Year abroad choices, the ones I made and what I'd do differently. My summary of studying in Brussels and Granada.

Having come to the end of my classes once and for all here in Granada and so being just a matter of weeks from the end of my YA once and for allI think I am now in a good position to be able to write this blog about studying on the year abroad.  The study/work placement/language assistant debate is one that every languages student goes through when making their plans for the year abroad, and everyone has their own reasons for the decisions they make.  I personally didn't want to be a language assistant as I really wanted to split my year between the two countries without having to spend my summers away if I didn't want to.  Also, as a French intensive student my French tutor advised me that teaching would not be the best way to improve my French and strongly recommended that I studied.  I think she was right with her suggestion as the language assistants spend most of their time in school pretending they only speak English, meaning they have to find other ways of getting out and practising, which of course is fine for some people, but for those like me that as I said on a previous blog seem to have regressed into their shells somewhat this year it probably isn't ideal.  The other choice was to find a work placement, but I decided I didn't want to do this and was told repeatedly that placements in both countries would be very hard to come across anyway.  So the decision was made that I would study.

When it comes to French we had Brussels, Geneva, Lyon, Rennes, Poitiers or Montpellier, the first two are specialist translation schools which appealed to me and so I opted for Brussels.  Let's talk about that decision first, the main thing I'd not really considered when it came to Brussels was how international it is.  I'd considered the bilingualism with Dutch but did my research and found that French was the dominant language in the city anyway. What I guess hadn't occurred to me was that with the presence of so many international organisations everyone spoke English, it didn't matter if you spoke to them in French because 7 times out of 10 they'd reply to you in English, usually thinking they were being helpful not knowing they were being quite the opposite.  The other thing with ISTI was that because of the size of the school in comparison to the amount of Erasmus students they took on I found that I was in a lot of classes with just Erasmus students and it was very hard to integrate with the Belgian students and get any language practise.  I signed up for a tandem programme and met up once a week with a Belgian girl where we would speak for the first half in French and then in English, but in honesty this probably was no where near enough.

As far as Lancaster is concerned we don't have a huge amount of choice when it comes to where we can study for Spanish.  We can go to Mexico, Bilbao, Granada, Girona and Lleida.  So, that leaves you with the choice of going thousands of miles away, to two Catalan speaking Unis, to the Basque country where you may be faced with a second language as well or Granada.  I toyed with the idea of Bilbao but settled on Granada in the end.  My concern about Granada was that it is known as a really big party city because of the amount of Erasmus students and that isn't really my thing, but this hasn't really been a problem, I've found it's been easy enough just to do what I want instead.  Although there are lots of Erasmus students in Granada there is also a huge amount of Spanish students so I wasn't ever in classes with just foreign students.  You do however have a totally free choice of what you take and there isn't really any guidance on what is too hard for Erasmus students so I have found that two of the courses I've taken haven't really been suitable and I'm sure that is going to show in my exam results- it's a good job that they don't really matter!

Studying does have its pros and cons.  The good thing is that even if you're not speaking the language as much as you'd like you are hearing it, taking classes in it and writing in it all the time which has to be good practise.  It also keeps you busy, for me I need to keep doing things so I don't feel too homesick, so having a good amount of contact hours and work to do outside of that time kept me going and it wouldn't if I'd been teaching for instance.  The cons obviously are having to take exams, not really knowing what courses to take and the difficulty of integrating with native speakers.  It is also worth considering your unis rules on exams, as far as Lancaster is concerned we have to take them and the marks count towards our grade for the year, but we don't have to pass them, this works in two ways.  It is first and foremost a really good thing because there is no need to panic and stress about the exams, what happens, happens!  The problem with this is that my motivation to revise is pretty scarce so I find myself half heartedly revising and just wishing away the hours until they are over, possibly not the way I should be spending my final weeks here, but that's how it is!

