Oficial students of University of Zaragoza!

The third week has started and we finally seem to get into a routine. Moreover, we are now officially matriculated and have chosen our final subjects, yaaaay! However, we are still not able to access all our subjects on Blackboard (here called Moodle); only one is accessible, which makes life a little harder. Especially, when you need to hand in assignments or make presentations and you do not even have the most basic information about it. Moreover, nobody showed us how to use the Blackboard or the email account and Marie remembers that at Stenden she did an introduction to Blackboard and all that with the new Erasmus students....ANYWAY we managed to do so, but it would be nice if there was a little help sometimes, but so far we are doing well! Also, we must correct one of our statements, as we mentioned that Spanish people tend to be a little slow...Our Spanish statistics teacher is very fast!!! The exercises are not difficult, but she simply runs through them and it is difficult to keep up, especially as it is in Spanish.... Usually she talks for 20 minutes, "Preguntas? No? Vale!" and then she goes on... meaning, if you sleep for 2 minutes, you won't be able to catch up! But she is very nice, we introduced us to her and she told us about extra tutor hours twice a week, which is a great opportunity, as we have our first test coming up soon. We will make use of it next week, as this week we still have our Curso Intensivo de Español.

Here are some photos from our university...

Hallway

Typical class rooms, projector for PPTs, blackboards for additional information

Enjoying the sun ;)

Before the weekend started, we gathered at Marie's place to have some drinks and to go out afterwards. The Spanish people definitely know how to party, they start late and finish even later... Meaning, we start pre-drinking at 10/11, go to the club at 1/2 and come home at 4/5/6. The typical drink here before going out is Sangria, occasionally beer or other mix drinks, but Sangria seems to be the favorite of everyone (also because it is really cheap!) (Comment by Dawe: That counts usually for all Erasmus students; the Spaniards as flatmates prefer Ambar (beer from Zaragoza) and hard liquor, whereby the chicas living one level beneath use to drink wine)

On the weekend, we did another trip to IKEA and the shopping centre, together with 5 roommates from Marie. It was like a small family trip and in total we spend 6 hours there. In the end, we were all exhausted and were looking to come home!

(PS: In the shopping centre, there is a NIKE FACTORY!!!! YES!! Marie and Dawe (especially Dawe *lol*) spent like over an hour in there and bought new shoes (and Dawe a running shirt)... Shoes €75 reduced to €52 minus 30%, Running Shirt €20 minus 50%, totalling up to around €46... We are definitely going back there to check out new collections. Dawe: "I'm not gonna leave this country without buying at least 4 new pairs of shoes!")

Somehow this picture seems familiar... ;)

On Sunday, Marie's roommates gathered again in the living room and they spend most of the day together, talking about the weekend, what everybody had been up to, watching tv and just relaxing. In the evening they ordered Chinese food and watched a movie together. 

On Wednesday we have an exam from our intensive Spanish course, thus we wanted to spend most of the days preparing for the test; however, unfortunately we had so much homework to do that we couldn't prepare anything. However, we still ended up with 59% (Dawe) and 54% (Marie), which is pretty good! So far the course has been really great, our group is very nice and it is INTENSE. We learn a lot every day, but we are also looking forward to finish it and maybe use the time to have a look around the city and other great places around here.... 

... or doing some other activities like chilling ;)

The second week in Zaragoza...

Weekend is over and a new week has begun! On Thursday we joined the Carnival and we had lots of fun. Everyone got dressed up and we had a good time :) We both went out with the people from our flats....

Duck faces everywhere ;)

Los estudiantes de Erasmus

At the cupiteria (shots-bar)

On Friday, Dawe's aunt and uncle arrived and we went to IKEA on Saturday to finally get all the missing items for our rooms. It was a relatively quick trip, as we had already made a list with all the things that we needed. Marie had to get quite a lot of things, as her room was missing some essential items, like a mirror, a chair and so on....

"Can I take good selfies with this mirror?"

