updates are bolded
Today i took my Spanish final and i feel very confident about it, but sure enough, i usually do worse on the tests i feel good about!
i forgot to mention the oral part of the exam where we had to speak with him one on one. everyone had about 10 minutes but for my turn, he cut me off after 2 minutes and said he had had enough! i had to beg him to let me keep going. ben says i should have been like "por que?? yo tengo ocho minutos hablar con tu,profesor? ?Tu quierres (what ever punch in the face) is." however i landed a 6.5/10 on the oral, and an overall B- on the final. except the midterm, that was easy cheesy lemon squeezy. So i guess its supposed to really be over, but it has yet to hit me. Tonights our last big night together, and we're going all out. I have skimped out on these entries so now that i have my computer on hand and some time, i'm going to elaborate on some random weekdays here...
Our culture class discusses the history of Spain, from ancient cave drawings to until this past 2004 election and terrorist attack. i learned a lot about the religious wars and the ruling dynasties in the classroom. But every week we also visit a museum: the archaeological museum, the prado, and the reina sofia where we learn about a few of the most famous artists and the most famous works. At the Prado, we looked at the work of Greco, Murillo, Ribera, Velázquez, and Goya. I fell in love with The Meninas & Saturno.
reminds me of katlyn.. hahaha i miss you so!
At the Reina Sofia, so far (because we're going back tomorrow), picasso's guernica sent chills down my spine because i could really feel the pain and chaos. oh and its gi-normous! I walked around a bit afterwards and caught a glimpse of some temporary exhibits that were really different; one guy paints dots and i swore i saw a happy face. oh contemporary art, how you make no sense. There was a photography exhibit of the spanish civil war in the 30's and it was cool to see the places i have been to. One was the Sevilla metro stop filled to the max with refugees with all their desperation. The crazy photographer took pictures of people panicking and running around in the streets, but why wasn't he running?! Yea we go back tomorrow, so hopefully i get a chance to see more.
the program included a few conferences to satisfy our curiousity about spanish culture: the zarzuela, the gastronomy, the bull fight, the cinema. We also watched a cute little movie called La Comunidad about a crazy apartment building where one guy wins the lottery but he's too scared to leave his house because his crazy neighbors are out to get him so he dies in his apartment and this lady finds it, and she goes through the same experience having trouble finding her way out. Darth vader, of course, saves the day.
The house is at peace and its pretty awesome. However, our landlord does officially hate us.
- Day one: the blinds break
- Mid July: she leaves us a note saying she was coming the next day to take pictures of the apartment and she'd like us to clean our rooms. But of course, that was the night of the Zarzuela (july 12) so we all get home late and leave early the next morning for Segovia but do the best we can to tidy up. she comes and moves all of our stuff and looks in our closets, finds our wine bottle collection, moves it to the kitchen with a note that we must throw it out. We were all a little upset about her invasion of privacy but we don't really know the laws about it so we dont do anything about it. She enters our apartment all the time.
- The maid acts as a spy and told her that we have been using the empty
rooms in our apartment. (Not to mention the maid got white stains on my
black pants and a red paint drip on sona's juicy sweater.)
- We have an accident: well Sona breaks a bed in a very hilarious way. but its truly was a faulty bed because the wooden support on the side split right down the middle and the part that holds up the mattress broke in half. Cheap ikea furniture!
- We overhear she and the maid talking about us.
- Then she says shes coming to take pictures again the next day so we all clean and she doesn't show up, then comes the day after and complains again that we did not clean.
- When she built the new furniture, she moved the kitchen table to the side to
- She comes to the apartment again and builds a massive entertainment center in the living room, blocking one of the few outlets that we do have. She builds new furniture, which aren't for us, and puts it in the empty room so we can't go in there.
- The worst thing that happened was the weekend we went to Barcelona. No one was here and she came in here to change the lights or something so she turns off the fuse box, and "forgets" to turn it back on. everything in the fridge rots for a few days and the house smells disgusting. (we did get reimbursed for our food.)
- yesterday (8/7/07), i realized all the gifts i bought for people from morocco, including the most perfect gift i found for my sister who is strangely one of the hardest people i've ever had to shop for, were missing. it wasnt until my room mate mentioned something about rummaging through the trash that i realized the maid must have mistaken the plastic bag as trash and threw it away. all of it: gone. and my room mates souvenirs from amsterdam, now we're all freaking out because we wouldnt really realize whether something were missing or not.
I tried to say hi to her the other day, because i have no drama with her, but it was very very awkward. she hates us. Not to mention the president of the building has knocked on our door to tell us the next loud night will grant us a call to the police. There is also an angry man who loves to shout at us from his window late at night. But there are nights where we are just studying or sleeping and the neighbors will still think we are loud; i tried to explain it as a cultural lifestyle thing because we dont wake up to each others alarms and dont hear each other late at night and can sleep through each others living noises.
after rummaging through the trash my room mate mentioned that there might be more trash bins in the garage. so i head down to the garage and enter through the door to find that you need a key to get back in. there are no trash bins in the garage. i climbed up the ramp where the cars go in hopes of setting of some sort of sensor but no luck. i don't know how to scream for help in spanish, so i start shouting "hola! hola! no puedo salida! me ayudas abrir la puerta de garaje!" one old lady responded but of course i dont know what shes saying. another man closes his window. when a couple comes out to put stuff in their car, they let me out and i run into steven, who lives around the corner, and he goes "yea i heard you screaming hola! but i thought you were screaming out your window to someone." the building maintanence guy comes over and tells me that he thought it was weird that we threw out a lot of heavy trash yesterday... SAD.
Well little did we know that the entire city closes for vacation in august! There is a famous bakery in Sol, Mallorquina, that i never got to try and i wish i knew it would be closed for august! There are a few regular places that you can surely find people in our program: Dubliners & El Tigre. Dubliner's is an irish pub that has an extremely cheap happy hour and puts way too much alcohol in all of their drinks, yes dubliners is the devil. El Tigre is a little bar that is always completely packed. but if u purchase a drink, even the smallest beer for 1.50, they give you a free plate of tapas with the most delicious patatas bravas i've ever eaten!
there is also a 2euro bocadillo de calamares place in plaza mayor that we are all in love with. i love calamares!! For sure, for sure, we'll find someone we know at those places. I also watched pirates of the carribean 3 in spanish! and man i did not think i memorized so many quotes from it! but they sound so much funnier in spanish!
So, the weekends exhaust us enough that we pretty much relax and hang out during the week, i couldnt tell you how i spend the days, i have no idea. but i do know i've been eating rather deliciously lately! but the other night i had chinese food, in spain, and it gave me the worst tummy ache of all time. me duele el estomago! no bueno! we went to an egyptian temple too, debod temple. but im still determined to go to SAN FRANCISCO, its a metro stop. haha.
Where's michelle?
OH! i also watched a live flamenco ballet show: Carmen.
At first i was like, "this is it?" because it was an empty stage with just the dancers in not that exciting dresses who werent even singing or pretending to sing. i thought it looked stupid and amateurish but it got so much better. they were acting out more of the scenes and the vibrant spinning dresses and choreography made it that much better. I think its interesting how the dance can communicate so much. i mean the themes have to be so universal to be so easily understood by everyone: fighting, love, death, jealousy, infidelity.. it was so beautiful.
Other than that, i've been shopping beyond all reason because i budgeted so well in the beginning of the trip that i decided i should start spendingggg! yay! oh and jennay is wonderful for getting us an apartment in LA! im so excited for my future roomies YAY! if you scroll down, i posted pictures from barcelona!
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