After going out for some late tapas last night and walking about the city a little, we spent the last parts of the evening relaxing on our third-floor balcony. The view of the Mediterranean is somewhat obstructed by another building and the fact that our balcony faces the wrong direction. So, basically we can’t see the sea at all.
This morning we woke up early and caught a bus up to campus. After aimlessly wandering about the campus in search of a room which we were not sure existed, we found where we were supposed to be and met the other ISEP students for orientation. We had an orientation ceremony, complete with a local news crew to film us, a desayuno of bread with tomato juice and olive oil, and a meeting with the people in charge of our program. We spent the morning on campus touring the facilities, seeing the sights, and finally taking an extremely hard Spanish placement test to find out which classes we should be taking. After being ravaged by the test, the lot of us got on the bus and headed back to the hotel that several students are staying at, which we have made sort of the headquarters of the whole group.
We walked back to our apartment from the hotel and took lunch and a siesta. Since we had no means of communication with the rest of the group and we wouldn’t be seeing them for class again until Monday, we made plans to meet up with them later that night.
These plans were interrupted when John’s wife came into town via bus, but we went over to the hotel a little later but found no one there. So the four of us (John, his wife Melissa, Jackie, and myself) decided to explore a little. We found a tapas bar on the waterfront and had cervezas and tapas there. We had planned to find a corner store, buy some wine, and drink it on the beach, and that is exactly what we did. Eventually, I decided that I really wanted to go swimming, because, let’s face it: how often do you get the chance to swim in the Mediterranean? So John and I stripped down to our skivvies and jumped in the water. Before long, the warm water had enticed Jackie and Melissa to follow suit. The four of us walked back to our hotel soggy and a little barracho.
When we got back, we got a facebook message from the group at the hotel saying that they were ready to go out, so John and I left the girls to sleep and headed that way. We left the hotel with a group of nine and walked through the streets looking as American as possible, eventually stopping at some sort of underground nightclub. We left there in search of more relaxed and inexpensive accommodations and and eventually found a tapas bar that allowed us to eat and drink on the street in the company of a large band. We had a good time there, but then parted ways and headed back to our housing.
Tomorrow is Saturday, and we don’t have any kind of excursions planned. We may head to the beach with the others or we may go to a region called Cabo de Gato, a sort of wild beach about 15km away for a day of hiking and swimming. Who knows?
It is now 3:20 am here, so I should probably be headed to bed before too much longer. Buenas noches!
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