Yes Grandma, I'm still alive

Well, things have definitely gotten more interesting since Tuesday!

Classes are going well -- midterms start next week, but I feel like we've barely had class... I'm not worried about art (seriously, we just have to be able to describe how the colors in the paintings make us feel and stuff like that), and Medical Spanish isn't going to be as awful as I originally had thought, since most of the medical terms are things I've already learned thanks to Kinesiology.

I want to take a second to appreciate how amazing the weather is here. Even when it's chilly or windy or less than 80 degrees (which it isn't often), it's still gorgeous. The sun is pretty much always shining. The people here are always happy. It's a great place to be going to university, and I'm sure it's an amazing place to live for an extended period of time.

So, I suppose a quick rundown of the past two days is in order.

Wednesday: definitely a day for homework. I spent a good chunk of the afternoon studying for Medical Spanish and trying to cut chunks out of my enormous list of vocabulary. We've also found an awesome little cafe really close to the school, so between my morning and afternoon class a few of us always head over there and have a café and tell awful jokes and eat our bocadillos before heading back to la universidad para finish all of our studying (except TJ, because he NEVER HAS HOMEWORK). We also discovered this wonderful store called "Quality Beers" -- it's exactly what it sounds like. They have beers from all over Europe, including some locally brewed stuff, and they also have an America section (woo) with a ton of IPAs from California, and also Sam Adams Boston Lager, of course. The Quality Beers people were super nice and told us we spoke Spanish well, so that was awesome too. A bunch of us were supposed to meet up for tapas, but Will and I somehow got turned around a little bit while walking there and everyone had already finished by the time we met up with them. I think we're trying to go again to a different tapas place tonight, so I might actually get a chance to try something.

Thursday: SUPERGUAY. Went to class, went to the café, went to my other class, and received a text from TJ as I was leaving class that simply said "Come 2 beach". Of course, I "went 2 beach", but it took a solid hour and a half to run home, say hi to my madre, drop my stuff off, go catch the bus to the beach, and then find everyone. But, when I got there, everyone had just started playing beach volleyball so that was awesome. We're all pretty awful, but it was more awful in a hilarious way. After we finished that, we hung out in the water for a little bit (THE WATER IS AWESOME, it's a bit saltier than the Atlantic so you can float really well, and it's really shallow for a decent distance out, so you can go out pretty far without drowning. We all headed home to eat dinner, and Rach, Katerina, Jane and I ended up meeting up at Beer to hang out and see our favorite bartender, Fani. She ended up talking to us for a while about her life and her son and her family, and she is seriously such an interesting person. She was saying how her son is about to start preschool this year, and she's singing him up for English classes in the afternoons so that he can have the opportunity to learn English at a young age (she speaks Spanish and Italian, but only a tiny bit of English), and I found that so awesome. I guess in the States we really take knowing English for granted, but don't really think about the fact that it's so widespread as far as business goes. Lots of Spanish people are really excited when they find out you speak English -- they all want to practice their speaking. Of course, that doesn't help when we're here to practice our Spanish, but whatever. I think it helps break down language barriers when both parties in a conversation know two of the same languages instead of one person knowing one language and the other person knowing two -- it's easier to look for words that both people know because you have access to two people's entire vocabularies in two different languages. If that makes sense.

So yep, that's been my week so far. I have my second class of the day in... sixteen minutes. I was going to study, but that sort of didn't happen. Oh well. I'm excited for it to be the weekend -- we're going to Peñíscola tomorrow so that's an entire day at the beach yay! And probably studying on Sunday, since I have exams at the beginning of the week.

Hasta luego!

No me gustan los martes

I've always said that Tuesdays are worse than Mondays, and no one ever agrees with me. Here's my reasoning: you're prepared for Monday to suck. You're coming off the high of two full days without having to go to school or work or whatever, you probably did really cool and/or fun stuff over the course of those two days, and on Sunday night you begrudgingly get into bed knowing full well that tomorrow you have to stumble into the shower and try to become a real person again. Maybe you almost get run over by a car (not like I'm speaking from experience at all because that TOTALLY didn't happen yesterday), or go the wrong way on the metro, or walk around in the rain and get a weird blister on your foot, but you don't care because you blame it on it being Monday.

