Viaje al Mercado

After reading a few of my posts, you will probably come to understand the way I like to write! I always want to start from now, then go backwards. But, I try to start from the beginning just to help the reader. Anyways, I'm going to start from now.

After spending literally three hours on Skype with Mom, I think I have finally figured out a class schedule that works for me. Although I'm a pretty disappointed that I'm not able to take the classes I would like to take, I'm mostly just glad that I was able to find four reasonably-interesting classes and fit them into a schedule that is actually possible! My problem had been that the classes that I wanted were either too high levels or were offered only in the fall semester...among the other problems that I listed yesterday.

As of now, my tentative schedule is this:

1. Historia Universal Contemporanea (Modern World History)
2. Geografia Humana General (Human Geography)
3. Patrimonio Cultural (Cultural Heritage)



Bureaucracy is alive and well in Murcia

4. Gestión de la Calidad en el sector turístico (Quality Management in the Tourist Sector)

I should have sixteen class hours per week. Two classes are tourism, taken at the Escuela Universitaria de Turismo (15-20 min walk) and two are geography, taken at Campus la Merced (a 3 minute walk!). It's hard to express here, but it's a pretty big relief to know that I have a schedule worked out (hopefully).

Now to start from the beginning of the day! We met up at 9:00AM in Plaza Circular to ride the bus to the Oficina de Extranjeros in order to apply for our NIE (Numero de Identificacion Extranjero). After various steps of the process, split by waiting periods and photocopy-making periods, we spent a total of three hours in the Office. We chatted most of the time, but we were all pretty hungry and sleepy from getting home late after watching the Barca-Real game last night).

Top left

On the way back, the Elizabeths and I stopped at a pastry shop to fulfill one of my chocolate cravings. I had one of those pastry tubes with chocolate on both ends. It was exactly what my stomach wanted..and it made my day seem so much brighter, hah.

This is where I bought jamon asado...yummy

We made it back to one of Thursday's open-air markets that was actually surprisingly close to my flat (right near my favorite grocery store). I was so surprised and happy to see the huge selection of everything available at the market! There were all sorts of produce, pickled veggies, nuts, candies, leather, clothes, shoes, plants and more.

The Elizabeths buying tomatoes

Everytime I found myself saying "I wish they had...," I would find it!

I bought my lil cactus here!

My lil cactus was 75 cents

As I was leaving, looking down at a map, this man came up to me who I thought was trying to help me find my way. He was very friendly, telling me "I am from Nigeria, I'm not just a stranger, I am your brother." He ended up giving me a church pamphlet...I knew where this was going...and offered to "escort" me to wherever I was heading. I kept insisting that I was fine and that I was just making sure this was the main road (I actually knew where I was, but I wanted to see if there was a shorter route). He walked along the main road with me for a while, until I finally said "Thanks, but I'm going this way. I'll see you later..." Then he got it.

Such a mood-killer though. I was all happy that I was exploring the market and finding all sorts of cool stuff, then this creeper had to ruin it. It all ended up okay (I kept looking back to make sure he wasn't following me) and I got back to my apartment just in time for lunch and figuring out my class schedule.

Now, I'll just be more prepared to visit the Mercado next Thursday!

What I ended up with: too many green beans, a head of broccolli, three nanners,
a pomegranate (my first ever) and a mini cactus. Time for cookin!