IKEA with two women.... exhausting

In the end, we also passed by the beloved Lidl and got some really nice things from the supermarket for our fridges and cupboards! Saturday evening we had some tapas with Dawe's aunt and uncle, which were a good end for a successful day. We have to mention that it was Saint Valentine's day and the city was closed for traffic; hence we had the plan to eat in the neighbourhood of Dawe. However, it's mainly occupied by students; therefore, there were no 'real' restaurants and we had to go for a tapas bar. We chose some delicious dishes but before they could have been served, the staff first had to go to a supermarket to buy the things!! Unbelievable in countries like Germany and the Netherlands, but pretty common in Spain.

Selfies work ;)

Sunday was a typical chill day; Marie spent it with all her roommates and we managed to fit 15 people in the living room, watching TV, talking, laughing and having a good time. Just like a big family. Marie feels a lot better now and very welcomed here. She didn't imagine staying here would be as fun, but it is amazing. They ordered pizza for everyone, which took 2 hours in order to deliver 10 pizzas. Finally at 0.00am the food arrived and they could eat. She's starting to get used to the late dinner hours in Spain..... While eating, one of the Italian girls found a cockroach in the kitchen, thus after dinner it was time to clean out the entire kitchen, clean every single corner, disinfect and close all the possible holes where any insects could come through. At 2am she finally went to sleep and hoped that no more cockroaches would find their way in our kitchen.....

Regarding Dawe's place, two of his flatmates already arrived! This means that it's finally time to start speaking Spanish the entire time and to improve! Learning by doing ;)

By the way, it's finally getting warmer and warmer!

At the end of this week we will finally get officially matriculated as students of the university of Zaragoza. Thus, we'll receive another new email address AND most importantly access to the Internet at the university. Well, let's see how the second week at uni will go...

Dieter meint... (translated: Dieter means...)

Not long after we arrived in Zaragoza, we made a new friend called Dieter :)

Dieter comes from Germany and seems to have been all over the world!! He has met many, many, many people throughout the years. We even bumped into him in Leeuwarden, but now he is in Spain and attends the same classes as we do! Sometimes his presence is a little bit rarer than in other times but he never misses classes!!!!

Dieter is a true friend; he seems to know everything has a very high opinion. He is an expert in subjects with numbers (Microeconomics, Statistics, ...), as he can find solutions easily. Unfortunately, Dieter is not very active outside of class and only feels comfortable around Spanish people.

We hope our journey continues with Dieter, as it has been so much fun with him!

Dieter, mi corazón, enjoy your time in Spain and see you in the next class!

'determine' --> 'Dieter meint'
pronunciation: Dieter-mind

Top 8: Highlights of the first week

Here we are again! In this post we would like to present you our Top 8 regarding highlights of the English language. By the way, big ups to Stenden (and especially Joanna, our English Business Communication teacher) for teaching us English!! Despite some other Erasmus students, we are definitely equipped with the highest level of English in our entire classes.

1. Dieter meint!!! (see next post if you don't speak German ;))
2. Eh-Spain (putting the 'E' from España before Spain)
3. "We have the responsibilidad!"
4. Speaking sooooo slowly! --> needing 3 weeks for 20 slides (mostly due to number 7, see below)
5. PLEASE! Look at me! What is your name? Repeat!
6. Suhpplie (meaning supply ;))
7. Eeeeeehhhhh
8. "Economics is think"

The first week at university...

A couple of days since our last post have passed and many things have happened! During the past weekend, we finally moved into our apartments with our new flatmates. Dawe lives with two Spanish guys and an Italian one, while Marie moved into the ESN apartment with 14 (!!!!) other students. While it is always busy and loud in Marie's apartment, Dawe's one seems to be quiet - for now! His flatmates just finished their exam phase and, unfortunately, are all on vacation; meaning the first days he was alone. However, this isn't a problem, as the Erasmus student are really, really friendly and he could stay there, avoiding an awkward feeling of being completely alone ;)

