la tarea...¿qué es esto?!

Pues, thankfully yesterday and today have been much more relaxing than my Saturday excursions. I slept in until almost 11 on Sunday and then got up and had breakfast. Then Amanda and I headed to el mercadillo, where there are a bunch of little shops; however, we found out that it is closed on Sundays. Most stores apparently are closed on Sundays and the city was very calm. So we walked back cutting through the park in the rain, ha. The rest of the day we just did homework and uploaded and edited pictures. I'd say it was a successful day!

So today, Monday, we went to classes. And my first class today was actually pretty stressful, bleh. We were doing an exercise with our maps of Valencia; however, I just happened to forget mine today and so did everyone else in my group, so we had to get maps there at the center and they were sooo confusing. I was so confused and lost trying to say directions to different landmarks in Valencia using that map. Oyyy vey. But we survived and let's just say I won't be forgetting my map anymore. And the other text interpretation class was much better because the night before, Amanda and I read the story together, taking turns reading sections out loud, and then talking about what was happening. It helped a lot. So classes are good. :)

After classes we went to la Mercadona and we bought snacks because we're not really allowed in the kitchen much in the apartment and we get hungry waiting around for lunch until 2:30 and dinner around 9:30 every day. So, we bought some Spanish cookies to try and I found Golden Grahams! haha, I love cereal. Then, after coming back for lunch, we took the bus to the beach! I still can't get over how many topless women there are everywhere. It's so weird. Pilar, our professor, was talking today about how the way los valencianos view the human body is very different from how we see it, which is definitely true according to how they dress. It's ok to walk around a beach topless, but it's frowned upon when women here wear shorts? Geeez, no comprendo. So Amanda and I actually got some reading for class done on the beach, which was awesome. Also, there were a couple of guys sitting nearby us on the beach and they were obviously Spanish, but I guess they heard us speaking in English so they asked us in English to watch their stuff while they went swimming. And then when we wanted to go swimming, we asked them in Spanish to watch our stuff, haha. So we were both trying to accommodate the language of the other. ¡Qué interesante!

One other thing that Amanda and I were talking about today is that all the people here say "vale" o "vale vale" ALL THE TIME. It's kinda the same thing as saying "está bien" or saying "everything is ok, it's fine, don't worry about it." It's one of those phrases that works in any situation. Apparently, if you don't know what to say, just say "vale." It made me wonder what los valencianos would think of Americans and how we talk. What would they think was funny about us? Maybe when we say the word "like" between every other word? haha, who knows?

Oh and the title of this entry definitely applies because we have so much homework! Lots of stories to read in Spanish and analyze and vocab to learn and papers to write. ¡Estoy en España! No quiero hacer la tarea, ja. Ohhh well. Tomorrow I think I'm going to try to see if el mercadillo is open after classes and then a bunch of us are going to watch a Spanish movie at the center in the afternoon. Well, until next time...¡Hasta luego!