Sometimes I do wish I'd worked, it would have given me a different experience for the year and I might have felt like I'd achieved more, but the issue with that for me is that I'd potentially be totally alone and unsure of how to meet people, especially other students because it is important to have that sort of "homely" contact from time to time.  I did however work for 6 weeks last summer in Valencia, I met all sorts of people and really enjoyed myself, but the work was boring because there just wasn't much of it so I spent a lot of time doing nothing.  That's the hard thing about picking what to do and where to go, unless you know someone that has done the exact same thing before it is all very much unknown.  I couldn't have spent the whole year, or even 6 months in that job, but it was good for the summer and to give me an experience of working in Spain.

So what am I concluding?  I'm not really sure if I'm honest with you.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing isn't it?  And maybe with it I'd have seriously looked into finding work placements that interested me and would be relevant to what I want to do in the future, but this time last year I didn't know that, and we had to make decisions in the November before we left!  For any future YA students reading this, it is important to remember that YA decisions are all about you, don't feel influenced by what other people are doing, and why they are making that decision, because they're not you!

Hooray, hooray, it's a holi-holiday!

This week has been pretty uninteresting if I'm honest, since Erin left on Sunday I've not been up to a huge amount.  Classes as usual and an exam on Wednesday mean that I'm now half way though my classes here and just over a third of the way through my total time in Granada.  Time has flown by so fast since arriving here at the start of February, I'm coming to the end of my 7th week here!

The only slightly exciting thing that has happened this week is that the Spanish decided to go on strike on Thursday against a labour reform that is being introduced, I'll be honest and say I know very little about it (I have bought myself a couple of newspapers in the hope of reading up on it at some point though...) but lets just say they aren't happy!  I went out for a wander on Thursday morning to see what was going on and I have to say there were more shops open than I had been expecting, groups of people shouting here and there but I generally didn't see much.  Apparently closer to the centre things were a lot more active, and I could somewhat see the aftermath of that when I went shopping yesterday and there were stickers and posters and things around but not much.  But that is just Granada, things were worse in Madrid and Barcelona etc as I'm sure lots of you have seen on the news in the UK.  Whatever way you look at it the strike gave me an extra day off, I didn't use the time productively though.

My day was made yesterday by a random smiley Spanish man walking past me when I was walking down Gran Via eating my Smooey yoghurt and calling out "que aproveches" which is the Spanish equivalent of bon appetit and then carrying on his way.  This should show you how little I achieved yesterday if that was the highlight of the entire day!  The only other thing I managed was spending money on clothes. 

Today I remembered what is the worst part of going on holiday- packing!  I'm useless at it and am always over the weight limit no matter what I do.  Annoyingly I have no way of telling how much my luggage weighs for my holiday as I have no scales, on the basis that I am using a smaller case and only taking clothes for a week I surely must be under my weight limit, but the thing seems to weigh a tonne!

Tomorrow morning I'm off to Majorca for a week with some of my friends from Lancaster, I've not seen them since January/February so I'm really looking forward to it.  A little bit of research tells me our hotel is just off the strip in Magalluf, so watch out for us in the background of Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents I guess!

Sorry for the really boring post, hopefully by the time I get back on Easter Sunday I'll have plenty to tell you about, I'm hoping to get to see the Maundy Thursday parade in Palma whilst we're there so don't panic, there might be some vaguely cultural content in it!

A tiring touristy weekend.

This weekend has been a touristy one as Erin came to visit Granada for a few days.  On Thursday I just had one class to go to before going to meet Erin from the bus, I rather unenthusiastically dragged myself up the hill and into the classroom just for the teacher to turn up and tell us that there would be no class.  As you can imagine I was not impressed, not just because I'd got myself up there but also because next week we are missing a class because of a strike and I could really do with the lesson time for Latin if I am going to stand half a chance in the exam.  Still, there is nothing I can do about it, ♫ Que sera sera ♫ and all that, so off I went back down the hill to the flat.  When Erin arrived things were not quite as straight forward as they could've been, the internet says that the bus stop is at Triunfo Gardens so logically that is where I was waiting when I received a text from Erin telling me she had just got off of the bus, yet she was no where to be seen.  Some confusion and rough directions later and we found each other after the bus had quite helpfully dropped her off down the road, not even in sight of the gardens!  With the initial confusion over we spent the afternoon having a wander round the city, and even went inside the cathedral which I'd still not done.  We ate in a really nice restaurant where the food was really moorish (Sorry, I think I have spent too much time around Jack and his terrible puns, I won't do it again...), I had a lovely cous cous dish with vegetables and we also had some arabic tea afterwards too.

