Today was another lovely day in Alicante.
Here is what my days look like:
I wake up at 7am and take a shower. There is no central heating in the houses hear so there is a blowing space heater in the bathroom so we don't freeze to death. Spaniards also use handheld shower heads and turn the water off in between rinses -- this was difficult on day one, I kept thinking "how do I shampoo and hold this thing?"
After showering Maribel, my wonderful Madre, brings me breakfast on a tray to my bedroom. We eat in our rooms rather than the dining room because we each have a space heater in our rooms. Breakfast is relatively small here compared to the US; toast, coffee, fruit. And they use olive oil instead of butter. Next time you have toast, skip the butter and put a little olive oil and some salt on top instead. It's quite tasty!
By 7:45 I'm out the door and on my way to the bus stop. I have to walk 7ish blocks (they're pretty short) to get to the bust stop by 8ish. The bus ride is about 30-35 minutes because it stops a bunch to let on more people than I have ever seen inside one bus...time to get to know your neighbor!
The bus drops me off at the University. We are only taking one class right now, Intensive Language Review, which I have at the program office, so I walk across campus to the office.
We have class from 9-11 and then a mid morning break for "almuerzo." I would describe Spaniards as hobbits because they eat so many meals in a day. Almuerzo is essentially second breakfast. We walk down to the little café for a coffee and a chat before we start class again at 11:30. We finish class at 1:30.
Once class is over I head home for la Comida, the biggest meal of the day. Maribel cooks comida around 2:30. Today I took a bag lunch and supplemented it with stuff from a campus café because I met with my new Spanish friends.
After comida the day is pretty much mine. Today I walked through the city with some friends. We walked along the Explanda by the sea and bought scarves and looked at the jewelry. We had a "merienda," the after-lunch-but-before-dinner meal, at a café connected to the bookstore and did our homework for tomorrow. I got home around 6:30.
At 9pm we eat la cena, or dinner. Dinner is not a very large meal, but Maribel feeds me very well! Tonight we had ensalada rusia (like potato salad), fried vegetables, and what can only be described as homemade hot pockets: cheese wrapped in ham, breaded and fried. And bread, always bread!
We watch the news while we eat. Nearly half of the Spanish news is international; my world awareness is growing!
I retreat to my room and my space heater to write here and then head to bed around 11ish.
Then it's up and at 'em again.
Things will change next week when we start our university classes; I won't be starting at 9 am every morning!
Tomorrow I will write more about mi familia española!
Love to all!
Maribezi
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