Dear Diary,
I've missed you. But not really because the whole intent of me coming to Spain for four months was to actually be a part of daily Spanish life, not entertain friends and family with my tales. However, most of my free time up until now has been spent watching Boy Meets World from beginning to end, so now that I finished that I can get back to sharing my private life, publicly.
I am not even going to begin to attempt to detail each and every trip I have been on or every exciting thing about my semester so far. No one has the patience for that. So in brief:
Week 1: Classes, beaches, Boy Meets World (BMW)
Week 2: Classes, beaches, Sailing class*, BMW
Week 3: " "
Week 4: " "
Week 5: All of the above AND 4 days in Italy*
Week 6: Two days of class, Three days in Ireland* (It is now too cold for the beach. I am in shambles.)
Week 7: Same as before, subtract Sailing, double the amount of BMW
Week 8: Corey's parents in town, BMW, 2 days in Valencia
Week 9: 3 days of class, 4 days in Greece*
*Sailing: The most amazing class of my life. I literally sat on a sailboat, drinking sangria, and tanning for two hours, and got credit, and a little certificate for it. My Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays have been incomplete without it.
*Italy: I spent a night in the Barcelona airport (it sucks). Then spent three days in Milan, one day in Venice, and a few hours in Bologna (which also sucks). The number one take away is that you all should google the bar "Nottingham Forest" and look at my Facebook pictures from that night.
*Ireland: Drunkest trip of my life (aside from those younger years on family vacations). Look at my Facebook pictures as well, and judge my dear friend Corey and myself for hooking up with random strangers in an Irish pub.
*Greece: FB pics again. Hands down the most amazing trip of my life. If you intend to marry me then know that we will be returning there for our honeymoon.
And that brings us to the past two weeks, which I can give a little more detail to.
Last Thursday I got the chance to meet with Spanish students studying to be translators, and I have never felt more like an idiot in my life. First of all I had a final exam that morning, so the minuscule sized Spanish speaking part of my brain, was fried. So when I go to sit down with all of these fluent Spanish speakers to practice my Spanish, I didn't even get one sentence out before we switched over to English. Secondly, when we switch to English, I learned that it is not only the second language they all know, but one of the five (plus) that they are studying. And lastly, they were all younger than me. Now we are back around to me feeling like an idiot. Despite my temporary incompetence, I got the chance to meet some really interesting people, who I then met up with later that night and went out dancing and drinking with (meaning they danced and drank, while I soberly bobbed on the spot, and continued to only speak English).
On Friday, the Mrs. and I, (Corey and I are basically married, for future reference) went to get her first tattoo. We forced my roommate to go along with us as a translator, and then openly got mad at her when she didn't translate every word for us. It took about an hour for our tattoo artist, Lolo (he is a he, not kidding), to finish Corey's tattoo, during which she required three people to hold her down, and still managed to almost fall off the table trying to move away from the gun. On Saturday, we returned to our dear friend, Lolo, who then got to have the divine pleasure of doing my third tattoo. Now for a comparison: When Corey sat down to have her tattoo done, he placed the stencil, she said "Yes", and an hour later all was well. When I sat down to have mine done, he placed it once, I wanted it higher. He placed it again. I wanted it more to the side. He gave me the pen to draw my own lines, and we were on our way. Then we got to the actual heart on my tattoo. He drew it once, it was too curvy. He drew it again. It was still too curvy. I drew it. It was no longer curvy, but now it was too tilted. This one he only had to do once more, and I was finally happy. However, today Lolo had become a little spit-fire, and openly enjoyed making fun of me, calling me a pain in his ass, writing a band name on my stomach (in pen), and utilizing his vast list of vocabulary words in English-- "Shut" and "up". And so, now, and forever more, I will think of Corey every day, when I take off my bra.
I also went on a hike Saturday morning. Let's all take a second to remember my recount of the climb up to the castle... Well on this hike, the castle could be squished by my pinky. The weather was perfect, and the scenery was nothing like I had seen in Spain thus far, however the more active people in my program decided it would be a grand ol' time to run up the mountain, instead of taking a leisurely jaunt. In short, even my shoulders were sweating by the time we reached the top. After that we took a quick tour of the Busot Caves of Canelobre (Google them, we were not allowed to take pictures...not that I would have anyways) and headed back to Alicante for my tattoo.
All in all, this week was probably my favorite week in Spain thus far, but traveling other parts of Europe has by far been the highlight of, well, my life.
Talk to you soon, Diary.