Friday brought with it a trip up into the Sierra Nevada.  I didn't really know what to expect but knew that I should make the most of my chance to go up into the snowy mountains and enjoy the views before it all melted away.  The bus ride is only 45 minutes and cost us less than 10 euros for the return which was really reasonable.  The views on the bus journey are amazing and every time you think that you couldn't possibly be driving any higher you turn another corner and up you climb a bit more.  We were prepared for the cold with hats, scarves, gloves, hoodies and gillets but it wasn't as cold up there as we'd been expecting.  In fact we sat outside a bar drinking cold drinks and watching the ice melt before our eyes.  Being so warm and sunny yet surrounded by snow was more than a little surreal I must say!  Whilst we were there we took the cable car up higher, we think it was around 8200ft, to really make the most of it.  It was quite expensive at 16.50 each but worth it to appreciate the views up there, we'd been walking round the bottom of the resort which was absolutely dead, we soon discovered it was because they were all at the next stage up, there were loads of people!  After another sit down with a drink in the sun we headed back down to have some lunch before getting on the bus again.  In the evening we met up with the others to go out for tapas, we tried the Chinese tapas to start off with which was a strange concept but the food was good and that was all that mattered!  The last place we went to had a huge range of tapas to chose from and we had some really good fajitas, will certainly be going there again.

On Saturday we woke up to the rather disappointing sight of clouds and everything looking generally grey but this actually turned out to our advantage because although it rained a little it made our day a lot easier.  We walked (or more accurately climbed) up to the Alhambra where we queued, in order to queue, in order to just queue again! You'd think we were in England, we like queuing there, it's our national sport, but the Spanish don't generally like to partake in such an activity!  Despite all the queuing we had a really good time, but we did an awful lot of walking and consequently by the end of the evening after we'd been out my feet were in no fit state to walk home and we ended up getting a taxi- stupid blisters!  We'd not eaten anything for lunch before we went into the Alhambra and so were rather hungry when we eventually caved in to the temptation of buying a packet of gullible tourist priced biscuits from a stall, half a packet is a nutritious lunch right?!  We did eventually eat again when we got back into town and went for tapas, including another visit to the Chinese tapas place.  In the evening we went to Paddys with the others for a few drinks, finally arriving back at the flat in time to change the clocks and see an hour of our sleep for the night go flying out of the window...

Today I've not done much, in fact I don't really think I've done anything.  I walked to the bus stop (that this time actually was at Truinfo Gardens) to say goodbye to Erin and then headed back to the flat where I have successfully done one load of washing, written this blog and put my photos on facebook.  For those of you that want to see my photos from the weekend I've put them all (or at least am in the process of...)on flickr as opposed to Facebook where I have only uploaded half.

This week is going to be a short one as the Spanish are going on general strike on Thursday so I won't have my classes.  I do have an exam on Wednesday though which I have no clue about the content so that should be rather interesting.  Oh well!  Just 3 days of classes to get through before a few days off and then off on holiday for a week!  I can't wait now, it should be really good.  As well as looking forward to seeing my friends (obviously) I'm really looking forward to getting to see a Spanish Easter parade on Maundey Thursday.  At the end of this week I'll be half way through my classes out here in Granada and a third of the way through my time in Spain.  6 weeks down and 12 to go!

Lots of walking, lovely tapas and a new French flatmate.

After arriving on Monday and getting moved into my flat nice and quickly I have spent the last few days getting to know Granada as well as shopping for bits and pieces and making my room feel more homely.  Mum and I have done loads of walking and I reckon I've pretty much got to grips with where things are, I've put up a map of Granada on my wall in the hopes that I'll some how just magically absorb it and instantly know where I am, if only things worked like that, a bit like the theory of sleeping with a dictionary under the pillow, although I must say I have been tempted to try it!

