My new 'do!
Monday 7/11 – Thursday 7/14
Monday
We had our first day of classes today! I missed my mom being there to coerce us into posing for those first-day-of-school pictures ;). I did wear a special outfit. Quinten and I donned our Pamplona gear (white clothes and red bandana and sash). It was mostly for fun, partly for a conversation-starter, and a bit to show off that we had been running with the bulls that weekend, haha. It definitely worked because I was telling people about our adventure in Pamplona throughout the day and one girl remarked that she prolly won’t be able to remember me tomorrow when I don’t have my white outfit anymore.
I got up a bit early to have breakfast. It’s nothing special hear at the Villa. There’s always a choice of peach, pineapple, or orange juice, bread with meat and cheese you can turn into a sandwich, and then a choice of a pastry: croissant w/ jelly, chocolate-filled roll if you are lucky, and chocolate doughnut if you are really lucky. They also had cereal (which I love) but it was only one flavor at a time (usually crappy corn flakes) and the milk was hotter than room temp. After b-fast we met especially early at 8:30 am in the lobby to walk over to classes together in the middle of the campus. I was really looking forward to seeing what classes were like and meeting all the Spanish students we would be studying with.
We kicked-off the program with a joint welcome session where they introduced us to the program, the building, and the way things would work. I purposely sat next to no American students and quickly met some cool Spanish students. I found out there are a lot of other international students from France, Austria, Italy, Scotland, Sweden, and Canada. From there I went to the first class I would have from 9-11 Monday through Thursday: Managing in a Digital World with Mizzou professor Antoni Stam (one of three options from 3 Mizzou professors). He’s a genial character whose defining characteristic is the incredible amount of sweat he manages to impart to his shirt throughout the day. Before class he emailed all of us welcoming us to the class and asking us to respond with a joke. Here was mine:
Why is six afraid of seven? ……. Because seven eight a bucket of worms.
Don’t think to hard on that one. Stam asked me my reasoning and I said I wanted to throw a curve ball at people who were expecting the old classic. He said, “I think you are going to do well in my class.” Next we had a 30-minute break where we had chocolate donettes (M), wafer cookies, and coffee before heading into our other two our class. Second I had International Marketing with Professor Mayo from Alicante University. We have group projects in both classes, so we had to decide our groups already. I ended up being stuck in a random group because everybody split off to fast and left my several new friends and me alone to be divided among the other groups in order to make sure they had a mix of all nationalities. Mayo told us that she always observed that the Spanish students were always to shy and didn’t take initiative, so that’s why so many of them ended up group-less (I couldn’t be with them because we needed a mix). Also, in both classes, especially Mayo’s, I found some Spanish friends to get to know. We’ll switch off between English and Spanish now and then and help each other with some words. All the international students speak English really well (except for the Scottish guy, haha) because they have to in order to survive the class.
I prolly took a siesta this afternoon. It’s hard remembering details now that I’m writing these things 1.5 weeks later (exactly what I didn’t want to happen. In the evening after class we had a rigorous soccer match outside the dorm. I’m really glad I bought my soccer ball here because it will be perfect to play with at the dorms since no one else has one. It hasn’t got to roughed up on the hard court so far, so hopefully it will endure. The only thing is the ball rolls at lightning speed and the shots are like rockets on the hard surface.
That night we went to the water-themed bar across the street with water cascading down the windows. It was a low-key place and we basically made up the whole crowd. I had fun playing pool and they also had foosball and darts. I didn’t spend any money except for what the pool games, so that was good, and I went home fairly early.
Rebecca, Me and Stephanie posing after one of my pool victories no doubt. At least one game we had was ridiculously sloppy. I think each team lost twice before we got all the balls cleared (we just pretended it didn't happen).
Cole, Zach (SM), Mohsen (SM), and Stephanie at the water bar right across from our dorm. It's so much more convenient and relaxed than going down to the barrio. Also, I love the bar games that I can stay busy with if necessary.