Back to our story... The first night went well and on Monday our first day at university started. Thankfully, the university has at the beginning of every semester an introduction day, where every subject begins with a lecture in which the most important aspects about the subjects are explained (syllabus, evaluation/assessment etc.). This way the students know what is expected from then, as well as if they need to write a special assignment, when the examen will take place and how they will look like. Our first lecture was at 9am, but - of course - the teacher did not turn up. 'Typically Spanish' was our first thought! The rest of the day went without problems, while our brains were overloaded with all sorts of information in Spanish and English. The Spanish students did not talk to us, they seemed a little bit scared and just looked at us like we were not from this planet (and yes, we took a shower and dressed up in our nicest clothes). On Monday also our intensive language course started, however our last lecture went from 5pm to 7pm, so we didn't manage to participate on the first day. The woman told us to come back the next day. We went home tired and exhausted and in the evening Marie visited "el Tandem", which is like the language lounge in Leeuwarden. Students meet in a bar to speak Spanish, while drinking uno o dos cervezas. Of course, the purpose is (besides practising languages) to meet new students (there was a 'traffic light party'; green = you're single, red = you're taken; yellow = you can't decide). It was a great evening, the bar was filled and Marie met some new students. We hope that one day, the language lounge in Leeuwarden will be just as busy and successful as in Zaragoza. 

Marie y las chicas de Erasmus

The next day, we continued to visit lectures and soon realized that we wanted to keep our subjects but switch some of them from Spanish to English. The main reason was the assessment; some subjects require active participation during all classes and, as we want to continue achieving high grades, we thought that it'll be quite difficult in some cases. Thus, Marie went through the timetable again (comment of Dawe: THOUSAND THANKS FOR BEING SO F*CKING ORGANISED, MARIE!! You definitely are an life-saver!!!) and looked for the suitable subject combination, as we take classes from different years and there are some clashes. In Spain, they have two different kinds of classes: first, there are lectures, in which mostly the teacher is talking and explaining the theory, and, secondly, practice classes, in which the students are actively participating in discussions and doing exercises to apply the freshly learned theory.

Fortunately, we received the message that we can drop one subject (meaning more time to party, errrrr, being an Erasmus student), as we participate in the intensive language course. On Tuesday, we finally managed to go to the course, which is everyday from 5pm to 8pm!!! In the case of Dawe,
every day he has 3 hours of Spanish, adding two 25min-walks and approximately 60 to 90min of making homework; this adds up to 5-6h every day, which are spent on the course.... yeah, it's 'intensive'! However, first we were put in the highest class, but we soon realized that they talked about things we didn't want to learn about and that we wanted to switch classes. This happened due to the fact that we are both very confident in writing/reading but less competent in speaking. Additionally, most of the students had over 5 years of Spanish (compared to us that's two or three times that much). Hence, now we are in a class lower, but they focus more on speaking as well as vocabulary and it is more fun than in the other class. On Thursday we had our workshop for Economic History and World Economy, which we enjoyed a lot, after the class we also talked to some of the students, which showed us later the Photocopy office at the university, where you can get all the slides, information, papers printed that you need for school for a couple of cents. VERY VERY HANDY!! (*looking over to Stenden*... you need that, too ;))

On the weekend, Dawe's aunt is coming to Zaragoza and we will head to IKEA in order to get some things for our rooms. Finally, it won't be all white walls!

Tonight it is carnival party at the local club and all Erasmus students are invited; well, let's wait and see, which costumes we will come up with.....

Siempre, siempre bocadillos....

On Thursday 5th of February we had our appointment with Mrs Chus Tena, the representative of the Faculty of Economics; or more specific: the lady of the international relations office. We walked to the campus and asked for directions to the room, and as it turned out we were in the right office but at the wrong campus! However, the man was very friendly, called Chus (after some problems with the pronunciation of her name) and gave us a map of the campus. Chus looked over our Learning Agreement, our subjects we had chosen so far and told us about the language course that we would already start on Monday! We definitely wanted to participate, so she printed all the forms for us, scanned them and we could send them to the office the same day. She also showed us where to find the time tables and the academic calendar.
Muchas gracias Chus (we already took her into our hearts)!

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and got ready for the ESN Zaragoza presentation, which was scheduled for 7pm at the Campus San Francisco. The room was filled with students when we arrived and we received information about trips, visits, language courses, parties and everything a little Erasmus student needs to know. The presentation was short and dinner was scheduled for 10pm at Matarraña, a restaurant in the city. Dawe looked up the restaurant, as well as the address and ensured me he knew where to go. This time we left the hotel early in order to be one of the firsts at the restaurant to get proper seats. When we arrived at the place we already wondered why nobody else was there and how everybody could fit into this small restaurant. After another tour around the block, we decided to go in and ask where everybody was, and as it turned out the restaurant had two locations in Zaragoza. Well, so we hopped back on the tram and arrived at the right place at 10.15pm. The place was packed! But we learned our lesson (or at least I, Dawe, did): always double-check where you have to go!

