On The Road Again (What is it about Valencia that inspires song-themed blog posts?)

On the weekend, I travelled to Valencia - the city of strangely-shaped buildings.

I headed off on a trip organised by my exchange company, Juventud y Cultura.

I was considering not going, because twelve hours total on a bus seemed like a rather long time to only stay in a city for one night.

However - I am so, so glad that I decided on tagging along. It was an awesome trip, with an amazing bunch of exchange students.
Here we all are! Out of the 13 of us, 6 were Aussies, one was a Kiwi and one Belgian with Australian parents and accent. Us folks from Down Under totally dominated!

Turns out that the six hours on a bus both ways was actually a lot of fun. I got to spend some time getting to know fellow exchange students and Aussies.
I made some great friends, and shared plenty of both exchange-related and entirely random stories. I also realised just how much I have been missing the Australian sense of humour! And, I'll be honest, it was quite exciting to talk in English again.

Once we arrived in Valencia, we dumped our bags at our hotel (Yes, Michael, it was 'spiffy digs'!) before heading straight off to the Oceanográfic - Spain's largest aquarium! It was rather entertaining - there was lots to see, our favourites included the whales, a high diving act, and a pair of walruses!


Next up on the agenda was the Museo De Las Ciencias. For anyone heading to Valencia, I would absolutely recommend this place - think Scitech, only HUGE! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves there, and spent a good couple of hours pressing buttons, pulling levers, swinging pendulums and electrocuting one another.

That night, tapas was on the menu for dinner. Of course, our coordinator had forgotten that Saturday night was the night of the Champions League final! We finally found a (very, very crowded) bar to grab some food in. It was quite a posh little bar, but the only place with any room.
Every time Barcelona scored the street exploded with cheers! People would dance, and once or twice a firework was set off.

Once we could tear ourselves away from the soccer, we took a midnight stroll through Valencia. It was gorgeous.
The next morning, after a delicious buffet breakfast, we took off to the beach! Which, to be honest, was a bit of a let down for those of us that had experienced Australian beaches. But it was an alright way to pass a few hours!

We ate some early lunch at the beach, and then spent our last few hours in the city centre. We visited some churches, had a look around the local souvenir markets, tried our best to dodge the rain, and took plenty of photos!
Aaand then we headed back on another six hour bus ride home, but it wasn't without its excitement! Excitement such as these somewhat suspicious items for sale at the petrol station. Hmm.

Yet Another Update On My Spanish

A few weeks ago, I had to take a test a test in Spanish. This was to give my school and my exchange program an indication of how my language skills were progressing. There was an hour of speaking - which was rather fun, because it consisted of playing games with another exchange student! - and then an hour of reading/writing.

Today I got the results back! I was quite pleased.

I received 85% for speaking, and 75% for writing. My Spanish teacher was particularly happy with my 'extended writing' piece, in which I was required to "write a few paragraphs describing your favourite holiday destination", because I scored 9.5/10.

So, for those interested in how my written Spanish is going - here's the product of half an hour under exam conditions, ie. no dictionary or verb conjugation tables!

(If you are curious as to what it says I recommend Google Translate - which can give you a good, if gramatically incorrect, idea.)

Isla Rottnest - conocido como 'Rotto' en mi ciudad, Perth - es una isla en el coste oeste de Australia. Es muy poco pero tan bonita, y es un destino popular para vacaciones. Me encanta Rotto.

Rotto es reservado solo para vacaciones. Nadie viviendo en la isla. Es tan popular porque es un sitio perfecto para relax. El alojamiento es poco chaletes cual alojar familias de cinco o seis personas. Todos los chaletes son con vista al mar.

Mucho de Rotto es bonito. Las playas son maravilloso, y puede nadar, tomar el sol, pescar y (muy tipica de Australia!) jugar cricket. La isla tiene un arrecife, y puede esnorkel ver peces y un naufragio! Es una isla con mucho vegetation - es muy verde.

Ademas, Rotto tiene 'quokkas', unos poco, peludos animales son no otra sitio en el mundo!

La especial cosa de Rotto es que es sin coches. Todo el mundo debemos utilizar bicicletas, o caminar. Asi, es muy seguro para niños.

