Castello, Spain - April 16, 2004
All is well here. Castellon has changed a lot this week. More and more students are coming back and there is life in the city. The streets are actually very crowded, and cars everywhere. I can only imagine what Madrid and Valencia must be like right now. Probably also teeming with life and energy which I missed seeing.
I´m still worried about the debt I´m going to accumulate. But its alright, it´ll be worth it. I´m considering studying just two semesters, and then taking time off to pay off as much debt as I can and save a little money before the third and final semester. It might also give me an opportunity to find related work before graduation. I will be looking into those possibilities.
Okay, back to Spain things. I´ve been meeting more and more students. There is an interesting Haitian-American guy from Miami as well as random people. A guy from Serbia, a woman from Quebec, another woman from Poland, a guy from Eritrea, another guy from Ethiopia, a woman from Kenya. I´m meeting all kinds of people in this program as of lately. It should be interesting, although I´ve still yet to know what to expect exactly.
The apostrophes on these Spanish keyboards don´t seem to work. I guess they don´t really use them in the Spanish language. So often when I´m typing I get a funny version of them, or they don´t quite translate properly and give some kind of error. You´ll probably see that over and over in many of these journal entries in Spain.
This weekend more students will be coming back. Apparently there are something like 250 total students in this dormitory and only 4 computers and 3 washers and dryers. So I don´t know if I´ll be able to keep up on journal entries until I am able to find a good store that sells used computers to put one in my room. We´ll see.
One thing I´ve definetly discovered is the pastas and pasta sauces are amazing in Spain! They are probably imported from Italy.. but wow! Í bought a ton of different pastas and sauces for my room.. and just unbelievable how much better they are than the States. You´d think they´d be the same, but definetely not so. The other thing I noticed here is that wine is very popular. The night before I went to meet a group of people in this program as they had a small party. There wasn´t any beer whatsoever, all wine. Everyone brought their own wine to contribute and thats what they drank. Quite a change from anything I´m familiar with in the States or in Asia.
Its raining today, and I´ve yet to get out of Castellon. I was considering a seaside famous town called Bennicassim which isn´t too far away. Apparently they have a beautiful Meditteranean Beach and everyone goes there in the Summer, particularly tourists. I was going to check it out today, but its raining a lot and the sun isn´t out. Maybe this weekend. If not, plenty of opportunities over the next three months. Next weekend there is a very good chance I´ll be going to Barcelona as I´m registered to take the U.S. Department of State exam. Its a once-a-year test to try to get Embassy work. Its extremely competetive and took it last year. But didn´t get high enough marks to get accepted into the oral interview after the written interview. Apparently most people who do get accepted have tried for years to get in. So I might as well try again this year as well. It´ll give me a good opportunity to go see Barcelona as well. But thats a week away.
This week will be orientation into the course, and then the first week of intro classes. That will start on Monday.
Next Journal Entry in Spain:
April 19, 2004
You can email me at:
Wintermoon2@yahoo.com