Tuesdays, however, Tuesdays are sneaky. You're so happy when Monday is over and done with, and you're excited to be one day closer to the next weekend, but really you're still closer to the last weekend than the next one. Tuesday is like Monday, except instead of coming down from your awesome weekend high, you're slowly struggling up from your awful Monday, and you're still three whole days away from the weekend. So yeah, Tuesdays, not my favorite.

Not to say that today sucked, but it was the first really normal day that I've had here -- I woke up, I went to class, I ate lunch, I did some homework, I went to class, I went home, I ate dinner, and I did some more homework. I think it was good though, because I finally got some time to unwind while actually being awake (I've been doing all of my unwinding while asleep up until now), and once I finished my muscle-labeling worksheets for Medical Spanish, it almost felt like a normal Tuesday night stuck at home with nothing to do except waste time on the computer. I know I should be exploring the city or putting my time to good use by learning the eight hundred thousand vocab words I'm going to need to know for my Medical Spanish midterm next week, but I have six more days (I think) until that exam, so I'm just gonna leave it for now.

Tomorrow I promise I'll do something more interesting. I'm just blaming today's overall lackluster on it being a Tuesday.

Hasta luego!

Vale vale vale vale vale

Yesterday was Sunday (I think... I can't keep track of the days. Yes. Sunday) and Valencia c.f. played Granada c.f. -- those are soccer/fútbol teams in case you were wondering. A bunch of us, probably ten, maybe fifteen, bought tickets to the game and all ended up sitting together ten or so rows back, right on the corner of the field. Now, if you've ever been to a D.C. United game and you're thinking oh cool wow soccer how fun NOT, let me just say that on a Sunday night at 8:00, the stadium was almost completely full. It was amazing. Rachel and I bought Valencia tee shirts (actually pajama shirts, shhhh) and huge flags and wore them like capes, and as cliché as it sounds, it was really awesome to really feel like a part of this huge city. There was an adorable little boy behind me sitting with his dad and he kept asking questions like "cuando eras joven, eras futbolista?" y "papí, vamos a ganar, SI? SI? SI?" and his dad was super patient and answered every question, even if it was the fourth time he had heard it. It was precious.

Anyway, we won (WOOOOOOO VAMOS), and after the game a few of us went in search of something fun to do/somewhere fun to go, and happened upon the Festival of the Nations (I think that's what it translates to, I don't know if that's actually what it was even called) which was basically just a huge bazaar-type thing with food tents and buying-stuff tents from tons of different countries. I finally got my hands on some "Mexican food," something I've been craving since I got here. Okay, so maybe it was a ham and cheese quesadilla but it came from a tent that said Mexico and sold tequila so that's probably as close as I'm going to get in Spain so vale.

Oh look at that, a perfect segue into my favorite thing about Spain so far: the word "vale". Pronounced [ba-le], it's this beautiful interjection that you can pretty much use to mean any combination of "OK, yes, fine, sounds good, see you there, yes I admit you're right and I'm wrong" and anything else you can think of. I'm pretty sure it either starts or ends every single sentence that everyone says here.

Another really interesting thing I've noticed in the past week is how informal everyone is with their speech. Honestly I probably only notice this because I'm fresh out of Hispanic Sociolinguistics this past semester, but it's seriously fascinating. When people in the States start to learn a foreign language, the first thing everyone wants to know is "how do I say bitch?" "how do I say fuck" etc etc. But seriously, cursing is not a big deal here. People call their children, dogs, husbands, friends, really whoever, things like "coño" y "puta" y "cabrón" and no one bats an eye! The first time I heard it I was honestly a little shocked, because it's not really acceptable to call people those things in public in the States... But my art professor today was explaining the history of the War of Spanish Succession and every so often he would say, in English, "Espain es deeferent," and I think that sums it up perfectly. Everything here feels more hectic than at home, but more relaxed at the same time. I know that makes literally no sense, but you have to see it to understand.

