A day in my life: spring edition / un día en mi vida

Last semester, I wrote a post where I described a regular day in my life, and I thought it would be helpful to write a similar post since the fall and spring semesters differ. So far, I feel like this semester is passing by so fast. Starting Friday, we’re on break for Semana Santa (Holy Week), and we practically have only a month and a week left after that.

In terms of classes, I start every day at 10:30 am so I have plenty of time to sleep. Normally, I wake up at 8 am to eat breakfast with Nuria, my host mom, her best friend, Olga, who practically lives at our house, and my roommate, Darby. I love starting off the day eating breakfast together, which is quite a change from being at school in the US where I eat just a piece of fruit alone in my room (haha sounds quite lonely after rereading that but I assure you I was fine). Nuria always sets out a large platter of butters, jams, and other spreads to go with bread as well as yogurt, cereals, and fruits. After breakfast, I take my time getting ready, and I like to listen to Spanish music to get me in the mood to speak in Spanish haha. I go for the Éxitos España playlist on Spotify or my own Favoritos Españoles playlist. The picture above isn't from breakfast time, but every Monday night we have a little gathering at our house where Nuria's niece and her friend come over to eat dinner with us.

Then, I have a three-minute walk (ugh, such a beautiful change from living in Triana) to school, starting out with my great works of Spanish literature class. Afterwards, on Mondays and Wednesdays, I have a class on Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Spain. It focuses on the history of how they came to Spain; however, I was expecting more of a religious take on it, so I have to admit that it’s really boring for me. I love my professor, but, man, it is way too dry for me. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have a Spanish filmmaking class which is my coolest and most interesting class. We watch and analyze movies, obviously, and we also learn about the history of filmmaking. At the end of the semester, I have to make my own short film which is a super cool project I’m looking forward to doing. It’s a class unlike anything I’ve ever had before. Also, on Tuesdays, I have a writing module where we practice different styles of writing (informal letters, formal letters, papers, etc).

After my first half of classes, I go back home to eat a tasty lunch with the fam. During this break, I work on homework or study. On Thursdays, I am paid to teach English to two Spanish children, Palayo and Bosco. They’re the wildest children I’ve ever met so it’s more like I babysit them than teach them English hahaha. Apart from that, in preparation for Feria, some students including myself practice an “ensayo” or a “desfile” (parade) for our pre-feria party at school. For those who don’t know, Feria is a big fair where, from what locals tell me, you drink and dance all day every day haha. Women also get to wear these beautiful dresses, or trajes de gitana. I, too, get to wear a dress that I selected for our mini fiesta at school.

At 5:30 pm, I have my Spain and the Americas class where we learn about the Mayans, the Incans, and the Aztecs as well as the effects of the “discovery” of America on Europe. It’s another interesting class, but since history is my least favorite subject my head tends to be in the clouds for some part of the class. After classes, I continue to work on homework if I need to, or I go to yoga class on Wednesday nights. Shout out to goodyoga – my teacher Michelle is from the States actually. She teaches in Spanish, but when I, or other foreigners, need extra help understanding she’ll repeat in English (however, at this point I understand fine). As for dinner, we eat late at 10 pm normally. I have to wait for my stomach to digest everything haha so after dinner I’ll call family or study some more before I finally go to sleep at midnight.

I like my schedule a lot this semester because I have just enough free time but not too much where I don’t know what to do with myself. It’s a change from last semester because I used to have other really late classes that lasted until 9:30 pm, and I also didn’t tutor.

During the weekends, I sleep in, but lately I’ve been traveling a lot. Two weekends ago, I went to Barcelona to support my best friend Michael who was running the marathon there (isn’t that so cool? Haha, I miss you already Michael if you’re reading this). I spent the past weekend in Brussels, Belgium, where I tried an assortment of very delicious foods and beverages including fries (they apparently originated from Belgium), mussels (Belgium is known for their mussels), and beer (if beer in the US and Spain tasted like it did in Brussels, I think I would drink it more often). For Semana Santa, I will be traveling to Egypt to visit my dear friends Leila, Sandy, Salma, and Salma (yes, two Salmas). No big deal.