Bean's Corner : January 2016

Week Two Round-Up

14:53

I've almost been here two weeks now and I genuinely cannot believe how quickly that time has gone. So much has happened since arriving here in Santiago that I don't really know where to start!

Last Saturday we had our first night out and Júlia moved in! Virginia, Júlia and I invited a few friends to the flat for a couple of drinks (3€ prosecco - dream come true) and then headed to a place called Casa do Patín. How do I even begin to describe this place? We got in a taxi and the driver stopped on this dark, dodgy looking track and told us to follow the track to the light - we thought he was joking but when he responded to our laughter with '5€ please' we realised he was serious! So we did as he said, followed the track towards the light where we found an elderly lady (I mean full on grey hair and older than my grandparents) who apparently is a hippy who converted her house into this bar/club. It was honestly the coolest place I've been, didn't get busy until 4am because Spanish people are weird (pre drinks at 1am?). We got back to the flat at 8am and crashed!

On Monday we started classes and despite it being near impossible to find the information online about where/when classes are, the day went smoothly and so did the rest of the week! Another bonus is that my French classes are taught in French - unlike my Spanish classes in Paris, where approximately three Spanish words were spoken per lesson...

My classes seem alright, despite the first topic of my Spanish language module being syntax (I got 34% in my first year syntax module at uni, not entirely sure how learning it in a foreign language is going to go). The walk to my department is pretty decent too, I walk through the Zona Vieja (old zone) and Praza do Obradoiro to get there, which means I walk right next to the cathedral every day.

This Friday was a bank holiday which meant I didn't have lessons, and for some reason my lecturers decided not to have lessons on Thursday either, so I've had a very nice, long weekend! We went out on Thursday, first to a place called Sonar for an Erasmus party (which featured many of 2012's greatest hits) and then back to Casa do Patín. We actually had pre drinks at our flat again, with a fair amount of people - the majority from Brazil or Italy. One of our neighbours came to ask us to turn the music down, which we did straight away, but we came back to find a note written in Gallego threatening to call the police and our flat owners to get us kicked out if we are loud again. Charming.

This weekend has been so much fun. On Friday Virginia and I went for a walk around Parque Alameda, which is a park about two minutes away from our flat and the nicest place ever! Then last night we went to a bar called Central Perk (nothing like the coffee shop in Friends, was disappointed!) and then to a friend's botellon (kind of like pre drinks) - another Italian who I'd met in the uni's Erasmus office. After that we went to another bar, and finally headed home at 6am!

Today I woke up at 12pm, and after an hour of sussing the hangover situation, I rose from the dead and made scrambled eggs. Perfect Sunday! This evening we went to another bar and met a group of Italians, and a Spanish boy who speaks Italian. The entire population of Italy is here in Santiago this semester. Every five minutes someone would give up on Spanish and say something in Italian, only to be told off by someone else for not speaking Spanish so I could understand! It was very amusing, I felt like a bit of an inconvenience at first but soon realised they didn't mind, its just a force of habit to revert back to your native language! I have noticed, though, that my accent has a hint of Italian in it now which I'm not very happy about! And I'm also picking up on all the arm-moving and hand gestures!

I think one of the highlights of my week was this evening at the bar, when my Italian pals suddenly got into a bit of a fight about ragu/spaghetti bolognese. The conversation got so heated that they reverted back to Italian and even the Spanish guy who speaks Italian didn't have a clue what was going on!

So far, so good. I love it here SO much and have made a lot of really lovely friends. We've booked to go to Madrid and Toledo this weekend for Carnaval and I couldn't be more excited!

Bean xx

PART TWO

07:02

Hola a todos! I've made it to my second year abroad destination: Santiago de Compostela, Spain! And I'm now sat in a cafe called Dalia with a hot chocolate (which I'm pretty sure is actually chocolate custard...) and scrounging for wifi so I can tell you about my first few days.

Monday

After spending all of Sunday trying to fit everything in my suitcase, I took myself to the airport on Monday - I met a lovely American man whose friend had got on the metro before him and not realised he wasn't on it, we had a nice chat on the metro and found his friend at the airport! Once I was at the airport, I got myself through security - having my hand luggage search was the most embarrassing situation because this 20 year old travelling alone had a teddy in her backpack, didn't she! Anyway, I then got on my first plane to Madrid, which was pretty empty. I hate flying and apparently so was the woman next to me because she gasped and grabbed my hand when we started to land! Two hours later I was on my second plane to Santiago which thankfully only took an hour.
As soon as my feet touched the floor I felt comfortable. Everyone I've met so far has been so kind and welcoming - the woman running the hostel was amazing, the man driving the bus from the airport was lovely and when I asked a man for directions, he walked me round the corner to the right road rather than just telling me where to go. If I had spoken to any of those people in Paris I would have received a grunt and a dirty look in response.

Tuesday

Tuesday was an exciting day! I woke up and ate my breakfast, and then went to the bus stop to collect my future flatmate, Virginia, who is from Italy. I was SO nervous while I waited, all sorts of thoughts going through my head at this point as I'd found her in a Facebook group! But she arrived and we went to my hostel to put her suitcase there and get her a room, and somehow ended up having to share a bed until we found a flat on Thursday! We spent the day looking at flats, had an early dinner and then went to sleep as Virginia had only slept for a couple hours because she had travelled overnight.

