Alicante!

Man, so much has happened since I last updated this blog! (which is partly why it has been a while since I've done so...)

Anyways, I arrived safe and sound in Alicante on Friday at about 1:30pm, met up with my host mom, and went back to her house just in time for lunch. There is another American girl staying here in this house also; her name is Elise and she is from St. Louis, though she goes to school at the University of Illinois. She is here with another program and is taking Spanish classes and a few classes taught in English at the university. But it's cool cuz she's been here for a month, so she knows the city and the campus and has a bunch of American friends from her program, so if I ever feel the need to speak English, I can.

Apparently I got here to Alicante just in time for Carnaval, which I really don't know a lot about except that everyone dresses up in costumes and wanders around the streets all night. Like, literally, all night. People were still out in costumes when I woke up the next morning! Anyways, so we (me and Elise and a few of her friends) went out to see the Carnaval festivities on Friday night. There was a quick play explaining the origins of Carnaval (but it was in Spanish, which is why I'm still a bit unclear on the concept). Then there was a huge parade, which was pretty cool. I took bunches of pictures, which you can find here.

We went out again the next night, which is apparently the night that everyone dresses up. So of course, we dressed up too. Again, pictures. It was tons of fun. One of the Americans said "It's like Halloween on steroids!" which is actually a pretty fair description of what was going on. No candy though. But everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, was dressed up and out on the streets. Little kids, teenagers, parents, grandparents...everyone. It was all pretty cool.

I spent the first few days walking around in order to orient myself to the new city. Turns out that the beach is about a seven minute walk from my house, which by Spanish standards is like around the corner! I'm super excited! Pictures of that are also in the above album.

I went to campus today and yesterday to try to figure out what's going on with classes (which start tomorrow). It was a bit frustrating at first because I kept trying to get someone to give me a schedule, and no one would. Finally after running around from building to building for like two hours someone explained to me that until February 13th you can go to whatever class you want to go to. The point of this is to figure out what times, what days, what teachers, etc. work best for you. So that's cool, but obviously I'm too organized not to have a schedule anyways. So I made one for myself of the times that sounded best to me, and we'll see how it goes!

The campus, by the way, is absolutely gorgeous! Oh man... There are palm trees and orange trees and all sorts of greenery everywhere. There are bunches of these little fountain type thingies that are set into the ground, so you have to be really careful when you walk that you don't accidentally step in one. And apparently all of the signs are in Spanish and Valenciano (which is another language similar to Spanish that is spoken here in Valencia). It took me a long time to figure that out. At first I thought the signs were in French, which was just confusing. Then a few hours later I figured, oh it's probably Catalan (which is the only other language I could think of here). Then Elise later told me that they are in Valenciano. But it's close enough to Spanish that I can usually figure it out!

My Spanish is (obviously) getting better and better everyday! I came home yesterday a bit frustrated about the whole schedule thing, so I went back today and talked to someone in the Erasmus office about the classes and the conflict in times that one of my classes had. We talked for a little more than an hour, in Spanish, and I had no problems at all. When we were done he even said (translated) "You know Spanish very well! Did you study a lot in your university?" He seemed even more surprised when he found out I was from the United States. (Side note: The Erasmus program, for those who don't know, is a program within the entire European Union where any student from any university can "study abroad" in any other foreign university within the EU for as long as they want and their credits will automatically transfer back to their home university. Pretty cool, huh? I get to be a part of the program even coming from the United States because I am directly enrolling into classes, just like the rest of the Erasmus students are doing. But generally Americans at this university are taking language courses, like Elise and her friends. I, apparently, am the exception!)

So anyways, that's all for now! Classes start tomorrow so I'm off to bed!