From January 26

Yesterday, we met up at noon and went to a café to drink coffee. While we were there, it started POURING rain. Just then, Karia realized that she had left her window open, so she had to go back to the residencia to shut it. Sophie wasn’t done with her coffee, and we still had to pay, so we told Karia we would meet her at the “resi” once it stopped raining so much. So as Sophie was finishing her coffee, it stopped POURING, so we decided to pay and leave. By the time we got done paying, though, it was pouring again. We decided to leave anyways, so by the time we got to the resi (5-6 blocks way), we were SOAKED! We hung out in Karia’s room for awhile to dry off some. Luckily, only some of her stuff had gotten damp…but not wet! At like 2, we went to this restaurant near La Plaza de Flores. It had stopped raining by then. The food there was REALLY good…yum! I got 6 whole calamari (or calamari family as the called it), and little fried balls of seafood. We wanted to go shopping, but all of the stores are closed on Sundays. We decided to get dessert at this one café near the resi, but it wasn’t gonna open til 5, so we walked around and ended up in La Plaza de San Antonio, or usual meeting place. The sun was actually shining, so we decided to hang out there while it was kinda warm. We hung out there until about 5:15, and then realized it was time for the café to open. We sat outside after we got our treats (I got 3 flautas filled with chocolate….2 of which were for this morning during class), then we went into the resi to warm up a bit. Sophie went up to her room, and Stacy & Karia were using the internet, and I was just sitting there, which is fine w/me. Karia & I wanted to go watch the sunset, but Stacy needed to do a bunch of stuff for school online. So Stacy stayed in Karia’s room while Karia and I walked toward the sun to find a good place to watch the sunset over the water. We ended up in the same spot we had gone the day before…on a wall overlooking the beach & the boats. It was really pretty, but I had forgotten my camera, so I don’t have any pics of it. I’ll steal some from Karia and post them on Facebook. After that, we went back to the resi, and I came home to eat dinner. Encarna cooked some sliced pork (?) with the mashed eggplant stuff. It was decent. After that, I decided to go read in bed b/c I had to wake up early for school this morning. I fell asleep at like 11pm, which was good. This morning, I went to the school cuz we had our first day of the intensive 2-week Spanish course. The first thing we did was take a test that was like 8 pages long…fill in the blank for the most part, but some essay answers. I am pretty sure it was just to see what we still needed to learn. I didn’t think it was very hard, but my written Spanish is WAY better than my spoken Spanish. After that, we got to take a break…so we got some cafe con leche at the cafeteria. Also, I got like 15 minutes to use the internet. A few hours would have been better…but whatever. So besides us four, there are 3 other people in the class. One girl is from New York and seems pretty cool. The other girl is from Finland and seems pretty shy. Also, there is a guy from Holland (?) in there, but I can never hear him speaking, so I don’t have an opinion yet. Oh, and there WAS a German girl, but she didn’t come back after the test. She spoke REALLY well, though, so they might have moved her to another class or told her she didn’t have to take it, haha. In the second part of the class, we just talked to the profesora. After class, I came home, & the apartment was empty! Only for like 5 minutes, though, cuz Encarna showed up with Aliria/Alivia (??) and Joel…her grandkids. We ate this super delicious soup with white beans, chick peas, celery, and a little bit of potatoes. It was in this creamy-ish sauce that was yummy. Also, we had bread that was fresh from the bakery & was still warm, so it wasn’t hard & crusty like normal. I loved it, but they seemed disappointed that it was still warm. Then the kids’ parents came over…José & Monica. I had to leave at like 3:15 cuz we were going to meet Carmen so that we could go on some tower thing. It was AMAZING, by the way. You could see all of Cadiz from there, including the entire bay of Cadiz. I took TONS of pictures that I hope to post up when I get time to use the internet. I might even go to school early tomorrow just so I can use a computer there. Anyways, also in the tower was this thing called a black camera where you could see Cadiz live & moving, displayed on this huge bowl-shaped screen. It is really hard to describe, so I’m not even gonna try. You’ll just have to come see it for yourself. After the tower, we went shopping & I bought some blue shoes cuz I left my purple ones at home :(. They’re cute, but I have noting to wear with them cuz Encarna STILL hasn’t done the laundry. I’m on the third time wearing the same pair of jeans, and now they are so loose that they are practically falling off. Anyways, the other girls wanted to look at cell phones with Carmen, so I tagged along. After that, I came home, and here I am. Tonight Encarna is making me tortillas españolas. I am pretty excited cuz I tried them in Madrid & really liked them. For those of you who don’t know, a tortilla española is basically a big omelet with potatoes, and various other things. I’ve been told that Encarna makes them the best…so we’ll see!! :)