It is 6:00 in the evening and I have only been awake for 3 hours... I believe Sundays here will be known from now on as "The Day of Recovery." Friday night and last night I finally experienced the never-ending party that is Spanish nightlife, which for some time now I had been dreading. It's rather intimidating to hear that Spaniards stay out until 7 in the morning, sometimes later, every weekend. But now that I have actually experienced this, it is a bit easier to see why it's this way.
Spaniards don't usually eat dinner until around 9 or 10, and then they wait a few hours before going out on the weekends. On both Friday and Saturday night, my Spanish friends met up with me and Magda, my Polish roommate, at midnight. We then walked to one of the few parks in our town in which it's completely legal to drink, and settle ourselves for a good 1-2 hours. We drink tinto de verano (a sweet, bubbly red wine), talk, laugh, take a walk around the park and talk to other people, and drink some more. Last night during this time I learned about 5 new words in Spanish, so if this continues I'll be fluent in no time! We also got onto the topic of English cuss words, which I think is always an interesting conversation as people from both groups yell these new words into the night, and the teachers erupt in embarassed laughter at the sound of "Shit" and "Bitch" being said so casually by people who only understand the significance and not the impact. And now I know how to say the "F" word in 3 different languages, which is always a great thing to add to any resume ;)
Anyways, so we sat in the park for a few hours and then finally headed to the clubs around 2:30. It's interestig because there are many different types of bars/clubs and there are specific times of the night in which you should go to these. Bars/cafeterias are places where you go first. This is where you simply sit and can have any sort of drink you like, alcoholic or not. Then we move on to the pubs, which to them is like a staging area for the dance clubs (discotecas). Here you drink and talk and are squished in with a ton of people, and sometimes you dance. And THEN you finally head to the discotecas around 5 in the morning, even though at this time it's still pretty empty, but the line to the bathroom is short! And this is where you supposedly dance, though I might not have stayed long enough last night, as it still seemed that it was mostly people yelling to each other over the music rather than dancing. It does make me wonder if they dance at all like they do at home, or if discotecas are just another place where girls dance with girls in circles and guys stand and watch awkwardly. I dont know if I'll ever make it out long enough to see how this works out, as I stayed out until 6:30 am last night and that is about as much as I can take.
On a different note, I start classes tomorrow. Friday I went to the school and it was basically an introduction day. We signed some papers and met a lot of the teachers and introduced ourselves to 2 of the advanced English classes (which, I must note, are not very advanced). Mostly the students sit there and are pretty unresponsive when you ask them questions... you really have to call on a student to get them to speak at all. Thank God I'm just a language assistant this year! If I do want to go on to make teaching English a career, this will be good training. Though they did seem to know the difference between an American accent and a British accent, as James and I introduced ourselves at the same time. My director has yet to send me a schedule for this week, but I know that I'm supposed to make some sort of presentation for the classes tomorrow about myself and my home and my culture. Hopefully that goes well!
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