March 3

There was a slight drizzle on the way to class. The treads on my shoes are starting to wear; I almost slipped twice walking on the slick sidewalks they have here but otherwise I made it to class in one piece and on time. In business class, we learned about bank vocabulary such as a bounced check, savings account, mortgage, etc. This class has been very useful.

During my two-hour break, I went back to working on my paper. I got a lot done and finished everything but my conclusion paragraph. I felt really good about it and was happy with the ideas I was able to put down in Spanish. In Linguistics, we started reviewing what I feel is the hardest tense to use: subjunctive. You use the subjunctive tense when you want to talk about hypothetical things such as hopes or suggestions. Our teacher, like always explained it from a completely different perspective that I hadn’t thought of before and lot made sense. I still need a lot of work on it, but I definitely learned a lot.

At 2:00, I walked pretty quickly back because I was exciting. The first course we could have was pasta salad; I immediately grabbed it because it looked a lot like the pasta salad Mom makes. It was far from it and not my favorite at all, luckily the second course was chicken and French fries (it goes without saying I made a chicken sandwich and drank an orange soda to go along with it).

After lunch, I hung out with Dave and Mary Claire, Dave suggested a bunch of music for me to download and he gave me a lot of songs. I am excited because I basically have a whole new itunes library of some really good songs. I worked on a business letter that we have to email to our teacher by Friday night and did a little bit more work on my conclusion paragraph.

I went with Caroline and Ashley to Suerte Suerte (Spain’s version of a dollar store) and picked up some note cards to start making flash cards for all of the vocabulary I have to know for my two midterms next week (it’s a bummer I have them while Laura is going to be visiting). We got back just in time for dinner. It was a pretty dismal meal though. The ribs were terrible; I guess I am just spoiled being from the south. There were twice baked potatoes though which were out of this world. It reminded me of my favorite double stuffed potatoes with blue cheese and bacon bits.

After dinner, I went up to my room, finished and revised my paper and hung out. At about 10:30 I went with Dave to O’Haras for a beer. We talked with Juanjo for a while and he told me that he had to meet Laura when we get to Valencia, I replied, “Por supuesto” (of course). A guy named John just got over to Valencia last Monday because he is playing for the semi-pro team that our baseball team practiced with (Taylor from our group is playing Semi-pro as well). He played baseball at Southern Cal and was looking to play in Italy but took the opportunity to come over to Europe and play when the opportunity presented itself.

After O’Haras, I returned back to the dorm and got in bed shortly there after. It was a great day. March 3 marks the exact halfway point of our trip. I have learned so much, tried so many new things, and met so many great people. I am so in love with this country, language and city.

For the next week, I am going to be traveling with Laura, but I still plan on trying to stick with putting up one post a day.