Tuesday
After breakfast we found out that our classroom building had been changed to one that had air conditioning (Prof. Stam was very thankful). The coffee snack break between classes is quickly becoming the best part of the morning. In the heat of the afternoon we played soccer because that night we left for a class trip to the neighboring towns of Guadalest and Altea at 4:30 that afternoon. In the coach bus I tried to read some articles to keep up with my homework. It was weird having assignments I had to think about to muddle up my free time now! Unfortunately, lots of Mizzou girls playing an entertaining, but distracting game of Would You Rather squelched my concentration. I’m also pretty sure the whole bus could hear the disturbing questions with how loud they talked. We have a lot of fun characters in our program. That’s really not sarcastic. I like everyone in our group a lot. Almost all are very friendly and really know how to have a good time. It’s been even easier getting to know the people in our group than I expected. I was afraid I might be on the outside of some of the cliques, but everyone has been pretty open and sociable so far. It helps that we are a fairly concentrated group and are always doing one thing or another with each other.
After climbing through the mountains to arrive at Guadalest I immediately fell in love with the beautiful mountain town. We were told it was the most visited “town” in Spain and I could see why. We climbed this perfect little castle perched above the town and surrounded by cliffs on 3 sides. The view of the valley below was astounding with its vibrant blue lake and surrounding mountains. I would’ve loved jumping in that lake or climbing through those mountains! Unfortunately, we had to leave after only like 40 minutes because we had to move on to Altea.
Sitting on the wall of the Castle at Guadalest. I'm really bummed I can't load on my pictures I took of the beautiful scenery right now. Check back after the next post and hopefully they'll be up. The beauty of the countryside was breathtaking!
Bros.
The castle ramparts.
I wish I would’ve known that we were taking a class trip to Altea because then Quinten and wouldn’t have needed to go on that Sunday trip there. However, the class definitely didn’t get the full experience of Altea, because we only had about an hour to spend there. I enjoyed seeing the beautiful artsy city again. Quinten and I looked for our friends from the art studio, but they were not home. Then we joined some of our Spanish friends for dinner and we got to know a couple new classmates as well. The table split a pitcher of Sangria and Quinten and I split a kebap pizza.
Back in San Vicente I decided to skip the Tuesday night ritual for the first time. I went to the store to pick up some shower gel and then spent a relaxing night in the dorm chilling, chatting, and laughing with a couple friends.
Wednesday
Today was the same old routine in the morning. I was finally able to meet with David and Pepi again. It’s always good to be able to go over to their place and have a nice conversation. They were very interested to hear about Pamplona and all the changes of the past week. We looked up clips of the running-of-the-bulls online. If you wanna check it out here’s the link: http://www.rtve.es/noticias/san-fermin/ . Go down to Sanfermines 2011: los encierros día a día and choose Sábado 9 de Julio (this was the one I ran in). Unfortunately, I missed out on soccer that night visiting D & P. I think a lot of my friends thought it was cool that I was still in connection with some friends I had met from before the program.
When I was bored in class once I drew the network of friends I met during my internship. I might be missing some connections, but I tried to limit it to only the people I talked with and hung out with.
I finished my book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, today. It was very interesting and I recommend it as long as you aren’t looking for a happy-go-lucky feel-good book.
We have been having a bit of trouble with the lunch staff at the cafeteria lately. I think it all started when one of our guys “cussed out” one of the lunch ladies because she wouldn’t let him get any food at b-fast and he was tired and hungry. This kind of gave our group a bad rep w/ the staff and ever since then they started being incredibly stingy with our food. We have always had strange restrictions on what sorts of plates we can get on our tray. We are allowed a 1st plate (a salad or something like paella, pasta, meatballs, soup, cannelloni, chicken, fish with bones, beans and potatoes, Spanish tortilla, ham croquets, arroz cubano etc.) and then a second plate (with very similar options), and a side serving of carrots, zuchinni, onion rings, potatoes, etc. (people say all the meals are just a bunch of carbs). We can never switch the 1st and 2nd plate options. Now that we are on bad terms though, the staff is constantly pestering us to bring our lunch cards and trying to refuse us service. They won’t let us get a water without going through the whole food line. We can only have one water (our only drink option) and one item of fruit/desert. They watch us like hawks and if we try to get two they either yell at us or take it out of our hands. At one point they also tried to take away our olive oil and then said we could only use it for salads and not the bread rolls that are the one thing that are always abundant. Thus, eating and getting your fill has become much more stressful and requires more stealth cunning than it should. I’m always looking for an opening when the staff is distracted or in the back to sneak an extra water (especially after an exhausting soccer game).
