My journey to Spain

Hey! Now I'm home again and it's been some time since I wrote last time. I wanted to write about my happenings in the sunny, warm and lovely country, but I had no access to Internet. So now, FINALLY, I can tell you how good it felt to be there.

As you should know, we arrived to Malaga on Thursday (7.6.2012) and stayed there at a hotel a couple of days. We walked in the city and ate out at restaurants, we even had time to visit some cultural places, as the Picasso museum, the Alcazaba fortress (castle) and the Cathedral. We didn't hire a car, so we walked everywhere, mostly in the old part of the town. I got a nice view of Malaga, but it was a little too warm when we were there (30-35 °C), othervise I recommend it.

The view from Alcazaba.

We took local trains to Cádiz on Saturday. It was a nice 4,5 hour trip to the southwest part of Spain. Both of the trains were modern and very fast (up to 160km/h). We hopped off the first train in a little town named Dos Hermanas (=Two Sisters), near Sevilla, and changed to another train to Cádiz. I played cards with my little brother, read a book and watched the countryside pass by when waiting to arrive. It was a pleasant way to travel to Cádiz.

We saw this "house" from the train.

When we arrived in Cádiz in afternoon, we came directly to the apartment and met some of the apartment owners. They showed us around, and I remember my first thought was; "I'm going to get lost in this apartment!", haha :D It wasn't that big, about as big as our apartment at home, but here was a narrow aisle and several rooms with many doors to choose of. It took a while to remember where all the rooms were situated.

This is one of the bedrooms.

I slept in three different rooms (and beds) this week, because no one really wanted to sleep in a particular room near the balcony to the street. It was so noisy in the street at night, so it felt hard to get any sleep. We had to take turns. My excuse to get a better room was that I have to be alert in school ;) But still I had to sleep twice in the room with the balcony. Othervise the apartment was great! It was modern and we had a TV to watch the football games.

Playa de la Caleta. (We swam here once)

Sunday we didn't do much. We walked to my school to see where it's situated and afterwards we went to the beach. My little brother, dad and I swam for nearly an hour in the Atlantic Ocean. There were many big waves, which we loved to swim in.

Monday my Spanish course started! I was very nervous when I stepped inside the school. I had to take a test, to show my abilities in Spanish, and then my first class started at 10 am. I met two girls from USA and one from Lithuania. They're all really nice and friendly. We chatted in English a while before the Spanish teatcher came. Then it was all in Spanish! Yes, I mean it!

The classroom and my stuff.

It felt difficult in the beginning to only speak in Spanish and D. (one of the teachers) said I shouldn't give up too easy. If I didn't understand it was only to ask, in English or Spanish. We (four girls) had two teachers; one in grammar; D, and one for speaking classes; L. Both of them teached by speaking Spanish (rarely in English) and using gestures. It felt weird at first but I got used to it. Sometimes it was really funny to guess what the teacher tried to explain with the gestures :D Both teachers were nice, amusing and guapo. Thanks to you I can speak better Spanish! :)

Since the first day at school I was glad to get to know the American girls. It was nice to practise my English skills by talking spontaneously with them. It felt difficult at first, because they talked so fast and I didn't recognise all the words. But this five-day-course helped me in both Spanish and English. Most in Spanish of course :) I felt really good to be with the American girls J. and N. It was nice to talk about our different cultures and about other things too. Hopefully we can keep in touch through facebook.

Playa de la Caleta & San Sebastián in the background (a castle which we visited).

The Cathedral of Cádiz. We lived near it.

Parque Genovés. Nice trees ;)

I was in school 3,5 hours every day (Mon-Fri) and that's why I didn't have time to visit so many attractions. My family saw much more of the town than I did, but they didn't learn Spanish as much as I and they didn't meet these wonderful people. But now I have a good reason to travel here again; to see more of Cádiz.

And one very surprising thing is that I didn't shop that much! I only found one t-shirt, a wallet and a bracelet. We didn't find the shop streets... And I hadn't time for searching. Doing homework, swimming in the sea and spending time with my family (after school) was priority nr. 1.

I didn't miss home much. Mostly I missed the gym :-P and my friends.
But I always have the "home sweet home"-feeling when stepping in to my room.

Nearly all my wishes for the journey came true. I didn't shop much there, but now I can shop the rest of summer here instead ;) I got tan, although I didn't lay on the beach. I even burned my skin one day, but it's looking good now. I met new, lovely people and I definitely want to go on an exchange language course again!! :D

Hopefully you didn't fall asleep when reading this ("mega") long story about my ten-day-long-journey in Spain. It's okay if you didn't read all of it but now it's officially over. Now you can sleep ;)

Hasta luego! :)