On Friday, I walked around my neighborhood, Nervión, for several hours. First, I went to a foto store to try to get my camera fixed, but they just told me about another place I would have to go for repairs. Instead of doing that, I opted to go shopping and put up flyers for private English classes. I spent quite a while exploring the big department store, El Corte Inglés. It has an amazing grocery store so I walked around there for a while. Then I headed home and stopped in Lefties, a cheap clothing store Julie had told me about. I ended up trying on many pairs of shoes, and buying a pair of fake leather brown boots and flats. I was very excited to finally find boots that looked good!
Later that night, I met up with Julie, Julia, and Cait to go to a discoteca near me that was supposedly serving a free Asian dinner to girls. We felt totally out of place there, as nearly everyone else was Spanish and dressed to the nines. We accepted some free champagne but could not find the food. Eventually, men dressed in suits started bringing trays of it to the girls sitting at the tables. We attempted to flag one of them down and get some comida, but they kept ignoring us and we never got the potstickers that we were craving. Although the place was playing exactly the kind of music that I like to dance to, the party wasn't going to pick up for a few hours, so we headed downstairs for tapas and drinks. It was really nice chatting with the girls and not feeling out of place like in the discoteca. After that, we just called it a night and headed home.
On Saturday, Rebecca came over and we made a not very impressive meal and watched some of our guilty pleasure, Cruel Intentions. I convinced her to go with me to a group intercambio (language exchange) in Plaza de Armas. We had absolutely no idea what to expect from this, but it turned out to be amazing. When we first arrived, we found a group of Spaniards and stood awkwardly with them while waiting for the organizer to arrive. Then we walked to an Irish pub nearby and sat for hours. I spoke a ton of Spanish with the people there. I mostly talked with a very nice couple who did not speak very good English, but I got a ton of practice and taught them some new phrases. There were six Spanish-speakers and 3 English-speakers so we were a hot commodity. We were like specimen that they were trying very hard to understand. The way we conducted the intercambio was mainly that I would speak to them in Spanish and they would speak in English, but I snuck in a bit of Spanish-Spanish conversation. Everyone there was very friendly, but it took us about an hour to figure out our schedules and a good time to meet. I think we settled on Saturdays and Mondays, but I cannot be sure. After three and a half hours, we said our double-kissed goodbyes and Rebecca and I headed off in search of food. We ate way too much gelato and I had a savory crepe at a place we had been eyeing since our time in the hostel. It was terrible weather last night and I was exhausted from speaking so much Spanish, so we headed home instead of having a big night out. When I listened to the crazy wind and rain later, I was very glad I was in my casa.
Today is Halloween! I have no idea what we will do tonight (we have a few options) but I will try to put together a disfraz (costume) without spending any money. Let's see what I can pull off...
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