¡Mear!

The best beach in the world?

¡Buenas!

So two weeks in Spain already! Plenty more to talk about this time...starting with last Sunday, because I thought the last blog was too long for you all! Right well last Sunday me and Owen went to what I call the Islas Cíes, which are a group of islands/natural park just off the coast of Vigo. They're only open in the Summer so we thought we should go asap, before the boats stop running and we lose our chance to go. Because, if you need a reason to go, the Guardian reckons they have the best beach IN THE WORLD. Swear down: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2007/feb/16/beach.top10. Now, I dunno if Gavin McOwen has a little soft spot for Spain or what, but I wouldn't really say it's the best beach in the world. Like it's proper nice and all, really nice golden sand and rocky areas and it's peaceful enough, but my perfect beach would be like, next to a sea in which you can walk without dying. Remember, Galicia shares the same sea with the Titanic victims, many of whom died because it's so cold...seriously walk about 2 metres in and you'll understand how Jack from Titanic died from it. So yeah it's a lovely beach, but the sea should be warmer if it wants to be the best. The islands themselves really made me think of Lord of the Flies island, like it had the beach and then a little mountain rising up, pretty nerdy but that's the first thing I thought of when I saw them. I can't really describe how nice they are, so I'll put up some pictures so you can see. But it was a really nice relaxing day on these islands where like no one lives and it's all protected and stuff.

And then on Monday it was back to uni. Now in my last blog I told you what I was studying. Scrap that. The French-Spanish was more of a translation theory module so that's been changed to a different French-Spanish translation. The teacher's a bit mental in that she doesn't pause for breath and keeps flicking between Spanish and French. When she found out I was from England she made me summarise a French text in Spanish so that she could work out if my levels were high enough...and they were! So I'm allowed on that module now. :) Something really weird happened though...we were in class and doing a translation, then she wanted them in and I pushed a button and it all disappeared! ¡Joder! So I went up to her to explain and in my mind I was gonna explain in Spanish and then somehow French came out... odd. But she understood and said it was okay and to send it her later.

I also thought that doing a Legal/Administrative English - Spanish translation would be more useful/easy than the Audiovisual French-Spanish so I changed to that but that starts tomorrow. After that I'm happy with all my modules and can finally register and access the uni network..because at the moment people have to keep logging on for me so the sooner that's done the better. I signed up to do a Spanish course for foreigners and had to go to do a test for that on Wednesday, it was alright...I think, a bit like the grammar tests we have to do at Durham. So now I have to wait for the results to be put into a class at an appropriate level. And then I'll have more classes! But I only have 10 a week at the moment so can't really complain.

I also found a gym the other day and joined it. Really good to be back using weights machines as I've not really done any since like April! Walked out the gym really proud because it dawned on me that just 2 years ago I would not have been able to go in to a gym, understand the price structure, persuade her to let me pay in cash not with a bank account standing order and understand how to use the machines. Just felt really good. :)

Thursday night we went out again, but this time I went out with the people from the residence. I'll upload the pictures once Natalia uploads them to Tuenti. I can't get my head around the fact that we STARTED going out at half past midnight! We went down to the port where they do the outdoor prelash thing and it was really fun. A few of them suddenly felt confident in English and tried to try out their English which, as they were drunk, was hilarious. I also met a few new people, which is always great too! I learnt a new word, mear, which is a vulgar way of saying to have a wee. Because there's no toilets by the port...and if the police catch you in the act then there's apparently a 200 euro fine! So you have to vigilant when breaking the seal. Then we went to a club where they played typical euro-cheese, seriously is there anywhere that plays decent stuff?! I don't think so. And we called it an early night when we came back at 5ish because a few of them were a little bit too drunk.

This brings me on to what I wanted to say about time. The time difference between England and Spain is 1 hour...but nothing functions the same. Dinner is a 2, Tea is, at the earliest at 9. Buses seem to turn up whenever, you just have to go to the bus stop and wait for it to appear. Banks only open in the morning every day of the week. Coming in at 5 from a night out is seen as early...there's loads of examples I could go on and on. Lectures seem to end when the teacher has enough and nearly always start late...some lectures last 90 mins and others last 60 meaning clashes are optimised. Basically it's ignore what time the clock says and go with what time you feel it is. So when I'm late - which is NEVER the case ;) - when I come home I'm going to say I'm living on Spanish time, which is do-what-you-want-when-you-want-and-don't-let-some-clock-tell-you-what-to-do time. ¡A mi me encanta!

So there you go, my second week in Spain. The weather is still lovely, hopefully will last until October, which'd be really nice! Understanding more and more the Spanish people and feeling more and more confident with my Spanish every day! ¡Ciao, chicos!

Sunset over Las Islas Cíes