Mum left yesterday after we'd spent our last day doing yet more walking (we decided to go up the hill to the Uni, no need for a gym membership with that walk every day, usually more than once...) as well as having a nice meal up by the Alhambra.  Saying goodbye was hard as it always is but I know she'll be back out again in less than 3 months and I have plenty of other things to look forward to before then.

Today I had a meeting at the Uni in the morning, it wasn't particularly exciting so I won't bore you with any details.  Later in the afternoon I met with Jack, Aimee and Michael for a wander around the city.  This short wander turned into a rather long walk when we decided to head up to Albyzin to some tapas bars.  We never did find them, to cut a long story short we walked up hill a long way and then back down again but it was through a very pretty part of the city so I'm not complaining.  When we got back to the bottom we had a drink, tapas and some more food in a street literally off of one of the main streets we'd started on!  We may not have achieved quite what we'd intended but it was a nice walk and a good way of using up a few hours whilst we can, this time next week we will have started classes.  We've decided that we'll try again next week and head up for a wander round where near Amiee lives as apparently there are some really good views, which there should be considering the climb to get there!

When I got back tonight I discovered that I have a new flat mate, and she is French.  I think I have already spoken more French with her than I did with my flat mate in Brussels the whole time I was there!  She doesn't speak much Spanish or English so this is the best way for us to communicate, good for me as I really need the practise, I shall make the most of it before she realises she is in Spain and so should really have a go at Spanish a bit more!

Tomorrow brings another wander in town and then we are going out for tapas in the evening so we can say we have been nice and cultural.  Maybe on Sunday I'll get around to looking at my translation for my dissertation?

¡Me encanta Granada!

I know I said it would probably be a few days before my next blog post but sitting here watching the Simpsons dubbed in Spanish (I'm sure I'll never get used to it along with Friends, Two and a Half Men and Sex and the City) with my Spanish flat mate I thought it was maybe time to update you all about how I'm getting on!

I left home yesterday at 3.45am so as you can imagine it was an early start!  All went well, the snow stayed away and we got to the airport without an issue, the bags weren't overweight and there were no delays to the flight, in fact the winds were so favourable that we we 30 minutes early.  When we arrived in Malaga we were early for the bus so went and had a coffee and bought our expensive lunch, but what else do you expect from the only bar/cafe at the arrivals of a busy airport?  The bus ride to Granada is 2.5 hours because it makes a stop at a few little towns on the way there, it was a pretty journey- at least for the portion of it I managed to keep my eyes open for!  I managed my first conversation on the phone in Spanish when we arrived and arranged with my landlady-to-be that we would meet her at the flat when she was ready, this involved more waiting around than intended but luckily it was warm outside so it wasn't really a problem.  By the time I'd got unpacked and sorted everything out there wasn't really much time to do anything else so we headed over to Mums hotel to drop off her stuff and then out to find some food.  As it was a long day I had an early night, at least I'd intended to but by the time I'd actually got in bed I'm not sure it was that early after all.  The nights here are really cold in the flat so layering up is 100% necessary, hopefully now as we're heading out of the winter and into the Spring the weather is going to improve.

Today was my first full day here and what better way to start than by getting up at 6.20, meeting Jack and Aimee and heading off to our first "event" (just a welcome meeting) at the Uni!  It is quite convenient for me with Jack living in the flat literally below mine as it meant I didn't have to struggle with finding the building today as we could go together.  The meeting wasn't exactly life changing but it was nice to actually go to something to do with the Uni and I even got to meet someone that knows a friend of mine from home that goes to her uni, it really is a small world after all!

After the meeting and a trip to Mercadona I met up with Mum and we spent the day food shopping and getting various other bits and pieces that I need to make my room feel a little more like home.  I'm holding off putting up all my photos and things yet though because I might be moving rooms when one becomes available in a week or so and if I put up my photos there is no way I will bother going anywhere, even if it is a better room!