Anyway, after the game and the festival last night, I went home and crashed. My sleeping patterns have been really weird the past couple days -- I wake up at around 4:30 or 5 every night and can't fall back asleep until 7 or so, and then wake back up at 9 or 9:30 to go to class. I don't know if it's jetlag or leftover sleep weirdness from finals or lo que sea, but hopefully it straightens itself out because I really really love sleep and I'd prefer a full night's worth of it if possible.

Oh, and I had my first experience with the Valencia Metro today! It's honestly exactly like the D.C. metro, only cheaper. It's a flat rate no matter where you go (seriously D.C., take some lessons from Valencia because paying 6 bucks to get to a Nats game from Vienna metro really sucks), and you can change trains as many times as you want. We may have almost gotten lost once or twice, but we eventually ended up at our destination, the mall! I told myself I wasn't going to buy anything, but there was this really awesome long knit blue, white and orange sweater, and this other orange dress, and they were both on sale, and how could I resist UVA colored clothing in Spain on sale? It was fate.

I feel like I'm finally settling into a schedule here, which is really nice. I'm definitely the type of person who likes to have her days planned out before they happen, so I'm glad that I have class at the same time every day, and can rely on having coffee ready in the morning before I go to school, and showering at the same time, y todo eso.

I guess to wrap things up, I'll say that even though I leave in 25 days (actually sad already), I'm still so excited for everything I have to look forward to. This weekend we have an excursion to Peñíscola, a beachy-place-thing about an hour away -- I'll actually wake up for this excursion, unlike Xátiva -- and then next weekend is Madrid (WOOO) and the weekend after we're taking a train up to Barcelona for this SUPERMEGAREQUETEGUAY music festival called Sónar. Seriously though, it's going to be insanely cool. The lineup for Friday night includes Skrillex, Two Door Cinema Club, Major Lazer, Diplo, Baauer... there are 30 or so acts scheduled between 10pm and 7am, and tickets are only like 66 euros. Like I said, insane. After that, I have a week left and then finals and then back to the States, I suppose. The UVA en Valencia people might have to drag me kicking and screaming onto the plane, though. I can tell you already that I'm going to hate leaving.

(Also, if my English sounds a little strange, can someone let me know? I've noticed in my speech that I sort of speak with the cadence of Spanish, but using English words, and every day it gets more difficult to communicate easily in English. I know that's the whole point of being here, but I'm still interested.)

Hasta luego!

Here are some pictures of what I've seen and done so far

Beach

L'Umbracle

The Asia store (like a dollar store or Five Below). Whenever you need something, this is where you get it. 

Estación del Norte

Palau de la Música Catalana (I pass this every day on the way to school, it's right along the riverbed)

Ladrones y playas y clubes, oh my!

The people at orientation weren't kidding when they said night life in Valencia never stops. A bunch of us went out last night, first to a bar a couple blocks away from where we live, and then to this INSANE WONDERFUL AMAZING MAGICAL place called L'Umbracle. Rachel and I somehow managed to take an entire hour to go approximately four blocks to the bar we had been to the night before. I honestly don't know how it happened, but by the time we got there everyone was stoked to go to whatever club they had found out about (it ended up being L'Umbracle), so we hung out for a little and then headed over. It was a 15 euro cover charge, which at first seemed really awful and not worth it at all because no one was really dancing in the area that we were in, there weren't that many people there, and it was already almost 3 o'clock so we assumed that it just wasn't happening. I was also a little frustrated that it was 15 euros and not really that cool, but I figured we had learned our lesson and just wouldn't come back

However, in a very fortuitous turn of events, Rachel and I went in search of a bathroom. We asked the bartender where it was, and she said downstairs, so we walked down the stairs, turned a corner, and discovered what I like to call the dubstep dungeon -- underneath the original place near where you walk in, there was this huge room with platforms and a giant DJ set up and a bar and TONS of people dancing. We called the people we were with and told them to meet us at the top of the stairs. They were kind of confused, which was understandable because it really didn't look like there was anything down there. There weren't any signs or anything to indicate that right below your feet there was something much, much better.

