Some odd things...

Yesterday was a long day, but I got through it without too much difficulty. Tuesday, however, I managed to get myself lost. I've been walking to and from school and I have a pretty straight-foward path to follow. Walk to the plaza, take the street on the north side right until you reach a large intersection with a statue in the middle, then take a left. Stay basically straight at the next circular intersection (huge!) and this road will take you to the train station. Use the pedestrian walkway to cross the tracks and take a right after the parking lot. Take your first left at the next circular intersection and this road will take you all of the way to the fountain (uphill). 

Go kind of left at the fountain (not a hard left) and then take the first right. This street ends at the school. Unfortunately, on Tuesday, on my way home, I turned one intersection too early and ended up walking all of the way around the plaza in a giant circle. I didn't want to pull out a map and look like a fool, so I just kept trying to spot something familiar. Finally, I did, but I was pretty tired and cold by that time.

I have it down now. No worries, but on Monday and Wednesdays I have three classes in the morning and then come home for lunch and then go back for another class. That means I'm walking that path four times in one day, if I don't take the bus, which would get expensive. Apparently, the bus hit a car the other day. You wouldn't believe how these people park their cars. The driving is a little crazy, but the parking is worse. They don't enforce parking rules, so you can just park anywhere. Observe.

Can't find a place to park? No problem. Create a space on a corner in the pedestrian walkway.

I haven't taken any sight-seeing pictures yet. I'm waiting until Saturday when we do our "historic tour of Alcala". I'll have to convince people to take pictures of me so I can post them. The great thing about Alcala is that Cervantes was born here, so they are obsessed with him. There are statues of him everywhere and the plaza is called "Plaza Cervantes". His most famous work was Don Quixote, so there are also statues of the main character all around too. 

Some interesting things about the language. Did I mention that everyone here lisps? Apparently, a famous royal had a lisp and everyone just kind of picked it up like it was something only proper people did. It's probably what I found the hardest to cope with. I can usually understand the accent of Mexico (ll's are pronounced like a hard j), but this lisp is killing me. I've never had any practice with it because all of my teachers taught us the very clear, sounds like it looks central American accent. Here, words like plaza are "platha" and Galicia is "Galithia". They even lisp d's at the end of words like "verdath" (verdad means truth, or true). It's driving me crazy. Not only are there so many words I don't know, but more than half the words I do know I can't make out enough to understand them. I'm slowly getting use to it. Picking up more and more. Now when my host mom asks me what I want for dessert (postre) I can understand.

Also interesting about the language. They say "vale" over and over and over. I had never heard that word before in my classes so it kind of throws you off. It apparently means "okay", but they say it over and over. Every sentence ends with "vale" and every question is or starts with "vale". And often it is said repeatedly: "¿Vale? Vale." or "Oh! Vale, vale." It makes sense when you know it means okay, but you hear it everywhere! Much more often than we say okay. And they understand okay, but you have to be careful. You have to say O-kay where the kay is barely audible, otherwise they hear "o-QUE", and "¿Qué?" is "what?", so then they repeat themselves. 

School was fine yesterday. My teachers are mostly following along a powerpoint or a printed paper, and using that as a guide I can almost understand them really well with only picking up half the words. After school yesterday, I stopped at a Chinos, which is a lot like a dollar store, but it's run by Chinese people and hence people call them the Chinos. Everything was amazingly priced. I bought a mirror (7" circular with two sides) for my room, a notebook to begin my dictionary, and index cards for 3,65 euro. Not bad at all! I'm so excited about my mirror... it was 2 euro and it's perfect! I felt so bad taking up the bathroom and I can leave it here when I go for the next person.

 I really want to do some more exploring. The Calle Mayor is the street with the most shops and things, so I want to head over that way. Maybe tonight. I found this fantastic shop with the coolest looking things. I wanted everything in there. There was a carved giraffe with really long legs and neck, and it was about as tall as I am. Then there was this teapot, shaped like an elephant where the trunk was the spout. It was beautiful. I'm trying not to spend any money though. There are a lot of side trips that I want to take and I can't be spending my money on all kinds of things that I will have trouble finding room to bring back. 

Other interesting things so far. The toilets. The flush is on the top and it's a literal button that you have to depress into the toilet. And all of the water is at the bottom and then a huge gush flushes it down, rather than swirling. Also, we have a bidet in our bathroom. I don't touch it.

The elevators are so small. Max four people. It's really uncomfortable to shove yourself in one with someone you don't know who is saying things to you that you don't understand. I usually take the stairs down the six floors, but the other day, the police were in the stairwell with some guy who may have been dying. He was passed out pretty much and I couldn't get by. Really creepy. I guess he had been there for awhile because my roommate left an hour earlier than I did and she said that he was just laying there when she left. I want to take a picture of the police, but I'm afraid they'll get angry and I don't want to try to ask without knowing how to give a good explanation.

The snow is basically gone here. It snowed a bit on Tuesday, and the whole place flipped out. They cancelled classes at the university and people had to pick up their kids from school. The snow didn't even stick. What did stick was melted by that evening. I was in shock. It's just snow... I saw the other day, two guys outside. One had like a hammer thing and was smashing up the ice in the sidewalk and the other had a push broom clearing it away. Crazy... I almost took a picture, but I didn't want to get yelled at.

Anyway, Madrid tomorrow. I'm excited. I'll write again soon.