Student Blogs

More of everyday life and….IBIZA

October 6th, 2009 ajmcgr11

Monday the 28th of September was my first day of classes. This consisted of me grumpily getting up at 7:30 in the morning for my 8:30 am Global Ecology class. I easily found my way to the classroom, where I was greeted with smiles, handshakes, and besos (kisses) from all of the students in the class. The professor entered and began to speak in perfect Spanish, nice and slowly so I could understand everything she said. Minimal notes were taken and no homework was assigned.

Actually, I just lied about all of that. After getting off of the metro, I realized that I had no clue where the science building was and I had to ask two people to point me to the right place. Upon entering the classroom, I was greeted to blatant stares from all of the students. To top things off, the professor spoke completely in Catalán, the native language of Mallorca. Long story short, I lasted about 3 minutes before I left. I was prepared to face this problem, though. The university website, where all of the class information is posted, doesn´t always designate whether the class will be taught in Castellano (Spanish) or Catalán. Lucky for me, the HC students don´t have to enroll in classes for another week or two, so if bumps like this come up, we have time to play around with our schedule.

This class aside, my other classes seem pretty good! I´m taking Estética Literaria, which studies Modern spanish literature, for the whole year. Many HC students have done well in this class before and it counts for my Spanish major, so I figured it would be a good fit. Another class that I´m taking is Literatura del Barroco taught by the director of the HC study abroad program in Palma, Jaume Garau. This also counts for my major. I have the specially designed Holy Cross language and culture class which is also year round. And today, I actually sat in on a different science class, History of the Earth and Life, to fulfill my Environmental Studies concentration. The content seemed pretty challenging but the professor was really nice and helpful so hopefully that class will work out. In all, I´m pretty content with my course load for the semester.

Let´s see, over the course of last week I saw two movies in the theater which were both great: Inglorious Bastards (Malditos Bastardos en Español) and Taking Woodstock. What was nice was that I was able to see the movies in English, so I got a little break from everything being in Spanish for a couple hours. Definitely worth seeing both of those movies, though.

Lastly, the good part. On Saturday, the whole HC Palma group took a ferry to the island of Ibiza. Some may know this island to be the ¨party capital of the world¨. I really don´t know why, though. Just kidding…it was crazy! The day started with a morning ferry ride to the island. Of course, the novelty of being on a ferry with cool decks to explore was enough to elate all of us. Upon arriving, we figured out the bus situation, which was a little more confusing than the public transportation in Palma, and then headed to our hostel which was in a town called Es Canar. It was probably half an hour away from the main city, but we didn´t mind because the hostel, which included bathroom, waterview balcony and breakfast, cost us €16 for one night,  the town had its own beach and there were shops and amusements. Great deal in my book.

This particular weekend in Ibiza was when the last big clubs closed down for the winter season, so there were a lot of people heading to the island. We went to a club called Pacha, which was definitely an experience! Crazy techno music, tons of people, and a lot of fun. Though, the fun definitely came with a price. Try €36 just to enter! And that was a reduced price-you could drop over €70 if you didn´t buy your ticket beforehand from the tourist shops. And did I mention that I bought a drink there for a mere €15! Ridiculous! This aside, the group had a great time. The next day, we hit up the beach for a couple hours, wandered around the city and finally took our second ferry ride back to Palma in the evening. Definitely an easy and worthwhile trip!

That brings me up to today, Tuesday the 6th of October. This weekend I have my first swim meet at the pool where I practice. The meet is only for swimmers on Club Natación Palma, so it should be a fun meet to get to know the whole team. Hopefully I´ll be able to pull off some decent times. But for now, pics from Ibiza. Talk to you all soon.

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