So we danced. And we danced. And we danced some more. It was awesome. So much house music, a little bit of dubstep, a lot of American songs. It was like Trinity's cool older European cousin on steroids. I think most of the guys ended up heading home around 4:30 or 5, but Rach Kate and I left at 6:30 in the morning and the sun had already risen and it was a very surreal experience. We grabbed a cab home and passed out. Rach and I were scheduled to go to this mountain castle place thing (Xátiva) today, but decided to sleep and go to the beach instead.

The beaches here are awesome. In the states, there isn't much of the sandy part, so everyone is crammed together and it's impossible to find a space and everyone is annoying. There's so much sand here, and the sand itself is so much lighter and finer than what we have back home. It's gorgeous. The water was FREEZING, but our feet were pretty sore after all of the dancing last night, so it felt pretty good. We hung out and tanned and buried ourselves in the sand. Some dude grabbed my beach bag and took my iPhone out of it (not my dinky Spanish flip phone), and Rachel ran after him and said something along the lines of "Tienes mi telefono? Ya lo sé, dámelo." and he just looked kind of sheepish and handed it back, so that was fun. Phillip met up with us right after that and we looked around this cool little store thing, hung out by the sand for a while, and then took the bus home.

I don't really know where my host family is right now... I took a shower and I guess I missed dinner since I was at the beach, but I have some croissants so that's dinner for me! I think Rach and I are going to go explore around our neighborhood tonight, apparently there are some cool smaller bars and places like that pretty close to us.

Hasta luego!

Clases y café

I've had two days of classes now, and since technically I'm in Valencia for "study" abroad and not "go clubbing and bar hopping and hang out in cafés with my friends" abroad, I guess I can talk about them for a little bit.

I'm taking two classes -- Modern Spanish Art with Profe Peleaz (I think that's his last name... we call him Enrique) and Spanish for Medical Professionals with Pilar. The art class fulfills some requirement that I have for the Spanish major, and the medical one is obviamente really useful considering what my majors are. Doesn't count for anything except a general elective for Kinesiology. Woo.

Entonces, art class. First off, we don't have to memorize names or dates of paintings REQUETECHEVERE I'm really happy about that. My professor said that he would rather us be able to describe and understand the though process behind the painting and whatever art movement it was part of than waste time memorizing things, so I am 100% behind that. The professor is hilarious; he's this little Spanish dude, probably around 60 years old. He's from a town outside of Madrid. He tells a lot of jokes that basically no one gets (and by that I mean that I think he's really funny and he tells a lot of jokes but no one else can understand him well enough to get what he's saying. Jokes in other languages are hard). The classroom is honestly a sauna, probably around 25 C, so everyone tries really hard not to fall asleep, with success of varying levels. We don't really have homework... this weekend we're supposed to "take pictures of things that are different" so yeah. That's fine with me though, because my OTHER class...

I knew from the start that a class on medical Spanish would be a whole lot of vocab, so I wasn't surprised when my class on medical Spanish was a whole lot of vocab. But it's a lot a lot a lot of words in a very short amount of time. Today we went over los prefijos y sufijos that are mostly the same as they are in english, and spent forever going over how to say "I had a cast" "I had a splint" "I had surgery" "I had my wisdom teeth out" etc etc etc. So that was fun. Not. But yeah we have daily homework and a lot of projects and things for that class, so I guess I have a nice balance between the two.