Get-to-know-dinner with the other Erasmus students

First, we couldn't even find one free seat, but in the end we managed to sit at one of the tables, next to one Italian and three South Korean students. All of them couldn't speak much English, thus we had to speak Spanish. Soon we discovered that the Italian girl was one of Marie's new flatmates. Dinner was (like always!!) a bocadillo (meaning a sandwich).....thankfully we had some Sangria and Cerveza with it. We finished eating and decided to head towards the club "Kenbo", which is new in the city and opened only for Erasmus students that night. Unfortunately, it took us 30 minutes to find the club (while it was only a 5 minutes walk) and then it wasn't even open yet. Esperamos/Waiting....at 1am the doors finally opened and inside everything was still new. The club filled quickly, the music was good, the drinks were expensive and we had a good time.

Having fun while going home

The next morning (Friday) we had to get up very, very, veeeery early in order to go to the office of the language course to check if they received all our documents. Fortunately, the women just read our emails and ensured us we received a place for the first language course, which starts already on Monday! Three weeks of curso intensive (meaning everyday three hours of Spanish lessons and one additional hour to finish homework)..... Afterwards, we had a small introduction meeting with Chus at the Campus Rio Ebro, which is around 25 minutes away from the centre (by metro). In the afternoon, we finally met Marie's buddy Jose, who turned out to be very nice and he showed us a great tapas place. We had a good chat, some food (of course in form of bocadillos) and said we would meet again the upcoming days.

Tapas, bocadillos and chips (yes, the Spaniards put Oreos in a bun... )

Today, Marie received her keys for her apartment/room and we dropped off some of our luggage as we are moving tomorrow in our apartments. We shortly stayed at the place and already met 8 of her 14 roommates, who all turned out to be very open and welcoming. *HAPPY DAYS*

Living room of Marie's flat

Tonight we are going back to her place in order to have dinner with everyone, some drinks and later going out with the people to.... have a guess... Kenbo (again)!! Let's see how the night turns out...

By the way, it seems like the hotel became some kind of fun house. The Spanish people seem to be very 'active' during the night time... and day time... and, basically, any time of the day..

Flat Hunting #2

New day, new chances! After a long day on Tuesday, we got up early in the morning, as our first visit was at 10.30am and we again decided to walk. We went back to the Erasmus place, as I received a message that more rooms were available and I wanted to check them out. Hugo welcomed us again with his lovely Spanish and missing English skills. He was very patient though and we managed to have a decent talk. He showed us three rooms, of which one of them was definitely a serious option. I told him "me gusta" and that I would message him after our next visit.
On our way to the next apartment, we stopped by a tiny café and had some breakfast. Dawe only had a coffee and I had a coffee with a typical Spanish toast, with tomato and olive oil, which only cost €1.50!!! We couldn't believe the price and it was really tasty.

We met Javi in front of the apartment; he is a friend of Alodia, who we met in Leeuwarden on her Erasmus exchange. She is originally from Zaragoza. We asked her for help and if she knew anyone with free rooms. The rooms looked nice, one of them was the biggest and brightest we had seen so far, while also being really cheap. Unfortunately, the rest of the apartment could not convince us, as the Spanish girl living there did not seem to be very tidy. The bathroom and kitchen were dirty and the living room did not smell very appealing. We left and walked by Dawe's new apartment in order to pick up his keys and drop off the deposit for the room. We ended up staying for 4 hours, as we started talking with the boys, played some table tennis and then Paolo, one of the Italian guys, asked if we were hungry and started cooking pasta for everyone. Pasta made by an Italian guy - how can you say 'no' to that?!