Mi familia gustamos ir a Rottnest en la primavera, especialmente octubre. Gustamos pescar, nadar y especialmente comer en la famosa 'Panaderia de Rotto'!

Este año, quiero ire en bici alrededor de todo la isla con mi padre. Porque la isla es tan poco, solo necesitamos montar seis horas!

Otherwise, not too many interesting things have been happening in the past few weeks! I've spent the last few weekends just relaxing around the house during the day.

I've been to the disco a couple of times with my friends, which has been quite a lot of fun. Dancing to loud technopop in a club - I'm living the teenage dream!

Next weekend I'm off to Valencia again for two nights, on a trip organised by my exchange program. I'm looking forward to meeting some fellow exchange students - and, of course, eating more paella!

A Little Moment Of Personal Accomplishment

Today is a Tuesday.

On Tuesdays (and Thursdays, as a matter of fact), Isabel works until very late and Daniel is with his father for most of the afternoon. This means that, at 4.30pm, I pick Antonio and Maria up from school and we walk home together.

At about 3.30, I headed off to Galapagar to pick up some groceries. By 4-ish I was standing at the bus stop, waiting to catch it back to Colmenarejo, when the mother of one of Maria's friends saw me while driving past. She asked if I was heading to school and offered to give me a lift. I accepted.

And so I sat in the car of an almost-stranger who didn't know any English, for ten whole minutes. And we talked - about the weather, about what I was going to cook for dinner, about soccer, and about Australia. Pretty simple.

But - here's the exciting part of the story - I understood every word! And I was able to reply to everything she said, and asked!

I feel a bit like this at the moment -


I had a full, ten minute conversation with someone I didn't know. In Spanish! In a language that isn't my own!

If there was something that was going to make me realise how far my communuication skills had come, this was it. Sure, my grammar is still far from perfect and tenses still make my head spin. But I can communicate. I can talk to people!

:D

Lost In Translation

Quite a few people have asked me recently if I have any amusing or embarassing mistranslation stories.

Of course, I make several errors in my Spanish daily. Mostly, they're just boring mistakes - mispronounciation, using the wrong verb tail, confusing my tenses, etc. etc.

Similarly, the people around me who are speaking English - generally in English classes - make plenty of mistakes, too. (I've noticed that many of them have trouble in asking the time; I often get "What time it is o'clock?" and "When is the hour?")

There are a couple of times in which words that sound similar in English and Spanish have brought confusion, though. So here are a few anecdotes, in all their vaguely-amusing glory!

All I Wanted Was Some Food -

In my very first week in Spain, my host mother greeted me after school with the usual "¿Qué tal?" (="How are you?"). I responded, in my very slow and halting Spanish, "Muy bien, pero ¡estoy hombre!"

Which I thought meant "Very good, but I'm hungry!"

Turns out, with my confusion of vowels and grammar errors, I'd actually said; "Very good, but I'm a man at the moment!"

Isabel had a good chuckle.

Toilet Humour Ahead, Beware -

A friend of mine, Sergio, was away from school sick for a week. Upon returning, my English Conversation Class teacher, Rachel, put him on the spot by asking him why he'd been away.

He thought for a moment, before responding with "I don't know how to say it."

Rachel told him to have a guess, assuring him that it was probably very similar to the Spanish.

So, he tried his luck with "I had constipate?"

Turns out, 'constipado' means 'a cold' in Spanish. Rachel had to explain to the poor, clueless class why she and I were doubled over laughing.

Embarrassment, Or Not -

For all I know, I accidentally started a rumour about myself earlier this week!

We were playing volleyball in PE at school, and I was thumped hard in the chest with the ball during the game. I was a little winded, but otherwise fine. However, my classmates were all immediately concerned, rushing up to me to check if I was okay.

Now, I'd heard people saying 'embarazadas', and I'd assumed it meant 'embarassed'. Seems reasonable, right? I just shook my head, therefore, and said:

"¡Estoy bien! Solo un poco embarazada."

"I'm fine! Only a bit embarassed." = what I was trying to say.

"I'm fine! Only a bit pregnant." = what I actually said.

Oh dear. It took my PE teacher, who doesn't speak any English at all, a bit of time to cotton on.