ALRIGHT also one other thing that Rachel and I have been discussing -- in the States, when you order coffee somewhere it is almost always in a paper to-go cup and you take it with you and that's that. Nope, totally not a thing in Spain. We're trying to find a place on our way to school where we can stop and grab a cup of coffee, but it's only been two days and we've almost been late both of those (I blame my alarm clock). I have coffee in the morning here but it's only a cup and I really, REALLY miss my Keurig. There are cafés all around the city but I need 20 oz of coffee not 5 ml. My theory is that because this is such a relaxed place (seriously, if you took Manhattan and gave the entire city Xanax, you would have Valencia) no one really needs that much caffeine to get through the day. It was the same way when I went to Europe in high school, but it's still just as frustrating. At least it's the weekend and I won't have to deal with needing coffee until Monday.

Tomorrow we have our "excursions" with the whole group -- half of us are going to Xátiva and the other half are going to Peñíscola. I'm in the Xátiva group. Apparently there will be some hiking and stuff. I think it's an old part of something with a castle and a forest? I actually have no idea. It's free. Next week I'm in the Peñíscola group -- it's basically a full day beach trip, so that's exciting!

There's a soccer game on Sunday that a ton of us are going to in the stadium right by school (probably 15 minutes walking from my apartment) on Sunday, so that should be really fun. I'll try to get some more pictures while I'm there -- this entire place is gorgeous, but I'm either half asleep and running late or half asleep and trying to trudge home when I'm out, and you don't really want to walk around with your mouth wide open taking pictures with an iPhone anyway, unless you don't really want that iPhone. I'm sure someone would be happy to liberate it from you. Anyway, Valencia c.f. is playing Granada c.f. and I guess Valencia is in 5th place right now and needs to win to continue on in whatever they're in... I obviously don't follow European soccer but WHATEVER it's going to be awesome.

I guess that's enough for now? I'm really bad at ending things, so pretend this is a cool wrap up paragraph. I'm going with Rachel to buy a new converter (hers doesn't fit in the wall and my big one broke so right now we're driving the struggle bus a little bit) and then come back, hopefully take a nap, eat dinner, and then go out. There are a ton of cool bars and clubs near where we live, so that's nice. Nothing as close as the Corner, but hey, it's an okay trade-off considering WE'RE IN SPAIN.

Hasta luego!

Supermegaguay, or learning about "Spanish time"

My first full day in Valencia. It already feels like I've been here forever.

This morning I woke up at 7:30 (!!!!!!!!! que temprano) and showered and ate some breakfast and had some coffee. We caught the bus over to school (it was decently quick but there's a big taxi strike going on right now so sometimes the buses get stuck behind their weird barricades or something so I think I'm going to walk since it's only like twenty minutes) and I was super early for our orientation session things.

We had two sessions, one for administrative stuff and one for academic. We got a map (supermegahelpful) in our folder of information, which definitely came in handy later in the day... Anyway, after the sessions, we split off into smaller groups that were supposedly "our neighbors" even though the only neighbors I know that I have for sure are Rach, TJ, and Adam; we had to sign THE PLEDGE there that says "something something I will not speak anything other than Spanish while in the school place area thing under penalty of death something something". Basically the rule is, if you're caught speaking English you write your name in a book. If it happens three times (I think), then you get sent home. I'm not really concerned for myself but everyone else... vamos a ver.

Despues de los sessions, we walked back towards where I live (Avenida de Peris y Valero) to find the phone store. Mi madre already had some phones from some of the girls that she has had stay with her in the past, so I only needed to buy a SIM card. Rach bought a phone last night, but TJ and Will needed to buy them. Adam too, but he needed to go home to see if his luggage had arrive yet (pobre de él).

HOWEVER, we forgot one very important thing: la siesta. Stores are literally closed between 2 and 5 in the afternoon. We got to Yoigo (the phone place) at 3, so it was obviously not open. Entonces we decided to all go home, eat, siesta, and meet back up at 5 ish when it reopened.

Backtracking a little bit (a lot) to our pre-departure meeting, one of the directors warned us that Spanish time ≠ American time. Today I realized that this is absolutely true. I went to meet with Adam to walk down to get Rach and TJ and head to the phone place, but neither of us had phones yet so we were relying on our sparse knowledge of the surrounding area. False. We both ended up at different bridges over the river (it's actually a dried up riverbed with garden and stuff but everyone calls it el río entonces yo también) and actually found each other by like 5:05. Only like twenty minutes late, not bad.

We went down to Yoigo, no sign of TJ or Rachel. Ok, we wait. 5:15ish, TJ shows up. Oh yeah, and Will lives kind of far away from the rest of us, so I told him we would meet him up by la Plaza del Toros a little bit north of where the phone store was. We wait for Rach. Still no Rach. 5:30. We go into the phone store and get started with the móviles. See Rach. I get my phone, she and I go next door to a little café/bar and make friends with the bartender (HE THOUGHT I WAS SPANISH WHAT UP). The guys get their phones and join us, and we hang out for a little bit before realizing we should probably go find Will. The guys head to Adam's to do... actually I don't know what they did, Rach and I stick around to finish our drinks, and we head towards the train station/Plaza del Toros area to finally meet up with everyone. By this point it is 6:30

OH YEAH and the original plan was to go to the beach. That was the whole idea. SO, we, using the handy dandy map so lovingly bestowed upon us by the UVA en Valencia people, headed up that way to find our people and head to la playa. I think we ended up at the train station at 7:15(ish). No sign of TJ, Adam, or Will. Ok, well we all (except Will) have phones now, so let's use them! Nothing. We wait. See some dogs. And some old people.

7:30, we get in touch with Will and Adam, they're "close"! Rach wanted to change her nose jewelry so we headed back to a tattoo/piercing place that we had passed on the way back. Got that taken care of, and while we were there, Adam got a call from Will! We told him where we were and finagled with the map a bit, and then headed to an intersection to wait. And lo and behold, we found him. Requetechevere.

Now, here is the really cool part of the story. Will ended up going by himself to Yoigo to get a phone so he could try to get in touch with us. While he was there, he asked the phone guy if he had seen a group of people, and described us. The phone guy told him yeah for sure they were in here earlier, and Will asked him if he could have one of our numbers AND HE SAID YES! Mil gracias, Yoigo guy, you helped us find our friend! (I didn't even think about the fact that Will supposedly didn't have a phone when we heard from him.) Supermegaguay.

So once we were all together (by this point it was already 8:30) it was obvious that our "5 o'clock get a phone and head to the beach" plan had completely failed. But it was totally okay. We had all walked around the area a little, got to know where we were, met some cool people, and eventually found each other in the end. We sat at a different little bar place right by my apartment for half an hour or so before all going home for dinner at 9:15, a totally normal time for dinner.

And now I'm hanging out in my room, typing this up. It's 10:30, and we have tentative plans to go out tonight at 11. At the rate today went, we'll probably end up meeting at 12:30 or so. But it's cool, no worries, supermegaguay.

Hasta luego!

He llegado!

(That means I have arrived)

In the past twenty six hours I have traveled in a car, on a train, in a taxi, on a plane, on another plane, on a large bus, and on a smaller bus. I have gotten approximately four, maybe five hours of broken awful travel sleep. I have eaten kind of gross airplane food and drank a lot of coffee. And after all of that, I'm finally here. 

My luggage fear was unwarranted -- my checked bag made it to the airport with me, AND the Mason jar cookie mix stuff I made for mi madre were still layered, and still in the jar. 

Mi madre is absolutely adorable. We got off the large bus at the stadium and all of the madres were holding signs with everyone's names on them. Mine is named Julia (that's hoo-lee-uh not jew-lee-uh) and she walked around and introduced me to all of her friends and kept saying "ya tengo mi niña y habla español muy muy bien!" (I already have my girl and she speaks Spanish really really well!)

Once we got my luggage we hopped on the noventa (90) bus to get back home. That's the bus I take if I don't want to walk home from school. Noventa from school, ochenta y nueve (89) to school, y ochenta y uno (81) to go to LA PLAYA (the beach duh). 

I have been fed and watered (Julia made something she called arroz al horno -- rice on the stove -- and a salad and some cake thing so now I am both completely full and completely exhausted. It's definitely time for a nap. 

Rachel should be getting here at some point today. Her flight left JFK four hours after mine. Also I think we may have lost TJ somewhere between Madrid and here. So there's that... I'm sure he'll turn up. I'm not worried (yet). 

Hasta luego! (Here are some palm trees)

VAMOS!

IIt begins! 

Rach and TJ came up to my place last night and stayed the night, and we left for Union Station at 6:30. Traffic wasn't bad; we ended up getting to the station at 7:30 and grabbed some breakfast at Potbelly before heading to the gate. 

We're currently ten minutes out of DC. I'm straightening Rachel's hair for her so she can get her life together. TJ has never been on a plane/train/out of the country before, so he's REALLY EXCITED AND INTERESTED IN EVERYTHING! Me too. So excited. By 4am Virginia time, I'll be in Valencia! Until then, we have a very, very long day of traveling ahead of us. 

Hasta luego!

(Here's TJ enjoying the scenic and picturesque DC train tracks)

Unpacking/packing

Exactly one week until I leave. I can't believe it's so soon. I'm currently in the process of trying to unpack and repack all of my stuff from school before I leave. My plan is to only take a carry on and my backpack with me, so that should be interesting. My host mom supposedly does laundry once a week so I'm not terribly worried about having enough clean clothes. I currently have all of these to go though:

So yeah. Plus the stuff still in my car. I'm bad at moving. But excited to finally be in Valencia!

Hasta luego!

Done done done done done

I'm finally finished with all of my finals/papers/all school related things, and I had my last night at work tonight (until I get back, that is), so I've just been sitting in my apartment for the past three hours pretending like I'm going to start packing since my dad's going to be here in nine hours to help me move all of my stuff back up to Fairfax.

I've gotten three grades back so far for this semester, and I have to say that I'm really surprised I managed to do as well as I did. Part of me thinks it's because I took easy classes, but the other part thinks that maybe it took three semesters to get into the right sort of study habits and learn how to balance my life while being in college.

I leave for Valencia a week from Monday. I'm so excited, but still utterly unprepared. I need to get a converter/adaptor and I realized while packing that I really need to get some new clothing that isn't just Nike shorts and white v-necks/free UVA tee shirts that I've somehow acquired. Seriously, y'all don't know about my tee shirt collection.

Hasta luego!

I GOT AN A+ IN PHONETICS

That's all. Still in the library.

Hasta luego!

Cuál es la fecha?

Solamente tengo un día mas antes de que terminaré mi segundo año en UVA. Entre ahora y mañana, tengo mi examen final para francés (este noche a las 7), mi ensayo final para la sociolingüística (antes de la medianoche mañana), y mi take home final para abnormal psych.

Ahora tengo casi seis páginas ya escritos para mi ensayo final. Elegí un sujeto para el ensayo -- que el catalán no ha sido tan influido por el castellano como pueda a causa de las fronteras lingüísticas y culturales entre el catalán y el castellano, aunque coexisten en el mismo lugar. No sé, espero que a mi profe le guste. Tengo un cien por ciento en la clase ahora, no estoy muy preocupada.

Debo estudiar para el examen de francés en algún momento... pues tengo un noventa y cinco en esta clase ahora, y una vez mas no estoy preocupada. La única cosa en que puedo pensar es España. Me voy en exactamente dos semanas. Todavía necesito un converter y un adapter para mi laptop. Y un traje de baño nuevo, creo. Ahora en Charlottesville está lloviendo, pues esto refleja bien el sentido de todos los estudiantes en este momento. Todos mis amigos son muy muy stressed out. Yo también.

Este post realmente no tiene un purpose. Quería un break de writing mi ensayo. Entonces,

Hasta luego!

