Budapest!

So I went for and booked a flight to Budapest for next weekend.  (Not this weeked - weather is going to be great and I’m kicking it on the beach here in Cadiz)  It’s a Ryanair flight from Madrid on Thr that gets back Mon night.  I have to take a bus from Cadiz to Madrid, both night buses to save time and money.  All in all, total RT cost from Cadiz - Budapest is like 165€!  That’s actually really fantastic.

I will make a Lisbon post I just haven’t had time.  Finally busy with school stuff.  When it rains, it pours!  (Not complaining - life is great!)

Budapest!

So I went for and booked a flight to Budapest for next weekend. (Not this weeked - weather is going to be great and I’m kicking it on the beach here in Cadiz) It’s a Ryanair flight from Madrid on Thr that gets back Mon night. I have to take a bus from Cadiz to Madrid, both night buses to save time and money. All in all, total RT cost from Cadiz - Budapest is like 165€! That’s actually really fantastic.

I will make a Lisbon post I just haven’t had time. Finally busy with school stuff. When it rains, it pours! (Not complaining - life is great!)

Reblogged from Madame-Bazaar

That moment when

you order drinks at the bar and pretend nothing happened last weekend when the owner looks at you funny from a few feet to the other side, because you ordered drinks without cash.

In my defense, I had my card with me and forgot that I had spent it all. And I don´t really remember asking for these drinks either. Just going to pretend it didn´t happen next time. Sorry I´m not used to cash-only policies at bars. Cola standard policy.

See, you learn as much outside the classroom as you do inside it while abroad!

How am I losing weight?

Maybe it was the stress of getting all my ducks in a row (things are looking up, but still not out of the woods yet), but most most likely it is all the walking I’ve been doing - I’ve lost about 13 pounds since getting to Spain, which will be a month tomorrow from when I landed. What?! (to the losing weight and to being here a month parts)

I weighed myself on the scale we have in the bathroom and it said 78 Kg which is appx 171 lbs. I was about 184 before I left. What is crazy is I eat cheese and pork and beer and drink wine literally everyday, sometimes twice, and I have chocolate pastries EVERY morning with my coffee and whole milk. How this hell is this possible? I should also say that I walk everywhere. Everywhere. So that probably has a lot to do with it. I guess the whole thing about Europeans being thinner thing is true, because I really notice fat people here, because they really aren’t around. Different body types, sure, but not many people that are “big” like in the States. But if I can eat like this and lose almost 15 lbs in a month without trying, I’m sold. Now is you excuse me, I have a BBQ pizza and a glass of red to finish.

Español en el Blog

Pues, yo sé la mayoría de las personas que lee este blog no hablan español, pero tengo ganas de escribir en castellano. Sí, tengo que escribir mis notas durante clase y mis tareas en dicho idioma, pero necesito un lugar que es menos formal y más divertido donde puedo practicar.

¡No tengas miedo! Aunque yo odio los traductores automáticos, sirve un propósito y para español y inglés no son tan horribles… Al menos, se puede entender la idea aún igual no el estilo de la obra. La única que tienes que hacer es copiar en enlace del post o sitio en Google Translate, ¡y voilà!

Es casi imposible que escape el poder y la presencia del inglés, no importa el lugar que sea o el idioma que se hable. Desde ahora voy a tomar otro curso. Ahora, cuando voy a la calle de mi piso, no voy a poner mi “cara castellana”. Es decir, si yo hable en español o piense en español en casa, cuando salgo en el mundo público no tendré ponerme un filtro para que pueda usar español. Es diferente aquí que en EEUU - se tiene que usar castellano, no es una elección divertida como en hogar, y a causa de eso creo que he estado usando demasiado el inglés como una muleta. En los Estados Unidos, nuestro cultura está cambiando, creo, convertiéndose a una mezcla como hay en Montréal; bilingüe en cada sentido. Y por eso, esta nueva mezcla ha dado la luz a Spanglish, que sirve algo y me gusta, pero a la misma vez, podemos (hispanoblantes y angloparlantes nativos) usar términos y frases en nuestras lenguas maternales, y no tenemos que aprender las palabras correctas. Una cosa que es muy difícil es tratar cambiar la voz interna que tenemos que nos habla durante todo el día. Cambiar esta voz a otra idioma es en mi opinión lo más difícil de aprender comunicar en un idioma extranjero.

