Croquetas Again?

Today I woke up at 8 am and immediately broke the watch I had bought specifically for this trip. I am now on a search to find a new one. The day did not start out well, and I had to go to the CLM (Centro de Lenguas Modernas) and take my proficiency test in order to determine what classes I can take while I am here. Needless to say, i was a little nervous. The test only took about an hour and a half and consisted of three parts: a writing sample, multiple choice, and an oral exam. The first part was simple, as was the first half of the multiple choice, but then it just started to look like gibberish to me. A lot of the phrases and words were never taught to me so the second half of the multiple choice was very difficult. Talking to everyone else after the exam, though, I found out that everyone had felt the same way and that those questions were for those who were at a "superior" spanish level (definitely not me!). The oral exam was very simple and just consisted of me talking to a woman and explaining that Chicago no longer is the home to all the members of the mafia. I don't think I got through to her. After the exam she told me I was in the Intermediate B level, which is higher than I thought I would be. I will be taking an intermediate class four hours a day five days a week for the whole month of September. After that I will have a break in which I will travel in Spain with Arcadia and then perhaps to Germany and Italy with a few friends. I will then start the normal classes (art, literature, culture) at a higher level, most likely Expert A.
After the test, we all headed back to the hotel and brought our luggage downstairs to wait for our senoras. Meg and I had packed our luggage the night before and brought it down because the senor of the house had come to pick them up so we wouldn't have to drag them across the city. We didn't get to meet him when he came last night because we were out to dinner, but he and his son, Juan Carlos, were the ones who picked us up at the hotel today. This made Meg and I the only ones to have guys waiting for us, the rest of the hotel was filled with older Spanish women.
We are staying in an apartment across the city. It is beautiful and Meg and I get to share a bedroom and our own bathroom. They also have WiFi (they pronounce it wee-fee here) in the apartment, which is unheard of. We are very lucky! This way I can work on my blog and skype my friends and family from my own room instead of using an internet cafe.
After we arrived at the homestay, we ate lunch with the senora, her son who is 24 and her daughter, Laura, who is 22 and studies business at the University. As far as I can tell, neither one of them works and the son doesn't go to school. The lunch was good, it is the main meal of the day so there was an insane amount of food, including croquetas, which I've now had three times in two days. She kept trying to make us eat, which is a normal Spanish custom, so I had to say I was full three times before she would let me leave. In Spain, it is customary to watch the news while you eat lunch. The news here is so much different than in the States. There is a lot more detail and much less censoring. You can see everything on the news and it seems as though humor is a big part of the news as well.
After lunch, Meg and I took another siesta. Our apartment is no air conditioned, so it got terribly hot in the afternoon. When we woke up, Juan Carlos and one of his friends walked us to the University where we had another orientation and talked about academics and classes. It was during this orientation that I realized I had forgotten an important piece of paper at home which detailed the classes I wanted to take and the credit I would get at Denison. Luckily I was able to skype my mom later and ask her to look for it, so hopefully it won't be a problem much longer.
I brought my blackberry with me to Spain and it did get really great service here. But AT&T charges a lot for international calls, so everyone from my program went to the phone store nearby and bought a Spanish phone/SIM card. Since I already had a phone which my dad had unlocked for me, I just had to by a SIM card which gives me a spanish number and lets me call anyone with the same network in Spain for free. This made me a lot less stressed because now I can get in contact with my new friends from Arcadia.
Meg and I returned home around 8:30 and I talked to a few friends online before we had dinner. Meg and I were the only ones to eat, although the Senora did sit with us and talked to us in Spanish. We had a really great conversation and I felt that Meg and I both did a good job of communicating in Spanish, our first REAL communication since we've been here. For dinner we had yogurt and tomatoes and chorizo (sausage) as well as some kind of grilled cheese sandwhich, which was AMAZING.
Now we're getting ready to go out with some people from the program. Tomorrow we are spending all day at the beach that is about 45 minutes away, so we're really excited to just relax. Finally I am unpacked and moved in, so I feel much less stressed than I did yesterday. On Thursday we start our classes, so wish me good luck. I hope they aren't too hard, but I feel like my spanish has already improved in the three days I have been here. I miss everyone!

Love Always,
Em

P.S. A special thank you to Paul for reminding me that I was remiss with writing my blog. You're a real friend.