La locura

I went out Wednesday night, Friday night AND Saturday night last week. Whoa. It was all fun! Sunday night I went to the movies and saw Tropic Thunder in Spanish.

I met some Czech people who are going to play disc with me and I invited all of the Americans to come too. We are going to play tomorrow, rain or shine! Weeeeeeeeeeee

Happy :)

Sevilla

I went on a little day trip to Sevilla today with a girl from my school group. I did not have a great time, I won't elaborate here. But I will put some photos up!

On the train


Me and a painting of Vulcan and Venus


More art


Sevilla's S.L.U.T. equivalent

El ansia

WHY did I choose to live in a place with no ultimate? For an entire YEAR? What was I thinking?!?!

I am trying to find out if there is any ultimate in Cadiz, but I haven't made much progress. Originally I thought there was absolutely zero chance but I have a renewed hope now because of an email I got from a guy in Sevilla. I emailed him and basically asked if they ever have pick-up on the weekends because if so, I would totally go there and play. He responded by replying to my email, ccing me and some other person and sending the mail to some girl named Ana who, from what I can gather from their websites and stuff, is the like.. cocaptain of the Sevilla team with the guy who I originally emailed. The email said, "Ana, can you put her in contact with the guys in Cadiz?" (All of the correspondance has been in Spanish, BTW) so now I am waiting for Ana to get her act together... I am becoming a bit impatient, though. Maybe I will just email this Ana girl, or the other person who was cced on the reply. I have no idea who that person is though.

I just want to play ultimate :( every other city has a team, why not mine??????// :( :(

Actualiza: El horario

I got my schedule all fixed up and worked out today. I talked to Rita, the director of the program here in Cadiz, she is super awesome and wonderful. She did the program through UW year ago and now is married to a guy from Cadiz and is in charge of the program here and is having a baby! I really like her and she is easy to talk to.

My schedule will be okay, some days better than others:

Monday: Grammar 11:00AM-1:00PM, Literature 4:30PM-6:00PM
Tuesday: Economics 11:00AM-12:30PM, Literature 12:30PM-2:00PM, Literature 4:30PM-6:00PM
Wednesday: Literature 10:30AM-12:00PM, Grammar 12:00PM-2:00PM
Thursday: Nada :)
Friday: Economics 12:00PM-1:30PM

M/T/W will be lame but the rest will be super easy I think. And I will be giving English lessons to a lady on Mondays at 6PM in the old part of the city, so it will work out very nicely with this new schedule.

Now I have errands upon errands to run. I hope I don't get harrassed while walking down the street, that is my least favorite part about leaving the apartment.

El aburrimiento

Some photos...

Two from my wild night of glass in my foot:



One of me rocking the Toolbox:


The most ridiculously hilarious menu translation:


And two from the airshow at the beach today:



The last one is me and Michelle, she was in my class the first two weeks and will be in my grammar class this coming semester.

I have one class tomorrow, starts at 11 :) For that I am very happy. This weekend wasn't too noteworthy, stayed in Saturday night, slept in and went to the airshow today. School tomorrow, I hope it is easy and fun.

Disco Volador

I just got an email from the TD of this tournament October 31 - November 2, it is close to Barcelona. The email said I could play if I want, that they are adding more people from the waitlist (which I was on). I would absolutely LOVE to do this, it would be so incredible and fun. Two problems: the player fee is 125E and getting there would be very expensive too. I would probably want to leave on Thursday and return on Monday, so I would miss two classes in total, which is not a big deal at all. My main concern is the cost... I need some outside input, any advice?

http://ffindr.com/en/event/porro-open-2008

I miss ultimate so so much!





One last thing... I had this group morale building event type thing today, it was fun. Afterward I went to the bazaar type place, street market, whatever. I bought two fake pashmina scarves and a fan :) I love them, 11E total. I feel very happy with my purchases, it was the first time I shopped. I didn't shop before because I wanted to really be certain of what I wanted and I was and I am very pleased!

La facultad

Today was my last day in the Language school, it was a good day. I was much less irritated because I knew I wouldn't have to come back after today. My teacher for the most part was really nice and I think did his best. I still have some beef with certain things he did or said, but overall it was okay and good to review things.

