Alicante has been an incredible experience so far. I literally speak spanish 95% of the time and I am learning so much about the Spanish culture and others as well. The area is very European and like nowhere I have every lived before. It is a mix of California, Florida, Colorado and Italy as far as the landscape goes. I live in an extremely modest apartment with very nice young parents, Lola and Antonio, (who donīt speak a lick of English) and I have a little sister, Sarah, (12 years) who basically looks like cousin Molly at that age, and two little brothers, Antonio III, 8 years, who is basically cousin Jack, and Elias, 6, who is basically a younger shyer version of his brother. There is also a very cute shy little cousin, Laura, 5 years who is over 24/7. I bought all of them a bunch of chocolate yesterday and they were ecstatic. They are obsessed with me and it is interesting to have little ĻsiblingsĻ for a change.They donīt speak any english either so it makes things difficult but I my spanish is literally twice as good as far as speaking goes and five times as good as far as listening goes. My mind is already adapting to the "flow" of the language...there are times where I literally donīt translate, so to speak, in my head, it just immediately registers. I will talk more about it next time I "blog". I havent had a good nights sleep yet as my room is 90 degrees and mosquitos attack all night. This hasnt made my experience much worse luckily...
I have also made some good friends already from the US, Spain, Germany, Russia and other places. My classes are very challenging, but in a good way. There are beautiful girls everywhere on campus too which makes things much more interesting. The school is about the same size as Boulder. Alicante is a great, safe city and besides for an amazing castle on a hill next to an amazing beach and the mediteranean, there are huge mountains in the distance. Stay tuned for some good photos...
I miss all of you!
Love Wes
