“Què dius?” "I'm going to Italy!"

“Què dius?” That’s what they say here at the beginning of a conversation, like if you see someone you know in the street. It means “What are you saying?” Better translated as something like “What are you telling me?”. So basically you are immediately under pressure to come up with something interesting about what you have done today, where you are going now, or what you will be doing later. I really do feel under pressure when somebody says it, just imagine it in English “Hi!” “Hey! What are you telling me??” So direct haha.

Another way of starting a conversation is “Qué tal?” kinda like “How are you?”, and if you’re out walking, for example, you can say “here, walking.” or if you’re in the supermarket, you can answer with something like “here, buying things.” They know how to get right to the heart of things here, it’s a lot less superficial than casual English conversation.

In syntax class today, the teacher, bless him, seemed so scared of using an english sentence to demonstrate a point, he was like “You help me okay? I’m gonna write the phrase, and you tell me if anything’s wrong with it okay?” (pardon my lazy translation, I know we don‘t say “okay?” all the time in English). On the other hand, he didn’t seem at all afraid of using a basque phrase as an example haha. We had a “5 minute pause” a couple of hours into the class (which apparently was “nearly not worth it” but it so was), which obviously meant 15 minutes, ahhh the Spanish sense of time ©.

I managed to not lose all the money I earned yesterday, yay! Also, I got some envelopes, from Carrefour of course. Carrefour’s so great, I swear they are rolling out “Carrefour discount” (the equivalent of ASDA Smartprice) products to fit my needs. It’s like, when I arrived they had hardly anything in the discount range, but then I found chocolate rice cereal, and then the next week dark chocolate, and this week they started stocking discount tomate frito (fried tomato)! I haven’t tried the tomate frito yet but I think I will tomorrow, I’m sure it will be better than the bonpreu stuff

I’m going to Italy next month! For my Catalan Dialectology class we’re going to Alghero, in Sardinia, which is the city in Italy where some people speak Catalan. And it just so happens that I have a friend who happens to be working on that very same island in a city not too far away! So hopefully I shall be able to see her! It just gets better and better, AND I’m allowed to take hold luggage so I can take all the liquid (hairspray) I want! ^_____^

It’s less than two months til I’m going to visit England! Wheeeeee!!!

A fail... and some news.

Eek, it’s been a little while since my last update, I really want to start writing more regularly. I will! I promise! Lleida is keeping me very busy though. Between going to uni, studying for uni, preparing english classes, giving english classes, learning thousands of songs for the choir, spending hours cleaning the kitchen, sleeping, etc etc I don’t make myself too much time to do things like this.

First, we’ll talk about my latest fail. Yesterday I failed. So bad. It was all going swimmingly. Went to uni at 9, back home at 10.15 to catch forty winks before going back into uni at 11 til 12. Home for lunch, email reading, and preparation for the two classes I give on Tuesdays, which I did thoroughly and pretty well if I do say so myself. Then a little siesta before going to heading to work at 17.30. First class went well and I was paid 20€ because the Señora I work for didn’t have 15€ in change, so she would just pay me 20€ this time and 10€ next time. Lovely. Then time to (power)walk to the other side of the city for my next class which I managed to do in record time in order to arrive at the agreed hour. This class also went very well, since in the first one I could barely get them to speak, and this time I managed to get them conversing really well. One of the girls even told me she thought a postcard of Morecambe I gave her to describe was “beautiful”. Lol is all I can say to that. So yeah, so far so good, class over and another 27€ richer on top of what I earned before. It was just after 9 so I just about had time to go to Carrefour to get some essentials: bread, croissants and chocolate. Mmmmm *rubs tummy*. Then time to walk home, get home, put my keys on my desk, search for my money in my pocket, and, it’s not there. It’s gone. 40€ gone. Gone. Luckily I have a broken phone I can throw around violently to help me avoid screaming. Can’t even describe how annoyed/upset/angry I am. I couldn’t even sleep properly wondering how on earth I could manage to lose 40€ from my pocket. I failed. And that is the last time I keep monies in my pocket, I’ve lost things that way before, never so much though. Next time I am always bringing my wallet to work. No more fails that involve losing money please.

Anyway on a happier note, after discovering that I had lost the money I spent the day earning, my flatmate informed me I had mail! *_* And I temporarily forgot about my rage squeaking “quina il·lusió!!!” I got two letters from friends in England and it really helped to give me something to focus on other than lost money. I still have yet to visit a post office here but hope to do so this weekend I think, and hopefully they will sell envelopes, because I couldn’t find any in the four-floor llibreria.

I have a kinda love-hate relationship with the horari here. I like the fact that you can arrive as late as you like to class and it’s fine. I like sleeping in the middle of the day, BUT… BUT that’s usually the only free time I have during the week to go shopping, unfortunately it’s the time when all the shops are shut, and they don’t open again until I’m busy working or practicing songs. Great. Luckily the vast majority of the supermarkets are open all day so I’m okay for food and stuff.

Classes are going quite well. They’re not easy but I heart Catalan so I’m enjoying them, and luckily I have great classmates. 20thC Literature and Catalan Syntax are my most difficult classes but they’re okay, and all the teachers are nice too. I love History of the Catalan Language, and am also really enjoying Catalan Dialectology, the only thing about that is I wish I weren’t the ONLY student in the class, and we’re taking a trip away somewhere for two nights, just me and the professor… -_-’. Anyway, French Grammar is also okay…ish, it’s honestly fairly complex, I’ve never studied latin and stuff before, and what we’re doing at the moment is studying the evolution of words from the latin to today’s french. Also, the teacher constantly mixes the three languages (French, Spanish and Catalan) which is fine in that I can understand perfectly, but I’m trying really hard not to mix languages and I don’t think this is helping me. I’m forgetting French though so I really need it.

Ummm, what else… oh I spent six hours cleaning the kitchen on Saturday and I actually really enjoyed it. I also enjoy mopping the floors. Well, as long as I can have loud music on whilst I’m doing it. Yeah.