At the end of the class he went around the table and said what he thought about the progress of the six people in the class. He told everyone the truth but not in a mean way. He told me that I know a lot about grammar but I need to not hesitate when I'm speaking because I know the stuff, I'm just sometimes afraid to use it. And then he told us what he thinks we all learned and he said to me something like, "You didn't really learn anything new." So at least he recognized that and probably understands my frustration.

I got my class list and schedule for the university classes and I think the schedule will be awesome. I will have my language class Mon/Wed for 1.5hr and all of the classes are like that. It will be great I think.

Tentatively my class schedule looks like...
Monday 11-1
Tuesday 11-2
Wednesday 9-2
Thursday 9-12
Friday 1030-130

However, if I choose to take only four classes with the program and one real university class, then it would be more like...
Monday 11-1
Tuesday 1230-2
Wednesday 9-2
Thursday 9-12
Friday 1030-12
and then another class that would be once a week for 3 hours. Wednesdays will be killer compared to the rest of the week, but I think I will be happy with this schedule :)

I think that is all of the news right now. Maybe some photos later, but right now I do not feel like dealing with that.

El pie

I went out on Friday night with one of my host brothers and his friend Pepe. We had tapas and listened to a little bit of live Flamenco music, which was quite boring... and then we went to a few bars. I won't go into too much detail because my parents and possibly my grandma read this blog. In any case, I ended up with a piece of glass stuck in my foot. I woke up in the morning and my shoe had blood on it and my foot hurt a lot, I was hoping it was just a cut, not a piece of glass stuck in there. I waited a day and it was still hurting immensly, so my host mom helped me dig it out. Mostly she just watched as I dug and dug with a needle and tweezers to pull this rather large and pokey looking piece of glass out of the bottom of my heel. I was extremely relieved to have it out of there and my foot feels a million times better now. And I didn't have to go to the doctor! Yipeee :)

Here are some photos from the last few days:

Me and host brother #1 at the beach



Me and host brother #2 at the bar where my host sister's boyfriend is a manager



Guy who works at the bar, me and host sister's boyfriend



Host sister, host brother #2 and me



Me and some people in my program having a coffee during our break for lunch



I went to the beach today and put on lots of sunscreen and I did not burn so I am happy :) I hope this week in class is not as crappy as last week. But it will be done on Friday and then I get to start real classes. I miss Seattle. I really miss ultimate. And I miss my family and my friends!

Me quejo

There is so much I want to complain about but I've already complained to a few people and don't really need to vent anymore. Nutshell: school is stupid and I think the professors here are very elitist, which irritates me beyond belief.

I haven't really made any American friends yet, I've only really spent time with my host brothers and sister which I probably enjoy more than I would being friends with the other students anyway. But I still feel a void from not having made any friends in my group.

I went to sleep really early this evening because I was super tired but I woke up after a few hours because I had a bad dream... Now I might eat something little and sleep more. I have to get up a half hour early tomorrow because the group of year-long students has to go to a police station to get some kind of residency card in the morning.

Otro día

My host brother told me that I am the best at pronouncing Spanish out of all of the students they have had. And they've been hosting students for eight years. I asked him if he was lying and he said no and was very serious. So that made me feel good :)

My class right now is not very enjoyable. It is only for the first two weeks though, so 1.5 weeks more and I get to change. I have a class with only five people and the teacher, who I like, but the other students kind of blow at speaking Spanish. Like really bad... And I'm in the highest level that they offer for this program, so I feel like I should have a different group, or like they placed me really low because I am younger and have had less experience taking UW Spanish classes? I don't know the reason. But I am the most comfortable speaking in my class, I don't think I know as much vocabulary as some, but I'm better with the vocabulary that I do know. In this school here I feel like the teachers do not explain things very well... like the reasons for using certain tenses and stuff. In the states, at UW at least, all of my teachers have explained things extremely well, and some are from Spain, some are from other countries, whatever. I don't think it has to do with the country, I think it has to do with the school. And for this I am displeased. But I can hope that the classes at the university that start the week after next will be better.

Time to go to the beach, chau!

La pérdida

I've gotten lost about a thousand times since I arrived here, however today I have been able to find my way everywhere! To the bus, to school, and home from school! Woohoo! It is only like 2:15PM though... Hopefully I won't get lost anymore. It really sucks.

I took photos of my room, it is little! Take a look.

The view from outside of my door, walking into my bed room



Yep, that is a bunk bed!



My desk



Looking back from my desk toward the door



The view from my window, lots of laundry drying



And this is the ad that is at every bus stop