CLM Class

On Tuesday morning, my classes for the week began. I'm only taking one class right now and it's considered an intensive prep class to basically give us a refresher on all of the grammar rules and vocabulary we've learned but somewhat forgotten over the years. It's at the Kenia campus which actually used to be a hotel (Hotel Kenia) in the old Jewish neighborhood so it's a beautiful building with a huge courtyard and lots of trees. The front entrance is elevated so you walk up a flight of stairs and then walk straight into the courtyard. From the street you can't even tell how pretty it is.

Here's a picture I took from the courtyard. It looks way better in person. 

It only takes about 15 minutes to walk from my house to school, but on the first day Sophie and I had no idea where we were going and took a roundabout route that took a little over 30 minutes. I looked at a map when we got home and realized how completely unnecessarily long it took us to get there. We made fun of ourselves for a while and then used Google Maps to find a quicker route, which we then practiced so we wouldn't get lost in the morning. Most of the streets here don't have street signs and the ones that do are basically hidden because they're on the buildings themselves. If you can find a street sign at all, it's a big accomplishment so finding the correct street is often quite an adventure. Luckily, Google Maps knows what it's doing so even though our walk is all uphill with a whole bunch of stairs, we can now get that extra 15 minutes of sleep back.

I have two professors, Fermín and Ana. Those are their first names and they insist that we call them by that. Fermín didn't even tell us his last name, and Ana's name is stereotypical Spanish in that it has so many different parts you can't remember it anyway. The way our schedule works is that Fermín teaches my class from 9-11am while Ana teaches a different group of Level 6 kids. We have a break from about 10:50am to 11:10am and then they switch classes so my class has Ana for the last two hours. Fermín always starts 5 minutes late and gives us a 10 minute break in the middle of class. At first we thought he was just extra nice but it didn't take long to realize that our 10 minute "get yourself together" break is actually his smoke break. On top of that, he convinced Ana to let him illegally photocopy the textbook (apparently the people who wrote it also teach at the CLM and will be very annoyed if they find out) so we don't have to pay 30 Euros to buy the book. Needless to say, we all love him. Both professors are really good in different ways. Fermín has a dry sense of humor so he's extremely funny, which is perfect because he tends to teach more of the grammar lessons, while Ana, who's very bubbly and loud, teaches the lessons that are more focused on vocabulary. Ana's also very stylish, and Sophie and I are obsessed with her cool pants. So far, we've talked about the four forms of past tense, body vocabulary, different ways to translate the word become (it doesn't exist in Spanish), characteristic vocabulary (like personality traits), and a few other things I can't remember off the top of my head. The class is actually really helpful for me and not overwhelming like I expected. We do have a little bit of homework but it's nothing compared to what I'm used to.

Because Sophie and I are done with class at 1pm every day, we have all afternoon and night to just kind of do whatever. We've gone out for tapas and drinks a few nights this week. Tapas are basically appetizers that are usually meat and sometimes vegetables. Granada is famous for being one of the few cities in Spain that gives you free tapas when you order a drink. They give you enough tapas to feed the whole table even if everyone doesn't order drinks. The only downside is that if you want water, they charge you for it, and they automatically give you bread which you have to pay for even if you don't eat it. Also, if you don't call the server over, a lot of times you could wait up to 30 minutes before anyone acknowledges you. It makes no sense because you'd think they would want the business, but tipping isn't really a thing in Europe so the waiters have a fixed salary and therefore don't really care if every table is being served promptly and efficiently. Paying is often an even bigger ordeal because you have to ask for the check, which always includes the entire table, and then wait forever to pay. You can't just put your money on the table and leave or someone will likely walk by and just take it.