So last week was the first full week of classes here- joy. It was so much different than anything I was expecting. It wasn't too
too bad, most of the days I only had one or two classes so my brain didn't explode, but Tuesday was killer. For some reason, I thought that having three classes back to back, all two hours a piece (so 6 straight hours of class) completely in
Spanish was a good idea. Last year, I could hardly keep up with two classes, an hour and a half a piece, back to back in English. I don't know what I was thinking. At least with this schedule I don't have three 8am classes a week. I like to sleep. Anyway, Tuesday was really bad. About halfway through my second class I was exhausted but there really wasn't anything I could do about it since I had another class directly after my second class. I had heard people talk about getting a headache from too much Spanish and getting really tired from trying to understand it all the time, but I hadn't experienced that so I thought maybe I had managed to escape that fate. I was wrong. Tuesday was the day it hit me. After a certain point, my brain just sort of checked out, it had been overloaded and just wanted to nap. I was lucky because those classes were sort of the beginning classes where they basically read the syllabus to you and explain what the class is all about. I can go back and read the syllabus later so I won't be missing much. Tuesdays will be my hardest days for sure, but I know that after a couple of weeks I should be able to cope better than I did last week.
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This is the plaza de la estrella (plaza of the star)
near my house where I meet up
with people to go exploring! |
I was also lucky last week because my class on Wednesday was cancelled so I had a free day where I went to the beach and was able to unwind a little bit from the overload of the day before. The rest of the week went rather smoothly and I'm pretty sure that I'll be fine moving forward, I'll just need some time. Most of the end of last week I spent with other people from CMU and we wandered the city, getting to know it better. I went to the beach an astonishing two times in one week (and managed not to get totally burned!) and I got to experience a bit of the nightlife as well. It's crazy how different that can be from day to day. All the restaurants are open late, since dinner is typically served around 9 or 10 here, so there's usually a pretty good amount of people out. But on the weekend, there are people everywhere, wandering from place to place. It's so different to see so many people out around midnight because in Michigan everything is closed and people are sleeping! It's really cool though that the city still thrives after dark.
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This is a really cool
fountain by Damaris's house. |
Over the weekend I also got to visit the apartment of Damaris (who is also blogging for this trip, you should check it out!) and I got to meet her host family as well. It was cool to see what different apartments look like here. Mine is sort of square shaped whereas hers is a skinny rectangle that goes straight to the back. I had also never been to that part of Alicante, it's so much quieter than where I live and there were a couple of really pretty parks. Damaris's host mom was kind enough to make a paella for lunch when I visited and it was really good. It had yellow rice, chicken, red peppers and garlic. Paella is a pretty iconic dish in Spain so it was really nice to be able to try it!
That's about all I've got for now, hopefully this week of class won't hurt my brain as much as it did last week!
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This is probably my favorite place that I've found in Alicante.
It's a beautiful plaza that gets all lit up around 8pm. |
