Week 2 New people, new places

Monday: Ok, so first day back to school after Sevilla wasn't too bad. However, my professor in my conversation class switched the order of our presentations, so I went first but i didn't do too bad. Half an hour after class we met up with the ERASMUS group( a european exchange program) for a day of welcoming the foreigners on behalf of the university. We met in the old part of the city(where i live), so i walked home stopped by the house to drop off my backpack and then met up with them at their first stop. I had already seen all the stuff before, so for most of it i stood in the back and talked to my friends and Rakel one of the guides when we first got here. However, while we were waiting to go to the lunch I met a couple girls from austria Marlene(pronounced Muh-lay-nuh) and Simone (See-mon-ah) as well as a few Italians and a German girl. Some of them speak really good english, but the austrian girls mainly speak in spanish with us since that is what they know best. Anyways we went to this restaurant for "lunch" which is usually the biggest meal of the day, umm apparently they meant tapas which is just little appetizers. Anyways i talked with Marlene for awhile and some of the Iowa kids and met a few other people. That was the most exciting for the day, but after thta I ran, did some homework, and ate.

Tuesday: Today we went to class, afterwards Toni(our program director) had a few spaniards give a presentation we were supposed to get the first week. It was nice to meet a few spaniards, but we already knew most of the stuff in the presentation, so most of us were pretty aggravated that we couldn't go home and eat. I also tried running to a new part of town, and found a park and their track(which wasn't open unfortunately), but it was nice i felt really good. I didn't really have that much homework to do, so i went out that night with a few girls from our group and the German girl from Erasmus. We went to meet up at an Erasmus party, but most of the people that we had met earlier weren't there( it was mostly people that had been there in the fall too.) However, we stayed there for a little bit and tried to talk to a few people.

Wednesday: Probably my least favorite day of the week in general because i have class from 10-2 without breaks. It was pretty typical day with nothing too exciting. Oh, i did decide to Carnaval in Badajoz on saturday, so i bought bus tickets, only 15 euro round trip like 23 dollars. I also went with a friend to go find a costume. I got a black half mask(covers around the eyes and nose) Also, at 8 i went with some people from the group to meet the spaniards that gave the presentation. We talked in english and spanish, and they let us ask a lot of questions so we learned a lot.

Thursday: Ok today was a looong day. My walking to school 1.5 hour roundtrip, runs, and staying up late(which is normal here, we eat dinner at 930) finally caught up with me. I went to class and back, but i was not feeling good at all, probably the worst i have felt in awhile. So when i got home i laid in bed until lunch, ate lunch, went back to bed, woke up for a small dinner, and went back to bed.

Friday: Felt way better today, basically back to normal...well as normal as you can epect to feel in spain. Most of the day I did homework and other stuff I needed to do. I tried running, but apparently on Thursday a cold front decided to move in so it was below freezing and i only ran for about 10 minutes. Later that afternoon, i went to buy some stuff to decorate my mask as well as get a hat. Here there are a lot of Chinese bazars that are like unorganized walgreens or dollar stores that are really cheap. In one shop I found a silver fedora and in another i got some glitter glue. When i got home i decorated my mask. I used blue and silver glue to create a wave of water over one eye and used red a dark pink and gold to make fire over the other eye. Then i outlined the mask and the eyeholes with gold and silver. Also during the whole day i worked to get a group of Iowa people to meet up that night with Marlene and Simone. So later a few girls another guy and me went out with them. It was really fun and good for my spanish because they don't speak english very well. Fianlly we went to a discoteque that night and yes i actually danced, yea i wasn't very good, and yea i felt really awkward, but it was a good time.

Saturday:
To preface this goes into sunday morning because i didn't sleep until i got back.
I kind of just hung out and got ready for Carnaval in Badajoz most of the day. Our bus(by this i mean 4 buses full of university students) left at 6 and got in Badajoz around 7:15. There isn't really much going on until 12(like i have said everything is later in spain). So we went to Carrefour, basically a big Wal-mart, WE kind of just wondered around looking at everything. Some things that is a bit different from the states they have a full aisle devoted to olive oil, they have hams(really good here) hanging up in an aisle, their seafood section actually smells like seafood, they have billions of types of bread for really cheap. Anyways i guess you can tell we were hungry, we all bought a few pieces of food to add to the sandwhichs our moms packed for us. (Yea we sound like were little kids, but honestly having our moms cook everything for us is really awesome). Anyways so we ate lunch in a food court just outside Carrefour. After that we went walking around trying to find where the big areas for Carnaval were going to be. We were there really early so we followed costumed people to the main plazas. Oh by the way apparently in Spain everyone in a group have similar costumes unlike the US, so you would see like packs of babies, chickens, doctors and other things. Basically when we first got there only a few people were around so we just kind of hung out. Later when things started picking up we met up with some other people in our group that had been in portugal for the first part of the weekend. I would try to describe the costumes but there were sooo many, but to give you a basic idea imagine an area the size of grandma jo's neighborhood maybe a bit bigger, basically a huge plaza filled with thousands of people in costumes, by full I mean you had to push your way through the crowds to move at all. So we were outside dancing and talking in these plazas for about 7 hours it was like 30 degrees to so we all had coats it was a little chilly, but I had a really good time. We eventually made it back to the bus station to catch the bus that left at 7:30 that morning. We were all exhausted but for me sleeping on the bus is impossible(there are a lot of roundabouts here that the buses take pretty fast.

Sunday: Today i slept from 9 when i got home until lunch at around 3:30. I ate lunch with our mom and her mother while watching the condensed version of they days events in the Olympics. Didn't see a single American athlete. Other than that i have just been catching up on everything i need to do.

Also i am going to try to do two posts a week since our week is usually separated in to two parts the week(classes...) and the weekend so far Sevilla and Badajoz, also next weekend the whole group and the ERASMUS kids are going to Granada and Cordoba.