The first few days of Santander:

Living with Mar

El domingo:

In advance, sorry for the first long entry, but we want all the details to be in here because it’s the first day! Vale, Sarah and I were very nervous at first to meet our madre in Santander. As we waited on the bus for our names to be called, we saw our madre out the window of the bus. She stood there in brown dress pants, a turtle neck argile shirt, a blazer, and a scarf. It’s eighty degrees outside. I’m dying in a sweater and Sarah’s sweating it up in jeans. She says, “Ay chicas, me llamo Maria Mar pero todas las personas me llaman Mar.” She’s a little under five feet tall with red hair and the bluest eyes. She has distinguished wrinkles, she’s 52 years old. Mar is a Spanish teacher at the University for exchange students. She is also a psychologist. She lives alone, has one daughter, and is divorced. We live on la calle de Tetúan, on the third floor where there are three rooms, a kitchen, and a living room. Sarah and I share a room with two twin size beds, a closet, and a chair. The location is great, we live in the center of the city next to the ocean (Santander is in the north of Spain).

Before we got home, Mar was showing us the route to the University, which is very easy to remember. Sarah and I told her that we understood how to take a right a left and then it was on the right, but she walked us up and down the streets of Santander to be sure we crossed at the right crosswalks and even told us the story about the statue called “Las Sardineras” (a statue in the middle of the city that depicts a woman with a basket of sardines on her head). After walking up and down the sidewalk for over 20 minutes, she took us back to her apartment where we carried up our suitcases the three floors. Unfortunately, she lives on the third floor and one thing that Spanish people respect most is their “vecinos” or neighbors. We couldn’t make any noise while walking up the stairs, we tiptoed. Anyhow, once we got all of the luggage up to the apartment she showed us around and told us the “normas de la casa” which include:

1. Don’t touch the walls, they were painted two days ago

2. Don’t make noise because there are neighbors that can hear you-whisper

3. Don’t put your feet on the furniture

4. Don’t walk barefoot

5. The room must be organized AT ALL TIMES

6. The bedroom door must be open unless we are sleeping

7. Never lock the bathroom door

8. When using the bathroom, don’t break the shower door by pushing too hard

9. When done showering, hang your towels on the hook

10. When done showering, take a paper towel and pick up the hair from the drain

11. Wipe down the sink and the bath when finished using

12. Don’t flush any hair down the toilet

13. Keep your suitcase at the end of the bed and only keep undergarments in it

14. Toiletries must be kept in the suitcase

15. No eating in the bedroom

16. The blinds can never be completely shut because they might get stuck

17. Do not slam the closet door

18. Use two towels to shower and be sure to leave them in there and change into other clothes

19. Wash your face and get ready, then come to breakfast

20. Do not overflow the tiny 1ft tall laundry bin

21. Make sure to separate your undergarments from your regular laundry and hang it up on the back of the door

22. Don’t walk across the grass because the neighbors get upset

23. Make sure to tell her if we are going to miss lunch or dinner

24. Turn off the surge protector when we leave for the morning

After telling us the normas, which were continually sprung upon us every few minutes, she told to go take a walk to the University and time ourselves to make sure how much time we should allot in the morning. The walk takes about 25-30 minutes and me and Sarah got whistled at and gawked at by so many loud Spanish guys. Oh, by the way…there are no dryers so she will be hanging our clothes (including the underwear and bras). We then unpacked our suitcases where Mar kept on constantly checking on us to make sure that we put everything away most efficiently. We have about 5 hangers each. When asking where we should put our shoes, she cleared out the bottom of the closet and put newspaper down so the heels wouldn’t scratch the bottom. She then kindly reminded us not to bang the closet door. By this time, we are starving because we had not eaten anything since breakfast (we had been on the bus from Toledo to Santander for 6 hours).

Finally, dinner was ready around 8:30 where we proceeded to have a meal of sopa de pasta y pollo and for the main course we had a tostada (which is eggs with potato and onion). For dessert, we drank “DANONE” yogurt drink. It was a very small meal, but tasty. She didn’t eat with us, she only talked to us while we ate, which is what she does every meal.

Hasta luego!

-Jessie

El lunes:

We went to bed a little hungry that night, and we showered before 10-as told. We got in bed at 10:30, because we were very cansadas from the long trip and slept until 7:45AM when we were gently awoken by Mar whispering (as not to wake los vecinos) “Buenos dias chicas”! We got ready by 8 and were called in for breakfast of café con leche o zumo de naranja (orange juice). We ate little galletas como cookies in los Estados. Soon enough, we were out the door by 8:15 after Mar checked us up and down to make sure we dressed appropriately. (That’s definitely a first for me, I usually walk out of the house in whatever the hell I want).

