June 28, 2010: Shopping, Shopping Everywhere, and Not a Spot to Sit

Up by 8am for my first day of non-engineering classes many years.  After breakfast and trying to communicate about meals for the week again, it was off to school by 9.  Orientation did not start till 945 but it was a 20 minute walk to school and I wanted to test out the GPS, which worked great.  After our group of new students starting this week gathered at the school, we made our way to the beach and a little restaurant for lunch and the first part of orientation.  Which happened to be all in Spanish, a great idea for upper level students, but a little less useful for beginning students.  The pialla was pretty good though, nothing like fresh sea food.  After the normal rigmarole, we learned how to take the #11 bus downtown.  On the ride to the city center, one of the staff tried talking with me, first in Spanish, and when I could not respond, repeated in English, very helpful.  Of course the first stop in the center was the shopping area.  It was a little early for the big sales, but still plenty of window shopping going on, both upscale and regular.   I'm sure I'll end up at Desigual again at some point.  After some exhausting shopping, or waiting in my case, a few of us went to Cafe Natural Blend, which had made pretty good strawberry shake.

I made it back to the house about 7pm, but no one else was around yet.  My class schedule has caused a bit of a kerfuffle with meals at the house.  I can only make it back for lunch two days a week.  Not waiting to waste day light, I made my way back to the beach by 745.  Since it was still a little bit early to eat, I watch some of the beach activities for awhile, including a large row boat being rolled into the water.  First time I had actually seen that process done.  Eventually I walked back to the restaurants, and meet Flo and Sandra for dinner.  It was great talking Switzerland, Canada, books, and of course a bit of weather for good measure. 

Around 945pm we walked back to school for the fiesta that night, which happened to be almost next door to where we had just eaten.  It was a bit crowded and loud, but all in all a worth while experience getting to meet everyone, including some of the previous students even if it was hard to hold a conversation over the music.  It was also interesting to see the ratio of girls to guys from the new group: about 5:1.  After a great day, I made it back to the house about 11:45pm.