Lingüística

Solamente tengo dos semanas en los Estados Unidos antes de que saldrá para Valencia. Y ahora solamente tengo dos días de examenes finales. Mi ensayo para la clase de sociolingüística hispánica va mejor que anoche. He apagado el reloj en mi ordenador y no estoy llevando mi reloj y he apagado mi celular también, y la única cosa que voy a hacer hoy es escribir este fotutito con el deseo de terminarlo antes de la medianoche hoy. Ya tengo café for days. Ojalá que me ayude. 

Hasta luego!

Ayudame

En este momento estoy, una vez más, en la planta baja de Clemons. Tenía mi examen de biomechanics ayer a las dos, y trabajé anoche desde los cuatro hasta los diez. Comí en Outback con Shannon y dormí hasta las diez menos cuarto esta mañana, cuando me desperté y fui al trabajo. No salí hasta las tres y media, y fui a casa para cambiarme de ropa, y directamente a Clemons después.

He estado aquí hace nueve horas, y la única cosa que he hecho es elegir un tema para mi "trabajo de investigación" (basicamente mi ensayo final) para mi clase de sociolinguistica... Tiene que ser diez páginas, y tengo dos frases. Creo que no voy a dormir esta noche. Necesito trabajar, pero no tengo ganas de hacerlo. Pues, sé que lo voy a hacer, porque no puedo no hacerlo. Ay.

(Parece que solo escribo en este blog cuando no quiero estudiar o escribir. Interesante.)

Hasta luego!

Clemons

I figure writing in Spanish now is a good way to prepare myself for Valencia. So we're going with that.

Estoy sentada en la planta baja de Clemons y creo que estoy completamente perdiendo mi mente. Salí de Clemons a las 7 de la mañana hoy, fui a casa, dormí un poco, me bañé, tomé mi "examen final" para mi clase de la fonética (una grabación de diez frases en español, no fue nada difícil), y ahora estoy una vez más en Clemons.

Cualquier otro lugar sería mejor que aquí.

Solamente tengo dos examenes más, biomechanics mañana y francés el lunes, un open note take-home exam para abnormal psych, y un ensayo de diez páginas para el martes para mi clase de la sociolingüística hispánica. No estoy preocupada sobre los examenes, pero el ensayo... tengo algunos datos con los que voy a trabajar, pero realmente no tengo una cosa concreta sobre que voy a escribir. Algo sobre el catalán y el castellano y el bilingüismo... algo así. Vamos a ver.

Hola a todos!

Hey y'all! I'm Jessie, I'm spending five weeks in Spain this summer, and I'm gonna blog about it. This is going to be my first, very disorganized, post in what I'm pretty sure will be an all-Spanish blog by the end of my stay there. Google translate may be your friend.

A little bit about me: I'm nineteen years old, a student at the Univeristy of Virginia double majoring in Kinesiology and Spanish, and I drink a lot of coffee. I'm a server at a restaurant not too far from where I live, and I'm finishing up my second year in college. What else... I like dogs (ya like degs?) and the beach and spending inordinate amounts of time planning out my life.

So, Spain. I leave on May 20th (NINETEEN DAYS!) for the beautiful/amazing/wonderful Mediterranean city of Valencia, about halfway up the eastern coast of Spain. It's the third largest city in the country, and it's been around since 138 BC (according to Wikipedia). Castellano and Catalan are both spoken there. It's the birthplace of paella. It rarely goes below 50 degrees FAHRENHEIT, even in the winter. I feel like every time I read about it, I find out another awesome fact that makes me even more excited to be there.

I'll be living a few blocks outside the historic area of Valencia, and 6 km from the beach. I'm also taking classes, since this is study abroad, not just vacation in Spain. As of right now, I believe I'm signed up for Spanish for Medical Professionals and Modern Spanish Art. Super excited for both. I've never taken an art class, unless elementary school counts, so I'm actually kind of nervous(ish) for that, I think. I honestly am at the point where I can't tell if I'm nervous or excited.

Probably just excited.

Hasta luego!