there's no need for you to say you're sorry. goodbye, i'm going home.
i can't believe it took me so long to get into Oasis' other material, it's so absurdly good - much better than (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
Oasis is pretty much all I listened to in Spain, on the walk to/from class and on the bus rides during our excursions.
Looking back, it would've been nice for me to have posted things once a week or so from Spain, since I had a computer in my room and all. Oh well, I regret nothing.
This post is going to take me so long to finish.
First night - alone in Madrid.
I spoke absolutely 0 Spanish, but luckily the metro was very easy to figure out and the people at the hostel spoke English. I arrived at the airport around noon, got to the hostel around 2 maybe? It was easy to find with my map and the directions from the internet.
The hostel itself was on the second floor, and the first floor was all ripped up and had Spaniards working on it. It was weird, and creepy. Out of the 4 different hostels I stayed at in Madrid, of course the first one was easily the worst so I expected them all to be like this.
After I arrived and took a 2-3 hour nap, I was feeling adventurous so I just left and wandered around Madrid for a while, followed the crowd, etc. Spain had just won the Eurocup the night before so the streets were absolutely ridiculous and packed, there was a huge celebration and ceremony in the middle of town so I just sat around and watched that for a while. I don't remember for sure but I don't think I ate that night.
Went to bed, probably pretty early - 11 or so maybe.
Second day - meeting, traveling, arrival.
I think we were supposed to be leaving the airport at 12:30? So I got there at maybe 11, woke up around 10 probably. I honestly have no idea at this point.
Got there, found the "meeting point", which was literally called "meeting point" and had a sign with a dot and arrows pointing to it from every direction. Found UMass people, sat around and met a few of them, and never saw some of them again for the rest of the trip - or simply forgot who they were. Got on the bus, sat next to some skank who ended up being in my class and breaking up with her 2-year boyfriend for someone she met on the trip.
2+ hours later, arrived in Salamanca. Stopped near the first (big) dorm, "Oh hey, this isn't that bad of a place, maybe the other one will be in a similarly central location". Nope, a 20 minute walk away from the Plaza Mayor (center of town, big square, where part of "Vantage Point" was filmed, etc), in the middle of the buttfuck nowhere part of town, is my dorm.
Everything about my dorm, except my room, sucked horribly. This includes, but is not limited to: the people, the food, and the location.
I'm going to watch Jeopardy, I'll come back and finish this later.
People: I hung out / talked to the people in my dorm for the first week maybe? Then I realized I didn't like them at all and that was that. By the end of the trip there were four people in the dorm of ~30 that I could stand, and two of those four weren't even in the same program - they were from ISA (international student something)
Food: Horrible, not Spanish food at all, it was like our HS food, except probably a little worse. All I had every day was iceberg lettuce and cheese, sometimes fried veal if I was lucky. In Spain, they put weird ham in most things and fry everything else in vats of oil.
Location: My dorm is a 30 minute walk away from the school, 20 minutes from the main plaza. The other dorm is 10 minutes away from the school and the plaza. One positive thing I have to say about the dorm though is that I did have a single with my own bathroom and a computer.
First night - "hey guys, most of us are jet lagged but do you wanna go out anyway? It's our first night here oh my god!" - sure, why not. Many shots and nearly as many hours later, we stumble home carrying a girl who could not walk and was barely awake - at about 3 in the morning. Not a bad first night. One of the people from the big dorm got really drunk and sick and kicked out of the program the first night, I hear.
Second Day in Salamanca
Wake up at 9 or so, placement exam at 10:30. "Oh god, I have NOT been studying and I still do NOT know any Spanish, they are going to kick me out of this program and send me home"
I got a 34 / 100 on that test, but amazingly enough that was about average. Conclusion: everybody else is an idiot. There were people with 4+ semesters of Spanish that did just as well as I did, with me having taken none. I think what happened was that everybody got placed in whatever level class they signed up for, no matter how they did on the test.
The rest of the second day to Saturday
The rest of the days, up until the first excursion on Sunday, are indistinguishable in my mind at this point.
Class was rough all the way through, but especially at the beginning. The teacher was a 22 year old girl who, of course, spoke no English and barely knew how to teach. I did well on the compositions but not great on the tests. However, they said that a 6/10 there is like a B- and the grades get scaled twice (once by the teacher, once by the UMass people) so I'm sure I ended up doing fine. Class itself was 9-2 every day with a 30 minute break though, and then I had a 1-hour conversation class at 3:30 so I barely had enough time to get back to my dorm to have lunch before I had to leave again.
On one of the first days during break we discovered one of the best things ever - this placed called "El Horno" (The Oven) which was a small chain of bakeries. They had good bread, pastries, and an amazing Ham and Cheese flakey croissant thing that was 1.05 euro and absolutely frickin delicious; I had one, sometimes two, every day that we had class for the rest of the month.
On another one of those days, I decided to be adventurous and go back home by myself rather than with a group and got lost for a good 4 hours, trying to ask random locals how to get home. It was fun.
