Saturday night, out of the house with my host brother at 11:30, walk down the boardwalk, look for friends, no friends, return, go to sleep 11:55. So maybe the first weekend here was not the all night techno dance party I imagined happening all the time in Spain. But the view of the city at night was amazing. I was just happy to see the shore line and the island in the middle of the Concha Bay illuminated by street lamps which looked like they had to have been lit in a Harry Potter like fashion by Dumbledore (Spoiler Alert) R.I.P. I have upwards of 40 weekends here so I don´t consider it any loss that there was no clubbing during this particular weekend. There will be a story later of some crazy Spanish dance night I´m sure. I hear they don´t grind which is a huge relief because I could never really get the hang of it, here´s my impression of grinding: Girls are dancing by themselves, Guy asks girl to dance, Girl says okay and continues to dance as if alone, Guy locks on behind her like parasitic organism, two options at this point, 1 Guy looks around awkwardly, 2 Guy watches girl in an apparent effort to remove her clothes with his eyeballs.
The week of school was normal. I pretended I knew what was going on while kids took notes around me. I am understanding a few more words and tenses than I did at first but I´m not Rainman so it will take more than a few weeks for full understanding. Some teachers have noticed that my knowledgable visage is actually a blank stare and have asked me to bring things to do during class. I have been bringing ¡Pesadillas! how exciting does that sound, really really exciting, because it´s in Spanish. It is written by R. L. Stine. For those of you who haven´t figured it out I am, indeed, reading a Spanish translation of Goosebumps! I can understand most of the words and can make out what the overall story is saying. I used to read these books all the time but haven´t seen one in a while, I am remembering why I loved these books in the first place, and the reason why I loved these books is because I was about eight when I read them. The plot line is a little below my level at this point, but the reading level is a little high. I can´t think of a solution but to figure out if the kids end up being invisible forever and then move on and see how they deal with Monster Blood in the Spanish version, I´m hoping for an alternate ending.
My teachers say they will have special assignments for me next week that are more my level. This sounds like a gip, having to do something where once I could do nothing, but really I´m pumped. I don´t know how lazy people do it, sitting and vegetating is so boring I just don´t have the mental prowess to take on that task for hours a day. Unfortunatley that is what the Rotary meeting was for me. The district president introduced a woman who was going to talk about the history of Europe and Philosophers. To say it went over my head is an understatment, the only words I understood were Socrotes, Platon, and Aristotoles (Who knew they had different names in Spain). I tried to calculate how long it would take her to finish based on where she was in history and how fast she was going. That never works, the person always gets caught up on one subject and it drags on forever. For her it was the philosophers, going into the 22nd hour of her philosopher segment my host dad wrote a note and passed it to my host mom. That brougt up my spirits considerably, I wasn´t the only bored one! Three days later and it´s finally time for questions. The first man raises his hand and I recognize a few words. How could he?!? It was something to do with Socrotes, I see the glint in the woman´s eyes she is ready to answer this question in full. Several hours later the meeting finishes and I walk out with my host parents. When they start talking they discuss how interesting the woman´s speech was and how well written, oh oh and how clear, wasn´t that just amazing, she really set that straight didn´t she!!! Now I´m sad. That note must have been one of praise. Apparently I have just missed the most illuminating Spanish speech on history of this century, and I was in the room. I swear that I will be able to understand a speech like that by the end of the year, because I can´t sit through something that boring again.
A little end note; I don´t have spellcheck here except in Spanish and I have to many things to do to bother re-reading each entry so pay no attention to minor misspellings. I still have trouble because my pen doesn´t check what it spits out.
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