School and Rotary

I had several interesting experiences today.

First, today was the first real day (at least considering what the first day of school like is in Jacksonville) of school. Victorino is the history teacher, teaching both history of art and history of Spain. He´s really nice and pretty cool. I think his classes would be my favorites and I would love them, if I only knew what was going on. I still have problems with understanding and many times have to ask people to repeat, but little by little, I am understanding and picking up more and already at times, I find myself inside my head like usual, but it´s in Spanish! Which is a good sign. Geography was okay, once again mainly due to the lack of understanding and math, well it´s math. I understood what the problem was asking, I just couldn´t think. It´s going to be an interesting year.

The other interesting experience I had at school today was trying to figure out how to get out of valenciano. It´s a dialect of catalan spoken here in Alicante and is part of the schedule of 2nd Bachillerato for everyone. But since I´m an exchange struggling with two languages, I was told I wouldn´t have to take valenciano. Trying to figure out what exactly needed to be done to get me out of that class was interesting, but we finally figured things out. Now I just need to figure out what school supplies I need and how to get them. Paper here is more like 8.5 by 12, not the normal 8.5 by 11, and by normal, I mean what I´m used to.

Today, I also attended my first Rotary meeting (pictures once I get them). It was long and boring, much like Rotary at home. But I´m just kidding. Although it did seem to drag on, but when you don´t have any idea what people are saying that tends to happen. It was interesting. The Rotary club meets in the Sidi Hotel, which is a luxury hotel, and let me tell you...it was nice! We were in a conference hall that looked out over the ocean and there were tables with nuts, chips, and olives to snack on and drinks (alcoholic and non...I had a Coke) to enjoy while waiting for the meeting to begin. Luis Ramos, the YEO for the club, took me today because today the ¨oespa¨ (no one´s really been able to translate it exactly, but I think it´s like ¨bishop¨) was attending the meeting. I was introduced to him and many other members of the club. There were also two Frenchmen attending, who were very nice.

Anyway, we finally sat down at the long central table, and we sat down to a 4 course meal. There were three sets of forks and knives, used from the outside in with each plate. The first plate was hor d'oeuvres. I didn´t really eat any because I wasn´t sure we were supposed to start, and I had only tried one thing off the plate before a server took it. I tried something which is from Alicante, according to Luis, which was a date wrapped in bacon. It was good, but different. I didn´t particularly like it, but it wasn´t bad. The second plate was a salad, I think. There was lettuce, corn, some pineapple, shrimp, caviar (I think), and some other veggies. I didn´t like it very much. The shrimp was very strong and I didn´t even try the caviar (I don´t think I´d like fish eggs...and it´d didn´t look particularly appetizing to me). The third, main course was some kind of wrap-thing with a small piece of potato and two dates. It was some kind of bread shell with sesame seeds filled with what I later found out was lamb and I think a couple pieces of asparagus. The lamb and the shell were okay, but it was different. After that, dessert was served which was some kind of pastry with fruit and a scoop of ice cream. The cake had a weird flavor and I didn´t like it. There were also two glasses, one for water and the other for wine, and the server was going around filling everyone´s glasses and almost filled mine. Before the server got there though, Luis Ramos asked how old I was and said since I was 18 I could drink, but then I reminded him that Rotary prohibits drinking on the exchange and he said, ¨Ah, sí, si.¨ So I just had water.

The ¨obespa¨ was the main event of the meeting, but near the beginning Luis introduced me to the club and I said where I was from. Later on, there was an exchanging of banners. The obespa was presented with a banner and a plaque, I exchanged banners with the club, as did the two Frenchmen. Next time I go, the sergeant-at-arms is going to give me another, so I have two. One has to go to my sponsor club in Jacksonville, to show they had a student here, but the other one I want to sew onto the back of my jacket with one of my sponsor club´s banners. All in all, it was quite a day.

Hasta el próximo vez,
Erik

Currently listening to:
Song: May It Be
Artist: Enya
Album: Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack