Follow the Smelly Brick Road

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Dios mío! Finally I’m done with my mid-terms. That was quite the whirlwind. I studied, studied, studied for what ended up being an hour and a half grammar mid-term. I don’t even know what the Preterit Perfect is in ENGLISH! Yikes! Anyway, I think all of my studying paid off in the end because at least I think I understood the test! Then again, I wouldn’t put down an answer I thought was wrong…

What confuses me is the fact that many people (and I really mean a lot of people) didn’t study for any of these tests. I’d hear them sitting behind me saying to each other “Hey, did you study?” “Nah, I was out last night…oh well.” I mean, it might just be me, but I would FAIL those tests if I didn’t study! I feel like yes, you should take advantage of your time here, but you should also use it to take in your classes! Ugh. Anyway, that’s just me being frustrated that I put so much work into things. I will be very surprised if they do well though! I don’t think I even did well with all my studying!

We had our second soccer game today…it was the semi-finals. Haha. Next week is the championship game! The AIFS basketball team has already won their championship and it looks like the volleyball team will win theirs, so there’s a bit of pressure to do well next week! It was freeeeeezing out (well, freezing because we were all in shorts), so we all moved a bit slower than normal. Regardless, we won 6-1 or something. I scored again! (Another outside-of-the-foot shot!) Wish us luck next week!

Oh! I also got a fun package from home! It had a lot of yummy snacks that I’ve been missing over here! The chocolate tastes reallllllly weird. I have no idea why! I guess Spain just has lots of odd tastes…and smells! Oh! So I’m pretty sure the sewage line runs about…1 centimeter under the sidewalks here because every once in a while you’ll be walking and get this nasty whiff of SOMETHING. The brick streets have grates in them every so often and I’m pretty sure I’ve pin pointed those as places to avoid. However, sometimes on crowded streets (um…all of the streets) it’s difficult to avoid them. Then there are the dogs that just go to the bathroom all over. I was reading my 20 Minutos newspaper again today on the way to school and almost didn’t dodge a few different…presents left by dogs on the streets. It’s disgusting, but they have a pretty good system of cleaning it up. They have people in these navy blue and reflective striped outfits that wheel garbage carts around the streets and clean up everything. Looks like a pretty gross job, but they keep the city looking nice for the most part.

Speaking of looking nice—they put up Christmas decorations on the main streets! There are big lights stringed across. I haven’t seen them at night yet, but I’m super excited to see them lit up!