Even though they told us July was the hottest time, it hasn’t really gotten much above 90 at the peak and it’s very comfortable at night. Time really seems to fly by here. I always am busy and I always am tired. My first weeks at the Villa have been much more jam-packed with stuff than I expected. You can prolly realize this just by how bad I’ve been about blogging. Catching up on sleep often wins over catching up on blogging when I happen to have a bit of free time. It prolly has less to do with the fact that there’s so much to do here and more to do with the fact that I will fill my days to the brim with activities, tasks, and adventures no matter where I am. I could prolly find a lot of free time if I didn’t already feel guilty for staying in my room and working on my computer or sleeping as much as I do (which isn’t a lot, but when people are always doing things around you it feels like a lot). Typically, the afternoons disappear after class and before you know it you are eating dinner and deciding whether you want to go out or do something like stay in and watch a movie. This particular night I was able to practice slacklining some more after it was nice and cool.
Thursday
I had a big scare this morning when I found there were no cookie tables set up during our break. Luckily they wheeled them out halfway through the break and I pounced on my prey. I have even become a fan of the coffee, much less for its taste than it’s stimulating qualities. The cups are quite small and I still fill half of them with milk and then dump in a whole pack of sugar to make the coffee drinkable. We had our first test today in one of my classes (after 3 classes). As I was saying good-bye to my Spanish friends for the weekend Amaia asked me what I was going to do special for Monday since this Monday I came in my Pamplona outfit and she told me that she had high expectations. It’s funny how I always manage to get this reputation for dressing in quite interesting manners and have heard many times that I have the “best” or “coolest” wardrobe (including once on this trip, even though my closet is very limited). Maybe people should just be a little more creative and wild with their own wardrobe and then I won’t stand out as much. I didn’t tell Amaia, but I knew I was going to surpass her expectations when I saw her next Monday.
By the end of class I’m always looking forward to lunch. After lunch I asked Quinten to lend his stylish expertise and give me a poppin new haircut with his guardless razor in my bathroom. I figured I don’t really need a professional looking haircut for anything in the near future so why not get a convenient free haircut and have some fun. That afternoon I went to San Juan (which is double far now that we are at the Villa outside Alicante) with Quinten and Lauren to meet a larger group there. After the group got over the initial surprise of my haircut and complimented the bold choice I played some paddleball and had some nice deep talks with some friends among the waves.
We left the beach just in time for me to catch the last half of soccer back at the Villa. Then after dinner I went out to slackline and invited Julie who had been very enthusiastic to try the odd sport. Her spirit has not dampened at all by the initial difficulty of even standing on the line and by the end of the 2ish hours we were out there she had gotten a good grasp on her first couple steps. I was doing particularly well that night as well and was walking the line fairly easily myself and getting about halfway going backwards. It was extra fun when some of the passing friends stopped by and we hung out and they tried the line and chilled before a crazy weekend in Barcelona. That night I got very little sleep after packing and tying up different loose ends before the weekend (and prolly trying to blog a lot). It’s all good cuz I’ve got a 5-hour train ride to sleep tomorrow!
Hasta Luego,
Cóle
FYI, the next post will prolly won't be up til Mon. afternoon since I'm getting back from Morocco/Madrid Monday early morning. Maybe someday I'll be less than a week in the hole!
Hasta Luego,
Cóle
FYI, the next post will prolly won't be up til Mon. afternoon since I'm getting back from Morocco/Madrid Monday early morning. Maybe someday I'll be less than a week in the hole!
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