hoping that people who actually speak the language will understand). This essentially makes the deck pointless and officially leaves us with nowhere to entertain or hang out with people. All this floor is good for is eating, sleeping, and bathing, and barely.

But like I mentioned that’s my biggest complaint.

Last weekend I went to Cordoba and a bullfight. I’ll try to post the pictures from Cordoba and my video from the bullfight soon. It was my first time using the recorder on my digital camera so I didn’t know how to make a lower quality video so the almost 17 minutes of my best video is one GB. I’m trying to download Windows Movie Maker but I’m having difficulties because I have Windows XP. Plus, you know, no time.

Classes are going well. I’ve been having a great time. I wonder how other people’s classes are because a friend of mine said her classes bore her but mine are filled with fun and laughter, not to mention plenty of knowledge about Spanish that I had never heard of before. This week the CIEE participants left so it’s just me left in my particular class. Next week I’ll have my same teacher for at least my first class but all different classmates…and likewise my teacher will have all different students except for me lol.

I’m trying to figure out how to afford to extend my stay until my visa expires. I’m supposed to leave January 21st and my visa ends about a month or so later. I’d like to take 4 more weeks of classes so I need to figure out how to afford tuition, room, food, student loans, bills, some entertainment, and the fee to change my return flight. I might try to tutor English, since I am certified to do so, but someone I know here is trying to see if I can get a different job here. We’ll see. I’ve made it this far, it’d be nice if I could extend my stay as long as possible.

My sister and I are going to Paris for Thanksgiving. Plane tickets have been brought. We also want to go to Morocco with the group We Love Spain and I’ve mentioned we’re planning on going to Italy for Christmas/NYE. I’d like to also go to Portugal since it’s so close. My sister and I want to aim to go to Barcelona in early November. If possible I kind of want to visit Madrid, just to visit and see how differently they speak there (I hear they speak super slow compared to Andalusians). And of course, there are trips available with my program; I’ve gone on two so far.

Spanish is beginning to affect my sister’s and my English. Yesterday she said, “What does that signify?” instead of “What does that mean?” and I totally didn’t realize it until she pointed it out. Also when chatting with a friend I mentioned that I had bought some coffee for someone “like to have in the house” and she’s like, “Like to have in the house? That grammar” lol

~ by Revé on September 23, 2011.