In Which I Arrive
Trip Start
Jun 17, 2007
1
2
26
Trip End
Aug 01, 2007
Granada,
Spain
Monday, June 18, 2007
Took a reasonably quick but smelly (why do taxi drivers never wash?) trip from the airport into town. After a couple of false alarms where the driver wasn´t entirely sure of which small alleyway was the road I wanted, we found the street on which the Don Quijote Residence is located. The ´check in´ process was a little weird but had a brief chat to an English guy who asked me whether I was in school or college...which was a nice way to end the evening! Eventually got shown around the facilities - as I´m doing all of my own food, I´´ve got a shelf in the fridge (labelled with my room number) and a shelf in the cupboard (also labelled with my room number). Went up to my room and after a few attempts managed to get my key to turn in the lock and got in.
My room, although basic, is actually really big - probably bigger than the room in the flat that I´ve just moved out of. Has a whole lot less stuff in it though - desk, chair, lamp, en suite bathroom and lockable cupboard. That´s it. And it´s where I´ll be staying for the next four weeks. Once I´d settled myself in, I went for a walk to see where the actual language school was. Managed to find it ok and found myself some dinner on the way back. Was ridiculously hot and sweaty (all right, glowing!) from a relatively short walk - does not bode well for the next few weeks, in particular July.
Had a relatively early night as I had to be at the school at 8am this morning. Residence was deserted when I was having breakfast as classes normally start at 9am. After doing the test (not the most successful one that I´ve ever done!), we got taken on a walking tour of Granada which was quite good and which I think I understood most of...even though we were all English speakers, our initial tour was done by a man who had very very little English. But was good to hear proper Spanish.
Turns out that my classes are only in the mornings from 9am to 1pm with a half hour break from 10.45 to 11.15...so when they say that you get 20 hours of lessons a week, what they mean is that you get 17.5 hours of lessons and 2.5 hours of ´breaks´while you´re there. Had our first class at 11.15am today after the walking tour. Am in the real beginner´s class - was hoping to be on the next level up, but obviously I´ve forgotten most of the Spanish that I already know. Will be interesting to see how far I progress during the next four weeks. Probably depends on how studious I feel like being - in theory I have all afternoon to practice and do my homework (yes, we got some today!!), but I can see myself finding other things to occupy me.
Have rambled long enough - will try and tell you a bit more about Granada next time...
Adios
