i bought a phone today! it's so weird, i just realized i've been without phone or tv for over a month and i haven't even noticed. this place has more than enough distractions!
but, i was very excited because i went to the phone store and had the entire conversation for a half an hour about phone service in spanish! ha, who knew. the guy didn't speak english so i didn't speak one word of it, and i was so excited!!! sounds sad, but really, i've come a long way in just a month. so i got a really cheap phone but i didn't have to buy a contract. they have a weird set-up here where you buy a card with a certain amount of money and you just pay per minute that you talk. so i have to pay 8 cents a minute everytime i talk. i got the cheapest one, some were like 40 cents a minute (???). and then when your card runs out you recharge it. i still have to figure out where to do that. i know i saw something in the metro station with a sign screaming "recarga tu movil!!!!!!!" at me, so i am pretty sure there are a lot of places i can do it. so now everyone won't think i'm crazy, because everyone i meet at school asks for my number but when i tell them i don't have one they don't understand.
so today i had my last new class, sistemas de informacion. and this time it was a man teacher. again, he seems super cool. everyone here is so laid back it's unreal. but anyways, i got there a little early so i was just sitting there writing and waiting for people to come in, and nobody did. there were four of us waiting there. so he started the class and a few people came in late but by the end of the class i still only counted nine people! i guess i'm lucky though because maybe i'll get more help from the teacher this way. another thing is i'm the only girl. at UCF all of my classes were about 70/30 in the ratio of girls to guys. here, there's a lot more guys! it's different.
so the teacher started talking, and the first thing he asks is, "castellano, o catalan??" and my heart sunk! everyone else didn't really say anything so i pretty much begged for castellano, because that's like regular spanish. and i told him i just came here and it's hard enough so it would help if he spoke regular spanish. which he gladly did, phew! and this guy taught the most on the first day out of any of my teachers. but he told some jokes and stuff and i got a few of them so it was good. it sucks though when the teacher is talking and everyone starts laughing while i just sit there trying to figure out the sentence he said five before the present one. but he was very nice and asked if i understood like every ten minutes and said if i need any help just ask.
i also made friends with a kid named Franc, short for Francesco, and he was super nice. he said he could barely notice my accent! and i just laughed at that because i feel like i am stumbling over everything and thought i sounded like a goof. but he also said he'd help me if i need it, and that i'll be fluent in no time!
one thing i've noticed is that everyone is surprised i am here for an entire year. they are all so impressed but i don't understand because all of these kids have amazing lives! everyone is so different and it seems like a lot of them speak english so i don't know why they think that when i'm not even fluent yet. YET.
i also noticed my notes are half english half spanish. like within each sentence. i don't know why i think that will make it easier. but maybe if i understand something and it sounds better in english i write it out in english.
my roommate, marta, told me that in the czech republic everyone speaks 4 or 5 different languages! i'm amazed. especially because she said they're so old-fashioned and stuck in their roots, and they don't really want to change or be like anyone else. but still i think that's really cool.
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