Miscellaneous

*Picture in Asturias (left to right back to front) Ramona (Germany), Matej (Slovakia), Sebastian (Germany), Irena (Slovenia), Me, Waleska (SDSU), Junior (Italy)

Feb 21 2007
Long time no blog....
So I don´t have the ability to add any pictures right now because I´m not using my computer (I´m at the University and just got out of class)....trust me I have plenty of good ones coming soon!

Today...my classes started. I had one this morning (Political Economics) and 1 this evening (Monetary Politics and Financial Systems) . Both seem like they will be challenging but definitely feasible. I have one more that starts tomorrow and the rest start next week.

I just got back from a excursion/ vacation put together by the University. It was between Sat Feb 17th and we returned at night on Tues the 20th. We had a lot of fun! I went with Waleska and about 12 other Erasmus students from: (Slovenia, Slovakia, US, Spain, Germany, Belgium, & Italy). We took a bus and drove from Galicia to Cantabria: http://www.britishcouncil.org/languageassistants-map-spain.jpg

*more*: I was sick(cold) the first 2 days of the trip but still had a good time. It´s such a great experience to make and spend time with friends from different countries...It´s like we have our own language...mainly Spanish and English but with a mixture of German, Italian and French here and there. Everyone speaks English in the group but at various levels. Same goes for Spanish. We try to converse mainly in Spanish. But....if it´s early in the morning and we were up late.....we all speak our 1st language or they speak English first....as the day goes on we switch to Spanish.

We stayed in a hotel in Asturias. Waleska and I shared a room and each night we all gathered in one of the hotel rooms to hang out before going to sleep. It was a trip with a full itenarary during the day time....we saw a lot of beautiful green countryside, old buildings and churches, museum of terror, tasted cider...an apple cider with alcohol but not very sweet typical of asturias, went hiking to a place called pina tu...gorgeous and quite possibly the highlight of the trip as far as sightseeing. PIX TO COME! ;)

The other highlight of the trip was forming friendships with the other students. We all get along really well together. We laugh to the point where it hurts and teach each other something new continuously. I couldn´t really ask for better people to be surrounded by here.

(computer lab closing.....more to come soon!!!!!)
xoxoxoxox

Feb 22 2007
okay.....i´m back at the university in the computer lab. i went to my international finance class today called International Political Economics here. it went ok but the professor speaks faster than when the speakers from the radio advertisments read the disclosure info. i understood next to nothing. but.....i think it will improve with time and i will need to learn to focus COMPLETELY.

*see above for more trip info*

I moved into my new apartment and all is well there. I have a big comfy bed and my own bathroom. Also, a european luxury/american norm: I have a dryer! I am the only one of my friends who has a dryer in my flat. Everyone else has to hang their clothes outside or in to dry for days :-O. Call me a princess, but I wpn´t adapt to that! One bad thing about the place...I don´t yet have internet...That´s a work in process. Soon enough I hope. The area I live in is called Ciudad Vieja (Old City). It´s beautiful and I have a view of the ocean from my living room. My current roommates are returning to their countries (Italy & Germany) in about a week. After that my new roommates will move into their rooms. My roommates to be are: Anna and Clemens (both from Austria). I am looking forward to them moving in so that the apartment will be thoroughly cleaned for their arrival and we can get to know each other better and settle in! Neither Anna or Clemens went on the bus trip.

Well, I have class in 15mins (even though normally class doesn´t start on time and everyone including the teachers are habitually late). It works quite well for me because I´m not exactly known to be punctual ;).

Much love to all!
*left to right....Sarah(SDSU), Waleska (SDSU), Michael (Belgium), Sebastian (Germany), Jan (Germany), Dietram (Germany), & Me

We were in a bar the night before we left for our trip to Santander. We had some damn good tapas there! :)