It´s unbelievable how quickly the past week has flown by and even
harder to imagine that one week from now I will be settling into my new
home in Madrid. My first week in Alicante seemed to crawl by as I
struggled to overcome jetlag and adapt to my new surroundings. However,
ever since my first weekend arrived, time has simply FLOWN by! Last
Friday night my friend Jasmin and I joined our friend Mark in
celebrating his final night here in Alicante. He was only able to be
here for 2 weeks because he´s a school teacher in England. I´ve never
been a fan of good-byes, I find it incredibly unfair that you´re
suddenly unable to spend time with someone who´s company you thoroughly
enjoy. Hopefully this time in Spain will help me learn to appreciate
the moments I have with people and accept the reality of good-byes.
Below is a photo from Mark´s last night here, before we headed out for
a long night of dancing:
On
Saturday I joined my friend Jasmin for a night at the ¨cine¨to see
¨Kite Runner¨ (Cometas en El Cielo in Spanish). I´d read the book and
Jasmin had seen the movie in German so luckily we were able to
understand what was happening. As for actually understanding what was
being said though, that is another story. I do much better with
subtitles in Spanish as well, because it is so hard to grab on to the
specific words coming out of the actor´s mouths. Sunday we were
supposed to go to Dénia (a nearby town), but our plans changed and
instead I spent the morning running along the beach. Actually I only
spent about 45 minutes doing that, but because I got up so late, by the
time I was finished, the morning was over! In the afternoon Jasmin and
I met up at the beach. We both were a little more quiet than usual with
Mark gone now. We both agreed that we needed to find an eccentric and
hilarious guy to fill his shoes. Thankfully, we didn´t have to wait
long because on Monday three new guys joined our class at school::
Patrick from Germany, Victorio from Italy and Johannes from Norway
(actually he´s from Berkley, but he´s lived in Norway for the past 4
years and speaks fluent Norwegian). Patrick is 21 years old and
studying law in Hamburg. He speaks English like he´s lived in London
his whole life and all of the girls from the U.S. instantly fell in
love with him. A few days later I learned that he is also a male
cheerleader in Germany and goes to competitions with his school. I
didn´t even know cheerleading existed outside the U.S.--priceless!!
Victorio is your typical Italian, even when he´s speaking Spanish it
sounds like it´s Italian. I instantly fell in love with his blue eyes
and smile...but he has friends here in town so we never really hang out
with him. Tuesday afternoon we all decided to go out to lunch because
Victorio was incredibly anxious to have pizza. I pointed out that the
pizza here in Spain can´t possibly be as good as it is in Italy and he
replied that´s true, but it´s still Pizza! Now, as for Johannes...I
don´t really know how to sum him up...he is tall and lanky and his hair
is longer than mine and he has a beard and mustach as well. He wore
green van sneakers and tall red and white striped socks with his shorts
the other day, recently bought a skateboard so he could zip around town
on it and last night when we all went out he showed up with this giant
black horn-rimmed glasses...without glass! He is absolutely hilarious
and Jasmin and I have decided to adopt him as our new Mark.
On
Monday afternoon I went and got tea with Jasmin and later joined
another classmate, Katrine (from Iowa) for coffee. Time flies here and
this really hit me on Monday when I realized that I´d barely eaten for
the day and had consumed way too much caffeine. Walking home from the
cafe I found myself feeling very shaky, dizzy and unable to figure out
what to do...should I go back to where Katrina was and order something
to eat? Go to the supermarket? Or back to my apartment...but what if my
blood sugar was so low I couldn´t even make it back to my apartment? I
decided to stop at the closest cafe and bought a banana that cost me a
euro (about 1,50 dollars!) and sat down on a bench for a couple minutes
before making the final trek home. Wandering through the streets on the
way to my apartment I realized for the first time since I arrived in
Alicante just how very alone I am here. Unlike in Seattle, I can´t
easily call a friend or family member if I need help or even advice.
And if I were to pass out in the middle of the road, would someone
actually help me? This concern was probably due to the excessive
amounts of caffeine swirling through my blood stream, but it did make
me realize how very much I miss all my friends at home. Although I´ve
made some really great friends here, there is just not enough time to
build that really great connection with them that I have with my
friends I´ve known for 2, 8, even 15 years! When I got back to my
apartment that afternoon I enjoyed some water, snacks and a long nap.
In the states this type of thing would never happen to me as I am
always on top of making sure I eat something every 3 hours or so, but
here where I eat lunch at 1pm and dinner at 10pm and don´t have easy
access to food, it is easy to overlook. Since Monday though I´ve
started carrying around snacks with me so I don´t risk feeling like
that ever again!
Tuesday evening Jasmin and I went to the local
theatre to see the Kremlin Ballet perform Romeo y Julieta. It was
absolutely breathtaking!! I was a little nervous that I would fall
asleep because I have a tendency to do this when I have to sit for
great lengths of time (such as when I went to the ballet in Paris...I
will never forgive myself for that one...), but the performance
captured my attention for the entire two hours. It was nice to enjoy a
form of entertainment that didn´t also require me to practice my
Spanish. Following the ballet Jasmin and I headed to our favorite local
cafe, Pinnochio, for crepes and wine. We both insisted that our Spanish
was drastically better after the second glass, but who knows?