Pool table and a table tennis table (which can also be used for beer pong ;))

The boys were really friendly; while we were sitting there and trying to arrange more rooms to look at, they also asked their landlord and some of their friends if they had free rooms. After the food and some coffee, Gianmarco, whose room Dawe is taking, Marco and us walked to Marco's old place. Marco is one of their friends and he is also going back to Italy, thus he showed me his old room. Again, the room was nice but the rest of the apartment did not appeal to us (mainly because of the flatmates there, as they seem to be very individualistic and we were missing the familiar atmosphere we got used to from the boys' apartment). Sooooooo, we moved on. We told the boys we needed to go to the Campus San Francisco to the ESN office in order to pick up our "welcome package". Hence, the boys decided to walk with us and showed us where to go. Guess who we met at the office..... HUGO! He looked at us like 'oh man these two again' and we also looked at him like 'shit, he doesn't speak any English'! Fortunately, Gianmarco translated some things for us, we received our ESN card, wristband, another map of the city and the information about the orientation day, which will be on Thursday the 5th of February (meaning dinner and party). 

Afterwards, the boys brought us to the metro stop, as we had definitely walked enough over the past days and it was getting really windy and cold. We thanked the boys for their help, as they really have done so much for us, and already invited us over again for Friday evening. Even though Dawe and me both have a Buddy from ESN, we have not seen them or received any real help from them (Dawe: my buddy answers every 24 hours ("sooooorrryyy didn't see your message, let's meet tomorrow?!") and Marie's buddy was straight-forward: he doesn't have time until the end of the week, as he is 'studying'... oookay..) . The boys from Dawe's flat are really the best people we have met here so far. 

In the evening, we visited another place with two English guys and a Spanish one, but it was too far away from university. Additionally, the room did not have a wardrobe, instead it was located in the hallway and the people were smoking in the living room. The girl told us that the Spanish guy was leaving and the English boys can't speak much Spanish, thus it was already no option for me. On my way back I messaged the Erasmus place that I would love to move in there. Sooooo, happy days! Both Dawe and me are not homeless anymore after only 3 days and we have already met some great people. May the adventures continue....

Flat Hunting #1

We were woken by the cleaning ladies pushing the beds around in the rooms next door, which made the loudest noises ever!! The walls here are just as thin as in the Netherlands and it was impossible to continue to sleep. Dawe decided to go for a run, while I turned on the laptop, sorting out the visits of apartments for the day. We had arranged four visits in total, all located around the Campus Gran Via, which is around 15 minutes walk from our hotel. We still had some time before our first visit, so we decided to have a coffee. Unfortunately, the guy did not have a latte macchiato, instead we simply received a café con leche (yes almost the same, just more coffee than milk), which only costs us 2.80€ !!!!
The first visit was the Erasmus Apartment with a total of 15 rooms, we still had the rental car so we drove to the place. While Dawe was parking, we were just talking about how Spanish people easily ditch other cars when they park, simply drive off and nobody cares. Only 5 minutes later, when we were standing at the parking ticket machine, I was watching a Spanish lady trying to park and hitting the car behind her, she saw I was watching and she got out of the car, checked the other car, decided it was not too bad, parked, got a ticket and walked off. Welcome to Spain! Dawe and me walked to the Erasmus place, where already another student was waiting outside. After 5 minutes in the cold, somebody finally opened the door and we walked in. Hugo, who is also working for the ESN Zaragoza, was greeting us at the door. We soon discovered he could only speak Spanish, which was a little shock, as he was speaking really fast and it was difficult to understand sometimes. Dawe and me combined our knowledge and tried to understand as much as we could, also when asking questions about the room we put together our vocabulary and asked as much as we could. After 10 minutes the first visit was over and outside we were really proud of our first "real" Spanish conversation with Hugo. We returned the tiny tiny car to the airport in Zaragoza, before going on the next visits. At the airport was absolutely no one, the Hertz office was closed so we walked to the information stand. There a really really nice Spanish man was sitting, who we asked if he could speak English, but he told us to try in Spanish. He was very patient and in the end said he would return the key and GPS for us to Hertz. *HIGH FIVE* second conversation in Spanish survived.

Snow, rain, sun, ... what else?