Wednesday

More flat hunting! Bit of doubt as to whether our other flatmate was going to come the following day to choose a flat and sign the contract... So we posted in a private Facebook group for Erasmus students and asked if anyone wanted to live with us. All I can say is thank god we did!

Thursday

This was the day our other flatmate was meant to arrive so we could sign the contract for the flat we decided on. She didn't come. So we met a girl called Júlia who is from Brasil and had commented on our Facebook post on Wednesday night. She came to look at the flat with us and brought a friend with her, we looked around the flat and made our final decision, then went for lunch the four of us. Thursday night, Virginia and I stayed in the flat with only a little blanket each that we had bought earlier on because the owners were going to bring us bedding and pots and pans on Friday morning! Virginia and I did a food shop and had to stop every few steps to have a break because we bought so much food, not our best plan!

Friday

On Friday, we signed the contract for our flat and payed the deposit and Ana, one of the owners of the flat, brought us towels, bedding, pans and more. Júlia stayed in her hostel Thursday and Friday night as she'd already paid for it and has moved in today (Saturday). Virginia and I spent most of the day walking around the town, buying bits and pieces for the flat and so on. We spent a couple of hours in a cafe trying to work out how to make our timetables - it was a very similar level of impossible to Paris, but all online so +1 point for Santiago! We cooked dinner and instead of going out to celebrate having a flat, we stayed in like a pair of old women and chatted in Spanglish in fits of giggles.

Despite the (pretty much constant) rain, I am already loving Santiago. I've barely spoken any English, met some really lovely people and feel pretty comfortable. But let's not jinx it, classes start on Monday and I have a feeling that is not going to be a walk in the park...!

Bean xx

erasmus

The End!

02:29

Tout achèvement marque un nouveau départ

Every end is a new beginning

In three days' time I will be making a somewhat stressful journey on the metro to Orly Airport, with a very large, very heavy suitcase and no key in my pocket to the little flat on the fifth floor of a beautiful Parisian building in the 15th arrondissement. Quite sad when you put it like that, but I'm not very sad to be going!

I've spent the best part of four months living in Paris, the capital city of France - not my home country, or anything like it. This is the first time I've lived in a different country, the first time I've lived away from home without living with a group of my best girlfriends and the first time I've lived in a huge city (I wasn't living in the city at York so I'm not counting it!). I'm a country girl, I live in a little village with a lot of green spaces and a lot of mud and where leaving the house in wellies doesn't mean you're off to a festival. So coming to live in a full on city with its own underground railway system and traffic that never stops has been a bizarre and exciting experience for me!

I came here to improve my French language skills, and I feel pretty comfortable saying I've achieved that. I'm still not fluent, but I no longer freak out when someone speaks to me in French and I can usually form some sort of reply now - I'd say that's a pretty big achievement considering in my oral exam at the end of uni last year, I was struggling to remember the French for 'try'! My accent has improved too - I've had a man in a pharmacy tell me I sound French and an elderly couple asked me for directions and didn't bat an eyelid at my response (I, on the other hand, did a bit of a happy dance when they turned around!). I also had an oral exam yesterday for a sociology module I didn't understand, and my mark was 15/20, so I'm pretty pleased with myself!

I'm not going to dwell on the attacks back in November, as that was an exceptional event and it was something that couldn't be helped. But I do want to mention some of the things that have not been so great whilst I've been here, because if anyone reading my blog is going on a year abroad in the future, I want them to see the two sides to mine.

I came here with three friends from my university back in England, which I was and still am really happy about. The only problem is that we chose to do all the same modules and, as much as I was glad to have them in my classes so I wasn't alone, it did hold us back from talking to the French students in those classes. We stuck together, so we weren't approachable and we didn't do any approaching! I'm not saying we didn't speak to any French people at all - that is not the case! - but we could have spoken a lot more French if we'd split up a little. So, a piece of advice for any future year abroaders: don't stick to what you know, throw yourself in the deep end, ignore what you were taught as a child and DO speak to strangers!

Another little error I made was phoning home or facetiming my family when I felt homesick. First of all, how awful for my parents to have me on the phone crying and saying I want to come home - they can't let me come home because that would be a bad decision, but they don't want to sit there and do nothing while I'm feeling like that. But also, its not good for me to be on the phone to people I miss when that feeling is at it's worst! I managed a few times to make the right decision and take myself out of the flat and for a walk in the park or to some shops and that was the best thing I could have done, but I didn't do it every time and that's where I failed. If you're feeling homesick you need to distract yourself, not give in, and I cannot emphasise that enough!

But enough of the negativity! I have got what I came for from Paris - improved language skills - and now its time to move on. On Monday I'm off to Santiago de Compostela for the second leg of my year abroad and I could not be more excited! I'm going to do things differently there - I'm going to live with new people and step out of my comfort zone, I'm going to speak to Spanish people and I'm going to try really hard not to dwell on missing home.

Watch this space!