Wednesday
afternoon found me heading over to Jasmin´s to watch a movie we´d
rented from our school, Volver (a Spanish film with Penelope Cruz). The
daughter of her host family was using the TV when I arrived so we
decided to head to a local cafe with her roommate. A few more students
joined us at this cozy cafe that boasted a six page menu solely of
teas. As we all sat enjoying our selected tea and getting to know
eachother through a mixture of English, Spanish and occasionally
German, it started pouring down rain outside. The experience was so
delightful that I´ve found myself wishing it would rain again before I
leave Alicante so I can recreate the moment. As for Volver, we finally
had a chance to watch it but with the little girl in Jasmin´s family
vying for our attention, it was really difficult to understand what was
going on (even with Spanish subtitles!). Thankfully I´d already seen it
so I was able to split my attention between listening to the dialogue
and coloring with the little girl. It was actually pretty adorable,
when the movie got a little scary she brought us each a stuffed animal
to cling to. I returned home that night to find that my host family had
already finished dinner, but thankfully they had a little left for me.
It´s always hard to know when to be home for dinner as it can fall
anywhere between 9pm and 11pm, depending on the night. It ended up
being a really positive thing that I was the only one at dinner because
it gave me a chance to talk more with my host parents. They were
surprised to realize how much Spanish I actually know! They assured me
that in 9 weeks, when I head back home, I will be speaking fluent
Spanish.
I was dissapointed to find out that I will once again
have classes in the morning next week. I am ready for an opportunity to
hang out with my friends during the week! This week in class was really
enjoyable though so I can´t complain too much. We´ve been practicing
our Spanish through debates on issues ranging from the feasability of
long distance relationships to when you want to learn a language, is it
better to go to school or date someone from the country where the
language is spoken? We also had a day where we received a card with a
medical issue written on it and we had to explain what we had in front
of the class and then everyone had to guess what it was an offer
medical advice. I had an easy time explaining that a had a sunburn, but
it was absolutely hilarious to hear Patrick try to explain that his
card said he had hemeroids. This week I also had another chance to do a
speech in front of the class, this time my topic was ¨Why Independent
Films are Better than Commercial Films.¨
My weekend has been
incredibly busy, although I´ve had a great deal of time for naps as
well. Friday night was the last night for a bunch of the students from
the states so we all headed out for drinks and dancing. One of my
classmates introduced me to her friend who lives in Alicante. He was
mesmerized by my hair (which I´d straightened that night so it appeared
even blonder than usual) and offered to spend the entire next week
helping me learn Spanish. Around 4am he took a group of us to the local
Kebap restaurant where his friends work for complimentary Kebaps. It
was hilarous to be sitting around in the closed Kebap shop listening to
the mix of English, Spanish and Arabic that was being spoken. At the
end of the night Jasmin and I agreed to meet him the next afternoon so
he could be our guide up to the Castle Santa Barbara. Although I had a
great time treking up to the castle, enjoying the breathtaking views of
the city and hearing all about Nor´s love for Alicante as well as his
home in Algeria (which is directly south of Spain), I didn´t really
feel like hanging out with him later that night. Instead I headed out
with Jasmin and Johannes (who also brought his roommate Diago, from
Brazil) to the barrio, where all the bars stay open until 4 or 5 and
the streets are always crowded with people smoking weed and enjoying
makeshift picnics as they wait for their favorite club to open. Jasmin
was hoping to take us to this great bar she´d been to that had mojitos
for only 3 euros. We wandered around for nearly an hour before we
randomly stumbled across it (half of the street was closed for
construction). We ducked into the entryway that looked more like a
window than a door and headed upstairs. The instant I walked up to the
second level and took my first breath, my lungs filled with smoke. It
amazes me how many people they cram into bars here. I don´t think that
fire codes exist. We grabbed mojitos and huddled over by the window to
enjoy the jazz music as well as the fresh air. Several mojitos later we
realized our eyes were starting to burn from all the smoke and decided
to head out for some dancing. The club we stumbled across had the most
amazing mix of music, including a remix of I Will Survive, Reggaton,
Salsa, Bob Marley and at the end of the night a mix of all the songs
from the movie Grease. It was definitely a night to remember and all
the fun I had made up for the fact that my scarf was missing when I
went to retrieve it at the end of the night. Thankfully it wasn´t my
purse!
With one week left in Alicante, I have a great deal
planned for myself. I may have to forgoe my daily siesta to get it all
done...I hope to take more photos of the sites around the city as well
as run along the beach a couple more times. Tomorrow night we´re going
salsa dancing (I can´t wait to see Johannes try out salsa!), Tuesday is
set for heading to the City Centre of Alicante, Thursday we´ll be going
to dinner with our professors and then out for drinks and Johannes and
Diago have offered to cook for all of us on Friday night! I´m thinking
my last week in Alicante will without a doubt be eventful and hopefully
I´ll find time to sleep a little and study some Spanish as well.
Saturday I take a train to Madrid at 2pm and that night plan to enjoy
Sangria and a night of dancing until dawn with one of my favorite
travel companions, Ivy, who´s been traveling around Europe the past
several months.
(A
photo of Jasmin, Mark and I during our first week. The palm trees
behind us line the explanada that I run on to get to the beach from my
house.)
