Yay! My first post in Spain!

I have been here for only two weeks, but it seriously feels like I have been here a month. I guess that is sort of a good thing, seeing as it means I feel somewhat comfortable here... somewhat.

I spent my first two weeks in Gandia, Spain. I took a two week intensive language course. Every day, we had class from 9:30-11:30, and 12:00-2:00. Then, we were done for the day. So what happened from 2:00 onward? For me, 2-4 was "siesta" time and after 4 was usually go the beach time. So, it seems as though it was more of a two week intensive napping and beach-going course... although I did improve my Spanish a bit.

My roommates in Gandia were pretty cool. Two were from Germany, and one was from Italy. The Italian has never lived away from home before... which lead to some interesting occurrences. Here is a "brief" list of those occurrences:

-Everytime he would cook, he would throw things in the pan from about a yard away... which usually caused something to splatter all over the kitchen.

-He had never used a washing machine before... so to wash a half-full load of laundry, he filled the detergent dispenser half-full. Logical... except that on the machine we had, that amounted to the amount of soap for maybe 4-7 loads. Full loads.

-He would consistently make messes, and never clean them up. Frustrating.

-He would always say "five minutes"... meaning that he would be ready in 5 minutes. Apparently, in Italy, "five minutes" amounts to somewhere between 20 minutes and 2 hours.

The Germans were just easy going, funny, and intelligent. Not much else to say about them, except that I will definitely keep in contact with them.

Back to the intensive language course: it was good. Yeah, that is about all I can say. My Spanish improved a bit, but not as much as I would have liked. I took the highest level course offered, and my brain hurt every day after sitting in 4 hours of only Spanish, but I still cannot speak as well as I would like. I guess that is what the rest of the year is for.

Well, I am currently in Valencia, Spain. Valencia is where I will be studying for the rest of the year. I will talk more about Valencia in my next post. Until then, hasta luego (see you later).