Done for now, more tomorrow.
Oasis is pretty much all I listened to in Spain, on the walk to/from class and on the bus rides during our excursions.
Looking back, it would've been nice for me to have posted things once a week or so from Spain, since I had a computer in my room and all. Oh well, I regret nothing.
This post is going to take me so long to finish.
First night - alone in Madrid.
I spoke absolutely 0 Spanish, but luckily the metro was very easy to figure out and the people at the hostel spoke English. I arrived at the airport around noon, got to the hostel around 2 maybe? It was easy to find with my map and the directions from the internet.
The hostel itself was on the second floor, and the first floor was all ripped up and had Spaniards working on it. It was weird, and creepy. Out of the 4 different hostels I stayed at in Madrid, of course the first one was easily the worst so I expected them all to be like this.
After I arrived and took a 2-3 hour nap, I was feeling adventurous so I just left and wandered around Madrid for a while, followed the crowd, etc. Spain had just won the Eurocup the night before so the streets were absolutely ridiculous and packed, there was a huge celebration and ceremony in the middle of town so I just sat around and watched that for a while. I don't remember for sure but I don't think I ate that night.
Went to bed, probably pretty early - 11 or so maybe.
Second day - meeting, traveling, arrival.
I think we were supposed to be leaving the airport at 12:30? So I got there at maybe 11, woke up around 10 probably. I honestly have no idea at this point.
Got there, found the "meeting point", which was literally called "meeting point" and had a sign with a dot and arrows pointing to it from every direction. Found UMass people, sat around and met a few of them, and never saw some of them again for the rest of the trip - or simply forgot who they were. Got on the bus, sat next to some skank who ended up being in my class and breaking up with her 2-year boyfriend for someone she met on the trip.
2+ hours later, arrived in Salamanca. Stopped near the first (big) dorm, "Oh hey, this isn't that bad of a place, maybe the other one will be in a similarly central location". Nope, a 20 minute walk away from the Plaza Mayor (center of town, big square, where part of "Vantage Point" was filmed, etc), in the middle of the buttfuck nowhere part of town, is my dorm.
Everything about my dorm, except my room, sucked horribly. This includes, but is not limited to: the people, the food, and the location.
I'm going to watch Jeopardy, I'll come back and finish this later.
People: I hung out / talked to the people in my dorm for the first week maybe? Then I realized I didn't like them at all and that was that. By the end of the trip there were four people in the dorm of ~30 that I could stand, and two of those four weren't even in the same program - they were from ISA (international student something)
Food: Horrible, not Spanish food at all, it was like our HS food, except probably a little worse. All I had every day was iceberg lettuce and cheese, sometimes fried veal if I was lucky. In Spain, they put weird ham in most things and fry everything else in vats of oil.
Location: My dorm is a 30 minute walk away from the school, 20 minutes from the main plaza. The other dorm is 10 minutes away from the school and the plaza. One positive thing I have to say about the dorm though is that I did have a single with my own bathroom and a computer.
First night - "hey guys, most of us are jet lagged but do you wanna go out anyway? It's our first night here oh my god!" - sure, why not. Many shots and nearly as many hours later, we stumble home carrying a girl who could not walk and was barely awake - at about 3 in the morning. Not a bad first night. One of the people from the big dorm got really drunk and sick and kicked out of the program the first night, I hear.
Second Day in Salamanca
Wake up at 9 or so, placement exam at 10:30. "Oh god, I have NOT been studying and I still do NOT know any Spanish, they are going to kick me out of this program and send me home"
I got a 34 / 100 on that test, but amazingly enough that was about average. Conclusion: everybody else is an idiot. There were people with 4+ semesters of Spanish that did just as well as I did, with me having taken none. I think what happened was that everybody got placed in whatever level class they signed up for, no matter how they did on the test.
The rest of the second day to Saturday
The rest of the days, up until the first excursion on Sunday, are indistinguishable in my mind at this point.
Class was rough all the way through, but especially at the beginning. The teacher was a 22 year old girl who, of course, spoke no English and barely knew how to teach. I did well on the compositions but not great on the tests. However, they said that a 6/10 there is like a B- and the grades get scaled twice (once by the teacher, once by the UMass people) so I'm sure I ended up doing fine. Class itself was 9-2 every day with a 30 minute break though, and then I had a 1-hour conversation class at 3:30 so I barely had enough time to get back to my dorm to have lunch before I had to leave again.
On one of the first days during break we discovered one of the best things ever - this placed called "El Horno" (The Oven) which was a small chain of bakeries. They had good bread, pastries, and an amazing Ham and Cheese flakey croissant thing that was 1.05 euro and absolutely frickin delicious; I had one, sometimes two, every day that we had class for the rest of the month.
On another one of those days, I decided to be adventurous and go back home by myself rather than with a group and got lost for a good 4 hours, trying to ask random locals how to get home. It was fun.
Done for now, more tomorrow.