I've missed you. But not really because the whole intent of me coming to Spain for four months was to actually be a part of daily Spanish life, not entertain friends and family with my tales. However, most of my free time up until now has been spent watching Boy Meets World from beginning to end, so now that I finished that I can get back to sharing my private life, publicly.
I am not even going to begin to attempt to detail each and every trip I have been on or every exciting thing about my semester so far. No one has the patience for that. So in brief:
Week 1: Classes, beaches, Boy Meets World (BMW)
Week 2: Classes, beaches, Sailing class*, BMW
Week 3: " "
Week 4: " "
Week 5: All of the above AND 4 days in Italy*
Week 6: Two days of class, Three days in Ireland* (It is now too cold for the beach. I am in shambles.)
Week 7: Same as before, subtract Sailing, double the amount of BMW
Week 8: Corey's parents in town, BMW, 2 days in Valencia
Week 9: 3 days of class, 4 days in Greece*
*Sailing: The most amazing class of my life. I literally sat on a sailboat, drinking sangria, and tanning for two hours, and got credit, and a little certificate for it. My Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays have been incomplete without it.
*Italy: I spent a night in the Barcelona airport (it sucks). Then spent three days in Milan, one day in Venice, and a few hours in Bologna (which also sucks). The number one take away is that you all should google the bar "Nottingham Forest" and look at my Facebook pictures from that night.
*Ireland: Drunkest trip of my life (aside from those younger years on family vacations). Look at my Facebook pictures as well, and judge my dear friend Corey and myself for hooking up with random strangers in an Irish pub.
*Greece: FB pics again. Hands down the most amazing trip of my life. If you intend to marry me then know that we will be returning there for our honeymoon.
And that brings us to the past two weeks, which I can give a little more detail to.
Last Thursday I got the chance to meet with Spanish students studying to be translators, and I have never felt more like an idiot in my life. First of all I had a final exam that morning, so the minuscule sized Spanish speaking part of my brain, was fried. So when I go to sit down with all of these fluent Spanish speakers to practice my Spanish, I didn't even get one sentence out before we switched over to English. Secondly, when we switch to English, I learned that it is not only the second language they all know, but one of the five (plus) that they are studying. And lastly, they were all younger than me. Now we are back around to me feeling like an idiot. Despite my temporary incompetence, I got the chance to meet some really interesting people, who I then met up with later that night and went out dancing and drinking with (meaning they danced and drank, while I soberly bobbed on the spot, and continued to only speak English).
On Friday, the Mrs. and I, (Corey and I are basically married, for future reference) went to get her first tattoo. We forced my roommate to go along with us as a translator, and then openly got mad at her when she didn't translate every word for us. It took about an hour for our tattoo artist, Lolo (he is a he, not kidding), to finish Corey's tattoo, during which she required three people to hold her down, and still managed to almost fall off the table trying to move away from the gun. On Saturday, we returned to our dear friend, Lolo, who then got to have the divine pleasure of doing my third tattoo. Now for a comparison: When Corey sat down to have her tattoo done, he placed the stencil, she said "Yes", and an hour later all was well. When I sat down to have mine done, he placed it once, I wanted it higher. He placed it again. I wanted it more to the side. He gave me the pen to draw my own lines, and we were on our way. Then we got to the actual heart on my tattoo. He drew it once, it was too curvy. He drew it again. It was still too curvy. I drew it. It was no longer curvy, but now it was too tilted. This one he only had to do once more, and I was finally happy. However, today Lolo had become a little spit-fire, and openly enjoyed making fun of me, calling me a pain in his ass, writing a band name on my stomach (in pen), and utilizing his vast list of vocabulary words in English-- "Shut" and "up". And so, now, and forever more, I will think of Corey every day, when I take off my bra.
I also went on a hike Saturday morning. Let's all take a second to remember my recount of the climb up to the castle... Well on this hike, the castle could be squished by my pinky. The weather was perfect, and the scenery was nothing like I had seen in Spain thus far, however the more active people in my program decided it would be a grand ol' time to run up the mountain, instead of taking a leisurely jaunt. In short, even my shoulders were sweating by the time we reached the top. After that we took a quick tour of the Busot Caves of Canelobre (Google them, we were not allowed to take pictures...not that I would have anyways) and headed back to Alicante for my tattoo.
All in all, this week was probably my favorite week in Spain thus far, but traveling other parts of Europe has by far been the highlight of, well, my life.
Talk to you soon, Diary.
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