Back in the city, we visited the second apartment on our list, where two Spanish and two Italian guys are living, one Italian guy is going back to Italy and thus they are looking for a new roommate. We immediately connected with the boys, the apartment was nice, and we had a great conversation with them (in English this time). Nevertheless, they ensured us they always speak Spanish with each other.  The next visit was at a place with two girls, one French and one Polish, they only wanted to have live with another girl, but for me it was soon clear that I wouldn't like to live with them, as one of them couldn't speak any Spanish, thus we would always communicate in English. The final visit was with Juan, a Spanish guy, who was offering two rooms in his apartment. He was very nice and the rooms looked fine, however he spoke fluent English and seemed like he was not really interested in having roommates and talking to them in Spanish.

In the end, this room became the living space of Dawe for the next few months

So, we walked back to the hotel, after a very long day and lots of walking! Soon it was clear that Dawe would move into the apartment with the boys, while I was still looking for a place. We made new appointments for the next day and Dawe ensured me he would come with me for mental support.
In the evening, we celebrated a successful flat hunting day with another drink at the Irish Pub and a small very delicious Pizza, which you needed to cut with some sort of hammer.

Okay, Zaragoza here we come!

So, we arrived in Zaragoza on Monday evening. Dawe already arrived in Spain on Sunday and picked me up from Madrid airport on Monday afternoon. He had rented a car for us in order to drive from the capital to Zaragoza. The car was a small Fiat 500, in which we had to fit 4 suitcases and us. After playing Tetris for around 15 minutes, we finally managed to store everything in the tiny tiny car and we left the airport parking. Dawe was an excellent driver and we only got beeped at twice in 30 minutes, he assured me that he literally died several times while driving in the city centre of Madrid. However, our drive was easy, 3 hours on the highway, with a short stop in the middle of nowhere. During our stop we weren't sure if we arrived in the right country, there was no sun, no palm trees, no sand, only lots of snow and wind. We could only see between 50 and 100 meters, thankfully 45 minutes later everything around us changed again and we finally could see some of the Spanish villages and the unique landscape.

         

When we saw Zaragoza for the first time, we both looked at each other, laughed and knew, okay this is going to be us for the next 5 months. We had some Spanish music playing in the car, in order to already set the right mood. We parked the car, however we were not sure where to find our hotel, thus we went into the tourism information, asking "Do you speak English?". Fortunately, the woman could even speak German and explained us the way to our hotel. We unloaded the tiny tiny car and walked towards our stay. After unpacking small things, setting up the wifi on the devices, we went for a small walk around the city center.

Most of the shops were already closing and we were looking for a place to eat. Still being a little bit shy and unsure about the place, we decided against some tapas but for some McDonalds....BUT we must say they had the Big Mac with Chicken instead of beef, which is not available in Germany and it was like heaven in form of a burger. Dawe managed to order in Spanish for us and we understood everything except for her first question, we asked her to repeat it slowly please, but she just repeated it as fast as the first time. In the end, we survived our first conversation and had our well deserved food. Afterwards, we found the Irish Pub and enjoyed two Heinekens, while ending the night with thinking of what will wait for us in the next couple of days...

Edit by Dawe: My first day in Madrid

As Marie already told you guys, I arrived in Madrid on Sunday, meaning one day before her. Our pilot was speeding and, therefore, we arrived 30 minutes earlier than scheduled. I picked up the rental car from Hertz at the airport. I have to brag a little, as I hold the conversation completely in Spanish - I thought he couldn't speak any English. However, when the Hertz worker explained the prices in Spanish, he saw my face that I didn't understand a word and he switched to English. God bless him!

Fortunately, I had a friend who is currently working in Madrid on some projects with his business (check out: NanoCure ;)). With the GPS I drove to his AirBnB apartment and, as Marie already explained, I literally died several times. Try to switch lanes in a roundabout with 50 cars around you; it's definitely a suicide mission. However, I managed to stay alive. My friend, Lars, welcomed me warmly and we went for some tapas and cervezas. At the end, I could stay at his AirBnB apartment and got some decent sleep, while he was staying with his girlfriend in a hotel. The next day, Monday, I went with the metro to his hotel, which was way easier than expected. We had breakfast (two tiny buns and a coffee for €2.00!!) and, unfortunately, I had to leave in order to pick up Marie from the airport.