Thursday, September 4
Spain continues to amaze.
On Saturday we took a day trip to Guadalest and Altea, both towns in the Alicante province. The old part of Guadalest is carved into a mountain. We spent some time walking through La Casa Orduña (a house that had been owned by nobles), visiting the old castillo to take in the view, and poking around the town a bit. Then we took off for Altea and spent an hour or so on the beach. It was a gorgeous beach - beautiful teal water and not many people - although the sea urchins did catch a few of us off guard. After swimming around for a while we walked up through the town to another wonderful vista, this time of the Mediterranean.
Monday and Tuesday we had a few group activities like taking our placement tests, going on a tour of the University, and buying our bus passes. We spent our free time getting cellphones (quite the adventure...) and going to the beach. I also set out in search of a few more tank tops since I brought 1/2-1/3 less clothing than most of the people here and it's way hotter than I expected. Way way hotter.
Yesterday was our first day of classes. We're taking an "intensive" language course for the first two weeks, and then we'll start our normal class cycles which will include another CIEE language class, two CIEE electives, and one class directly through the local university. I'm in the advanced class with 6 other kids, and our teacher is hilarious. We definitely spent a decent chunk of time talking about Amsterdam, where to get the best mojitos in the barrio (the older part of Alicante where all of the bars/clubs are), and how younger people here get a kick out of making fun of Harry Potter because "potar" means to throw up. It's a pretty sweet schedule, too - despite being billed as an intensive language class it's only 3 hours/day so we show up at 10am and leave at 1 with plenty of time to get home for lunch. I'm still waiting to decide whether or not I like the class, though. Right now everyone's a litle frustrated with how slow and easy it is, but hopefully it'll pick up soon. After all, today was only the 2nd day. But at the same time, it's only a 2-week course. We'll see.
Yesterday I finally got out to explore my immediate neighborhood a bit more. Of course, at first this was because I got off at the wrong bus stop and spent about 30 minutes trying to find my way home, but then I went out again after siesta to meet a friend, get school supplies, and try to fix some problems with my phone. The street I live on has a bunch of construction on my block and is fairly busy, but there's a nice plaza with a park and a big fountain just a block away, so we got horchata at a bar on the plaza and hung out for a while. Apparently there's also a big conglomeration of sports fields a few more blocks in that direction, but that's for another day.
I'm really enjoying living with my host family. The food is still something to get used to - there's a lot more oil and salt in everything, and vegetables are cooked to their death, but there's also lots of fresh and delicious fruit and seafood. My madre comes into my room while I'm at school in order to remake my bed (I guess I'm not doing it correctly....) and my padre is really fun to talk to at meals. A few nights ago after dinner we spent about 2.5 hours talking about politics, music, and places to visit in Spain. Although by "we" and "talking" I mean he talked for about 2.5 hours and I caught the general gist of what he was saying, adding in a "sí" "bueno" or "vale" every once in a while. It was fun. He also likes to listen to the radio during dinner, and last night Will Smith came on and sang gettin' jiggy with it for my dining/listening enjoyment. It was pretty miraculous.
I tried to post a few pictures from my trip to Guadalest and Altea, but blogger/my internet connection is having none of that. I'll get some onto picassa or facebook in the nearish future, most likely.
I hope everything is going well for all of you back in the states. ¡Besos!
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