Tonight Mum and I had a great meal in a restaurant near her hotel, basically it was a huge plate of grilled vegetables and then a bowl of really strong garlic prawns but it was a lot nicer than I am making it sound.  It was all washed down rather nicely with a jug of Sangria between us too.  We even had a dessert that we really didn't need, and I'm not even sure I particularly wanted it, we made a good team though because it was crepes with chocolate sauce, bananas and cream- I ate the banana and Mum dealt with the crepes.

I'm really pleased with how my Spanish is going so far, and it really proves to me how much better my Spanish is when compared with my French, unfortunately for me in Brussels I really didn't have ample opportunity to speak French and in fact here I have probably already spoken more Spanish in less than 48 hours than I did in a week, or possibly a month in Brussels!

That's all for now, the next couple of days I'll spend exploring with Mum before I head off to the Uni again on Friday and classes start on Monday.  There will be another blog from me again soon I'm sure.  Adios!

♫ I left my heart in San Francisco ♫

So I didn't leave my heart in San Francisco, I've never been there, but I do feel like I have left a significant portion of my brain in England and another part of it has already packed and left for Granada, not hugely helpful when I could do with a generous portion of brain remaining here to get me through these exams!

I realise this is my first post for 2012 and the first post since I have been back out here, but I've not really had anything interesting to talk about, anyone that is following my 365 project certainly knows that nothing has been going on in my life that doesn't either involve revision, cough "potion" or anadin!

Being as this is my last weekend here I guess I could be spending it doing exciting things, but why change the way I've spent all my time out here?  I've enjoyed my few months in Brussels but there are some things that I wish I'd done differently that I will be trying to learn from in Granada.

1) Speak the lingo!  It is what I've come out here to do and I've hardly done it.  I've been too easily pushed into just speaking English because that's the language other people insist on speaking to me in.  Well I should've just kept replying in French until they got the hint.  Granada change 1: Speak Spanish as much as possible (living with 3 Spanish girls this should presumably be achievable...) and make some French friends to make up for lack of practise here.


2) Get out and see things.  When I got picked up in the taxi to go to the station before Christmas it dawned on me how little of my own area I know.  I know the area around me if I turn right from my flat, the route to ISTI and the supermarket, how to get into the centre and where the public transport can take you but what if you turn left?  It became quickly evident that I didn't have a clue!  There were shops and all sorts that I'd never seen before.  Granada change 2: Wander round the area, get to know where I'm living, take it all in!


3) Get a social life.  One of the hardest parts of being out here has been the lack of social life.  In Lancaster I do plenty to keep me busy and meeting people all the time, last year I was doing something most evenings whether it was work, LUSU, Swing Band, Glee etc I was meeting people and I had a social life.  This concept became alien here, I didn't just instantly make friends and for some reason gave up really easy.  I've also managed to build this image of myself as someone that never goes out, which actually isn't true and I'm not sure how I've managed it.  At the start I think I was too worried about spending too much time with English people, well now I've just ended up spending loads of time on my own instead so that was a silly decision! Granada change 3: Socialise with people,  if invited out for the stereotypical tapas and sangria go for it and enjoy the chance to meet new people.


But despite the changes I want to make in Granada I don't regret the way I have spent my time here, I have still seen plenty of what Brussels has to offer, as well as making the most of being able to travel to other places by visiting Lille and Luxembourg and flying to Madrid to see Ellie.

As much as this appears to be a bit of a round up of my time in Brussels I am sure there will be another post right at the very end/once I'm back at home next week preparing for that next chapter!

Now I remember why I prefer Spanish...

Reason number 1- (Yes I know this isn't normal but I'm using it all the same) Walking round on the last weekend of November and not even needing sleeves.

Reason 2- Tapas and Sangria, how much more stereotypical can I make this?  I'm sorry...

Reason 3- The language, it just comes to me sooo much easier than French does.

Reason 4- It's just better and I don't need to justify that.

