The beginning

Today is the first official day of school. Thus we arrive at 8:15 to meet with an assigned group of 8 people, attend classes from 9:30 - 3:00, then Spanish from 3:30 until 5pm and then we're done. Each night we complete a case analysis for all three classes and work on our Spanish. I met with the group last week. I think I am a lucky guy, the other members are very interesting and I think we will work together very well. There is a Canadian, Brazilian, Chilean, German, American, Indian, Spaniard, and a Polish girl. Can you determine who is who? All come from great backgrounds and have a unique perspective to add as we discuss our cases.

Last week we had our intro courses along with a lot of information about our personality types and we spent a vast amount of time thinking about our career paths and working on our CVs (Europeans call a resume a CV - basically they're the same thing).

I bought a moto two weeks ago and it has been running very well. Its a Honda Lead 100. Look up the reviews if you'd like. Its not super fancy but it is cool, quick, and agile allowing me to weave in and around just about everything on the road. On a given day, I break at least 500 American traffic laws. That translates into bending about 3 Spanish traffic laws. Apparently moto drivers can do just about whatever they want so long as we just keep moving forward. Too bad life doesn't work the same way.

More info on my personality test later, I was shocked at the accuracy. Tessa thought she might have written the same thing. But now time to prepare for classes.

By the way, we did go to Oktoberfest only 10 days ago. It was quite simply the largest drunkfest ever. Wow wow wow, did we have fun. It was all about beer, singing, pretzels, and fun.

Spanish Beginning

Yes Ikea finally arrived and delivered our goods but only after they forced us to pay for a redelivery! Those rotten bastards said we had missed the delivery and that if we didn't want to pay, they would just take the items back to Ikea and we could go pick everything up. I told the person, "thanks for nothing." She said, "you're welcome." I signed the form "Go2Hell". As if they need me to tell them where they're going. Now everything is assembled and looking good.

During our long wait for IKEA, Tessa and I painted the front of our building, it looks so much better now.

We did some other shopping and purchased a nice tv and home stereo. We rented a scooter for a month to make sure we want to make the purchase. After 10 days of riding the HOG I don't know why anyone would choose not to have so much fun everyday.

Intensive Spanish classes began on Friday. We took 8 hours of classes. Saturday was a half day. Tomorrow begins a full week of spanish. I'm in class with 7 others that tested at my level. Which level is that you may wonder? The level just above absolute beginner. Glad to see three years of high school Spanish paid off. Tessa also begins classes tomorrow. She is in the beginner classes and will easily be fluent way before me.

I'm currently fighting the cold Tessa had last week. Its making me tired and a whole lot less fun than normal. I hope to get over it soon as I need to speak all week and the sore throat makes that difficult. I'm taking lots of naps and drinking way too much water. I feel like I go to the bathroom every 5 minutes. Tessa is taking great care of me though. She's been making some wonderful teas and the meals have been unbelievable lately. She's also forcing me to take vitamins and other medicines which isn't easy because I'm very stubborn about that sort of thing. If you get sick, hopefully you're lucky enough to have someone like Tessa around to nurse you back to good health.

We have two roommates in our flat right now. We took on a few of my classmates just to make a little extra money while they are searching for a place to live. Miguel is from Lisbon, Portugal and Rai is from Tokyo, Japan. They are both very nice guys. I think Miguel is moving out on Monday and Rai on Wednesday. We are looking forward to having the place all to ourselves again. Even good roommates are still roommates. As a single person it would be fine but for a couple, its no good sharing a place.

Tess and I are doing well, we miss our friends at home and every baby we see reminds us of all the cute babies at home. Thank goodness for Skype.

If you haven't seen this clip of Miss Teen South Carolina yet, prepare to be shocked:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww