First day of University class

I placed into the level 2 Spanish class (out of 3 levels, if you’re wondering) and we had out first class at 9:00 this morning. I had planned on getting up at 7:15 because I have to leave my house at 8:25 to catch this autobus and my madre worries if I wake up with less than an hour to get ready. Needless to say, the whole getting up at 7:15 thing didn’t work out very well, I woke up at 7:35 or something. But, you guys will be so proud, I was showered and dressed at 7:45. iQue bueno! Getting on the bus this morning was crazzzy because there were soo many people. I think a lot of students have classes at 9:00 so I’m going to have to wake up earlier next time to catch a bus closer to my house.

Anyway, class this morning was good; I think I’m really going to like my teacher and I know she’s def going to challenge us which is good because at this point I feel like I’ve hit a wall as far as improving my Spanish goes. Mostly because we’ve been doing so many things as a group before classes started and we always talk in English to each other obviously so the only time I’m forced to speak Spanish is with my host family. It is getting a lot easier for me to understand them when they talk to each other though. Oh yeah, my madre’s youngest daughter came home like a week ago and she’s here until mid November I guess. She’s 28, has a novio named Serge and she’s very nice. Its hilarious to watch her interact with her mom because they get along really well but she rolls her eyes and makes faces sometimes, like when Mati (my madre) tries to give me more food after I said I was full, Elena (hermana) will always be like “iQue nooo mama! iTe dije que esta llena!” and rolls her eyes at me. I like both of them a lot.

Tonight we’re going to a Botellón, which is a kind of fiesta that students go to basically to drink. Its not legal to have drinks in the street I guess, so the students go to a place that’s basically a fairgrounds outside of the city. Its also a lot cheaper because buying alcohol at the store (Eroski) is a lot a lot cheaper than in bars. Sounds like a lot of fun, right? At first when I was hearing about this it sounded like it could go pretty wrong (and totally would never be allowed to happen in the US) but the city has buses running to and from the Ferrial (fairgrounds) all night for like 50 centidos each direction. Also, the Spanish concept of drinking is waaay different than the American way. Even for students. No one gets like drunk, most people will just have a few drinks, but its way more about the socializing than the drinking. So I’m excited for that.

Right now I’m planning a trip to Ireland with some of the people in the group because we have a long weekend (5 days, really more like a week) at the beginning of December and a lot of people were talking about going to Amsterdam, which would be cool, but I was thinking I’d rather go somewhere I’d never been. Then someone suggested Ireland and so now we’re going to Dublin! We found roundtrip flights from Madrid to Dublin for 40 euro! I’m pumped J

That’s all for now, folks.