A few nights ago I came back from Andalucia - a long weekend trip to Malaga, Gibraltar, Jerez and Cadiz - unfortunately the whole of the south of spain was full of rain, which sort of spoilt seeing the cities. Although Gibraltar gave us a full day of sun, and definitely made the trip worth it.
Gibraltar! - back home!
A great place! (and I'm not saying this just because it's a British colony!) - the American's love our history and kept mentioning it - makes you feel proud to be British...no wait...what did I say?! It was like being at home - the people looked the same - seeing pale skinned people in such a southern climate was strange. And also strange to hear a British accent again (other than the American's constantly imitating mine and doing it better than me!). Actually our tour guy said the accent in Gibraltar was like a mix of Spanish and English, which I thought sounded cool. Kids become bilingual at the age of seven there...so lucky!
The views from the top of the rock were amazing - the Atlantic on one side, the Mediteranean on the other, and the tip of Africa in the distance, which is only 14 miles away!
Here are some pictures of Gibraltar...sorry for featuring the Macaques (apes) so much, but they were just too cool...and so human-like! One of them attacked a German girl in our group and stole some cookies (they know who to attack!!), and they steal ice creams from the tourists all the time, haha.
Our tour guy recommended this restaurant...so English fish and chips it was!
St Michael's Cave
We also visited a cave on the rock - a really impressive natural formation. Sorry for the dark pictures:
Malaga!
A few pictures from the Cathedral in Malaga:
The Carnival of Cadiz!
The last night was Cadiz carnival - the second largest in Spain. it was 6pm till 4am, and I'm not sure how we managed to kill 10 hours. Some of the costumes we saw were great - giant eggs/fruits, a square dice..to name a few. I went as an Indian with a Spanish influenece! (a face-painted Spanish flag, and a huge bandera), and ended up buying a wacky wig and huge glasses for small improvements!..which didn't fit at all...
Actually I wanted to go as a giant whoopee cushion (I wonder if people outside the UK know what this is), but didn't have enough time - I'm sure this would have got some laughs...sometime I'll do it!
I'm not sure I want to go on any more weekend trips organised by the university - the schedules are so crammed in that you don't get a chance to relax - constant bus travelling and disrupted sleep! I think I've had enough of tours around castles, etc (they make them so exciting!!)
Money is disappearing with these trips - next up is Barcelona on the weekend, then I'll stop spending as much! Everyday living is expensive, eating out, etc - it doesn't help that there are these amazing local Chinese stores on my street - the shops are full of the cheapest shit imaginable, and you can buy anything! - It's almost impossible to go in there without coming out with a load of unnecessary random objects.
Mi horario! (timetable)
Here is a link to my timetable - if you click 'Week' at the top right of the page, you can see it more clearly.
My Timetable
So it's really empty - Most days I only have one lesson, and most afternoons free, so I'm feeling a bit guilty for this. I want to study spanish more in my free time, and add some sports - I'm thinking about swimming early in the morning before my lesson on Wednesdays - would be good excerise too, which isn't a word I've been familiar with in the last month and a half!
So in the end I decided to take a 3D design subject from the School of Arcitecture, but I haven't been to it yet - well..actually I did go, but the International relations gave me the wrong class time, so I was the only person there, with no teacher...perfect. Another erasmus student said the class is really good though - looking forward to learning something.
As for the Spanish, my B1 class is difficult with people who have studied Spanish a lot before - the class feels really pressured with the teacher always picking on people to do things on the spot - I hate this. But of course if you don't make eye contact with the teacher, you won't get picked!
I tried going to the A2 class (the lower one, being the same level as the intensive language course in Gandia), and that's much better, so I switched. Unfortunately the teacher isn't as funny as the one in the other class - he used to always take the mick out of all the nationalities. And...I've definitely had enough of hearing Germans speak Spanish..Grrr
Adios from sunny Valencia!
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