Most of today's classes concentrated on conjugating verbs and the difference between regular and irregualr verbs. We also learned how to ask the time and say the time. The teachers made the classes fun by playing games. We separate into teams and have to write answers on the blackboard, and the person who answers first gets a point for their team, or we toss a ball to another classmate and ask them a question which they hopefully can answer.
After class, Shari and I went to check out some bookstores for information on hilking and travelling around Spain and Morocco. We found a great book, Let's Go Travel Guide on Spain, Portugal and Morocco. It gives regular travel information as well as some hiking/walking information. It will help us plan our next 6 weeks of travel. After the bookstore, I called my sister and Joshua, and it was nice to talk to both of them.
We were going to do the walk at 7PM which is led by someone from the school, but it was raining so we attended a lecture at 7PM on Antoni Gaudi instead. It was interesting to listen to a lecture all in Spanish; the teacher discussed Gaudi's life and described his major works. I got some of what she said because of information I had read on Gaudi. Antonella sat beside me in the lecture and she understood a lot of it and explained a few important points to me.
10?16: We learned frequencies (e.g., never, sometimes, always) and food stuff in school today. After class, I went to the Gran Theatro de Liceu to check on tickets for the concert that is being held there tomorrow evening. They had only a few tickets left, and there weren't very good seats, so I didn't bother to buy a ticket.
At 4PM, Shari, Antonella and I left to go to the movies. It was raining again, so we decided to take the metro instead of walking, because it is a pretty long walk to the movie theatre that plays English language movies. We went to see Pollack (the story of Jackson Pollack, the painter) and it was pretty good. It is not a very uplifitng movie though, becuase he was a pretty tormented man.
After the movie we just went back to the residence and did laundry and cooked dinner. It was very pleasant to sit in the kitchen talking with people.
10/17: Yesterday after the movie I was eating a piece of candy, and a tiny piece of one of my fillings broke off. Well, this morning when I was flossing, my teeth, the entire filling came out. I went to class and asked if anyone knew of a dentist but no did, so at the break betrween classes I went down to the office and asked the secretaries. Neither of them lived in the area, but luckily one of the secretaries looked in the yellow pages and found a dentist nearby. She asked if there was someone at the office who spoke English and there was, and they said I could come over right away.
I skipped my second class and went to the dentist and got my tooth filled for 50 euros (not too expensive). I had just commented in class the other day how there are very few female dentists in the States, and today I went to a female dentist. Luckily, the dentist spoke some English (open, close, does it hurt) and she and her assistant were very nice.
I finished at the dentist about 12:15, did a couple of errands and was back at the residence just when classes ended at 1PM. It was raining again today and no one really knew what they wanted to do for the afternoon and evening. Shari and I ended up going to use the internet after lunch, and then I decided to walk down to the movie theatre and get the new movie schedule that starts today.
I left for my walk at 4:45PM and took about an hour and a quarter walking to the theatre. It had stopped raining and it was quite nice out, I really like walking around the city by myself, and I went along streets that I hadn't seen before and walked through a few parks. I got the movie schedule, tried on some more shirts in the stores near the theatre, bought a few groceries and walked back to the residence. I walked straight back and it took 45 minutes.
I got back to my room around 7PM and I called Margie. It was such a treat talking to her from the comfort of my room while I was drinking a Bacardi Breezer. We can use the phone in our room as long as we have a phone card, so it doesn't cost the school for the call.
10/18: Shari, Antonella and I had signed up for the excursion to Sitges today, and we walked over to the meeting place at 9AM. There were about 15 students who had signed up for the trip and the students showed up, but the leader didn't. It was very cool and windy and it looked like it might rain, so we weren't really keen on going to Sitges, which is a beach area, but we waited 35 minutes for the leader anyway. When no teacher or tour guide showed up by 9:35, we said the heck with it, and walked back to the school. Now we will have to get our 10 euros back on Monday.
We checked out the movies and decided to walk down to the theatre. Shari and I went to see The Emporer's Club, which was playing at 11:15AM, but Antonella decided she would rather go to the Museum of Modern Art.
Shari and I both really enjoyed the movie, and when it ended the weather had improved so we walked through the Parc de las Ciutadella (the city park), took some pictures and then went to the food market near the Arc de Triomf. We had just studied how to order groceries in class on Friday morning, so I practiced my Spanish in the market.
We went back to the residence to drop off the groceries and then to run some more errands. We tried to rent an English language movie video but the store wanted an outrageous (300 euros) deposit because we are only short term students, so we gave up on that idea. Then Shari went off to the internet and I went to return a shirt, and buy another, and then to the grocery store.
I got back to the residence about 6PM and decided just to stay in for the evening. I listened to music and read for a while and then talked to Antonella for about a half hour. Shari came up to the room to let me know that Sandi was cooking paella for everyone and we were invited to eat with them.
I went down for dinner about 9PM and about 10 people were there. It was fun to sit and eat and talk to everyone - Olivia, Antonella, Sandi, Mattis, Richard, Nick, Nikki, Miriam, Catherine and a few others. Some of the younger crew was going out about 11:00 so I sat in the kitchen drinking and talking until almost 11:30. The variety of ages and backgrounds and current situations are interesting. I've already written about Oilivia and Antonella. Sandi is also in our class; she is a 62 year old retired woman from England who is going to move to the south of Spain which is why she is taking Spanish lessons. Mattis is in his mid 40s and is from Norway (just outside of Oslo) and used to work in the military. Nick is probably in his late 20s/early 30s, and used to work for a software company in England. Nikki is the night receptionist on weekends, and he is a doctoral student at the University in Barcelona. Richard just accepted a job at one of the top three law firms in London aftert recently getting a law degree from Oxford.
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