Term Abroad: Week 5

Hi chums!

Wow - week 5 was busy! It started with me being in Valencia, then in León, then in Madrid, then Toledo, then back to Madrid. It was so busy for travel - thanks to the two bank holidays on Monday and Tuesday!


Life

This week was one of my faves. I started off in Valencia, which quickly became one of my favourite Spanish cities, and ended the week by spending time with my sister.

Classes this week were fun, even though we only had three days of them. Grammar classes are literally the best (my inner nerd is loving life) and learning History of Art is so interesting and something I've never really done before. One of the fab things is that we're learning about places we're going to be visiting on trips in the upcoming weeks so it'll be so fun to see the real deal thing soon!

Language

Language this week has not been too bad! I had some successful convos with the guy whose Air BnB I stayed in (shout out to Esteban!). I also had some good exchanges in Madrid with people in the tourist office/restaurants, etc.


The only moment that went down like a lead balloon was when I went to the post office. I didn't realise you had to get a ticket and wait for your number to show up on the screen. So apparently this is also a thing in the UK but I literally never go to the post office. So I waited behind a guy at the desk and when he went, I went to ask for stamps. The woman at the desk literally looked at me like I had 7 noses and then said in a really patronising way that I needed to get a ticket. I'M SORRY I DIDN'T KNOW. Ok, so I got the ticket and then went home and almost cried - but don't worry, I didn't! It sounds really pathetic but the smallest thing puts me off saying anything in Spanish ever again. Still working on that tougher skin but it's not quite there yet.

Also sometimes when I zone out in classes I start going through all the embarrassing moments where my Spanish has lead me wrong in my head and this is such a bad thing to do because it makes me feel so bad about myself. My aim for next week is to forgive and forget all the embarrassing moments and try to go for it more in classes and in real deal life. This might be a bit optimistic for my subconscious negative brain but I'm going to try my best!

Travel

Ok... what is life right now?! I went to so many places this week, I feel so lucky!


I spoke about Valencia in my last post and also did a couple of other blog posts which you can see here and here.


On Saturday I headed off to Madrid to meet my sister. I was so excited for this because I hadn't seen my sister in soooo long and we had the best time! We spent Saturday and the following Monday in Madrid, but on Sunday we got the train from Atocha to Toledo and spent the day there.


Toledo is so beautiful and was even better than I expected. It's reasonably big and you definitely need a full day here. We took so many pictures because every step is so Gram-worthy!

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So, that's week 5! We are now in May and I can't believe it! My term abroad is going so quickly so I'm really going to try and make the most of the next few weeks.

Love as always,

Emma
xxx

Observations (just 1 this week!)

Rollerskates - ok, hold up. Rollerskates are such a thing in Spain and yet no one in England seems to have cottoned onto this idea. When I first saw people rolling by I thought it was funny (and maybe a little strange lol) but it is so popular here and I had no idea!

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