La Vida en La Cuidad

I guess the title of this blog is pretty obsolete now that I am living in a city of 400,000 people. It has been 3 weeks now and I still feel like I belong in the country. Being in the city is perfect for this kind of experience because there is always plenty to do and see. That way, you don't really have time to get lonely or dwell on the fact that you are almost 6,000 miles away from your loved ones. We are so lucky that Skype exists because it feels like you are in the same room with the person you are talking to!

I went running through Palma yesterday around dusk and it was absolutely beautiful once I made it out to the boardwalk that runs along with coast because everything was lit up. I ran for 40 minutes, which is pretty good considering I probably haven't ran in like 2 months. There is a 10K coming up here in December and I may or may not enter depending on how tight we are trying to keep the budget around that time. I will probably start working my way up to that distance anyways just for fun and because I have lots of spare time.

Some days I feel like my Spanish is improving dramatically and others I feel like I can barely speak Spanish or English. I really want to be fluent by the end of this program so I really want to keep putting myself into situations where I only speak Spanish. It has been 3 weeks and overall I feel that I have improved a lot so that makes me hopeful that I will reach my goal.

Next Thursday I am going to meet with a botany professor at the University of the Balearic Islands and I really want to be able to express my thoughts about the flora here and in the US as clearly as possible so I can make a good impression. Hopefully I will get some borrowed plant books out of it.

We are renting a car tomorrow and driving to Manacor to go to a festival and also to visit Brigette and Jason. We are going to try and hit up some beaches and hiking spots that you can only get to by car. The weather should be pretty decent (around 23 degrees C) so beaches and swimming here we come!