Now to actually tell you about my trip.  If you've read my other blogs you'll know what an annoyance the airport I flew from is, it calls itself Brussels South (Charleroi), well, for anyone that doesn't know Belgium, Charleroi is a whole different town a 45 minute train ride away.  So it's a bit of a planes, trains and automobiles mission to get there but not as bad as I'd expected it to be if I'm honest.  For once in my life I didn't have a delay, up until this week every flight I have been on alone has had a delay varying from 30 mins to 3 hours.  So "that was *trumpet fanfare* Ryanair flight arriving on time!" love that little announcement just as you land.  Ellie met me at the airport and we went back to her flat, where we just chilled for a bit before realising it was actually quite late and we'd still not eaten.  We went to a tapas bar called El Tigre, for me about a year ago this would have been an utter nightmare, there were loads and loads of people, it was hot and just generally chaotic but I loved it.  With your drink they give you a mountain of tapas (and that would've been why I wouldn't have liked it about a year ago, I didn't know what I was eating), it was brilliant and very yummy.  From there we went onto a market which is full of bars and tapas stalls, again packed and very typically Spanish.  Just to carry on with the being typically Spanish theme we then went and ate churros in the sort of place  you'd only find in Spain, it was about 12.30 at night and the average age in there must've been ...55 I guess.  I said to Ellie that at home at that time it would just be the drunks and the students left out.  I even made friends with a lovely Spanish woman and her friends whilst Ellie left me unattended for just 5 minutes, she offered me some of their churros and everything!

The next day didn't get off to a great start as we didn't set any form of alarm and managed to lose our morning to sleep!  We soon got up and out and about and seeing all the sites of Madrid, or at least about half of them before we headed to meet Dan for a drink.  But that came later, first we had a very important appointment to keep with a Mr Noel Gallagher?  Don't know if you've heard of him, used to be in that band Oasis (Or to the Spanish Oh-wa-siis).  We just happened to pass the hotel he was staying at, asked the people there what they were waiting for and decided to hang around and see for ourselves.

In the evening we decided to go to the Ice Bar, now I've been to one of these before somewhere else in Spain but all I remember from that is that none of us were dressed appropriately but that it didn't really matter because they gave us a fair bit of free drink... (The lack of memory and level of drink are not linked before someone suggests it!)  This one was better than the one I'd been in before that you got a proper coat instead of the furry poncho thing I had before, but it was still just as empty.  We stuck it out for an hour though and amused ourselves so all in all it was still good fun!  After this we decided just to head back to Ellies flat and we made our own churros, some were more successful than others lets just leave it at that!  But the peanut buttercups we'd made earlier, despite looking awful, tasted really good!

Today was my last morning in Madrid so we got up at a decent time and headed off to see the rest of the city, got lots of photos which I'll put on Flickr as and when I remember.

The journey back to Brussels was uneventful and I'm now sitting in my room listening to cheesy music before I go to bed because when I wake up the reality of the washing, food shopping and work I have to do is going to hit me....

36 sleeps to Christmas

Someone I follow on Twitter informed the world this morning that we now have just 36 sleeps until Christmas.  I have to say I've not really been thinking about Christmas, I've been thinking about the fact that I'm coming home but not connecting it with that big event everyone talks about.  In fact I've been paying more attention to my plans for new year if I'm honest... I don't think it is going to feel like Christmas for me right up until the last minute.  Of course I'm going to need to do some shopping and the markets in Lille that we're going to see and the ones in Brussels should help make things feel a little more like Christmas but there'll be no decorations (my flatmate goes back to France on the 18th and so neither of us are actually here for it), I've got no advent calendar (Despite Charlottes lovely Mum buying one for me, I just couldn't get it in my case back from Lancaster) and I'm missing out on the Coca-Cola and John Lewis adverts that everyone is going on about! But all of that doesn't really matter, I reckon I'll hardly notice at all the way time is flying at the moment, soon enough I'll be trying to squeeze as much as I can in my case and making it weigh 10 tonnes for the journey home (Thank goodness for the Eurostar, I'm going to be lost when I'm back to 20kg or whatever it is for Granada!)

There hasn't really been much of note this week, hence the lack of blog posts until now.  I've finally had a "normal" week.  But that all gets thrown right back out the window next week when I'm off to see Ellie in Madrid.  I'm wondering what is going to come out of my mouth the first time I try and speak Spanish, bearing in mind the weekend I came out here straight after Valencia I kept saying "si" I can see a similar thing happening this time, I'll probably say "merci" to everyone...

