Bad weather bunting, lizards, and words begining with q/c.

It's finally reached a sensible temperature over here! Bring out the bunting! Little bit ironic, given my sunglasses broke last Wednesday. I literally relished this weekend - on Saturday I went out for a lovely walk by the river. Of course, I thought I'd be adventurous and turn right to walk away from the uni as I hadn't been that way before. Needless to say, I found the rough end of Bilbao and turned around and walked back pretty quickly! So I carried on, past the uni and on towards Casco Viejo. I took quite a few pictures, and I saw a little lizard which made my day for some reason. I suppose I just hadn't expected to see it. However, a camera with a more powerful zoom would have been better as it was quite small! I continued on, then took advantage of one of the many benches that are scatted over Bilbao and got all creative and did some writing (by the end of this year I'm going to have a lot of year abroad poetry written!). Then I walked back to the piso again on the other side of the river, feeling pretty content with life.

Saturday night we went for chocolate con churrios (which are just divine... really thick hot choc with bits of fried, sweetened batter to dip... NOM!) and we talked in Spanish all night. It was so fun, aside from the slightly scary waitress who actually turned out to be ok in the end. We even talked Spanish with Spanish people (shock, horror!) and they didn't run away. So they were brave. We caused hilarity on the metro home as we, still speaking in Spanish, declared that although we could discuss the EU in Spanish, we had no idea how to ask for a haircut. Furthermore, what is the Spanish word for a fringe? And what is the correct terminology for 'layers'? In the end, I decided I'd probably wait until England! But that evening, as we were talking, I finally had the 'ooo I'm glad I'm here' feeling. It didn't linger all that long, but I am making my peace with this place a bit.


Sunday I stayed in and did my work, which took all day for some reason, but there was a lot of it - including a presentation. I felt pretty under-prepared, but I did the presentation today and it wasn't so bad, I think Lancaster has prepared me well to fight the inherant instinct within us all that makes us want to throw up, pee, and run out of the room when we turn round and face the class and know that we're facing almost certain doom. I say almost certain, because it never happens, therefore it should really be 'uncertain' doom... but your emotions tell you it's certain doom whether the result is doom or not. Let's move on. 


It's been a good day today, as I've managed to change my dissertation text to one that is actually pretty interesting - hurrah! And I was brave enough to charlar (chat) with the teacher for the literature module we're doing that's all about philosophy. It got a bit complicated because the verb 'creer' and the verb 'crear' are very similar, and both were in frequent use in that class! 'Es que quiere creer, o que creer es crear, o querer cree...' you get the idea. Complicado? Mucho!


All I have to do now is survive Historia de Espana tomorrow and Wednesday (which is more difficult than it sounds. Rarely have I been driven to such depths of despair in a class... and DELC people know that that is saying something!). Hasta luego blogueros xxx