Going on 3 weeks

A lot has happened since the last time I updated my blog...sorry for not updating sooner, but as you can imagine, I have been super busy! The first piece of exciting news is...I moved out of the hostal and into my own place. It's great and is really starting to feel like home! I live in an apartment in the old zone with my friend Alison. We share a double room, which is great because it is a lot cheaper since we split the rent (which means more money for me to spend traveling within Europe!) The way apartments work here is a little different than in the U.S. Basically, we have our own room and share a living room, kitchen, and 3 bathrooms with the other tenants who live here (about 6 other people). So far classes have gone well. I am taking Spanish Composition and Cultural Analysis, Art History of Spain, Transatlantic Hispanic Cultures, and Spanish Language: Composition and Conversation. I have classes Mon-Thurs with Fridays off...which is fantastic! :) All of my classes are taught strictly in Spanish and for the most part, English isn’t allowed! I understand a lot, but have difficulties creating/forming sentences…hopefully I’ll turn out to be a quick learner! As far as what I mentioned before about people in Spain being kinda rude, but not really considered that way since it is a cultural norm to keep to yourself…well I have decided that is a load of crap. I flat out just think MOST of the people here are rude and Spaniards have continued to disappoint me. For example…Yesterday, some of my friends and I decided to take a day trip to A Coruña, Spain, which is a costal city about 45 minutes North of Santiago. We needed to catch a bus from our place to the train station, which sounds simple, but ended up being quite the ordeal. We told the bus driver right when we got on the bus that we needed to go to the train station and about 30 minutes later, after having gone to the outskirts of town the bus driver turns to my friends and me and asks us what we are still doing on the bus. We said…we are waiting to go to the train station. He then started to yell at us, calling us ignorant for missing our stop. We said we weren’t from here and didn’t know what stop it was (we assumed since he knew where we were going he would tell us where to get off) and he said (in Spanish of course) “You should have been paying attention and asked someone.” To make a long story short he made us pay another bus fair to stay on the bus as it headed back toward the train station. The man was a real jerk and it is really starting to frustrate me that a lot of the Spaniards I have encountered have been rude and impatient with people, especially foreigners. I do fully understand that I shouldn’t generalize because there are nice Spaniards out there, but at this point that is difficult to do because I haven’t met any yet…no worries though, I still have hope! On the up side, it ended up being worth all the fuss because we finally made it to the train station, took a 45 minute train to A Coruña and spent an entire day exploring the beautiful city! Every minute was FABULOUS. We went sight seeing, shopping, and of course hung out on the beach overlooking the ocean! I have found it difficult and time consuming to add pictures to my blog, so I decided to upload my pics to “Shutterfly” so you all can view them! I already told ya about my mini trip to downtown Madrid, and as promised, I uploaded pics so you can see. I also added pics of Santiago in general, my apartment, and Spanish foods. In my last entry, I told you about typical Spanish foods, such as Tortilla Espanola (an egg with potatoes in the middle), Pulpo (Octopus), and Pimientas (Peppers). Also, there are just a few pics of A Coruña because I forgot to charge my camera and it went dead about an hour after I got there. I plan on getting some pics my friends took and when/if I do, I will post them! Here is the site: http://mexigurl14.shutterfly.com/ I hope you enjoy viewing my pics and will make comments! :) Love you and miss you all!