For a few years now, I’ve been saying I’m going to take the DELE. I finally decided that after four years in Spain, it was my best chance to take it. Also, since I’m going back to the United States in August, I felt that it was my easiest opportunity to take it as well. I wouldn’t be as motivated when I’m back in the US, and only the major cities have centers to take it. So, in January, I signed myself up, and took the exam!
About a month ago, I got an e-mail from an interesting start-up called Interlinear Books. They offer what they call “subtitled books”. At first, I was unsure. Would the English “subtitles” get in the way of reading the books? I don’t know any of these stories, will they still be good? Let me tell you my opinion: this is the future for language learning.
I haven’t gone on any amazing trips yet, but I did do something pretty cool. Everyone knows that Spain is known for its tapas: little bites of food like appetizers. My friend and I went on a tapeo: going from restaurant to restaurant eating tapas. The city I live in, Tarragona, hosts “Tarraco Tapes” every spring and fall, perfect for bingeing on tapas.
There hasn’t been much to have gone on this past week/I never got around to just sitting down and writing about stuff. So here is my catch-up post. 🙂
Monday we went to this place where we learned to make food like the Romans did 2,000 years ago. Let me tell you, that stuff was disgusting! The only thing I liked somewhat was the chicken. We drank this really gross rose wine … which was also served HOT, making it even more disgusting. Let’s just say for dinner that night I pretty much had gelato and some Magnum ice cream (Pau forced me).
Tuesday was pretty boring. The class I’m in didn’t have any activities to do that afternoon, so we just slept for a while. That night a few of us went to a mojito bar and I got a watermelon mojito! Yum! After that we went to this Irish pub that has different nights every night and that night it was salsa night. I didn’t dance at all but it was really interesting to see the people who know how to do it really well. Melanie and I didn’t stay for long though because we started our first week at the hospital and we had to wake up super early the next morning.
At the hospital, our day starts at 8:30 and ends at 1. It’s a pretty long day, having to walk around the hospital all over the place and trying to comprehend everything the doctor is doing and saying. Sometimes you get patients that prefer talking in Catalan better, so I have no idea what they are saying. It’s definitely not something I enjoy and I’m not liking this in-patient type of physical therapy, but I only have one more week left to go.
Continuing on our adventures, Wednesday’s previous event was cancelled. We were supposed to go do water sports at La Playa Larga, but the weather in the earlier portion of the week was chilly and we didn’t want to have some bad weather while at the beach. Ironically, it turned out to be a nice day, but I was glad they postponed it so the water can warm up more. Instead, we went to the see The Great Gatsby, or El Gran Gatsby, here. I could follow the movie, which helped by the fact that I read the book, but I really want to see it in English, especially to hear Leonardo Di Caprio and Tobey Macguire’s voices. And the “old sport” by Gatsby was just “compañero” in Spanish … but at least I have seen the movie!
Thursday night we took a dance class with two people who are on the Spanish version of Dancing with the Stars. We learned bachata, salsa, and meringue. Bachata was definitely the easiest and I liked shaking it. Salsa was definitely the most difficult. I don’t see myself dancing salsa at Highland’s anytime soon! It was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be. After that, myself and two of my friends met up with our host brother and went to a discoteca in Tarragona. It didn’t match up to the one in Barcelona, but let’s just say that night was verrrrrrrry interesting!
Friday we left for La Mora. It’s a beach kind of in Tarragona. It’s about 20 minutes or so from our house here in Spain. Unfortunately, it was pretty windy, so we didn’t go out on the beach at all this weekend. The good thing though was that there was a really nice pool area that we hung out at all day both days. I am now more burned than I have every been before. My back, my chest, my stomach, and my face hurt so bad right now! 🙁 At least I’m going to be very tan! We stayed there until today so now we are back in Tarragona.
Tonight we’re going to eat dinner with another family in the neighborhood who also have kids from JMU staying with them. It’s really nice outside so we should have a good time. We’ve already hit the halfway mark in our time here, and I’m very sad about it! We have some really great adventures coming up this week, so hopefully I’ll blog more frequently about everything! ¡Hasta luego!