As I said before.... Shopping!

So, lots of people have asked me, "What do you do while Matthew is at school.." Well I watch a lot of 'Gilmore Girls"...  Like a lot. But other than that, I go out. My fridge is an oversized mini fridge and thus holds pretty much nothing. That being said, I am required to go out and get food every day. So, everyday I go for at least a 2 hour walk while I carry all of my recent purchases. It's quite interesting actually. Things I've noticed:

• Everyone walks around. It is not uncommon to see lots of people with grocery bags walking home. That was something new for me. 
• Also, most of the time, people don't smile back. That makes me kind of sad, but if you get talking to them, everyone is so nice. You just have to break the "I'm not going to smile" barrier. 
• Don't give tips. They don't expect one, and they don't treat you like they need one. We learned that the tips never go to the waiters anyway, so no one gives them tips. This causes some poor customer service.
• It smells. EVERYWHERE. I will be enjoying the beautiful walk to the store and all of the sudden, it's like the sewer threw up on me. It's terrible. But, it always passes. 
• Fruit and Veggies are waaaaaay cheaper here. They sell everything by weight here. I don't remember if it was the zucchini or the red bell pepper I got, it might have even been something else, but it was only 33 cents. By the end of getting all of my veggies and fruits in order, I was spending under 6 Euros. 
• Everyone smokes.
• Jean underwear is a thing everywhere.. not just in the states. (If you aren't sure what those are, jean underwear are Denim shorts that are so short, they might as well just be denim underwear.---thank you Urban dictionary...)

Anyway, there is a small list. I'm sure there are more things, but that's what you get for now. When I finally get to my destination, I arrive at El Corte Ingles. This is a magical place where you can buy everything. Imagine a Walmart... on steroids. It's like a mall and all the cool supermarkets in the worlds combined to make El Corte Ingles. Needless to say. It's a cool place. I spend about an hour or two there everyday. Because it is such a large part of my life, I took a video of my walk there so you can go with me. 

Also, I like the milk here. Why????? I'm pretty sure it's sweetened... that's why. haha. 

Love you all! Sorry for the short post. Things have been great. OH to explain the money thing I talk about in the video, our cards weren't declined.. I tried to take out money from an ATM with my debit card and apparently since I hadn't called and changed my address along with my husband, it was suspicious that I was making a transaction in Spain..................................................................ugh. So we had to get that resolved and I didn't figure it out until after I had left for the day. That's what I was talking about. 

Also, some random pictures from the city. 

Our first breakfast here. It was at a little shop right by our apartment. I wasn't a huge fan of the bread with tomatoes... or the eggs.. but everything put together tasted pretty good!

Plaza de la Virgen. All those little statues surrounding the man in the middle of the fountain are little naked women pouring out buckets of water....

This is a door from the cathedral in la Plaza de la Virgen

Terrible focus, but it's a closer look at a section of the door.

Another close up.

Again with the close thing.

Last one.

Beautiful fresco painting in the cathedral. 

My first attempt to make a video... which failed haha. 

The First week of School.

Matthew has officially completed his very first week of being a master student, and I have officially completed my first week being a master student's wife. Now, what does that entail? Well, I think that might change from week to week, but this week was pretty..... interesting.

I spent a lot of the first couple of days just trying to get over my jet lag. I really thought that whole concept was a myth... but boy. We kept finding ourselves pooped by 4 or 5 in the afternoon. We were so tired that staying up just seemed impossible, so we would sleep. On afternoon, we wanted to take a nap. It was about 4 and it was only going to be about an hour at most. We were trying really hard to get in a routine. Well I wake up and I genuinely thought I was walking up the next morning. It looked like dawn in the windows and I felt very well rested, the only thing that threw me off was I woke up squished on the couch. Had I really slept all night on the couch? I must have been exhausted. I looked at the clock and it read 9:30. Not 9:30 am... No, 9:30 pm. We had slept for 5 and half hours!! Now what were we supposed to do? So much for fixing our sleep schedule. Well Matthew woke up about 10 minutes after me with the exact same thought process. We ended up staying up till about 1 or 2 and made ourselves go back to sleep.

That has been only one of the things that has been difficult to get used to. Another one is the heat. I think it has been a constant 84 degrees in our apartment the entire time we have been here. I'm starting to get used to it, but goodness. We do have AC, but electricity is more expensive here (so we've heard, we have yet to get our first bill) and so we are trying to cut back as much as we can, but our apartment is conveniently placed down a small alley way where the wind forgets to go, so even when we open the windows, there is no breeze. We are saving up for a fan. That will save us.

Now, Matthew is busy. He's got plenty to keep him occupied. He's got school, which is LOVES. He comes home every night with a huge grin on his face and a whole bunch of fun stories from the day. Me, I've had to figure some things out.

I was really nervous about this part. This whole 'figure out Spain' seemed really daunting to me. I can officially say that it's not as bad as I thought it would be. The people here are so helpful. I've been lost several times and they are so willing to help me out. I'm SOOOO grateful I can speak Spanish, even though they use weird words here. For example, we needed to buy a trash can but had no idea where to find one. We asked an employee, who luckily figured out what we were trying to say and then proceeded to let us know where to get a trash can and how to say it. The term we were using for trash can was 'basura'. The term used here is 'papelera'. Not even remotely close. I also found out that a large trash can is a 'contienador'-one that contains. Also papas (our term for potatoes) are patatas (their term). They also spell everything kind of weird here. There is a huge mix of French and Portuguese.

I spend most of my time walking. I walk to the grocery store and back home which is about 30 min each way. Usually the walk home takes longer though. I'm carrying all my groceries and I almost always get lost on the way home for some reason. Which is ironic because its the time I'm carrying the most stuff.

Anyway. I'm learning all the ins and outs of the city and things are getting more and more comfortable everyday.


Up next: Shopping.