I must say this week was a bit rough (10/17-10/23). On Monday, I didn’t get home from London until about 4:30 am. The backstory to this is, I had bought a plane ticket from Madrid to Sevilla, but Iberia screwed me over. They charged me and then they never sent me a reservation number. When I called, they also did not have any record of me buying a ticket. By the time I realized this, those same plane tickets were $330 dollars. Needless to say, I took the bus; the only downside is that it takes 6 hours to get from Madrid to Sevilla, so my bus didn’t get into Sevilla until 4:15 and then I had to take a cab. During this time the hole in my pants grew. Thank god the cab driver sped me back to my house (seriously bless this man). So I was able to hit the hay around 5:00.
To make matters worse, I woke up late around 8:10. To put this into perspective, I normally leave my house to get to the metro at 8:00am. So after throwing on clothes, and not eating breakfast, I sped walked to the metro and thankfully made it to class on time. Now normally, getting only 3ish hours of sleep would not be a too big of a problem, however, this glorious Monday morning I had my Conversation Spanish midterm. Thankfully, I got an A and was somehow able to keep my eyes open for the rest of the day.
I tried to take a siesta but unfortunately, it wasn’t that successful. After this failed attempt, I then had my first day of tutoring Lucia, Alejandro (Lucia’s dad), and Agustín. Thankfully Lucia was a ball of energy and helped keep me up. Alejandro also knew more English than he let on. He needs to learn it more for his job though, so I have to teach him more business English, which seems is going to be a bit challenging. After finishing up with Alejandro, I went next door to work with Agustín. I helped him with some science homework and then we played on the Wii. After 2 and half hours of tutoring, I was ready to get home, eat dinner, and go to bed.
Tuesday was a struggle yet again, because I had another midterm that day in my Intermediate Spanish class. I did not get the chance to really study for this test, so I was a bit nervous. In the end, all was well and I got a good grade. The Spanish grading system is a bit weird though and is out of 10 points. It could be simple if 7 was a C, 8 a B, and 9 an A. Instead, it is more difficult and mixed up. For example, a 5 is passing, while a 5 as a 50%, would be failing (don’t worry I did not get a 5). Anyways, I finished my classes at school and then headed back home. The rest of the day was spent studying and writing an essay that was due the next day. Since I didn’t have much time to study or write this weekend, I had a lot of work to do. Thankfully, I paid very close attention during class and am very interested in the material, so I remembered a lot of the information. Studying was more of a refresher for me.
Come Wednesday, it was the time of the exam and I was extremely nervous. It ended up going okay and I feel good about all of my work. I guess we will wait to see what grade I get! (Editing Taylor has an update for you. I got a 9.5/10!!) Wednesday classes finished up with Spanish of Culture Up Close. My teacher, Enrique, is such a character and it makes the class very enjoyable. This week was also my last week of Monday classes for this course. It now meets once a week on Wednesdays. Needless to say, I am very excited about this. I finished up the day tutoring Lucia and Agustín yet again.
Thursday was a glorious day, because I didn’t have a midterm (YAY!). Unfortunately, the school day went by painfully slow (you win some, you loose some). But thankfully, today I got to go tutor my class again. When the kids walked in from recess, they were so excited to see me. Many students came up and gave me a hug and just getting into the class took 5 minutes. This week we learned the parts of the body and played Simon Says. The students loved the game and even the teacher said he enjoyed it very much. When I was leaving, many students came up and gave me drawings and one gave me a yarn bracelet (how cute!). I left the school with the biggest smile on my face.
This weekend has been pretty relaxed. I did not have any travels planned, so I have just been hanging out at home (my favorite type of weekends). It also has been raining all day, which I love! Friday and most of Saturday I stayed home to get in some more r&r. Saturday night, a group of us went out for dinner to celebrate Riley’s 21st birthday! We went to an Italian restaurant and had some great pizza. Sunday, Maddie and I went to Starbucks in the early afternoon and busted out some homework. I then went home for lunch and after our meal Salud, Maria, Jose (Maria’s boyfriend) and I played Jenga. It was actually a lot of fun and I enjoy times like these with the family. Then I got to Facetime with Beau, Ree, Matt, my mom, and dad. It was such a treat and Beau was being especially cute.
So this post basically sums up my full week. It was off to a rough start, but ended on a great note. Next week is going to be a bit of the same, so hopefully that post will be on time! And also, hopefully I get up some vlogs from past trips. I hope you enjoyed reading about my week.
Love always,
Taylor Rose
Taylor's Travels 