The good news: my shampoo—the largest bottle I could find in Rossmann’s—is only half gone, which means it will almost certainly last me until the end of the semester. The bittersweet news: my semester here is just about halfway done. The bitter part is clear. I am having so much fun that I can hardly believe how the time has flown, but I can’t classify being halfway done as entirely bad news, because it also means that I have already done so much I never thought I’d do.

Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays I take flamenco classes at IES.  We dance on Mondays and Wednesdays, and learn about flamenco’s history and development as an art form on Thursdays.  I love the class, but I have to say: I’m a terrible flamenco dancer.  More than the ability to dance, it’s the spirit needed to be a flamenco dancer that I lack.

In Spain, it’s common to eat five times a day.  Spaniards begin the day with a light desayuno, normally take a segundo desayuno mid-morning, and eat la comida, the biggest meal of the day, around 2 or 3.  Around 5 or 6, before la cena which is at 9 or 10 at night, they take a merienda.  The merienda is a light meal that can be either savory or sweet.  Usually it’s something like a café and tostada (toast with tomato and olive oil if it’s a traditional tos

There are so many photos left which I wanna share with you.

They all go to one theme – new experience. When I’m deciding what I should do if there are two choices, e.g. shopping or going to a market with my host family, I will ask myself, which one may not happen again? Then you will always have new experience and meet surprises.

The following are some new experiences I had recently and some tips for you.

The past few weeks have been extremely hectic as classes came to a close, and the preperation for final exams has begun. Luckily, just before it became necessary to start preparing for exams, one other IES student and I implemented our semester long project of building a community garden in the informal squatter settlement of Egoli. The past few months working with the members of Egoli has been an unreal experience. Never have I been to a place like Egoli that posses the same kind of gratitude and loving energy.

During the first week, I fell into an after-school routine of lunch followed by homework, internet, and general chilling at the only Wifi-equipped ice cream shop in town. I was not happy about it. Who surfs Facebook on the Galapagos, for goodness sake?

Chinese 351 level students gained valuable cooking experience last week during Chinese class!  We paired up, bought our ingredients, cranked up some Chinese tunes, and cooked a big, family-style Chinese lunch in the IES offices.  The most valuable lesson? Overkill with soy sauce is sometimes a bad idea.

We went on a three-day trip to Sevilla and Granada. We left at 7:30 AM on Friday, and came back around 9 PM on Sunday. I struggled a lot this week to get all my works done, but certainly three days in Andalucia was worth the time.

* Day 1: Sevilla