Thursday, October 11, 2007

El Fin de Semana (The weekend!)

Well i officially finished my first FULL week of classes here! I dont have class on Friday, but this week no one does because its a holiday. I am not sure what the holiday is celebrating but on my calendar its called El Dia de Hispanidad. My host mom referred to tomorrow as a fiest (party) but i dont think she meant it literally. Pretty much everything will be closed tomorrow, so i probably will go out tonight and relax tomorrow. Caitlin and I might walk to Parque Invierno (which means winter). Its a little further away then the main park in Oviedo which is called Parque San Fransisco. As a side note, I am not sure if this is just in spain or Europe too, but fountains are everywhere here, especially in parks. They light up at night, and the bigger the city, the bigger the fountains, or so i have experienced. And the playgrounds are just thrown into the middle of the city. Like in the US playgrounds are at schools, or in parks with lots of trees around. Not here, they are in the middle of the city.

I still really like my host mom. I feel like a guest still, which i think will change, but a lot of it has to do with the fact that she cleans 24 7. Her job outside of the house is cooking and cleaning for an older couple that cant get around themselves, but when she is not working, she is cleaning or cooking at our apartment! I feel bad, but i think thats just how she is. I will ask her how her day is and she will say that it was full of work work work and that her back hurts. I think to myself you dont need to scrub our bathroom everyday. I seriously swear she cleans everything, everyday. I wake up sometimes to go to the bathroom earlier in the morning around 8 or so and she will be scrubbing away or cleaning something. Shes a riot! Its just funny to me because she told Caitlin and i we couldnt shower past 9 or 10pm and we couldnt brush our teeth or wash our face past 10 or 11pm because it would wake our neighbors...yet she cleans like a maniac at the butt crack of dawn or bakes sweet bread at midnight. Either thats just how my host mom is or thats part of the new culture, but i dont mind, i just think its funny.

Another funny thing about my host mom is teaching her english words. She has written some she learned from other students on this little whiteboard she has on her fridge. For example she wrote sand which is arena in spanish (she learned that from someone else) but the other day she brought Caitlin and me our clothes including our underwear and she said that we had such small underwear. We said ya they are thongs (sorry to those of you who read this and think im over sharing, haha). Anyways, she said thong...but it was in the funniest pronunciation. Just like we cant say words correctly because our mouths arent trained to shape those sounds, she struggles too. Then we told her you can call them underwear. and she tried to say underwear, only it came out as unerweer. too funny. then she proceeded to writing underwear on her little whiteboard with the spanish word below it. as a side note, panties, are tights in spanish (like nylons)

Lets see, so far i really like my grammar and vocab class. I love my vocab teacher. He is a stout man and he has a 4 month old baby! his name is victor and he is a crack up. My phonetics class is boring, but maybe it will get better. And so far my romance/love lit class is alright but my other lit class has seriously just been a chronological outline of spains history up til present day. maybe its suppose to help us with the future readings about 20th century spain, but it has been super boring and i cant read my teachers hand writing. Here they dont do powerpoints or use over heads, they write on the chalk board or whiteboard and its random scribblings, not very well organized (depending on the teacher).

A side note concerning my phonetics teacher...apparently he kissed a girl on the lips that was in my program. Just to give you a description of this guy, he is super tall and reminds me of a ugly version of Ross on friends. I wasnt out that night, but i have heard first hand from the girl in my group what happened. I guess she had been drinking and he had been drinking way too much and he came to the bar that a lot of americans go to (and alot of people in our program go to before we go to a club). Specifically in Spain and maybe in Europe too, im not sure, it is common to kiss friends and family on both cheeks as a greeting. I guess my teacher thought he was a friend because he saw this girl in my group and kissed her on both cheeks and wanted to buy her drinks. i guess she made the mistake of letting him buy her drinks, but i dont know if no one else was paying attention or what, but if i saw that happening i would have stepped in. anyways, i guess he kept doing the kiss on the cheek back and forth and then he kissed her on the lips and later had a rose for her! CRAZY! NOT ALLOWED IN THE US! that crosses the line. I guess she was really drunk. Either way, im glad i wasnt there and im glad it wasnt me! A side note to the side note...mom dont worry about this, my teacher seems more harmless then a fly, so it surprised me, i think he just was acting out of character, but either way, its an interesting story!

Its suppose to be sunny this weekend so if its not too windy im going to try to go to the beach. I live near the ocean, but its a city away. Even if its not nice enough to go down to the ocean, ill probably check the city out (Gigon is the name).

thats all for now! adios!

2 comments:

L. said...

We celebrate the day that Cristobal Colon arrived to America, the 12th of October.

Good luck in Spain!

Anonymous said...

Kyla:

I'm loving your blog. Your experiences sound amazing. Send your host mom to my house if she runs out of things to clean.

Where are the pictures?

Love
Aunt Lisa