We then walked to class and by the time we got there we were sweating because we didn’t want to be late. The University Internacional de Mendendez Palayo is where our classes our held. The university is very tiny, not like that of UF at all. In our first class, Spanish Grammar and Composition, we have 14 kids. Our Profesora is Ximena Moors who actually teaches at UF, but she is originally from Chile. We read a newspaper article and wrote a few paragraphs about our first days in Santander.

Our next class (which is immediately following our 9AM) starts at 11AM. The class is called Espanol para los negocios, or business Spanish. The professora’s name is Cecilia Pozo, she lives in Santander but is originally from Ecuador. In this class, there are only 6 of us. We did lots of exercises and I’m pretty sure I learned almost 10 new verbs.

After class, we walked back to Mar’s where we did a little homework for our business Spanish class and were then served comida (lunch). We had a puree of potatoes, a chicken leg, and a slice of sandillas (watermelon). After eating, we rested for a little where and then decided to walk back to the University (another 30 minutes) where we went to the computer lab to check our e-mails and facebook. Unfortunately, Mar does not have internet access in her apartment…After surfing the internet for about an hour, we met our grupo at 5pm to go on a tour of Santander. We first toured the Universidad which took about 5 minutes (not too much to tour). We then got on a bus where we proceeded to tour the city. The city is beautiful, it is coastal and the water can be seen almost anywhere that you go. Then, we went to El Sardinero (The beach) which had a beautiful lighthouse and a mountainous pier. We took lots of photos, the view was beautiful.

Sarah and I both needed a few things from the pharmacy so we stopped on the way home from the Universidad. SO EXPENSIVE. I bought: Shampoo, Conditioner, facewash, and razors and it costed 38 euros. I wanted to die. We then came back, showered, and it was already time for dinner. For dinner tonight, she made us sopa de ave. Ave is bird. Sarah and I freaked out. I then asked, “Que tipo de ave?” She said, pollo y pavo. We were so relieved to find out that it was chicken and turkey soup. For our main course, we had fried ham with mayo inside and potato chips. This was fucking disgusting. But I ate it because neither of us wanted to be rude. Oy. For dessert, we had a few slices of strawberries and oranges sprinkled with sugar. I liked the dessert!

After dinner, Sarah and I decided to take a walk along the port where all of the big sail boats are. We walked for around 45 minutes up and down the edge of Santander and the sun set. When we came back, Mar gave us directions on how to get to the beach tomorrow. Sarah’s already in bed sleeping. Guess I’ll do the same. Hasta mas tarde.

-Jessie

El martes

This morning we woke up at 7:45, got ready, ate our cookies and café con leche, and walked to class as usual. It was a little cold this morning so we were long sleeves. We had class…the usual….except today we were assigned a decent amount of homework. We then went to the computer lab to print it out because Mar can’t remember the password to the wi-fi in our house. So, until she does-no internet for me and Sarah.

For lunch we had pasta with mini hot dog sausages (perritos calientes). This is the biggest meal we have had yet, which is very surprising because we know she talked to the ISA staff about internet connection and we think that they may have told her to feed us more too….hahaa. We had yogurt for dessert, but it was disgusting and sour, so we refrained.

After lunch we rested a little and then went on a walk to el mar (the ocean). Before we left, we assured Mar we knew where we were going. Before long, I received a call on my cell from Mar telling us that we are walking in the wrong direction. We feel pretty stupid…Mar’s hanging half-way out the window yelling “Porque no me oyes Jessie!” After that, we met up with a few of our friends (Emily, Megan, Rich, Jordan, Eric, Evan, and Andrew) at the beach where we sat and hang out until around 5:30. It was really pretty and it’s an amazing view. The four girls then decided to go do a little shopping in el centro. It was a pretty long walk there and it took us about an hour because we were a little turned around at times. Once we got there, Sarah bought a cell phone so she can call her dear parents, and we did a little clothes shopping as well. We all got ice cream from the heladaria, which was delicious-I got menta (mint choc chip) and Sarah got chocolate. Around 8pm, we headed back to Mar’s, showered, and ate our sandwiches that she left for us. Mar teaches class and was not going to be home until later. Hence, she left us each one sandwich of manchego cheese, and one of sausage and an apple.