Zaragoza life

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Well this blog is going to be a long one consisting of the events that have taken place in my time here in Zaragoza so far that the others haven't mentioned! Before I came here I hadn't really experienced different cultural foods, been interested in sight seeing or walking the "felt like" hundreds of miles to wherever we were going. However, I have had many "first times" in the three weeks of being here!

First time I....

Ate smoked salmon, drank ice tea, ate proper Spanish tapas (which I really didn't enjoy, but hey! I tried), ate parmaham, cooked my own "big" meal for 4, ate mango, .... and there are many more that Nadine has written down in her notebook! I'm not used to trying new things and I am slowly getting there and the girls are slowing trying/making me eat different foods! I'll be a different woman at the end of the fife months 😊

My time here has flown in and I can't believe we will have been here for 3 weeks tomorrow! We are slowly, very slowly, getting university sorted and our timetable is getting put together. I just want to have something to focus on now and to aim towards. It feels weird also not having a job here and believe it or not, it is a hard life trying to decide what to watch on the laptop !! We have met new friends YEY and the nightlife is just up my street! I haven't made it out till 7am yet but that is on my to do list. Hopefully we will be starting up next week and starting placement soon after! My Spanish is still not up to standard. Every time I am faced with an awkward encounter where I don't know what the Spanish person is saying and when I don't know what to say, I look to the girls in need of help. However, I am slowly progressing on very basic words and I have noticed to be answering in Spanish to those who are English. Awkward. It's amazing how many times "Si" can be used to answer anything I am getting asked haha! There was one encounter last week where I wish I spoke fluent Spanish....

We were in Zara, Laura was looking at clothes and the rest of us were just pottering behind. Fran had seen a jacket, picked it up and put it back. To then be followed and stared at by the shop assistant. Woman came over, started speaking (rudely) in Spanish at her, waving a tag about in our faces. Fran replied "No hablo Espanol". At this point, I was livid that the woman even tried to accuse us of stealing a jacket. I mean the jacket wasn't small and our hands never once touched our bags. So we waited at the top of the stairs while Nadine and Laura went down and the woman was speaking to the security guard at the door. At this point it made me more angry, so I walked up to her, shouted "LOOK" and opened my bag in front of her. She didn't know where to look! Nothing worse when you are being accused of something you've not done. Maybe 3 out of 4 of us wearing big rucksacks isn't the best idea when we go shopping again..........

Hopefully, well most definitely, will have more stories in the next week. This blog is slightly big considering I haven't wrote anything yet but looking forward to feeling our blog up soon!

Laura McColl (the other laura) 😊 xx

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