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Published: January 16th 2009
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My Bedroom
I have my own room that over looks the central courtyard. I have numerous shelves and many English and Spanish books in here. Wednesday, I decided that although I really needed to sleep, that I would go back to the CoCathedral de San Nicholas for the 8:00 mass. I will admit that I was going not for the mass itself, but to hopefully hear the massive organ that the Cathedral. I enjoyed the short walk from the hotel to the church with the locals of to work and only had to ask for directions once (but only to save time, I would have found it eventually lol). Unfortunately, the morning services are in the attached chapel, so although the chapel is very ornate, I didn’t get to hear the organ play. Additionally, even though I don’t completely understand what to do at a Catholic mass in the United States, let alone one in Spain and that I barely know any Spanish, the service was enjoyable, very short and interesting. All the locals wanted to shake my hand at the passing of the peace.
After church, I had some extra time until breakfast, so I went to the supermarcado central that is across the street from the hotel. This place was amazing! The whole second floor had about 100 meat shops in 4 long
rows that were selling normal stuff like steaks, ribs, and ground meat, but also stuff like pig feet, pig faces, and skinned, non-gutted lambs. Then the first floor was mostly sea-food and some candy shops and bakeries. On the back side of the supermarcado was a plaza where there was a café and flower shops. I can’t wait to show my parents this when they come.
After this we had breakfast at the hotel and then had two more info session. Here we found out where in the city we would be living and then a Spanish student helper took us out to lunch in small groups of the Americans that would be living near each other. What was cool is that all of us are only about a 15 minute walk from each other. After returning from lunch with our “neighbors”, our host family picked us up. Through-out this trip so far, I haven’t been nervous at all, but when the host families started to arrive, that changed. I partial chose CIEE-Alicante for the host family, but it was nerve racking because I will be living with this family for the next 4 months and I wanted to
Living Room
The living room is small, like the rest of the apartment, but is is very nice and opens out to the patio. give a first impression.
I was one of the last students to be picked up (each family was scheduled to arrive at different times) so I got to watch other students meet their families. If anyone has seen the movie, The Island, it was just like when the clones are being picked to go to the island and the rest of the clones are cheering them on. When I was picked up it was only my Papa, Angel and his mother. Angel is about 55 and works in the morning, but is home for lunch (Spanish lunch is at 2-4) and he speaks some English. His mother Carna is extremely nice and although she speaks no English, we manage to communicate. She has her own house, but comes over every day to cook lunch for the family and to do other household chores. The apartment where my family lives is extremely nice (in Spanish standards, in American standards it would be called cute or cozy). There are four bed rooms a kitchen, living room, a bathroom and a covered patio. I’ll post pictures of it soon. In my host family, I have 3 brothers. Alejardo is 26 and I
Entry Way
Here is the entry way. Everytime that I come home, I have to switch into my slippers because I can't where my outside shoes past this door. haven’t figured out if he works or goes to school, but in Spain it is traditional for the children to live with the parents until they get married and most marry later in life. Also, there are a set of twins that are 15 years old, but Dan lived in Valencia in order to study classical dance. Louis is coot and spends a lot of time on the European version of Facebook and loves to play Futbol (soccer). The apartment has internet, but they haven’t offered for me to use it yet. The mother works outside the home, which is very untraditional, from 10am to 8pm at either a nursing home or a community center 20 mins away. Last night I went with Angel to pick her up so that I could see more of the city. She speaks limited Spanish, but is very nice and gets me breakfast and supper and even walked me to the bus station today in order that I didn’t get lost. The family is interested in me and has been a great help in only one night to advancing my Spanish. Even Louis said that I will have two professors, one at the University
Patio
I haven't used this room yet, but you can see the dog Lucas. of Alicante and Angel. For example, we were watching dog whisper and started talking and he shut off the TV so that we could talk and about 2 hours later Miguel and Louis had joined us and so had 4 Spanish-English dictionaries and my Spanish text book. We spent about 20 minutes getting me to pronounce viente (20) correctly. This all helped to get my mind to switch over to Spanish, even when I am typing this I am thinking in a Spanlish and want to use some Spanish words. But overall, I really like my host family and am excited for the months ahead.
Today, CIEE had student helpers help us to figure out how to use the bus to get to the University. I’m only about a 10 minute drive from the campus, but the bus takes about 45 minutes with all its stops. At campus we had to take an entrance exam so CIEE can determine what level of Spanish classes to put us into. It was 50 multiple choice and an oral interview. It was a little scary, but the time with my host family made it bearable. Then an over view of the classes
and how grading works. This also was a little scary because they are really strict on attendance and being late (even if it’s the bus’s fault) and grading, but I hope that they are just saying it to scare us into being good students. Then we got a tour of the campus. La Universidad de la Alicante is muy, muy bonieta. The campus used to be an airport 40 years ago under the dictatorship of Franco, so all the buildings are new and the campus huge, but has no roads cutting through it. It is the most beautiful campus that I have been at. There are mountains in the distance, large trees everywhere, numerous benches and a lot of fountains. When we went into the library, from the sun soaked second floor, out the windows all I could see was the tops of the palm trees, the red mountains in the distance and the perfectly blue sky. Even walking around campus was nice in the 60 degree weather, especially when the sun was shining. We start classes on Monday, but I can’t wait to spend time at the University.
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