New Semester

When August ended I left the barnetegi in Amorebieta with one of my classmates. She dropped me off in her town, Deba. From their I took the EuskoTren to Donostia, called Fernando (my new Colombian landlord and housemate) and took a taxi to my new home on calle Miracruz in the neighborhood Gros. It was a very nicely located house: right next to the river, 3 blocks from the beach overlooking the triangle shaped Pinudi Plaza. It was a hot, beautiful day.

Fast forward one month later and I find myself in a new house in a different neighborhood, Antiguo. Antiguo is located on the opposite end of town, and is rather separate from the rest of Donostia. I'm living with a family and am relieved of the household duties I had at my last place. Now I have more time to study and do other things. I'm living with a middle aged couple named, Mikel and Karmele. They have two daughters, 18 and 21 who are doing ERASMUS programs in Berlin and London. This family normally takes students through USAC, but since they applied too late they found my ad posted in the University and contacted me.

Karmele and Mikel are euskaldun berriak, which means they have learned Basque as a second language. They both study english in their spare time, and I nearly piss myself everytime Mikel tries to speak it with me. He has a really fun voice and he totally overly exaggerates the american accent. The other night he did an impression of the accent without saying any actual words, which cracked me up. Just imagine the villain in a John Wayne-style western film with a bunch of marbles in his mouth.

Karmele is very friendly and talkative mostly because she knows more Basque than Mikel. (I also know more Basque than Mikel). She had to achieve the title EGA via Basque language studies so that she could be a professor here at the local University. We live three minutes on foot from the campus where she teaches Child Education, and this just so happens to be the same building where I'm studying Spanish in the afternoons.

I showed her the picture from my last post and she couldn't believe it. She still hasn't found out who put the plant there. She always tells me things about the university and the people there. For example, she told me she thinks my spanish teacher is a really strict, unfriendly person, so I related a story about how one day I made a joke in class about how I couldn't do my homework because I got locked out of my house in the rain with my book and the rain caused all the ink to bleed together. My teacher did not catch the exaggerated sardonicism in my voice and started to lecture me about not doing homework. Hahaha. It's nice to be able to relate to my new mom and, because of her, the people who work at the university recognize me and, because I've met some of them, they always say hi to me on the way to class.

Karmele, Mikel and I always get into really interesting conversations, and although I haven't even been here a week I'm already at ease with my new living situation.