¡No más! Desde ahora, hablo español como mi primer idioma, y solo usaré inglés cuando sea necesario.

(Algo que pensaba hacer pero no hice todavía es llevar un cuadernito en mi bosillo siempre, para que puedo escribir palabras que no sé a la vez que las escucho, y luego las consultaré en el diccionario.)

Probé la traducción y sí, es un poco extraño, pero funciona bastante bien.

Erasmus.

There are literally like 10 Americans here and I know 4 of them.

I just tell people I´m Erasmus, which is the EU exchange program. They ask “Where from?” and I say, the States, and get a weird look, because no one is American here. They even gave us t-shirts with ERASMUS on them and “I am” translated in a bunch of languages, which I’m wearing right now because it’s clean and not dirty like all my other clothes.

Success.

This is exactly what I wanted to happen.

Well, I found where my classes are and their times.

The American and European education systems are waaaay different.
(This is going to be short b/c I have a lot to do)

There is no hand holding here. You either ask for help, or you don’t get it. And by ask I mean ask a thousand people where you should go, who you should talk to, and how in the hell do you figure out your classes.

I finally found them on the school website. Sounds easy? Jajajaja, os tío… I’ve been very adept at navigating uca.es since I decided on coming here. Only a minotaur could tell you around it. There’s no one place to find the schedule, oh no. The schedule, as far as I know hasn’t been up that long. But now that I have the times and dates of the classes I want to take, I just show up and start attending them. Then I have to get in contact with this guy, so I can officially be in them. Cut off day being March 2. And if I want to take business classes, he has to get permission from a person in that faculty. What? I’m not even going to fight it. Then hopefully they will all fit for USC. I did the inicial thing back in the fall, but I’m not sure how they’ll transfer. But they should completely after reading the course descriptions. The studying part; the actual going to school part of this whole deal, is only going to be about 20% of the learning I do. Learning to live here on my own and adapt to how things are done has and I believe will take up a lot more of my learning capacity.

That being said, I am looking at the learning outcomes and sylabi of some of my courses, and dios mío, they sound intense. Mostly my Spanish courses. There is a seperate language organization under the university umbrella for Spanish as a second language, but I am taking classes under the Filología Hispánica major, such as Spanish Literature of the XX and XXI Centuries, and Historical Morphology and Syntax. Whoa. The scheduling is so that I won’t be able to take the 3 SPAN classes here to finish my minor, but I’ll be fine with these. Plus, taking CInema of Spain will be an absolute breeze and a nice easy class next year. I’m also going to take Art History, which should be cool here. There is a musuem here, and I wonder if we might have to go for class. That would be awesome; and hence why I left my art credit til study abroad. “Todo pasará bien en el fin”. I need to look at my management class and economy of Spain classes. Those should be very interesting and I’m not as worried. I just hope they don’t conflict with my others.

T Minus Five Days…

I leave on a plane in 5 days

Right now I’m making a packing list, then going to the bank to order some Euros so I have cash when I get there (didn’t do that last time, and my cards didn’t work - not fun!) Sooner or later I am actually going to have to pack my suitcases, which is weird because I have been thinking that this trip was so far off but now it’s right. here.

I am trying to be really excited, but right now I am just feeling anxious. The reason being is that I have been trying to contact my university in Spain in order to get them to sign this thing that says how much it costs so that USC can give me my financial aid… This is freaking me out because I have to have it to pay tuition, my rent, and reimburse my dad for the plane ticket. But this isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with the stress of Spanish bureaucracy, and I doubt it will be the last. I am weighing the fact that I might have to just go over there blind, and talk to them in person, then having the money sent to my house then have my parents deposit it. Long story short, I’m very stressed out, and praying that I am able to get on the plan on Wed with some semblance of a plan. There’s still the possibility of not going and having to take summer classes at USC, making this post useless if so. Regardless, maybe by starting this blog now, the universe will work in my favor so this wasn’t a waste of time…

On a lighter note, as is custom for the semester abroad nowadays, this is going to be the blog that family, friends, fellow travelers, and random people can follow my stay in Cadiz. I am planning on trying to have it be a nice looking and informative blog; not just one of those dumb “Yay, Europe! Everything is great and I’m just on a really expensive vaccation!” deals. One reason why this won’t be that is because I’m not doing your run-of-the-mill SA semester, this to be explained later.

Stay tuned.