Wait... I Have Weekends Now?

So three of my classes started this week, and so far everything seems like it’s going to be great. I think everything seems even more of a slight joke when comparing everything to the classes I had last year, but I don’t want to speak too soon yet seeing how my hardest classes will probably be the two I’m taking in the university, although both of those are only once a week for two hours, so again, it’s not something I’m overly concerned with. I’m already fully aware I’m going to be at a little bit of a disadvantage my first week or two, but again, fully aware means expecting and expecting means I’m not going to be like, OH SHIT. Furthermore, my weekends start every Thursday at 2PM. Seeing how I don’t normally even have a one day weekend during the school year, my level of concern for any workload I get this semester is about a 2 out of 10, and it’s only that high because there’s a chance a project or something could conflict with something else, and that’s no fun. But anyway, I’m going to have major issues next semester when my three day weekends and lack of any commitments during them just suddenly disappear. But, I’m not really trying to even think about that right now.

I finally got my phone unlocked the other day, and well by that I mean after an hour and a half in the Vodafone I was finally able to get a new SIM card. What had started out as something that should have been real simple turned into a complete headache, and the fact that the girl in the store was speaking a mile a minute made things slightly more complicated. It got even more fun when I had to call some number on Vodafone from another Vodafone to get some magical 4 digit number that would allow them to do, well I’m not sure what exactly. I just love how they assumed I would have another cell phone in my pocket that I could whip and call this number, and why the hell couldn’t they just do it themselves, it’s what you’re getting freaking paid for. Also, you think computerized messages suck in English? Try deciphering what you’re supposed to be doing when it’s in another language and you can hardly hear what they’re saying because the phone service itself is less than sub-par. Luckily, I had two friends with me – one with a Vodafone-serviced cell phone, and the other one who is actually a native Spanish speaker. At this point, she took over for me, because clearly she could get way more out of it than I could. So after talking on the phone, running into the store, talking on the phone again, running back into the store again, having the service rep on the phone wanting to talk to the client in the store, and finally getting him to break out this magical number that would allow my phone to be reinstated, the computer in the place freezes, we’ve got 5 minutes to get to class, and we have to come back at 5 when the place reopens. Luckily when we did return later that day, I was in and out in 5 minutes with a new SIM card and a new life lesson: do not try and guess an 8 digit number several times on your cell phone, there is just no way in hell you’re going to stumble upon the right answer.

Got my MCAT scores back this week. A little bit of a letdown but still pretty decent so we’ll see where I land in the future.

Also, was talking with my host mom earlier and showering her some pictures of the family and whatnot. She agreed with me that Christina could pass for a College kid and looks way too much older for her own good (I think her heart almost stopped when I told her she’s only 16). She also thinks that both of my parents look very young, so there ya go mom hahah. Also, Fran and Marie, she said the same about you two, in fact she was very surprised to hear that the 8 children I just showed her pictures of are your children. So yeah, apparently it’s official now that we have a muy guapisima familia. Go us.

Thursday night was a lot of fun – finally got to celebrate the end of the MCAT phase of my life. Although I was extremely hungry by 3 in the morning and everything that sold food was closed.

Friday a few of us went to this giant mall equivalent to a department store of some type, called El Cortes Ingles. This would be the only one in the city because basically every store here is specific to what you’re looking for, and seeing how I needed a new pair of sneakers, new socks, a hair buzzer so I could give myself a haircut, and I wanted to pick up a book, naturally this would be the most efficient place to go. So yeah, found a buzzer for 20 euro, so I can save on haircuts. Of course, I almost paid 50 euro for it since I paid with a 50 and walked away completely forgetting about my change. Luckily the clerk found me a couple minutes later otherwise I would have been out 30 euro. I also bought the 5^th Harry Potter book in Spanish, which of course is also the largest of the series and so we’ll see how long it takes me to get through it. Later that night a bunch of us went out. A couple of us ended up having to walk my housemate back because he ended up having just a little bit too much to drink and would definitely not have made it back alive without assistance. After we got him back we went and finally found the food place that’s open decently late, so I could finally get my 3AM French fries and cheeseburger I had desperately wanted the night before, and so obviously I was an extremely happy person at that point.

Saturday night a few of us went to a bar to watch the Madrid game and then went out to this Mexican restaurant afterwards. Then we headed to another bar to watch some of the Barcelona game, and then headed out from there. I spent a decent part of today trying to figure out flight and hotel plans for a trip to Paris at the end of October, and then started reading some of that Harry Potter book. To answer my question of how long it’s probably going to take me to get through this – probably a while, as ten pages took me a little while to get through seeing how there were new words every couple sentences. But oh well, gotta learn somehow right?