The other day I was looking for music that is similar to the Corrs, I am now worried about the internet, it informed me that I should try listening to Atomic Kitten....I'm all for a bit of old school cheese, but I don't really see the resemblance between the 2?!  I eventually found something myself, Lady Antebellum, I'd previously thought they were a rock band....oopsie.  I'd recommend them though as something happy to listen to, they're more country than I'd usually listen to though admittedly.

I think I used up all my motivation to work yesterday, I wrote the majority of my essay (although I'm not convinced it will be long enough...) and now just can't bring myself to do the conclusion.  I did some cleaning late last night and have been to do my food shop this morning, I probably just need to stop procrastinating and get on with it now... instead I'm writing this blog quelle surprise...  

I think we can call that Bex 1-0 Spanish

Today I have the two classes that are potentially the most beneficial to me but yet that I dread the most, the written and oral French classes.  Today we had to work in groups of mixed nationalities, so how I end up with myself and 3 Spanish people I have pretty much no idea.  I find the Spanish accent really hard to understand when people are talking in French and this became evident.  It basically went like this:

Spanish girl one: (Says something in French)
Me: Blank look-laughs
Spanish guy 1: (In Spanish) she doesn't understand
Spanish girl 2: (In spanish) She speaks spanish!
Me: (In spanish) yes, I speak spanish and I understand it better than French

Take that annoying Spanish guy that was trying to make fun of me!  More fool you, should've been listening earlier in the conversation when I told you I study Spanish too.  So after initally being embarassed that he was pointing out my lack of comprehension I feel I won that one, don't you?

In other news I've had an email from someone that is interesting in doing the Tandem programme with me which is where she practises her English and I practise French, worth a try I reckon.  Also, after sending quite a few emails yesterday, yet failing to attach my CV as I'd said I did... I've had replies from 2 schools already, one of which is a specialist languages college so good start I think.

Weather has finally turned bad, rainy and horrible today... never mind, it's Wednesday already, I have one more class today and 2 tomorrow and that is the end of the week- roll on the weekend, I've got plenty of work to do....

Granada...Girona...Granada...Girona...GRANADA

So the decision has finally been made, and Granada it is.  Quick run down of why:

• Spanish vs Catalan- in my mind Spanish was always going to win, 0.5 units of next year are Catalan, my degree however? 50% Spanish.
• Location- I chose Granada in the first place because of it's location and the fact that I know it is a lovely city.
• Convenience- This way I can leave here on the 22nd ish of Jan, go home for a week or 2 just about and head out to Granada.

This afternoon was intended to be for doing my reading for ISTI and take a look at DELC 310, this failed as instead I spent the entirety of it doing my application for Granada.  For a European University their organisation is really quite something else!  They have timetables and exam dates online and ask us to pick our courses now.  I have managed to put together a horrible timetable which starts at 8.30 every day (Must find somewhere close to live...) and on two days of the week ends at 9.30PM!  I do however get Friday off.  The reason this took me so long to do though was becuase seeing as I could access the exam dates I tried my best to finish as early as possible in the hope that I might make it back to Lancaster for Grad Ball and Extrav.  I finish on the 19th of June and my best guess tells me that Grad Ball will be somewhere around the 23rd/25th sort of time- bonus!  I've settled on Intro to Latin, History of Women, Cultural Anthropology, History of the modern world, and a course on Spanish dialects.  That might sound heavy but its actually fairly light subject matter compared with some of the other courses I could've done.  That's the important part of my day over with!

This morning I did a dictee (dictation, the Francophones love them...) with my flat mate for some work I need to do for ISTI and then we went out to lunch.  Was really nice to get to see a part of the city I've not been to, and as it is so close to me I'm not really sure how I've missed it!  I had a tartine which is apparently very Belgian and is essentially just an open sandwhich.  I also had a glass of Jus de pomplemousse just because I love saying the word!

That brings us to the end of week 3 folks, roll on week 4! This will actually be the first "normal" week I've had here with no random days off or trips to go on.  A bientot :)